It all began with free ribs.
Earlier this year, one January evening, Daniel Peacock stopped by a Chinese takeaway in County Down, Northern Ireland, to pick up dinner. Overhearing some Cantonese in the kitchen, he asked the owner if she was from Hong Kong.
She said yes, and he – “a big white fella”, as Daniel describes himself – responded by speaking her native tongue.
The owner was stunned. “She didn’t talk for like 10 seconds. She was just like, ‘What is going on? Is he actually speaking Cantonese to me?’”
The two began conversing about Hong Kong and her children, all in Cantonese. When Daniel got home, he realised that she had given him free ribs on top of his original order; his native Cantonese speaking wife, Ellen, was so amused that she pulled out her phone to take a video, and later posted it on TikTok with the caption: “A good reason to practice his Cantonese”.
That video soon racked up an unexpected number of views on both TikTok and Instagram, even though their Instagram account @itsthepeacocks only had about 10 followers.
