XiaomaNYC Uses His Fluent Chinese to Connect Cultures
hello Ari hey Steve what's going on hey
hey what's going on you're in New York
no where are you mama do you're I'm in
New York
Rainy Rainy Rainy New York all right
well let me just differ though many
people know you you have a very popular
channel on YouTube and you speak Chinese
extremely well I looked at some of your
videos I found them very interesting and
so maybe I could begin by asking you
it says somewhere that you are also you
teach Chinese you do these videos where
you a showcase your Chinese skills but I
think more important in a way you
introduce aspects of Chinese food and
Chinese culture to people who know very
little about it so can I ask you a
little bit about your background
introduce yourself and then how you got
into doing all these things yeah so so I
would say my like my background as it
relates to Chinese I started studying
Chinese this sort of the summer after
high school I was a little bit bored
looking for something to do and so I
just kind of saw an ad in the paper for
a free Chinese class and I always knew
that I like studying languages and I was
good at it so I was like all right
Chinese sounds like a lot of fun so I
took that class and it ended up being a
really really great experience I
continued studying you know in college
sophomore year school I was like I ended
up getting a scholarship to go to China
learn Chinese can I stop you for a
second can I stop for a second so why
would someone offer free Chinese lessons
is this a way to get you in the door for
further Chinese lessons the wave is just
the way for the for the Chinese
government to promote the study of
Chinese international okay Chinese
government yeah right okay
so sorry so then so then you went to
China mm-hmm so they're handing out
they're handing out you know
scholarships to foreigners to go to to
go to China to learn Chinese I went to
China spent a year in Beijing I really
enjoyed my time there and this was my
year again it was it's like 2010 2009 mm
mm academic area mm-hm so yeah so laughs
it came back to the states and I kind of
have like the language learning book
at that point slash Chinese culture bug
so I started sort of started making like
videos on YouTube just like little
language learning videos and and accent
videos and just kind of like fun things
and I like doing that but I didn't I
never really kind of took it seriously
until maybe a couple years ago when I I
started doing this channel full-time
yeah so that's like the 30-second
elevator version but happened to happy
together like it's in more detail you
know what okay
yeah okay so before we get into your
videos which are very entertaining and I
think people will enjoy looking at them
um Chinese a lot of people think Chinese
is very difficult how difficult did you
find it and do you have any advice for
people who either are in the middle of
trying to learn Chinese or have
contemplated learning Chinese right yes
that's a great question so I would say I
think that in english-speaking countries
we tend to view Chinese as like the the
pinnacle of intellectual ability right
if you can speak Chinese then you must
be the smartest person on earth which
anyone like any non Chinese person who
spent time studying Chinese can tell you
it's kind of nonsense like Chinese is
not I guess learning to write is one
phlearn to write and read as one there's
a whole separate beast but actually
learning to speak Chinese is not really
the hardest thing on the planet you know
it's I think the biggest difficulty for
for non-native speakers getting over is
the tones initially you know but but I
think that like you you can you know the
grammar I would say relative to other
you know languages I've studied is
actually fairly similar to English the
there's a couple weirdness weird things
there but there's also a lot of things
that make it easy to learn so honestly
like it's not like I was I had spent
like I had learned a year of Chinese
before going to China but I was like
conversationally fluent in Chinese
within a few months I would say I've
started
okay but but the fact remains let me now
study Chinese and to me there's really
two issues one is the characters and the
other is the tones so I mean every
language has those things that are
difficult if you get rid of the things
that are difficult then it's easier but
you're still left with the things that
are difficult so eh how did you tackle
the tones and B how did you tackle the
carrot race so I would say with tones
with tones I kind of I kind of have a
like a jail what's it called get out of
jail free card with that one to be
honest like I've always been good at at
languages and accents and so that just
kind of came very naturally and easily
for me I will say and I know a lot of I
know it's very difficult though for a
lot of people and and something that's
helped me and other people in the past
get over that is it's like audio
repetition so listening to like
recording yourself speak and then
playing it back and with with native
references to whatever you're saying
it's super super helpful for for trying
to understand where your where your
tones are wrong and where your accents
wrong and you definitely need to do that
but you also just need a practice like a
time like if you want to get good at
tones I mean you you can speak like I
definitely know foreigners have spoken
Chinese for a long time and still have
really crappy tones but like that's the
first step right the first thing you
have to do is is speak and then you're
gonna notice that your tones are not
good so the way to get that the way to
get over that I feel like is through
deliberate practice with practicing your
own tones and comparing it to two native
speakers as far as as far as characters
that one that one definitely did not
come as naturally for me like first of
all my handwriting is really bad so I've
never been ate like I haven't been good
with with with with with just writing
things and like I to hand memory that's
not one of my strong suits so with that
I would say I just kind of tried to
focus on like I tried to I tried to like
separate what was important to me and
what wasn't so pretty early on I decided
like there's no way I'm ever
