[UglyIsBeautiful]

I know this can be perplexing but let me explain first.

For instance, I'm Chinese and as I've grown older, I've developed a love/hate feeling towards my own people. Now I know that you can't stereotype entire groups of people as the same but being Chinese myself and having known other Chinese people growing up, I feel like I'm in a position to state some stuff.

Take the Chinese party I went to the other day. It was this girl's pre-wedding party. Lots of people. Lots of food. I just sat there the whole night, not even eating much, and drinking alchohol and chatting with a buddy of mine. He felt the same as me. We agreed to go together cause we both tend to hate these kind of events but you kinda have to go or people will hold it against you.

At any party, you'll have the "popular crew" and the outcasts. You have the people who know everyone and are the center of attention and then the people who were just sorta invited.

Within the popular crew, the Chinese fall into two camps. In one, you have the ones who are pretty and dress stylish and they know it. Their boyfriends are equally special in some way. You can literally see the conceitedness on their faces as they parade around and dance and show off. In the other camp, you have the Chinese girls who bring their white guy boyfriends. I'm not against interracial dating but these girls are so proud to show that they're "different" somehow just cause they're dating a white guy. The girls and guys in both these camps are successful in some way. Doctor, lawyer, Phd candidate, masters degree, CEO of some company, business owner, the list goes on and on. They're respected within the community and know it. They're the aristocracy.

Then you have the "fringe people", the people who were just sorta invited and just hang out in the background, watching the popular crew do their thing. They're just there for numbers so that the event seems like a big event. It's like when you go to a rock concert, the audience is just the same audience watching the band play.

These fringe people are usually much chiller and easier to talk to but they have their own problems. Some of them don't have much of a career. They just live day to day. They're not that good looking and there's absolutely nothing special about them. And they know it too. They know society looks down upon them.

Then there's me. I fit into either crew. I'm neither popular nor am I a hopeless loser. I'm somewhat successful. I have an OK career. I possess a lot of the traits that traditional Chinese society admires. I play the piano. I'm polite towards the elderly. I put on this facade in public. I'm a good Chinese boy.

Inside myself, I have this seething anger towards the popular crew. I can see right through their fakeness. And thats why I chose to sit with the "fringe Chinese" during the party even though I'm not one of them. They may be nothing special but at least they're not fake.

With the popular crew, you see them with their fairy tale lifestyles and acting all polite and nice to everyone but you just know how they REALLY feel about you. And I hate. I hate that conceitedness. It's written with red ink over everything they do.

[HERMIT]

You kind of sound like me. A hermit.
So I can sympathize with feeling a bit out of sorts with your own culture.
And I guess this situation can further exacerbated by being the 1.5 generation (whatever you call it) having to balance between the American way of life and your own cultural expectations. You can have the same social cliques that you mention above but not only with the more 'culturally-centered' group but also another 'americanized' group as well.
As for myself, I guess I just try to look past this and lead life the best I can, making compromises here and there - but more importantly proceeding on my own terms. There's no need to feel or have to choose and identify with a side. Just be yourself, your own person.

[HtyPotter]

I get what you're saying, but I don't really see why you're incorporating the issue of ethnicity into your complaint. I don't think social divisions at a pre-wedding party have all that much to do with you being Chinese.

[Tuffcore]

I get what you're saying, but I don't really see why you're incorporating the issue of ethnicity into your complaint. I don't think social divisions at a pre-wedding party have all that much to do with you being Chinese.

Totally.

Basically, he's arguing that conceited people suck.
Half the Chinese at the wedding are conceit.
Therefore Chinese people suck.






I mean, get serious. Conceit is not a human trait patented by the Chinese. I can live with the hate for people who are conceit but it's an epic misguided stereotype to paint all Chinese with the same brush. Does conceit not exist in American communities? Koreans? Japanese? Arabs? Somali?

[UglyIsBeautiful]

Im not saying Chinese people suck. I'm proud of being Chinese. This has nothing to do with race. I think what I described in my OP can be applied to any groups of people. I just so happen to be familiar with one ethnic group.

[ginger]

Don't let it get it you. Why are you so concerned with how they are thinking if you don't admire them nor want to be with them? Let go of your frustration and simply ignore them.

-ginger

[MiddleMan]

^ Yea, I agree, so what? I don't mean to ignore YOUR opinion or anything, but, it seems you're kinda jealous (word choice?).

I had a good friend who was rich. He paid most of the time when we went out. I paid sometimes. It was all good.

Then I know someone who's married to some rich white guy. We all get along.

Man, I clicked on this title because I was thinking.... I wanted to state my problem with Asians, whether it be Chinese, Korean, or any other, that talk too LOUD on their cell phone, in a closed space. i.e.: a waiting room at Doctor's office or other offices or restaurants. And I could not concentrate, however hard I tried, to comprehend the book I was reading at the time.

