PJ2—Network

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🌧 What’s your name? Can you tell me a brief introduction of yourself and your background?

🌱 Hi, my name is Grace, I’m a graphic design student here at CCA. And I am 22 years old!

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🌧 How many languages do you speak? What are they?

🌱 I speak Mandarin, Cantonese, and English. I learned a little bit of Spanish but uhm… not really fluent with it anymore.

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🌧 Emojis are regarded by many as a universal language, something that could be understood regardless of your languages. Do you think this is true?

🌱 I think so… especially among younger generation. But then when it’s like across different generations. Like when I use emojis to talk to my parents, I think that’s when it doesn’t become a universal language. Because it would hint at the similar things but we might… the younger generation might have a different interpretation of it. It might be more sarcastic, but then for our parents, it’s just a nice, cute smiley face. I think there’s a lot of that. The younger generation uses emojis to add another meaning behind it. Especially with the, you know, peaches and what… the eggplant! Exactly, if I say that to my parents, they would just interpret it as an actual… like what it is. But… obviously, the young people, we kind of know it’s signaling something else. I think at some degree it is a universal language, but then… at some other degree, not really.

🤔

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🌧 Among the languages that you speak, or the cultures you’ve been in contact with, do you think emojis are used and interpreted differently in different languages and culture?

🌱 Hmm, I think… also, emojis… it depends on what system you’re using. People with android, or different… or even when you’re on different platforms, they have different customized emojis. I think like Weibo, which is like kinda Twitter of China, they have their own set of emojis. And some people use it as… like there are certain ones that people use a little bit more, that doesn’t have something equivalent in Apple.

So I think there’s something about that, depending on what platform that each culture is dominantly using. There’s some differences across that. Yeah!

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🌧 What’s your favourite expression, meme, or slang in your mother tongue? Try to explain it in emojis.

🌱 Huh… I feel like I need to think a little bit through this.

Oh, there’s one called “得闲饮茶”, which is like “if you’re free, let’s drink some tea”. Cause Cantonese speaking people, they have tea with their dimsum, they have tea with… like just in their daily life! It’s telling people to like, relax, and then if you have free time, come hang out!

I feel like would use this, the green tea emoji, but then I would also use one that’s like… I don’t know, what makes me look kinda free and relaxed? Hmm, let’s go through some faces… Sunglasses, maybe? Uhm… haha, I want to use this. I think it’s like acting cute.

When you’re free, come drink tea with me!

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🌧 I have a story written in emojis here. Can you try to translate it? 👧🏼➡️🐇🏃‍♀️🕳️ ⬇️🌍🎩🐛🫖🍄 👧🏼🔄⬆️⬇️😱👑❤️ 👧🏼⚖️👑➡️💭💤

🌱 A girl is going to a rabbit hole? And then, I went down to… (long pause)… I want to say that this is Africa. I went down to Africa and play magic, with caterpillar?! And tea… Bug… Caterpillar, tea, and mushroom. And then… I turned around and went upside down, and got really scared, but I’m a Queen, and I love… I have a big heart. So I weighed… the crown? This is a scale right? So I weighed the crown, and then I went back to sleep?!

(Alice in Wonderland revealed)

Oh hahahaa, okay, yeah yeah. Oh this is the Queen of heart. I see, I see. Oh, the court! What did I even say?

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🌧 What’s your name? Can you tell me a brief introduction of yourself and your background?

🦄 My name is Andrea Manrique and I am from South America. I use a lot of emojis, but when I was younger, I kinda hated them, so I kind of grew to love them. I figured out why they existed. So my feelings towards them have changed a lot. Yeah.

🙋‍♀️

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🌧 How many languages do you speak? What are they?

🦄 I speak two languages! I speak English and Spanish.

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🌧 Emojis are regarded by many as a universal language, something that could be understood regardless of your languages. Do you think this is true?

🦄 I think there’s something universal about it. But I think for a lot of emojis, they have the meaning that we put into them. Like I know the skull emoji might have just been intended to be just a skull, or like spooky, but now it just means that you’re laughing. So I think it’s a bit cultural, but since it’s technology, that makes it more universal.

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🌧 Among the languages that you speak, or the cultures you’ve been in contact with, do you think emojis are used and interpreted differently in different languages and culture?