to be able to write Chinese well like
that's just not it's just not in the
cards you know like I am NOT a liquor
free guy so so you know what I was like
and I know that in introductory classes
they really try to stress like stroke
order and you know you got to get the
form ride all this stuff but like I I
was I just didn't want to focus that
because there were things that were more
important to me so I made kind of a
decision early on to not focus on that
and focus more on just recognition and
recall and so which i think is much more
important for reading and you know just
cuz all the stuff you do in day to day
life in Chinese even for even for
texting if you're typing in Chinese
you're probably typing with pinion which
which which is basically all recall all
you need to know is how the character
sounds and then when you type it in it's
gonna come up and as long as you can
recognize if that's the right character
you get so so I just kind of focus on
recall and the way that the way that I
got good at that and I'm still not like
the best at recognizing Chinese
characters and reading Chinese but you
know the the the way that I the way that
I got to the level where I am now which
is that I can comfortably read most
stuff that I want to read on daily basis
is one you know lots initially it was
lots of Anki just lots of straight
memorization of characters you know it
sucks but like you got to do it you just
got to just memorize a whole ton of
stuff and just using it in context you
know like when I would use certain
characters I like I think there's
there's some this one school of
philosophy that says all right you just
got to memorize the kanji is
individually and like you know it just
makes just like just like you know you
could figure out like what the original
meaning is and that will help you member
for me that never worked
I just tried to memorize the words like
and then I would learn from that I would
learn in context with the original what
were the individual characters would
mean you know cause Chinese language of
words not characters so like that that
was the way that I tried to memorize
things and then learn the characters
from there I mean now everyone has their
own approach I must say with regard to
the tones I focused a lot on listening
and in particular I listen to this sort
of Shang Shung comic dialogues where
they tend to exaggerate the
I didn't really try to listen to myself
too much because I didn't want to become
too self-conscious and I think you got
to be a little careful in terms of an
accent if you spend too much time
listening to yourself you get
self-conscious
whereas I found that if I just let it go
and but you have to do a lot of
listening if you if you just speak with
people every now and again you'll
continue to have poor tones but I think
you can train yourself to get better at
them and on the characters I agree with
you I have poor handwriting but when I
was studying Chinese we had to write we
had to write for my final exam I had to
be able to translate newspaper
editorials from English into Chinese so
the only the only you know objective was
to make sure people could read what I
had written it didn't have to look nice
but you're absolutely right nobody
writes today I mean I
similarly in Japanese or Russia and I
never write but I use my computer so I
can communicate you know writing on the
computer but but but I did find that
writing the characters out by hand
helped me learn them but I agree I had a
terrible terrible handwriting and I also
agree that that Chinese I mean I think
learning any language is not a matter of
intellectual achievement it's simply a
matter of allowing allowing yourself to
you know not resist the language and
allowing it to enter your brain and just
letting go and so none of these things
are necessarily a sign of great I'm sure
it wouldn't be hard to find some very
you know high IQ professors say
foreigners in the United States or
Canada who have who speak with a very
heavy accent for example so I don't
think fluency in the language is
necessarily a sign of a high IQ anyway
so you learn Chinese and now what got
you into these very entertaining and I
really encourage people to go and look
at them and you're getting like three
four five or more million views for
these videos and it's it's it's okay let
me ask you this - what do you attribute
the appeal of your videos yeah to be
honest I initially you know I was sort
of a little bit surprised by it I think
that I think that one thing one thing
that I've learned
instead I think I think people I think
people want some sort of inspiration
when they're they're learning languages
like they want to be able to see a goal
you know like they want to be able to
see like what what what what can't like
what's the point of learning the
language like why why should I even
bother spending all this time with these
textbooks and like listening drills and
like like why do I even care you know so
like I think what my videos let people
do is is give them a reason to care
right like if you learn a language if
you learn a new language you're getting
a new personality you're getting a new
soul you're getting a new way to like
like interact with the huge number of
people on this planet that previously
you just weren't able to do and so like
I think that my videos you know I'm able
to show like what it's like to to have
meaningful interactions and
relationships with people that free that
for someone like me just growing up in
the US with only English is my native
language would otherwise have been
impossible had I not learn this language
so so I think that I think that yeah you
know and people message me all the time
just just saying like saying saying that
these videos help them like inspire them
to want to learn Mandarin or other
languages and yeah so I keep doing them
I think yeah what I think is great in
them is that I think for the average New
Yorker walking down the street seems
some Chinese food vendor I consider them
to be sort of very distant very exotic
very strange may not want to even buy
anything from and so you bring these
people closer you you you approach them
and and they come across as being very
of course they're human but we see them
as very strange and we
minh a sort of a sense of familiarity
