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I am the man sick with the slings taking of destined for fame for the fan the grandstand the existing for pain. What's up, ladies and gentlemen boys and girls around the world. I would like to welcome you back to the real talk with zubi podcast. Now on today's episode we have got on a super interesting guy. He has been a teacher in China for many.
Years. He's got a big YouTube channel with over half a million subscribers where he makes videos in English and in also, very impressive Chinese language as well. And this is Mike Coffman AKA teacher Mike welcome to the
show. Thanks, man. Thanks for having
known super excited. I'll take fan. I'm excited to have you here. So I appreciate that bro. Thank you. I'll try my
best not to Fanboy.
So I've just done a really brief intro there. So tell people
A little bit more about who you are and what you
do? Yeah. So I've taught and lived in China for 10 years now and I started as an English teacher, you know way back when in 2007 with the first time I taught over there and I guess this the requirement for teaching was relatively low. They just kind of wanted native speakers and I didn't really know much about teaching to be honest. It was kind of a cool thing to try a kind of a changing career and my life and getting back to traveling so I did it I loved it.
And then later on I found out you actually like teaching. I want to go back to school and get my teaching certificate and get legit teacher. So I did that actually did that in design technology, which is my college background. So I guess I'm kind of a creative designer at heart. Yeah, and just over the years in China teaching English and also teaching design and Technology. I get a lot of the same English questions over and over and over and over over and over and over and over and I see a lot of the same pronunciation mistakes.
Grammar mistakes, so I just thought I should just start making some videos so that I don't have to like keep explaining this over and over
again. And yeah, he was
refer them to the videos and sure it was about five years ago. So awesome. So
tell me a little bit more about what led you to going to China. I mean, have you always been interested in going to China where you already speaking the language in any way? I have seen some of your YouTube videos and I am certainly no expert.
On the I'm certainly no, it's Mandarin, right? Correct? Yes. I'm certainly no expert on the Mandarin language. But I've seen you've got long videos on YouTube that are 100% in Mandarin. It sounds it sounds very impressive to me judge. Just that in itself is impressive. I'm obviously not a Chinese native who can be there and be like, oh he pronounce that one word wrong or
whatever. Yeah, you know,
that's just very free-flowing totally fluent. So, were you already speaking the
Language before you went over there. What's the what's the story behind all that?
I did not know of single word nor did I have any interest in China? Let's go life area. I was I guess you would say a Crossroads in life may be spiritually and personally and career-wise and I had a friend over there teaching college friend who's teaching English and he just loved it. And yeah an opportunity presented itself to go on like a two-week mission trip to do English camps, okay?
They're quite common over there this summer people over there and these kids sign up. They attend at least English classes throughout the day. It's kind of Intensive English classes. That's awesome. I want to do that and then the opportunity came up like well, it's if you want to stay and teach for a year, you can teach their you know, the long as you have a college degree, that's kind of in your native speaker. That's kind of the basic requirement. No, you know, that's kind of its kind of big jump. I just gotta go over to check it out then kind of kind of the last I was the last program that
The schools that were hiring I was like the last one to get signed on and I kind of made a last-minute decision kind of just stopped what I was doing in the US and and went over and I was I was back in 2007. I had you know the time of my life I was making maybe 600 bucks a month. That was a salary, you know, I never been so poor but never been so happy. It was amazing. People are so friendly and where did you go to that was in northeastern China City called Kim Hong Dal, which is straight East if you're in Beijing and you had East until you hit the ocean year, that's where
And so is right next to the beach, which is cool, too.
That's awesome man de so I mean, what was it like when you first got there, you said you really enjoyed it. What was it? Was it your first time in the country as
well? Yeah. I don't know. It was just so raw and it's just so different and I was expecting a much different type of architecture and okay. I didn't know what the people would be. Like I was obviously had preconceived notions about what the food was like which are just you know, okay who it is just unbelievable the real stuff.
Yeah, okay.
So tell me about what you thought it was going to be like versus what it actually turned out to be like,
I don't know. I guess I just thought you see there's old kung fu movies you kind of seals old buildings that they're asking ya bunch of those things and like I just had no idea how you know modern and how much construction was going on and how quickly it was changing and how hospitable and friendly like the people would be and just like they just everybody wants to your the guess. They're you know, your I've said this to people like I've been in
Not for ten years. Well, I'll never be Chinese sure. I'm always going to be like a guest in their country which is fine. And but with that comes a lot of guests treatment and it's just you know, people are very I don't want to be naive. I very innocent and it just you know, I just want to know you yeah and that area so just overwhelmed by the friendship, you know, there's great. I loved
it. That's cool man, and it was it like initially in terms of the language. Was there a big language barrier or what is the level of what's this?
Sort of level of English like out there. How were you able to get by?
Yeah, it varies quite a bit naturally, you know work teaching English. I was teaching students who are learning English have learned English. So most of the people I knew could speak English and I decided pretty early but I had no idea how long I was going to stay but I decided pretty early. I'm gonna start learning Mandarin like, you know, if I found it actually live here at least make an effort sure so it does always a language barrier but
Then wasn't a huge issue because you always had you know, a dozen people around you like. Oh, can I help you? Can I help you with this can help you with that? It's just it's really want to help you. Just just be able to contribute something. You know, it's yeah, it's great.
