Asian American YouTube star RiceGum recently shared a video about his two-day trip to Hong Kong with fellow YouTube prankster M2THAK. That video has not been terribly well-received in HK with RiceGum asking questions like “Where the hoes at,” Where can I find some doggie,” and whether a massage place offers “happy endings.”
Throughout the video, the YouTuber with over 10 million subscribers expresses his desire to “try new things,” asking restaurants if they serve “doggie” and “meow meow,” despite the fact that eating dog and cat meat has been prohibited in Hong Kong since 1954, punishable by up to 30 days’ imprisonment.
“Is that dog or something? That shit looks disgusting,” he says while shooting footage of beef entrails, a local favorite.
Meanwhile, RiceGum’s sidekick M2THAK also wasn’t much of hit in Hong Kong either, seen inappropriately touching people’s hands on the escalator and rearranging mannequins into obscene positions at a retail store.
RiceGum, whose real name is Bryan Le, is of Vietnamese descent. When people failed to recognize him after he repeatedly asked strangers “You know who RiceGum is?” he explained how he wanted this to serve as a message to all those who leave racist comments on his channel. “So stop commenting ‘Go back to China,’ because like I don’t even belong here,” he said. “I really took a flight all the way here just to show you guys like it doesn’t even make sense.”
Unsurprisingly, many netizens have criticized RiceGum’s offensive travelogue. Some even compared him to another infamous YouTuber, Logan Paul, who once joked about a dead man’s body at Japan’s “Suicide Forest.”
In response to the overwhelming backlash, RiceGum posted a video titled “Why Everyone in China Hates Me” on June 26th. In the video, he was upset about the way that Chinese media had allegedly mistranslated his video, explaining that the words “hoes,” “thots,” and “bitches” really just mean “girls” in American slang, not “prostitutes” as suggested by the media.
He then “sincerely” apologized for his actions in Hong Kong, claiming that he thought he was allowed to make Asian jokes simply because he is Asian. He then went on to emphasize that people are being too sensitive over his jokes and that he does not find his own actions disrespectful.
Perhaps RiceGum’s next video should be a trip to mainland China in collaboration with Explorer Nick.
