 This Chinese American woman is jealous of Japanese and Korean Americans and it's starting to make her insecure about being Chinese. David, what can she do? Yeah, this went really viral on Asian American Reddit. Obviously this poster, I believe she is a younger girl. She cares a lot about pop culture, animes, k-dramas, j-dramas, this type of thing. And Andrew, the lower status of Chinese and pop culture has got her feeling insecure. She goes on to say the most obvious answer here is that Japan and Korea have an incredible boom in their soft power. But even Chinese food is seen as greasy and fatty while Japanese and Korean food are seen as light and nutritious. Chinese beauty trends online get reposted with claims that they're Korean and Japanese obviously indicating Andrew that nobody can believe anything type can come out of China. She also goes on to say that man, I myself am a little bit chubby on the, you know, on a personal side and you know, I try to watch how to be a hero X or Donghua or these other Chinese built animes, but I just can't help this feeling of insecurity permeating because I feel like Korea and Japan are perceived more better all across the board than being Chinese and I just don't know how to deal with this feeling. And Andrew, this post got a lot of ups and a ton of replies. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people are weighing in because I think a lot of people understand her issue, whether or not you agree with the fact that being Chinese is not as cool. I think we all understand what she's talking about through her lens. So as Chinese Americans who have talked about this on our channel, let's go through it. Let's give our thoughts and see if we can help this girl. So please hit that like button and check out other episodes of the hot pot boys. But you know, what's one thing that is not going to make you feeling secure about being Chinese? Some Chinese soft power right here. Should I say Chinese small power guys, check it out. Small Assas shipping out right now. We're doing a whole bunch of cool collabs with cool chefs around New York and it's going to be in a market soon. So guys, people like this one. Alright, first of all, I got to acknowledge that whatever was their name cherry, cherry bean bun. Okay, cherry bean bun. I get what you're saying. I will say this on a macro level. It's been fascinating to see a country and you can argue that it happened in Russia too, but I think China is actually way better than Russia ever was. So it's like, uh, I've never seen a country economically, you know, become the number one player. I'm not saying it's overtaken the US yet, but it probably will and probably will hold that spot for a number of years afterwards. I've never seen a country become economically dominant and get that much disrespect as China is like, it's kind of crazy. And I get why it is because not everybody who's Chinese even supports China. Right. And I do think, of course, it comes down to the separation of like current Chinese government things and like Chinese culture and Chinese people from around the world. But of course, the government does have impact in the entertainment, in censorship. It only allows certain movies through. It can only allow like kind of a, uh, there's certain types of movies that can't really be made in China, you know what I mean? Or, or are not the government's not going to support. So it does impede on China's coolness, but I will say this, China has never been one to care the most about its soft power. You can make an argument that Korea has always looked to other people to like make Korea look cool. So I think they did a great job of that, but there was different goals for each country. Right. Well, I mean, even if we want to go back to the Confucius days, Andrew, some of the only people that he ever executed in his life, because a lot of people don't know that he was in charge of in charge of that sector of like a province, Andrew, were entertainers. We would have been executed by Confucius. Obviously, if you're looking at cherry belly bean or whatever bean bun, if you're looking at entertainment and always comparing like Chinese entertainment to American entertainment, British, French, Japanese, Korean entertainment, Andrew, isn't it never going to be as cool? At least in a Western dominated global hegemonic society. I think it's clearly behind. I don't want to say never, but for a while, like it's just clearly behind right now. Decades behind, but isn't there other things that are not like necessarily cool to like an anime watching teen that are cool? I guess if you think about it, maybe more historical things, significance, impact, impact in the way that the globe is going to be. Obviously, I guess on the downside, some people think it's going to be a negative impact, but Chinese are going to shape the next century of the earth, right? Yeah, that's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. I just wish that the branding of Chinese was cooler because I think anytime someone who is Chinese that does something cool, people kind of downplay it once they find out their Chinese a little bit. I feel that way somewhere in the background. No, there's a little bit of sense of like, that's cool. It's from a Chinese thing. I like it. 40% less. Yeah, right. Right. So I guess David, let's let's before we get in the comments section because there's a lot of deep comments out there. I guess right off the bat, what are some things that you can be proud of legitimately proud of when you're Chinese? All right. I guess in a modern sense, I do think the tech is getting way better. I'm