 What does it take to actually call yourself Chinese? Surprisingly, a lot of people on the internet are discussing this right now. Yeah, you guys are clearly having identity issues, but me as Xiaoping never happened for me, but I can empathize or sympathize with you. All right guys, there's two posts on Reddit. One is from a half Chinese, half white guy who's just questioning his identity like, hey, can I call myself Chinese now? And then also one post is from a person who was born in Hong Kong, came to America 11 years ago. And they're also questioning whether they can call themselves Chinese. So as Chinese people who have thought about this question, David, you know, we talked about this stuff on our channel before. Who said you are a Chinese? Maybe you are just a empty bamboo shoot. A juxting, as they would say in Cantonese. But anyways, guys, we're going to go through our quick thoughts. We have a list of things that might make you Chinese. And then the top comment section. So please hit that like button as we get into it. Hopefully this combo is helpful. Yeah. I think the main thing that sparked it is that this hopper guy, Andrew, he doesn't speak Mandarin. And then this guy who immigrated from Hong Kong as a parachute kid for, you know, better education, career opportunities. He can't read or write Chinese. And somehow interestingly enough, this, I don't know if it is, this is the crux of like possibly causing an identity crisis. Right. But I think we do need to talk about, and no one is a real gatekeeper to identity, but what could make you feel more confident in you being Chinese? What made me feel more confident that I'm Chinese over the years? Let's talk about it. Yeah. I think my quick thought is that realistically, man, being Chinese, to be honest, and this sounds crazy, Andrew, it doesn't mean anything. Like, I think it has a lot more. No, no, no. What are you saying? What do you mean being Chinese doesn't mean anything? No, no, it doesn't not mean anything, but I think it's way more complex than being, let's say, for example, something that's more monocultural, like being Japanese or being Korean. I think that those things, first of all, I think you can still argue what does that mean, but there's like maybe less argument. I think being Chinese is particularly something that's incredibly hard to define, even for somebody from China, because they don't necessarily understand anything about a province like a 3,000 miles away. Right. Well, Chinese is a broad term, and also there's a large Chinese diaspora. Are you including Chinese from Malaysia? They have a different experience than Chinese from China, from Beijing. A Chinese person from Shenyang up in the northeast is going to have a different life from someone from Hainan. If you added up all the diaspora Chinese globally, Andrew, which is like anywhere from like 350 million to 400 million, that would already be one of the biggest countries in the world, and that's just people in Chinese communities growing up overseas. It is like a gigantic population. Okay, okay. To simplify it for people though, because we want this to be a helpful video, let's just say there is a general Chinese identity. I'll just like, let's just roll with this idea, because if we say it's too complicated, then no one is Chinese, and no one can be Chinese. Do you mean either a noodle or maybe a dumpling? Yeah, I guess I think for me, and I think this is a question, and this is how a lot of Chinese Americans or people, Asian Americans can answer this question. If you're wondering whether you're Chinese, I think the simple answer is anybody can claim that they're Chinese, anybody can claim that they're anything, but it also goes down to your work. Like what effort have you put in to connecting with your heritage or the people of that heritage? I think it's a legit question. Not that there are strict guidelines, there is no gatekeeper, nobody can take your identity away from you, but you should answer that question for yourself and say, what effort have I put in to being Chinese? You're saying instead of just worrying about sort of how whatever polar eastern western sort of stakes you got born into, worry about how you build out those campsites rather than just where those stakes got laid down by your parents. Like you can earn your stripes, this is definitely something that you can earn your stripes and I would say so. It's a little bit, and you compare it to being a basketball player, right? Because a lot of people, they got Hooper tattoos, but me and you know, there is so many levels of Hooper. Yeah, yeah, if you say you're a basketball player, depending on who you're talking to, they're gonna be like, wait, what do you mean you're a basketball player? You're like, oh, I mean, you know, I just shoot around with my friends, you're like, you're not a basketball player, but if you train constantly and you love basketball and you train to be good at it and you play often, then you take it very seriously and yeah, maybe you could call yourself that, you call yourself a Hooper. Right, what if I take it serious, but everybody else I grew up around doesn't know anything, so I was just the most serious of my fishbowl, so I have that identity. But then when I went into the world to meet like NBA players, kids, or you know, Luca Doncic is the future, Lucas, I felt very minuscule. Right, right, like I would start, I met Vince Carter one time, would I tell him I'm a Hooper? I'd be like, yo, I could play ball. That's what I would say, literally. I would not say, yo, Vince Carter, I'm a Hooper. Right, I think if you wanted to actually plot out identity, you