 Yeah, let's have a friendly rivalry. You ban some of mine, I ban some of yours. It's all good, you know, because we're competitive. Is people hating on China right now expected? Is it justified or is it just plain wrong? Oh, wow. This video went viral on TikTok. Then it got posted on Yahoo News. And of course, all the boomers, doomers, zoomers are all commenting on it. Let's play the video. You keep mixing them up. Oh my God, man. That's so bad. Good country and good people. Same with China. What's wrong with China? No, China. No, the government of the China is not good. Right. I destroyed my country. Oh, man, as you can see, you know, the Uber driver's like, what Asian are you? And she's like Japanese and he's a good, good, good. That's a good one. That's a good Asian. Not like Chinese, Chinese destroyed my country and they're destroying the world. And I'll tell you this, Andrew, anytime this like little weird microaggression between a rider and a driver pops up, it allows everybody to like talk about the more macro discussion, right? Yeah. I mean, listen, the whole discussion about China versus US or China versus the world or whatever country you come from, it's going to be happening for the next, I'm sorry to say, 20 years of our lives. 20 years. Oh my goodness. That's quite a long time. I mean, I just wanted to come here and live my life, but like 20 years, that's not almost like anything I can imagine I want to do is going to happen in 20 years. Imagine. Yeah, I just started being proud of being Chinese American and now I got to deal with this. Yeah. Can I just be proud of like everything everywhere all at once? That's the side that I like, the Michelle Yozak. But yeah, guys, I think that this is a conversation that we have on our channel quite often. So we want to have a thoughtful conversation here today. We're not trying to defend China and do all this. We're not going to play by either side. But you guys can listen to our points and let us know what you think in the comments down below because you know, this is something that I think people should have more balanced conversations about. These are just three points that people need to know moving forward. And I think it's going to advance the discussion. Of course, everybody's going to have their own opinion. By the way, Andrew, being Chinese can be a governmental identity. It can be a governmental system. It can be an ethnicity. It can be a type of food. It's just really complicated because there's one word that describes like 10 things. All right, Andrew, number one, Andrew, as far as China, America, America, China relations go, they're just so macro and micro economically enmeshed. There is no real separating. So when everybody's like, yeah, I hope the other side, they go downside. I hope they go to the ground. I hope they blow up. It's like, no, you don't because it's actually enmeshed together. It's kind of like this. All right, my fingers are intertwined, right? And so China's going down. This is China, my left hand. And then if China's going down, it will drag America down too. Guys, I think like any smart person is going to agree, listen, like China's such a big part of the world, whether you like it or not, that if it goes down, it's going to be bad for the rest of the world. So if you want America to fall into chaos, then yeah, have China fall into chaos, I guess. Yeah, well, because they're kind of like enmeshed. They're kind of frenemies. It's sort of like you have frenemies. You can focus on the friend part. You can focus on the enemy part. But the word is frenemy. It's friend and enemy rivals put together. I mean, you have frenemies that are your cousins, frenemies at work, frenemies in your social group where it's like you don't want them to die, but you want to win. And that's why I do support that America is able to like ban companies, whether that's TikTok or Huawei, if they feel like it's in their best interest to ban a Chinese company in America, absolutely. They should do it. China bans American companies. Do you see what I'm saying? Where it's like, yeah, let's have a friendly rivalry. You banned some of mine. I banned some of yours. It's all good, you know, because we're competitive. We're trying to compete for seeing who's going to be top dog. Andrew, that brings us to point number two. A lot of people don't want to see competition because for about what, 60, 70, 80 years, the world has been unipolar, right? America's been the only world superpower. And some people feel like that's the only way to maintain stability. Of course, that seems like more of a pro Anglo-Saxon perspective that might be driven more by America, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Australia. However, there are some arguments for it, Andrew. And people are sort of picking sides, right? Like people that are not just Chinese and not just from an Anglo country are like picking sides. Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of people want stability for the world. And they think that order, which comes from hierarchy, which comes from somebody being at the top, being dominant, is going to be better, as opposed to two people at the top butting heads and then letting that friction kind of like reverberate down below. It's better, Andrew, if America's LeBron in China, if anything, that it is AD. AD's good and could do things, but LeBron's a leader. Because when you look at Chicago Bulls, you got Zach Levine, you got DeMar DeRozan sharing it. One and two, it's not working out. Yeah, but listen, guys, growing up, being born and raised in America, of course, I don't have a problem with America being number one. I just think that people need to think about, what are we going to do in America to keep ourselves at number one? What do you mean, you put the responsibility on me and my behaviors and I will raise my kids? It's kind of like France and Argentina in the World Cup, right? They're competing. And you're France and you're like, oh man, we might lose. But you know, I just want to see Messi break his ankle. That would be nice. That's how we would win. Good career. And France would win