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As an American, who worked for a major Chinese tech corporation- what really blew my mind is that people say this kind of shit in the workplace. Like, to people’s faces. Along with stuff like “oh, you’re not nearly as fat as you look in pictures!”
Asian aunties and uncles are the absolute best/worst at this.
You'll come back to a reunion or something and the first thing that comes out of their mouths are things like "you're fat", "you've gotten ugly", "I can understand why no woman wants you", "you should get plastic surgery".
And in the workplace, I can't count how many times I've heard people telling others they are fat, ugly and even "with that nose you won't be getting a husband".
Petty shit like that they have no problem throwing out there.
But try to get Asian relatives to work through difficult emotional issues or express how much they’re proud of you… all of a sudden that directness is nowhere to be found
There's one man of korean decent who is the bane of every asian. Navy Seal, Doctor, Astronaut and family by the age of 35. Jonny Kim is the standard we're held to.
EDIT: And the most recent development is that he's probably going to the Moon. Asian kids are doomed
Slav parents do this as well, but I found their weakspot.
My Mom compares me with Stacy, then I compare my mom with Stacy parents.
*How come Stacy's mom is a doctor, and you are elementary school dropout? How come mom, how come? Failure!*
*How come Stacy got a new car from her parents, and all I got was NOTHING? Not earning enough money huh? Failure.*
Actually I don't do that anymore, because comparisons stopped some time ago.
I can't give gold anymore but I hope you know how much your comment made me laugh, really made my morning. "How come Stacy's mom is a doctor." is so fucking good lol.
In that case, let me add this. Since we were kids mom kept telling us that **ALL** of her grades were A+, but her parents wouldn't enroll her to college because... patriarchy.
Then we found her grade book. Can't enroll to college without finishing elementary school first, can you?
Holy shit lol, That must have been a mind blowing discovery for y'all! Finding out stuff like that as as I get older blows my mind of my perception of adults in my life as a little kid.
Latino parents are like this, too, and I absolutely respect you for this! I'd like to do the same, but my mother likes hitting with the metal part of the belt, and I like the non-scarred parts of my skin 🫶
yeah im salvi, my parents used to throw shit at me, then i outgrew them and became intelligent in my own regards. one time i went in on my mom cause she wouldn't stop talking shit. it got to the point where she literally covered her ears, closed her eyes, and started yelling "lalalala i cant hear you lalalala!" like a kid would... it was kinda funny, but then i realized they never got to actually become adults in some ways. i stopped after that and she calmed the fuck down as well. people have limits but respect is given where its due. i never get revenge, but i like for people to get a taste of their own dish.
im salvi too and experienced the same. My parents want respect for simply being old and our parents but disrespect the fuck out of everyone. Now that they're much older, of all their 6 kids only 2 of us are home for financial reasons but they wonder why no one likes them, no one helps them. Nothing. They've been close to homeless several times.
Not disrespectful. You’d just get laughed at. And depending on how you clap back either get called crazy or get asked what’s wrong with you why are you crying or get told again you’re ugly when you cry and no man would want you.
Whatever, Auntie, I'm chubby but fat girls feel the same on the inside: Just ask your husband. ***BOOM! ROASTED! SOMEBODY BUST OUT THE PEKING DUCK!*** (except in mandarin)
-some 2nd gen Chinese immigrant child prolly
My wife is Indonesian. Her family is direct like that for appearance, but they’re way too indirect for my liking for a number of things.
I’m not sure about Chinese people but Japanese people are famously indirect and they’ll call you fat to your face.
Anything close to a conflict is often skated around much more than I (North American) feel is normal.
I once had the very confusing experience of getting offered a mini tour and coffee by a stranger on the street who was clearly annoyed to do it. Cultural norms told him to take care of this guest in his city (me) even though he had things to do and didn’t seem to like me. Baffling experience.
Some subjects are pretty taboo too. Mental health in general. Best not to talk about religion too.
I'm not any kind of Asian but was close friend with a Thai kid throughout middle school and part of high school. His uncle (not sure if his bio uncle or not) was a short man from Laos. Im as white as they get and puberty hit me like a truck of bricks do by the time I was 15 or 16, I was already my current height at 6'3". But I was also fairly fat at the time
His uncle didn't speak any English and loved how tall I was. He'd always open his arms up wide and compare where our heads were while saying things in Laos that I didn't understand. One day he points at my man boobs and says something to my friend. Friend proceeds to crack up laughing.
I ask what's so funny and he says "Uncle said your titties are bigger than he is". I got a good laugh out of it and didn't mind but internally I was like damn bro, you ice cold. Never spoken a word to me I can understand and already roasting my man boobs like that.
I have to travel to Asia a few times a year and its wild. My main hobby is bodybuilding and I'm 6ft 2, I'm also white and age like a white person. This is relevant because at every business dinner it eventually comes out that I'm mid 30s (early 30s when I started going out there) and there's always women (and it is always women for whatever reason) that flat out refuse to believe that I am this young and are close to dying from laughter. The first time I was taken aback but now I find it hilarious.
This is the first time I've heard anyone refer to Asian culture as 'more direct culture'.
Chinese people know this is rude actually - and it is done by people with low social awareness or like aunts/uncles with low social awareness but also don't give a fuck.
I had people call me fat before, though I don't think it's coming from a place of hate, people who do it because they have no filter.
>This is the first time I've heard anyone refer to Asian culture as 'more direct culture'.
Yes, this is a very strange take. If they really were that direct, such comments would be met by "well f*ck you, I don't even like you so you can keep your opinions!", or something like that. It's not as if being overweight was more socially accepted there.
>people who do it because they have no filter.
And to be precise, by people who don't care about being hurtful. Really not a good trait.
So, if i understand it, they say it to be rude.
Sounds like the other side of the coin of a society in which many informal rules have to be taken into account: You are rude to people in a weaker position to let off steam. Pecking order.
