 A Chinese PhD student at the University of North Carolina has just been charged with killing his professor, and a lot of people are talking about this. Yeah, this is going viral in America, as well as China. Long story short, Tai Leiqi is accused of killing Zijie Yan, who was the assistant professor that was in charge of his grad student laboratory at University of North Carolina. That's one of the more famous universities, to be honest, in the world. And a lot of people are just like, yo, what's going on? Because this is, it's unexpected. Murders are not uncommon in America, but certainly on the campus of UNC amongst PhDs or PhD students and professors, it is uncommon. Yeah, and both of these people are Chinese international students from China, and I think that's another layer that is also getting it talked about. But regardless, yeah, this is school shooting, essentially. So guys, we're gonna go through the details. There's a lot of different comments. A lot of people are theorizing about the motive. Obviously, there's no clear motive right now. We don't know what happened, but we definitely know that the shooter was under the research group, under the leadership of the victim. So anyways, guys, we're gonna go through it, talk about it, because this is a relatable topic, having known some graduate Chinese students. So please hit that like button, let us know if you guys enjoyed this commentary, and hopefully this video helps. Yeah, I mean, I think the comments went all over the place, right? From just like, what's going on? Are these Chinese students becoming so Americanized? They're indulging in American violence? Or how do you even get ahold of a gun? Or like, what's going on with mental health? What's going on with toxic masculinity? Or what's going on with the toxic environment within these systems that we don't know a lot about, right? Like, not that everybody. If you haven't been through the grad school research world, you wouldn't necessarily know what's going on, right? Or the structures of these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that when you get up to that, you're at a high level of academia, and you're in those circles, you take it very, very seriously, and it is high stress, and a lot is at stake, and maybe coming from a not-so-well-off Chinese family in China, this is all you know, man. It's kind of like, in a weird way, it's like, you know, one of those movies where the assassin gets trained from a young age, and then they're like, that's all I know, is like, I'm an assassin, I was trained since I was eight. Like, it's kind of, for some of these academics, like, that's all they know is academic. So this is their life. So that's why I'm, what I'm trying to say is to some people, looking from the outside in, they're like, oh my gosh, this is like, over school, how could this be? Over grades, over class, over research? Like, this is crazy, but I'm like, people can get hurt for anything. You know, there's- And just what they care about, right? No, it's just like, if you're at a bar and someone's talking to your girl, and then that's disrespectful, and then that turns into a fight, that could turn into death. Right, like maybe people have killed each other over, and I've at least seen movies on this. I don't know, you know, in my head if I can really think of an actual IRL incident over the piano world or the ballerina world, or whatever world just has a very like gymnastics world, whatever, you know what I mean? But even like people have been killed over video games. So literally it's just what you care about. So that's why I think you have to, academia is another thing that some people really care about. And Chinese in particular, let's just be honest, there's probably a disproportionate amount that like really, really, really care about academia. Exactly. The scholar world. And real quick, before we get in the comments, I just want to give a shout out to, and you know, say Rest in Peace to DJ Yan, because like he was a really good scientist. Like there's multiple professors at University of Chicago who said he was on his way to becoming a dominant scientist. He was friendly, he was smiley, he was helpful, you know, material science, the optical physics, the applied physics, he was a smart dude, you know? So I want to give him, you know, to Rest in Peace because he's the victim here and... Sometimes it can get lost in the media because the names are hard to pronounce and people can't fully relate to the like. And they're Chinese students so like know who relates to it. A lot of people don't relate to them, but I want to, you know, here's this picture, he's smiling, we lost a good one, you know? Andrew, you spent a summer interning in a, like a science lab. Yeah, I was in an engineering lab at the University of Washington. So I think a laboratory is like the last place you think that this thing would happen, man. Bars, clubs, events out on the street, on the corner block, this might happen, convenience store, but not the laboratory. Right. Obviously I think it's a mix of factors. Obviously some internal, external, probably the largest one got to be mental illness. Andrew, I know in China, they weren't really analyzing his tweets because he tweeted in English and Chinese, this, the Tai Lai Chi, the acute shooter. And he definitely was like complaining about the lab environment and stuff like that, but clearly the way he was typing English to, it did feel like he wasn't fully all there either mentally. Possibly, yeah, no, for sure. I think there's, again, availability to guns and mental illness and emotional instability. It's all, I think these are all factors. Yeah, for sure. You know, his Twitter got shut down now. A lot of people are talking about how did the international student get his hands on a gun? What changes could happen? You know, some people were- Well, David, the truth is getting a gun in North Carolina, probably