Comment by itake
2 hours ago
I asked a Vietnamese woman if she wanted to play board games at a cafe with me.
She got very upset and stormed off. 2 hours later, she messaged me: "sorry, I was rude, but I will not go to the casino with you."
Common language, culture, and context makes a more peaceful world.
If this happened, you didn't put in the effort to learn to speak Vietnamese well enough. Or she didn't speak your language well enough.
"Common language, culture, and context makes a more peaceful world" is such a ridiculous and abhorrent thing to say I can't even keep writing here.
Edit: Then again, I just saw this post you wrote: https://www.kcoleman.me/2026/01/28/when-everything-becomes-n...
Your last line there - "Instead, in 2026 I want to restore contrast." So I can't tell if you're joking now because those words and this comment are at stark odds.
As others have touched on, you're applying black and white thinking on what should be a gradient.
Artists and scientists have famously been prosecuted for different communication.
But at the same time, communication gaps also resulted in millions of deaths.
Unifying language/culture/etc enables the "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Europe knows this (see formulation of the EU). Asia knows this (China's camps, Japan&Korea's immigration policies).
Its not this or that.
Either your phrasing is really odd, or you are sincerely promoting China's Uyghur 'reeducation' camps as being sensible for the greater good.
Europe meanwhile, in case you are unaware, is all about unity through culture, but the EU does this by celebrating its diversity (as well as actively protecting minority languages), not by Gleichschaltung.
>ridiculous and abhorrent
Why such an adverse reaction? Nothing about what they said seems abhorrent! It's a common/usual positive sentiment, like "Understanding things give life meaning", etc.
Because getting "common language and culture" is not neutral when we reside in a world that basically this works with american culture being the global culture. Honestly imo this is a kind of perspective that only an american could have, and being ignorant about what it actually entails. You do not need everybody else to adopt a certain language and way of living to get to understand each other and have peace.
Moreover as other examples here given, geopolitical tensions very often appear between neighbours who have a very similar culture, so sharing cultural similarities does not seem to lead to much of peace in the world.
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Not the OP but I guess the statement implied cultural and lingual unification which implies erasure of other cultures and languages. We do have to work on being understood across the cultural and lingual division but the differences should be celebrated and welcome, even if they do cause occasional misunderstandings.
My SO is Vietnamese and a Bac Si trained in Japan and here, and even she has made similar ESL mistakes.
Some of the tools and dictionaries used for Viet-English are wonky, and depending on when they were educated the English teachers were either unqualified backpackers or some grifter who opened an English tutoring center (oftentimes one and the same).
And coming from a language with little overlap with Indo-European languages and roots makes it a very alien experience (and the same in reverse as well).
I don't know where "here" is, but yes, translation can be hard. That's fine. It doesn't mean we can't get along or have a peaceful world full of diversity in language and culture. We just need to get better at nuance and understanding.
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> Some of the tools and dictionaries used for Viet-English are wonky
There's basically no real complete English/Viet dictionary anyways, the best ones are 90% there.
LLMs here are the best experience
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It also makes a boring one. Friction is where interesting experiences, stories, and cultures are born.
The friction in my story resulted in 2 unhappy people, a relationship lost, when what should have been fun experience for both.
> Common language, culture, and context makes a more peaceful world.
As a South Korean - well, considering that my country once went through an existential war against our mortal enemies, the other Koreans ...
Common language and culture doesn't stop hate. Sometimes it just means that your insult will land on your target perfectly as intended.
Vietnam (and the USA) also famously had civil wars as well :)