 and then all of a sudden you have like a American flag on your forehead. It doesn't work like that. I don't even have my full American card in this country. So cocky motherland Asians disagree with sensitive Asian Americans on what counts as cultural appropriation. Who is right and who is wrong? Let's play the clips that represent the two main viewpoints. If you're a mainland Asian, your perspective on cultural appropriation of Asian culture is essentially meaningless. And if you're not Asian at all, it's completely meaningless because in both cases, it doesn't affect you. I just want to say I'm so tired of seeing on TikTok that Asian Americans telling a white person or a black person or anyone in general that's not Asian to stop cultural appropriating our culture. Let me first of all, you're Americans. Like if you go to China, if you go to Hong Kong, Japan. Yeah, you look like us, but you're American. Welcome everybody to the hot pot boys. David, what is going on in Asian America? Brad Pitt has a new movie called Bullet Train, Andrew. It's set in Tokyo, but there are no main Asian actors in it. Of course, the Asian Americans, they're up in arms about it calling it racist whitewashing, you know, Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson. The jokes don't stop. And then of course, Andrew in Asia Asia, the writer of the original source material whose Japanese was like, it's okay to me. The West is the West. The East is the East. Let them make a Hollywood movie. All right, guys. So listen, this is a discussion that pops up all the time. And what we're trying to do here is move the discussion forward. So we're going to break it down from a micro-mid to a macro level. And hopefully by the end of this video, we'll give you a reasonable answer. Let's get into it, David. What's the definition of appropriation and appreciation real quick? Real quick, I'll just pop them up on the screen. I think the main overlooked aspect is the power dynamic from typically dominant groups to typically non-dominant groups. So anyway, let's get into it. In the micro, Andrew, it really just boils down to attitude and details. If you have a good attitude and spirit about something, Andrew, you'll learn more than you use. So for example, if you're wearing traditional clothing and you're celebrating a traditional holiday, that's like what, two out of 10, three, then your knowledge base should be out of four. So you should just know more than you use showing that you actually care. I think someone who is most famously known for having a good attitude was Anthony Bourdain about Asian food and especially Southeast Asian food. He really gave it its praise. He didn't try to claim it, he just promoted it and people appreciated that. Yeah. And if you look at the power dynamic between Western Europe and Southeast Asia, it is gigantic. And for him to close that gap, it meant a lot to a lot of people. Right. Now, sometimes is it murky though? Like can you mix it up, appropriation and appreciation? Can it be both at the same time? Yeah. I think it shifts even in the context and sometimes it can be both like for example Andrew, all those videos that got 20, 30 million views of white guys speaking Mandarin to like some villagers, whether that's in Chinatown or in China and just like there's 30 million views because they're like treating that person like a God. That's appreciation and appropriation at the same time. The appreciation to learn the culture, to learn the language, but the appropriation is playing off that power dynamic to get the views because basically, of course, like people lower in the power dynamic are shocked that the master or like the A1 is learning like the B1 or C1 or D1 language. Yeah. And then there's that one Prager U video where this guy's wearing a straw like rice hat with a silky shiny churng som, asking people like, oh, is this wrong? Is this wrong? And a bunch of people say it's wrong. And then he's trying to make them look stupid. And I was like, listen, you might not be saying anything racist with your words, but you're definitely trolling and trying to look ridiculous because that's not even an outfit anybody wears. And it's not even like there's no point in wearing it on the UCLA campus. But I would not expect Asians in Asia watching that or an Asian who like lives in a fully Asian world, like he goes to Chinatown and gets like an affirming response to fully understand it because they're living in a context where they're dominant. It literally has to go back to the original definition of appropriation. It has to do with who's dominant in what context that has a lot to do with the political ideology and the threshold of did you violate, did you not violate? Of course, everybody's threshold is somewhat calibrated differently. Yeah, basically if someone comes to what you consider is your zone, your home, your land, or your context, and even if it's like 50-50 trolling or disrespect, you might just feel so comfortable. You're just like, eh, whatever. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, you bought that churng som off the street, so you put money in Chinese pockets, wear it, say whatever. Yeah, and I mean, that's just literally driven from your own personal sense of inexperience is like I can see why reasonable people could disagree on this issue. And that's why nobody can agree on appropriation versus appreciation because the answer is so murky to be honest. Let's move on, Andrew, to the middle view. I think that both CK Lam and Yung Weezy make some points. And it kills me to say that because I want to just take Yung Weezy's perspective. Yung Weezy, I'm sorry. But I think they both get split at 50-50 because CK Lam is right that a lot of Asian Americans don't even know enough about their traditional culture to be gatekeepers because they haven't done the research. And number two, I'll say, she didn't say this, I think sometimes we put too much of our stock and self-worth into Hollywood narratives, not understanding that like, why would Hollywood value us like an equal? Like, we're just simply not in their eyes. So why do we keep getting mad and losing sleep every time it happens? Wait, you're saying too many Asians are putting their self-worth in something that we can't control? Yeah, they're like basically complaining about the crumbs off the mainstream piece of bread that are thrown to us, but they're still making that piece of bread or the crumbs that get thrown down, they're God. So how can you worship a God that doesn't like like you, I guess, or ranks you as