
I try to not be envious of too much in my life, but I’m also human, and sometimes we just can’t help those types of feelings when we come across them. That being said, I often lament when I see talented musicians, artists, or even video gamers, and ponder if I could have become as talented as they are, had I not been such an unambitious shit and strayed away from them.
But if there’s one talent that I often feel what could possibly be construed as envy, it would be polyglots. Obviously English is my native tongue, but I can speak enough Korean to survive easily in Korea, despite my reading being about as good as a grade schooler, with my writing being even weaker. I know enough Japanese to probably not be completely dominated in Japan, and I’m almost to a two-year streak in Duolingo, practicing Español at least 30 minutes every single day.
However, I’m nowhere near as capable of those people who would be considered actual polyglots, where they can switch languages as easy as a manual transmission driver changing gears, and I’m usually awestruck at how these linguistic masters can hang with just about anyone when they need to.
Lately, I don’t know why The Algorithm is showing me these things, but occasionally I’ve seen videos of white guys who film videos of themselves surprising Chinese people in public places, usually restaurants, when they pretend to be meek shy tourists at their establishments, and after letting a Chinese server struggle to communicate with them in English, they bust out flawless Mandarin or Cantonese, much to their surprise as well as any bystanders in the background.
It was interesting the first time I saw one of these, and dare I say entertaining. But when it becomes apparent that this is pretty much the only trick that these content creators have, regardless of how many other languages they speak, it becomes obnoxious to me, and I would go as far as to say that it’s also exploitative of, usually Chinese people, because I have yet to see any of these clowns try this schtick with Koreans, Japanese, or any other Asian culture other than Chinese. I’m not saying they haven’t, and videos don’t exist, but god help me if I ever came across one, especially if it were with Koreans. It’s bad enough that these polyglots probably speak better Korean than I do, but I’d be incensed to see them pull their schtick on my people.
As the subject of this post says, white guys picking up Asian languages, and then using their talents to farm content on the internet is a level of white privilege that I would say is definitely omega-level. Because frankly not many other demographics in the world could really get away with this like white guys can, and frankly I’m not entirely sure that any demographic is as attention-starved as white content creators are to even come up with this kind of gimmick.
Just like a black American couldn’t go into Africa and flex some Swahili and expect to surprise some locals, I can’t go into Korea, identify myself as America, and even remotely come close to impress any locals. Mexicans weren’t at all impressed with my Español on my last time in Mexico, and whenever I’ve been into France, Italy, or Germany, I feel like I’m met more with disdain that I don’t speak their languages. I highly doubt such would be that different even if I did speak their languages. It’s like I, or any other Asian person is expected to have learned their languages, based on the educational stereotypes of us.
The thing with all these white polyglots is that they all feel at home and that their bread and butter content is that of tricking and surprising Chinese people. I don’t seek, but The Algorithm doesn’t bother to feed me any examples of them doing this to any other demographics, and it’s always Chinese people that they film their shitty content with.
And I’m obviously not Chinese, but I am a fellow Asian, and I do take some objection to their exploitation of my Asian brethren in order for them to film content. What I really want to see is for all these Chinese restauranteurs to start adopting the mindset that everyone who walks into their establishments should be expected to know some Mandarin or Cantonese, and if they do, great, but if they don’t, start unloading the exasperation and passive aggression of disgust, and basically make it so that these white clowns don’t have any ammo to make any further shitty videos. No-sell the shit out of their reveals and respond with dismissive remarks with rebuttals like “oh good, you do speak Chinese” or better yet, respond in English, like natives tend to do whenever tourists bungle their way them in their native tongues.