What was it that surprised you most what were you most shocked by?
I mean the food right away is just like your eyes are like, oh, yeah, and I've been missing out. My whole life is a lie. Okay don't like these dumplings. Oh man, if you have the Chinese dumplings the real
stuff which one
One's.
Well, you got you got fried dumplings with your like potstickers. You got soup dumplings which are kind of boiled. There's a pork and veggies. You got the xiaolongbao lecture steamed dumplings. I
don't know those one. I'm very familiar with
those. Yeah. Yeah those like the the jogs of the I think they call it like gyoza in English. Yes, but just think of that like 10 times better and all
right?
Yeah that just blew me away. So, okay. That's great. Yeah,
that's awesome, man. So tell me more
About tell me more about learning Mandarin. I mean, how did you go about doing it? How did you go from not speaking a word to being fluent and especially especially Mandarin because we're not talking about French or Spanish or Italian or a language which has a lot of overlap and similarities with your native language and uses the same alphabet as well, which is which is a big one. Yeah. I mean Chinese if I look at Chinese writing if I see the characters what I
I mean, it's just it looks like some it could be written by aliens. You know, I know I know I know it's Chinese but I can't I can't understand one thing right if I see a word in to be fair, you know, I can speak a decent level of French and Spanish. But if I see even polish I can at least somewhat pronounce the word because I know how to say it matters. If I see Italian, I don't understand Italian, but I can still read it. If I see Chinese or Japanese or Arabic and whole different alphabet. It's just you know, yeah, it's kind of mind-blowing and then of course
Mandarin is Mandarin a tonal
language? Oh, yeah, it's the as very momentous for tones plus a neutral tone and I believe I don't know which Cantonese Cantonese I believe that seven tones.
Wow. Yeah. So the whole language structure is totally foreign in every sense of the term so mad all that in mind. Yeah. How did you how did you start so a couple
people that are had been there for a couple years and so they spoke decent man and already and they give me a little books. So I had those to start learning characters where
Uh kind of you practice going one stroke at a time and you end up, you know reading the same character like, you know, 50 times over and and believe it or not. When you look at the Chinese characters that it does look like a lot of just lines everywhere, but there's there's some Rhyme or Reason to it. There's different parts that represent different different things. Like they call a radicals on the left side. You might see a common part of the character in many different characters which has something to do with water. For example, okay, so or a liquid or something like that so you can
Narrow it down that way dumb does
each character correspond to a letter like it does in English or is it a whole syllable? Let's say a syllable. Okay. Mmm and each
syllable could have four different tones and each character could have you know, 2 3 4 up to 10 different meanings depending on the context for what other characters it's what I don't do this. Wild.
I'm already like okay. Yeah,
I guess your head to see I loading but I also got
Got I got these flashcards where you had has like 500 of the most common Chinese characters and I would go through those. You know, I try to go through as many of those as I could every day. And so I got up to just like a very very basic level where I could have very simple conversations. Probably in about a year. I think a lot of people are impressed with that. Although there's other people I knew who had gotten much more advanced than I did during that same time. Yeah, but they just very gifted and languages. I don't know.
Everybody says that all your gift in languages. I don't know. I think I just practiced a
lot. Yeah, I'm I think people say that as an excuse Talent exists in everything and there are always going to be some people who are more talented that other and other things but I look at it this way every person like every child can learn their native language. Yeah, right no matter what country they're born in every child can learn their native language and every child can also learn multiple languages and we know that adults are significantly more.
Agent and significantly more advanced than children are so this idea that it's you know, impossible to learn a language or some people are just you know, it's like when they woke up. Yeah when you work really hard at something it looks like talent, doesn't it? Yeah, you know what once you get really really good at something people that all you're just talented at that and it's like, you know, I've been going I've been going to the gym for a 16 or 17 years and I now get people who are like man. I wish I had your
Genetics and I'm like if you saw me when I first started training, yeah and wouldn't have been like man. This guy's got crazy genetics, you know, you got is just like a chubby teenage
things like, you know, I with someone with my level. I see other people that are even better than be like other non Chinese people. I'm just like man, I get jealous of them and I don't maybe you think you probably feel that way about lifting to say, okay, maybe I should step it up a little bit.
More, you know, so you also have some somebody of course had ahead of you that you want of course inspired to
to as well. So when you started learning, do you go straight to the characters or did you focus more on speaking and understanding first? I
just went straight to the characters and also had a someone donated me one of those
Pimsleur 's a picture CDs stick. Yeah. Yeah. So
I had I had those lessons which are I like my half an hour a day and that'll that would that lasted a couple months and that helps you just get the
Insulation because you just listening and repeating in the king and so I had some pronunciation had some characters and then again, you know, I was working at a college right? So these these college kids that don't have particular that a lot to do. So who would hang out a lot and they would teach me stuff all the time, you know to Simpson English more me teaching English than teaching Chinese because obviously their English is far superior to my Chinese at the time. Yeah. Yeah. It was just always people around
ask questions and stuff cleaned out. So
did you do any formal lessons at all?