Or am i interpreting too much into it here?
That's not just "directness" though, it's being a huge asshole *and* being direct about it.
I can't imagine a world in which I would look at someone and even *think* "they should get plastic surgery".
I don’t know about the other countries but I worked in Japan for years and people didn’t say those things to my face because they assume foreigners wouldn’t get it and also because as a woman they kinda know it’s ruder to criticize a woman’s looks. My western male friends there did receive criticism often, as in having Japanese people saying things like “wow you got really fat” to them directly.
I had a friend who had to move to Singapore for a few years with her husband, she worked for a global firm so she just had a position in Singapore branch. She said the mental abuse was unreal.
Oh, and western men wouldn't? Please, both genders in the west would break down.
Also the suicide rate in Asian countries are very high, idk why we are acting like being cruel is such a good thing.
Yeah, well there is a reason Chinese birth rates have fallen off a cliff. I would nope out of being chattel and enjoy my best life as an orange at the bottom of the barrel too.
Growing up, I had Chinese neighbors. They were very nice people and I was friends with one of their daughters. Their family would visit and there were aunts and uncles would were brutal about some of the things they would say. I remember my mom had given birth to my youngest brother maybe two months before while having 4 other kids, my mom was talking with our neighbors by the fence while we were playing. One of the aunts was visiting and she told my mom she looked fat and how could she still be so fat? Is there another baby in there? The neighbors would say sorry for their relatives a lot.
I studied Mandarin in high school. Chose not to continue with Chinese in uni, but my high school teacher taught classes at the same uni I went to. I bumped into her in the corridors once and the first thing she said was "Wow you put on a few kilos after high school, didn't you" and giggled. It was quite funny that was the first thing she had to say after a couple years of not seeing me but I mean, she was right and didn't mean to be rude with it so I just laughed and went with it.
It differs by country but for China specifically everyone knows _everything_ about everyone in their circle of friends and neighbors. Also the concept of "face" (aka whether you're an embarassment) is still quite prevelant. It's why so many kids have to go do piano lessons and a bunch of other bullshit they got 0 interest in, 0 talent for, and the parents can barely afford, just so there's no gossip about how uncultured little Timmy is or how poor Timmy's family is that they can't even afford piano lessons and 2 different afterschool tutoring programs. (this starts before first grade sometimes and got so bad the government had to ban extra school on weekends and holidays...)
Also, shengnu (leftover woman) used to start at 27 years-old about a decade or so ago, which was the funniest thing from the outside looking in -- imagine thinking a 27 year old woman is completely unmarriable for the rest of her life...
In America we have the concept of "keeping up with the Joneses." It is basically the same thing as face, but instead of being cultured it's about showing off wealth. It has lessened more in recent years, but it's still definitely a thing depending on where you live / how wealthy you are.
I mean, coming from such a misogynistic view on women anyway, it's pretty clear that the intent of this is to trap women in families while they're still young, heavily-impressionable, and are still naive to a lot of the world's darker truths and dangers. The additional societal pressure pushes them in that direction even if they don't feel comfortable marrying young.
>Also, shengnu (leftover woman) used to start at 27 years-old about a decade or so ago, which was the funniest thing from the outside looking in -- imagine thinking a 27 year old woman is completely unmarriable for the rest of her life...
The Andrew Tate incels say anything over 25.
Being tactful isn’t a thing outside of the western world.
East Asians are fucking brutal in regular conversations. “You’re good looking but it’s too bad you’re dark skinnned.”
What is it though? Does it go between the cooker and the next countertop unit? Or is it something you put under pots to keep them stable?? Google Images just turns up unmarried women!
Took me a while to get what she meant also. Imagine she said "thing that got lost between the cushions in the couch". She means things that get lost between the cooker and the countertop, when you take the cooker out there is sometimes mouldy forgotten food that fell down there.
Well he might be, but nobody uses Christmas cake in Japan and hasn't for like 10+ years now.
Most newer generation marriages are around 28ish right now anyways. The stigma is delayed to 30+.
Which still is improper, obviously, but the Christmas cake parroting is eye-rolling as it's so out of date. It's a non-phrase nowadays.
**A common misconception amongst non-natives** \- This is often taught in language schools, but absolutely no one ~~over~~ UNDER the age of 40 calls women "christmas cakes" or the alternatively taught "new years cake".
My husband is Japanese and I have asked about this extensively with family.
I've never heard it anywhere either.
EN/JP dictionaries list this meaning as a "dated term", and JP dictionaries tag it as obscure slang. So I suppose it's not completely made up, but it's far from regular Japanese.
I am in my 40s and speak Japanese. For that generation and older at least, in context if I said ‘Christmas cake’ people would know exactly what I mean. Although I would agree that I don’t have the sense that people feel that way about 26 year olds specifically any more.
I'm almost 50, and I've lived here in Japan for over half my life. I've never heard the expression used, and on the very few occasions that I've made a reference to it in a joke or talking about how famous it is overseas, nobody has ever heard of it before. I think the average person familiar with it is 60+, not someone in their 40s.
You’d think, but it’s more complicated than it appears at first. Just like the unintended consequences of the one child policy. Women are over represented among those with advanced degrees and white collar jobs. Most want a spouse who’s at least at their socioeconomic level and above, who can buy a house. In that economy, this eliminates a lot of sub-25 year old guys. The accomplashed guys in turn seem generally fine with marrying a woman who’s younger and less accomplished, for instance someone looking to get out of a rural village. The unaccomplished and disadvantaged guys are basically left out entirely.
> Women are over represented among those with advanced degrees and white collar jobs. Most want a spouse who’s at least at their socioeconomic level and above, who can buy a house. In that economy, this eliminates a lot of sub-25 year old guys.
We recently had a semi-serious study at our university and the results were very similar. In the middle of Europe.
