 Do East Asians relate to South Asians? This question is going viral on the internet right now and we got to discuss it. Yeah, we got to talk about this reddit thread. I don't know why this topic has been like popping up so much these past couple years, but long story short, Andrew, there was a lot of people chiming in South Asians, Southeast Asians, East Asians. Obviously this question is pretty big because how can you just categorize like do a few billion people relate to a few other billion people? However, Andrew, there probably are some patterns if we want to just like say our observations. Yeah, I mean, just to tell you and show you how often people are actually asking this question, there's a lot of posts on the internet asking, why don't you see more South Asian and East Asian couples as far as dating and marriage? Both men and women, they don't, there's not that many of them. But you do see friend groups mixing. I see friend group mixing, but and I know some couples myself, but from my observations, no, they don't interracially mix that much. On a dating level, I would agree with you, but on a friendship level, I think it could depend half-half. So we're going to get into the comments section. We will discuss this topic. Please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys. Real quick, this video is brought to you by our brand new sauce coming out soon in a month. Smila, get the pre-orders at SmilaSauce.com from Sichuan to Sicily. Trust me, this is unlike anything that is available on the market right now. Andrew, let's just get into some quick thoughts. Obviously, I think the truth is right in a lot of ways, yes, in a lot of ways, no, right? Because like what level of culture are we talking about? The superficial aspects, the deep ancient culture, the middle-tier culture, the layers of the onion, right? It could be different at every level. Why do you think people like asking such a simplistic question like in one sentence, do these billions of people relate to another billions of people? Well, because these are the two huge large kind of Asian groups, I would say East Asia, South Asia, obviously billions of people. So they want to know like, hey guys, are we ever going to be able to team up or do we just are? And then also I also think it helps answer the question on whether Indians are Asian or not. Obviously, that's a question that always floats around on the internet. But yeah, I mean, I would say in my opinion that if you can just find one topic or subject that you are both passionate about and sometimes as being a nerd, but sometimes as being like a geek, maybe it's about Comic-Con, maybe it's about Pokemon, maybe it's about basketball, maybe it's about something else. But if you can bond over that one topic first and then also enjoy each other's food, I think that's a great start to an actual respectable friendship. Right. And I think it really starts with exposure. However, I will say, and I don't know if this is really against what you're saying, most of the friend groups that I've seen that were hypermixed, that were part East Asian or Southeast Asian and Indian in my opinion, or just Brown in general, they were more based around STEM kids. Their parents are professors, their parents are engineers, some sort of like brain worker, maybe got that, you know, the brain worker visa. Wait, so you're saying there's not a bunch of brown F boys and a bunch of East Asian F boys rolling out to the club together, going out to try to like meet girls? It's not that I've never seen it, but usually if you got Nav and then you've got Anders, do Nav and Anders got a song together? I don't know. I don't know. You're right that you're right that I do think these two groups probably bond most often over being like essentially engineers. I've seen both groups of F boys at Mr. Wolf in Toronto, though. Oh, maybe in Toronto. Maybe Toronto Mons is different dynamics, bro. And I think of the Ivy League, you see a lot of mixing Ivy League. Obviously not necessarily everybody pursues a STEM degree in the Ivy. They could be humanities business. However, that's like some sort of mind meld, right? I mean, they're connected more at the brain than they are at the other parts. I think everybody's friend group differs. However, we are trying to talk about in this video, Andrew, more generalized patterns, over a thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand reps, right? But your specific friend group in your hometown could be completely different. Oh, yeah, I know in the Bay Area, maybe Seattle. It's definitely a little bit more mix and it also depends. Let's be honest on even the type of Asian and the type of Indian, possibly even religion has something to play in it. How traditional the family is. Let's be real has a lot to play if both sides are Americanized. Then, yeah, of course, you're going to mix. No, for sure. I mean, I would say even in New York, I know some like urban Bengali guys. They're dating like Southeast Asian girls. And for the more like tech Indian guys, I've seen them dating East Asian girls. I don't know. I'm just saying what I've seen, right? It's hot bond. I do think there's similarities and there's differences, right? So both cultures eat a lot of rice. One's Jasmine, one's Basmati, Andrew. The