a second-class citizen or a third-class citizen? Isn't that kind of ridiculous? Wouldn't theoretically you should just stop looking at that piece of bread like it's God because it doesn't value you? And then it's also confusing on the other hand because America has such a deep history of trying to erase marginalized groups' cultures or forget about them or oppress them. So now you've got to be sensitive and shout out to them and always acknowledge it or else you're being wrong. Now I would say this, the motherland Asians got to hear us out on this one in a way just because like, this is a battle that we fight in America. We're talking about Western faces, Western media, Western country, Western dynamics, and the Western media affects Asians in the West the most. But it's a fight that when Asians in America fight for respect, it also does help Asians worldwide because for example, Hollywood is exported worldwide. So it does kind of matter. Right. I mean, at the end of the day, if you're not in the field, you're not in the field, right? And obviously Asian Americans, us growing up in the West, we're in the field. So, you know, the other people, they may make some valid points as spectators on the outside, but they're spectators. You know, and one thing that CK Lam said that really pissed a lot of people off was like, yeah, you guys are just American. Like, who cares about your opinion on Asian things? And it's like, dang man, it's not like, you know, you crossed the border or you're born here and then all of a sudden you have like a American flag on your forehead. It doesn't work like that. I don't even have my full American card in this country. So that's how I feel. I think at the end of the day, my macro takeaway is that it really just comes down to like dominance and comfortability. And you know, a lot of Asians that are growing up in Asia, not all of them. And by the way, I don't think 100% of Asian Americans feel the same. 100% of mother in land Asians feel the same. They just don't want to lose that comfortability and sense of dominance. Even if they like move to the West, like for example, CK Lam, I think she lives in America. It's like, they just don't want to lose that sense of feeling dominant because it doesn't feel good to be a minority. So they're just going to align themselves with the perspective that makes their own mental feel the most comfortable. Yeah, well, I mean, in their defense, you know, if like you're from a well off family in like Beijing, you'll be like, yeah, I'm cool in Beijing. I feel very secure about my identity. I moved to America. Why would I want to drop my identity of being cool and have to complain about all these minority issues? No, it's true. I mean, it is human nature, guys, because you don't necessarily run off what is the truth. You run off what is your truth? David, this is just a funny idea. I'm going to throw it out there. What if some white people are trying to defend themselves because they're like, dude, China's coming up. China's power is going to be more than America, at least economically. So that means we can start doing these funny accents without it being appropriation and disrespectful. Yeah. I mean, they could be going off some sort of like shifting global powered metric. You know, I don't know. I mean, they're not to be pretty geopolitical. What if I want to wear a rice hat? I just think at the end of the day, my final takeaway is that if Asian Americans were really doing the first and second tier work of building community, understanding socioeconomic differences, building alliances with other groups of people, including white people, then they wouldn't be as concerned with what a few people in Hollywood are like conservative pundits say. You know what I mean? Because if you're really doing the work, it's not that the complaints about cultural appropriation or disrespect aren't real. But when you're just focused on first and second tier building and you're just building and building and building and attacking, you're not as like sensitive on playing the defense and you're not like always on your heels. So I just think that, you know, I'm not trying to toot our own horn, but we do the work to understand like deep diasporic communities, deep ancient culture. We try our best. I'm not saying we do a 10 out of 10 job all the time, but we really try. So that's why when I see this type of stuff, like Tilda Swinton, not caring about Asians or Prager, you not caring about Asians. I'm just like, yeah, they don't. But moving on, I got other projects to work on. I mean, are you trying to say that if you're a true contributor, you're probably not the biggest complainer? Yeah, because at the end of the day, you know what it means to like build something at its core. It's that's really important. Yeah, I do think more Asian Americans need to work and not worry. I'm not saying worry in a complaint is wrong. It's not wrong, but it usually comes from a place of feeling like helpless. And that's the only thing that you can do. But if other Asians can like, you know, figure out other ways to help, I think it's better. I think it overall makes us stronger. And my last final point on this is like, I would take the more Asian American angle on this just because listen, we're dealing with Western dynamics with Western media. This is our fight. I know a lot of Asians from Asia. They might not have to go through the same things that we go through. Some of them have when they got here, but a lot of them didn't. So I'm saying like, you just have to understand our viewpoint and don't write it off because this is this is an American thing. Human nature is selfish, man. At the end of the day, a lot of people just want to think about the perspective that makes their life the best rather than what is the macro zoomed out bird's eye truth. David, guess what? CK Lamb, she doesn't want to feel bad about appropriation. And guess what? Young Woosie, he wants to make CK Lamb feel bad about not feeling bad. Yeah. And both are right and both are wrong. I don't know. It just depends on how you perceive life. Let us know what you think in the comment section below, guys. I thought we wrapped up an eternal discussion. Like I said, you know, people are going to have different lives so they're going to have a different perspective on it. But hopefully we move the discussion forward from 1.0 to 2.0. Hopefully to 3.0. That's our goal. Let us know what you think only on the hot pot boys that we touching these crazy topics. Let us know. And until next time, we out. Peace.