Americans are scrambling to learn Mandarin. Duolingo, the beloved owl that haunts your notifications, has seen a jaw-dropping 216% surge in Americans learning Mandarin.

TikTok could be banned in the US, rendering the app unusable and removing it from app stores. Instead of making do with Instagram Reels, people looked for a closer alternative and found Chinese social media app "RedNote" or Xiaohongshu,