Mat Dan: 'I became an accidental celebrity 6,000 miles from home' | Hacker News Reader

Mat Dan: 'I became an accidental celebrity 6,000 miles from home'

bbc.co.uk

79 pointsamaccuish51 comments

See also the case of "Da Shan" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashan, who is supposedly the most famous Canadian in the world by dint of his mega-celebrity status in China.

He wrote an amazing Quora note a while ago on his position: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-so-many-Chinese-learners-seem-t...

Well worth reading in its entirety.

The level of self criticism, self awareness and frankness is inspiring.

Damn, he really sounds like a person worth getting a beer with.

Reminds me of the Canadian guy in Vietnam. My Vietnamese speaking friends say his pronunciation is better than many Vietnamese.

https://learnvietnamesewithlinh.wordpress.com/2013/12/27/joe...

A couple of personal anecdotes:

When I took a VC internship in the Philippines during the summer, one of the big pop stars was an American Filipino. We had a convo at the bar he owned—turns out he was a SoCal boy like me, and got tired of going to school at Devry, so he moved to the motherland and got famous.

When I visited Norway for the first time, I saw a girl whose presence really floored me. As she was leaving the club, I followed her out. Turns out she was a pop star as well, and liked me for my American-ness.

I think with the right presence, it’s not as hard as one might think if you’re from an OECD country.

What’s the name of the first pop start who owned the bar?

I forget his name, but the bar was Rock Candy in Glorietta. His face was plastered on a billboard advertising cell service. Really kind guy.

And, do could you also have anything to do with a city in the Horn of Africa? Your username kind of sounds that.

It’s an old nickname! Given to me by a very clever friend

Nice story! A good read to start off Monday morning.

Off topic, but one of the really beautiful things about this planet we live in is the diverse cultures.

It's fascinating to see a white or black person make it big in an Asian country; in the startup sense, does this mean their ethnic and skin color became their USP and advantage? The same thing I've seen happen when a black or white person show up in talk shows in S. Korea, Japan, and China. Oh, let's not forget Jonny Olsen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNm7k2PUGzI =)

The saying goes, you're only limited by your thinking 〰️ think big!

A kind of generalized Asian version of 'big in Japan'.

Learning the local's language is THE way to become in good favour of those who live there. When I'm travelling for more than a few days I learn "hello" and "Sorry, I don't speak x language" which usually gets a smile and I can then politely ask if they speak english. I used to learn enough to read a menu but these days I get lazy with Google translate (which is incredible, when you use it in real-life. Hands down, digital translation is one of my favourite technologies)

It's super obvious in Hong Kong, speak English and you get the world class indifferent service HK is famous for. Speak Mandarin and you get even worse. Speak a bit of Cantonese as a foreigner and everyone is all smiles and you get better service than locals :)

It's also in my opinion basic courtesy. You are a guest in their country, at least try to learn how to say hello and thank you.

I disagree, English is fast becoming (already is?) the global language. It makes sense to standardise on English instead of learning hundreds of different languages (which is no easy task).

English is woefully inadequate to capture cultural nuances of a lot of places in this blue-green spinny ball though

I grew up multi lingual before moving to the US and there are still several things that i have to say "well, there's no word for that in English but it's kind of xyz". There are so many ideas, thoughts and feelings that cannot be captured with the English language presently.

Of course every language has that issue across borders so I'm not convinced standardizing in english as a global language will bring enough benefit to be worth the cost

I think that's unfair, just because there is no direct or succinct translation doesn't mean the same thought cannot be expressed, it's just that it needs to be more verbose perhaps.

It is also incredibly open to new ideas and words, best put by James Nicoll >The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

Either you haven't gone many places, or you did so with a special kind of insensitivity. People all over the place have cultures and languages that is part of their identity. When you bulldoze over that and just use english without any further bother, these people feel that you rob them of who they are, that you attempt to commoditize them as an interchangeable people that just happens to be present in these lands.

That's my excuse, but I know it's an excuse (and not a reason) for not learning a different language.

I do however learn and use the pleasantries of any local language because that's just good manners.

> A lot of people say they know hundreds of foreign workers who come over here and speak Malay in two or three months and they don't turn into a celebrity

Can you really speak a language sufficiently well in 3 months, especially when you are there to work on something potentially unrelated to language ?