could, Andrew, on an infinitely complex 3D math chart. Like, I don't even really understand math this deep, but I know enough, and there's people in my family who understand math this deep, you can actually chart out your identity on a 3D plot chart, but you know, it's too complex, so I think the best way I could do it is just like an XY axis, you know what I mean? You know, quadrants. The four quadrants. The four quadrants, that's popular to rank things on Reddit, right? So probably if you're part Eastern and you're part Western, Andrew, you're gonna have two plot chart distributions where there's clustering on two different points on the plot chart, right? So you are in control for the rest of your life once you become realistically, what, 14, 15, 16, 17, until the end of your days, about how many reps, new reps you develop on this plot chart. So I'm saying at the end of your life, just worry about where your plot chart ended up, instead of worrying about where your parents put your two initial dots. Yeah, I think a lot of people are having trouble dealing with people questioning whether they're Chinese, like in person, because you can get like a little bit crunchy and feel a little embarrassed. You're like, well, I'm Chinese. And then they're like, oh, why are you Chinese? You can't speak Chinese. So are you from China? Oh, you don't look Chinese. And then they're just like, ah, I don't feel Chinese anymore. But this is why it's important to do the work so that you feel confident in yourself, not necessarily to convince the other person because you can't convince everybody. It's for yourself. Anyways, David, I have a quick list of 10 things that might make you Chinese. You guys let me know where you guys rank on this list. Here's just 10 things I came up with, right? This is Andrew's list. This is my list. You may not agree with it. Somebody who has been questioned, not by me, but like by a lot of people in your life. I've been questioned by people from China, by the way. Anybody who's ever questioned whether I was Chinese, they were from China. Anyways, number one, you have Chinese heritage. Obviously Chinese blood. Does this mean you got to take a 23 in me or what does this mean? No, I mean the more Chinese, if you have a notable one eighth blood, that counts for something. Yeah, shout out to all the Jamaican Chinese we know. Number two, you can speak a Chinese dialect on some level. Number three, you can stand in the middle of a busy, densely populated Chinese area and not feel super uncomfortable. You know, when some people are like, Chinatown bugs me out. It's like, I don't know. You're not really being Chinese right now. Well, actually, because a lot of China has just really high population. You got to be around China. You got to be able to sit and feel somewhat comfortable around Chinese people. Number four, you desire to eat actual Chinese food at least three times a week. And you can't say Chinese food is super icky or way too greasy because those are not things that a Chinese person would say. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. On a scale of like one to 10, though, Chinese food is probably like, let's just say the world average of greasiness is five. It's probably above a five if you made me say like, But it's not a 10 though. It's not a 10, not a 10. Stir fry food can be greasy. It depends on how much grease and oil you're using. Number five, you got to be able to use chopsticks fairly correctly, all right? Wait, so where's cross sticks rank on this? No, if you can't, if you're doing the cross fingers, terrible. If you're throwing up gangsta. Yeah, if you're super functional with it, come on. Number six, you're familiar with the stories of popular Chinese folklore such as Monkey King and you will celebrate Chinese New Year. Obviously Chinese New Year, that's the most biggest celebrated Chinese. That's like being a Christian and not celebrating Christmas. Right, do you have to be scared of the Nian? Is that too funny? No, no, you don't have to be superstitious. Number seven, you attempt to say the names of Chinese dishes while ordering at Chinese restaurants to a Chinese waiter. You got to try. Like even if you say the rest of the sentence in English. Yeah, if you say, hey, can I get one Hap To Ha, you know, like the walnut shrimp, that's Kanto. Number eight, you have some non self-hating Chinese friends. Yeah, but I am from China and even I, I hate myself. So there's some complexity with this one. Number nine, that you get treated or identified as being Chinese sometimes, at least amongst your friend group. If you're the most Chinese guy, your friend group, it counts for something. Number 10. Oh, are you saying if somebody's like, hey, why do Chinese people do this? You can't just go, I don't know. I'm more like white if anything. Yeah, you got to be able to answer the goofy, ridiculous Chinese representation questions amongst your friend group at least. You mean the, the TikTok in front of the congressional members grill? Like your friends got to be able to like, oh yeah, we got a Chinese friend, look. Oh yeah, yeah, that's me. That's me. Yeah. And then number 10, you have a Chinese name and you are able to write it in the proper characters. Oh, you have to have been assigned one or gotten one. You got to know how to write your Chinese name. Does it, does it count more if you got assigned it by an actual old Chinese person versus, you know, like your, your Lao Shi and like Mandarin. Oh, oh. Putonghua 101. Yeah, obviously if, if you got your name from an actual Chinese person or like a relative, it's better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It