 Why are so many people impressed when a white person can speak an Asian language? Let's talk about it. It is simply a double standard. I am fluent in English, but the Western world, they mock me for it. When the whites, they speak the Asian language. They are exalted for it. Yeah, you know, I thought when I learned to speak English, I would become a superstar as well. But now I just work at T-Mobile. Ha ha ha! Hey guys, make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. This is a Reddit thread, Andrew, that delved super deep into this discussion that I've seen at the bottom of TikTok, Instagram, YouTube videos. Basically, the ones where non-Asians, but maybe particularly white people, are speaking an Asian language at a 5 out of 10 level or plus, right? And everybody's freaking out in the video like, oh my gosh! But in the comments section, people are like, what the f? This is such a double standard. Yeah. And I think obviously it comes along with so many other reasons like global dominance. What's the lingua franca of the world? What's the most popular accessible language that you can learn also? But I will say this, a pain point and a trigger point for a lot of like Asians when they see so many non-Asians, and it's not just white people, I want to say non-Asians get this much attention for speaking a only medium level of that language is because those non-Asians get exalted and become superstars or at least get treated like superstars just because they can speak it. And I think that's the part that is maybe triggering for Asians. Yeah. A lot of different layers to this onion, guys. We're going to get into the comments section, but real quick, some quick thoughts. Yes, I agree with Andrew. It has to do with power rankings. Western Europe, Andrew has dominated the world for what 300 years. We're talking about English speakers, French speakers, Spanish speakers from Spain, Andrew. They would not learn the lower level countries rank right over the past 400 years, but these countries would generally need to learn these countries language, right? Yes. That's power dynamics. Exactly. But there is novelty aspects as well, right? I think novelty affects everybody. Like I think if an Asian guy can speak Spanish fluently, he's going to impress a lot of Spanish speakers. If an Asian guy can speak Dutch perfectly, I'm sure he's going to impress Dutch people. He might not be put on TV in Amsterdam, you know. You might not get a TV show just because he can speak Dutch. How did I put this Chinese man on a tube? Right. And he might not become a superstar in Latin America, but I do think that it would impress people and it'd be nice to see. Yeah. Ni hao. And I'll see you soon. No zor. No die. Why are you crying? Oh! So I think that novelty applies to everybody. Yeah. And I think my last two points, Andrew, are novelty and unexpectedness is really impacted by the scope of your worldview. If you go and you speak the native language to a bunch of villagers or a local dialect, it's more difficult to learn because you know how a lot of countries have the main dialect and then the localized dialects. That's going to be more shocking to people who haven't traveled the world. Right. If you haven't traveled to London, Paris, France, Dubai, Tokyo, Shanghai, you're less surprised by things because you've seen a lot in your life. Right. Yeah. You've seen a lot of different reps. And also for people who do learn another language, specifically, let's just say white guy learning Asian language. Some could be exploitative. Some could be appreciative. Some could be obsessive like an otaku weeaboo thing. Some could be respectful. Some could be fetishization. Some could be opportunistic, but some people could just be linguistically, sonically enjoying the sounds, right? And I think it just kind of like, I think how you feel about that person, it just depends on their intention of learning the language. If they only learn the language just because, yeah, I want to date a bunch of zhongguo menus that are especially out of my league, but they're going to see me. Oh my gosh. I love Chengdu because I get to speak Mandarin, eat huo guo and date Chinese. Like obviously that's like kind of the image that people have in their mind. But it's not that that's no, none of them, but that's only a portion of those people. Those who are learning an Asian language right now. Okay. Anyway, let's get into the comments section. Some people were saying, no, man, it just has to do with seeing you, something you don't expect and that is unusual. But then other people were like, no, no, no guys. Maybe a little bit of is the novelty, but look, look at power dynamics. A lot of Africans can speak French. How many white French people can speak even one sentence of African tribal languages that they colonized? Yeah. Because they're, it's a, it's a winners and a losers of colonization dynamic. You know, for so long, I have seen so many white guys come to China and date a lot of pretty white girls because they can speak Chinese. So when I learned English, I thought I was going to date a lot of good looking blonde women, but it did not work that way. I am shocked. I thought all the power dynamics are the same. I think that the truth is this, this comment really summed it up. Whether it's the unexpectedness or the actual geopolitical historical power ranking, there are global power structures tied to race, whether in the over-conscious or the subconscious. Some people said that Andrew, it has to do with just English being a lingua franca globally. Nobody's surprised by anybody speaking fluent