Americans jumping to new app find clever way to connect with Chinese users— by doing their English homework

When Lily Jamali, an American correspondent for BBC News, checked her phone to access TikTok, she realized the app wasn’t available. Instead, the message “Sorry TikTok isn’t available right now” flashed on her screen. Like Lily, over 150 million American TikTok users are now getting the same message on their screens after TikTok was banned in the US. However, instead of enforcing the global divide, the ban has created quite an offbeat and comical scenario. Americans are now flocking to Xiaohongshu, a popular social media app in China.

Also called “Little Red Book” or “RedNote,” the app has become a virtual playground for Americans and Chinese to shake hands, share cat memes, jokes, latte art and strangely enough, get their homework done. “The Chinese people on Xiaohongshu are now asking Americans for help with their English homework,” actress Gina Darling (@missginadarling) wrote in a tweet which has been viewed by over 7 million people ever since.

 With so many fresh views, RedNote is currently a site akin to the location of a digital carnival. Like opposing forces crashing into each other, rabbles of Americans and Chinese people are steering for this app, brutally shattering the government-infused “China’s Great Firewall.” RedNote natives or “red sweetpotatoes” as they call themselves, are sharing everything from “Chinese spy” jokes to requests seeking help for their English homework assignments, as per The Conversation.

 “Hey my homie, could you help me do my homework,” one Chinese wrote, according to a screenshot shared by Darling. The person shared a picture of their English “fill-in-the-blanks” assignment. Another person, probably an English native, replied to them by blotting out their assignment with blue markings revealing the correct answers. Another screenshot shared by Darling shows the screengrab of a multiple-choice question-answer assignment shared by a Chinese person. People responded to them with the correct answers.

It is not just the homework frenzy that is connecting the two nations, but also cute pet photos. Some people are so excited about the emerging oddity that they’re sharing dog pictures to introduce their dog to people from both countries. RedNote, whose default language is Mandarin, is also experiencing an influx of witty introductions posted by excited Americans. A Shanghai-born RedNote user was misidentified as the app’s CEO, triggering a thread of hilarious comments and rib-tickling discussions. He had to post a video to inform people that he was “just a normal guy,” as per The Guardian.

Commenting on Darling’s tweet, @RecordGBA shared a quirky illustration of people exiting the door of TikTok and forming a long spiraling queue at RedNote’s entrance. With adjectives like “wholesome” and “beautiful,” people of both nations seem to be pumped up at this new junction. “This is how we build relations with China if our government’s not going to,” wrote Austin (@flawsom).

The sudden ban has also sparked cross-cultural discussions about grocery stores, everyday lives, Chinese slang and whatnot. "This week, I woke up and my feed was not the usual feed anymore,” Qian Huang, a professor at the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, told The Guardian. “It was all English content. That was a bit of a weird feeling for me.”

The serendipitous turn of events wouldn’t have occurred if the US President hadn’t put this ban on TikTok. The ban was enacted after American lawmakers claimed that it posed a huge risk to America’s national security. The Congress asked TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to either sell its stake in the app or be cut off from the U.S. market. When the app didn’t do anything till the deadline of January 19, 2025, the Supreme Court issued the order for the ban, as per CBS News. But while the legal papers were being signed, no one could have pictured that this ban would act as an unexpected synapse that would end up solidifying the bridge between the two big nations.