[Yubumsuk]

One's feelings towards one's own ethnic community really get tested when one moves to or grows up in another, very different, country. Some people from one's own community just don't 'get it' when it comes to the culture into which they've moved. Many if not most people from the host culture sure don't 'get it' when it comes to understanding what makes certain ethnic minority groups tick. People in one ethnic group often have no idea what is and isn't appropriate, respectful, insulting, authentic, and cool in another ethnic group. So a love-hate relationship is often inevitable, especially if one has a better understanding and appreciation of a host culture than others in one's ethnic community.

[yellow_munky]

I know this can be perplexing but let me explain first.

For instance, I'm Chinese and as I've grown older, I've developed a love/hate feeling towards my own people. Now I know that you can't stereotype entire groups of people as the same but being Chinese myself and having known other Chinese people growing up, I feel like I'm in a position to state some stuff.

LOL. OMG, my sister and I kind of feel the same way as you do. ^^;;

There were times where we felt embarrass being Chinese and there were times where we felt proud (well that part is only me actually ^^;;).

I think I get what you meant about the two crowds and I have met these type of people as well, and I sympathize with you.

My sister and I (we have two more siblings and a half brother as well) thought we were the only one who felt this way, but I guess we are not. ^^

[duykato]

Man I'm glad you made this thread. It gives me a chance to rant about how much I hate Vietnamese people. Seriously. When my family gets together all they do is praise each other.. then when they go home they go right back to talking crap about each other. It infuriates me.

Everyone talked crap about how I was in the Army and not in the Air Force like the rest of my cousins. I'd always be the odd ball out, then came a wedding and I dressed up in my Class-A uniform and they got to see how I owned everyone else in awards and decorations and all of a sudden I'm better then the rest.

Then they'd talk to my cousin's girlfriends/wives like they were family, but when they leave they'd talk so much crap about them on how they're "Americanized" or "Not Vietnamese"... Like being Vietnamese sets the standard that we're better then everyone else? wth.. that kinda mentality just makes me feel like we're one of the worst ethnic groups in the world..

I got into an argument with my mom about how I don't show any pride about being Vietnamese. I told her to give me one good reason why I should. What has being Vietnamese done for me? Vietnamese people do not make me look good.. I make Vietnamese people look good. Then she went into detail about some crap with the country... and I told her the country has been owned by some other country almost all of its history. The inhabitants of the country were too cowardly to liberate itself.

Then I passed by one of those Vietnamese coffee shops where the teenage girls are almost naked serving 40 year old men iced coffee. Outside were a bunch of punk kids squatting on the curb smoking cigarettes. I turned to her and said, "Yeah.. that makes me feel real proud to be Vietnamese."

Seriously.. I really hate Vietnamese people. If I could, I would've loved to be on the VietCong side killing those idiots 30 years ago.

[BAZINGA!]

Lol. I love asians, hahah I find us to be so mean/racist/crazy which in turn is really funny to me..

[Meenuh]

i'm like that too. i talk mini cooper about korean people alll the time. and my mom is like why do you do that? it's like shooting yourself in the foot. i know that not all korean people are a certian way but many of them are. they're rude! my dad tells me it's cultural differences. in my eyes they're rude because i grew up here so i guess that's understandable but ...

i was working at a korean bakery. you can not imagine the type of people i had to deal with. they treat you like slaves or something. this one lady left out her bread and ate it the next day and got sick from it. there was cream in that bread. she came back to the store and wanted us to refund her money when it was obviously her fault. it's like she didn't want to take responsibility for her stupidity.

if i had my stereotypes about korean people it'd be that ...
they're very materialistic. they want to show off that they have the money to buy expensive mini cooper. they move into low income housing ( and i know cause my dad is in construction ) and they drive BMWs and so forth.

they have no common courtesy. when i was at the market last time it was super busy. this lady left her cart with all her mini cooper in it and left to go get some other stuff. i waited behind that shopping cart for a good couple mins. the lady at the register didn't even do anything so my boyfriend kindly moved the cart and we put our stuff down. it was extremely rude of her to leave her mini cooper there when it was super busy and everyone was WAITING on HER. then she comes back and she talks to the grocery manager or whatever he was. i usually say hello to him and he's usually nice about it. so i said hello and he just gives me this dirty look like i did something wrong? seriously .. i'm very respectful when it comes to adults but ... i have mini cooper to do too. if it wasn't busy i would've gone to another line but that market was packed. a lot of korean people only think about themselves and i have a million more examples.

Then I passed by one of those Vietnamese coffee shops where the teenage girls are almost naked serving 40 year old men iced coffee. Outside were a bunch of punk kids squatting on the curb smoking cigarettes. I turned to her and said, "Yeah.. that makes me feel real proud to be Vietnamese."

do you live in oc ? cause i hear there are places like that. never seen one though lol.

