 This Asian mom just started a book campaign to help stop Asian lunch shaming at school guys The question is should you let your Asian kid bring traditional Asian food to school or should you just let them assimilate? What's that that is so gross What's that Andrew is the title of the Asian book campaign that is designed to educate the youth of America to not Lunch shame anybody for their traditional Asian foods They got a via one an Indian one a Filipino one a Korean one and interestingly enough Andrew This book campaign sparked a myriad of comments and not all our support of a lot were but some of them Strikingly enough went against Karen Chan. Yeah guys, so we're gonna get into the comments section Please hit that like button check out other episodes of the for the hot-pot boys I would say these books are meant for a mostly non Asian kids or Asian kids of a different Asian culture to learn about other Asian Or what if they're like third fourth generation? So they're starting to become disconnected from the grandparents culture who are obviously like born and raised in Asia Yeah, I mean I think the real question is here like what are the limitations? Are there limitations to what type of weird or interesting Asian food? You should bring to lunch whether it's the workplace or school because some of it can smell and Stain the tables, you know curries and stuff like that So I think that's the big question And I do think there's also an undertone of a culture war here where people are like quit saying I attacked you when you were young Karen I wasn't there. I don't remember attacking you for you eating all them Damon eggs or them zombie eggs or whatever you eat you go go eat them in the corner But I just wanted to bring balloon to school like But anyways guys real quick we got to give a shout out to our chili oil product small law It is coming out soon Please click the link down below if you guys want to sign up to get updates or follow us on Instagram This is something we were working on over the past year. It is small oil So it has a little bit of that tingling numbing buzz But it's also smooth like a Italian Calabrian chili oil. So it's kind of a mixture of east and west It's almost like Sichuan meat Sicilian. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it Also, like maybe it's like a half Italian half Chinese. I'm telling you guys I am very very confident that small law is unlike anything available on the market and you're gonna want to put this on everything And we put it in squeeze bottle. So there's no mess and if you sign up early, you will get a discount on the mailing list Let's get into the comments section Andrew. Somebody said this happened to me, but I'm a little bit older in my 40s Does this still happen to kids nowadays and some people in the comments section We're debating whether or not Karen Chan is like too late with her book series. No, it still happens I mean James Corden and Jimmy Fallon just in the past like three years were grossed out at Boba Is not even anywhere near the weirdest Asian food you could possibly out of three tears Boba is like tier one in terms of like how tame it is, right? Yeah, it's super like it's just milk and tea and yo Yo, Jason Sudak is trying to play us out too. That kind of made me mad. Somebody said I'm a liberal white mom Other cultures are great. I'm gonna be buying this. What's that series for my kids so they can be more cultured Yeah, I mean, I would look at these books a little bit like our food videos, right? We show you foods we talk about them We try to break it down in like a simple way make it accessible now If it's very advanced and very weird looking a lot of people won't try it But a lot of people will try the lower level more simple looking stuff Yeah, I'm glad that these books exist But yeah, some people could say too little too late, but still better late than never Somebody said we are New York Jews and we love other cultures my kids eat Indian and sushi every single week I would say this Andrew after meeting a lot of You know Jewish people in New York some of them have really really high Asian food IQ. Yeah, and you know, it's really interesting though I will say this once you Have only had the Americanized version in your life I know some people who for like 10 years just ate like orange chicken like they ate it since they were six years old But by the time they're like 20 they still haven't really expanded their Asian palate that much Kind of like watching basketball your whole life and literally you do not understand any plays other than like somebody just dunking on somebody Like you never like let the game like seep into your brain It's funny because even when you step out of your comfort zone, you can just step into another comfort zone It's about like your intellectual curiosity to peel back the layers of the onion Some people like layer one of the onion even though there's like five layers somebody says for me I'd be insanely jealous. Come on. It's 2023 people you're telling me kids are making fun of people for those