 Do you relate to any other ethnic groups besides your own? A bunch of Asians are discussing this on the internet right now. Yeah, we gotta talk about this viral thread on Asian American Reddit titled, Which ethnic group besides your own do you feel close to? It reads, as a Korean American, I feel close to different ethnicities for different reasons. I think Japan is culturally pretty similar to Korea. Social hierarchy, collectivist, historically isolationist, use of honorifics, bowing, regarding physical appearance, I think as a population on average, we tend to resemble northern Chinese people more. And I also feel somewhat close with Taiwanese Americans because I spent a lot of time with them growing up in university. So this was really interesting. This was an interesting post. You know why it was interesting, Andrew? Why? Because I actually never thought about being Asian in this particular way. You, David, of all people have never thought about it this way. Yeah. Wow. Alright, so guys, we're going to talk about this because I think a big question is, how do you relate to groups outside of your own? Now in America, I think it's a little bit easier because if you grow up here, it's a very diverse place, right? All different types of people. So even in your neighborhood, you grew up with each other and you end up relating to each other. However, have you ever thought about why you relate to these groups of people? I think this is where the critical thinking and the analysis comes into play, guys. So please hit that like button, check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys right now and let us know if you enjoy this video. Also, comment down below who you relate to. Yeah, it was really interesting to hear everybody's responses, especially because me and you have never had this discussion before and I don't even know if I fully agree with it. But apparently, Andrew, maybe a lot of people do. This guy was mentioning, of course, historical traits between countries, ancient culture, transitioning into modern culture, physical appearance. Andrew, this is probably one of the most un-PC parts to talk about. But would you agree that like people who look the same may relate to each other? Just like, you know, when you put on an alligator suit, it's like you can go into the alligator swamp and they won't attack you. But also, it affects like how you, the outside world treats you when you look the same as somebody else. Oh, yeah, exactly, because if they identify you as part of the group and they treat you better because of it, even subconsciously, even though they know you're not actually part of their group, it still helps. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it has to do with human incentive, right? Who brings you in? Who accepts you? Who gives you a high ranking or a good ranking? Treats you with some value. Andrew, some hoppers in this thread even stated that they only felt at home at Native American protests on sacred land because that's who they felt like hoppers actually looked the most like was Native Americans. That's interesting. And also has to do with proximity and the projects you're involved in, right? Andrew, a lot of people develop hyper diverse friend groups when they're in like the military, they join martial arts, some sort of like random team sport. It really bonds people together because it's such like a unique set of experiences or project to be a part of, right? Yeah, if there's some unifying culture experience, kind of like in the Bay Area, a lot of times people will be like, oh, my friend group's super diverse, but we're all like repping the yay area, you know? We're bonded by the hyphy. Yeah, but then you have like a group that's like a white guy, a black guy, a Latino guy, Asian, like three Asian guys. And it's like all together, you know? I mean, which is cool too, because that's a unifying culture. How much of a global citizen do you identify yourself as? Because Andrew, some people they identify as their parents have coached them or just as how their parents identified, which is usually more hanging out with their own people or their own tribe. And other people really like look in the mirror every day and subconsciously or overly consciously go, I am a global citizen. Exactly, exactly. So there's a lot of factors, right? Oh, there's even more, you know, there's so many. And I feel like, and maybe we can also explain it through our own experiences because we're gonna get into the comment section of what other people thought, but I think it's important to point out like, how do you feel about this question? One, do you agree with, does this question make any sense? And two, who else do you relate to or did you relate to growing up? Yeah, let's get into our personal experiences, Andrew. For me, I thought this thread, like I said before, was interesting because I actually do not think this way. I've always more thought about it on an individual basis, right? However, there are gonna be certain personality, archetypes or experience rep patterns of people that you wanna bond with. But I never really thought about it in terms of like, oh, I'm gonna just relate to this race or that race. However, I do agree that certain cultural upbringings or immigration waves or outputs, like probability wise, they're more likely gonna output certain personalities and you might relate to those personalities, but every group has every archetype. Right, but I will say this, there's a difference between relating to and wanting to be part of that group because you could be self-hating and just because you relate to that group in your background, you don't want to relate to it with that group. So