 Man, Chinese church was boring. Oh my goodness. Yo, I've heard this, it was boring. Did growing up in an Asian church make us who we are today? Well, the answer might surprise you. Yeah, we got to talk about it, Andrew. Over the years, probably 20 people have messaged us saying, please talk about your experience growing up in the Chinese church or the Asian American church, because it is a pretty common second generation Asian American experience, Andrew. Whether people do it for community or for the religion or assimilate into America, because America is technically a Christian country. Yeah, a lot of people go through it. Yeah, I mean, the rates of people identifying as Christian in Asia are a lot lower, but when oftentimes those immigrant groups come to America, it's higher, right? I mean, you join churches for a number of reasons. Yeah, I think like South Korea, Andrew jumps from 30% in Asia to 75% in America. China jumps from 2.5% in Asia to 30% in America. That's a 10X. Yeah, so I think we got to talk about it. And of course, everybody's church experience is different. Whether you went to a Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese Filipino church or all the other churches out there, but we're just gonna be able to talk about our own experience going to a Chinese church on Sundays. It was a Protestant church. It was even more specifically evangelical, David. So let's talk about like the five things that we took away from Chinese church. By the way, if you guys like these types of videos and you guys want to hear us more talk about our experience, please let us know in the comments down below because I think that it's worthy of more than one video. Here are five unique points about going to a Chinese church. Yeah, I mean, these are things very, very specific to our experience. Even if you went to another Chinese church, I'm not saying you went through these things. There are even different Chinese churches, guys. Andrew, number one, I think that this kind of goes to the multicultural nature of our channel. I realized one of the things it did was expose us to the Chinese diaspora. So basically there are pockets of Chinese people living in almost every corner of the globe. And sometimes because we're the only church in the area, Andrew, everybody would meet at one church. So you're meeting people from all across the world, but still going to a Chinese church. Yeah, no, I mean, first of all, there was some old white people that went to the church and they were like, they did missionary work in China. So them going to a Chinese church, it was maybe a continuation of their missionary work. Well, you know, I left Nanjing, but I still like to be, you know, amongst feeling like it's Nanjing. No, shout out to Esther. Yeah, Esther Cook. Esther Cook, man. So we met Chinese people that were from the Philippines. There's Chinese people from Malaysia. There was Chinese people from Indonesia. There was Chinese people from mainland China, from the north of China. There was even a person who was like inner Mongolian at our church. There's obviously a lot of Cantonese people, people from Hong Kong at our church. There was a Taiwanese aborigine woman from Taiwan who spoke Mandarin mostly, but she literally look Samoan. Yeah, so I think growing up with that background, oh, Taiwanese people ran the church, by the way. And it was mostly KMT Taiwanese. Very organized, very strict. I'm telling you, there was different types of Chinese at the church, but you had to have the KMT Taiwanese, right, because they're strict. They're like Japanese. But this is deep cut. There wasn't only KMT, Taiwanese, there was also Taiwanese, Taiwanese. That was sort of like, I guess, quote unquote, the Green Party. Yeah, no, they had the, like, even, they even split up into their own little small groups. And you guys have to understand, we went to church like 20 years ago. So all these like geopolitics was even more stronger back then. Yeah, people were like less Americanized. They were still more locked into Asia. So I guess, David, because the Chinese diaspora is so vast, and they come from so many different countries, that they were meeting here at this Chinese church in the Seattle area, that it did expose us to all these different types of Asians early on. Yeah, you can meet Chinese people from like Southeast Asia, from India even, like wherever. Yeah, so I guess it was like, I don't want to say it was Pan-Asian, but it was definitely Pan-Chinese diaspora. So in a way, it was slightly Pan-Asian. It is a micro version of being Pan-Asian. And I do want to know guys, like growing up, like during the week, we did have some Asian friends, and they were more Southeast Asian. But then on Sundays, that was our Chinese day. Like that was the day that I was around Chinese people. Because the actual community we grew up in was very not Chinese. But then of course, church was very Chinese. So I guess that was point number one, and I do think that that was the beauty of our church, you know, not only promoting church, but I guess I'm just saying, yeah, that was a, I guess it was cool. Yeah, and it definitely creates, I mean, like, I guess it's like complicated too, you know, because there's like all these people from all around the world, it's not like they all have the same experiences. Oh, it's not even like they speak the same languages. Oh, not the same dialect, for sure. Yeah, because you had your two major groups, you had Mandarin and Cantonese, but everybody broke off into their own sub-dialects, whether it was like Taiwanese, people spoke in Hoken, or, you know, there's people speaking Hakka and all that stuff. Yeah, so I would say actually, our church was a little funny because some services literally would have three languages. It would have Mandarin, and then the person would translate it into Cantonese and then English. No, they added the English later, it's like started more Americans when. Or because we actually had a Filipino-Chinese pastor who spoke English, he would do the main sermon in English and then right after it would be a Mandarin translator. So each bar would get translated. It was very- Dude, it depended on who- It made service very boring, man, I'm not allowed to- It depended on who the pastor was, oh my God, some people are good at only good at Cantonese, some people are only good at Mandarin, some people are only good at English, and it's just, oh my God. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, our church, thinking about it, it was kind of disorganized, but it was very diverse in that sense, for a Chinese church. So I do think it made us more diverse. I guess that's the major takeaway. And I don't think that everybody necessarily has that experience, right? Because it's like, it was the only Chinese church that has these Chinese from all around the world. I did hear about a church farther away that was fully, like based in Cantonese, so that would have more like Hong Kong people and like Kanto speakers, right? But our church was like pan Chinese. So anyways, and moving on, moving on, we could go on and on about that point, but David- Moving on to number two, man, I would say that, you know, you saw a lot of socioeconomic diversity too. And listen, if you grow up in a city, even like a large suburb, of course there's socioeconomic diversity in every place, right? There's rich people, there's poor people, there's upper middle class people, there's lower middle class people, and everything in between, right? Obviously the distribution ratios can be different depending on whatever city you're in, but I think it's different when it's in a church environment, because you see the kids, you know their parents, you're supposed to be good to each other, people try to even help each other out. Yeah, there is that expectation. Obviously nobody's perfect at church, we understand this, but the expectation is that you help each other out, you pick each other up from church, you go to each other's houses, if they need to borrow something, whatever. We had some people boil water at our house so they could take baths. I remember in these gigantic times. Yeah, I think because they just moved in and their water wasn't on or whatever reason. Also there was like, but speaking on the socioeconomics, basically jobs at our church ranged from rich business guy from Hong Kong, there was a doctor, there was engineers. Oh, the Taiwanese were the doctors and the PhDs. There was some engineers and then there was like just some business owners, a subway shop owner, not a subway chain, but a subway shop, it was a mom and pop. And then there was also like casino card dealers, there was just blue collar workers. Yeah, more like Chinese vietes, because it worked at the casino. Yeah, yeah, or just some Cantonese people were doing that too. And then so I think like, there was just a diversity of jobs and careers and obviously socioeconomics. Some families were wealthier than others. Sometimes we do family meetups or youth group meetups at the nice house in Bellevue, Washington, which is by all means the rich zone. It's the bougie zone. No, like million dollars houses there. And you would go to those houses and I think what is cool about that though is that not that you fully related to everybody the same amount because you would still kind of find your own group within church that you related closer to, but seeing that from a young age and having that connection is important to be like, oh, I know what it's like to be out of rich person's home or I know how they operate. So now in my head, I'm learning from this. And that is just something, it just goes to show you're getting exposed to more. So you're not only seeing the diversity, I guess in just like country of origin at our Chinese church, but you were seeing a ton of income diversity too. And it is true. To be honest, you got to see how to pour people raise their kids and what they knew about how to move in society and you saw what the rich people knew. And there is a gap. There is a complete difference. And there were single mothers at our church, right? And there was single fathers and there was mixed couples, but it was primarily under the larger umbrella of like Chinese speakers or Chinese of people of Chinese origin. Yeah. So I think that those points one and number two were huge in terms of making us see a lot of different perspectives. And it's not just like being around people of different countries of origin or income levels, but it's actually collaborating with them. Like Andrew, me and you had to like acculturate sometimes kids from Asia that didn't speak English and they were really shy or people who's like, obviously their parents were villagers, you know? The villagers, I'm not gonna lie. And they have great hearts. They don't know fully what's going on when they come to America, man. They were keeping their kids inside the houses. The kids didn't really get the reps to like understand how to learn about society. I mean, there was like times where my mom would be like, Andrew, David, like, you know, there's a new kid at church. And you know, he doesn't really have a lot of friends. He doesn't have a dad or doesn't have a family. Yeah, he doesn't have a father and a single mother. So like, can you go over there and hang out with him and like play ping pong? Yeah, it's a little bit like being, what's it called, the big brothers across America or something? There's all those programs, you know, like the larger sibling leadership thing. That being an ambassador or like, hey, Andrew, like can you, you need to pick up these people on the way to church? They're community college students that just move here. And so we were kind of involved in the church. I definitely was. Yeah, we weren't just attending like our parents, they were in there. No, no, they were definitely part of it. Maybe not at the top, but they were of the structure. They were of the structure. I mean, moving on to point number three, Andrew, it actually also exposed us to mainstream white society in a way because our church was like kind of a startup church. So for like, maybe I want to say like five or six years, like the church is like four hours long, right? Total, you got to wake up early and then it takes you to get there. The first two hours were at like a conservative white church because we didn't have a youth program set up because nobody was there to run it and like have the rooms and the infrastructure. And then the next two hours were like back in the like, you know, you feel like you're in Asia. Like everybody's speaking