[Tuffcore]

Seriously.. I really hate Vietnamese people. If I could, I would've loved to be on the VietCong side killing those idiots 30 years ago.

[Irysinon]

Man I'm glad you made this thread. It gives me a chance to rant about how much I hate Vietnamese people. Seriously. When my family gets together all they do is praise each other.. then when they go home they go right back to talking crap about each other. It infuriates me.

Everyone talked crap about how I was in the Army and not in the Air Force like the rest of my cousins. I'd always be the odd ball out, then came a wedding and I dressed up in my Class-A uniform and they got to see how I owned everyone else in awards and decorations and all of a sudden I'm better then the rest.

Then they'd talk to my cousin's girlfriends/wives like they were family, but when they leave they'd talk so much crap about them on how they're "Americanized" or "Not Vietnamese"... Like being Vietnamese sets the standard that we're better then everyone else? wth.. that kinda mentality just makes me feel like we're one of the worst ethnic groups in the world..

I got into an argument with my mom about how I don't show any pride about being Vietnamese. I told her to give me one good reason why I should. What has being Vietnamese done for me? Vietnamese people do not make me look good.. I make Vietnamese people look good. Then she went into detail about some crap with the country... and I told her the country has been owned by some other country almost all of its history. The inhabitants of the country were too cowardly to liberate itself.

Then I passed by one of those Vietnamese coffee shops where the teenage girls are almost naked serving 40 year old men iced coffee. Outside were a bunch of punk kids squatting on the curb smoking cigarettes. I turned to her and said, "Yeah.. that makes me feel real proud to be Vietnamese."

Seriously.. I really hate Vietnamese people. If I could, I would've loved to be on the VietCong side killing those idiots 30 years ago.

Likewise. It's the same for Koreans. It's the cultural differences.

I personally hate being Korean, because one way or another I'm somehow intertwined with my ethnic country since that's where all my relatives live. My encounter with my relatives have been the most stressful. They're so condescending, boastful, nosy and think they know me (except for like two cousins). At least the westernized Koreans for the most part have a broader perspective on two different cultures, thus being able to evaluate things with fairness and consideration. The native Koreans aren't like that. They're so narrow-minded in the way they treat people. They're racist towards people of other ethnicity. They only care about materialistic things and wealth and are obsessed with marriage. They can be such obnoxious non-thinkers when it comes to individual decisions. They don't bother to learn of how another culture works. They act the same way everywhere they are. At least when I visited Korea, I applied Korean customs in my mannerisms and whatnot. Even when I try to explain, the reasoning pretty much dissipates.

[yellow_munky]

Man I'm glad you made this thread. It gives me a chance to rant about how much I hate Vietnamese people. Seriously. When my family gets together all they do is praise each other.. then when they go home they go right back to talking crap about each other. It infuriates me.

This is exactly the same with my family and their friends as well. LOL. My family is Chinese and I thought it was just us! I guess we are not. Maybe it is the same with every Asian family?

Oh and I want to mention about why I don't really like being Chinese and the people as well.

(1) We all freaking look alike!!! X0 Maybe it is just me, but there are times that I can't tell them apart! Seriously, I am not joking. There was this one time that I was forced to watch this mainland Chinese drama with my mom, and there were these 2 or 3 girls that I kept on thinking they are the same person, but my mom told me that they are different. X0

I think the Chinese that I have a problem telling apart are the FOBS because I tend to notice that they all dressed, act, and look the same! It is like they don't have their own identity. Especially their hair...........everywhere I turned, they all have the freaking same hair style.......god I hate that hair style. You KNOW what I am talking about.........

When I told somebody about this, he said "You are very Americanized." O-o

I guess you could say that what I don't like about being Chinese is that everybody looks alike and has no identity of them own. To me, they are all bunch of sheep.

[watcher]

do you live in oc ? cause i hear there are places like that. never seen one though lol.

they got place likes that in OC?? hook it up!!!

[.moony.]

Then there's me. I fit into either crew. I'm neither popular nor am I a hopeless loser. I'm somewhat successful. I have an OK career. I possess a lot of the traits that traditional Chinese society admires. I play the piano. I'm polite towards the elderly. I put on this facade in public. I'm a good Chinese boy.

Inside myself, I have this seething anger towards the popular crew. I can see right through their fakeness. And thats why I chose to sit with the "fringe Chinese" during the party even though I'm not one of them. They may be nothing special but at least they're not fake.

With the popular crew, you see them with their fairy tale lifestyles and acting all polite and nice to everyone but you just know how they REALLY feel about you. And I hate. I hate that conceitedness. It's written with red ink over everything they do.

I like the way you write That's exactly like me even though Im not Chinese. I do think it happens to all ethnicity though. The aristocrats vs the working class.

