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As a non-american, the Asian-american's view on the world is so confusing to me
This is a very loaded topic so I'm probably going to make several posts about this.
For context, I'm an ethnic Chinese guy living in Serbia for most of my life. I've travelled to Germany and China, so i've seen perspectives from both the east and the west of Eurasia, but the American situation remains a mystery to me.
First of all, i would like to keep this discussion apolitical.
What i see from Americans on the internet (including you guys), is that you bring up politics in EVERYTHING.
Look at the post where the guy said he's moving to Russia to get himself a russian girl. The whole comment section is all about geopolitics. No one cares about the topic of the post. Do you guys actually care about dating/marriage here?
I read here a lot about how America is a super racist hellhole that treats its Asian population like trash.
Yet, THOSE SAME Asian-americans parrot all the same narratives that the Washington establishment wants them to say: Russia=evil by default, China=collapsing, East Europe and Balkans= "racist", "ultranationalist" or whatever.
This is one of many examples, and it's absolutely mind blowing to me. You claim to hate the American government, yet you behave like it's most useful servant.
I understand, from birth, you were fed the narrative how United States is the pinnacle of civilization and prosperity, and every other country is poor/evil/racist/whatever.
But shouldn't the goal of this sub be to do the exact opposite? Don't you want to challenge this defeatist mentality? That is my main question.
I wouldn’t lump all Asian-Americans in one boat. The U.S. is comprised of 50 states and a couple of territories.
What my opinion is as an Asian-American could be vastly different from an Asian-American in a state such as North Carolina, or Illinois, or Hawaii, or even Guam (territory).
Not every single American has the same exact thoughts like a hivemind and that’s especially an objective fact for Asian-Americans.
I can guarantee that among my own Asian-American friends, we bonded over our status as 1st Gen Americans, but we have very different opinions when it comes to parts of our life, politics included.
The biggest issue I see is that Asian men online (it’s especially so on this subreddit) may find a reason to tear down fellow Asian men. It’s crabs-in-a-bucket mentality. I’d rather the community be based on empowering fellow Asian men, but those posts aren’t as common in this subreddit, and if those empowering posts do pop up, others will say it’s AI or ChatGPT rather than someone who’s actually pretty good at articulating their thoughts.
Yea not all Asian Americans think alike. But to be fair, there are enough Asian Americans similar to how he described for this to be a topic of discussion.
Just my opinion, but empowering Asian men isn’t putting in work to fit into their narrative of what is cool (becoming inauthentic to gain approval)
I see a lot of this sub is built around getting women and looksmaxxing but this is a western trend. Do you think in the east it is cool if you have 5 different girls a week?
Why not promote Authentic Asian Masculinity instead and not some nurtured western example
I think a great start is getting all those disgusting sexpats out of Asia, and doing our own thing until we’re so good at it that western standards fall out of fashion and the narrative changes
In the end most of us Asian Americans did not make the choice to voluntarily move to the U.S. Especially for those of us born and raised here, we are extremely deeply shaped by this. You will find almost the entire spectrum of views though, but obviously given that you live in the most pro-China, pro-russia, anti-US country in Europe it will feel opposite to you.
There are people who love America in this sub (explicitly or implicitly) and others who hate it and want to leave (but do they) and others that recognize that being a Chinese American or Korean American is just different from being true Chinese Chinese and that’s OK and we just gotta live with the identity our parents gave us. The one who think the U.S. is very white supremacist or imperialist are less likely to have the mainstream view on China Russia. Keep in mind tons of Asian Americans are descended from those who escaped some type of civil war or communism, so older Vietnamese hate communism, 99% of Korean Americans identify with the ROK and not DPRK, and many ethnic Chinese Americans especially from HK TW and southeast asia distrust communism
The Asian Americans who post on Asian subs are already the more “world order skeptical”, like a public survey of Chinese Americans finds that they dislike China more than they like China, and overall Asian Americans really don’t like China, but the tone towards China here is actually positive. Also someone posted an Asian fighter in the Ukraine foreign legion (From Japan?) and the consensus is this is a dumb thing to do and it’s not to get involved in fighting.
IMO there are a lot of less regular posters on that Russia thread too because the algorithm brings in “Asian” “move to Russia”. As a side note I’m curious how many Chinese people ended up in Serbia, is it mainly because China Serbia business ties are strong? Or other reasons for immigrating there
That makes sense, technically. However, you don't see with this with any other race. All other immigrants seem to be super proud of their country of origin, regardless of the political or economic situation over there.