delicious dumplings and I'm saying Honestly, it really depends on where in America, right? I think when I was getting older in high school, some kids would talk to me about the Ling Ling's You know those like dumplings from Costco, but of course to this day Do I think they're eating the the Shandong Weitron dumplings that are Shweijiao instead of the pot stickers I don't know. I still think like you said they're still on pot stickers Right. Um, like you said people only go to the level that they want to somebody said hey guys eat whatever you want But please be respectful and do not bring food that stinks to high heaven It might be your culture, but please respect my culture of thinking some things from your culture stink Yeah, I think that there is a generally accepted a Limitation that like if it really is stinking up the environment or it's gonna stain or be soupy and spill everywhere Maybe be more considerate and not bring that exact item You're saying if I bring an Assam laxa a curry laxa and crazy durian and jackfruit from Malaysia To the lunchroom and I reheated in the shared microwave that might be not the right read that would be going overboard Yes, um and we got a really funny story I remember one time mama and our grandma came from Hong Kong She shanghainese and she bought dad some like mackerel on clearance at QFC in Seattle Which is a supermarket and he had a microwave it at work and yeah It works at corporate job and like an engineering job and some people was all of a sudden the corporate lunch room Turned into everybody being in fifth grade again. Yeah Stinks Casey. What's going on? I'm not gonna lie if I was dad at that time I'm sure I would have been pretty embarrassed because you're like an old guy You're educated you're working this job and then you're stinking up the lunchroom and everybody just turns into little kids again And it's like grossed out and it's a human reaction. It's not fully their fault I mean, I don't think they're trying to be mean, but also like they're definitely not trying to be conscientious of a culture So I guess uh, man, that sucks. Yeah, especially mackerel mackerel got a Flavor to it. I remember one time I bought shrimp pad see you Andrew Yeah, I used to work at the cell phone store in Issaquah and I remember a shout out to Jess There was this white girl there and she was like what the F She went on a crazy rant in the back room about how bad this shrimp pad see you who smelled But later we did find out that she was addicted to Oxycontin. Yeah, which is really funny because uh, Why people actually love Thai food or at least But I don't know if they like shrimp pad Thai because like we were talking about Andrew There's the beginner section the intermediate and then it but maybe they cook that pad see you with a little extra Fish sauce who knows but anyways this guy said I'm European I love canned sardines just like many people in Italy and Spain and Portugal love but I would never bring them on the train I'm just being respectful. Why would you ever put your kids through this? Yeah, so here's my thing, man I'm all about sharing cultures and I think people should keep bringing Asian food for lunch. Keep doing it but just so you understand that your Your your your coworkers or your classmates might not be as open at that moment So bring something that's a little bit more accessible and bring them up to speed step by step Like don't just bring 10 out of 10, you know, century. What's a good level? What's a good level century eggs? I'm gonna go ahead and put that in the intermediate if I'm gonna go low-middle high like be inner intermediate advance Century level is in the middle century Century eggs might be a little bit too advanced tomato egg a little bit more regular bringing smile. Ah, yeah beginner Yeah, because this is already mixed with some east-west fusion Yeah, um, this guy was a Japanese American. He gave a pretty moderate response and it was like man I love katsuya, which is a dry Japanese fish But I know I just can't bring it but I might sneak in a little here or there in a tiny ziploc bag That has no smell leaking. Yeah, what if he's in his cubicle and he's like Not so yeah, somebody says I don't even remember this happening How does what's this even count as shaming everybody wants to claim racism and victim hood nowadays, man I don't remember this when I was growing up this guy's accusing Karen Chan of being a liar for her experience But here's the truth Andrew your experience may vary your mileage may vary America's a very big country You could have grown up in this slice where people loved it You could have grown up in this slice where people made a face But they didn't say anything and you could have grown up in a slice of America where literally people were super racist And ostracized for you ostracized you for your school lunch Any of those outcomes are possible. Yeah, and it also depends on the tone because if Somebody some the nice girl that you had a crush on was like, oh, what's that versus the girl that you had a crush on was like