 This is a weird statement man, I'm gonna say it. I don't think Asians do happy very well. A new survey shows that Asian Americans struggle with feelings of loneliness and thoughts of suicide more than any other racial group. Let's talk about maybe why. Yeah, let's read this post from Nexshark. It goes, in 2023 Asian residents, while generally faring better on some health metrics, experienced significant mental health burdens. Asians reported the highest level of loneliness at 36.6% and also had the highest rate of suicidal thoughts at 21% compared to the rest of the racial group surveyed. All right everybody, so I think this video is relatable to a lot of Asians on different levels. I think some people have really gone almost near the deep end and then a lot of people have just had some feelings of it. So I guess let's talk about why we think Asians in particular might struggle from it more than other people. Hit that like button, check out other episodes of the hot pot boys. You know, I had to do a quick internet search after this Nexshark post came out and I came across like 20, 30, 40, 50 posts asking why are Asians so depressed? Why are Asian Americans so depressed? Is it something genetic? Is it something from Asia? And we know that a lot of people, depending on what age you're from, your parents came from a very tumultuous time in Asia where Asia was generally very unstable. Their traumas may have what they call a multi-generational traumatic ricocheting effect. Bing, bing, bing, bing. So even though you're second or third generation, you're still potentially dealing with the demons Andrew from like 50 years ago. Yeah, and guys I don't know exactly the rates of depression amongst like Asian immigrant parents but I do feel like at least being an immigrant might prevent you from committing suicide because you feel like you have such a hard mission of carrying on and doing a better job that sometimes you'll just actually fall deeper into depression rather than actually ending your own life. Right, we have to be clear here. Asians had the highest rate of suicidal ideation not of going through with it. Those are different things because it's like sort of like me just asking you and I think that, I don't know Asians just feel comfortable saying they're sad a lot too to be honest. Yeah, and we're gonna talk about it because I have a list of reasons that not that many people talk about on why Asian people might be kind of sad and kind of feel this way. And yeah, I'll just try to go through really quickly but hopefully some of these are things that you might have already thought of before and some of these hopefully are new reasons. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not really surprised by the outcome of this survey. Where you, I mean it just is something it's weird. I don't talk about it a lot but it's just like, I think there's like 100 reasons and I think there's a lot of times there's reason pizzas but you know, the reason pizza pie chart can even get more complex. Andrew, what are some of your reasons? Anyway, some of the basic reasons I guess is this culture and there's a saying in Chinese and I think that it might come from a Confucius principles and so it permeates across East Asia particularly but Chirku, right? It's like eating bitterness and this whole thing about like enduring pain because tomorrow is better or you just have to eat bitterness. You have to eat bitterness. That is what you're meant to do. Already that is setting up the Asian life to not be happy. Asian, there is no, I don't correct me if I'm wrong or if you know any better David. There is nothing in like Confucianism that it's like be happy. I don't think- I'm not a deep 10 out of 10 scholar in that field but that's not my conception of- I have not heard of that, okay? You guys correct me if I'm wrong. And here's the thing about eating bitterness. I think that you do survive when you can thrive even economically Andrew but it may lead you to this like underlying sense of mild unhappiness forever. Yeah. Asian art low key has always been kind of sad or at least at best serene. So meaning that one Asians always love ballads in a pop culture sense but if you look at old Asian paintings even whether they're Japanese or Chinese a lot of it's very serene and dark and kind of filled with sorrow and the stories are kind of sad. Very wistful. Yes. Every blossoms falling on a pagoda like Yueh Guang is what they call moonlit. Right, that's not particularly sad but you just imagine like the leaves are falling slowly and you're just like yes I'm staring and I'm waiting for Chang'e or like who's the Hua Yi to come and save me and then I'm gonna stand at the edge and turn into stone. But anyways Japanese anime David anime cartoons are probably the darkest cartoons you can possibly get. To me Western cartoons are always based in comedy but Japanese cartoons that's where you get the really dark stories. Right, right, right yeah. I mean people marry the anime sometimes literally. Yeah that already in itself is dark. A lack of community Asians being in America it's not your country, you're here as an immigrant you're an immigrant kid you just have lack of a community and when you feel like you are closer with a community then you're less likely to feel lonely. I'll do you one further Andrew not only is it not your community it's not even your hemisphere. Literally I think you know there's a lot of talk about like different cultures and stuff like that when you're from the Far East it's way different than being from the Western hemisphere. I'm not saying there's not differences between countries. There's a difference between, we're talking about like literally polar civilizations. Oh and not only is it not your community you might feel that community is against you. Yeah, yeah. So that's another thing. So then let's say you have all that you have that Asian sorrow background and a lack of community. So that's ancient ones more of a geopolitical map based or an environmental one. And then you go home and you don't have a lot of tender love at home. Now here's the thing guys I think a lot of Asian parents love their kids or they try to love their kids but it is not usually tender love, right? They might cut fruit for you. It's not as tender as like a hug and saying I love you. I think when you're an English kid I mean when you're an Americanized kid growing up in America you still value that I love you phrase even if it's in language like well, I need