In China to promote his newest film, Mr No-to-Opera-and-Ballet, Timothée Chalamet, spectacularly tried his hand at selling tofu from a pushcart, on a street in Chengdu. Who was he kidding? Yet, it’s been called a “charm offensive”

Poor Timothée Chalamet. Spurned by the opera and ballet community, he’s now selling tofu. The shocking demands of his promotional drive for Marty Supreme! He is now in Chengdu (成都) trying his hand at being a street hawker. After all, that’s a lot better than being an opera singer or a ballet dancer. A hawker’s craft need not be “kept alive”. He can just partake in it without fear of its demise. A reel of him in the City of Gastronomy was recently shared online. It showed Mr Chalamet playing a seller of tofu. Some commentators say it’s 臭豆腐 (choudoufu or stinky tofu, which TMZ described as “moldy”), but we doubt it is, as it’s unlikely that he has the palate for the assertively-scented local dish. Notably, he sells his tofu with a ping pong bat! The actor was seen interacting with an unseen customer, who touches the tofu cubes, all cut up on an oblong bamboo platter. Mr Chalamet immediately hits the intrusive hand with the bat. The man yelps in pain. Tofu guy scolds the fellow with a gruff “你什么意思 (ni shenme yisi)”—what do you mean by this but is actually, what’s your problem?— in full samseng (generally a Malay word that similarly means gangster in Hokkien) admonishment. The pretty boy, trying to act tough, retreats. The angmo hawker wins.

Perhaps feeling remorseful for his encroachment, the customer decided to buy all of the tofu on the platter. Dressed in a black Nahmias hoodie with the Chinese title of Marty Supreme, 至尊马蒂 (zhizun madi) the cool hawker, became delighted and told the chap in glorious American English, “I made this at home!” He ignores the customer’s follow-up question about something on his work top and proceeds to push the tofu cubes into a stainless steel bowl after cutting up what were already separated pieces. The man said he wanted it spicier. There was no response. The hawker then asks, “spices?”. The man replies, “辣一点 (layidian or more spicy).” He asks again, “spices?”. “对对 (duidui or yes, yes),” the man confirms, followed by “谢谢 (xiexie or thank you)”. Mr Chalamet showily tosses the tofu to allow the bean cubes to be talcum-ed by the chilli. He then passes the entire bowl to the man who thanked him in English and leaves. Was it the end of the business day for the happy hawker? Does it even matter? The snippet is a mark of cultural assimilation, but is, in fact, a grease-stained footnote in a history that he likely does not care for. It’s ironic that for someone who knocked ‘soft’ performing arts, he was selling tofu.

The snippet is a mark of cultural assimilation, but is, in fact, a grease-stained footnote in a history that he likely does not care for

Most people call the performance a “joke”. In the West, they even described it as “ping pong diplomacy”, except that, as with the Trump administration, the idea is to ultimately whack… the other side. Yet, it’s, to some, “cultural playfulness”. The bat might be his tool of the trade in the film, but it is not for many fried tofu sellers, who would favor a long pair of bamboo chopsticks or a metal slotted turner to navigate the bubbling oil, NOT a rubber-faced paddle. It’s just a joke! And hitting the ‘customer’ with the bat, we were told, was, of course, a staged bit of slapstick. But in China and much of Asia, even playful gestures of hitting are done hand‑to‑hand, never with an object. You see, in a media tour, a White man hitting a Chinese person in the latter’s own space, even jokingly, is okay. Sure, Mr Chalamet has endeared himself to the Chinese fans, who now call him “甜茶 (tiancha, or sweet tea), a strange transliteration, allowing the stunt to be framed as charming, even cute, rather than aggressive. But the Chinese man is relegated to a prop or a target—a pedestrian element in the tofu-centred background of the star’s narrative. And as long as the star is charming, as you can see, the actual dignity of the people around him is secondary to the ringing marketing echo. And choosing tofu is not neutral—it’s a cliché. Why not 煎饼 (jianbing or a Chinese crepe)? Because Tofu is the low-hanging fruit of Western perceptions of Chinese cuisine. And, yes, Mr Chalamet was interfacing with a Chinese man, but this was not for consumption in China alone; this was for the world to see, for the media, such as The Straits Times, to gleefully call it a “charm offensive”, or allow TMZ to run its “moldy” coverage.

We are now burning with curiosity: A Hollywood star in Chengdu can bend cultural motifs, play with hawker craft, and even break etiquette, and it gets spun as “charm offensive” Would Americans have a good laugh if a Chinese celebrity goes to New York, sells hotdogs at a street corner, and slaps a customer’s hand with a baseball bat? They will see, we guess, a violation of the norms of street vending and the symbolism of baseball. Cultural edibles—whether hawker tofu or New York hotdogs—are not neutral props. They carry dignity, history, and social etiquette. Treating them casually, especially across cultural lines, risks reinforcing hierarchies: one side gets to bend the rules for charm, the other side gets judged for disrespect. In the U.S., with a climate of well-documented ICE aggression and the heightened suspicion towards immigrants and visitors, Mr Chalamet’s performance is hypocritical because the same gesture in his homeland would be policed, punished, even framed as inappropriate. Americans abroad are granted cultural laxity. Timothée Chalamet knows that crackdown at home is charm abroad. As a theme on Wheel of Fortune goes, “America the Beautiful”. What a show!

Screen shot: TMZ/YouTube