not that hard. Right, right, right. It could be a private sale. You can justify through hunting. There's a lot of ways. You know, I'm not too well-versed on it, but there was a bunch of stuff I read. And some people were just glad that it didn't turn into a mass shooting, too, which is what initially the news reports had everybody thinking about. Right, right, they locked down the school. It was scary. People thought that more people were gonna get shot and yeah. So anyway, we gotta get into the comments section, Andrew, of course, getting to our takeaways, Andrew. Somebody said, I bet they weren't expecting an Asian guy. Somebody said, Sai, another Chinese dude losing his mind American style. This fits into a little bit of a more, I guess more of a recent pattern, right? Yeah, I mean, we made a video about the tragedy in Monterey Park and man, that was really bad. And yeah, it does seem like more, still the general overall rate of viling crimes for Asians is still very low, but there have been some recent cases of particularly some Chinese guys recently really just going crazy, you know? So I don't know. Is it just a number? It's like there's enough of them that it means that there's not enough of them gonna go crazy, I don't know. For sure, for sure. I think there's a lot of discussions to be had. You know, I think people need spiritual help, they need mental help, but I just don't even know how you're gonna get it to people, to be honest. I'm like at a loss for solutions. Somebody said, some of the Asian students I interacted with were extremely tense about their grades when I was attending college. There was a lot of pressure when I taught. There were some students trying to intimidate me to give them the good grades. You know, this guy was also talking about his experience and there was just so many things. Some people are saying, man, if you have mental illness, a lab is not where you wanna be. It's like being in a post office. Some people compared it to going postal in the 80s and 90s when the American Postal Service had like a rash of like mass shootings because these are like toxic environments where people felt like helpless and trapped. And then you compared it with like no way out and then people result to violence. Yeah, so I think what a lot of people need to understand, because I think someone shooting someone over grades sounds almost comical, right? It sounds like unbelievable, but it might not be over grades. It could be the lab, could be just their dynamic in the lab. He felt like maybe the shooter felt like Yann was disrespecting him for whatever reason. I'm not saying, you know, but what we're trying to say through these comments is that the laboratory is usually a enclosed area. It's usually often underground. They run their own system. You're spending a lot of hours down there close with each other. There's certain dynamics. And no, it is mostly these people at the high level of the research labs. They're not necessarily the most like sociable people, right? Let's be honest. Like they're not- Well, that's why to be honest, and a lot of Americans, that's why most of the research labs, let's be honest, if we looked at it statistically, are people from other countries? Oftentimes, yeah. If you look at this picture, there's three, I believe Chinese students. There's one non-- But you don't even know, she could be from Poland. Yeah, she could be from another country. You know what I'm saying? So I guess it's, there's egos at play. This is what people care about. It's almost just like someone shooting someone over a game of basketball or shooting someone over fishing. But yeah, fishing, stealing are like just- It's almost just like whatever that group does a lot then that's high pressure or high intensity. Nowadays in 2023, combined that with mental illness, this is a possible outcome. It's more about disrespect. It's not just grades, okay? It's not like- So Andrew, there's a whole Chinese aspect that I guess that American media is not addressing. Some Chinese were saying, listen, you have to understand that unfortunately, this is very sad, but there's some dark comedy. If you really understand like the place of Chinese in academia and the scholar world and the way they are interpersonally interacting with each other in these worlds. Yeah. Because a lot of people don't know, because Andrew, me and you have some exposure through our family to this world. Like a lot of people don't know how deep it is like Chinese in academia and it's like scholar life all the way back to the Unix and the Dynastic period. Sometimes you understand to even make it from China from a not so well off family to get a scholarship or get to go to school at UNC and get your PhD there. Guys, there's a long road to get there. It's crazy. It's crazy. You're studying and caring about your grades and your studies and your research and your passion about it for decades of your life. This guy said- All the way from when you're a kid. This guy said for me, I don't know what happens, but I know that Chinese always treats Chinese in an utterly cruel way in any type of an academic environment. And this person was saying like it's possibly, by the way, I'm not saying this was the case. This is what this comment said that Chinese don't treat other Chinese that good versus treating an American in that context differently. I think some people did try to point out that maybe Chinese more hurt other Chinese and they don't hurt like, it's more like internal Chinese is what I'm saying. Right, right, right. A common stereotype. Right, right, right. Andrew, a lot of people like you said back to your point were dumbfounded that it could be over grades. They were just like over a B. Again, I don't think it's over a grade. Like there's a lot of jokes, obviously, about Asians caring about school. Oh, he got a B. This is a research group. They're probably not any grades. I'm telling