Mandarin and Cantonese. So there's this white American church that was several blocks away. And we'd walk there first. It was really full stuff. It was like huge. They had big systems, they had big systems there and then we'd go there and there was some collaboration a little bit, but sometimes- Oh yeah, of course the Chinese can come in and use our youth system perhaps to get even more assimilated. Yeah, I went to part of it was going to a white church growing up for sure. No, shout out to them. They were good people. They were nice people, but I will tell you that for sure they have some like, you know, conservative white Christian beliefs for sure. And some of it is at odds, obviously with who you are or what, you know what I mean? Like they don't like Chinese food there. No, I mean, you know, I think everybody's trying. The thing about church is whether or not deep in your heart you are harbor any sort of feelings towards a group of people. You just try to hide it when you're at church. That's the point. Everybody's putting on a face. Or maybe it was even more like ignorance even. It wasn't even any sort of hatred towards different types of people, but they're like, oh, they're just different from us. I hope they become more like us. And you start to realize like those people, they're not bad people, but they just like, they have their perspective and it's going to be difficult for them to change. David, moving on to point number four. Let's just talk about some pros and cons. We're not going to try to get too controversial. We're not trying to convert anybody to Christianity in this video. But what I do want to talk about is like, man, Chinese church was boring. Oh my goodness. Yo, I've heard this. It was boring. Dude, to sit through that many translations. First of all, I'm not even interested in the base material, to be honest, when it's in English. It's not funny. When it's in English, I'm not interested. It's not enthusiastic. Dude, I remember at the white church, sometimes we would like have to go sit through their sermon because like, I don't know, for whatever reason, we would just go to both hours at the white church. They would always try to make it relatable. They'd be like, all right, here's what you should do in the Bible when people are making fun of you on the playground. And that's like an adult sermon too, by the way. Like everybody, dude, at the Chinese church, it's so technical about analyzing, because you know, like Chinese people, they can kind of like make anything, a technical STEM subject and take the relatability and fun out of it, right? When Jesus was on the mound. No, according to... He told, he told Joseph. Not Joseph. He, again, it was just... Jesus, he said, we need to follow his rules. And you're something, and you're just like, dang man, it's so ultra dry. But you know what? Part of being from an immigrant group is just not having the fully built systems up. You know, David, like you're a little, you're a couple of years older than me, but during your high school years, there wasn't like a well formed youth group only towards a few years after that, did a family step up and they kind of took charge of the youth group. No, it was a Thai Chinese family. So that was crazy too, because you're getting coached by somebody who, when they speak English, they almost have like a Thai accent, but they're Chinese running the youth group at a Chinese church. Don't say hell. Hell's a bad word. Oh my goodness, man. You could not... But that's real. I mean, I'm just saying the way she said it. I mean, I would say this, like, to me, because we were playing football, basketball in middle school and into our high school years, you're around a lot of like crazy American people. So for me, it like, Sunday was my Chinese day where everybody's really conservative and nobody even like drinks coffee. Some people don't drink coffee because there's caffeine in it, they think it's a stimulant, it's bad. Of course, definitely no smoke in anything. You know, whether we're talking about cigarettes or weed or whatever, drinking is bad. And I think Chinese churches actually are particularly conservative. I don't know why, because it's like not part of our culture anyway or whatever. But like, it was more like a counterbalance. But I'm saying for the people where it wasn't a counterbalance, I felt like it made them too soft and too conservative. Yeah, I mean, I think there's pros and cons. I think one thing about churches that like, what I noticed is that there was some egos at church and guys, church is just like any other social system, okay? It's just like school. You get a bunch of people together. There are, there's hierarchy. There's the popular kids. There's this and that group. No, even amongst the adults. Yeah, obviously, you know, it's supposed to be under the guise of like, hey, everybody be nice to each other and respect each other, help each other out if they need it. However, there's still those dynamics. So of course like- Well, also people, I think any church has that, but especially amongst Asians, Asians are hyper hierarchical. And also you have to understand guys, these are immigrant parents. This is the only community they have amongst each other sometimes. They go to work, maybe they're an engineer. They only work around other white engineers or non-Asian engineers. And then they come to church and they want to like feel like they can make an impact. So there's egos at the church, but sometimes I felt like some kids would be extra like the mean cool kid bully at church when at school, they wouldn't act like that because at school, they can't be the cool kid bully. Because the region we grew up in is mostly white and black people, yeah. Yeah, so you're not being a bully at the white and black school, but then you can come to the full Chinese church and be a little cocky. That's how I felt- You're saying they was using it as their auxiliary fishbowl to act crazy in a dominant power structure. And I don't want to say that that's like the worst, most problematic thing because I do think that's partially of being young. But that's- Usually it's Taiwanese kids. Yeah, I'm gonna say it, man, I don't care. I think it was just part of being young and growing up, but also trying to take advantage of the situation