🦄 I think I use emojis, language-wise, I use them the same. I use them very similarly in English and Spanish. I think it might just be more of a generational expression, since I definitely use different emojis for my mom or my friends.

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🌧 What’s your favourite expression, meme, or slang in your mother tongue? Try to explain it in emojis.

🦄 The first thing that came to mind is like “epale”, which is like I guess it would be like “howdy”. Like a weird way of saying hello. But that’s probably not… well, I think it’s just a different way of saying hello in Spanish that’s fun… Also “chevere”, a very Venezuelan word, which means like “awesome”, or “alright”, or “okay”. It just means good.

I feel like in emojis that would be the guy with the sunglasses and the thumbs up. I always use yellow, I disagree with using skin tone in emojis…

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🦄 Okay, so that… immediately, that’s Alice in Wonderland. That’s Alice, sees the rabbit and she follows it down the hole… she follows it to a hole. She falls down and she travels, and she meets the Mad Hatter, and she sees the caterpillar that smokes a lot. And she sees that they’re having a tea party, and then… Alice changes, she grows and she shrinks, and she’s surprised. Then, she meets the Queen of Hearts. And then Alice, has to make a decision, and then she wakes up.

No, I don’t remember the last part. Oh she painted the roses!

😅

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🎊

🌧 What’s your name? Can you tell me a brief introduction of yourself and your background?

🍑 Hi, my name is Dat. I’m 21 years old, and I’m currently a senior at the Foreign Trade University. I was born and raised in Hanoi, a very vibrant city in Vietnam, so I think I got the chance to be exposed to the more modern culture aspect of Vietnam. More specifically, I was born and raised in the Old Quarter area of Hanoi, so I got to be exposed to… to both… how should I put it? Both the old and the new culture, so there’s sort of a mix of traditional and modern culture where I am.

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🌧 How many languages do you speak? What are they?

🍑 I am a multilingual queen. I speak Vietnamese and English. And… yeah. I’m a professional in both languages!

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🌧 Emojis are regarded by many as a universal language, something that could be understood regardless of your languages. Do you think this is true?

🍑 I do think that it is a “common language”, a universal language. But there are still some cases where emojis can be interpreted differently among culture. So overall, yes, but there are exceptions. Since emojis are supposed to describe our feelings, our emotions, so yeah, I think… yeah.

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🌧 Among the languages that you speak, or the cultures you’ve been in contact with, do you think emojis are used and interpreted differently in different languages and culture?

🍑 Well, most of them, I think? Most of them are used to… describe our thinking. But as I said, there are exceptions. For example, in Vietnam, the smiley emoji stands for sarcasm, sort of like “bitch, what do you mean?” But in other cultures… I have some Korean friends who use the smiley emoji a lot, but they… So that’s the difference. In Vietnam, it could mean something like sarcasm. But for Koreans, it means that they’re actually smiling. That’s one example that I could think of right now.

Actually, I think that’s really special. In other cultures, mostly, the smiley face means you’re actually happy, but only in Vietnam, it is interpreted differently.

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🌧 What’s your favourite expression, meme, or slang in your mother tongue? Try to explain it in emojis.

🍑 Maybe… oh! Not quite… I usually say “vậy đi”… Wow I feel like I’m so out of touch with the Vietnamese culture right now. It’s used to end something like… like if we’re doing something and something comes up, I’ll say “vậy đi”, like “ignore it, I don’t care anymore”.

Translate into emoji? Nooo… I don’t think I can translate it into emoji. But I guess I’ll use. That’s basically it, right?! Like okayy.

😅

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🍑 So… a dumb blonde followed a white rabbit, and then she fell into a hole. What is that…? And then she turned into a woman? And then she fell… into Africa?! This is Africa, right?? And then… she picked up a hat, and then she saw some worms inside. Then, she drank some tea and turned into a mushroom. And then, uhm… somehow she turned back into a blonde girl again. And then, she… what is that? What is that circle? Uhm, is it… she goes around, goes up, down, and she screams, because she saw a queen of heart. Then, she… like… she fights for justice and then she was crowned the queen, and realized it was all a dream.

Oh, this is Alice in Wonderland, but… I just don’t remember the plot of it. I knew it was Alice in Wonderland!

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