From their condominium in Connecticut, Beth Wang and her accomplice watched TikTok go down in mid-January with dread – however rapidly discovered a brand new supply of leisure and human connection on the Chinese language app RedNote.
Ms. Wang, a local Kansan who has by no means set foot in China, flocked to the social media platform together with an estimated 700,000 American “TikTok refugees” after the U.S. authorities moved to ban TikTok over nationwide safety issues. RedNote, or Xiaohongshu (actually, “little purple guide” in Chinese language), is one in every of China’s greatest social media platforms, with an estimated 300 million customers in China – a lot of whom welcomed the Individuals with heat and curiosity.
Interactions started a lot as one would anticipate from an abrupt assembly of strangers who largely don’t communicate the identical language. Fundamental questions had been posed; images of cats had been shared. However conversations between the Chinese language hosts and their American friends have rapidly deepened, difficult biases on each side.
Why We Wrote This
Individuals’ rush to the favored Chinese language app RedNote opened a window between two starkly totally different worlds – at the least for a time – permitting for sudden discoveries.
“You’ve got a really natural and really genuine change of individuals’s ideas on a selected challenge” on RedNote that creates a way of neighborhood, says Ivy Yang, founding father of Wavelet Technique, a New York-based consulting agency. “That’s the magic of Xiaohongshu.”
The “TikTok refugees” and Chinese language RedNote customers are self-selected teams not wholly consultant of their respective nations – and posting on RedNote is each curated and monitored by Chinese language authorities. However the encounters represent a uncommon direct publicity of Chinese language and American individuals to 1 one other. At a time when journey between the nations stays beneath prepandemic ranges, this might inject some recent vitality into strained United States-China ties, says Ms. Yang, who has experience in Chinese language know-how firms. If such interactions encourage extra Individuals to journey to China, she says, “It might be an enormous win.”
Empathy for Individuals
Individuals migrated to RedNote to observe their favourite accounts from TikTok and protest the U.S. ban, making RedNote briefly the No. 1 downloaded social networking app within the Apple retailer earlier than it fell again to No. 13 this week.
RedNote combines most of the options of different standard social media platforms, exhibiting customers an algorithmically generated feed of images, movies, and dialog matters.
Plunging into translated conversations with individuals from throughout China, Ms. Wang explored a rustic she knew little about, regardless that her grandmother immigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong within the Fifties. “This inundation of up to date Chinese language tradition has been so cool,” she says.
As Ms. Wang dove in, greater than 7,400 miles away in China’s japanese metropolis of Hangzhou, Melody, the inventive director of a Chinese language promoting agency, was curiously watching the Individuals flood into her RedNote area.
“Welcome to my nice nation!” Melody wrote in a put up, sharing a photograph montage of her travels in China and providing to assist the U.S. arrivals navigate RedNote.
“They quickly discovered that sharing movies of their cats, crops, and kids might rapidly achieve the eye of Chinese language netizens,” says Melody, who withheld her full identify to guard her privateness. The Chinese language helped make up Chinese language names for the Individuals, and everybody traded photos of house streets, dwelling rooms, and lunches.
As we speak Chinese language and American customers proceed to pepper one another with primary questions, aided by RedNote’s new translation instrument. They eagerly examine notes on all the pieces from working hours, wages, costs, and scholar debt, to meals, popular culture, and relationship.
As conversations moved from superficial to deep, Melody discovered herself connecting with individuals within the U.S. who had been struggling. “I inspired and comforted a number of Individuals who had been going by way of robust occasions,” she says. She met individuals who had been unemployed, or had been elevating kids with disabilities. A farmer in rural America described the hardships of his life – a revelation for Melody.
“One of the important shocks for me from TikTok refugees is the psychological trauma that atypical Individuals appear to be experiencing,” she says.
Discovering widespread floor regardless of censors
For her half, Ms. Wang additionally discovered a caring, empathetic atmosphere on RedNote, which in China is understood for having predominantly feminine customers with increased ranges of schooling. Journey suggestions, restaurant critiques, and vogue and make-up recommendation are standard matters on the platform. China’s RedNote customers even joke that they don’t name one another “bro” as a result of they’re basically a “matriarchal society.”
“It’s the most humane type of web area I’ve ever been on,” she says, calling it “uplifting.”
To make certain, a part of this is because of censorship, which Chinese language RedNote customers warned their new American pals about. “Reminder: On Chinese language social media platforms, please don’t point out delicate matters corresponding to politics, faith and medicines!!!” one particular person posted.
Some Individuals reported having their content material blocked or accounts suspended for materials deemed delicate by RedNote, as content material moderators management what the Chinese language viewers can see. A search on RedNote for Xi Jinping, China’s chief, comes up clean.
“Clearly it’s curated and has loads of strict pointers on what you possibly can and may’t put up,” says Ms. Wang. “However these restrictions don’t preserve individuals from this actually cool type of cultural interchanges.”
For instance, she’s linked with girls who’re planning their weddings in China – and has marveled on the similarities as she plans her personal marriage within the U.S.
“The brides within the feedback are all like, ‘It’s so exhausting to discover a reside band that’s inexpensive and likewise good,’” says Ms. Wang. “I’m like, ‘Ladies in America are having that drawback!’ The largest message I’ve gotten on this app is our sameness.” She plans not solely to stay with RedNote, but in addition to study Chinese language and journey to China.
Nonetheless, Individuals and Chinese language generally conflict on the platform. Xiaoxiao, a Chinese language RedNote consumer from Sichuan province who’s at present finding out for a grasp’s diploma overseas, describes debates breaking out, together with over perceived racism. Individuals are far more attuned to racial identification, she says, whereas China is a extra homogeneous nation, resulting in misunderstandings.
“I suppose this gained’t final too lengthy, as a result of there are nonetheless basic methods we’re totally different,” she says, asking to withhold her full identify to guard her privateness.
Certainly, with TikTok returning to U.S. telephones, and RedNote reportedly dashing to rent English-speaking content material moderators, some predict this comparatively open line of communication between the 2 nations might show fleeting.
However Melody isn’t disheartened. “Let’s take this chance to make as many new pals as attainable,” she says.