English anymore because to do global business, English just became so dominant in the past 10, 20 years. Yeah. I will tell you this. People are impressed though. If, if you're like an immigrant and you can speak good English and you haven't been here for very long, that to me, I think is still impressive. And I think everybody deserves credit for learning another language. It's not super easy. It might be easier for some people than others, but I think it also depends on the difficulty of learning that language and the accessibility of the learning system. It is true. If you are learning like Thai, that's a little bit harder to learn that in America than it is to learn Mandarin because there's a ton of Mandarin classes. Right, right, right. And you could go to Chinatown and learn Mandarin or Chinese Mandarin speaking on-claves. Whereas Thai, you'd have to think that you could only be in a few places. You're right. You're right. Some people said, well, I'm Asian-American. I'm still impressed actually by my Asian-American friends that are legitimately good at their parents' or grandparents' language since it's so rare amongst second-gen kids. Yeah, yeah. I would say so. Like for my friend, like, you know, we have a friend who actually is born in China, grew up in America, but went back there to work and live. And he's fluent like 10 out of 10 in both. Right. Reading, writing as well. Reading and writing in both almost like 10 out of 10. That to me is very impressive. I actually think it's impressive when Asian-Americans even have like a colloquial mastery of English, because I think a lot of times when Asians learn English, we either learn schoolboy English. Some people, if they really grow up in a non-English speaking environment, it can almost be like slightly pigeony. Right. And then other people sound really posh, but they don't sound necessarily like to me like a local American. Mmm. Sometimes that's impressive. That's a whole other thing though. What about Asians getting complimented by white people for their English in America? Is that offensive, a microaggression, or simple ignorance, or just it's not even ignorant. It just has to do with the limited scope of exposure of whoever's saying it. Right. So 15 years ago, I used to hear a lot of stories about Asians being mad because somebody said to them, wow, your English is really good. And then like, what do you mean I'm born in America? Hi. Nice day, huh? Yeah, finally, right? Where are you from? Your English is perfect. San Diego. We speak English there. Oh, no, uh, where are you from? Well, I was born in Orange County, but I never actually lived there. I mean, before that. Before I was born. Yeah, well, where are your people from? And then they're like, oh, okay, sorry, yeah, I should have just assumed that. Don't cancel me. Now, a days, it's funny with how many Asian immigrants and how much Asian culture is in America now and how many Asian languages you can learn in America now. It's almost like maybe a little bit more of a legitimate question like, oh, are you from America or not? Oh, shout out. You were you born here. If you weren't, your English is amazing. If you were, okay, great. Well, your English is as good as I would expect, right? So I guess it's not like, I think it just depends on where it comes from. You can take it with super offensive. You want. I probably wouldn't. Yeah. Depending on who I'm talking to. Yeah, I think there's a lot of factors stewed together, but you can be mad at like specific elements in the stew in the reason stew. Somebody said these double standard pisses me off white people use chopsticks and it's sophisticated and cultured if they use the chopsticks properly, whereas Asian people use a fork and a knife and we're just seeing as being a little bit more civilized than we were. I hate this double standard. I hate that these non Asian people specifically white guys are able to have a whole career just speaking other languages, not even doing anything special on YouTube. Do not give these videos any views at all. So some people are like, they're more mad. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's fine. They boycott those channels if you want, man. I got no problem with that. But I guess just understand that if this triggers you a lot more things are going to trigger you throughout life because everybody speaking Mandarin out like for example, if I'm just focusing on Mandarin just because that's kind of like the most popular that in South Korean are probably the most popular languages, but guess what Andrew has a lot to do with global dominance because in the 1990s, the amount of Americans that were learning Japanese was soaring when it looked like they had the Japanese economic miracle and then their economy stagnated and then the numbers went more to I think on a soft power level to South Korea and a more on a business lingua franca level to Mandarin. So it goes to show you like the waxing and the waning of the empires even impacts people's desire to learn a language, right? Right, right, right. Somebody said that, man, in a historical sense, it just has to do with how powerful your colonization was outside of European and Russian speaking countries, the Asian powers generally never forced other countries to learn their language. For the most part, Japan tried in the early 1900s and there was a little bit in other times, but not nearly as much as European colonization. Right, right, right. Anyway, like we said, there's so many historical angles. There's anecdotal stuff that you go through on your daily life. Andrew, what are