The college I was at they had a program for foreign students to come and learn Chinese I was teaching so I couldn't attend it full time, but I went and asked the teachers like you mind if I just like sit in on classes when I'm not teaching English and that yeah, like our students are terrible like we want some people to actually come in as of it, but what people just go there to kind of, you know, they're 19 and just out of high school away from home and kind of go screw up screw off, but you know, I would go in there. Yeah. I want to learn.
Some stuff and the teachers are great. So yeah, thankful there. Let me sit in for nothing. You know, that's cool, man. So the
college you are at this is was mainly was stuff mainly in Chinese language. It was a Chinese college or was it correct?
Yeah, there are programs for learning English to be in English educator programs for business English. So a lot of students I had were going to be either English teachers do some kind of
Foreign trade we're learning English actually had a whole group of stewardesses. I guess you come which the flying International Airline so they have to learn English. They were they were they were the worst. All right, I just did not care. I just did not care about English one bit. I thought they'd be the
best but you busy they're too busy fixing her
makeup.
I was thinking I was like, that's that's a good position to be the alpha male like, you
know, yeah. Yeah, but no no no,
Teachers wanted to take teach them we were trying to you know, I'll give you this class if I can also
buddy. Oh man, that's so funny. That's awesome. So tell me more about your progression in the language. I'm because I am curious as to how you was it just a day after day. Just when did you realize like? Oh, actually I'm fluent. I mean, when did you say that you reached fluency when I say currency? I don't mean Perfection. I mean the prophet brother, but the proper term right being able to have a flowing flowing.
Owing conversation without translating stuff in your head and making like a gigantic errors and stuff like that. How long did it take you to reach that level?
I would say. So I went back to the u.s. In 2009. And of course the economy is terrible. I couldn't get a job. Mmm. So I'm like, well, I'm just gonna go back to China, you know, okay, I went back to China 2010 sort of teaching again. And at that point I was like, okay, I'm probably gonna be here a little while. I'm gonna hire a tutor and so I heard tutor to
Couple times a week and my goal was to get to HS K 5. So hsk is that's the standardized Mandarin test for non-native speakers. So there's six levels 1 2 3 4 5 6 I thought okay if I get to level 5 and the levels are like kind of exponentially hard it's not just kind of a gradual thing. So there's a vast difference between level three and four and so I studied with her for about two years and I think probably in like
In 2014. I took the test passed the first time nice and I said if I pass that level I'm just I'm not my formal studies going to be finished. Everything's I do just going to be with my friends practicing his daily conversation. But yeah, I mean you really have in the day you have to force yourself to be to take either study or to just being a Chinese speaking environment, which is not terribly difficult to do when you're in China.
Yeah, that's cool. And where you were you in the same city at that time?
Yeah. I've been a shot. I since 2000 late.
Tense, I've been there almost over nine years almost 10 years. Yeah,
it's awesome man. Well firstly I want to say congratulations. Like I am impressed by anyone who I'm incredibly impressed by anyone who does anything difficult that requires perseverance. But yeah, but I love languages specifically. I have gone through the process of teaching myself French and Spanish at various points, although their know they're both kind of rusty because I haven't used them that recently but I got to I got to a good level at both of them where I was having pretty free-flowing conversation.
Relations with you know, French and Spanish people Etc. But um, yeah, I mean Chinese specifically that because that's one of the that's one of the scary languages right? There are certain scary languages, you know, you've got like yeah, you know chide intimidating. Yeah Chinese Japanese Russian polish, right? There are certain ones where it's just like, oh gosh, like I don't even
I read an article that's a kind of listed out the number of hours. It would take a speaker, you know, someone new to a language to become.
Station on the language and I think I think Spanish was lower kind of like in that four to five hundred dollar range with French and Italian and in English was kind of six 700 or and then like Chinese Japanese. I like twelve to thirteen hundred. Yes, because you can't even read a simple newspaper without First Learning at least three thousand characters, right how many
characters are so our character? I'm getting my head around character. So our characters like Words almost. Yeah. Okay, so that
early works. Oh, okay so each. Okay. So each character is literally like another word in the vocabulary
Essentials. I'll give you a few examples. So anyhow is literally knee which means you and how means good. Let's hello in Chinese you good. Yeah, and they're actually, you know, a lot of the the word construction is very practical. I'll give you example that like computer is dead now Dan means electricity now,
It's brain feels like an electric brake or it's like German in that regard a little bit or like washing machine CD. C-- she means to wash E.G. Means clothing g t means machine wash
clothing the machine God's
once you start to figure that out like you can accumulate a lot of the nouns much much faster. Once you got like the basics. Yeah,
that's a little bit like German really like they just sort of take take
the two words that make sense together and then slam them together. Yeah, and you kind of got in you just got the word. So rather than having like a dentist and pediatrician and all these different types of doctor. You just know the word for doctor and then you know, the word 14 and you slam them together, you know the world a child, you know the word for dr. You slam them together whereas in English. It's like you've got all these different very specific
words for all different Latin roots. And yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah like that.
It's just tooth doctor. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah is very simple. So yeah, that's that's really interesting man. Yeah, so I'm curious to learn more about the I guess the the cultural aspects and the people and everything like that. So language of course is part of that that is that is super interesting. But what were some of the big difference is you found, I guess first initially and then now in term you now that you've been there for a decade.