biggest sports in India are cricket and Kabadi versus baseball and basketball. But a lot of Indian Americans, when they come to America, because there's no cricket culture in America, they really embrace basketball. Right. Because especially in the Bay Area, they love Steph Curry, right? Tech Vivek owns the Kings. There's one of the owners of the Kings. I think everybody in Asia likes soccer, but the kids in America, it's like 50-50 whether or not they took that culture on. Most Indians are typically, if we're talking about more than people from India versus Indian Americans, they work in software. Most East of Asia, Andrew, is working in hardware or more so when it comes to the tech world, but they both wear 24-karat gold as their preferred jewelry. Andrew, those are just some quick thoughts off the top of my head. So, same-same, but different. Right, right, right. Definitely a lot to relate to on a very deep cultural level, but also, you know, even just like again, man, even if you guys just play tennis together and then you go out and eat some Tik Masala or get some naan and get some samosas. Or Thai food. What about Thai food being the half-half? Thai food's kind of the mix, right? Because Thai food has some Chinese influenced dishes and then it has some more Indian influenced dishes. Indiosphere and Sinosphere, right? Maybe we all go get Thai food together. Come on! So, make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. Again, guys, this is the first comment. I relate well to all immigrant children, but only those with a positive view of their home country. Indians seem easy to talk to. Basically, this person was saying like, as long as you're like not just like trying to be super Americanized and like hate on your heritage origin country and just become super, super American, then they could relate on that. Yeah, I would say a lot of Indians do hold close to the culture. I mean, whether or not they even act like whitewashed or not, sometimes they have super like, you know, they kept their Indian names, kept the Indian religion, but they could talk like this, yo, what's up, man? My name is like Akash. My name is Suresh. Yeah. You would have it all the time, yeah. Yeah, dude. Somebody said as a Southeast Asian, I feel like in between both groups, depending on which Southeast Asian your country you're from. And I feel like when I brought my South Indian, South Asian friend into my East Asian friend group, they were like a little bit excluded. And then somebody else came in and said, I'm East Asian and I grew up and I felt like I felt most of the racism in my childhood from South Asians. But later in college, I ended up having a lot of South Asian friends because we related on having high expectation parents. Okay, I don't want to like, because I think, you know, without an Indian person in this video, I don't want to start debating about which group is more racist, all right? I don't really like this conversation. But what I will say this is, I think anecdotally and observationally, I will say I've seen more Indian or South Asian men date a Asian girl versus an Asian guy date a South Asian woman. I've just seen maybe that couple outweighs the other like two to one. Yes, yes, yes. But it's not that the other one doesn't happen. No, no, and I'm not to say that it doesn't exist. It's like 66, 33. But a lot of why you mix with each other is who you're accepted and embraced by. If you have an Indian friend group and let's say I'm a Chinese guy and there's an Indian friend group and I get accepted and embraced by them and I have fun, maybe I even date an Indian girl. You're saying if you get the girl from Bridgerton, I'm joining the Indian Student Association, man. I'm not saying I did, but I'm joining it. Everybody is looking and this is just human nature, looking to see what life they can get out of something. Not in a schemy way, but you're just seeing, hey, how's my life when I hang out with them? Is my life better when I hang out with them? Maybe your life is better when you hang out with your own people. Maybe your life is better when you hang out with a different group of people. So you're sort of removing the argument from all this like phenotypical, historical, geographic thing and just literally taking it to the mechanical like what's the, is the juice worth the squeeze of people in this world? I'm saying at the baseline desire, I'm saying there could be a number of reasons why you're treated differently or why your life is better or worse around different groups of people. But at the baseline, you're looking for the best, most comfortable, fun life. Get the better life for me. Do I go over here? Get the better life over there? Go over there. It's very simple. It's simple, guys. Like a kid, right? Somebody said ultimately we are bonded by society's expectations of us in the West and the majority of us either will organically or inorganically feel pressure to fit into that mold that society puts us into because generally for East Asians and South Asians, at least in America, it's a good mold that they shove us into. It's funny that it's kind of like they're united by the model minority stereotype. The Asians and especially East Asians and South Asians are united by the fact that they're