u/godofcertamen

Subverting expectations is so satisfying

I'm a Mexican immigrant in Alabama and grew up here. It wasn't until 2022 when I decided to perfect my Spanish as a heritage speaker and learn Portuguese. Then when I got pretty fluent in Portuguese, I began learning Mandarin in Oct 2023.

It's now been over 2.5 years/1050 hours logged. I've been to China too! (Last July 2025). Anyway, I went to visit family in Birmingham, and we went to a Chinese restaurant. I didn't use my Mandarin at first, but when my brothers and I sat down, they asked why I didn't. I took it as a challenge and used it when the waitress came. (My brothers had never seen this irl) so they were shocked. The waitress was also super surprised since you'd never expect a random Mexican to know Chinese 😂. She got super happy and excited and asked a lot of questions. My brother also said some other Mexican customers behind me were flabbergasted I could speak Chinese as well and just stared.

Stuff like this just makes me even more motivated to keep going. It's the best feeling - pulling out an ability that no one would expect you to have 😂. I could understand and be understood in the entire convo with the Chinese waitress, and I felt really happy. Right now I can usually understand and read 80%-85% of general topics in Chinese. Last year in June, that was around maybe 45-55%. I've been grinding out the practice, taking two lessons a week of pure conversational practice too.

Anyway, I was just super happy. I also got a Rednote account where I only post in Chinese Mandarin and have nearly 3k followers. It's been very rewarding learning the language!

I'm a Mexican immigrant in Alabama and grew up here. It wasn't until 2022 when I decided to perfect my Spanish as a heritage speaker and learn Portuguese. Then when I got pretty fluent in Portuguese, I began learning Mandarin in Oct 2023.

It's now been over 2.5 years/1050 hours logged. I've been to China too! (Last July 2025). Anyway, I went to visit family in Birmingham, and we went to a Chinese restaurant. I didn't use my Mandarin at first, but when my brothers and I sat down, they asked why I didn't. I took it as a challenge and used it when the waitress came. (My brothers had never seen this irl) so they were shocked. The waitress was also super surprised since you'd never expect a random Mexican to know Chinese 😂. She got super happy and excited and asked a lot of questions. My brother also said some other Mexican customers behind me were flabbergasted I could speak Chinese as well and just stared.

Stuff like this just makes me even more motivated to keep going. It's the best feeling - pulling out an ability that no one would expect you to have 😂. I could understand and be understood in the entire convo with the Chinese waitress, and I felt really happy. Right now I can usually understand and read 80%-85% of general topics in Chinese. Last year in June, that was around maybe 45-55%. I've been grinding out the practice, taking two lessons a week of pure conversational practice too.

Anyway, I was just super happy. I also got a Rednote account where I only post in Chinese Mandarin and have nearly 3k followers. It's been very rewarding learning the language!

I got RU152, though I am a northern Mexican born in Coahuila. This is fascinating because this haplogroup only accounts for 5% of the population in Iberia. It is not a Spanish or Iberian haplogroup but rather a prevailing one from northern Italy, Switzerland, and parts of France.

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R-DF27 is what makes up more than half the YDNA subclades in Iberia. This makes me want to eventually take the big YDNA test from FamilyTreeDNA to find out more. Tracing my paternal line genealogically, it takes me back to 1768 in Ciudad del Maize, San Luis Potosí. A man named Pascual de los Reyes Zapata married Estefania Rosa Gonzalez. Pascual is listed as a "Lobo" or someone of indigenous and African descent. Though the caste system was more fluid, so he had to have had a European ancestor further on down the line.

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It makes me wonder if during the colonial era an Italian origin soldier came to New Spain since Spain controlled parts of Italy at the time, or if this haplogroup comes from the Roman conquest of Iberia millenia ago.

I've had a lot of videos play across my Instagram feed of Mexican women kissing Korean men on the street during the world cup festivities. As a Mexican, I gotta say - the kpop stuff has really done some influencing 😂, it's clear as day:

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https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZxMyvmyZnv/?igsh=MXVpb283NmRoa2IzaQ==

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As for that one Mexican guy that went viral for being racist to the Korean influencer, Inocat, he was fired from his job and suffered mass condemnation from Mexicans online.

Hypothetically, if 15 Golds with their standard kit of pulseArmor, razor, pulserifle, and grav boots fought 13 Elites, 1 Hunter, and 1 Brute from Halo - who do you guys think would come out on top?

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The Covenant have plasma rifles, some shields that can get overloaded, a plasma cannon for the Hunter, and the Brute would have a gravity hammer. Let's say this happened in an open plain on Mars like at the Institute.