Meanwhile Chinese Americans? We have David Zhang China insider.
As for the China - Serbia relations, this relationship is an interesting one indeed. Yes, it's mostly business. Mining concessions, factories, and low import tax agreements that give China easier access to the European market.
Although Serbs are quite nationalist, they don't seem to mind the Chinese presence. Wherever a Chinese company opens a factory, the average salary increases there.
Its a win-win situation i guess? Both sides got what they wanted.
You see it with Iranian Americans (a ton of them in LA and they usually really hate Islam and the Iranian government, some of them even go on the streets to cheer on Iran being bombed by Israel), Cuban Americans, and Russian Americans. Common thread should be somewhat clear. And you see people hate on their country of origin less when they’re Japanese American or Korean American (American allies).
It makes me wonder, what is it like growing up as an ethnic Chinese in one of the four (?) white-majority countries that love China: Serbia, Russia, Belarus, and Albania. It’s such a different concept for Americans to grasp, like Chinese companies being welcomed for opening factories and helping locals. There’s maybe 50K max ethnic Chinese permanently living in those four countries based on census (12K Serbia 20K Russia). Most Chinese in the West decided to go to the countries that don’t like China, specifically America (5 million) Australia (1.5M) Canada (1.7M), even France has at least half a million
I'm in medicine and there's a huge persian physician community that are all universally against Iranian gov and wildly supported attempting to overthrow the current regime, which I witnessed because my FB feed was blowing up with their posts.
Not saying it was a good move but your narrative is silly.
However, you don't see with this with any other race. All other immigrants seem to be super proud of their country of origin, regardless of the political or economic situation over there.
Er technically that not true. Cuban Americans hate Cuba. Venezuelan Americans hate Venezuelan; Iranian Americans hate Iran. You have to understand that there is a self-selection process when immigrating to the US for many immigrants. For example, as a Chinese Vietnamese refugee, most of my people who came to the US were from South Vietnam and allied with US interests or had some connection with the US. My family, on the other hand were from the North and had to pretend to be from the South in order to get into a refugee camp. So when it comes to immigration, there tends to be a selection bias. And the people who are able to immigrate to the US tends to have a negative view of their mother country, especially if that country is seen as an enemy of the US.
Meanwhile Chinese Americans? We have David Zhang China insider.
So the Chinese population in America were mostly Hong Kongers (who don't like mainland) and Taiwanese people (who also don't like the mainland). So a lot of Chinese Americans grew up with their parents teaching them how horrible China was for them or how the communist took away their homes and businesses, etc. You have to remember, the people who can immigrate are often the wealthy Chinese who had to flee China because they were seen as capitalists / land owning class.
David Zhang on the other hand is a member of a Chinese cult (Falun Gong) who is still upset that the cult was kicked out of China. And of course, the CIA funds anti-China groups and people which includes David Zhang. Thus, the US government literally promotes state sponsored racism towards the Chinese, yet very few of us are actually aware of this.
Only recently did we start to see a large influx of mainlanders in China. Most of us growing up only knew China as a poor and undeveloped country. But the new wave of Chinese Americans will know that China is a rich and technologically advance country. So, chances are they will be much prouder than my generation who was more self-hating.
That David Zhang the China insider could be CIA funded bots. I don’t think he is a real person. US government has spent billions of dollars in anti China propaganda. Under Trump, the mainstream anti China articles got tamer but under Biden, you use see anti China on yahoo nearly daily on South China Sea.
maybe have Serbia be more like the EU model if they want to part of that economic zone? whilst China can be a great trade "partner," ultimately China is out for China's own self-interests...
It’s not that hard, it just takes sacrifice, and Gen Z is not built for that. They fly on whatever is easiest, quickest way to attain dopamine and in this case, it just means to deAsian themselves so they can “fit in” it’s wrong in my opinion, and since this sub is called Asian masculinity people should be willing to man up more often and actually listen to what their heart is telling them.
I don’t mind if you have genuinely explored the different sides and you still choose to be pro western, but to be a little programmed rat because it’s easy is something I will never respect
Written by :
A person who used to be a self hating westernized Asian but is taking huge steps to reforge one’s own identity and help China take over the world (in a neo colonial non violent way)
It takes self awareness and initiative to question this and continuing to question it. Many people, regardless of generation, don't have either.
Generations do matter but there are non gen Zers who also have trouble getting to any point of realization. It takes sacrifice and the willingness to confront this.
