Watch Chinese restaurant staff's delight when Pentatonix singer speaks in perfect Mandarin
They were NOT expecting that.
Kevin Olusola (far right) has a viral video that has nothing to do with music.
Even though the world has seemingly shrunk due to transportation and technology connecting people like never before, we still regularly encounter major barriers when it comes to language. There are around 7,000 officially known languages in the world, and most people don't speak more than one or two. If you've ever tried to communicate with someone when neither of you speak each other's language, you know how frustrating it can be.
But the reverse is also true. When you're in another country and unexpectedly encounter someone who speaks your language, it's a refreshing and delightful surprise. Americans are pretty familiar with that experience, as it's not uncommon to find people who speak English in other countries, but that's not the case for everyone.
It's especially not the case for Chinese people living in the U.S., where only around 1% of people speak Chinese at home, and those numbers are split between Mandarin, Cantonese and other dialects. Finding an American who comfortably speaks Mandarin is a rarity, which is why a video of employees of a Chinese restaurant reacting to a customer doing just that has gone viral.
That customer is musician Kevin Olusola, most well known as one of the vocalists in the a cappella group Pentatonix. Olusola was picking up some food at Okome Asian Grill in his home state of Kentucky when he surprised the crew by responding to them in Mandarin, and their reaction was sheer surprise and delight.
Watch:
Olusola shared in the comments that it meant a lot to him and filled his heart when the woman said, "You're one of us."
He joked in the video about being born and raised in Beijing, but he actually only lived there and studied Chinese for a year and a half. But as he said, he loved the language and put his "whole heart" into studying it. And apparently, however he learned it was incredibly effective.
"As a native Chinese speaker I need people to realize how amazing this is: not only is he speaking Chinese fluently and pretty quickly, he's also slurring certain words/speaking in a certain accent, using sentence patterns, and using phrases that's specific to Beijing: he is literally in every sense speaking like a Beijing locals, it's so cool to see 😍" shared one commenter.
Another commenter explained what he said after "The food is" in the video: "Se Xiang Wei Ju Quan, literally 'colour,' 'aroma,' 'taste,' 'complete,' the first three are the three basic requirements of well made food in the philosophy of Chinese cooking, so essentially it means 'Your food is amazing, it looks good, smells good and tastes good.'"
Another person wrote, "I’ve been watching videos like this on YouTube..it’s always so interesting. Once that language barrier comes down we are so much alike." That comment hit home for Olusola and he responded to it with another video.
"Once language barriers go down you realize that we're all alike—that statement resonates so deeply with me," he said. "I remember living in Beijing and hanging out with my Chinese friends, speaking to them in Chinese, and once the language barrier was down I realized that they had the same hopes, dreams and fears that I had…I think that's why empathy and understanding are so embedded in language learning."
Empathy and understanding really are the key to shared humanity. Ideally, one day we will have a universal language that we all learn to speak in addition to our native tongues, so that we won't have to navigate those language barriers that artificially separate us. But in the meantime, learning another culture's language can be a bridge that unites people in moments of delight like this one.
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.