that everybody's Chinese. So you're like, yeah, I'm the cool kid, yeah, man. Well, not only that, if your family has the most money, the most structure, the most know-how, the most like knowing how to move this way- I feel like for us, we didn't fully connect with everybody else at church. No, we were always like, because other people at church, they would hang out with other church people during the weekdays, but we would only hang out with church people on the weekends when we were there for like four to six hours. And even then, we did skip service sometimes and go to McDonald's, so. We were definitely like trying to not be a partner. Not the Golden Cross, it was the Golden Arch sometimes. We had to go get those, I think burgers were like, on Sunday, they had a deal sometimes, anyways. Yeah, I mean, as far as the, you know, I definitely was not reading and doing the Bible times as much as some other people were. The Bible times, David. I believe it's called Small Group and Bible Study. I mean, anyway guys, I'm sure we could talk about this aspect for hours. I'm just like going into my brain files right now haven't thought about some of this stuff for like 10, 15, 20 years. At the end of the day though, point number five, and like I said, we have so many stories in the past. I don't even know it could go on for like hours and hours. Church does make you think about ideals and sort of goals beyond yourself, whether that's for society, for humanity, for your community, outside of your family and outside of you as a singular individual. And I think that to me, as boring as it was, as there were so many times that we were wack, so many times that I wish we had gone to a cooler Asian-American church or something, I don't know, I don't think that stuff existed back then, but like, I do always remember that that impacted me. Yeah, I think that that is the goal of church. And I think that if you take away anything, whether you're still praying when you get older in your 30s or whatever, those kind of, that kind of teaching and coaching over all those hours spent at church working at the food banks, doing all types of charity work. It's an organization where everybody's trying to buy into these ideals. Whether or not you got it in your heart, that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to pull it out and you're trying to practice these good things because it is true. Listen, if you practice complimenting each other, giving each other positive affirmations at youth camp, at the church camp that year, and you're just practicing these things, practicing being nice, practicing praying for people, whether or not you believe it or not, it's good, I think it is good for you. Literally, if you go through the motions, it will still impact you. Because think about it. Let me just break down the math real quick. You spend about three hours at church each week, all right? Three hours there in that environment, at least. Let's say you go about 40 weeks a year, maybe not every single week, but most of the weeks. And you go for 10 years. That is 1,200 hours you spent in that environment. If you spend 1,200 hours in any other different environment, you don't think that environment's going to influence you at all. That's 1,200 hours. That's a lot of hours spent in a certain environment that's based around certain ideals and certain beliefs. Yeah, and certain coaching where they're like, you know, be nice to see who's the weak person and show them more love. And not everybody's perfect. I think that there's a lot of good lessons that are lost. I think some of the leaders are imperfect. Humans run church and humans are imperfect. We understand this. But I guess in a decent church and a decent church experience should give you that. And I will say this, to be honest, I gotta keep it super real. I don't think at a base level, Chinese culture fully has those things. Like I don't think it's a culture where they stress like graciousness or something. You know what I mean? Like gracefulness or whatever. Because it is hierarchical. Even though it is an achievement-based culture, whether that's for academic achievement or economic achievement, it's not like one where you're always fully thinking about like, you know, the impact on poor people or the less marginalized society. Yeah, ideally, ideally, if you go to church too and your family does, even though they push you harsh in the academic world, let's say you don't make it to the Ivy League, right? And you feel bad. Ideally, the whole point and the belief is like, hey, like you're still worth something. You still have a larger mission. Maybe you weren't meant to go to the Ivy League. You're still okay. Now that's like probably like just one very specific example. But I guess that's what it's supposed to teach you. And I'm not saying you can't get these teachings elsewhere. However, it's just the easiest thing because like everybody's buying into that system. I think that parents can directly teach their children these things. I think there could be cousins and aunties and uncles and more like what a family type people that can like teach you these things. But I'm just saying, at least at the church, it's like it's more built into the structure. So like I said, that's overall our thoughts. Those are five quick thoughts that we have this sort of like, I guess impacted our material today. I mean, everything you go through in your life has a part in who you become, right? Hey man, if you spent 1500, 2000 hours at a certain place, that place affected you. So I guess in the comments down below, let us know if you found this video relatable. Let us know if you guys want to see more content like this. Let us know if you found it helpful. And also let us know if you went to church or a temple growing up, church and temple. I mean, there's certain similar dynamics. I know the religions are different, but of course there's similar dynamics. It's still a social environment meant to be positive. I think in general that's what it's supposed to do. Still full of first and second generation immigrants trying to find community, trying to build structure, trying to I'm sure just make each other have a better life. All right, everybody, thank you so much for watching. And until next time, we out. Peace.