you're saying you studied your own group, you know about all the major archetype probability outputs from your community and you hate them all. Hey, man, a lot of people do this, man. Let's be honest. Yeah, so like I said, I've never really personally thought about it this way. Do you feel like this is a valid question or the majority of people think this way? Maybe not you? Yeah, it's hard to say a whole group because just because we have black friends growing up, does that mean I relate to every single black person? Or just because I'm Chinese, that doesn't mean I want to be friends with every Chinese person I meet. You know, hell no. But I guess that I'll say this about being Chinese is that when you know enough Chinese people, for example, let's just say Chinese, then you've seen different archetypes. And when you meet another Chinese person, you can relate it to somebody else that you know. Does that mean you want to, you're automatically going to be their friend? No, not necessarily. But you know, just like if you meet someone else, a white or a black person, then you're like, oh, I had a friend like this kind of relates to me. I feel comfortable with this person. This is cool, you know what I mean? I would say maybe the most unique group of people that I had a lot of contact with growing up and I still, there's still my friends to this day, even though I don't get to see them as often, is like growing up, I had a lot of black friends, but specifically, I guess some people will call them like very middle class or upward mobile black friends in our neighborhood, you know what I mean? And I remember always like beatboxing, freestyling. They were more into R&B, singing music, soul child, but we used to all listen to Master P and No Limit together and Hoop and AAU together too, you know? So I felt like at least as far as that side of me goes, that's like, I guess that's one set of experiences. I would say that is less statistically prevalent in the Chinese American community. Like not everybody grows up with a bunch of middle class black friends. Yeah, and then I would say like growing up, for me, you know, as we know, I had a lot of Vietnamese and Filipino friends and that was like, because they were Asian, they were proud of being Asian, maybe they weren't Chinese, but they were proud of being Asian, but they also had that little bit more free wild side where they were, you know, break dancing, playing a lot of basketball, playing a certain style of basketball. Guys, because there's like Chinese leagues where to be honest, the style of basketball is maybe less street ball than when you're playing it with your other friends. No, it's true. We play, I play a little bit more like street ball game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think street ball to me is more fun, but if you want me to win, like there's like these Taiwanese leagues, Andrew, in New York where it's like all these like yappies from the Ivy leagues, the games don't have like a lot of sauce to them, but they're running hoars. Oh, they're really good. Pinch post, you know what I mean? All types of like elevator screens, but then you don't really get the, you know. Well, they're playing, you know, the proper basketball. Yeah, they're playing basketball, basketball, but they're not hooping. Right, so I guess for me also, there's different things like I like to, maybe I like to go to a certain type of club, but that's not where I would find a lot of like other Chinese people there. So, but I also eat a lot of Chinese food, which I also feel comfortable. So I think there can be different sides to people, okay, basically. So you can relate to different groups of people, even depending on what activity you choose to do or what side of you is coming out. But would you agree that not necessarily everybody is that diverse? Like some people only hang out with like one or two different types of people. You guys, let me know down below. Yo, Andrew, if we go to the dance hall club, I'm calling up Jamaican Chinese Vince Chang because I need the Jamaican plug to go to the Jamaican spot. Well, you need him done. But I'll say not all Asians go to the Jamaican spot. You know, it's different. Anyway, let's just get into the comments section, Andrew. Somebody said, I'm Indian American. I always went to schools with a very small Indian American population despite being from New Jersey. Most of my friends ended up being Chinese or Koreans. Okay, so because most of his friends ended up being Chinese and Korean, and now he probably relates somewhat to the culture, has had plenty of the food, maybe can say some of the phrases in the language, does that mean he relates to them when he meets another Korean or Chinese? Possibly. If you've been that exposed to another culture, that means when you meet another person from that culture, you're like, oh, oh, by the way, I've had Calbee Jim, like, oh, yeah, like I've been to this Sundubu spot with my friends, or like, oh, I like beef noodle soup, then they can relate to more and more people. Yeah, I think honestly, this is also the unspoken, Andrew, because it's like slightly less PC. It really has to do with who you date, too. Like, if this guy's dating some pretty good looking Taiwanese or Korean girls, he's in there, right? Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. Interestingly enough, Andrew, our dad has a lot of Indian friends from growing up, whether it was his next door neighbors growing up in Hong Kong, this is British colonial Hong Kong, by the way, so there was like a lot of mixing going on at the time, his next door neighbors growing up were Indian, and then dad was actually in an Indian study group in college. Yeah. Because guess what, Andrew? He said that the Chinese didn't want to study together, had no teamwork. This guy said, I'm Vietnamese and all my friends growing up were Filipino for some reason, maybe just a coincidence, or maybe I just vibe with Filipinos. Yeah, I could see this. I think Vietnamese and Filipinos, they could be warm. Yeah, both fun people. Yeah, this next guy said, I feel a kinship with a lot of Jewish people. There's a lot of Asian and Jewish stereotypes, racism, or shared racism against us. Yeah, I could see that. I mean, there's a lot of Jewish Asian couples, to be honest. Yeah, for example, this guy said, I'm Chinese, Indonesian, this really resonates with me. For sure, I could see that, especially the situation, I guess, with Chinese in Indonesia. This guy said, I'm Filipino-American, or Filipino-American, I seem to vibe well with Vietnamese, Chinese, and Indian people. My closest friends are at least one of the above. This person said, I'm Han Chinese, but I feel very Italian. Tortellinis are just cheese-filled one tons. Just because you have a really good friend of that group, it probably does help you relate to other people in that group, but that doesn't mean you relate to that entire group. You know what it is? Because those people could all be outliers of their group, where they're very open-minded. For example, if a bunch of black sheep from different groups come together, then it's not really like that you relate to each other's group, it's that you relate to each other for being like the black sheep. Yeah, somebody said, if we went by preferred cuisine, I'd be a Retrien. And I got some pictures here of a Retrien pasta, some Mali pasta as well. Those are really, really underrated, by the way. This guy said, I'm ethnically Chinese-American, but I grew up in a Caribbean immigrant neighborhood in the US, so I feel the closest to that community. David, does it matter how much you get accepted too? Because I think eventually if you try hard enough and you relate to the culture and you speak the language, people will end up accepting you as like an honorary member, right? People kind of have that title. Particularly if you're good-looking, though. Oh yeah, if you have something to add, you know? I mean, if you're good-looking or you're... Some sort of value, right? Yeah, some extra value, of course, you know? But yeah, you're right. I think that there's two types, because sometimes some people want to be accepted by another group of people, but they don't become like that group. Or some people sometimes run through 10 out of 10 hoops to become a part of that group. This guy said, I'm Pakistani, I'm Indian, but one of my closest friend groups was Pakistani. Interestingly enough, Andrew, I had a Pakistani homie growing up whose parents ran the non-encouraged shop in the city over and I'm not saying this is stereotypical or not stereotypical, he had an arranged marriage, but that girl was really hot. And they're still together and they got a loving family. However it works, man. This guy said, I'm Chinese and I vibe with Filipinos well, they're cool people. And someone said, oh my gosh, Filipinos are like the cababaras of humanity, everybody loves them. Because there's a meme right now, Andrew, saying cababaras in Australia are like the least hostile like animal, they'll hang out with other animals. Wow, that's pretty funny. Yeah, that's pretty funny. Somebody said, I'm Southern Chinese, so I would say Vietnam. And a group that isn't Asian would be the Latin community. So I saw a lot of these comments Andrew, Southern Chinese with Vietnamese, they actually share a border. Yeah, so it makes sense. I mean, anybody you share a border with, especially if your family is from that border area, that's like saying, oh, I'm from South Texas, I relate to a lot of Mexican culture, that makes complete sense to me. Right, because you're saying South Texas has a lot of Mexican culture. Well, it literally used to be Mexico. Right, I think it has a lot to do with geography. Geography leads to climate, climate leads to similar culture. But I also think it has to do with socioeconomic things too as well. And yeah, I think it also, if you really look at it, it has to do with like ancient spheres. You know, there's an ancient Sinosphere, there's an ancient Indiosphere and stuff like that. There's these like ancient like cultural spheres too that play into it. Oh yeah, no, I mean, if everybody's eating like curry, then you're like, oh, well the curry came from somewhere. For sure, for sure. Somebody said, I'm Filipino, I relate to a lot of Mexicans more than I relate to Asians. And it's because we're both Catholic. Some people echoed that. And some Filipinos were saying, I always felt outside when I was in the ASU in college. But then another Filipino chimed in and said, that's so weird to me. I always felt like super accepted. You know, I feel like a lot of people nowadays are kind of like relating to each other on because I do feel like, depending on where you come from from a culture, you could almost say every culture relates to another culture in some way. Right, you're saying depending on like how you mix and match and compare and contrast. Yeah, that's like if you have a Polish friend and you're like Chinese, you could come up with some reasons how the Polish family is similar to the Chinese family. Right, right. Like it's not, it's not, like everybody can relate to everybody. Yeah, I would agree with that. In some way, especially traditional cultures, any family that is an immigrant literally can relate to another immigrant family. Yeah, I agree with you because culture, let's just simplify it, Andrew. Let's