this channel is a good example of how generalizing entire regions in a pedantic manner for views can warp the viewers mind. there is no more or less envy than any other place just as you travel in a rich part of the city, middle class and lower class. Just more internalization of east asia doom posting from Western perspectives by someone who thinks they can paint a region based with their own biases when in reality East Asians simply dont care about echo chambers created by foreigners for foreigners.
This video reminds me of a story of a kid in China who was pushed by his mother really hard to become a doctor even though he wanted to become a Designer/Artist (or something similar). He went through medical school and on graduation day he went up to his mother who was overjoyed, gave her the parchment and said "Here you go, you got what you always wanted" then went off to become an Artist (and AFAIK he still hasn't spoken to her). Compare yourself to who you were, not other people.
My lecturer once told a story of his classmate in medical school (bioengineering is a medical faculty specialisation in Korea rather than an engineering specialision in Singapore where I am) who went missing immediately after graduation only to suddenly regain contact after two years. Turns out in the two years he went missing he went to France and became a rather successful pastry chef.
We had a similar story in my high school days (around the mid '00s, for reference), so this story might be older than you think; the version we passed around was a guy who had completed aced Cal-Berkeley (or Stanford, really, any one of the top California universities would work), aced everything he possibly could, handed this parents the diploma, and then proceeded to never talk to them again.
"Is it moral for adults to push children into exam hell to make money?" Adults from six Asian countries would not answer this question. The six Asian countries are China, India, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Why wouldn't parents from these six countries give an answer? If they answer that it's not moral, they would be admitting their own shameful actions. If they answer that it's moral, they would be admitting that they are sociopaths themselves.
i wonder if many of these lawyers and doctors actually never really had good motivations for their careers and end up being terrible people in a position of relative authority thereby abusing others. do they stay in their jobs only for the money and reputation? these careers also come with built-in sunk cost, since those degrees are expensive and require a ton of effort to obtain... so are there perhaps entire cohorts of east asian doctors and lawyers who find minimal satisfaction in their jobs?
Growing up, I had an academic Asian mother that expected the best from me. High marks in the 90s at least. That was already problematic enough for a kid whose age was in the single digits, but the one time, she pulled me aside and showed me a newspaper article that had the photo of one of my classmates in it. I don't even remember what the article was even about. All I remember was my mother telling me that she wants and expects to see my face in the newspaper someday, just like my classmate. It was such a bizarre expectation that even kid-me knew it was utterly unreasonable and I should not take her words to heart. And the ironic thing is: my mother wasn't even a good student.
Tiger parents are trying to live through their kids. They're insecure about the fact that they were not high achieving kids so they project it onto their kids. My Chinghua and MIT educated dad seldomly compared me to anyone and has never set ridiculous expectations for me. He doesn't need to brag about his kids' achievements, since he can just brag about his.
The idea that Asia breeds envy is oversimplified. Confucianism isn’t as influential as people think; daily life in China is more shaped by Legalism (practical rules and social stability). Comparisons happen everywhere (hello, Instagram?), but in Asia, they’re seen as motivation, not punishment. Plus, China’s professional diversity is booming-from influencers to tech entrepreneurs. Is comparing yourself to the “perfect kid” really worse than chasing Instagram’s unrealistic standards? Asia doesn’t breed envy; it breeds ambition and hard work.
@@HappyMerchantI hate to break it to you but that hard work and ambition comes from discipline and dedication. Not violently yelling at your own kid till they fit that unrealistic mold. There’s a reason why it works over there but not here in America. Even if it does work, it’s not the most realistic way to do it.
Lmao, them not even being the top of the top makes it even more real. My dad had trouble with schooling because of poverty growing up but then got mad at me when I still did bad at math despite literally having high marks on all other subjects.
my parents were the opposite, they said mostly bad things about other kids. it gave me the opposite effect. i was selfish and arrogant. terrible social skills. i changed a lot after i realized that those people actually live a better life than me, and everything my parents said was a way to cope with our poor difficult life.
hm, I'd almost argue that both ends of upbringing can result in similar effects. if you're constantly compared to others, one can also start to feel selfish with terrible social skills, because you're always worried about succeeding etc.
