 Internet is reacting to these racist incidents that happened in Italy and Australia recently. Now the question is, are things getting worse for Asians overall, or are these things just getting caught on tape? Yeah, we gotta talk about it because it's going viral, especially in Asian internet circles. So let's run the clips. First one's from Italy. Second one is from Australia. Go down, I said. Down, I said. Go down. Down. Stop. Let's f*** you. Down. What? What's wrong? Down. What's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong? F***ing 20s. F***ing. Go down. Let's talk about this Italy clip first. This was on a train from Lake Como to Milan, and there's a Pakistani girl who's a filmmaker. Her boyfriend is half white and half Chinese. He's speaking Chinese to his full Chinese mother. There are three well-dressed, like Italian college girls in the back of the train making fun of the language, being like, haha, ni ha, genise, blah, blah, blah, blah. This went viral. Yeah, I mean, I think initially you look at it and be like, okay, nothing physical happened. Are they saying the most heinous, malicious words? No, but I think it's because they're two, I mean, they're three presentable, nice, like Italian college students, and they look like they might have a TikTok channel. They look like they come from good families. They look educated. They don't look like the group of people that should be so ignorant and should be so unapologetic about them mocking Asians. I think they see the camera and they almost look at it, and they're just like, still... They almost look like some upper middle class, like the equivalent of Italian sorority or like mean popular school girls. Yeah, yeah. So I think that that is hitting differently, especially when you compare it to like maybe racist, random things that somebody on the street says who's like maybe mentally ill or homeless, you kind of write it off as... For sure, for sure. The mentally ill, yeah. Let's be honest, suburban types of racism that are more like moving towards microaggression, they tend to go more viral than something extremely visceral. I mean, those go viral in a different way, like something in the trailer park or the hood. It's just perceived completely differently. Let's get into the comment section. Someone said, well, you girls are going to get impacted for life. Was it worth it to have your little chatty, mean girls like making fun of people like at the lunch table thing over racism? I personally don't think that their lives are changed forever, but I think their week was bad and I think they got a lot of bad attention on social media and I'm sure that, you know, some of their classmates embarrassed them and they are seen a little bit differently. But I think when the college apologized and said, you know, here at the college, like we don't want to expel them, but we want to educate them because we want to be, you know, we don't want to feed into the outrage and I was like, okay, I guess that kind of makes sense because even them making that public statement, it's kind of a big deal, no? Yeah, I mean, listen, guys, I think it's very different from the US, Canada, UK, Australia. Like, Italy is not a super woke when it comes to social justice country, to be honest. Somebody said, Italian culture is very paradoxical because they are very strict on how you cook carbonara, but they are very lenient on racism, which is actually a really funny comment. No, no, no, no, no. You can cook the carbonara that way, but yes, you can make fun of all the Chinese people. And somebody said, Italians are more so ignorant and naive and less true, hating their heart and less superiority complex. It's different. You have to understand in British countries, it's much more subtle, but they might actually hate you or feel superior to you. So how do you rank these two different types of racism against each other? That's true. Everybody would have had all these stories in the comment section of like, yes, I am Chinese, I grew up in Italy, everybody made fun of me and called me Chinese, I made a lot of these every day, but, you know, no violence. So how do you rank these two things? I guess if they're making the argument that the culture in Italy is to mock and tease a lot, right? That's what they're saying. Versus, like, in Britain, they might be polite to you and they might say, excuse me, but in their brain, they're like, if my country... Right, I guess how culturally religious to this are we supposed to be? Because somebody else said that, yeah, Italians are also racist towards each other. If you're from Sardinia or Sicily, which is considered a lower ranked province of Italy, they might treat you different and make comments towards you. Somebody said, yeah, I'm even Italian-American. I speak Italian, not that good, but when I went over there, they were talking trash about me till I let them know I understood. Yeah. Wow, there are a lot of different regions in Italy. That's also why the food is really good, but also why they are racist towards each other. So I don't