say culture is made out of like 50 elements. You could find the elements that relate to each other because obviously on some other aspects of culture, you guys are not gonna relate. And then more hyper-focus on the points of relationship. No, maybe the food is really different. Food tends to be really different, but family values tend to be pretty similar, right? Education tend to be similar, hard work tend to be similar, kind of like, you know, things that even religion can kind of be shared, so. This is some really interesting geography stuff, Andrew. This Vietnamese guy said he really relates to Greeks and Italians because he's like saying, Viettes are sort of East Asian, but not fully East Asian, just like in the same way Greeks and Italians are Europeans, but they're sort of like off-white. They're viewed as like not full Western Europeans. So he was saying our position in Asia or East Asia is similar to Greece and Italy's position in Europe. That's interesting. Yeah, that is interesting, for sure. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought that, but I mean, again, he probably has some Greek friends and found common ground. And I think this is the beautiful thing about this diverse world is that you think these two groups are not similar, but then you just talk and you chill and you just discuss who you are and you'll find out like, oh, I do relate to people from here. Or maybe not everybody, but you relate to some people from here. Right, this guy said I'm Korean and I relate to Puerto Ricans. I've been around them my entire life and we also had a Catholic upbringing. I can't explain it well, but there is a toxic dynamic between Puerto Ricans and other Latinos that feels very similar between the toxic dynamic between Koreans and other Asians. Yo, I'm not gonna lie. He's just hilarious. You know how like, yeah, Puerto Ricans are maybe talked down on other like Spanish groups, Latin groups, and then like Koreans, sometimes they're known to talk down on other Asian groups. It's funny. It's hilarious. They're a little exclusive. They're a little bit different from everybody. And then there's the whole comparison like, I would say Puerto Ricans are like the Filipinos too. Right, right. Similar to what you said, man. You can relate to anything. You can relate to anything. I wouldn't say, and then you can even make a, you know, oh, there's Puerto Rican Chinese. So then the Chinese relate to the Puerto Ricans too. Right, right, right. This guy said, I'm from Northeastern China. I went to school with a lot of Russian Jewish immigrants and I feel very close to them. They are generally very unreligious and highly educated, but not very wealthy, just like a lot of Northern Chinese. That's very relatable to me. And I feel like the cuisines are pretty similar as well because there's a lot of sauerkraut. And we know, you know, we've done a bunch of stuff on Dongbei. Dongbei did take some influence interestingly enough from Russia due to some of the pickled cabbages and similar climate and cabbages and things like that. I thought that was really interesting. Interestingly enough, Andrew, Dongbei actually had a lot of Russian Jewish refugee camps for like many decades during World War I and World War II. It's interesting. Somebody said, are ABGs an ethnic group because that is the whatever type of Asian is an ABG, I relate to them. There was a, that was a pretty long thread. There was a lot of laughing about that. What do you think about that? Where they're saying it's not about ethnicity. It's more like, man, if you down with that ABG stuff, that's what I like. I don't care what country you're from. I mean, friend groups can be all mixed when everybody's trying to party and have a good time too. You know, like, hey, I party with these guys. We all like to have a good time. It doesn't matter what race we are. You know what I found though? I will say this. The Asian, ABG, EDM, JDM world is a little bit more Pan-Asian if you just buy into that culture than even the Yappies are. Oh yeah. That's what I found. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's not, and even if there is discussion about ancient cultural differences like Japan versus Korea or Japan versus the rest of Asia, actually everybody might mention it and then not even care. Well, I would say. Because they're sort of like not tapped into it. I would say to be honest, a lot of like more, to be honestly, formerly educated Asians tend to be a little bit more tied to their motherland and geopolitics which ends up kind of separating them. Also, they tend to be more traditional and abiding by traditional rules. You hang out with your own kind versus AZN, ABG culture. That's just like, yo, if you're just down with this shit, you're good. And it's more blue-collar, to be honest. Yeah, it is, yeah. No, no, you're right. And a lot of the elite Yappies, especially if you're from a certain type of like family that's connected, you almost like end up becoming this like diplomat or like ambassador for your group. That's like, and of course they're kind of divisive and kind of classy and polite at the same time. Anyway, somebody said, I'm Taiwanese and I can find that Koreans are the ones I relate to the most because they have a relatively high amount of Christian affiliation and Koreans also tend to be more emotional and outspoken, which I personally like them kind of acting like the Italians of Asia. You know what is interesting about this point, Andrew? This Taiwanese person saying, I'm not outspoken. I know that Taiwanese or Chinese kind of have this docile, quiet reputation, but I like how the Koreans are because they're outspoken and fiery, but sort of like us. So