 Why does it seem like so many Chinese Americans are kind of ashamed of representing being Chinese and speaking Chinese publicly? Let's talk about it. Oh, this is a deep one. We got to talk about this. This went super viral on the Asian American Reddit. Andrew, the title goes, does anybody notice Chinese Americans tend to downplay being Chinese around other ethnicities? If somebody who is Chinese does something impressive, there's a tendency for us to attribute it to just an Asian person, rather than specifically stating their Chinese. Same with certain cultural events and so forth. Chinese people tend to adopt American names more readily than people of other ethnicities like Japanese and Korean. But I've met way more Sujins and Yookies. Vietnamese and Filipino people also seem more willing to attribute things to their specific ethnicity. My Vietnamese friends are always saying this, how such and such is a via thing. Overall, I think there's just a little bit of embarrassment about talking about our Chinese cultural pride, possibly tied to how we've been the majority of the Asian American group for so long, we feel a little bad and want to be more inclusive. Also, Chinese stuff maybe isn't as cool and the geopolitical thing doesn't help. Of course, amongst the East Asians, Chinese people routinely eat Japanese and Korean food more than the other way around. I work in an office that is somehow mostly Chinese and Mexican and my Mexican coworkers love talking about their culture and food and don't have any problem about being honest that they only eat Mexican food. But Chinese workers all sort of downplay it and talk about how they're all into all Asian American stuff as well as other cultures food. Obviously a small sample size based on my specific life experiences. Wow. Pretty on point. I actually agree with a lot of what was said in the OP. I've seen it with my own eyes. So anyways guys, we're going to delve into it. Why are so many Chinese Americans ashamed? We'll talk about it and what what you can do if you are ashamed. So please hit that like button and check out other episodes of the hot pop boys. But one thing that shouldn't make you ashamed of being Chinese is small sauce. Check it out. Finishing oil from Sichuan to Sicily, smallsauce.com and the Instagram at smallsauce. Lots cool content. Very, very good on a lot of different carbs, a lot of different things, all different types of Asian food, not just Chinese food. Yeah. You know, we just gave a speech Andrew at a CSA in Boston and somebody actually raised their hand and asked this question. They didn't ask this question. I guess as detailed, I'm assuming this OP Andrew is out of college. They've they've have more vocabulary and more lucid concepts to explain what they're feeling. But this is something that has been posed to us over the years at multiple college shows. Agree? Yes, yes, yes. And I wouldn't say the main points that I thought were interesting about the post was like, yes, because everybody kind of thinks all other Asians are Chinese. Even to this day, surprisingly, especially a certain demographic more uneducated, educated people are all going to assume everybody's still Chinese to an extent, or you're going to go to that first. So yes, we grow up knowing that do we feel bad a little bit deep down? I can see that because you're like, dang, my Korean friends, my via friends, even my Filipino friends got called Chinese. Everybody gets called Chinese or even the derogatory words for Chinese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or even in the urban Lingling, that's referring to the name of a panda as well as a pot stickers. And that's what they that's sort of a derogatory term for Asian women in certain way. And then I understand that Chinese are to be honest, the most pan Asian Chinese when it comes to food tastes like the foodies, the Chinese foodies, they'll eat all types of Asian food. Like, no, no, from like Burmese, Cambodian, like Mindanao province all the way up to like Siberia to Japan, we are an example of that. I'm not going to lie. I don't think that's the reason why we do it. But yes, we're Chinese, and we eat all different types of Asian food. That's kind of what we've done on our channel, right? Maybe with a slight more focus on Chinese food, but really eating everybody's and then, um, yeah, I mean, and then I would, but I would say in that, and this is my real quick point is that it's funny enough because low key, there is kind of a lot of Chinese blood or ancient Chinese culture influence in almost all Asian countries. You're talking about the two major spheres of influence guys do not be offended. I'm literally just going by what the scholars have said. It was the Sino sphere and the Indiosphere. Yes. Those are the two gigantic civilizations, spheres of influence from thousands of years ago in Asia region, Japan heavily influenced by what the Tong dynasty, maybe the Koreans heavily influenced by the Song dynasty. I'm not, you