you like just I love you even just hearing your parents say it with a nice hug means a lot. Yeah, I think that this is slowly changing. Let's say for example, you're 20 now your experience is gonna be different than somebody who's 30, 40, 50 years old Gen X or whatever Asian American. But yeah, especially if your parents are old school man it's just the status quo was not like that. And let's say you are seeking a community and you have a community but it's only online as we know Asians spend a lot of time in front of the computer which is not necessarily a bad thing. We're very skilled at it, great gamers, great engineers. I think we're the most computerized race in the world. We are computerized, let's just be honest. But that comes with some downfalls because being in front of a computer is not better than being in front of a bunch of healthy relationships that are personal to you, right? Yeah. And also not to mention, you know pornography plays into the whole aspect or for girls maybe. You can argue that it's saving some people too though. It's saving some people, yes. But pornography has ups and downs because a lot of guys they make some depress and girls maybe they are looking at a lot of like Instagram and a lot of things, the beauty standards might make them feel better. Anyways, I'm gonna go through it. High pressure, high achievement culture. Listen, the higher achievement and higher pressure the bigger the fall and the harder you fall and that's true because Asians do achieve a lot. Let's be honest, we see the statistics. They go to good schools, they get good jobs but if you fail to do some of that stuff or even you get rejected from the Ivy leagues you might feel really bad. You are, then you failed at the mission of becoming a doctor. My love for you got cut in half. Do Asians know how to live a happy life without being conventionally successful? That is my question. Last but not least, lack of outlets for expression and releasing steam and sharing your own sadness. If you don't have a community, you don't have tender love at home then who do you turn to to share your grievances and your feelings with? Yeah, I just think it's not acceptable to talk about mental issues even amongst Asian-Americans if everybody's parents are like fobs. People are just like, oh, they might say a few words but they're not gonna delve deep into that rabbit hole. One thing Andrew that you didn't mention that I wanna add on to that is maybe some lack of religion. I think if you look at Asia there's a lot of belief systems, Buddhism, Taoism, et cetera, things like that especially East Asia tends to be not religious in the Western definition of a religion. Maybe there's belief systems. Yeah, I mean guys, again, that's not to say just because you're religious, you won't commit suicide, plenty of people do but I think that there is an aspect of maybe worshiping things not just like achievement. Like if you worship achievement and money and you don't get those things in the way that you want, you will feel very, very sad. Someone's like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, I have religion, I pray to Buddha. But I just pray to Buddha for good fortune. I'm like, ah, I don't know, you don't round about worshiping money. I'll say this, I do think there's something innate in Asians to like lean into like for the guys like that sad boy, soft boy, like sad girl stereotype. Cause why else would Keshi be the most popular? Joji makes some super sad boy music and people love Zhu, ZHU and or the EDM, DJ who's Chinese, he makes sad boy EDM certainly compared to I guess the mountain top pop stylings of like chain smokers. Yeah, I just don't think Asians do. This is a weird statement, man. I'm gonna say it. I don't think Asians do happy very well. We're not that trained at it. That's one thing we need to work better on is how to be happy. Like especially East Asian culture whether or not you're from East Asia or not like East Asian culture is not good at being happy. That's the area of improvement for sure. Look at some other stuff. Andrew, for example, Gudetama, one of the most popular things in Japan. It's a sad egg yolk. Gudetama is a sad egg yolk that people relate to. People made this celebrity kitten called Luhu in Beijing is a sad kitten, famous. And like we already got to the Yueh Guang. I forgot the exact term for this. Yeah, the moonlit forlorn, wistful paintings. Anyway, let's just get into the comments section. Somebody said, y'all Asians work too effing hard. That's the reason. Yeah, that's part of it. Like I said, there's a lot of different layers that compound on each other. It's just like a math equation and there's different segments. But you have to really back to why Asians work so hard. And I think it does go back to the eat bitterness kind of mindset where it's like you just have to work like work by all means. And there's no question you're working hard. Especially Chinese people, man. I don't know what it is, man. They have the ability to keep working for like 50 years without any visible happiness. To be honest, we gotta talk about that. That's a whole nother video. Anyway, somebody said psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy are words that Asians need to get into their vocab. A lot of Asians, and are as smart as they are, don't have these words in their vocab and it's viewed as not acceptable within the community. Some people are saying at a low level, that's just talking, even group sessions. There's medium levels, maybe some light medication all the way to heavy levels, Andrew institutionalization, or more psychoactive drugs, obviously responsibly used, prescribed by multiple professionals, maybe get a second opinion. Asians should get into looking at this stuff, right? I think it's just not acceptable in our community, but it's like, I'm not saying, I think maybe Western people do it too much, but we gotta look into it. Some people, somebody said the male loneliness, epidemic is real. Do you agree with this? Other people that we were asking about this article when people were sending us this article to talk about it, they were saying this affects Asian males in America, maybe extra. Yeah, I mean, for all the reasons that I said, they may affect an Asian male. The reason why I may theorize that it does affect Asian males more is because perhaps maybe Asian females, first of all, there's a lot of sad Asian females out there, but they may have to, they might feel like that they can adapt and