The once ice cream-wielding John Cena will no longer be "bing chilling" after his 2021 Mandarin mix-up sparked worldwide outrage. Cena recently spoke about his mishap on an episode of "Joe Rogan Experience," and according to "The Never-Seen Seventeen," what was originally a gesture of cultural immersion spiraled into a hard-earned life lesson.
Cena spoke at length about his path to, and eventual fumble with, Chinese. Cena first learned Mandarin in order to establish WWE's presence in China, and once he felt fluent, he forced himself to do 70% of his Chinese appearances in Mandarin. While he was initially successful, his fall from grace was steep.
"At the very end of the day, as with all these press tours, you do a bunch of prompter reads," Cena recalled. "So, I'm doing prompter reads for everywhere. Like, "Hey, go to this place and see this movie. Hey, go to this place and see this movie!" No, my bad, I didn't check the reads, because it was like the end of a ten-hour day, you're doing a million of these things. One of them said, 'Hey, Taiwan, see this-and-this.' And, it was all in Mandarin, and the [prompter] described Taiwan as a country."
One label stoked the geopolitical tensions between mainland China and Taiwan, especially in regards to Taiwan's contested sovereignty. Hostile reactions from Chinese viewers necessitated an apology from Cena. Cena's Mandarin apology, however, elicited the ire of American fans.
"I think I might be the only guy to almost get canceled for doing his homework?" Cena joked. "The cool takeaway: we can learn from every mistake. My mistake was: just because you know the language doesn't mean you know the culture."
Following his fumble in China, Cena is eager to keep his Mandarin skills private, out of his acknowledged ignorance regarding Asian geopolitics. While Cena's "Peacemaker" presence and other projects remained unaffected throughout the controversy, Cena remains cautious when doing global appearances.
"Any time I go anywhere globally now...I really shy away from speaking the language, because I don't understand the cultural nuance," Cena explained.
While Cena called himself fluent in Mandarin, he acknowledged that he was reading in pinyin, a romanized form of Mandarin. While Rogan and others, on air and online, attempted to shift the blame for the incident, Cena ultimately bore responsibility for the fumble.
"It was my fault, and I think that's where I can start to work on: 'Well, what can I learn from this?'" Cena said.
The response from Asia was hard, but the American response felt harsher. While Cena understood the possible American disappointment of their icon "[bowing] down to the demand" of Chinese politics, Cena's main takeaway was unrelated to international affairs.
"Don't be reactive," Cena preached. "Take a breath, find out what's going on. Find out the best path of action. Maybe give it a few days? Maybe give it a hot second? And then, move forward."