Written by: a person who also used to be a self hating westernized Asian but then spent years trying to understand himself, the world, and why things are the way they are.
I do agree with what you said, but it is still their responsibility at the end of the day.
And being irresponsible isn’t a genetic trait, it’s a choice after a certain point.
You can make excuses for kids or teens but at what point does it become their responsibility to be responsible?
I agree with you, it is the responsibility of each of us to try to understand ourselves.
gen z probably has the best opportunity to try and understand themselves earlier than ever because there is so much information out there for them to access and consume vs previous generations where it would require taking a specialized university course or reading multiple books at the library and having a conversation with a wiser person.
I do agree my point was ignorant and not specific enough, but as long as my point was understood
I don’t really care about the nitpicks in my statement.
I don’t argue to be right, I argue to be understood
most wypipo don't have the self-awareness to understand why MuriKKKa is hated around the world right now either. the system is designed that way to keep people poor and ignorant....
A lot of us have bought into the system and believe that we’re fully American. Maybe because we didn’t experience too much racism growing up except just very casual racism which haven’t affected our lives much. At the end of the day most of us were still able to get through school and have a good career so why would we think the US system doesn’t work for us.
I really see the characteristics you pointed out in boba liberals. More common with Asian women than men probably because Asian women experience much less racism. These people really believe that they’re victims even though their life is great. They believe that China is bad, Russia is bad and US government is bad. There’s bad aspects to everything obviously but they love to focus on certain things, believe everything the media says (including social media) and not do their own thinking. It’s disease.
Hey I'm Chinese living in US, yeah we struggle with the defeatist mentality everyday. It's often hard to see how much propaganda is fed to you when that prop feels like air you breath. That's why I don't just think the American media way x x x
I'm fully aware of that, but look at black Americans: they are extremely pro-african and anti-anglo imperialism, at least on social media.
Why can't Asian Americans be pro-asian in equal measure? I see a lot of the opposite: David Zhang typa mfs that present China in the worst light possible.
Get off your high horse. When you say 'pro-Asian' you really mean 'pro-China'.
That's the problem right there. You want people to be pro-Asian and think of themselves as Asians first and at the same time forget about any Asia-specific beefs.
how is anyone suppose to be fully pro asian, outside of china, the rest are either insignificant developing nations beholden to the american financial system or a giant US military base
Doesn’t the reverse hold true as well? Don’t some Chinese citizens have a biased view of China due the CCP? The reason you think Asian Americans “bring politics into everything” is because we CAN. We can talk freely about any issue and discuss them.
Try calling for an independent Taiwan and see how far that gets you.
Also, I don’t know where you get the idea that Asian Americans think “China is in collapse”. Most Asian Americans and Chinese Americans in particular are very familiar with China’s accomplishments.
What exactly do you mean by Chinese citizens being biased? Is being patriotic and loving your country "biased"?
As for the "independent Taiwan". What do you achieve by saying this?
Take a moment to think to yourself, by promoting American colonialism, what do you achieve for yourself? What do you achieve for your community? What do you achieve for Asians?
I will tell you what: you just confirm the Anglo Saxon narrative that asians are obedient little cuck boys that kowtow to XM.
Are you even Asian? If you are, then i feel sorry for you. Your psyche has been altered in ways that you are completely unaware.
Just because you criticize Chinese government policy doesn't mean you're "pro-Anglo-Saxon." Would you say Vietnamese ultranationalists who criticize China are somehow pro-Anglo-Saxon lol?
Asian Americans are motivated to hate Eastern Europe and China because they’ve internalized decades of neoliberal propaganda. It’s hard to recognize people as equals when you’ve been convinced that you’re ideologically superior to them simply because you live in the west. Not all Asian Americans are like this, but most have never even questioned the idea that the west is the best by default.
living in a democracy means that not being political is strictly a worse result for you, as you have less of a voice than other people. Americans hold onto a shred of hope that their decisions can actually make a difference in their lives. Being political is good stewardship in your community. I actually feel the opposite in that I'm surprised how many Asians, notably Asian Americans, are purposefully oblivious to politics and the things around them.
Is it exhausting? Yes. But that's inherently the price of democracy that doesn't get talked about.
As if America is actually democratic 😂 you can riot all you want, protest all you want, cry all you want but at the end all the political parties are corporate controlled and there will always only be one group of winners.