What are some of the sort of big cultural differences or just things that really struck you about how different China or Chinese people are compared to the USA or perhaps the West in general I guess so,
you know for the sake of this conversation, I'll speak in generalizations, even though I don't like to do that you kind of have to
I know we all understand look there's over a billion people there can't really just say Americans are like this people. I like this. Yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, I mean, they're generally very very hardworking very friendly very curious, you know, a lot of times I guess the biggest shock when you go there if you ever go there. Have you been to China? No, not yet. Okay. So if you go there outside of Beijing and Shanghai, you'll certainly get stared at a lot sure and that it does no matter what your skin color as long as it's not easy you're going to get stared at that was kind of something he's kind of got used to do. Yeah, but there's nothing malicious.
About it. I didn't find yeah, just out of curiosity. You know, what's this person doing here. I've never seen a non Chinese person walking down my street before so I'm sure that's a bit surprising. Yeah, I think I was there very humble. Very humble people, right? We should very simple like they want to have a place to live and they want Harmony their family. They're not their family to be closed. Their family ties are extremely close right often times.
People live with their parents until they go off and get married often in their mid to late 20s. And then there's this sort of Unwritten hope or expectation that the parents are old the children moved back in and take care of them. Yeah kind of a repayment again. I'm generalizing a little bit but or repayment for their their sacrifice and parents working and they'll just they'll sacrifice everything to have for their kids. Yeah. So, I mean a lot of that stuff is very it's just very endearing and very very soon.
Cheer about it. And those are a lot of the good things. There's there's other things that are a little more shocking like the pollution. Obviously, it strikes you straight away just like okay. Wow, you don't see you don't see the blue skies very much anymore. It's like going on sighs. It's a full moon tonight. See this every day. You see a blue sky, it's like, oh, wow
this guy today. That's great. What's the population of Shanghai its own city province?
Yeah. It's about 26 million in the province in the downtown area.
It's probably half of that. Okay, the urban area like so
it's like a it's like a whole country essentially Yashin wise.
Yeah. It's like the size of Australia. Basically. It's
not more more people than Australia, isn't it?
Hopefully that's crazy.
It's big. It's about Kevin's it's almost Canada.
Yeah, but you know, I mean it's certainly crowded but I guess my in my mind I was expecting it expecting it to just be able to Elbow everywhere you go everything you do and it's not like it certainly felt more crowded in life.
Japan sometimes or like there's other places that are more products really gets crowded at peak times and try blusher. It's not
completely overwhelming. Yeah, and what's um, what's the living situation? Like how do most people live do people tend to mainly live in in apartments? Is it high-rise buildings? Is it is it Flats is houses is suburbs. What how do most Amia city of 26 million people. Where do you where do you put everybody?
Yeah, so I would say probably turn of the century the 20th century. There was a lot of these two three level kind of low-rise brick buildings. And those were slowly replaced kind of with the Communist era ones will occur or six six stories and they just kind of all look the same. There's this block after block of these six Storey buildings. I'm sure if you've been to Germany probably seen some stuff that kind of looks like that sure and those are slowly being replaced now with with high-rises which are actually really really nice and so we live in a high-rise.
At the moment well over the USA right now if we get back to China if and when we return to our high res apartment and China's just building that stuff like non-stop. It's it's it's insane everywhere you go. You see the big cranes up in the distance and they're just they're just building those things as fast as they can and a lot of times like my wife's Chinese and so her parents there is one of those the six Storey buildings, right? It's actually seven stories. There's some rule where if it's long as the building's
Seven stories don't need to put an elevator in it.
Okay, so that's why the kind of like
just kind of that really that tall. They're in the process of being relocated to a high-rise which is currently being built while they're waiting for this. They're getting paid by the government and they had a few options that could have relocated out to an existing one outside the city, but they want to stay in the city to be close family and stuff. So yeah, you're going to see a lot of high rises and the high-rise is now they definitely take a lot more design.
I'm and there but I don't know. How do you say once a user friendly, but they're just they're more the more love more Design Incorporated into it. Whereas before it was very practical and you just kind of walk into some of these older Apartments which still exists. Yeah, and you can rent them. Some of them are have been renovated the kind of have that cute look to them people like them but you'd walk in and be like designed this floor plan makes no sense. Why is the main bathroom in between the living room and the bedroom? I don't just weird stuff like that.
The that's funny man.
So I'm actually curious I tell me about you know, I don't want to get super personal but I'm curious about the story of how you how you met your wife and what that what that was like because that is a real sort of coming together of cultures, especially because yeah, of course you've got her but then you got like, you know, family and parents and everything like that. So what was what was that like?
Yeah. So Shanghai being the very International City it is has a lot of clubs and sports clubs including
An ice hockey club, I grew up playing ice hockey. Okay soda. And so when I went to Shanghai Assad had a nice that's so cool hockey in China and I brought my stuff with and it was a great experience, but there was one hockey rink. That's way outside the city like an hour we'd all get in the bus and go out there for the hockey and come back once a week and the league was was was pretty well organized and basically the my wife she was getting her.
Degree at the University of right across the street from the rink and she knew one of my friends who all who is also in the league and he was like, well, we need to like a scorekeeper and we need somebody will pay you, you know a little bit and help negotiate with the rink. That's not as your English is good in your Chinese is good. And so they hired her so I met her through that seriously the ice hockey scorekeeper girl that I guess you can say, those are part-time job while she was going through grad school.