counts for more. Anyways, guys, you don't have to be 10 out of 10. Those are just 10 things to think about. And a lot of that is, is effort right there too. I think that this is almost like how to be considered just like at least like a semi valid ABC. Yeah, at least semi Chinese. Like you got to be everybody to, in my opinion, even if you're not Chinese, can be semi Chinese. Do you have to be cheap or at least value minded when you make it, when you're making purchases? Like that one white guy, Dashan, that's teaches from Canada that teaches Chinese in China. Is he not semi Chinese at this point? I would, I would say he's maybe not a Chinese person, but he's like semi Chinese. Yeah, maybe, you know, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got, I got to see how he probably thinks and acts kind of like a Chinese person at this point. Anyway, let's get into the top comments. It says, if you were actually Chinese as a half Chinese person, you'd be more math centric and stick to the proper characterization of half Chinese. Half is half, no more, no less. That's the mathematical truth. Yo, you could be half Chinese and culturally more Chinese, it's possible. Right. So he said, now actually just be whatever you want. Just don't flip floppy identity when it suits the moment. Personally, I'd stick to half half. You don't need to deny any part of yourself to validate the other one. Yeah, and I also think sometimes if you identify as half, but you're more Chinese than people think, you can also impress people that way, as opposed to setting the bar very high and saying, I'm a Chinese person. And then them questioning. I think it has a lot more to do with your day to day life reps and like pings that you have in interactions than anything you were just born into, right? But I feel like a lot of people are just like freezing themselves being like, except me as I was born. Right, right. But it was tough. It's like some people do are born into an identity that's easily acceptable by the larger society and other ones are not more complicated. Somebody said, you will be judged no matter what you call yourself. People will be angry at you regardless if you call yourself Chinese, white half Chinese, hoppa, whatever. You don't have to justify your identity. It's up to other people to not be bigots. Yeah, I overall, like I said, it's really about how you feel about yourself because no one, even a person from China cannot take your Chineseness away. Even like, I don't know if you met Xi Jinping, he's not responsible for your identity. You know, he can't make that call. He could probably make that call about you entering China, but not about you being Chinese. But what I'm saying is that you, for yourself to be confident when you meet people, you got to put in some work. So for like me, I'm not good at the Chinese language, but I try to speak it when I can. And then if I do meet someone from China and they're like, oh, how do you know about Jiangsu? How did you know about the food in Dongbei? And I'm like, oh yeah, because I put in some work to understand the culture. Oh, you seem to understand China fairly well, considering you don't speak Chinese. I'm like, yeah, that's what I put my work into that. Right. And if they tell you that your Chinese language skills are very bad, you have to go. Somebody said, yeah, whether or not you speak the mother tongue doesn't make you any less the Chinese in South America. There's a huge population of ethnic Chinese that have been mixed over 100 years. At this point, they look more Latino than they do Cantonese or Mandarin, but they still can speak the language a little bit. I consider them Chinese. Is this, do you agree, disagree, or what is this true? I think within the context of South America, they absolutely could be Chino-Latino, but for sure, I mean, it's morphed as a diaspora community, right? Again, I think it's about effort from the diaspora. I mean, are Chino-Latinos any less Chinese than Chinese Americans who are third generation in America? If you can speak some Chinese dialect, you hold on to that heritage, and you've tried, you've put in some effort to connect with other Chinese people and the Chinese heritage, and you don't hate being Chinese, and you don't hate other Chinese people completely, then I think for sure, they should be able to consider themselves. I agree that it's more about interpersonal pings and real life treatment than, I do think watching YouTube videos about the history of China or reading books about the modern and ancient mid-tier history or whatever, matters a little bit, but that's second place to IRL interactions. Yeah, I mean, I've even met people who are half Chinese that run a Chinese organization or the leaders of it. Now, I don't know if they're doing that for their insecurities of like, oh, I need to earn Chinese points, but if they feel compelled to do it and people let them do it, and they are doing it because they honestly do feel the Chinese heritage within themselves, then that's great, perfect. Somebody says as a half Asian who also grew up in a majority Asian neighborhood, I totally understand the insecurity of identity. For so long, I couldn't call myself Asian. I always had to explain my background to call myself Asian to another Asian. The identity insecurity of being mixed is a B. It's always best to work towards identifying yourself how you want to. There will be naysayers, but your identity is your own. Don't get caught up in other people's opinion. Also, I thought about this really interesting thing, Andrew. Sometimes it has to do with a media or a celebrity figure