people ultimately mad about? You have a theory to get to the core of it. Andrew, speak the unspoken. Yeah, people are really mad at seeing non Asians and I think particularly white people. White guys, say it, say it. White guys, but anybody, but any non Asian person yet superstar status just for speaking. So you're saying I may LBH loser back home. I'm not very good looking. I might be a little pudgy, but all of a sudden I turn into the gravity of a Brad Pitt or a Tom Cruise by being able to say, what's your job? I don't know. I mean, you know, I don't know if you get Brad Pitt status. All right, but realistically, but yeah, I think that's the only triggering part is like when you see someone get exalted and lifted up because they can just speak that language. Now people should get credit if they speak the language. Well, that's true because it is, it still takes time to learn. But I think people, you just have to look at the intention of what they're doing with it. Are they using it just to date women or men of that culture? Are they doing it because they fetishize? Are they doing it because they're teaching and spreading the culture? Are they trying to take advantage of some sort of upgrade arbitrage that they're going to experience, right? But but everybody has their own reasons. And I think that you can feel however you want about it. But essentially Asians are tired of seeing non Asians get treated like superstars just for speaking. I just don't want to see you order like a fried rice and then get props for it. If you are like Rwanda in Rwanda as Shwige Bobo and you're like singing Jay Chow songs arguably better than Jay Chow. That's like a big thing coming out of Rwanda right now. That's fire because you're adding like a whole soulful crooning twist to Jay Chow music, right? Or, uh, Andrew, what do you think about when Kobe was like, uh, what's your cubby and everybody and when we saw Kobe one time in Shanghai at a Nike event, people was going like losing. Yeah, that's not because Kobe is already a superstar rock star. And then he shows love to your culture and says essentially is validating and saying, Hey, your culture, it means something to me. It's worth me repeating these phrases with good tone. You know, like I'm going to show you, um, some type of respect by speaking your language, you know. So I think that's really the key thing here. So yeah, you don't have to treat these people like superstars. Don't treat anybody like a superstar. But again, if someone is from like the rural part of Asia and they have never seen a foreigner speak the language very well or it's very unexpected, then it's kind of, it could be a nice surprise for them. I would compare that to Bart Baker. When Bart Baker's like parody career went flat, he literally would just get all the villagers in China to like support him. And then I mean, maybe John Cena too, but I think John Cena is more of a physically imposing person, but that you would not think, but again, I think if you're an Asian American like myself, who's not even bilingual, like I don't speak Mandarin fluently. So, but like even me, sometimes people think I don't speak any Chinese and then I speak some and then sometimes that person, that Chinese person is kind of impressed. Isn't it based off their expectation and where they place their baseline default expectation upon you? Just based on their expectations and what they expect. Do you think anybody can impress them if you expect nothing? If you expect nothing and you give them something, it's going to be impressive. Yo, yo, yo, do you think that any white Americans are jealous of your ability to possibly imitate regional American accents at a more elevated level than they are? Like, you know how like you're you could do like the Texas accent or you could do like, you know, Donnie and Fitty from Stan Island. Do you like to go to Saludges and you know, I like the little gap. I'm saying, do you think any white Americans are jealous of you in the same way that some people and RIP Laoshu, you know, the black guy who's a polyglot, it's like people are jealous of, you know, they made the parents feel bad about their. No, because I think like just doing accents, it's not apparent that that's like an amazing talent to people. But I guess learning a bunch of different languages at a six out of 10 level is pretty impressive. Right. Yeah. And by the way, guys, this was not to take away from any of the polyglots. You know, it's impressive. I can't do that. No, no, like 50 languages on a YouTube channel. And at the end of the day, you can feel how you want to feel about it. If you feel like they're exploiting that culture, so be it, but I don't necessarily think they are. It's hard to tell, you know what I mean? This is maybe some classism issues, because if you want the crazier responses, you got to talk to the uneducated villagers to be honest. I'm just saying, even my level of Chinese has impressed kind of like rule Chinese villagers before and I don't even speak it very well. So I'm just saying in a way you could be shocked that they're shocked because why would they be shocked looking at you? But like you said, man, expectations vary person to person in their own life experiences. Anyway, let us know what you guys think in the comment section below. Why is this discussion just going to pop up under every video of a foreigner speaking an Asian language forever? Or maybe not. Maybe it just needs to move to a 2.0, 3.0 status. Let us know what you think in the comment section below. Until next time, keep it civil. We'd hop up, boys. We out. Peace.