Awesome. And what was it like, I mean, where are you her parents live in the city or what was the what was the Meet the Parents situation like was yeah. We're there any weird funny stories or yeah. Yeah.
So her parents live probably about three hours West of shall I not in Shanghai and to be quite honest every single person in her family that I know of except her cousin who's also
You know got a college education. I went to work in Beijing everybody up to Aunt great on second cousins third cousins they all live in this one city. So obviously the fans right clothes. Yeah, and so I was reluctant to to date someone from China just thinking about the future. What are we going to do? Which country were going to live as and gonna cost too much tension parents, but we started dating and she was reluctant to tell her parents that I was
Boyfriend at first it was kind of I was referred to as the friend. Yes, and I think started dating in January and then the next month was Chinese New Year. And so we were kind of deciding like should I go back with you to visit your family or whatever and I think that's pretty early and she's like, no absolutely not. Yeah, because in China the tradition is if you bring someone home for Chinese New Year, that's the person you're going to marry. Oh, wow. Okay, it's it's kind of a big deal. It's kind of like
Getting engaged almost bringing interesting to meet the family. Okay, you host a dinner or you pay for one of the dinners for the family and like announced like okay, we're dating. So we waited till the following year to formally do that. But I'm not her parents before that. They were they're skeptical at first are they they hear a lot about the divorce rate in the US which is high to be fair. It's a reasonable concern but as I got to know me, I think they were a little a little more their work.
If the yeah, and I think I was a little bit Lucky in the sense because I've heard a lot of nachos people getting ready to Chinese people who had been really bad stories that yeah other I would disavow you if you marry this person I should forbid you and my wife never shared with me while we were dating, but she actually a lot of conversations with her parents about it. Yeah, and so so she after after her marriage gonna hold me some of the stuff like yeah, they really did not want you to
Date me. They wanted me to marry some nice boy from my hometown and ever Hill battle shielded me from
it. Well, that's cool. That's cool. You know, I think the you can always overcome but I think when you get to this, especially the more disparate the cultures the more likely there is going to be some resistance not normally between the two people right? But yeah parents and family is that era is one of those things that I think in in the west, especially I think a lot of
Think of certainly in the modern era a lot of people think of it just being like, okay. It's just the two people and if the two people like each other love each other then that's it. That's fine. That's all. Yeah, but it's like in reality especially in other cultures, you know, my family background is originally from Nigeria and yet a lot of the things you said about Chinese Society exists in lots of African cultures, right in terms of the the families being being Tighter and they're being more. It's more of a family-based called decision a lot more. Yeah.
A lot more traditionally based in that regard. So in that sense, it's kind of like there's a there's another level that there's another level of resistance that needs to be considered and absolutely a lot of people aren't really I think some people kind of aren't aware of that and then some you know, just not sort of ready for yeah. Okay. Well, what about you know, all these other things so it's interesting to kind of know the stories there.
Yeah, I think marriage is more considered like a family decision. Yeah as opposed to
Individual decision and my wife she was real nervous meeting my parents and I mean, they just loved her from the first second and she's like, that's it. That's all I got to do is just be yourself. It's a funny
thing. So, I mean what are some of the things that what are some things that westerners or Americans or people in general you feel get wrong about China part of the reason I ask this is because I'm one unfortunately for
A great reason China has been in the news a lot recently. Yeah with this this whole situation and there have been some dodgy things with the government Etc. I also ask that because I don't know if you know this. I mean I grew up in Saudi Arabia, right? So yeah d'Arabian. Yeah. So Saudi Arabia is a country where most people haven't been there, but most people have very strong opinions and feelings and whatever about it and expectations and assumptions and I know in my life
I've been dealing with incorrect assumptions a lot. Right? Yeah, and it's like okay some of the sometimes you know, sometimes there is a kernel of Truth. Sometimes people think something that is just totally false. Sometimes people think that something is much more major or prevalent or whatever then it is so people always have incorrect opinions and I believe that if you don't travel somewhere and spend time there and talk to people and understand a place which takes time.
Then I generally don't feel like it's wise to have a super duper strong opinion on a country let alone the people in it and I also think that a lot of people judge countries purely based on their governments, right or certain actions done by their government. So whatever so I've come across people who are have very negative perceptions of America, right and the negative perceptions are based on. Yeah. Well they started this war or they did.
S or the president did that or the government did this or whatever and that is not and as some of those things could be correct, right. Sometimes they are correct. You know it's like there's a big difference between the American government whoever is running it and Americans in general right the American people American culture Etc. So if someone has never been to the USA, they may have some totally warped perceptions about what the US is like or what Americans are like and I think this is the case for
Or every single country and I know with China, I think that's another one of those countries, especially now where people do have quite strong opinions or feelings or things that they may have heard or they may have thought it whatever so I'd be curious to know what some of those things that people get wrong are and maybe what some of the things they get right as well.