really... It's hard to rank, right? It's hard to judge. You know, I remember, Andrew, there was the Spanish basketball team, the national team, they were always doing the I thing when they looked at Beijing to play. And people were like, whoa, you guys had your Olympic program all do the slanted eye gesture and they're like, ah, Keating, Keating, excuse it, excuse it. Yeah, well, they're like, hey, you know, in our country, we did not execute or hang any Asian people, we just let them work, so what do you mean? I just tease, I tease. Yeah, I don't know. It's tough to say because some countries are just less violent, but they're more insulting. I don't know, it's hard to rank, guys. Let us know what you think in the comment section below. I think there's a lot of opinions on it. Somebody said, I regret taking so much racism growing up in old America. This reminds me what these girls are doing to this family that happened to me 30, 35 years ago in America and my dad just told me to keep my head down. And finally, when I got older, I realized it's because they simply just feel like you're inferior and they're superior, and I really regret standing by and taking it now that I'm watching these videos from Europe, which seems to be 20 to 30 years behind. Well, should Asians train themselves to be better at like verbal comebacks? Should they yell back and at least say something, at least get something off the Asians chest? You know, I'm not telling Asians to always be violent, but if you want to step up, you gotta have some words read. I definitely think in 2023 Asians gotta think about how they react, would react. I'm not gonna tell them to all react the same way. Everybody has different feelings about everything, but everybody's gotta think about it more. What did you think about the debate, Andrew? There was crazy amount of comments saying, did the school basically dismiss this claim of racism that the girls had when they were like, oh, we're not going to punish. We're just going to seek to educate them. And then basically people were saying, well, these people fundamentally, they do not have respect for Asians, so how are you gonna educate them to respect them? Yeah, I was reading some comments saying that the girls didn't officially apologize and the college just said that just to... At the end of the day, listen, the college's official statement was that they're going to like educate the girls or that they talk to the girls about this. Now, whether anything happens or not, I do think that does mean something in my opinion because the college is not responsible for their actions, but of course it went viral. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I guess the more archetypical thing, I'm gonna actually surprise the universities even issued any statements, right? Yeah. Somebody said, you have to understand, it is because the Chinese ruined Italy. They ruined the clothing industry. Then they brought COVID, so that is the reason why. I'm not saying it's right, but we have our reasons. Yeah, I just think that there's a lot of frustration and, again, like, I'm sure because Italy did get hit pretty hard by COVID and also all these other things and maybe they're tired of hearing that that pasta comes from China or whatever it could be. Everybody has their reasons. They're sick of the ones-o people making bags. But there's so many reasons that can stack, but I think the point is, like, if you want to protest that kind of stuff, man, or if you're mad that Chinese are buying all the factories or buying all this property, then you got to go protest the Chinese who are actually buying the property and not just random Chinese people on the train. Or even the Italians that are for sure getting rich selling it to them, too. Not only that, Andrew, somebody said that the entire Italian luxury designer industry, whether handbags or clothing, is being upheld by Chinese right now. Foreign sales. Guys, do you know what I heard? I'm not saying this is true for all factories, but I heard in some luxury factories in Italy, when it says made in Italy, it's being made by Chinese people in Italy. So Chinese people are moving to Italy to work in the factories and make a lot of some of the luxury goods. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what people are mad about, to be honest. I mean, listen, this is capitalism. I think there's a lot of different, um, like, people at play in this ecosystem, but you're choosing selectively to be mad at a certain part, probably, because they look different and they have a different culture and they speak different languages. Somebody said, well, I just noticed I traveled around the world and everybody's racist, but how come whites are the only ones that got to feel bad for it? So, I mean, I think first of all, there is some truth to that, that there is ethnocentrism everywhere on Earth. However, somebody's other comment said, yeah, I'm pretty sure white or whitish adjacent looking people like these Italian girls won the world for the past 300 to 500 years, and that's