know, you correct me if I'm wrong, but essentially it's that. And then, you know, obviously Vietnam, they were using Chinese characters as a language for many years and then the French came and Roman Chinese diaspora. So yes, there are a lot of Chinese people from all the different countries. So I guess in a way if you're Chinese and you feel Pan Asian, that is partially of an explanation. Right, right, right. By the way, not saying that everybody's Chinese at all. I'm just saying I've seen a lot of Asians, regardless of where they're from in Asia show up with a few percentage points, Chinese on the 23. There is Chinese blood in every Asian country. Yes. Yes. Yes. Whether it's in an ultra ancient thousands years old way or just a recent several hundred years old way. But anyway, we don't got to get into that. That's enter an ancient justification. How much of it is in the modern day justification? Being Chinese simply doesn't have the modern pop cultural depth to lean into that Japan of course has had it for many decades now in Korea over the past 10, 20 years also has the depth. Chinese does not have the modern pop cultural death to be cool. Dude, this point is super well documented guys. Like we talked about this on the channel. There's like this whole, there's a bunch of YouTubers like was it I need who made a video called like why aren't Chinese cool? I don't know. So there's a bunch of videos with a bunch of view hits explaining this with so many words. I'm not going to go into why Chinese soft soft power and cults of pop culture is not considered cool. I don't know. There's a million reasons a million kids and whatever. How much of it is an easy way to explain it Andrew? Within class, it's kind of viewed as the least cool. So let's say for example, we were going to compare Jaguar like Aston Martin and like a Bentley or something like that. Chinese of those three would be the Jaguar. Right? You know, like if you guys know about like ultra luxury and martin and Bentley, I mean, what about Mercedes BMW? Yeah, especially the higher end Mercedes and BMW would also eclipse the Jaguar. Right? People would be like, Oh, you had a hundred K to spend on a Jaguar, a hundred K Mercedes or a hundred K BMW. Why'd you get the Jaguar? Yeah, most. That one was the is the least coolest with the least best features, right? Yeah. Also, would you say that there's the same is true, Andrew for Nissan Toyota and Honda? If you get you have the same amount of money and you get the Nissan, would people be like, why'd you pick the Nissan? That's the least coolest one. You know, let's talk about some personal stories before we get into the comment section, because I feel like we've both had our own slightly different arc. David, you were you ever ashamed of being Chinese? Would you say that? Or how did you deal with being Chinese? Because you felt like you always identified as Chinese almost ever since we could remember. But why did you think it was cool? Right? You weren't really into kung fu. So I guess that's not like what you were into. You weren't like cooking food at the time. So I guess what what what how did you say I was never against kung fu, but I never really leaned into it. We had a cousin who did kung fu was kind of like teaching us some of the Shaolin forms, but I just never really like sunk my teeth into it. But how you got into basketball. But yeah, I'll say this. I grew up mostly around non Asian people. Yeah, white and black people of those two cultures. I probably chose to lean more into at least pop culturally or on a physical activity level, black American culture, rapping, playing basketball, break dancing, things like that. Within black culture, it's actually kind of cool to be a badass Chinese guy, whether that's Jackie Chan, Jet Li got shouted out in Jay Z song Shaolin used to shout out Yao Ming, Wu Tang clan, et cetera, et cetera. So to me, not that I knew that that wasn't a hyper selective view on Chinese culture, because I knew about all the model minority stuff, going to map becoming a math lead, being yo, yo mob, playing in, you know, orchestras and things like that. I knew about that side. But I think for me, in my like scope of environment, being Chinese was like, I was like, yeah, I'm Chinese rep in it. It's almost like that's why when Jin came out with one of them six and park. And even though you could say that single with Y cleft learn Chinese was so cringy, both sonically and lyrically, there was also some elements of it that appealed to me because that was my environment. Yeah. So I wasn't thinking about like, Oh, our anime and manga and J pop and J drama. I mean, I'm sorry, K pop and K dramas way cooler than like Jay Chow and Wong Lee home. Right. Like even though I knew that, that's not what I personally cared about. Right. So I couldn't be tapped into like this inter-Asian hierarchy that I became way more aware of in college. Right. Right. Right. Because I'm growing up almost thinking like just on some street. Yeah, it