it's almost like, he's almost looking at to them in an aspirational way. Well, you can look at a group and be like, hey, they're very similar to me, but they got a couple of things that I like a little bit more. So I relate to them more. That makes sense. Somebody said, I'm Chinese American from Fuzhou, Fujian. And I feel like I really relate to Sicilian people and Vietnamese refugees. And it was funny because I was thinking in my head that if you really think about it, Sicily with the whole Mafioso thing, that does have a lot of relation to, and I'm not saying it's true or not, sort of the outlaw reputation of Fujian. Yeah, for sure. David, I guess I wanna bring this to, so if we say that as an Asian person, you can always find some common ground with almost any other culture to some extent. So then, and this is a little bit related to some other videos that we've made, but is it so wrong then for certain Asians to grow up whitewashed and Asian women or Asian guys grow up and be like, I just relate to white people, man. And I'm like, I just wanna be with white people. Because I relate to white people. Because you're saying that as proven in this thread, and nobody wanted to say white people in this thread, because this Reddit forum is not like that. But it's like, if you see a community that markedly, scientifically has different interpersonal dynamics than your own, and you want those interpersonal dynamics, or things, or events, more than the ones that your group has, is it wrong to jump to that community? I mean, we have a cousin, a female cousin, who you would say stands out in the family because she doesn't act like anybody else in the family. She is very bubbly, very like, I guess, like a blonde girl. Touchy feely, yeah. Like very fun and rambunctious. Is that a good word? Yeah, I would say she's just essentially acts more like a blonde person than a Chinese person immediately, right? Yeah, and she's part of the family. Obviously, she's our cousin. But I would say she stands out. So she grew up relating to that, at least attitude. Right. You know, so. Yeah, I guess it's not really wrong. It's not wrong because different communities do have different things, right? Yeah. To be honest, I mean. I mean, I think first and foremost, you're going to relate to who you grow up around immediately, who you're exposed to, right? But also, if your family is not like, also depends on how open your family is to you, you know? Because if your family's super traditional and very exclusive and very like, like to seclude you from other things, then you're going to have to find some other group outside of your environment to relate to. Yeah, this Korean guy said he likes Chinese friend groups because they remind him somewhat of his Korean friend groups, but he can invite other races to the Chinese friend groups things where the Korean friends, they only want to keep a Korean so he doesn't want to make it weird. That's actually pretty funny. This person says, I'm Indonesian, but I spend all my free time watching Japanese and Korean entertainment. I feel like deep in my soul, my soul feels possibly even more Japanese and Korean as much as it does Indonesian. I mean, how much does that have to play into it? Like we said, aspirational from an IRL perspective, this is aspirational from a pop cultural perspective. Sure, from just consumption. Yeah. And this guy had the last one said probably white. I grew up around more white people than Asians, so I probably identify with mainstream white American culture more than anything else. I'm not going to lie. This one did not get a lot of ups in the red of thread. No, that's real though. That's real though. No, that was probably one of the realest ones that nobody really wants to say, you know? But like, it's America, right? Yeah. And overall, like you said, is it right? Is it wrong? Or do you even question this line of thinking in general? Because this thread, I mean, I got to, there was a bunch of responses I couldn't get to. You can come up with some type of connection with almost any other group, any other cultural group somehow. I mean, it's not just, it doesn't even have to relate to everybody 100%. You just relate to a few people and that can lead you down a path to understand that people more and then you relating to more and more people from that group. But it all starts with some, it all starts with one other person from that group that you relate to. Yeah. And then you go in that way. I think once you see enough reps from like any community, you don't really think this way because once you've met like 100,000 people from every single group, you know that every group has every type of person. Cultures. Like I feel like this thread, and I'm not blaming anybody, these are people, because our life is kind of different. We meet so many people on a day to day basis outside of like a million different fish bowls. If they're only just meeting in their life, they're associating with that one group of people that actually represents one sub tribe of a sub tribe of a sub sub tribe. And they're like sort of painting that whole group with that brush. Right. So it's not, I guess for me, I could see how a lot of people's lives like they, it's easy to think this way and it's not wrong, but it's wrong in a statistical sense. Right, right, right. Yeah. So I don't know. Everybody's life is different. Hey, let us know in the comments down below who you relate to and why. Why do you have friends of this group? What about their culture? Do you relate to? And yeah, let us know. It's a fun discussion. Hey guys, keep it civil in the comments section. Until next time, we're the Hop Hop Boys. We out. Peace. Peace.