American TikTok user’s attempt to get through rambutan with potato peeler triggers Southeast Asians

Videos of Caucasians getting perplexed over Asian fruits never get old. Might as well be a genre in itself, judging from the million or so clips of westerners figuring out durians for the first time. 

American TikTok personality Gavin Smith (@hommiepen) recently had a go at two tropical fruits that we’d have no problem peeling with our fingers: the humble longan and the objectively peculiar rambutan. 

Though he could have just searched online about how easy it is to get through the rambutan’s leathery exterior, the man actually used a potato peeler in a bid to shave off its hairy protuberances. This, before he used a knife to slice through its skin, flesh and seed. Oh, the humanity.

Eventually, he manages to figure it out. Though Gavin commented on how it looks like “alien-type stuff”, he actually likes the taste of rambutans. 

The way that he initially handled the sweet fruit, however, did not sit well among Southeast Asians after Malaysian Twitter user Sabrine Amira (@sabrinemra) reposted Gavin’s rambutan rampage on her account earlier this week. Her post garnered over 12,000 retweets and a fruitful discussion on what he did wrong.

[embed]https://twitter.com/sabrinemra/status/1201394004249571328[/embed]

To his credit, he fared much better when it came to finagling longan. 

[embed]https://twitter.com/sabrinemra/status/1201502829317222412[/embed]

ilyas@asiaone.com