was just almost just like Chinese was the only Asian that people really knew at that time. So and they're like, yo, son, you got the beef and broccoli in a while. You know what I mean? Like chicken wings and stuff like that that was more my perception of it. So I think in that you go, yeah, there's Tim's called beef from Brock's. That's tight. Tim's are tight. And that's a different way to do it. I think for me, I just never like of the Chinese people that I knew growing up outside of our family, like I never really fully identified with them. So that's why growing up, I wouldn't say I was ashamed of being Chinese. I just didn't know if I was Chinese. I was like, I don't know. Yeah, I'm Chinese, but like, I don't like relate to these Chinese people. Is it because you weren't that good at string instruments? It's not like you were in the 99th math percentile school. Yeah, I wasn't like that. And then I was like hanging out with my friends at school that were mostly like Southeast Asian that I just like we were just having fun together. So I just I just related to what you guys act more. Be honest. Would you and Navias and the Filipinos act more wild than the Chinese kids at school? For sure. I didn't relate to the other Chinese kids at school and then maybe like a lot of the Chinese kids at church. I didn't fully some of them did go on to work become what computer programmers at Google. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like caught in between. So I didn't fully know like I was just like basing it off of the Chinese people. I personally knew. Right. So you were just saying like you growing up, you just knew that you weren't like the Chinese kids at church or the Chinese kids at school that were trying to be ultra studious. I mean, I knew you should sort of socially compressed hyper. Let's call it what it is stereotypical, right? I think if you made me say, Andrew, are you like this nerdy kid at school and church? Or are you more like a Jackie Chan Chinese? I would have said, yo, I'm more Jackie Chan Chinese, if anything. And if you guys know about Jackie Chan, he's like barely literate. Like he's not that good at reading and writing Chinese. Jackie Chan is a wild dude. He is a wild Chinese guy. I guess the truth is, man, being Chinese, there's so many ways to talk about it. And you're talking, we're talking about it on a personal anecdotal level right now. It's also hyper complicated on an internal domestic level. And we're not even getting into like Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, you know, countries that have a heavy Chinese speaking population that are not Chinese. We're not even talking about all the Chinese that went to Jakarta, Borneo, Indonesia, Philippines, and started all these companies, right? Like, I guess what I'm saying is being Chinese, it's almost like being this like fruit mill crepe cake with like 27 layers with all these different fruits in it. And being another type of Asian is almost like being an ice box cake. Some people would prefer just the ice box cake. Just, I guess what I'm saying is being Chinese has so many layers to it, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. But it just makes it more complicated. It is more complicated. Anyway, let's just get into the comment section, guys. Somebody said, yes, I've noticed this. And language wise, Chinese seems to get lost easier than other Asian languages in American born Chinese kids. Growing up, it always seemed that Chinese Americans rejected their culture the most. Yes, a European friend of mine said, even Chinese people do not want to be Chinese. Sadly, I find that he's correct. It's common for the Chinese diaspora to reject our culture. How true is this? At a higher level than other Asians reject their culture? I would agree. Yeah, I would say that. I think that also goes to show you like Chinese is the most complicated group. It's hard to sum up what it means to be Chinese. Yeah. Somebody said, for example, I actually think it's a linguistic thing. Korean and Japanese are less tonal. So they just like sound better to Americans. Yeah, I think that's a small part of it. I don't think that's a big part. It's very small. Yes. Those are part of the Altaiic Asian language family. They don't have tones. Somebody said, I think depending on where you are, it can be self-preservation post COVID. Being Chinese did not get a response from 2020 to 2023. Yeah, but this was like, we noticed this even when we were growing up, right? I think a lot of Chinese parents don't push Chinese culture super hard on their kids. Oh, or they do, but it's an uncool way. Yeah. So it's like, if you push uncool, uncomfortable Chinese culture on your kids, your kids will reject it. Or if you don't push anything at all, then the kids won't pick it up. This guy said, I'm Chinese American and China has been a major hated US rival for my entire adult life. 2022 made it way worse. Somebody just said, I noticed that people treat me better when