I am sure when a lot of people saw the news about TikTok getting banned they were either shocked or devastated by this news (unless they have something against TikTok). This especially goes for adolescents and young adults, and even though I don’t have a TikTok account, I was also upset by the announcement. Compared to other media platforms, TikTok felt more safe to create communities or share ideas held by marginalized groups. If you listen closely to the court case hearing between Congress and TikTok CEO, Chou Si-chew, the entire ordeal feels so inherently racist and xenophobic, and that only got worse when Donald Trump stepped into office, with the news of recent ICE raids happening in some states (resources here). In protest of the ban, former TikTok users chose to resort to other options, and that is through the discovery of another Chinese app that has existed for quite a while, called RedNote (or Xiao Hong Shu). Dubbing themselves “TikTok refugees”, they stepped into RedNote, and since many of them don’t know Chinese (RedNote didn’t have an English version until recently), posts about Chinese users teaching English became popular.
As somebody who had an account before the whole RedNote craze happened, I was used to reading Chinese text whenever I scrolled through the app, so I was surprised when I first saw a bunch of posts in English posted by American users. This caught the attention of Chinese users as well, and soon, there were so many American users interacting with Chinese users on what it was like growing up in their countries, what their cultures are like, what shows they recommend, etc. Some American users even expressed interest in learning the Chinese language and culture, which a lot of Chinese users expressed support or willingness to help with. I’m very appreciative to see all the welcoming exchanges between Chinese people and foreigners, but I also wouldn’t forget that the welcome that foreigners received in RedNote is the opposite treatment that Chinese people received from the U.S. government back in the 1850s.
When Chinese people first immigrated to the U.S., they were met with discrimination, with the U.S. government having imposed a Chinese Immigration Act in the past. This is a memory that Chinese Americans cannot forget, and even currently, there has been racism against Asian people whether or not they are violent or interpersonal. This also adds up with the cases of non-Asian people appropriating Chinese culture and gives the wrong idea of what certain food, clothing, and culture is like in China. Chinese culture (and Asian culture) is far more diverse than what certain foreigners deem it as, and it shouldn’t be right to assume somebody else’s culture is a monolithic stereotype based on a white person’s prejudice or fantasy.
Something also worth mentioning, since this is about RedNote, is that there is nothing wrong with making friends with foreign people. If foreign people want to interact with Chinese people on RedNote, it would be nice to see them take the opportunity to not only learn about Chinese culture, but also understand the differences in values and norms, and the diversity of Chinese culture. If Chinese people can learn something about norms in America, the non-Asian folks in America can also learn something about norms in China. Exercising cultural appreciation is easy, as it just takes being interested in a certain culture and learning about it with experts. This can be a lesson for accepting differences, and also a lesson on rejecting colonization and xenophobia.