Yeah. I mean, it's there's a there's a long list that go down. Yeah, go ahead and I was I was thinking the exact same thing, you know, like I think tourism is kind of the
Don't say the great leveler, right if people wish everybody from China could see American which everybody from America visit China and see what when it's actually like there because like you said without going there you have all these preconceived notions and I mean, so I obviously watch news from from both sides. I don't know. How do I compare it with? It's sort of like Donald Trump like no matter what he says. CNN is never going to say anything good about him or what he does. It's always going to be negative.
I think you're kind of seeing that China a little bit. Like no matter what you think of them or what they do or what they say 99% of the time it's discuss punishment and negative light and some of that is probably earned like if they do they do some some stuff. I definitely don't approve of and all the stuff you hear is it's always based on a like you said a kernel of Truth. Yeah, it comes from something but a lot of the times as a lot of these reports come out as a lot of things that are glossed over which those are kind of the annoying things but I mean,
- where can I start how to see if I mean the Chinese food is so different. So amazing like safety and maybe a lot of people have this idea that if you go there you're just like North Korea and you can just be arrested any time and put in prison for life or something like that. But in my experience traveling around China, it's extremely safe as far as as far as getting violence done to my person. Like I feel very safe. I tell people this way there's not a place of I haven't been to a place in China, why wouldn't feel
Comfortable walking around at 3 a.m. In the morning by myself. Okay. I don't fear violence at all. Maybe you know, if I was a very outspoken political dissident or activist sure then I would probably fear for political, you know reaction from the government or something like that. You know, I guess a lot of people think everybody over there eats dogs and that does happen. It's not widespread. I've heard there's a dog restaurant in Shanghai never seen it. Okay. I know that's changing quickly and I like
Shenzhen is a big cigarette across from Hong Kong and Southern China. They just this year lease they banned consumption of cats and dogs. Okay, so start gosh, I think you see a lot of news now like we need to decouple with China. Okay, maybe that's a nice thought but we're we are so intertwined with China whole world, especially the u.s. That if this kind of a pipe dream to me, I just go one day without using something made in China made in China.
Try
them and see if you can do it. I bet
you can yeah, so I mean we're so intertwined there and I don't know what that looks like going for. I don't know should we decouple I don't
know it's not I don't think it's a question for us to answer really is exactly. Yeah, that's kind of beyond our pay grade.
Hmm. And you know, I guess there's another idea that China can't develop its own technology that they steal everything from the west and certainly they have stolen a fair amount of Technology through these forced transfers which
Doesn't mean like every company has to transfer their technology like when you open a business in China have to do a joint venture with the Chinese company. Okay, and that other the Chinese half may require you to as part of the deal to transfer your technology over and but you know, people say it's forced. Yes, but the end of the day, I mean those companies are willing participants in this technology transfer and there's some there's some there's some sort of stone things. You know, it's obviously Espionage going on another things like that, but
But a lot of those are companies that are just willing to okay. I want part of the Chinese market. I'm willing to give up my technology for that, you know, and they do have a lot of drone technology like the WeChat pee in the alley pay the mobile payment systems. Those are all they're really convenient in there's obviously some concerns about data collection and how those could be used to track people that mail delivery service Services phenomenally fast like when you order stuff, yeah. DJI is a great company. They have they make
Drones are the leader in drone technology. Yeah, I mean they have a lot of their own technology as well. So what else could I say?
What's the what's the Internet situation like over there? Because they have good. Okay. Yeah tell tell us more about that because I know that the firstly the social media networks that people use in that are popular are totally different and then also they've got the sort of what do they call it the great the great firewall situation great firewall. Some places can be accessed but certain websites can
Not and there are certain levels of censorship and things like
that. Yeah, so the censorship I think since she Jinping has taken over as definitely gone up to a new level when I when I first got there in 2007 like it was great. I could do anything going on any website and say pretty much wherever you wanted. It didn't seem to have any retribution or whatever you who Jintao it seems like the country is getting more and more open and think that's gone backwards a little bit. It's just been extremely strict censorship it.
But I've tried to put some of this stuff in my videos predominately my upload it. Let's call it. The Chinese version of YouTube is that this is one YouTube but in China, there's like ten competing YouTube's so interesting. And so I got to upload all my stuff to all these different platforms. So that's interesting and they're they're required to self-censor essentially, right? And so sometimes there are different censorship standards among themselves, but I make a make a video talking about what
I do the other day. Oh just talking about just different things that were happening with the coronavirus. What's true? And what's not? Oh, yeah. No. Did it really come from the Wuhan lab or did it was it brought over by the US military to China is kind of things and I think it went through on one of the platforms but the other one say all they blocked it. So basically what happens is you upload a video you hit, you know send and it just goes into we are checking mode. You have to wait an hour. If it passes the check, it'll go if not, and
it's all right.
Violated rules
out of human check or an
L. Yeah. It's a human
check. Wow on a on every single video
uploaded every single video. Wow, that's crazy. And probably especially I can't prove this is just my conspiracy theory here probably especially on foreign voices. I'm not interesting not look for places, but we don't know for sure. But yeah, I mean YouTube Twitter all the stuffs block a lot of people use vpns to get over it and it's such a gray area. I don't know really knows what's
It's a technically it's illegal, but it's just kind of allowed. Yeah, and they can turn it off. I know they can because when they have they have like an important meeting coming up like they're doing a really important meeting right now called the two sessions the government deleting something comes up or you know, like the anniversary of Tiananmen coming up. Hmm It just fits we can just won't work for the daily. Yeah, so I mean they can turn it off. They kind of allow it. Okay. It's just something that's
Streeter to all of us living there, but I mean obviously on my YouTube channel most of those people are getting over the firewall. Yeah coming on YouTube to watch my stuff. Yeah, which surprised me because I initially I didn't for the first two years. I didn't put anything on YouTube and I started to try it. Oh, that's actually there's some people watching. Mmm. So it's interesting that really interesting.