they think that I am Japanese or Korean and some people will treat me worse even amongst Asians once they find out I'm Chinese. What is treat you worse? I know what they're saying. The energy switches. It's not 10 out of 10 times, but some people are like, oh, you're not one of the good East Asians. You're the Nissan. Nice. Cause you know, Andrew, everybody knows ultimate energy, maximum energy is different than how someone goes, Oh, accord energy or Camry energy. Well, it's very important to have cool Chinese people, man. Yeah. Cool, proud Chinese people. It's very, very important. Yeah. And I noticed that that's why sometimes Chinese Andrew just kind of like hang out with non Asians. Cause why would you want to hang out with other East Asians? And then it's almost like you're the old school grandma, outside of East Asian when you just go hang out with non Asians, everybody Chinese. I feel like that happens in very small circles. I feel like maybe I'm trying to think of an environment that it happens more in, but yeah, I guess it depends on who the dominant Asian is there and that environment at that time. Somebody said I get mistaken for Korean a lot, even by other Koreans. I feel like this was an advantage. Andrew, you get mistaken for being Korean a lot. Has it bit helped your life? I mean, like this is, this is just from the Reddit. Well, yes and no, but yeah, I mean, obviously if you can be broadly East Asian and be viewed as multiple different types of Asians, that's usually, it's like being racially ambiguous. Like a Puerto Rican or like some. Yeah, instead of trans racial, it's just like within Asians, you know? Yeah, I do think that Asian Asians, they can be sometimes inter hierarchical based on what Asian you are, but usually those type of Asians are not the type of Asians that I like to hang out with. You do come across it. A lot of being mistaken for another Asian is also just style too. Style and kind of culture, but yeah, obviously, yeah. Somebody was saying, you know what? A lot of Chinese are very intra divisive in terms of intra Chinese stereotypes. For example, beware of mainlanders because they're treacherous. Oh, Taiwan doesn't really count anymore because it's become so Japanese eyes. Rural people are dangerous to girls and women is another thing. Basically, this guy was saying that like it makes it like Chinese so inter divided because like you could be from anywhere and it's just so big like basically some of the layers of this crepe cake don't like each other. Yes, not all the layers of the cake even get along with each other. Somebody said, I hate it when I meet Chinese people and they always introduce themselves as half Shanghainese and half Macanese because this person was saying that they want to associate themselves with their the parts of China that have become more westernized or more economically developed specifically Shanghai and Macau. Is that wrong? If your family really is from those places and you introduce yourself that way because they do have their own languages like Shanghainese like the culture is a little it's slightly different than other Chinese schools. I mean, I think it more speaks on them and how they identified clearly that person is not trying to connect with all types of Chinese people in a broad sense, but I also think it is hard sometimes to connect with all Chinese people in a broad sense because Chinese people are very, very different. You know what I think is interesting is that like you can view colonialism in a negative way or you can look at like I guess in a way, especially at a time where China was so far behind and it still is catching up in some ways like the westernization brought them more forward in Macau and Shanghai for sure. So I don't know it's very, very complicated. Somebody was saying that yep, it's hard to be proud of being Chinese because you have to associate yourself with the pollution and resource extraction and other bad stories that get covered. How true is this? You can't be proud of something because then you got to take the bad side. I don't I don't I think it depends on the context man. If you're just meeting people at a party and you say you're Chinese, do you think they're really going to be like oh yeah what about the pollution and what about China's cultural genocide or things where there's communism and this and this and this and that's like dude who does that at a party? You know what I mean? But people might feel like I'm saying that it's not that everybody's going to react like that, but I feel like a lot of Chinese Americans that haven't been have haven't gone through their arc, they like they might feel the pressure of that happening even though let's to your point it may not actually happen. I think the fear is that's why in a way you gotta like cool Chinese people are needed more than ever because when you're a cool person and you're from a certain culture that's going to change how people view that culture right and those people. I