not saying Japan and Korea's tech wasn't way better for many decades, but you know, you look at the one plus phone, the foldable one plus or Xiaomi versus Samsung and LG, it's comparable now. I'm not saying it's better. I'm saying it's comparable. I mean, a lot of the sneakers are good. I mean, all the drones are coming out of China. I guess China produces everything in the world. Right. Whether it was designed there or not, they produce and whether it's high quality or not, they kind of produce everything. Yeah, they produce everything in the world. But I guess in an ancient sense, couldn't you be proud that it's sort of like, and some people are going to not like this phrasing into the grandmother, Asiatic Oriental culture. I mean, you say that, right? It is. It is. And it's not that everybody's Chinese. It's not that Japanese and Korean people are Chinese, but by all means, we understand that the cultures there were influenced by China in an ancient sense. When you go to ancient temples in Japan and Korea, everything is written in Chinese Chinese characters, Chinese characters. I'm not saying that they were using it for their own language. Right. Right. Right. There's still a lot of Chinese language and culture everywhere in the world for sure. Right. Right. Right. So it's the ancient Sinosphere, just like the Indiosphere and also another really big dominant like ancient civilization in Asia. So I guess you could kind of take it from that. Andrew, I think you could look at the rustic coolness, hipsterness, artsyness of Chinatown. You know what I mean? Not in a cool, modern, trendy way the way K towns are, but in a different, more rustic, artistic, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting, historic. I wouldn't say that it's modern per se or metropolitan, but it's definitely got little Tokyo's or Korea towns are. It's definitely has its soul. It definitely has its soul. I mean, I think that also if you look at the non Asian world, Andrew, they don't know that like a lot of people don't know the difference between Asians. So everybody's just Chinese anyway. Right. They know that they're squid game Asians, which are the Koreans, the K-pop squid game Asians, the BTS and squid game Asians, which is how they define a lot of like the Korean stuff. And then they got like the anime Asians, which is Japanese and then everything else is Chinese. I don't even know if it's that detail. Right. Maybe not. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, here's a photo of Fabulous from his birthday, Andrew. They're just like mixing it all up. I do think Asian general. I do think the music is getting a lot better recently with the younger generation in mainland China now that is what like 25 and under. Right. There's this kid, Jello Rio. I'm not saying you got the full package, but man, this kid's music sounds like little TJ sounds pretty good. David, would you say that there's kind of a depth to understanding and being Chinese? I don't want to say being Chinese. Anybody, you know, that's Chinese is being Chinese, but like to understanding the depth of Chinese, it's there's like a, there's a fascinating aspect. There's an interesting aspect that may be intriguing. There's an intriguing esoteric aspect that is maybe not cool, but it's, it's very like notable. Yeah. It is like an Indiana Jones type of like, if you want to take it in a Western lens, you know what I mean? Like an Indiana Jones, like going through the ancient. It's got a lot of history. China's got a lot of history. Also, I think like this, I mean, I think, you know, I'm going to get into her personal situation later, but it could encourage you to be more cool because you can't rest on being Chinese because if being Chinese is not perceived as being cool, you got to make yourself cool. Right. So it's almost like you mean, you're not going to get the boost from the wave and the wind in your back. It's just like, you got to just run fast. Right. Right. Right. Because you're not going to get people just automatically thinking that, but also you could say that could build confirmation positive feedback loops that would like encourage you to be more cool too. But yeah, I mean, I would say for a lot of people I know, you know, I think that Chinese can also be legitimately Pan-Asian in a way that a lot of other Asians struggle to be Pan-Asian. You know what I mean? Because Chinese culture had such a wide reaching influence in an ancient sense or even the past like a hundred years or even even nowadays, I think the Chinese diaspora in Asia is the biggest of any other in Asia group. Like there's more Chinese people in other Asian countries than there are other Asian people in any other Asian country. I would think so. Yeah. So anyway, let's just get into the comments section. Andrew, this is a very long video. I guess a lot of people would probably get this. Probably a lot of people are aware of this, but they just don't even know how to have this conversation amongst friends. Somebody said being Chinese certainly is not considered cool. So you're not alone. I am half Chinese and definitely chubby too. We have to stick together and ignore them. Wait, ignore who? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I guess ignore just what it is. I mean, I guess, are you ignoring it or is the ranking just the ranking? Like are Chinese of the Japanese cars the Mazda's? I mean, you know, Mazda's solid cars, but they're not cool as like Lexus and Acura. I mean, I mean, I think you don't, you don't have to say that Japanese and Koreans are cooler. I mean, even though they have more cooler products, but I think that depending on what your definition of cool is, now you could say that there's a general definition of cool or you make up your own definition, whatever. In a Western eye, I see where she's coming from. But yeah, some of the Chinese enemies are getting good. Somebody said up until Jeremy Lin, I didn't want anybody knowing I was Chinese as a kid. I only felt negative things, but I think being Chinese is great if you don't give AF what people think because of all the negative press that's out there right now. Yeah, I do think that this is more of a guy type attitude though. This was a male Andrew. I do think, correct me if I'm wrong, women may be more tied into some type of group narratives in society or like group sociality. Yeah, I think, I think of anything women want to feel like more of a part of a group than even men do and part of that. Right, men, there's a little bit of that as you ronin, ronin vibe, right? Yeah, part of that. I mean, be looking for validation. I mean, I think that this girl, how it sounds is it's not like she ranks, I guess, as the most popular Chinese kid either. So she's probably looking at it as a Chinese girl who's not the most popular Chinese girl, but also wondering like, dang, I would need a little wind in my back. I would like to have some help from my culture to make me feel cooler like if I was the equivalent of me that was Korean. Right. Somebody says, I'm sorry, you don't feel very confident in your heritage. I'm Korean and Chinese, but when I'm asked, I usually only mention the Korean part because I know that the Chinese part will be seen with a negative connotation. We've all been there, man. Everybody, you've always disappointed some Korean or Japanese or even a non-Asian person who's like, oh, who do you Korean brother? Or like, oh my gosh, you're Korean? And then you're like, and then you're like, no, I'm Chinese. We just think in Japanese a lot because we wear a lot of streetwear. Yeah. And you know how we wear a lot of it? Yeah. Dude, it's so, it's a natural human instinct to feel bad that you know you're about to disappointment, even though you shouldn't feel bad at all, you should be able to be like, yes, I am Chinese. Do you have an issue with that? And that's almost what I want to say sometimes. Well, I think that when I was younger, I would be like, oh, this person's not going to like that. I say that I'm Chinese, but nowadays I don't care. Yeah. Now you got to almost be like, hey, I'm Chinese. What? And what? What? Somebody says, I relate to this so much, not because I don't fit into the beauty standards, but because I know how people view Chinese. Even other Asians have a negative view. I fit in better with Hispanics than Asians. It's almost formed an identity crisis for me. You know what the crazy thing is, man? If people are saying this in 2023, Andrew, they don't know how it was like 20 years ago. I'm like, hey guys, listen, man, things have only been getting better, in my opinion, for being Chinese. Even, I guess, I could see the other side too. It's also gotten more negative press too. Somebody said, I just hate how I sound when I speak Cantonese. Japanese just sounds so much cooler. Anna, what do you think about this? This is a linguistic thing because Chinese is a tonal language. Japanese is not a tonal language. It's easier for Western people to pronunciate it. Also, I think it depends on how you speak Kanto too. Like, I mean, there's like Kanto has a wide variation once you get to the villages, to HK style, to like the lady on the MTR announcements is a pretty smooth Cantonese. Sounds nice on the ears. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody said, I blame it on Chinese culture itself because whether it was our ancient history or our modern history, I don't know which one it was. Chinese have this Chabuduo culture, which is very uncool compared to the absurdly perfectionist Japanese culture and standards. They said Korea seems like it's really good at incorporating American culture and mixing it with their ancient culture. And then Chinese just seem like they don't make it cool. You know what is like kind of like what happened that was very fortunate for like, I guess in a way Korean pop culture. It's like for a long time, I knew Korean friends that were like growing up that were like, man, people don't even know what Korea is. They have no idea. They're still asking me if I'm North Korean. They have no idea. And then finally, when Korea gets popular, it's popular for cool things as opposed to Chinese, which has been around for a long time and exposed to many, many people for decades, a hundred years. Oh, Chinese have been in America for 150 years. Right. But, but it hasn't always been the best exposure. So it's like, so with Chinese, you get good and bad exposure, but because you had the bad one, like a lot of a good amount of the bad one, then it colors everybody's exposure. But Korea is like the new kid that you know nothing about that is just cool. More of a blank slate situation. It's almost like, yeah, Bruce Lee, which was ding, but then you had like the gold rush, sort of the cues in the back of the head. And then like, you know, he just one person, he can only pump it up a little bit. But I do want to know like that Japanese perfectionist, artisanal kind of samurai like, like, you must be the best Japanese or kill yourself like attitude that just that that stereotype. It's a, I mean, it makes for good products, man. If you talk to people from Japan that grew up in that system, they don't all go like, right, that was the best, even though our mochi makers like