So Are there specific laws of certain things that you can't say or can't talk about or is it more like
You can't do it, but there aren't really laws how explicit is it how clear are these rules or guidelines?
Not incredibly clear. Okay, and I think that's probably
intentional. Yeah.
So yeah, go ahead. You know, I was going to say I did an interview with
them one of my friends who grew up in the former Soviet Union and he said that yeah, the rules were specifically quite unclear. Yeah, you know like that that sort of helps in itself.
Yeah, so I most platforms. I'm not
To live stream as because I'm not Chinese my Chinese citizen. So I mean that limits need somewhat to be able to get my classes out there. Yeah and my income but it's a it's a tricky situation
for sure. I know not I got that. Is it possible to become a citizen as a non Chinese
person? I've heard it's been done. Okay don't know the exact process. They've recently made new laws to open the green.
Card process and make them make that a little more clear. It's still a little vague, but it's much more. There's like eight different paths now, okay to getting a green card.
Is that a green card for
China? Yeah. So okay if you get it, which I actually applied for it. Yeah, but then all this stuff happened if you get it, it's basically you can live and work just kind of come back and forth for 10 years and then as long as you think you have to be in China 365 days out of five years to maintain
Keep it going. Gotcha. Yeah, it's I thought that was a nice step in progress because okay. Sometimes you kind of feel maybe they just they just don't want us here. I don't know and so we'll see if we'll see if that goes through or not. I'm not holding my breath because everything else going on in the world right now. I can't even get back into China. Yeah. Yeah.
Were you in China when this when this situation started breaking
out? Yeah, so I had originally my wife and I plan to come back to the u.s. To visit my parents February 4th. That was we booked our flight.
Last year, okay analysis of started precipitating and there's kind of like we should change our flight and I'll be okay and then I was like January 27th United and Delta announced they were canceling all flights, February 1st and on okay, like okay, we better we better change our flight because Ron American they don't mean announcement yet. And so we changed it and then we left it wasn't to escape the virus necessarily, but just wanted to kind of continue on with the travel. We'd already paid for and plan and now we just we just can't go back fortunately. She has six.
On her visa, but might be longer than that.
Gotcha. Gotcha. No, that's really that's that's really interesting. I'm trying to think if there's a any other sort of I'm trying to think if there's any other big question, I mean what questions do you get most often when people ask you I guess on both sides. In fact in China what are people curious to know about America or the west and when you're in back in the States, what are the questions you get most often about
China?
People in China they really want to know is because usually that open because they see all the movies and the TV shows and if they're very hyper sexualized and okay, it's really like that and conversely I think you have a lot of if you've never been to China and you watch only Fox News or something you kind of this idea that China is not far off North Korea. I don't know in 50 years ago 60 years ago. It probably was but yeah as you can you got a lot of that those types of questions where people actually might fear
Over there. Yeah reality is people have been doing business for years over there. You do have to kind of watch what you say Obviously and there's a lot of things. I like to see, you know, I'd like China like to see them to change for the better. I like to see America change for the better as a lot of criticisms. I have my own country. Okay. I'm
curious. What would those be? What are the couple of things or what are a few things? You think that China? Could you learn from America? And what are a few things you think America could learn from China?
Well, I think
think the biggest thing for me is I tend to lean towards pacifism. I think the u.s. Is definitely definitely to involved in wars and has been for pretty much my lifetime almost every president I've been in my lifetime has been very involved in wars in the Middle East sure and and I don't know what the answer is it all for that it's complicated for of yeah, and I'd like to see, you know in China little bit more freedom of expression. I guess they value Harmony and stability over everything.
Thing there and they look at our political situation the US and people arguing or even a you k, you know, I think they just think that's it's not stable. They're like, why would we want that? Right? And so why would we want a democracy when we have stability as well suppose it stability, right? We need something unstable like economically, we're still very successful. They just see all this political stuff as a distraction then so but you know, it's it's really hard to to talk about those things over there, especially
Ashley on a public forum like the internet. Yes, you can talk about it with friends. Sure. That's not a big issue. But yeah, so will
mostly be censored. So if you were to talk about America, I would say that the core fundamental value of America is freedom or Liberty. Yeah, what we say it is in China would you say it's stability stability and Harmony stability and Harmony, that's really interesting because yeah, this is something I'm always trying to explain to people who are who haven't traveled a lot because a lot of people
Assume that whatever the fundamental primary value in their country is they paint with that same they assume they view the whole world through that lens so they can only compare things in terms of freedom and liberty, right? So if I'm talking about Saudi Arabia, they're just talking about Liberty and freedom and liberty and freedom and uh, I'm trying to explain like look, I understand you because I can see what that lends to but not all countries not all cultures not all peoples. That's not necessarily the thing that they are trying to
to maximize. So if you're trying to maximize stability, you don't maximize Liberty, right? If you're trying to maximize adherence to a certain religion, if you're trying to maximize Family Values, if you're trying to maximize economic success, whatever it is, you may need to know ideally you don't want to compromise everything and it's not like you flatten this one to maximize that one but this there's a sliding scale right if you offer maximum Liberty and maximum freedom,
Take a simple thing, right? You can't even compare the UK or Europe on vs. USA. Okay the right to bear arms. Okay. Yeah, if you talk to a freedom-loving, you know libertarian minded American heck. Yeah, no one's taking our guns. I you know, I guess alright what at like and I get that. I understand that I in fact I support the Second Amendment for the us, but if I can if I look through a British lens or you look through the European lens people are like, oh my gosh those Americans. What are they doing? They're crazy. They're having shootouts at school. Yeah, they're having all these.