overachievers, okay? They're all in these math or spelling bee competitions, right? Indians run the spelling bee East Asians and Indians on the math team, right? So it's just like, wow, you're all geeks and nerds, also both groups not known to dominate at American sports. Not the most physically intimidating group show. I would say East Asians probably have shown to be more successful right now because of the sports systems I think are better. But I don't know, Indians are coming up soon. Yeah. Somebody said as a South Asian dating an East Asian, I can say that all the superficial stuff is very, very different and all the deep stuff is very, very similar. That was an interesting way of putting it. He's talking about the layers of the onion, right? Basically saying like layer, one of the onion looks super different. Like one's a purple onion and one's like a green onion. But then once you get to the core of it, it might be more similar. Yeah, dude, when it comes to parent expectations, it's all the same, man. Everybody wants me to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer. This guy broke down. He said, yep, the deep culture like family relationships, role of education, connection to rich history, attitude towards authority, elders, approach to raising children, notions of courtesy, modesty, Eastern philosophy, philosophical basis that is different than Western philosophy is really the same. However, the surface level stuff, food, music, fashion, language are super, super, duper different. This kind of goes back to my STEM point, Andrew. Do the F-boys and like the party like sexy shallow crowd, you know, IG, Lambo, Iced Out, Bust Down, Watch crowd. Does that crowd think different than the STEM crowd? Are they more focused on the superficial differences whereas the other crowd is more tapped into the, almost like the pillars of similarity? So essentially you're talking about like the ABG, ABBs and then the Indian version, whatever that may be. Right, right. Which you are probably Punjabi still. If I know anything about Indian people. But I'm saying that I guess those two groups, those types of people tend to be more tribal because they're more F-boys or ABGs or ABBs amongst their own group. Yeah, because they're operating in that sphere where the looks and like who's sexier and like looks, that matters a lot. With that said, I've seen cool groups mix, cool types of people mix, but not to say that the geeks aren't cool, but I'm just saying like I guess bonding over STEM and like math equations and engineering and kind of coding and stuff is a different bond. It is different because you had to be on the math team together. You had to be on the academic Olympia together. Yes, I did bond over my with my Hindu friends oftentimes over school projects. Yeah, and even our dad not only growing up in Hong Kong under British rule together with the Indians, but in college he had a lot of PhD Indian Hindu friends. Yeah, coming out of college, man. It was a lot of like, yo, is Venkat going to Google or is my Asian friend Vans going to Google? Like who got the job at Google? It's bonded by the fang aspirations. Somebody said personally, yes. However, I feel like it's very polar opposite stories based on the individual. I know people from both communities who actually resent each other for the clickish nature of both communities. But I also know people who get along really well. It just seems like you got to roll the dice. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I think it is a role of the dice, but it's actually like, like I said, it comes back to more of the background. Yeah, what was the bonding agent? Yeah, what's the bonding agent and how traditional you are? Obviously like, let's say you're a Sikh Indian who, you know, keeps the turban on. That's a more of a traditional decision to make. Yeah, right. No, I would say shout out to all the Sikh dudes. We used to hoop a man. We used to hoop a gravier. We used to hoop with son deep and everything like that. I'm saying growing up, but it's like it is true that guys who chose to keep wearing the Sikh turban, they were like or head garb. They did seem like more in their own world. Well, they were probably going to keep it more traditional and by traditional, we mean probably going to marry for sure an Indian woman and keep it more. Most of their life was probably going to take place in the Indian community. But I know that some of them, they still follow us on IG. We still follow them. Yeah, but we understand that their life is more taking place in their world. And you know, like, that's like. And that's kind of just what it is when you're from a place where people are like just came five years ago. You don't think like we're like, hey, dude, we're all the same. It's like, yo, man, I'm going to show you love. I wish you well in your life, but it's like you and your world and I'm, you know what I mean? Like maybe I'm more in the mixed world. 