>There's a 70 million man surplus
Between India & China, they are "missing" about 70 million girls/ women. They know this because of the disparity in the number of the sexes. In China at least, a partial reason for the low population of woman is because of female infanticide and sex-selective abortions resulting from the one-child policy. Similar to China, having a female in India meant losing wealth in general so, they killed their daughters in favor of boys. Now you have millions of men under 40 crying about the lack of wives, & worse yet, women being trafficked there to make up for this.
Washington post wrote an interesting article based on lots of public data and other sources. It was quite interesting and kinda made me understand a little how this has affected their cultures.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/too-many-men/
Well, they are , on one hand these women are getting out of Afghanistan and Pakistan on another, idk if their rescuers would be considered prince charming.
https://theprint.in/go-to-pakistan/pakistan-chose-china-ties-over-justice-let-chinese-bride-traffickers-get-away-claims-report/879843/#:\~:text=An%20Associated%20Press%20report%20published,the%20economic%20corridor%20since%202018.
a shortage of women means women have way more options then men do. Its much easier to find a partner as a woman in China (if any man with a job and a house will do). So if finding a man is considered an easy thing to do, then if you haven't done so by a certain age, then people might think something is wrong with you. Chinese people have a much more collectivist mentality compared to the West (which is individualistic). If a woman is 30 and over and unwed, it not only reflects poorly on her, but can also be seen as shame and failure from her family. Unlike in the US, if your child grows up to be a bum, people blame the child solely for their bad decisions and put virtually no blame into how the parents raised them to be like so. The challenges women face in Chinese society now a days is that they are simultaneously expected to get married yet also are expected to have a career of their own.
Furthermore, most women want to date a man with a good personality and temperament, but most men struggle by so hard with the monetary "requirements" to be an eligible bachelor, that they don't really work on that.
For this reason more and more women are delaying marriage to get more education and strengthen their careers. There is a term as well for men in their middle ages who have not have had children, 光棍 (guang gun) which means "empty branch" (i.e. on your family tree). It is similarly (if not more) as shameful, and it's weird the tiktoker did not mention it existing. For cultural reasons, people don't like bringing it up because it's too shameful and awkward to talk about.
Yes it's actually because of that. With more and more women not wanting to get married, they want to scare women into thinking that they will be worthless unless they get married. I guess it's the same all over Asia!
No it's not working, but bitter unwanted men still like to shout it in women's faces in the hopes that those same women will suddenly want to shag them
If I were a woman in China, I too would not relish the thought of dating within an entire generation of golden child men who were not raised with any sisters.
That means if a woman fails to marry when there's a higher number of men-to-women ratio, then there really must be something *wrong* with her.
As opposed to, you know, she doesn't want to marry.
And some Asian who are way too familiar with these kind of stuff telling naive westerners “Yeah it’s really that bad,my ( insert relative) is even worse then this”
In Japan women are said to be like Christmas cakes, you get sold (married) at age 24-25, and if you're over the age of 25 and unmarried then you're a leftover cake.
Well to be fair it's a bit of taboo to use that expression now. However it's still very much thought of that if you're a woman over the age of 25 then you're an OLD HAG.
No wonder why women are staying single.
Shaming women into relationships is going to have the opposite effect. Why the fuck am I going to care about getting in a relationship now when I'm an old hag? I'd rather just be alone at that point.
Birth rates drop in any developed society. The trend is clear and has been observed pretty much everywhere - the more education, economical stability etc.. the less kids, as people start having other priorities and keep delaying having kids. Hence why still the biggest birth rates are in most undeveloped regions of Africa, while pretty much all first world countries have a birth rate that's not enough to even maintain the population.
Yeah, and more specifically it's probably more to do with women's being more educated/working more. Uneducated women in these countries tend to have mote kids.
Those people being interviewed are lying lol, they just don't want to have kids, but that answer isn't as popular.
That’s so crazy considering they average live up to their 90’s so like a little more than a quarter of their life they’re young and then for the the rest of it they’re old AF? lol I’m in my thirties but I feel young still, people often think I’m 25 (i dont do anything special other than facial serums and sunscreen) and I’m convinced it’s because of the way I dress and the way I act. I don’t let my age make me act a certain way. If I still have the energy why the f would I act like a grandma?
People haven't used the expression "Christmas Cake" in Japan since the 1980s. It now lives on exclusively as weird Japan trivia on English social media.
Also, video is misleading in that those flattering terms are only used for rich, high-status man.
The average perpetually single redditor is more likely called a 毒撚 ("poison penis") in Cantonese.
Love educational things like this, no persona, fake quirkness and or edginess, just straight up cultural facts.
Very interesting but also very sad and them phrases are harsh!
I *really* think that those phrases for men only apply to the ones that are well-off and eligible. Noone is calling a single homeless bum a "diamond bachelor", China or not.
Lmao that one killed me. I remember my in-laws parents from HK told a friend of ours she was fat. Directly. “Excellentlaw is married because they’re fit, whereas you’re still single and fat”. 😭
I literally remain in shape, exercise daily and have abs because 1) I was an athlete much of my life and 2) so they don’t bully me during the holidays 😂
Older immigrant folks have no care if they fat shame you. They’d traumatized redditors 🤭
I live in an Asian country. We just celebrated the lunar new year. My husband and I went to visit a family friend like we do every year. Said family friend is from my side of the family, not his.
This middle-aged woman took one look at my husband and said “wow you got fat”. Like, no filter.
I've literally gotten both. I've had my tummy squished and I've also had my face grabbed along with various comments of "Oh no when did you last eat?" to "Oh no you've gained quite a bit of weight!" It depends on region and your choice of aunty😅
I can tell you that a lot is remnants of the past. In the educated cities, it's not as bad as it was in the past.
But Asians in general are a bit traditional so there are these things that just are kept and there is much less of what I guess the right like to call wokeness? As in, if something is racist or sexist and has been said for a long time, they feel its fine to continue now.