My mother's family are from Malaysia (from the Terengganu mention in the article) and I've been told by a couple of people there that Malay is a pretty easy language to pick up and that foreigners can learn it pretty quickly.

Yes, Bahasa can be learned very, very quickly, it uses the Latin alphabet, words are written how they are spoken and vice-versa, verbs are never conjugated nor do they have tenses and the grammar is simple (e.g. plurals are created by simply doubling the words, like rumah, house, becomes rumah-rumah, houses, which in written form is abbreviated to rumah²).

My father used to joke you can learn Bahasa in three weeks, English in three months, and German in three years.

I've no clue about the Terengganu dialect, though.

It's my third language, and I've never needed it professionally, so I whatever I've said may not be 100% accurate...

Source: Am half Malay, lived there for nine years, around the KL area.

People called any malay or Indonesian language "bahasa" really bother me, bahasa means language, so if you tell people "i speak in bahasa", literally translated to "i speak in language", sounds really weird to me

I've often heard locals refer it to nothing more than "Bahasa", but yes, correctly you'd have to say "Bahasa Malaysia" or "Bahasa Indonesia", which can get umbrellad to "Bahasa Melayu", but that then sometimes offends the Indonesians, so I'm sticking to "Bahasa". My previous comment is valid for both.

Since we're nitpicking: People calling any Malay or Indonesian language "Bahasa" really bothers me, Bahasa means language, so if you tell people "I speak Bahasa", literally translated to "I speak language", it/that sounds really weird to me. (Personally, I find that beautiful. If nothing else is specified, it "defaults" to itself, how awesome is that?)

There's Dustin Luke from the States in Argentina, too. Obviously, the cultural difference is much lower

This is awesome! I can't wait for the movie

From the article.

"'What's the difference between Mat Dan and a Bangladeshi worker who can speak Malay?'"

Mat is white whereas Bangladeshi people are black. Malay people worship white skin and thus they even give money to beg-packing white people who exploit this to travel South East Asia for free. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEGFARCfQUU In fact, Mat himself was one of those. "Rather than just spending his time travelling with Western backpackers".

This is true and all, but he doesn't just speak standard Malaysian, he speaks Terengganu Malay. Having white skin is a necessary but not sufficient condition for fame.

> standard Malaysian, he speaks Terengganu Malay.

I have visited Terengganu. The Malay spoken in Terengganu is the same as the Malay spoken elsewhere. It would the equivalent of saying Arkansas English versus American English.

I am from Terengganu. And yes people in Terengganu can speak standard Malay, but among themselves they speak a different dialect, which is very different. People from other parts of Malaysia often have difficulty understanding it. It’s more like Scottish to English I would say.

I too have visited Terengganu. Your impression of the language vs standard Bahasa is far off the mark. Wikipedia says:

> Terengganu Malay is one of the most aberrant from all the Malay varieties in the Peninsular along with Kelantan-Pattani Malay and developed a distinct phonetic, syntactic and lexical distinctions which makes it mutually unintelligible for speakers from outside the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

People from areas quite far away are aware of this, such as the KL shopkeeper mentioned in the article who could not understand its protagonist.

I'm pretty sure "mutually unintelligible" is putting it too strongly. My partner is from Malaysia, but from KL not Terengganu, and we were in Terengganu visiting my relatives there earlier this year and I'm pretty sure she was able to understand the Malay spoken there fairly well.

UPDATE (writing this in a separate comment because I can no longer edit my original one): I've had a chance now to ask her about it, and she said that she can't speak or understand the Terengganu Malay. When she was in Terengganu she could communicate fine in Malay with people, but that was because they were communicating in the "standard" Malay.

>In fact, Mat himself was one of those. "Rather than just spending his time travelling with Western backpackers".

That quote doesn't support your statement.

>Mat is white whereas Bangladeshi people are black. Malay people worship white skin and thus they even give money to beg-packing white people who exploit this to travel South East Asia for free.

It's much simpler: Bangladeshi workers speaking Malay are a dime a dozen. Westerners learning a minority language in Malaysia are relatively few and far between. Millions of whites visit Malaysia as tourists but they don't become celebrities.

It's also not about "worshipping white skin", but about being amused and/or feeling validated by the western internet.

Finally, the protest against western backpackers asking from money (a recent fad protest in some countries) is irrelevant to this particular story.