What's that? Completely different statements. We all know that right Wayne is stinky get away from me for the rest of my life Somebody said Americans love super preserved factory refined foods and think that anything that looks in its natural form is gross They won't touch anything that isn't layer one like sushi boba or kbbq. No, no, no, no, no I mean, this is a stereotype, but overarchingly. Yeah, this is probably true I mean, I hope America can move past layer one right now But Andrew right now if you want to open up a restaurant that is successful in the non-Asian area Keep your food at beginner level, right? It's better to for business reasons, but I'll say this overall only take away guys one I do think there are Limitations that you should have on the food that you bring to school Is it fish? Is it curry bun real shrimp paste fish paste? Where where is it at? Where we're talking about consideration for everybody there If it's soupy and it can spill easily. Maybe you don't bring it, right? Unless it's in a canister, you know a little like thermos, right? You're saying bring the fresh rolls with the peanut sauce Yeah, I mean there's all different. There's so many dishes out there. You can bring um Yeah, and also I think that if you are going to be proud of your culture You do have to stand up straight and be proud of it to the point where you're taught how to speak with it Right. So if tell your kid what they're bringing to school and what they can tell kids If you're very proud of the food, right? You're saying do the due diligence and educate your kid for the inevitable questions They might encounter the issue is that a lot of like immigrant parents were just like packing their kids Like whatever they ate last night, which is fine. It tastes good at home, but they were just like, oh, yeah Okay, jimmy take this to school. Okay, boom and then jimmy's like, I don't know what it is He opens it up and then it kind of like has this new aroma that kids aren't so many aromatics, right? So many uh ginger and soy sauce fermented things jimmy's panicking because he's like, ah, I didn't mean to look I didn't want to feel different. Ah, I mean even when you were in elementary Andrew there was a kid who was always bringing stuff and in the audience in elementary school was split opinion, right? Like half half. Yeah, so there was a couple other asian kids I was excited to see what gary was always bringing to lunch because I thought it was good because his parents worked at Restaurants, so he was always bringing like restaurant food got some traditional delicious But I was one of the few that was excited to see like, oh gary What do you got today, man? Well, what is that? So, right? But there were some other kids probably being like, oh gary stinky Yeah, you know hey sometimes you bring uh, sometimes you can bring dumplings everybody wants dumplings and sometimes you bring The smelly fish. I got this last really interesting theory This guy said if we raised all the kids to be like rocky aoki from benihana's or bruce lee Then we wouldn't need books like this to educate anybody because people would think that asians were so cool They would want to be asian and they would run towards our culture But how come we're not raising our kids to be cultural warriors? That are like these beacons of light that are so cool that everybody wants to follow Why are we still trying to like educate against the downside dude classic asian guys? Why doesn't everybody just be like bruce lee if everybody was like bruce lee this wouldn't happen Yeah, I mean, yeah things would be different if everybody actually learned to be like bruce lee, but I mean I would say Hey man, you know we make food videos talking about food exploring different foods explaining different foods I don't expect everybody to try the 10 out of 10 level stuff But if we can get people to level three level four step by step step by step I think it's tough work man. It's tough work to be like, okay. Here's my culture. Let me categorize all the dishes Beginner intermediate advanced. Let me come up with the game plan to introduce people Okay, this guy. He might be more cool with intermediate. This person wants advanced 80% of the demographics more are stuck in beginner and then I'm gonna come up with this plan to inch him there I I could see not everybody like Has the plan or wants to run the plan because it's like too much thinking in the background like additional onto Surviving and thriving in this country, but you guys let us know what you think in the comment section below Do you think Karen chains? What's that book series is a good idea? Would you copy for your kids or your nephew or your nieces and uh, what do you think of this whole discussion? It seems like we've been having this discussion in asian america aas 101 for like 50 years now Hey, if you're bringing Potentially smelly asian food to lunch just be prepared to explain what it is to your friends and don't panic Yeah, let us know in the comment section below until next time. We'd hop up boys. We out. Peace