that's exalted, especially in America where we have celebrity worship, et cetera, et cetera. Either a high-profile person that shares your same identity, like I know a lot of hapas. They follow our friend Taylor Rapp, who's in the NFL, and he's not that great at speaking Mandarin. He's probably better than you would think. But at the end of the day, he's like tatted up. He's got his Chinese name on his arm, and he reps it pretty hard. You know what I mean? Yeah, he puts some effort into it for that. And I'm saying that that is really actually important for people who need to see somebody who's validated in something more murk him, which is like the NFL. So I guess what I'm saying is like, I think a lot of it comes down to like celebrities too. As stupid or trivial as that sounds in an academic sense. That's fair. That's fair. It is what it is, man. Ultimately, Andrew, what are your takeaways? These are very interesting questions. Are these people on Reddit asking a legitimate question? Are they just looking for therapy? Do they just need to talk it out? Like, this is kind of, I don't know, maybe I never struggled with it. This is kind of a weird question, right? Yeah, yeah. No, I think that they're asking a legit question, but I think the one thing that I didn't see in the comments was like, you know, just try. Just like try to connect with some Chinese people, some actual Chinese people, you know, and don't be a self-hating Chinese. Try to connect with your heritage. Give it a good effort. If you at the end of your life or when you're like 30 or 40 years old and you can sit back and say, you know what? I may have not been born the most Chinese person. Maybe I'm half Chinese and I grew up in like a white area. But I gave being Chinese an effort. And I got some Chinese friends and I know a little bit about being Chinese and I understand the culture. Then you did, you did a good job. You know what I mean? Like it, but I'm saying a lot of people have to be do the work first to be confident in themselves to talk to other people. What if people are doing the work, but only within a narrow scope? Like, like, they're like, I got one standard deviation. I can go up and I've maxed it out. And this is it. And this is all I'm comfortable doing because I'd have to do some really uncomfortable stuff to get three to four to five standard deviations away from where I was born. Well, you know what? Then at that point, you can have fun with it. And you can be like, yeah, you know, I'm like a bad Chinese. I'm Chinese, but you know, my Chinese sucks or like, you can always downplay yourself and then set the bar low. Right, right, right. And then impress people. I think ultimately it's about satisfying your own standards internally, right? There are societal standards that will come into play if you want to become like a Chinese TV host or some sort of like personality in the east or even represent Asian American, Oregon, America, right? But as far as yourself goes, you set your own internal thresholds and like, like quality control bars you need to hit, right? Ultimately, I think of life, Andrew, my biggest takeaways. Life is a lot more mathematical than people want to admit. But you know what I realized? A lot of people who understand deep math and like this deep charting that's like actually all scientists use for every sort of like electronic 3D modeling, you know, radio equipment and all these waves and stuff like that. They don't really like live crazy lives. I guess it would be more like Robin Gone, Andrew, you know, the calculus rapper. Like I could tell he's wanting to use rap to like break out of that like math tractor beam like laboratory work. But I don't know if it's fully working, you know what I mean? Like, but I could tell there's something in him that wants more, right? And then I feel like there's people who live these crazy like outlier lives and they don't really understand deep math. Right. So then they can't like map it out for the, they can't map out their crazy life for people to understand how to live a crazy life. So what I'm saying is just like, basically, if once you understand the math of life, you will, people can stop asking these type of questions because they can map out their own initial starting points on the plot chart and go, well, literally mathematically, I need to accumulate the life experiences and accomplishments or accolades, whether they're for outside validation or internal validation to change my identity. Yeah, I mean, you can visualize it. I mean, I don't know if it has to be a graph, but it could be a flow chart of some type too. Something, you know, just some type of visualization about where you are and where you want to be. And that's very helpful for anything. Yeah, listen, guys, we can't control the stakes in the sand that we got born into. You know, you just start off with one little tent, but you control if that tent grows into a village or a town. Yeah. All right, everybody, please let us know in the comments down below what you think about my 10 things that make you Chinese, that list or what you think about being, living up to your identity, right? Like if you say you're and I, if you identify as something, is there some work that goes along with it? You let me know in the comments down below. I noticed you did not put eating the crawfish in the Malatang in your list. And where, where is it? Well, because a lot of Cantonese people don't eat Malatang, so I don't want to make that a requirement. That's a provincial Chinese dish, essentially. But anyways, guys, thank you so much for watching The Hot Pop Boys and until next time, we out. Peace.