90% of your life will take place not together. Okay. Right. Somebody said I, uh, how do people identify as Asian definitionally? It's not a core substantive identity. A Korean person doesn't put his identity, Asian identity first because he puts his Korean identity first. What does that identity even consist of? What is Asian food? What is the Asian language? What is the history of the Asian people? Asian is like saying all Europeans identify as white. That's not the case. Germans are a different thing from French people, which are different from Italians to be fair. I think that this person does have a point, but this is also really what a lot of Koreans think. I'm not going to lie. I mean, cause I do think that if we peel back enough layers of history, there is an ancient Sinosphere and there is an ancient Indiosphere and there is an ancient like Westernosphere, right? For example, Andrew in the Sinosphere, there's Confucianism, Buddhism. Um, obviously there's different types of Buddhism. Uh, Mahayana, but there's like Shinto, there's Theravada, there's Tibetan. It's also mixed with Taoism, filiopiety, the love of scholastics. Um, that's what most people mean. I think when they say like as identifying as Asian, um, I understand that in Southeast Asia, it's a mix of the Indiosphere and Sinosphere, but probably more of the Sinosphere. The Himalayas, also a mixture of the Sinosphere and Indiosphere, probably more on the Indiosphere side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, yeah, I do think just like you can define Western Europe through Christianity, Protestant Catholicism, Socratic Theory, Plato, Aristotle, Greco-Roman Individualism, and Democracy. However, I will say this, Andrew, interestingly enough about the Indiosphere, a lot of overlap in the ancient sense with the Sinosphere, but way more deeper writings on karmic energy. I don't think East Asia ever had the karmisutra, reincarnation on that level of like, what animal you're going to be reincarnated as. Yeah, that's true. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of things. I mean, I did a bunch of research, Andrew, there was a bunch of comments on Reddit. People saying like, Taoism and Confucianism versus different types of Buddhism versus Hinduism, obviously versus Islam versus like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, somebody said, in the UK, we get along really well, but maybe it's because the population of East Asians in UK are mostly from Hong Kong and that was under British rule as well as the Indians. So a lot of people are talking about these like interesting things even back to colonialism. Bonded by the British. I mean, I thought it was funny because like, think about in Hong Kong, you could have people with, uh, you could, you could have a accented Chinese guy. I mean, in America, you could have a Hong Kong knees guy, chatting with like an Indian guy and they're talking about the British. Yeah. Oh yeah. What part of Hong Kong are you from? What do you know? I grew up in Hong Kong. Just like, you know, it's like, and then it's like the two people have accents. Oh, I've seen Indians work for Hong Kong airlines and that are completely fluent in Cantonese, English, and obviously, yes, I'm sure their heritage language as well. Yeah. Um, somebody said it just comes back down to stem relatability. Also, this guy said, yeah, I feel like a lot of hot white women don't necessarily like Mongoloid dudes or Daisy guys. Is that true? Bonded by your rejection of hot white women, that's hilarious. I don't come up with the comments guys. The comments are the comments. I'm just but I will say this, the Indian guys and the Asian guys that do the well, the best, they're usually the taller ones that might be of mixed heritage. Maybe the Indian guys are a little bit lighter skin. They look more like from the north and then the Asians maybe look mixed or are mixed. Right, right. That is probably true. Um, somebody said South Asian here grew up Catholic. At the end of the day, I really related to any person that was from the Asian region that was also Catholic, because it was kind of a unique identity because it's like not that common. Uh-huh. Obviously outside of the Philippines. How interesting is that Andrew? We knew somebody growing up Andrew. That was actually a part British was an Anglo Indian. The last name I don't want to say there was Matthews. I'm saying that they were like a, they were like Russell Peters. Yeah. A lot of people always ask Russell Peters. Why is your last name Peters? What's your real name? And he goes, I'm actually a descendant of a British guy. That's my real life. Right. But they, you know what it is? They're like, I knew, yeah, they had an English last name, but they looked full Indian. Right. But they were Christian. But yeah, they were Christian. So they probably were a far like generations back had some British. Yeah. We actually have a good friend who's a Middle Easter and he looks like very, very Arab and he's from Lebanon and he's Christian as well. And I know that it's something that's like, he was saying that it allows him to be very open-minded in a way, but then it also like, I don't know. It's kind of weird. It's complicated within his own world. Yeah. Anyway, you guys, we got to get in our takeaways, the comment section, you know, of course, they just went on forever. I had to just, you know, cut it off at some point. I will say this. I think that it just really, really depends. There's a lot of things that remind me that are very similar between, I mean, like they're both considered part of the Orient or the