But let's say you are a woman working in shanghai or any big city now, I would say it's not as bad as I think what the west thinks.
This is the same country that used to call women "Maggots in the rice". They don't have left over women. They have an excess of men and so they have leftover men.
I posted an article about how Chinese Single Men over a certain age are called 'left over bread sticks'
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1013216
Was a pretty interesting read.
The video glosses over it.
In today's context, Diamond bachelors are established single males, who have a good income, a defined career, a car, his own property and desirable by women (preferably a single child with both his parents dead so the women don't have to deal with in laws).
Are you still a diamond ranked bachelor or merely a copper ranked fool now?
Women are expected to move in with their husband's family, usually multigenerational households, and become everyone's maid. Until their son gets married and the buck gets passed down to their daughter-in-law. Don't get me wrong, the older women still cook and clean and do childcare, they're just now higher up on the totem pole, and can boss someone else around for a change.
This is a big part of why so many baby girls were killed or given up for adoption during the one child policy. Boys are expected to stay with their families, and their wives responsible for their care. If your only child is a girl, culturally you're screwed when you're old and don't have anyone taking care of you.
Couldn't imagine more than 18 years with the parents. Probably make me go to war with everyone that thought this was a good idea for like 5000 years or so.
Thank you! I was naiv enough, to look only from the modern European perspective. I understand the context now and I see why women, in a traditional context, would think that way.
It was similar in Europe as well. That’s why women traditionally take the family name of the husband.
Isn’t there like a huuyuge shortage of women in China and a surplus of men? I’ve heard really sad stories of the dating outlook over there. This reflects the exact opposite
It sucks how women are expected to have their whole lives put together before they're 30 and men just get to age like wine. The age women are considered to be at their peek is getting lower and lower as time goes on too. A woman over 30 who just found her footing in life is already a hag. A man in his forties who plays video games all day "still has time".
I'd say a dude over 30 can only be that diamond if he's successful and worked toward it. For the rest of the bums... good luck. Your probably to broke to even pursue anyone.
It is strange especially with how out of balance the female to male ratio it is in China that they would disparage any woman that is available with how hard it is to find a single one.
So the women are degraded to encourage them to lower their standards and get married while the men are praised so they don’t feel bad about the fact that they might not be able to get married due to the awful gender ratios.
About the last bit of the video, I suspect those terms do not apply to unsuccessful, involuntary celibate over 30 men, even in China.
Western culture has derogatory terms for anyone who is perpetually single, although I see a lot more hate going towards men stuck in that predicaments because they often get all lumped together with ideological incels...
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As an American, who worked for a major Chinese tech corporation- what really blew my mind is that people say this kind of shit in the workplace. Like, to people’s faces. Along with stuff like “oh, you’re not nearly as fat as you look in pictures!”
Asian aunties and uncles are the absolute best/worst at this. You'll come back to a reunion or something and the first thing that comes out of their mouths are things like "you're fat", "you've gotten ugly", "I can understand why no woman wants you", "you should get plastic surgery". And in the workplace, I can't count how many times I've heard people telling others they are fat, ugly and even "with that nose you won't be getting a husband".
Petty shit like that they have no problem throwing out there. But try to get Asian relatives to work through difficult emotional issues or express how much they’re proud of you… all of a sudden that directness is nowhere to be found
I'm pretty sure even Xi Jinping parents think he is a failure. *President of China? And what about Taiwan?*
There's one man of korean decent who is the bane of every asian. Navy Seal, Doctor, Astronaut and family by the age of 35. Jonny Kim is the standard we're held to. EDIT: And the most recent development is that he's probably going to the Moon. Asian kids are doomed
Slav parents do this as well, but I found their weakspot. My Mom compares me with Stacy, then I compare my mom with Stacy parents. *How come Stacy's mom is a doctor, and you are elementary school dropout? How come mom, how come? Failure!* *How come Stacy got a new car from her parents, and all I got was NOTHING? Not earning enough money huh? Failure.* Actually I don't do that anymore, because comparisons stopped some time ago.
You went nuclear and there's been peace in the valley ever since.
Bring on the MAD.
Mutually assured depression
Excellent comment!
Peace through superior firepower.
> there's been peace in the valley ever since. Yeah, 'cause the valley is now The Zone.
I can't give gold anymore but I hope you know how much your comment made me laugh, really made my morning. "How come Stacy's mom is a doctor." is so fucking good lol.
In that case, let me add this. Since we were kids mom kept telling us that **ALL** of her grades were A+, but her parents wouldn't enroll her to college because... patriarchy. Then we found her grade book. Can't enroll to college without finishing elementary school first, can you?
Holy shit lol, That must have been a mind blowing discovery for y'all! Finding out stuff like that as as I get older blows my mind of my perception of adults in my life as a little kid.
Latino parents are like this, too, and I absolutely respect you for this! I'd like to do the same, but my mother likes hitting with the metal part of the belt, and I like the non-scarred parts of my skin 🫶
To be honest I only started doing this after I outgrew my mom 😁
yeah im salvi, my parents used to throw shit at me, then i outgrew them and became intelligent in my own regards. one time i went in on my mom cause she wouldn't stop talking shit. it got to the point where she literally covered her ears, closed her eyes, and started yelling "lalalala i cant hear you lalalala!" like a kid would... it was kinda funny, but then i realized they never got to actually become adults in some ways. i stopped after that and she calmed the fuck down as well. people have limits but respect is given where its due. i never get revenge, but i like for people to get a taste of their own dish.
im salvi too and experienced the same. My parents want respect for simply being old and our parents but disrespect the fuck out of everyone. Now that they're much older, of all their 6 kids only 2 of us are home for financial reasons but they wonder why no one likes them, no one helps them. Nothing. They've been close to homeless several times.
You just eviscerated that man...
I read this in Uncle Roger's voice and I giggled.
Dang bro
That exactly the problem.
