Little Sweet Potato

A few days ago, whenever I saw the spelling xiaohongshu on Reddit, I was saying it in my mind incorrectly as 小红薯. 🍠

For English readers, I thought it meant “little sweet potato.”

Why sweet potato? I absolutely loved eating the carmel-oozing roasted orange sweet potatoes as a snack when I taught English for a year in Shandong province in the ‘90s. (I was sadly disappointed in the less sweet flavor of the yellow ones in Hunan.)

For the record, it’s not 红薯 hóngshǔ; it’s 红书 hóngshū.

This is just a funny misunderstanding. I’d never paid attention to this app before this Great TikTok Refugee Crisis of 2025.