White Guy Orders in Perfect Chinese, Shocks Patrons and Staff

Submission 18,526

Part of a series on Xiaomanyc. [View Related Entries]

About

White Guy Orders in Perfect Chinese refers to a series of memes that parody the title of a 2020 YouTube video in which YouTuber Xiaomanyc orders food at Chinese restaurants in New York City in Mandarin. In 2021, the video was popularized by a viral comment, with the title then becoming a subject of parodies online.

Origin

On January 20th, 2020, YouTuber^[1] Xiaomanyc uploaded a video titled "Clueless White Guy Orders in Perfect Chinese, Shocks Patrons and Staff" in which he visited several Chinese restaurants in New York City, ordering food and conversing with staff in Chinese, surprising them. The video (shown below) garnered over 86 million views in four years.

On October 27th, 2020, YouTube^[2] user David Xiong (later changed to @MrDkx123) commented that nobody cares for them, an Asian person, ordering at McDonald's in perfect English. The comment received over 50,000 likes on YouTube in four years.

On April 3rd, 2021, Tumblr^[3] user expiredcheese posted a screenshot of the comment, with the post garnering over 29,000 likes and reblogs in three years (shown below).

Spread

The screenshot saw viral spread through reposts in the following years. For example, on April 10th, 2021, the Facebook^[4] page Your Everyday Asian reposted it, with the post garnering over 4,200 reactions and 590 shares (shown below). On June 1st, 2023, X^[5] account @EverythingOOC shared the screenshot, gaining over 20,000 reposts and 364,000 likes in one year.

The title of the video has been a subject of parodies at least since May 2022. On May 29th, 2022, X^[6] user @ProtonInspector posted the earliest notable joke parodying on the title, with the post (shown below) garnering over 1,800 reposts and 29,000 likes in two years.

More similar jokes using the title as a phrasal template were shared on social media in the following years. For example, on December 14th, 2022, X^[7] user @BeerStix posted a joke referencing Avatar that received over 1,100 reposts and 11,000 likes in one year (shown below, left). On June 29th, 2023, X^[8] user @Sturgeons_Law posted a Dune meme that received over 830 reposts and 12,000 likes in nine months (shown below, right).