why you mostly see whites be racist, or that's the most visible kind that we all identify. The kind that makes the white-looking people superior and everybody else inferior to them. And then somebody said, well, you know, I think in Tokyo, certain non-Japanese people are not allowed in Japanese clubs and in Russia, Siberia, the white Russians don't let the Asian Russians into their stores, so it happens everywhere, and somebody said, well, yeah, that's the same dynamic, but it's actually a lighter skin, a darker skin dynamic. So, obviously, these comments are going, like, all around the world. There is racism all over the world on all different levels, okay? And I generally rate things when I, like, really care about them. I rate it on, like, the scale of how close or how physical and how violent did that interaction become. If it was just mocking words from a group of giggling girls, that's rude. Right, it seems like the worst type of racism on the playground or the lunch room. Yeah, but it's not the worst form of it because I've seen worst forms of it, you know, that turn into violence. Andrew, that leads us to our next incident from Queensland, Australia, and Brisbane-like. Not Sydney, Queensland. Which is more Bogan or more nativist. A little bit more, like, Leucala. Maybe a little bit like New Wave. You don't look like me. Can't be a true Aussie. Yeah, there's quite a lot more laborers out there. So, let's just run the clip one more time just as a refresher. Andrew, this is a 69-year-old, I guess, Anglo-Saxon Australian man. He's like effing Chinese, but to a Thai Muay Thai instructor and a Korean couple that are all friends. I believe they're all foreigners or all living in Australia. I don't know if they have citizenship or not. Somebody said, wow, this guy was a true martial artist. He really showed restraint, especially when the old man hit the Korean wife over the head with his crutches. They still could have taken that guy down really bad, but they didn't. Of course, some people were saying they should have taken him down, and this caused a bunch of arguing. Yeah, well, when you hear that there's a Muay Thai instructor there, you're usually thinking like, oh, shoot. He's about to... At least put him in a leg lock. They're gonna hit him in some leg kicks and some elbows, but first of all, I do think that what was preventing it is that I do think that this is a group of immigrants. I think they're fobs, and clearly their English is heavily accented, so I don't think they've been there for very long. So they might be feeling out of place. Also, we don't know the details. I don't know if they're supposed to be fishing there, but regardless, besides the fact, the white Australian dude did not need to hit the woman, but it is true as a lot of martial arts teachers, they try to show a lot of restraint because you know... Right, because he's like one punch from me would just like turn this guy into dust, right? Exactly, you know what could happen. If you punch an old man, he's gonna slip, hit his head, and then now it's a whole big thing. Yeah, somebody said, oh, this happened to me in Queensland too, but I slapped the bejesus out of the dude, so maybe that's what I was waiting to see. Maybe hit him with what five fingers said to the face. Pow! Somebody said if he did this in the U.S. to any other group other than Asians, to be honest, this old guy might be dead. Wow. I mean, honestly, the U.S. is a very crazy place. It's different than Australia. Somebody said, well, I'm glad they didn't beat up this old guy because he looks like he has dementia and he's drunk. My mom's got dementia. Does it excuse this behavior though? Because he's like, as in Johnny, you're stealing everything. Show me what you've got. I could imagine him getting slapped. A good slap in the face. Open palm, not a punch. Open palm. Somebody said, well, to be fair, I think that he thought or maybe these Asians actually were illegally fishing. Maybe some of the young white, scrapping Aussie boys would have talked to him a real lesson. So this was obviously from a, probably a fellow Bogan from Queensland. Right. So what do you think of that? Like, I guess what I'm saying is these guys are trying to say their justification. Just like the Italians, some of them are like, they're doing Italy. Somebody's like, well, they're ruining Strayer. What I knew is Strayer said it's not, maybe it's not right, but I knew where they're coming from. And this is what I don't like about those internet comments. It's because you're making judgments. Guys, the white guy didn't say what the Asians were doing wrong. He got to point out the exact legal code. Listen, if you was like, ah, you freaking Asians, you're stealing the fish. You're fishing illegally. I know you don't go to Pamet. And I live right down the block and I always catch you guys. Like he didn't explain his case. He was just rambling crazy racist stuff. So again, guys, we don't really know what happened, but he shouldn't have hit the woman because there was no violence before that. And that