China: Is Sexy Mandarin a Foul Language?

Attention American horn-dogs! Want to learn Mandarin? Enjoy ogling half-naked Chinese women? Great! Now you can learn Mandarin and be titillated by lingerie models all in the privacy of your own home. Forget about the difficulties of this complicated language. Sexy Mandarin’s “teachers” seek to instruct and entertain you. Soft porn, it turns out, can be used to stimulate more than just your primal instincts. You can be more than just an average horn-dog. You’re now a horn-dog that knows how to speak several phrases in Mandarin!

With China’s booming economy, Americans are trying to get their hands inside Chinese pockets. And language, of course, is essential for doing business. But most foreigners shy away from Mandarin because of the language’s difficulty. Enter the Sexy Mandarin YouTube channel. Under the name “The MandarinLearner,” and based in Hong Kong, the business hopes to be a game-changer. Today, this channel has 3,276 subscribers and 1,399,026 views, becoming a cyberspace phenomenon.

In each video, Sexy Mandarin teaches everyday phrases with their unconventional method of using sex as a tool to help viewers learn. The actresses sport revealing lingerie, use suggestive body language, and speak in a sensual manner that’s hard to ignore. The creators even use interesting story lines to keep short attention spans tuned in. All production elements point to a porn-like experience, including the music, lighting, story, makeup and wardrobe.

If you’re serious about learning Mandarin, we don’t suggest using Sexy Mandarin. This program seems to prioritize sex appeal above actual instruction. Lessons are not very methodical, organized instead around “interesting” and “unforgettable” story lines. In other words, each lesson plan revolves around subjects males would presumably find entertaining, such as Lesson 4 “I’m so hot” and Lesson 5 “I’m Thirsty.” The tools required to teach a language are almost entirely absent, such as Chinese radicals, slow-paced pronunciation, or the explanation of characters. There is no repetitiveness of time allotted to ingrain the language. Instead, what is instilled are the arousing images of sexy teachers. Viewers are undoubtedly driven to the films to drool over the scarcely clad women, at the expense of the little Chinese instruction each video provides.

More importantly, the social implications of these videos are a serious concern. The Sexy Mandarin channel is not doing a public service for the status of women. Instead, it hyper-sexualizes and objectifies the female body, capitalizing on the fetishism of Asian women.

There are better programs such as Rosetta Stone that can help you master Mandarin, with genuine depth and rigor. If you are only interested in getting aroused, go back to your porn.

2 Replies to “China: Is Sexy Mandarin a Foul Language?”

  1. 1) Ms. Luo, you are quick to defend the stereotyping of Asian women, yet you conclude your blog by stereotyping males– “If you are only interested in getting aroused, go back to your porn.”
    You seem to conclude that the audience of these videos consist only of porn-watching, non-Chinese males. If SexyMandarin insults Asian women, your comments just insulted Western men.

    2) Males, as well as females, are minimized to sex objects in Western markets. These stereotypes are harmful to male mental health as well as female mental health.

    3) The Asian female actresses are paid to act in these videos–they are not sex slaves. They suffer no risks of acquiring HIV or other sexual diseases in the workplace–no sex acts are required. The work is safe and the ladies are paid.

    4) SexyMandarin.com certainly must create curiosity about the Chinese language in some men. It did for me, and now I have moved to more academic resources to continue with my Mandarin education.

    5) Sexually marketing Asian women creates more of a demand for Asian women internationally. As a result, more men pursue Asian women and Asian women have more male partners to choose from, which allows Asian women to be more selective with their partner or mate.

    Ms. Luo, this seems to be an academic website, so please back up your arguments with more logic or more data. I was offended by your post as a male.

    Thanks

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