if Messi is injured. Yeah, so let's just like hurt them and then we can break their ankle. You're sort of like Tonya Harding on Nancy Kerrigan. Yeah, but that's kind of cheating. So I really don't know how America cheats in this actual scenario anyways. But I guess what I'm saying is, instead of wishing for the downfall of China or for China to break its leg or start falling down, I guess why don't we talk about what we can do to make America better? Right, and I'm sure some people on the American side would be like, they're the Tonya Harding and we're the Nancy Kerrigan. You don't see because your face and your eyes can't see it. You guys are blinded by your face. Listen guys, I think just being Chinese allows us to see it more holistically, to be honest. I totally get it. I totally understand America wanting to maintain preeminence. We're just saying that like literally almost like a sports team, let's just be better. I mean, you know, a lot of people would say that China is where it's at because of America. America's policies help China a lot, rise up, and then now America created this monster in China that they don't agree with. It's because the CEOs sold us little guys out and we don't get a benefit from getting rich like all the global CEOs that went over and brought all the manufacturing jobs that we needed here to stabilize our society over there. David, moving on to point number three is that, you know, everybody experiences Chinese people differently. Yeah. I mean, there is a gigantic variance. I believe it is the largest wealth gap in the entire world as a country. And it's also the biggest wealth gap in America. Of any group in America, Andrew, the biggest wealth gap is Chinese Americans because you have people who are like multi-billionaires and you have people that are like in the lowest level of poverty of poverty. And you can interact with like anybody along this level from like one to 10, right? 10 being the richest, one being the poorest. And some people, Andrew, they're like, you know, everybody's always talking about how China's so dominant but the people who do my laundry and give me a massage for $40, they sure seem like weak and docile and just like subservient to me. And then other people are like... Or how about this? Well, you know, I just sure did like it when they were just only selling me dollar dumplings instead of trying to buy my house and therefore up the market price of everything around it. And they don't even live in the house. They're ruining the community fabric. That's like more like what somebody would say in Richmond or Vancouver, Canada. You know, it's starting to happen in America as well. In the middle level, people will be like, you know, I just think the Chinese graduates, whether they're Chinese American or Chinese from China, make great workers. Yeah, sure, they'll never probably break the C-suite, but they work really hard and they're cool with like just a middle class. Oh, but on top of that, they can't be trusted. Yeah, they can't be trusted too much. That's why they can't enter the upper levels at your lens of leadership. So trust them, but don't trust them too much. Right. Because they're good brains, but they're not trusted brains. Right. And man, you just see like every single opinion like across the board. And I think that that's the weird thing when you see these like comment sections on Yahoo News that are full of boomers and you know, a mixture of blue collar people, people that are educated, but most of the people essentially are being emotional, right? And I think that that's the weird thing because Chinese people have never been good at eliciting emotion because you know, Chinese are always like, if you got to spend a lot of time around Chinese people, they're always like, yeah, the facts are the facts. Emotion is emotion. But for other people, like facts and emotion are more blended together. I mean, I do want to say that it is complicated because there is, you know, some fear of stealing data, right? There is that those are real things. Yeah, I think I think there's the stealing aspect, which is more of like a conspiracy, right? Whether it's COVID stealing, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then there's just the competition aspect. So there's fear on the competition side, which is like, well, we can't, they can't be living middle class lifestyles with two, three cars. The whole world's gonna collapse and be unsustainable. Even Barack Obama had a quote that was similar to that, right? Which, you know, offended a lot of people in China because they're like, what? You're saying they're like, we can never have a good life. But you guys can only have a good life. I think Barack's quote, he said something along the lines like, well, you know, if everybody in China lived the way that they did in America, then it would probably destabilize the world because the way that we live in America is superfluous or something like that. Yeah, so he was actually making a comment about America and Canada consumption patterns, consumption pattern of waste and paper and natural resources and things of that nature. But, you know, it could all be viewed this way or it could all be viewed that way. I guess what I'm trying to say is, man, it's just really, really complicated. And most people are more driven by emotion. In fact, I'm not saying that China and America, America and China are not rivals. And like I said, it all kind of goes back to that Team America thing. Even other Asian countries, I would say Japan, Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, 5050. But like they're all more signed up, probably on a macro scale on Team America, right? Where they're like, just, let's just maintain the unipolar dominance. But I think that China, obviously, to some extent, if we live in a global world with a global perspective, they have their own right to be like, yeah, China can rise as high as it wants. Yeah, I mean, I think, I guess, in the sense of Cold War, I think leaving comments is the least of our worries on the internet, right? I guess people can say whatever they want. If they want to