look like samurai and it's amazing when you see us make mochi. Somebody says, like, sounds like you're insecure about your waiter appearance and you're projecting it onto the macro, but you need to take care of your micro. Is that true, Andrew? That if people, like we said, even if they're from this group, right, that's not like on a global narrative level, like the highest rank, if they're hot or like high status themselves, that will like transcend the group. It's almost like you're from a poor country in a macro sense, but you're like the richest person. Like, well, the individual situation more matter than the macro situation or as people feeling swept up by the macro narrative, almost a very like middle class thing. You know what I'm saying? You know how like when you're poor, you're just trying to survive. And when you're rich, almost being rich is your more transcended identity over like anything else. So, but everybody in the middle is like wondering like, but what do people like our cultural products? Middle class issues. Somebody said, I think it's very common for people to benchmark themselves against other groups on some sort of global scale. But once you hit your 30s, you just don't care anymore. I do think when you're a kid, all you want is validation and to be cool and to feel pretty and to feel handsome and to feel desired. And those are really your desires as a young kid. So of course right now, this OP is like questioning, but I do think once they grow up and they found more important things to think about, but I do think it takes effort. It takes effort to be proud of being Chinese. It's not just going to come easily. So, so you just have to put in a little effort. No, no, no, no, it's more going to be a more complicated Rubik's Cube to solve than another type of Rubik's Cube. And maybe it's, it's you have to do the work if you don't do the work. Somebody just said a lot of Japanese and Chinese culture is founded on Chinese culture. I mean, yes and no. This is like an ancient thing. You know what I mean? The sway in the Tang Dynasty heavily influenced Japan, the Han Dynasty heavily influenced Korea. But how is that? What's that going to do for jelly belly bean? Right. What does it mean for an 18 year old, 19 year old, 20 year old? Somebody pointed out that Tang Hulu was around in China for hundreds of years, but it literally only got popping on TikTok because South Korean influencers started eating it and making it. Yeah. I mean, I guess are you asking everybody that's cooking a Chinese recipe to note that it's Chinese, right? Like, hey, we're doing these candied Hawthorne berries and it's called Tang Hulu and they come from China. I mean, that would be nice if everybody would say that before they're right. And just like if you're cooking Tteokbokki, you should say, Hey, this is a Korean street snack. Right. So it's easy. What about Manhua lashes, Andrew? They only got popular once they were rebranded as manga lashes, because Manhua is the Chinese term for manga. But a lot of people are like, just nobody wants to say Manhua because they already had manga in their brain. Somebody says a lot of the Xiaohong Shu makeup and nails that never gets accredited to Chinese. And then I guess a lot of like chrome croquette fashion is really popular from Sandy Liang. And that is Chinese, but the Chinese won't get credit because nobody wants to credit Chinese things as like trendy or cool right now. Man, this just goes back to like the term Chinese being so loaded. It has so much Chinese. It has so much like if you say Chinese, it just sounds bad. Like no one thinks it's cool. But if you say maybe Chinese culture or Han culture or Huadran, like it sounds cooler. Sino, Sino's still coming in. Sino's too so technical. Yeah. Yeah. Just the word Chinese, it's just man, it has so many different meanings to it. It could be like nine different things. Yeah. It has so many feelings behind it. And those things can be all conflicting internally within each other. And then like Singaporeans are like, what are you talking about? I am not Chinese. I am Singaporean. But it's like sometimes they also are like, yeah, I'm Chinese, but I'm Chinese Singaporean. Yeah. Or like I'm Chinese, but I'm not from China, you know? And then it's like, oh man. It's so complicated. Somebody said that, man, it really just has to do with like the modern situation being the rival of the US. People are obviously blaming it on the CCP and cheaply made goods and people are just like, I don't know. It just like, like you said, it's like everything, it feels like everything good you see about China has like three bad things that also get publicized in the West about it, right? Somebody said it's a very rich history, but only if you care about history. You know, obviously the ancient Sino sphere, which was included Japan, Korea, Vietnam, the modern day diaspora. Somebody said, man, it's, I don't think it's really healthy to come back to shame and embarrassment with pride. Andrew, what do you think about this? Because some people are saying that some people try to shame people for being Chinese, but then some guys specifically on internet, they turn that into blind pride in action, which would you see what you see? What doesn't work is like, yo, I'm Chinese, Chinese is the best Chinese is the best China, China, China number one. It's like, yeah, that's not really going to work either. Like people are not going to buy that, but it's so, it's so nuanced that it takes so much time to just accept it. You know, I always say like, I got a funny quote for it. Somebody says, I'm South Asian. I feel like we also never get considered premium Asians due to all the videos that come out on Tik Tok of the street food. I mean, if you feel that way, it's not just because of the Tik Tok videos though. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's not the only reason like, you know what it is, Andrew, they're only showing they're not showing honest, you know, that brand honest, they're not showing the high end fast food. It is true that the rule, poor street foods that circulate on Tik Tok from anywhere in Asia, from anywhere is not doing specifically China and India. When I see the rule, street food videos, I'm like, I'll still watch this though. This is really fascinating. Well, you know what's so funny is like, as an Asian, right? Like, whether you're Indian or Chinese, right? You'll see some stuff like that pop up on your feed and you're like, you can't help but feel like that represents part of you. But it doesn't, even though it is happening in your motherland, it's not like that represents you. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. You don't have to represent every socioeconomic class of person. Yeah. Not every where your parents come from. Hey, newsflash guys, not every single person in your motherland represents you. Right. Right. Right. Just like you don't represent them necessarily to be honest. Exactly. Somebody said, well, I'm Korean and I know that a lot of people love our culture nowadays, but they think they know more than me because they watch like 10 YouTube videos. And I just feel like that appreciation is just fetishization. So, you know, it's not necessarily all roses over here. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's true too. Somebody said, yo, think about it. I'm considered an ugly Korean girl. It's even worse for me because Koreans are supposed to be the most beautiful. That's crazy, huh? That goes to show you though. That is the flip side though, right? Because I guess when you're in a certain crowd that's known for a certain thing, if you don't live up to that, then it's like even in this squad, they might turn on you and outside of the squad, they might be more disappointed. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. That's crazy. Somebody said, hey, I'm Southeast Asian. I'm Filipino. It still seems pretty dominant to me, like at least from the outside looking in. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think at the end of the day, you can't don't overlook the fact that Chinese culture is everywhere and that Chinese people are everywhere. And there's a lot of cool Chinese people doing a lot of cool things. But it is hard to, for that to take over the narrative in people's minds before like the news articles from the Chinese government come out or America versus China, like that stuff is hard to beat. It is. It is. It is. Especially if you're like, you know, just people around you are bringing it up to you. I mean, I think there's a lot of cool videos that come out of China. Andrew on Dou Ying, they I see reposted on Instagram and even the, you know, that live streamer that was like showing like 10,000 items for three seconds and made a bunch of money saying it, being like, sure, socks, you know what I mean? Sure. I mean, I mean, there's channels like gold thread to gold thread to has been making so much content like about Chinese culture, like, and just highlighting the positive stuff. Like not it's not a news channel. It's literally just like essentially a food channel to explain some stuff to you that you never would get translated. Right? Yes. Yes. I'll say this, man. Here's my major takeaway, guys. It is complicated being Chinese. It is the most complicated Rubik's cube of probably being any Asian. And, you know, I could think of some other ones that are really complicated to specifically identities that are more maybe Middle Eastern or something like that. But essentially, it's the most complicated Rubik's cube of an Asian to solve. Yes. I'm not saying that it's a better Rubik's cube. I'm just saying it's more layered and it's more difficult to twist the Rubik's cube. So hopefully this is something Andrew that cherry belly bean or whatever she can grow out of it. Or Andrew, should I say this, the truth is because these dynamics may hold true grow into it. Oh, because it is what it is. It is what it is that you just have to learn the whole field and then grow into it versus being like, grow out of it. Well, how are you going to grow out of something that the situation doesn't change? You know, you can always take some pride in the fact that Chinese people, I think it's the easiest for us to be Pan-Asian to it in a sense because we see a little bit of ourselves in every country. If you go to Thailand, you could just see, I mean, even Thailand, you could see Chinese characters everywhere because they had a huge Chinese diaspora. The Philippines, there's Chinese Filipinos, there's Chinese dash everything. There's Chinese Burmese, Chinese people from Laos, Chinese Cambodians that are mostly Chiu Joe. There's literally Chinese Jamaicans. That's like a significant population. So it's like there's a Chinatown in South Africa. Yep. So yeah. Anyways, guys, let us know in the comments down below how you feel about this. How do you stay proud of being Chinese with all the negativity around it or the lack of cool culture? Or do you think the culture is cool? Maybe make the argument. What are we missing out on? Maybe we're missing something, you know? So let us know in the comments down below. Hopefully this conversation was helpful. And until next time, everybody, we out. Peace.