Us gun crime the looking at the numbers. I like this is crazy. Just get rid of all the guns and people aren't able even between the UK and USA which are more similar in the UK. Most British people. Like the the Second Amendment is totally foreign to them. Like they can't if they can't even fathom the concept of allowing citizens to own all of these Guns Etc. Yeah, so I'm always trying to help to get people to understand it. I'm always trying to like look not every society not every country. Just has the exact same.
Fundamental concepts and then of course, you have different histories you have different cultures you have different religion back religious backgrounds, all of these things. They all play into it. You can't just turns out a Arabia into America right? You can just turn China into Germany just like you can't just turn Germany into Iran and their there they're just different and yeah sure you might think this one is better than the other overall or whatever and that that's a whole another conversation but it strikes me that a lot of people just don't really
Understand the the fact that core values can be can be different and
the silly to think that way, you know, like I think some people think kind of just needs to become a democracy and it's just it's just that simple. Yeah, everything will turn around. I don't know. I mean sure that'd be great. But I don't know is that the only solution you know, it's complicated democracy. It's complicated
and look you were talking about us intervention. Right? Let's not pretend that the USA has not tried to instilled that click create create democracy in certain countries in the
Least and the results have been as far as I can tell pretty disastrous round good, you know have facts dates you've now got places where they are worse that look at Libya. Look at Iraq right there now worse than they were under their dictators, you know to be frank and this is not me saying. Oh Saddam Hussein was a great guy. Gaddafi was a great guy. No, that's not this is what you're saying. Yeah stuff is just complicated right and like it's complicated. It's not as simple as like, okay.
You just snap your fingers you do this and everything else Falls in line because you're there's going to be stuff. You cannot predict and you know, you're going to get power vacuums and you're going to get certain groups and militias and whatever who are going to come in and you know, I've had the rise of Isis and I am no expert on all this stuff, but I can certainly look at it and go this is not simple. This is not this is not a one-size-fits-all. Oh, you just do things and it works. It's very
complicated. But a lot of people think that way and they
Thinkin up over simplified terms and they think in binary like it's got to be this or that and yeah, and that's just not the way the world works and majority of diplomatic relations. And so yeah, I would love to see more more openness on the internet a little less censorship because problem is you could say well child. You took a vote right now a democratic vote in China that I would bet my life savings that they would overwhelmingly.
We like Xi Jinping with overwhelmingly win in a landslide, right? Okay, you know the Communist Party would remain in power just because people looking at like this ability and so how do you know if you think in those terms like how do you give a democratic government to a country? That doesn't want it? You know? Yeah. Yeah
people need to build we need to want it. Yeah people need
one. So yeah, it's it is it's very complicated. And again, I don't think democracy is the best solution or the only solution but you know, there's I think they call it technically.
What will be the label for China would be sort of silica for authoritarian capitalism right now? Sure. It's really it's really how you can communism. That's just another thing. I hear people say, let's just just a bunch of you know, crazy commies running around trying to hold the world while they have an authoritarian structure for sure, but I've lost their own Enterprises, but not all stayed owners of Private Business. The party's all involved in the private businesses as well. But it took its changes like that just don't happen
so quickly.
Lee that's not you know, I spoke to someone recently I did a podcast recently I was talking to a guy who's been to a who's been North Korea and so I will I was talking you know that you don't meet a lot of people have actually been to North Korea. So that was that was a really fascinating my wife went there
without really yeah. She was just some interesting stories. Yeah, everything's choreographed. That's very interesting Yeah, man. So awesome
bikes. So where can people find you
online? Yeah. So on my YouTube and Facebook, it's just
Teacher Mike fear a tiny speaker listening to this. It's Michael Asher. And yeah, I'm trying to social media same thing. If you type my name in like allow shirt, you'll certainly find me on all my Chinese platforms, which are many awesome. So yeah,
hopefully maybe you can help us out by subtitling this video Yeah are getting some getting someone to do it. That would be cool. Right maybe you know, this could reach reach a whole whole different audience if yeah that can be done. That would be dope.
Yeah, yeah, you have to until you have to pay much subtitle everything because they want to make sure they know what you're saying and it's just kind of standard uneven uneven in Chinese because of so many dialects and stuff. It is simple everything.
Awesome Mike. Thank you so much for coming on the show man. It's my pleasure. Really interesting talking to you.
You too. Thanks for having me. No doubt, man. Take
care.