you- But it is true though, that certain different cultures, they like hyper value different things, right? Of course, of course, man. For sure, for sure. I would say there was a conspiracy theory section somebody said it was a Chinese hit on somebody, obviously this. Some people said that it could have been this reason, that reason. Of course, Andrew, it turned into a gun debate classically, right? Every time it's like, man, how easy was it hit for him to get a gun? How not easy? You know what I mean? I guess this is just another topic that gets brought up because there's like so many, the comment section breaks down into like different topic sections. Yeah, and then my question is like, for the people who are pro guns, which I try to understand their arguments sometimes, but it's like, you can't stop this. How do you stop this? If you're a pro gun, like if you're a pro gun guy, how do you say, oh, like the lab should have had a gun, should have Yann, the professor should have had a gun on him in the lab? Like, are they supposed to be strapped all the time, ready for something to pop off? Like, how do we know when someone's gonna pop off because getting a gun is so easy? I'm not saying taking away guns and putting gun laws, effective gun laws is easy too, but I'm just saying, what's the explanation here? I don't know what to say. And then there was the last conspiracy I'll end with, and like I said, you guys, these comment sections, they go like everywhere. Somebody was like saying, this white guy was like, yeah, just cause the shooter wasn't white and there was no racial motivation, the news is gonna drop this story because it doesn't fit with any narratives because it's Chinese on Chinese and nobody can pronounce the names. Right. Do you think that that's true that the news cycle on this is gonna go extra quick because there's no profitability and watch times for the news to keep airing in? Is it, are you saying like they're kind of viewing it like a black on black crime or something? Something that generally doesn't get as much mass media coverage because it's not layered. This is an internal human-human inter-immunity thing. Like, are we gonna see 100 pieces from written by white writers about like why do Chinese international students care so much about grades? Or why do they treat it like it's life or death? Or why do they treat it like a 10,000% more serious than we do? I'll tell you this, this is my takeaway. I think that amongst Chinese students or just any students that spend a lot of time with each other, especially in a laboratory, everybody's like very, very smart and brainy, but not necessarily always the most emotionally balanced. Or developed. Right, you know, first of all, I'm not just saying like engineering students and researchers are unbalanced, I'm just saying that anybody can go crazy, right? But I'm saying, I guess now there has to be more of a conversation. I do think that some people in certain labs, groups might be like, oh shoot, like I don't really have a good relationship with that person or like things are always really weird. I get a weird vibe from them, like maybe someone should go check up on them or maybe we need to reach out in a safe manner or something or tell somebody. I don't know. And do you think that that's what they're doing right now in high school? Obviously, because there was such a pattern and a trend within high schools, right? And people stereotyping people with the long leather jackets and the matrix outfits. But now you almost have to apply that to different levels where that thinking was not applied. Well, you have to understand, these research groups, they spend a lot of time in the lab. It's not like they have that many teachers above them. They might have a higher professor at the school, but that higher professor is not there to manage egos all the time. They're not there managing like, who's being nice to who guys in this? Oh, who's perceiving what way, right? This is a grad school laboratory. Come on guys, let's work together. Like there does need to be more like, I don't know, I don't know what the conversations are gonna be like within those grad school, highly academic systems, but I'm sure some people are having conversations right now. Yeah, like I said, I think these things are always a mix of factors and it's so unfortunate. And let us know what you guys think in the comments section below. I don't immediately don't have that many takeaways because to be honest, I just, to be honest, if you make me just give my quick thoughts, I just don't think anything's gonna change. No, I don't think anything's gonna change. I don't really think it impacts the major stereotypes or how people view Chinese. I think some people are thinking like, ooh, like, I guess Chinese people or Asian people are capable of it too. So maybe that awareness is good to accept. I definitely would like to see, this is where art comes into play and because systems are very difficult to build, right? Like in terms of IRL therapy or anything like that, I would like to see more art that can reach a mass amount of people addressing emotional stability or spiritual stability because this is where art comes in. Do you see what I'm saying? Because you know, people are always like, well, a good therapist in real life is way more important than a 10,000 songs. But the thing is, nobody's gonna build that system. Well, no one's gonna willingly get a therapist. Very few people do that. Oh, who's gonna fund it? Who's gonna find the right therapist for the placement and make it accessible and then utilize that service? The art is the thing that can reach you whether you ask for it or not. Right, right. It's easier to deliver a message for sure. So that's my general one thought that I have. Let us know what you guys think in the comment section below, keep it civil. RIP to everybody. Until next time, we're gonna hop up boys. We out. Peace.