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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