nuke China in the comments section, that's a little bit different than like, the president wanting to nuke China, right? But yeah, I guess, David, overall, what can people learn from this, from this discussion, or how can they maybe prepare for these situations that might come up? Should they prepare? Do they want to care? Should they care? I'll say this, when it comes to the politicians in America, most of whom are still white to this day, right? I think that they actually have a lot of international global trade interests, so they understand that even decoupling is not really a reality. But they also want to appeal to voters, like Billy Bob in the Yahoo News section. So you're going to hear politicians say like, things that sound maybe like 50-50, we're just going to compete and sound, not conciliatory, but more like 50-50, and then you're going to also hear them say like, damn, China! And then people are going to be like, yeah! So I think that as a Chinese American, I don't know, I guess you just want to be educated on it, right? Or can you get ahead of it? I noticed Andrew, to be fair Andrew, would you agree with a lot of Chinese Americans, they choose to completely disengage, because it seems so messy, because they're like, well, I don't want to be caught supporting this like evil regime, or even sound like I'm defending them 10%. So I'll just be quiet, even though I do have a more multi-layered perspective than other people in this country. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, in your defense, I guess if you stand there and try to defend China, it's not like China gives you a bunch of credit for that. Yeah, they don't give you a lot of credit, and they don't make it easy to defend it either. And they're not going to send you like a gift and be like, oh, yeah. Hey, thank you for defending China's honor, you know, in America. We are very grateful, you know. Unfortunately, that's not how it works either. I guess, you know, for me, for example, I'll just use a... Right, as an Americanized ABC, right? As a personal experience, like I was out in East Village waiting to get a seat at a bar, I was on a date, I was... And outside, there was quite a few Asian people in this area, maybe like 20, 30% of it is Asian. And then there was like this angry dude who was just like, man, like he was going off on Chinese, Chinese people are so rude, man. I hate Chinese people. So he was bringing in... They're so cold, they'll smile. He was not talking about the CCP or CPC, he was talking about Chinese people, day to day, IRL in person. Yeah, that he comes across with on the street. And then I said, you know, I looked at him and I thought, you know, maybe I can have a conversation with this guy. So I was just telling him like, hey, man, like, by the way, if you think Chinese people are rude or cold and maybe don't smile, that's not necessarily because they don't like you. That's not them being racist towards you, bro. It's just, they do that to me and I'm Chinese. They just don't give out warm expressions and interactions that much period. Yeah, I would say on the global ranking of warm, like, if Hofstede had that ranking, warm, they might, it would be in the lower 20th percentile. Yeah, yeah. And then the guy at the end of the conversation, it feels like that he kind of understood. He kind of walked away and was like, oh, okay, all right, man, well, you know, that makes sense. You know, and then he went about his day. You know, I don't know how he really feels, but that was just like my way of doing it, you know. And I don't think everybody wants to have that conversation because you got to be prepared for it. Oh, I got one. Don't let some of the valid disgruntled claims that people have against China's government prevent you from having that conversation about Chinese people. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's key. I think you just... Just like everybody else is like trying to make that distinction. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. Honestly, it depends on how nuanced and complex and compartmentalized and how educated they are. Don't ABCs should at least make that distinction and be definitely willing to hop, to not let the thing from the other thing leak in and the other thing, or it could be isolated and not be connected. I mean, I think a lot of people, they hear about this macro geopolitical thing like China's going to take over, and then that trickles into their day-to-day life on a micro level, where that's how they treat other Asian-looking people. And I think that's terrible. Or even Asians being unwilling to defend Chinese people too. And that's wrong because, to be honest, most regular Americans have nothing to do with the geopolitics. They can't do anything. I'm sorry. Even like Americans in America don't have anything to do with American intervention in the Middle East that lack thereof or too much. Even if you want to stop whatever America's involvement in like the Ukraine and Russian war, really you as an individual can't do much. Right. There's a lot of stuff happening that's like way over your head as a regular citizen unless you are part of a lot of the maybe top 30 most richest families in the country. You know, I guess it comes back down to how you treat individual people, you know? But anyways, guys, you know, this was a conversation that we're trying to have, which is trying to be thoughtful about it. You don't have to agree with us fully, but let us know in the comments down below how you feel about it. You know what's always interesting about these, Andrew? Is that like sort of these macro discussions happen because of a really, really nano micro event. But I think it's because everybody can imagine it's more visceral when it's just like somebody being recorded on TikTok versus like a world forum, you know, with a lot of politicians and a think tank symposium. And that's why you don't have political conversations with your driver. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. We are the Hop Hop Boys. And until next time, we out. Peace. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.