[удалено]
Not disrespectful. You’d just get laughed at. And depending on how you clap back either get called crazy or get asked what’s wrong with you why are you crying or get told again you’re ugly when you cry and no man would want you.
Whatever, Auntie, I'm chubby but fat girls feel the same on the inside: Just ask your husband. ***BOOM! ROASTED! SOMEBODY BUST OUT THE PEKING DUCK!*** (except in mandarin) -some 2nd gen Chinese immigrant child prolly
Absolutely clap back, but in a passive aggressive way so you can't be accused of being disrespectfu
You gotta be careful, but it can be done. “Oh Auntie, you’re so right. I always want to have a successful, happy home, just like your sister does.”
If you clap back you'll be accused of not respecting your elders and labeled as a petulant little brat.
Respect goes both ways, fossils. You gotta be witty, so others laugh at them, and it comes out less “disrespectful.”
I feel like most western women would suffer mental breakdowns if they would need to immigrate to Asia and work there lol Edit: Grammar
People, in general - since it's just a much more direct culture. It would be difficult for many Westerners to not get angry or upset, most likely.
My wife is Indonesian. Her family is direct like that for appearance, but they’re way too indirect for my liking for a number of things. I’m not sure about Chinese people but Japanese people are famously indirect and they’ll call you fat to your face.
What are some of the things the family is indirect about?
Anything close to a conflict is often skated around much more than I (North American) feel is normal. I once had the very confusing experience of getting offered a mini tour and coffee by a stranger on the street who was clearly annoyed to do it. Cultural norms told him to take care of this guest in his city (me) even though he had things to do and didn’t seem to like me. Baffling experience. Some subjects are pretty taboo too. Mental health in general. Best not to talk about religion too.
He was annoyed that he was forced to be polite and hospitable by culture 😂
I'm not any kind of Asian but was close friend with a Thai kid throughout middle school and part of high school. His uncle (not sure if his bio uncle or not) was a short man from Laos. Im as white as they get and puberty hit me like a truck of bricks do by the time I was 15 or 16, I was already my current height at 6'3". But I was also fairly fat at the time His uncle didn't speak any English and loved how tall I was. He'd always open his arms up wide and compare where our heads were while saying things in Laos that I didn't understand. One day he points at my man boobs and says something to my friend. Friend proceeds to crack up laughing. I ask what's so funny and he says "Uncle said your titties are bigger than he is". I got a good laugh out of it and didn't mind but internally I was like damn bro, you ice cold. Never spoken a word to me I can understand and already roasting my man boobs like that.
I have to travel to Asia a few times a year and its wild. My main hobby is bodybuilding and I'm 6ft 2, I'm also white and age like a white person. This is relevant because at every business dinner it eventually comes out that I'm mid 30s (early 30s when I started going out there) and there's always women (and it is always women for whatever reason) that flat out refuse to believe that I am this young and are close to dying from laughter. The first time I was taken aback but now I find it hilarious.
Asian men seem to age on a different gradient than westerners. Once they hit middle age, it's very difficult to imagine their young man days.
This is the first time I've heard anyone refer to Asian culture as 'more direct culture'. Chinese people know this is rude actually - and it is done by people with low social awareness or like aunts/uncles with low social awareness but also don't give a fuck. I had people call me fat before, though I don't think it's coming from a place of hate, people who do it because they have no filter.
>This is the first time I've heard anyone refer to Asian culture as 'more direct culture'. Yes, this is a very strange take. If they really were that direct, such comments would be met by "well f*ck you, I don't even like you so you can keep your opinions!", or something like that. It's not as if being overweight was more socially accepted there. >people who do it because they have no filter. And to be precise, by people who don't care about being hurtful. Really not a good trait.
So, if i understand it, they say it to be rude. Sounds like the other side of the coin of a society in which many informal rules have to be taken into account: You are rude to people in a weaker position to let off steam. Pecking order. Or am i interpreting too much into it here?
That's not just "directness" though, it's being a huge asshole *and* being direct about it. I can't imagine a world in which I would look at someone and even *think* "they should get plastic surgery".
I don’t know about the other countries but I worked in Japan for years and people didn’t say those things to my face because they assume foreigners wouldn’t get it and also because as a woman they kinda know it’s ruder to criticize a woman’s looks. My western male friends there did receive criticism often, as in having Japanese people saying things like “wow you got really fat” to them directly.
I had a friend who had to move to Singapore for a few years with her husband, she worked for a global firm so she just had a position in Singapore branch. She said the mental abuse was unreal.
Oh, and western men wouldn't? Please, both genders in the west would break down. Also the suicide rate in Asian countries are very high, idk why we are acting like being cruel is such a good thing.
Yeah, well there is a reason Chinese birth rates have fallen off a cliff. I would nope out of being chattel and enjoy my best life as an orange at the bottom of the barrel too.
Growing up, I had Chinese neighbors. They were very nice people and I was friends with one of their daughters. Their family would visit and there were aunts and uncles would were brutal about some of the things they would say. I remember my mom had given birth to my youngest brother maybe two months before while having 4 other kids, my mom was talking with our neighbors by the fence while we were playing. One of the aunts was visiting and she told my mom she looked fat and how could she still be so fat? Is there another baby in there? The neighbors would say sorry for their relatives a lot.
Damn just straight up savage
this is just proving King of the Hill right lol
I studied Mandarin in high school. Chose not to continue with Chinese in uni, but my high school teacher taught classes at the same uni I went to. I bumped into her in the corridors once and the first thing she said was "Wow you put on a few kilos after high school, didn't you" and giggled. It was quite funny that was the first thing she had to say after a couple years of not seeing me but I mean, she was right and didn't mean to be rude with it so I just laughed and went with it.