always thought of Tim Chung, Andrew, Kylie Jenner's bodyguard being Chinese even more. I think he's pretty whitewashed like that would have helped like and that sounds so basic right because it's like I'm talking about like a like an Asian guy. He should have got some like calligraphy Chinese tattoos or something. I don't know. Somebody said totally agree and I've noticed this for years. I'm specifically talking about California. I'm half Chinese and half Taiwanese. I think somebody said one reason maybe because there are so many Chinese here's from places outside of mainland including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Korea, Japan and more. When people say Chinese they don't feel the same as Chinese from mainland China and now they don't want to say Taiwanese or Hong Konger because it's super politically charged. So people just say Asian as a way of getting out of the weeds and not opening up like a hundred can of worms. Listen, I don't think it's wrong to say you're Asian if you want to depending on the you know because I think some people they do some Chinese Americans if you are very like into other Asian cultures you might feel a little bit more Pan-Asian you know. You're saying genuinely you're not doing it to hedge against your that your dislike or the unappealing aspects of your original origin identity is because you legitimately feel Pan-Asian. Yeah, I mean maybe you could say Chinese American that kind of implies some things or you just say y'all I'm Asian American or like I'm Chinese but that person you know dung there he's from China. So like he's more Chinese than me. This guy said no matter what country your parent your Chinese blooded parents are from everybody has to play piano violin ballet or some sort of old European hobby in lieu of American team sports or more culturally relevant activities that's hilarious that that's true. Number two she said that everybody called themselves Asian not Chinese or Taiwanese and somebody just said everybody has blatant and extensive hop of worship no matter what even if the hoppers are not attractive that is what to me bonds together all Sino people hilarious they just named three wack things to be honest that and that goes back to the original OP's point somebody said Chinese people have been in America for 170 years the experience of being Chinese American isn't just a single thing no and I think that's why if you want to specify what type of Chinese or Chinese American you are third waiver I'm a third waiver middle class I'm a third generation Chinese American from San Francisco um other Asians have only gone through one or two major immigration waves to America I believe I charted it out one time Chinese Americans have gone through six or seven and they keep on going I keep on coming I may I generally I'm a fifth waiver I guess how high class how can what's the easiest most practical way for someone who's like a little bit shy about being Chinese how can they feel more proud about being Chinese are there certain like cool general cool acceptable traits or things about Chinese culture that you can share with other people at a shallow baseline you know I don't know I think that some people try to find it in the ancient civilization like the abacus or the development of the compass or paper I think some people try to look at Confucius or Mahayana Buddhism I think that some people take a look at uh more uh like food based things like flat rice noodles I know that's the basis of pad see you you know what I mean or pad Thai they were originally started by Chinese but how does someone be more confident in being Chinese man they just have to know you just more about Chinese culture maybe I think you have to know more and just accept that you know you can make it cooler like that's how I see it it's like yes I do understand that Nissan Toyota Honda analogy do I think that Nissan and you could totally make the argument that Nissan is the least cool out of those three legitimately yes I think that I could see why somebody would rank it number three even me I would not pick Nissan right like I'm talking about cars here guys but I'm a Nissan so I'm trying to like bring it up I guess that's what I'm saying I got a lot to contribute but it doesn't mean I can't study Toyota's and Honda's is what I'm saying and what makes them better even though let's just say for example Nissan came up with the with the Japanese architecture of the engine first but then Toyota and Honda made it better you know what I mean like I think I guess what I'm saying is you I don't think about things so hierarchically like I'm not like otherwise I'd be white worshiping too right because Anglo Protestants have like dominated the world for the last 300 400 years I'd be like oh my gosh they're so much better because the history is shown they're better the rankings have shown they're better I'm just like man you just can't even look at life that way even though would you agree with me Andrew a lot of