could have been really bad for him. He's lucky the group of Asians did not. Somebody said, I'm an Asian Australian and it's pretty normal for certain whites in certain areas like Queensland that pretty much still think they run the whole world. And somebody said, hey, listen, guys, I'm white, but I'm not British or Anglo. I don't think Luca Yochich or Sangoon think they run the world. It's just one group of people. So I don't like to keep us all of us whites out of it. I'm from Eastern Europe. Somebody said, you know, he's just trying to be a proud Aussie and the Chinese are ruining Australia. So this is my justification. And somebody said, hey, guys, listen, not all Chinese remember that. And somebody else came through and said, wait, so if they were Chinese, it would have been justifiable, which leads that's a whole another complicated thing because that's an inter-Asian thing. Andrew, let us get into our takeaways. I'm sure we could read comments for like another hour. Andrew, is this bound to happen? Is it increasing more? Or is it just happening because everybody's got a 4K camera phone in their pocket? It's going to happen more. But I don't know if this stuff always kind of happened, but I do think with how geopolitics they are and there's more and more Chinese people moving around the world, doing business, doing good business. All types of Asians, but yeah, particularly the Chinese, the most population. I mean, there's a lot of Chinese and I don't think not 100% of the Chinese are acting maybe the way they should be. And so there is a lot of frustrations from these groups that dominate their country because they feel like, oh, there's this foreign group coming in and they got all this money and they're doing whatever they want. I've always read in the past in all the magazines that they're going to take over the world. Like we had the last 300, I can't imagine that this group's going to have the next 300. So what I would say to them, the people who are mad at like Chinese people, for example, or Chinese looking people, I'd be like, listen, if you want to protest Chinese people buying properties, you got to go protest to the people of your country that are getting rich from selling their property to the Chinese or you should go protest to the government and tell them to stop letting Chinese people in. It does no good by messing with like Asian looking citizens. It literally has an impact. Whether they're Chinese or not, it doesn't change the justification. Like if you want to have impact in this and actually want to change things, that's not how you do it. You're being an idiot. So, I mean, of course, they're not being rational anyway. But for some reason, I'm not really mad at the guy who sold his property for like four million dollars. I'm just mad at the guy who looks different from me. He bought it. Like I'm not, listen, I'm not telling people to do this, but if you want to go vandalize a billionaire Chinese house or car that you see, that would make a lot more sense to me than bothering like middle class, lower middle class Asians that are just trying to live their life. I mean, it's not okay on any level. Yeah, but I'm just saying, like just from the logical standpoint. Well, the truth is, I don't think that any of these people are being logical, right? No one's being logical. They have some hatred in their heart or some sort of misguided thing. They heard it from the media. They heard it from their uncle. They heard it from this person, that person, and they're completely villainizing the entire group or even just a look of people at some point. Andrew, do you think soft power can impact this? I guess this is more the side where it's like, if people like Chinese food more or Chinese products or any type of Asian product, is this less likely to happen? I don't think this old guy from Queensland or those Italian girls were big, K-pop, J-pop, anime, Wusha Pien, Kung Fu fans. You're saying that you don't think that he watched everything everywhere all at once, and he was like that. I doubt it. I didn't think that it was going to stop. He's not a big Michelle Yeo fan, right? Must watch Queensland Theater List. Yeah, I mean, I do think this is where soft power can help, but obviously, this guy's probably aged out of it. But I think those Italian college girls, I think that's why that was hurtful, that video, even though it wasn't that malicious. It was hurtful because like, oh, this generation of Italians, too. I thought they knew better. Look at all the K-pop, all the Chinese movies, all the Chinese food. Oh, why? We're losing the next generation. Yeah, and I think that that's why it went so viral because both these incidents, not that they're like super-shocking what happened, but they remind people of an era that people thought was bygone, right? Yeah. Maybe 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Exactly. Anyway, let us know what you think in the comment section below, guys. Keep it civil. We had a hot pop always discussing silly to serious things. Until next time, we out. Peace.