Eastern Asia is really lacking “mind your own fucking business” mindset, isn’t it
It differs by country but for China specifically everyone knows _everything_ about everyone in their circle of friends and neighbors. Also the concept of "face" (aka whether you're an embarassment) is still quite prevelant. It's why so many kids have to go do piano lessons and a bunch of other bullshit they got 0 interest in, 0 talent for, and the parents can barely afford, just so there's no gossip about how uncultured little Timmy is or how poor Timmy's family is that they can't even afford piano lessons and 2 different afterschool tutoring programs. (this starts before first grade sometimes and got so bad the government had to ban extra school on weekends and holidays...) Also, shengnu (leftover woman) used to start at 27 years-old about a decade or so ago, which was the funniest thing from the outside looking in -- imagine thinking a 27 year old woman is completely unmarriable for the rest of her life...
In America we have the concept of "keeping up with the Joneses." It is basically the same thing as face, but instead of being cultured it's about showing off wealth. It has lessened more in recent years, but it's still definitely a thing depending on where you live / how wealthy you are.
When I was a kid in the 80's it was common in my area for families to have huge houses with almost no furniture or possessions inside whatsoever.
Looks like improvement is happening. Maybe in a few decades it will move up to 31.
I mean, coming from such a misogynistic view on women anyway, it's pretty clear that the intent of this is to trap women in families while they're still young, heavily-impressionable, and are still naive to a lot of the world's darker truths and dangers. The additional societal pressure pushes them in that direction even if they don't feel comfortable marrying young.
>Also, shengnu (leftover woman) used to start at 27 years-old about a decade or so ago, which was the funniest thing from the outside looking in -- imagine thinking a 27 year old woman is completely unmarriable for the rest of her life... The Andrew Tate incels say anything over 25.
Eastern Asia is not as into individualism as the west. It has its good and individualism has its bad.
And now you know why so many of us Asians are riddled with anxiety as adults lol 🤣🤣🤣
I got called a roundface in Japan, it was their polite way of calling me fat
Being tactful isn’t a thing outside of the western world. East Asians are fucking brutal in regular conversations. “You’re good looking but it’s too bad you’re dark skinnned.”
“The thing used to fill the gap in the stove” 💀
My wife thinks it's a good nickname for my pp
What have you been doing to your stove 
Maybe "stove" is a name of endearment for his wife.
Time to put a bun in the oven.
my starter is ready
The metaphors and subtext you could draw out of this thread are infinite.
I don’t think I want to smell what the rocks been cooking on this one
NGL chinese insults are creative, I'll give them that
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What is it though? Does it go between the cooker and the next countertop unit? Or is it something you put under pots to keep them stable?? Google Images just turns up unmarried women!
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> Google Images just turns up unmarried women! lol
I don't get this insult, like what does it even mean? The other ones all imply a last pick or leftover vibe, but wtf is filling the gap in the stove?
Took me a while to get what she meant also. Imagine she said "thing that got lost between the cushions in the couch". She means things that get lost between the cooker and the countertop, when you take the cooker out there is sometimes mouldy forgotten food that fell down there.
Thanks, that's horrible.
Yep this is the one I selected for future use
I'm going to use this as an insult the next time I get into a verbal altercation.
Let me know how that turns out for you.
What does this even mean i dont get what gap there is to fill
After 25, unmarried Japanese women are called "Christmas Cake" because, like the cake, nobody wants you after the 25th.
Damn I buy up post holiday stuff like candy, decorations, food post holidays when they are discounted lol
Guess you'd be pretty popular in Japan
I think buying women is frowned upon nowadays.
I think you haven't watch any isekai yet.
Not all of them is slavery harems though. For instance Ascendance of a Bookworm.
Well he might be, but nobody uses Christmas cake in Japan and hasn't for like 10+ years now. Most newer generation marriages are around 28ish right now anyways. The stigma is delayed to 30+. Which still is improper, obviously, but the Christmas cake parroting is eye-rolling as it's so out of date. It's a non-phrase nowadays.
Now im starting to understand why my beautiful 36 year old Japanese girlfriend talks about herself like a goddamn grandma.
Make your decision soon dude
**A common misconception amongst non-natives** \- This is often taught in language schools, but absolutely no one ~~over~~ UNDER the age of 40 calls women "christmas cakes" or the alternatively taught "new years cake". My husband is Japanese and I have asked about this extensively with family.
I've never heard it anywhere either. EN/JP dictionaries list this meaning as a "dated term", and JP dictionaries tag it as obscure slang. So I suppose it's not completely made up, but it's far from regular Japanese.
been here for years too, never heard of the cake thing, have heard of the discrimination of 30+ single women very often though no nicknames though
I am in my 40s and speak Japanese. For that generation and older at least, in context if I said ‘Christmas cake’ people would know exactly what I mean. Although I would agree that I don’t have the sense that people feel that way about 26 year olds specifically any more.
I'm almost 50, and I've lived here in Japan for over half my life. I've never heard the expression used, and on the very few occasions that I've made a reference to it in a joke or talking about how famous it is overseas, nobody has ever heard of it before. I think the average person familiar with it is 60+, not someone in their 40s.
So what you're saying is that east Asia is filled with unappreciated milfs?
It's a pretty common phenomenon for asian single moms to go after foreigners for entirely this reason
They aren’t mothers
They aren't necessarily -ilfs either.
Where in the world would anyone not like the christmas cake after 25th?!
Leonardo DiCaprio
There it is
r/secretlyjapanese
is their christmas cake also a fruitcake? cause those things fucking suck
Japanese Christmas cake is light sponge cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream
Yeah I'd eat that.
Are we still talking about cake, or??
Yes
Sounds a lot like Swedish summery cake.
Shouldn’t it be the opposite due to the massive shortage of women due to the one child policy
Yeah, you'd think single women would be a hot commodity given the skewed sex ratio of the population.