people do yeah I think that that's the main thing somebody said I think it comes from culture like emphasizing humble as a virtue in Chinese culture you know one thing that has helped though is listening to somebody like Kanye Andrew where Kanye is like why be humble if you put in that much work to not be humble literally I do not believe I think a lot of stuff gets over applied I think Confucianism gets over applied and things like that um yeah ultimately Andrew what are your takeaways we can talk about this issue for 17 hours in a row we can have an intellectual scholarly dissection of it we can have an anthropological dissection of it or we can just use some modern anecdotes as simple as Chinese church or looking at ultra western influenced pop culture right we there's so many levels we can analyze it but at every level we're gonna come to the same conclusion right like it's complicated and it's not as simple or not as cool yeah and I think that a confident Chinese person that is knowledgeable is very confident because think about it it's so complicated so layered and there's so much good and bad imagery there's the bad things that China does there's the good things there's the great products there's the cool culture there's the food there's the movies but there's also the geopolitical blah blah blah all these bad challenging and low dominance but we like it because we spent so much time to support Iran in the war that is complicated I'm not lying yeah that's very weird but I don't think that most people think about it on that level so I think if you keep it on a shallow cultural level there are things that you can be confident about that are cool that are Chinese particularly of food I think is the easiest one to start at but I just think that it's gonna take a little bit more for you to be very confident but you should be and you don't have to answer those deep geopolitical questions you don't have to no one who's gonna do that to you that's such a buzzkill yeah I mean I think man it just like is what it is man it's so hard to say it and everybody's gonna like come up with their own answer for it I mean some people are gonna disassociate themselves from it some people are gonna lean in some people are gonna turn a blind eye to things I for me I actually consume everything and I just accept it for what it is man like I already ate a lot of the downside growing up of just being a general Asian specifically also being Chinese amongst other Asians and getting judged for it not to really say that my vietnam Filipino friends in our hometown growing up which is primary Vietnamese and Filipino had too much to say about it but you heard things but you know what I mean but I was always just like hey man what can I say man I didn't do everything good from the culture I didn't everything bad but I'm just I am that why can't people confidently look at someone and say yeah I'm Chinese but I'm not like the Chinese government man so I don't know why you asking me all these questions or something like that right like you're just a Chinese you should be confident that you're just a Chinese person or that you come from a Chinese family like that's how you say it like yeah I come from a Chinese family again I grew up with Chinese culture yeah that's me that's my culture yeah I know confident you have to just say it confidently and just know where you draw the line and where you're separated from you don't have to answer for the Chinese government but you answer because you grew up with Chinese culture right unless you are part of the Chinese government but then I think the one thing you can honestly look at it is this stability I'm not saying I'll never tell people that being this like ancient sinospheric ancient Confucian you know Confucius was Chinese culture is the most fun I'm never going to tell people that the oxytocin diameter is the largest I'm never going to tell people that it's the most dopamine centric or dopamine releasing culture even comparison to its like geographical neighbors but it's just like it's a very stabilizing force it's a stabilizing civilization and the stability of something matters too and you value it more as you get older but anyway guys let me know what you think of this in the comment section below like I said there are so many levels and I'm sure the comment section is gonna go crazy listen guys nobody can control what tribe they're born into you know every tribe has pros and cons of the modern day in the midview and the ancient historical view there's pros and cons and gray areas and stuff it depends on which side of the coin you were born onto and things of that nature ultimately what ultimately matters is like where you drive your life but yes of course these things they matter and reddit is the perfect place I guess for people to talk to talk about it but I'd be more concerned about what you're gonna do about it um let me know in the comment section below until next time we'd hop our boys we out peace peace