> the protest against western backpackers asking from money (a recent fad protest in some countries) is irrelevant to this particular story.

There's a term for that, it is called beg-packing. It is not irrelevant as it has been suggested in the comments that Mat was originally a beg packer. The article itself states that he was a back packer travelling South East Asia. http://www.popularyoutube.com/video/HYkgwRJvc2s/Dear-White-B...

> It's also not about "worshipping white skin", but about being amused and/or feeling validated by the western internet.

Thank you for clarifying. I'm using the term worshipping perhaps to oversimplify "feeling validated when a white person gives attention/time". And yes, it is about skin color, as a Western black person who is fluent in Malay would not get any attention.

>There's a term for that, it is called beg-packing. It is not irrelevant as it has been suggested in the comments that Mat was originally a beg packer.

I mean not relevant as in "there are tons of beg packers and hardly any raise to any fame with local populations".

I've been in Malaysia several times and in the general area. It's not like there's any work shipping of whites, much less white beg packers, going on, waiting for someone to speak the language to ignite...

>* Thank you for clarifying. I'm using the term worshipping perhaps to oversimplify "feeling validated when a white person gives attention/time".*

Well, that I agree could play part. Tho that's the same often happens in white places, e.g. in my Eastern / Southern European land, western validation is often celebrated -- so I wouldn't say it's tied to skin color.

I backpacked around South East Asia circa 2006-2008, I really didn't see much if any beg-packing going on back then, back then SEA was considerably cheaper than it is now as well.

I have no knowledge of whether he did or didn't, but it really seems like a much more recent phenomena (and I think those doing it are contemptible frankly).

> Millions of whites visit Malaysia as tourists but they don't become celebrities.

You've misunderstood the point. Here's a simple proof. A Western black person speaking Malay fluently would not get the attention or celebrity that Mat gets. That proves that it is about worshipping white skin.

>Here's a simple proof. A Western black person speaking Malay fluently would not get the attention or celebrity that Mat gets. That proves that it is about worshipping white skin.

Well, doesn't that presuppose what it tries to prove? How do we know that a "western black person speaking Malay fluently would not get the attention or celebrity that Mat gets"? Part of the story is that it came from a viral hit, which are flukes, and so not necessarily representative...

Second, even if so, couldn't it also be because a black person is not as much associated with the West to Malays (since the West's own cultural industry/history has traditionally been showcasing whites as its main representatives) -- as opposed to some "worshipping of white skin" in itself?

Did you A/B test?

Seriously though, I think you are possibly correct but it may also be unfairly projecting the racism of our society onto someone else's.

Funny how cultural appropriation works sometimes

That's why I don't understand why it's used as a negative term. It's entirely up to the subject culture how it reacts.

There are differences though. A person learning a Cree language to use it is going to get a different reaction than a person wearing an faux Indian headdress at a party.

It's still up to the culture how they treat different ways of honoring it.

As an example I've seen personally: someone learning German to use it is going to be treated very similarly to someone wearing a dirndl for fun.

Takeo Ishi is one of the big yodelers. Rest assured he is not an ethnic German. As someone who has learnt German to use it, I have never encountered what you describe, except that one never tries German outside of Germany.

I'm not sure what you've encountered, but I meant that Germans don't care, and wearing traditional dress to a party is not going to shock them much. If anything, it may provoke them to join the party. Therefore, there's nothing inherent about negative reactions from a person of an in-group when someone from the out-group is trying out some of their customs.

This is not cultural appropriation, this is "cultural integration"

Instead of comin' over and being "the american" (what all people are called in Asia), he actually made an effort to integrate.

There's no appropriation here. He's what all expats should strive to be.

That word you used, I don't think you know what it means.

Appropriation is when you take something (often by deceit, lies or force) and (this is the important part) call it your own.

Had he for instance learned Terenggaun food, clothing, habits, or any part of the culture, returned to the UK and announced all of it as something he came up with, that would be cultural appropriation.

OTOH, what he has done -- given himself up to it ("I'm more Malay than English.") would be described, as why-oh-why points out, cultural integration.

Cultural appropriation really doesn't mean claiming you came up with something. It's a fairly broad term but a recurring issue is when a cultural element is used in ways incompatible with or insulting to it's original meaning. So for example a head dress or garment meant to signify ritual purity becoming a common thing to wear while getting drunk at frat parties.

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