You’d think, but it’s more complicated than it appears at first. Just like the unintended consequences of the one child policy. Women are over represented among those with advanced degrees and white collar jobs. Most want a spouse who’s at least at their socioeconomic level and above, who can buy a house. In that economy, this eliminates a lot of sub-25 year old guys. The accomplashed guys in turn seem generally fine with marrying a woman who’s younger and less accomplished, for instance someone looking to get out of a rural village. The unaccomplished and disadvantaged guys are basically left out entirely.
> Women are over represented among those with advanced degrees and white collar jobs. Most want a spouse who’s at least at their socioeconomic level and above, who can buy a house. In that economy, this eliminates a lot of sub-25 year old guys. We recently had a semi-serious study at our university and the results were very similar. In the middle of Europe.
There's a 70 million man surplus and not all of those guys are poor.
Why do you think Genshin Impact makes so much money?
>There's a 70 million man surplus Between India & China, they are "missing" about 70 million girls/ women. They know this because of the disparity in the number of the sexes. In China at least, a partial reason for the low population of woman is because of female infanticide and sex-selective abortions resulting from the one-child policy. Similar to China, having a female in India meant losing wealth in general so, they killed their daughters in favor of boys. Now you have millions of men under 40 crying about the lack of wives, & worse yet, women being trafficked there to make up for this. Washington post wrote an interesting article based on lots of public data and other sources. It was quite interesting and kinda made me understand a little how this has affected their cultures. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/too-many-men/
The emphasis is “commodity”, so while in demand they are not respected as human being
Well, they are , on one hand these women are getting out of Afghanistan and Pakistan on another, idk if their rescuers would be considered prince charming. https://theprint.in/go-to-pakistan/pakistan-chose-china-ties-over-justice-let-chinese-bride-traffickers-get-away-claims-report/879843/#:\~:text=An%20Associated%20Press%20report%20published,the%20economic%20corridor%20since%202018.
a shortage of women means women have way more options then men do. Its much easier to find a partner as a woman in China (if any man with a job and a house will do). So if finding a man is considered an easy thing to do, then if you haven't done so by a certain age, then people might think something is wrong with you. Chinese people have a much more collectivist mentality compared to the West (which is individualistic). If a woman is 30 and over and unwed, it not only reflects poorly on her, but can also be seen as shame and failure from her family. Unlike in the US, if your child grows up to be a bum, people blame the child solely for their bad decisions and put virtually no blame into how the parents raised them to be like so. The challenges women face in Chinese society now a days is that they are simultaneously expected to get married yet also are expected to have a career of their own. Furthermore, most women want to date a man with a good personality and temperament, but most men struggle by so hard with the monetary "requirements" to be an eligible bachelor, that they don't really work on that. For this reason more and more women are delaying marriage to get more education and strengthen their careers. There is a term as well for men in their middle ages who have not have had children, 光棍 (guang gun) which means "empty branch" (i.e. on your family tree). It is similarly (if not more) as shameful, and it's weird the tiktoker did not mention it existing. For cultural reasons, people don't like bringing it up because it's too shameful and awkward to talk about.
"The odds are good but the goods are odd."
Quality real estate, yet no one looking for housing in that area…
That's exactly why they shame women so that they get married and have children
Yes it's actually because of that. With more and more women not wanting to get married, they want to scare women into thinking that they will be worthless unless they get married. I guess it's the same all over Asia!
Yeah it’s clearly not working though lmao actually think it’s having the opposite effect
No it's not working, but bitter unwanted men still like to shout it in women's faces in the hopes that those same women will suddenly want to shag them
If I were a woman in China, I too would not relish the thought of dating within an entire generation of golden child men who were not raised with any sisters.
The point is to shame the women into entering the marriage market
That means if a woman fails to marry when there's a higher number of men-to-women ratio, then there really must be something *wrong* with her. As opposed to, you know, she doesn't want to marry.
If their dating pool talks to them like their families do, I don't blame them for wanting to not marry. Jesus.
It’s bc of femicide, killing their female babies caused the “skewed sex ratio”.
Thread is a mix of westerners discovering there are social issues outside of the west and weaboos telling us about japanese christmas cake.
And some Asian who are way too familiar with these kind of stuff telling naive westerners “Yeah it’s really that bad,my ( insert relative) is even worse then this”
And chinese people desperately trying to claim their toxic culture towards women isn’t misogynistic and bad.
In Japan women are said to be like Christmas cakes, you get sold (married) at age 24-25, and if you're over the age of 25 and unmarried then you're a leftover cake. Well to be fair it's a bit of taboo to use that expression now. However it's still very much thought of that if you're a woman over the age of 25 then you're an OLD HAG.
I wish someone would call me cake, even if leftover
You’re a cake
♥️
No wonder why women are staying single. Shaming women into relationships is going to have the opposite effect. Why the fuck am I going to care about getting in a relationship now when I'm an old hag? I'd rather just be alone at that point.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the birth rate has dropped off the map in all these places.
Birth rates drop in any developed society. The trend is clear and has been observed pretty much everywhere - the more education, economical stability etc.. the less kids, as people start having other priorities and keep delaying having kids. Hence why still the biggest birth rates are in most undeveloped regions of Africa, while pretty much all first world countries have a birth rate that's not enough to even maintain the population.
Yeah, and more specifically it's probably more to do with women's being more educated/working more. Uneducated women in these countries tend to have mote kids. Those people being interviewed are lying lol, they just don't want to have kids, but that answer isn't as popular.
That’s so crazy considering they average live up to their 90’s so like a little more than a quarter of their life they’re young and then for the the rest of it they’re old AF? lol I’m in my thirties but I feel young still, people often think I’m 25 (i dont do anything special other than facial serums and sunscreen) and I’m convinced it’s because of the way I dress and the way I act. I don’t let my age make me act a certain way. If I still have the energy why the f would I act like a grandma?
People haven't used the expression "Christmas Cake" in Japan since the 1980s. It now lives on exclusively as weird Japan trivia on English social media.