find community easier than Asian guys. Asian guys might feel the most outside it because even from a dating pool aspect, Asian guys are seen as the least desirable, or people are not really caring about an Asian guy, but I think if you're a girl, maybe you seek relationships, or you seek the girly things. You just kind of relate to the American girly stuff. I guess that's what I would say, but yeah. And like I said, I think for Asian guys, man, like I said, I think there's a lot of reasons, there's a lot of things that are outside of Asian guys' control, but there's a lot of things too, where we sort of like live within the boundaries of how Western Anglo society sees us too. And sometimes we don't wanna, we're like, oh, I can't be extra, even if being extra makes me feel better. My advice is that we'll just go be extra then. You know what I'm saying? Like why don't worry about like, oh, are people gonna perceive it as, oh, Asian guys can't do that thing, or they look ridiculous when they act that way. Just act that way if it's for your own mental stability and ability to move forward and just keep the engine pumping, right? Of course, the health of the engine matters too, not just keeping it pumping. Somebody said, it's Asian's lack of team sports. The kids don't, people like Asian parents don't put the kids in these hyper big team camaraderie type sports early enough. Certainly, I'll say this, Andrew, I think basketball had a gigantic impact on my life. Whether it was playing street ball, playing on the high school team, playing AAU, it meant a lot to me because it just exposed me to just a lot of different reps that I never would have seen otherwise or within the Asian community only. Of course, Andrew, there was a ton of stories of toxic Asian parents. I couldn't even screenshot them all. There was like maybe a thousand. Right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, again, I think some parents, they try their best and it still doesn't really make sense in the Western world and some parents are damaged. Some of them are damaged goods from where? Back home? Some are traumatized themselves, right? Yeah, they're traumatized and they have no way of dealing with it and they take it out on the kids and stuff like that. And you're saying they're ending up passing on the trauma? Yeah, yeah, and that's, and acknowledging now, like if your parents are traumatized in any way, that's really helpful for you to know that so that you know how to deal with it. A lot of parents, Asian parents, especially from the older generation, they don't even know that word trauma. Like they don't even know the equivalent in their own language, to be honest. Somebody said that you gotta just move cities, for example, we owe, and then somebody said, I'm Asian American, I'm dealing with this, build your own path, stop being so God damn proud of Asian culture because this ain't it. We sweep mental illness under the rug, yet we act like we're a culture that's worth admiring. Yeah, and I think that it's interesting because, you know, Japan and Korea, they have like depression rates, like really high like suicide rates in their country. So this is not just an American thing for Asians. That's why it does happen in Asia. But is it driven from different core reasons, though? Maybe, maybe, but like I think that, yeah, I don't know, can you solve every issue about Asians, man? I mean, I'll say this, guys, let us know in the comments down below what you think about this. Obviously, we all know Asian people who have been depressed at one point or, you know, on the extreme ends. Quietly, mildly, perpetually unhappy. Right, or perpetually unhappy. So I guess, like, leave it in the comments down below what you would do, what are some resources. Maybe we'll leave some links to reputable websites down below. But I think it is worth talking about because this is also statistically true about Asians. This is just like a lot of Asian girls end up with white guys. This is just as true as, oh, a lot of Asians go into a lot of universities. Yeah, how come there's so many engineering Asians? Yeah, this is just like, this is just a fact. This guy said, recognize your own cognitive distortions and face them. We only get bits of times with loved ones. And people are talking about generational trauma, breaking it. This girl said that she had to go do ayahuasca in the Amazon jungle just to break her generational curses. That's, hey, listen, man, whatever works for you, man, you gotta do it, you gotta do it. Just do your research. Yeah, man, ultimately, I would just say this, man. I think that every community, they run like a specific game plan, right? And you can either fit in with the game plan of your community or people who look like you when you come to America or you go another way. But for the people who go into that community, I noticed that there's really big pros and cons. And you know what I mean? Some people say white kids just party so much because they have nothing to live for. Other groups are trying to dull the pain so they're going into this or that. And I feel like Asians are pros and cons in a macro sense. I'm not speaking for every family, obviously I can't. It's not 100 out of 100 true for everybody. I'm saying it's like, we got so much pressure and people generally just want to achieve and they're comparing themselves to other people and everybody's got a rich cousin and maybe they're the middle-class cousin or they're the poor cousin and they want to bring their family line up and then it's like, you didn't get enough. You know what I mean? You may not have been coached to deal with this high-pressure cooker situation you get put into. And I just feel like sometimes rocket ships handle either rocket ships sometimes they make it to the moon or sometimes rocket ships explode like SpaceX, same. I think the one key to not feeling as sad though is always feeling like you have a purpose. So if you live like a purpose-driven life, whether that be religious or for another purpose, maybe you just have to take care of your parents so you just cannot be depressed because you owe your parent, you gotta support the family or something or you have some kids and you gotta support. You have a purpose. And I feel like that's the number one thing usually or one of the top reasons that helps people. But anyways, guys, let us know in the comments down below. This survey does not surprise me but again, let us know your thoughts and until next time, we out. Peace.