with chinese street vendors Chinese
culture Chinese food so I think that's a
really good a really good service it is
interesting to note though that for a
westerner to go and speak to some people
say in Chinese on the street is curious
interesting whatever I'm trying to
picture a Chinese or a Japanese person
goes to the states and does videos of
going around speaking to people in
English yeah I wouldn't be very
interesting at all nobody would be
interested in that so it does it is a
reflection of how I guess people in
China and Japan get much more exposure
to Western culture Western people
Western things and we get much less
exposure to them and their culture and
therefore they're perceived as more
strange and therefore when you go there
and you just you know really interact
with them naturally in their language
it's perceived as something interesting
whereas the reverse wouldn't necessarily
be the case
sure yeah I think that's very true I
think another I think another factor
contributing to this is that I I think
that I think that there's there's
whether it's due to the monolingual
status of English in you know many
Western countries or or what have you
the I think there's something about
language learning that is is kind of
prized as sort of like a good in its own
like regard in in Western countries
whereas in these videos I've noticed
like my Chinese were people and my Asian
fans from Asia are not as interested in
them as my Western fans and I think that
I think that there's something about
like you know sorry they're not
interested in in what like my like these
these types of videos where I you know
interact with people on the street in
Chinese oh I see what me yeah there are
less and less intermittent to a yes and
I think that part of that is is that in
Asia language learning is not
necessarily like it's it's regarding to
something
like you know you should learn English
because it can help you get Economic
Opportunity but it's not necessarily
regard to something cool or something
like just I I think there's a thing in
American culture where you know maybe
it's maybe it's all the movies you see
when like some guy busts out like seven
different languages and like you know
it's like James Bond speaks like French
Spanish or whatever like this is
something cool about it that I think is
is is sort of inherent to too you know
Western culture that is not necessary
like it's not necessarily regarded as
like a pinnacle of intellectual
achievement in China to be able to speak
really good English like yeah yeah so I
would say that I would have to disagree
I think that that in the West and of
course the West is not just North
America the West is Europe the West is
whatever speaking many languages is
valued and it's also valued in Asia we
had a polyglot conference in Fukuoka and
there were a lot of people there from
Asian countries Japan China Korea
Indonesia whatever who spoke many
languages I think the difficulty is most
people are not prepared to put the
effort in most people would like to
speed one other two other three other
languages and when they discover that
it's a lot of work or at least a lot of
time then a lot of people are
discouraged or because they use methods
that are not very effective
but I think generally I don't think
there's not much difference in my
interaction with people from Asia there
is appreciative of people who learn
languages yeah as as we are I don't see
a big difference there except that I
would even go as far as to say that in
North America someone who speaks a lot
of languages is considered a bit freaky
why would you want to do that to Zambia
to sound great but but hey everywhere
you got all kinds of different people
but at any rate you know I think it's
great to see and you're learning
Fujiyama or Taiwan Hong as well yes
Johan and Fudo haha yeah this one I've
been learning most recently which which
I think I think like back on the theme
of engaging with people's cultures like
for me right for me like the reactions
that I get from people
I can speak fuzhounese with them as
opposed to Mandarin are just so much
greater
I think the peep were you saying food
raha why are you saying in Taiwan no no
in New York or in food York
oh and no you are yeah okay yeah yeah
yeah yeah lots of people lots of people
in New York speak food Joanie is all I
say yeah okay which is kind of like one
of these weird accidents of geography
but yeah it just it just happens like
that so how about the Cantonese I speak
a little bit Cantonese to which I use in
my video sometimes just because there's
like in New York probably outside of
Mandarin the two biggest Chinese
languages that people speak or food
Rooney's in Cantonese okay yeah but so
okay no just to end up here we could go
on for quite a long time so where are
you gonna what do you do or intend to do
with all of this where does this lead to
are you just gonna continue making these
videos ever I see where you're teaching
Chinese on a voluntary basis in New York
yeah yeah yeah yeah that's that's just
kind of like for fun and you know it's
nice to giving back to the community but
you know yeah I don't that's a great
question I don't know I don't know where
it goes I mean I you know like if you
had asked me a year ago or two years ago
what I would be doing in a year from
that point mm-hmm I wouldn't have any
idea so to me trying to make long-term
plans is like it's like trying to nail
jello to a wall like I don't know what
I'm gonna be doing a month from now so
yeah so the only the only thing that
I'll say is just you know I want to keep
making things that you know that can
help share cultures and languages
throughout the world and just be able to
bring know kind of like inspiration and
joy to people's lives and and and
motivate people to learn Chinese or
other languages and you know for me I
got a lot of it you know like happiness
and and and probably I doing this so um
yeah well I recommend people go and
visit I'll leave a link in the
description box this is this Yama
speaking different languages and
bridging the cultural divide anyway
thank you very much for chatting with us
thank you so much see really appreciate
it okay bye-bye
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