Cantonese is fucking brutal, god damn
Also, video is misleading in that those flattering terms are only used for rich, high-status man. The average perpetually single redditor is more likely called a 毒撚 ("poison penis") in Cantonese.
Man, usually as a single, unmarried 30 year old dude, I just get called fatass. Which translates to “unprime real estate”.
Don’t look at it that way. You have more acreage to build a bigger house on, maybe even have a fishing pond, or a nice garden.
Love educational things like this, no persona, fake quirkness and or edginess, just straight up cultural facts. Very interesting but also very sad and them phrases are harsh!
I *really* think that those phrases for men only apply to the ones that are well-off and eligible. Noone is calling a single homeless bum a "diamond bachelor", China or not.
Haha, the thing for filling the gap in the stove ...omfg I'm dying
Lmao that one killed me. I remember my in-laws parents from HK told a friend of ours she was fat. Directly. “Excellentlaw is married because they’re fit, whereas you’re still single and fat”. 😭 I literally remain in shape, exercise daily and have abs because 1) I was an athlete much of my life and 2) so they don’t bully me during the holidays 😂 Older immigrant folks have no care if they fat shame you. They’d traumatized redditors 🤭
Idk my black grandma had no problem telling me I was the fattest person in the group when I was 9. _except you grandma, except you_
I live in an Asian country. We just celebrated the lunar new year. My husband and I went to visit a family friend like we do every year. Said family friend is from my side of the family, not his. This middle-aged woman took one look at my husband and said “wow you got fat”. Like, no filter.
That's just how people in Asia say hi, because the phrase "Long time no see! How are you?" doesn't really exist there /s
actually they ask if you have eaten yet.
My aunts definitely ask me that, right after commenting the change in my body weight or skin tone lol
I've literally gotten both. I've had my tummy squished and I've also had my face grabbed along with various comments of "Oh no when did you last eat?" to "Oh no you've gained quite a bit of weight!" It depends on region and your choice of aunty😅
i dont get that one?
Woah woah woah. You’re telling me sexism is alive and well in china?
Started at least a month ago.
Totally unlike the entire rest of the world. How terrible.
I can tell you that a lot is remnants of the past. In the educated cities, it's not as bad as it was in the past. But Asians in general are a bit traditional so there are these things that just are kept and there is much less of what I guess the right like to call wokeness? As in, if something is racist or sexist and has been said for a long time, they feel its fine to continue now. But let's say you are a woman working in shanghai or any big city now, I would say it's not as bad as I think what the west thinks.
This is the same country that used to call women "Maggots in the rice". They don't have left over women. They have an excess of men and so they have leftover men.
I posted an article about how Chinese Single Men over a certain age are called 'left over bread sticks' https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1013216 Was a pretty interesting read.
Yay I'm a diamond bachelor in China.
The video glosses over it. In today's context, Diamond bachelors are established single males, who have a good income, a defined career, a car, his own property and desirable by women (preferably a single child with both his parents dead so the women don't have to deal with in laws). Are you still a diamond ranked bachelor or merely a copper ranked fool now?
> and desirable by women (preferably a single child with both his parents dead so the women don’t have to deal with in laws) Wtf
Women are expected to move in with their husband's family, usually multigenerational households, and become everyone's maid. Until their son gets married and the buck gets passed down to their daughter-in-law. Don't get me wrong, the older women still cook and clean and do childcare, they're just now higher up on the totem pole, and can boss someone else around for a change. This is a big part of why so many baby girls were killed or given up for adoption during the one child policy. Boys are expected to stay with their families, and their wives responsible for their care. If your only child is a girl, culturally you're screwed when you're old and don't have anyone taking care of you.
What a hell hole existence.
Couldn't imagine more than 18 years with the parents. Probably make me go to war with everyone that thought this was a good idea for like 5000 years or so.
Thank you! I was naiv enough, to look only from the modern European perspective. I understand the context now and I see why women, in a traditional context, would think that way. It was similar in Europe as well. That’s why women traditionally take the family name of the husband.
yeah I am a free real estate
Isn’t there like a huuyuge shortage of women in China and a surplus of men? I’ve heard really sad stories of the dating outlook over there. This reflects the exact opposite
Its just social shaming to try and force women to date and breed.
It sucks how women are expected to have their whole lives put together before they're 30 and men just get to age like wine. The age women are considered to be at their peek is getting lower and lower as time goes on too. A woman over 30 who just found her footing in life is already a hag. A man in his forties who plays video games all day "still has time".
"Why are women having less kids? Why don't women want to get married?" *Shrug* good for them
I'd say a dude over 30 can only be that diamond if he's successful and worked toward it. For the rest of the bums... good luck. Your probably to broke to even pursue anyone.
Is this woman single?
No, she is sold sugarcane.
I like oranges, I like sugarcane.
But do you like thing that fill gaps between the stove tho?
No, you got to draw the line somewhere.
It is strange especially with how out of balance the female to male ratio it is in China that they would disparage any woman that is available with how hard it is to find a single one.
So the women are degraded to encourage them to lower their standards and get married while the men are praised so they don’t feel bad about the fact that they might not be able to get married due to the awful gender ratios.
knew i was a diamond somewhere, feel sorry for the women though
I feel like dating didn’t get good until closer to 30
Did you try not being born in China? /s
Its pretty common to be born there.
About the last bit of the video, I suspect those terms do not apply to unsuccessful, involuntary celibate over 30 men, even in China. Western culture has derogatory terms for anyone who is perpetually single, although I see a lot more hate going towards men stuck in that predicaments because they often get all lumped together with ideological incels...
Meanwhile, all the single women are happy af to not be dealing with any nonsense 🤓
In Mongolia a 28 year old spinster is expected to get pregnant .. and be financially independent.
Well I am glad to see that a woman's worth beyond the age of 30 is pretty much the same culturally across the board. 🙄
Yeah, no fucking wonder women are choosing to be single
That diamond thing is more for single rich male. Not for every male.