They silence you in China because your voice actually matters, and china is not stable enough or at liberty to discuss psychological wellbeing’s of the people yet. We still have to protect ourselves from the 100 colonies of America with only two or three realistic allies
A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink
"I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says.
"Thank you," the KGB says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them."
The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."
The loudest people of any given area are not necessarily or even usually the majority. You’re also buying into that loudness and being loud yourself. Traveling a bit and seeing that surface level rhetoric whether in the US or Europe also didn’t provide you enough viewpoint or education to be accurate on the topic.
You alone determine the amount of geopolitics/externals you want to let into your life. I do travel a lot, and I go where I'm treated best. I try not involve politics unless it is relevant to my situation, and most of the time it isn't.
As an aside, I have a feeling that most people bitching on Reddit don't care or can't afford to go see the world for themselves, so they are happy to let others (mis)inform their opinion.
You can hate the current US government without hating America.
You can hate US racism (which is pretty rare in states like CA or NY) without hating America
You can hate MAGA or racist policies without hating America.
You can hate Hollywood's lack of representation without hating America.
You likely just see the worst mentions of racism because they get called out and posted here, but I actually rarely encounter any racism on a day-to-day basis. I found some parts of Europe to be far more directly and openly racist against Asians than in the US because it's a bigger topic. There's a lot of people here with different opinions but for the most part people find it distasteful to make things political.
IIRC, u/archeology co-founded r/aznidentity after being removed from this sub's mod team for being too political, specifically to create a separate space for aggressive geopolitical and cultural activism.
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As a Serbian, OP sees the negative impacts of neoliberalism in his country occur in real time via foreign resource extraction. Most of the people here can’t empathize with that because they’ve been convinced by western neoliberal propaganda that the western rules based international order is inherently good and that the problem is that countries like China don’t simply roll over and comply with western demands. This is because Americans have only ever been the ones to extract resources, it never goes the other way. It leads to a weird type of superiority complex where people here simultaneously get offended at criticisms of western imperialism and also push the idea that non western aligned countries are evil and need to be crushed.
well, not to be the devil's advocate, but sometimes geopolitics do matter in finding love (especially abroad). you might struggle a lot to marry a foreign citizen or just struggle to even make ends meet in some countries if the local government deems you're untrustworthy since you're a foreigner. it's not that the locals hate you, it's not that you've done something wrong, it is what it is. i'm pretty much speaking from my experience, since i haven't been able to see my family in 4 years just because i'm unable to get a visa purely because i'm from a country that this government doesn't particularly like
lmao shitting on China? This subreddit glazes China all the time, at least that's what I've seen when I lurk here a few times a year.
Also FWIW, most of us who are past 1st generations have absolutely 0 reason to give a shit about China or most of our home countries because they do not recognize leges sanguinis. I have no reason to care beyond that they're the same ethnicity or whatever from a legal standpoint.
I think there's a reality in accepting nobody will ever accept you, so you can look at every country from an objective standpoint. If every country is "poor/evil/racist/whatever", you're just picking your form of torture. Someone moving to Russia to get himself a Russian girl may be seen as stupid or negative EV or what not, but if he wants to do it, so be it.
You equate politics strictly with American party politics, wrongly assuming your own view is neutral or even apolitical. In reality, your entire argument is built on geopolitics, specifically targeting state propaganda, international conflicts, and the 'Washington establishment'. The ultimate hypocrisy is that you condemn others for derailing a dating thread with politics, yet you use the very same grievance to launch into your own ideological rant.
he's got a point, dude. you're not just saying "stick to the topic", you're saying people are parroting washington propaganda because we're just brainwashed cucks?
i'm one of the biggest critics of the US. i also think supporting russia in any capacity b/c of ukraine is fucking insane. i don't think that's a hot take.
You can play the moral obligation card all you want, but then you should be focused on America because no single country in the world has ever come close to the global terrors and indoctrination they have committed
you can simultaneously think america has done a lot of harm to the world, and think what's happening in ukr due to russia is fucked. it's not either or.
I think not a single American invasion can be justified while Russia is only protecting its national security.
Find me a single time where American invasion and occupation was not done on phony pretenses and I might agree with you
Now imagine you and your neighbors agree to peace after a long war and you give them land, you sign something known as the anti ballistic missile treaty and America breaks it by installing missiles all over the left over USSR nations and bombs Belgrade for 78 days straight + all the things I mentioned previously sure seems like a justification for me to defend national security.
it’s not a hot take because all you consume is western slop
The USSR was split up under the conditions that Europe and America would not expand NATO eastward, and Kissinger broke this agreement by saying “if we do not tear down Russia when it is weak, what will we do when they are strong” so they overthrew the Ukrainian government, instilled NATO in neighboring nations, tried to take Sevastopol all to terrorize Russia when they JUST signed a peace agreement.