East, right? Because the Orient just means Eastern to Western people. So it's almost like when we go, it's almost like when we're all in the East, I could see East Asians and South Asians and Southeast Asians all feeling very different from each other, but especially South Asians from other types of Asians across the Himalayas. However, when we're in America, I think the situations become way more similar. Yeah. Yeah. I would say so. I mean, what are some like, I would say like right off the bat, overall, I think that they are. I think when people want to be their most comfortable, they go into their comfort zones and usually their comfort zones are their own tribe, right? And it usually looks like them. That's why there's a lot of like Indian comedy shows where like all the comedians are Indian and most of the crowd is Indian. And then like there's Asian comedy shows like ours that happens to be a little bit more East Asian. But there's probably some Asians at a Hassan Minaj show and there's some South Asians at Ronnie Chang. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But like obviously when it comes to nightclubs, it does get a little bit more segregated and things like that. But again, that's why people bond mostly over like engineering. And when you're in school, when you're on a project together, when you're working together, when you have to team up together, I think the Indians and Asians do bond a lot. Yeah. Especially when juxtaposed to the rest of Americans. I always thought like I had a lot of Aziz Ansari type friends where they were kind of like too hipster. They like tried to make their parents happy by getting a Fortune 100 or Fortune 500 job, but they're just a little bit too into subculture and like unorthodox things for their community. I think that that's why Alan Yang and Aziz Ansari are such good friends. Andrew and they won an Emmy together. Right. And I think I got a lot of good Bengali friends. Andrew, they act a little bit more like I would say they're really in a hip hop culture, you know, street culture. And they all got degrees, but ultimately they just like work on their own projects. I feel like they're a little bit like outside of the STEM corporate structure. Yeah. Yeah. And then Andrew, we also got this really good friend from, we're not really good friend, but a friend from Pakistan, Andrew named Ahmad and his dad is actually a Pakistani Hazara, which where he looks like Asian or looks like mongoid, right? But his mom was like, so he's from his father is from the part of Pakistan that like there's more Asian looking people. Right. Right. Right. So I felt like we related on that too, but then maybe some of his other friends, who knows, it was like on with just to hang out together, but I'm not going to go hang out with like when they're all at the hooker spot. Yeah. I actually think East Asians and South Asians can relate to each other a lot. I think it is. I think it has to come with mutual respect though, because both cultures are very big, very vast, very old and do demand respect. Like I'm not saying that you shouldn't respect other cultures, but definitely these two cultures definitely demand respect. And you know what it is? The people of each group, whether they're, and I'm not saying this is a majority, but there is a portion of East Asians or South Asians. They can't respect each other. They're not going to mix. Right. If they don't see each other with enough respect to like learn each other, even learn about each other to exactly 3 out of 10 level. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I always say this, man, you don't got to be like us and try to research everybody on a seven, eight, nine. You know, I try to obviously I'm not going to be 10 out of 10. Realistic. I got too much stuff to study, but like how about like a four? Hmm. It's four out of 10. Too much to ask. Yeah. Just a little bit of extra work guys. It could be fun. Go eat at the spots, man. Hey guys, we're all very well represented in the medical field to come on, man. We're all out there saving everybody's lives. Asians and Indians and Indians and Asians. Yeah. Anyway guys, let us know what you think in the comment section below. I'm sure there's going to be a ton of different opinions. You know, your opinion could be even different from like your brother or sister's experience within the same family, depending on what like school grade and friend groups were available. Hopefully you found this discussion helpful. Let us know in the comments down below. What do you think do our East Asians more similar or less similar to South Asians? Let's talk about it. Yeah. See what you guys have to say and what are your stories about mixing with each other? You know, do you interracially date interracially marry interracial friend groups? Andrew, let's not ignore Thailand or Thai food being both part of the ancient Sinosphere and Indiosphere as well as its own culture. They got different types of Korean. That's why everybody loves Thai food right now. Listen guys, if you guys want Asian people and Indian people or South Asians and East Asians and Southeast Asians, open up a Thai spot. True. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. We are the hot pop boys and until next time we out. Peace.