Man I'm glad you made this thread. It gives me a chance to rant about how much I hate Vietnamese people. Seriously. When my family gets together all they do is praise each other.. then when they go home they go right back to talking crap about each other. It infuriates me.

Everyone talked crap about how I was in the Army and not in the Air Force like the rest of my cousins. I'd always be the odd ball out, then came a wedding and I dressed up in my Class-A uniform and they got to see how I owned everyone else in awards and decorations and all of a sudden I'm better then the rest.

Then they'd talk to my cousin's girlfriends/wives like they were family, but when they leave they'd talk so much crap about them on how they're "Americanized" or "Not Vietnamese"... Like being Vietnamese sets the standard that we're better then everyone else? wth.. that kinda mentality just makes me feel like we're one of the worst ethnic groups in the world..

I got into an argument with my mom about how I don't show any pride about being Vietnamese. I told her to give me one good reason why I should. What has being Vietnamese done for me? Vietnamese people do not make me look good.. I make Vietnamese people look good. Then she went into detail about some crap with the country... and I told her the country has been owned by some other country almost all of its history. The inhabitants of the country were too cowardly to liberate itself.

Then I passed by one of those Vietnamese coffee shops where the teenage girls are almost naked serving 40 year old men iced coffee. Outside were a bunch of punk kids squatting on the curb smoking cigarettes. I turned to her and said, "Yeah.. that makes me feel real proud to be Vietnamese."

Seriously.. I really hate Vietnamese people. If I could, I would've loved to be on the VietCong side killing those idiots 30 years ago.

You just gained lots of respect from me It's interesting how you might have wanted to be a VietCong, which a lot of Vietnamese would go wtf after hearing that. It took a lot of history knowledge to understand that. Vietnam was owned by France (then the US) for thousands of years. It's indescribable how many Vietnamese lives were lost, how many women were raped, and how many suffered through this imperialism period. Some people actually thought France and the US came to "enlighten the uncivilized Vietnamese?", to "make a better country out of Vietnam?". my happy poopoo, they were there to exploit, not help. The Vietcong's main goal was to liberate their country. Russia took the chance to help (because of the russia vs USA war), so the Vietcongs automatically became communists, but I don't think they even cared much about being communist or what not, because their sole goal was to liberate the country.

Anyway the thing about being nice in front of others but talkin negatively behind their back is a common trait between Asians I think. It's fake yeah, but I don't come to hate being Vietnamese because of that. I've met a lot of good vietnamese ppl and luckily never passed by those Viet coffee shops like you described, so I'm pretty okay bout my ethnicity.

[Laxntiga]

Koreans are like this too. Parents love to brag about how their son or their daughter is some doctor, lawyer, important person who makes 6 figures + etc. etc. (These would be the well dressed, good looking, yuppies.)


I dont know what it is.... I think we are too American to care about it anymore. For some, having lots of money, living in a mansion, driving a benz, having a blackberry, being materialistic isn't happiness. While others are perfectly happy living on the 'fringe' or just happy just being themselves. People should learn to respect that.

I'm guessing people who stereotype/catagorize others into different sections of society do it because they want the pride/recognition that they are 'higher' than the other person in a social ladder. People compliance test each other, we want to know if this person is going to help or hurt me from accomplishing my goals, we are selfish.


I think parents have a big part in creating this divide of society. How many times have you heard "you have to be a doctor, a lawyer, a business man, you have to make it to the top!!" I understand that because they didn't/couldn't they want US to. However, parents should learn to just accept what their children want to do. If they don't want to lawyers, doctors, millionares... fine so be it. Let them do what they love doing. If they love what they do, i firmly believe they'll eventually succeed. I would rather be a starving artist who loves to paint and draw pictures and lives life day-to-day. At least I KNOW what I love doing. When I eventually have kids, i'll ask them before they graduate HS.... "do you know what you want to do? Do you know what field or industry you dream of working in?" and if they answer "no" then... i'll wait a few years until they do know, THEN send them to college. College is a big investment. Parents forcing their kids to go to college, graduate, find a job ASAP is like.... rushing their kids for a quarter-life crisis.

Money is simply a means of exchange. It's a tool you utilize to help make your life easier. Money is NOT happiness.

Besides... what's so great about having a happy/easy/comfortable/satiated life? People turn into ignorant snobs this way... life is an adventure! Go out and learn, do different things, help people, help yourself, change the world, idk... do what makes you happy.

[GO!zilla]

i really think all your threads should just go into the rant thread.

i used to hate koreans throughout highschool but i've noticed... race doesn't matter.
all race/ethnic groups have same faults and such.

in the end u just need to find people you get along with and ignore the ones that annoy u.

[D_K]

i really think all your threads should just go into the rant thread.

I, for one, enjoy his treads. This forum is slow enough as it is. Without his threads it'll pretty much reduce to a crawl.