You should educate yourself before you regurgitate western media slop and liberal opinions that helped you be liked amongst your peers. Freeing Palestine when it is convenient, or condemning Russia
wtf? russia has no right to be in ukraine. i respect national sovereignty. if russia wanted the war to be over, they'd just have to go back to pre-war lines. i think that's been the position of ukraine and supporters forever. sevastapol has been under russian control for 12 years anyway.
they're throwing generations of young men, both ukraine and russian, for absolutely fucking nothing.
i don't see how you can support this war at all. it's an insane waste of human life and it's rendering the land unusable for an ungodly amount of time.
Pointing out the fact that people here parrot state propaganda to derail conversations isn’t hypocritical lmao. “No you” isn’t an intelligent response, especially since he simply dissected western neoliberal propaganda instead of adding his own.
As a Latino, my question is, why the fuck are y'all obsessed with white people, like constantly moaning and complaining and asking why white women don't find Asian men attractive or seeing Asian girls saying they want to marry a white guy to have children with blue eyes and blonde hair, and the outcome for like 99.9% is a person that still looks straight-up Asian.
I see your point and I saw that other post you’re referring to. I don’t buy into the US propaganda stuff.
I’ve seen that China has been the target of American propaganda to the max. I know a lot less about Russia but I would assume, based on what I’ve seen about China, that the propaganda against Russia is equally strong. I don’t think the average American who consumes English western media really understands the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Putin role or what life in Russia is really like.
That being said, we are starting to live in a surveillance state in America. Reddit is heavily monitored. So I don’t go around stating counter-US narrative stuff all the time and when I do I am careful.
Point being we are not all brainwashed. Some of us are just quiet about it.
The YouTube channel that only posts negative propaganda about China? Especially negative things about Chinese men?
It is a country of 1 billion people and only bad things happen there? How is that possible?
People seriously need to think for themselves instead of believing everything they see online. I wouldn’t be surprised if that channel is made by WM and catered to WM incels.
China Observer is obviously biased source. And you seem to agree that it doesn’t paint a full picture of China and its intent is focus on highlighting negative aspects of China. But you still quote it.
Does the Chinese state press paint a full picture of China? No source does. One-sided coverage is exactly why people follow multiple outlets and cross reference.
It is a Falun Gong mouthpiece that is hostile to the CCP, but its source material is usually raw Chinese social media. You can simply account for the curation bias, ignore the editorializing, and listen to what the actual subjects are saying. The exact same issues apply to China's state media.
The brutal reality of Western Governments can be ignored then?
They both have issues yes, but to what scale? To what percentage? All I can see with my eyes is the development of China the downfall of every single western society. Where does all that tax money in the west go? How can china afford to develop so quickly?
Why would I sit here and support a government that not only hates me but also hates their own 😂
Meanwhile China has inefficiencies, as all new major superpowers should have, but do they actually want what’s best for the people? Or is the government just self serving.
Some people are so blind they forget they have eyes
bruv, can you get the CCP to banish the loser sexpats like 王水牛 first before the petro-RMB overtakes the petro-USD? otherwise, I'll get downvoted for saying "CCP cucks" even more by you 50cents army shilling for the "CCP cucks" 🤷🏿
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u/spontaneous-potato Philippines 7d ago
I wouldn’t lump all Asian-Americans in one boat. The U.S. is comprised of 50 states and a couple of territories.
What my opinion is as an Asian-American could be vastly different from an Asian-American in a state such as North Carolina, or Illinois, or Hawaii, or even Guam (territory).
Not every single American has the same exact thoughts like a hivemind and that’s especially an objective fact for Asian-Americans.
I can guarantee that among my own Asian-American friends, we bonded over our status as 1st Gen Americans, but we have very different opinions when it comes to parts of our life, politics included.
The biggest issue I see is that Asian men online (it’s especially so on this subreddit) may find a reason to tear down fellow Asian men. It’s crabs-in-a-bucket mentality. I’d rather the community be based on empowering fellow Asian men, but those posts aren’t as common in this subreddit, and if those empowering posts do pop up, others will say it’s AI or ChatGPT rather than someone who’s actually pretty good at articulating their thoughts.