That’s interesting. Not common the East but I wonder how frequent this complete opposite approach is in the west. I’m not aware of it from anyone I know but the parents are probably doing this when other adults aren’t around
i had the same experience!! my parents were really poor but they managed to paint the opposite picture for me, where we were actually the better ones than our peers. nasty business
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson I'm caucasian. My mother had low self-esteem and also spoke negatively of everyone else around her. It had a bad effect on me. I gained this sense that everyone is stupid and can't be trusted, and simultaneously that I might be hated and distrusted by other people if I made any little mistakes (it's common for unloved children of mean parents to become "perfectionists"). Terrible formula for extreme anxiety.
Was compared my entire life, and I would be friendless and hateful my entire life because of it. One day, I think I snapped and compared my parents to the parents of those they compared me to. "Why cant I go to new zealand every year? Why dont I have the newest Iphone every year? Why are their parents never arguing? Why do their parents treat me better than you?" I repeated it non stop, non stop, non stop, until eventually they started crying at some point, because I didnt care what they said. Till today, if they even want to bring anyone to compare me to, I just said "go ahead, make them your kid. See if anyone would want to be"
Please don't do that. I used to be compared a lot and during my teenage years i changed my strategy to make them taste their own medicine. I constantly looked down on my family and always comparing them and criticizing them. I became the BULLY. At the end this behavior almost ruined me. Now as an adult, I'm trying to be more empathetic and nice.
@@qjtvaddictThis is true I've worked in a few Asian countries like Japan and Korea in a corporate environment and have also worked in the states. And I would say the work environment is tougher in America. I did longer hours in Japan but it was far less intense than when I worked in New York.
@@jw841 Yep, actually much more warm and collaborative in our suffering in the East, in the US people really take all this absurd, imaginary human institutions extremely seriously to the point you can do over some arbitrary rule.
my chinese mother kept comparing me to my cousin, who dropped out of hs because she dislikes studying and she gave some spare money of that waitress job to her family. since we live in italy and degrees do not garantuee a job at all, they thought, unlike usual asian parents, that education is not important and thus they viewed me as an idiot for even going to university. my parents still supported me but wouldn’t stop comparing me to her, who had a job and was just such a perfect child. she randomly got pregnant at 17 and suddenly all comparisons ceased.
Funny how it all works like that, huh? Compare compare compare and telling you how you should be like you idolized cpusin only for it to come crashing down the moment that cousin messes up. Makes it worse when the people who compared you to them turned their back on said cousin and painted them to be a failure. Makes a kid wonder whether they'll be next on the chopping block. 🪓
This hits close to home. There is a lot of time I feel envy and resentment towards other people because of my Chinese upbringing. I feel like I'm never satisfied with my life because there is always someone who is more successful than me. I live in Europe and a lot of my friends can't understand how I really feel due to the lack of cultural upbringing. to I destroyed a few friendships because of the constant envy I feel towards my friends. For example I'm in my 30s and I'm still single while everyone in my surroundings (friends, siblings, relatives etc) are in long term relationship, getting married, buying a home etc. My parents are also nagging me about getting a partner. When one of my close friends who also was chronically single got into a relationship I felt so much resentment that I start being toxic towards them. When they broke up a few months later I felt so much schadenfreude even though it also hurt me to see my friend being heartbroken. I'm trying to work on myself and unlearn this behaviour but is really hard to do since it's wired in my brain.
Im 26 and id say i share a lot of your sentiments due to similar upbringing. However something just snapped in me about 3/4 years ago and ive adapted a not givng a f*** attitude with majority of life. The only thing i lament sometimes about would be the fact that i'm still in college overseas (stayed-back 2 years) while most of my close friends back home are in the work force, getting married, buying houses etc. This in itself is already a huge red flag in the chinese culture, at least in my personal circle. I mean one would only compare themselves with someone better which i dont see it as something bad, it helps you strive for improvements and etc, its the moment when one just sighs and resign to fate and start doubting oneself that i think makes it "toxic"(strong word but i cant find another to express it). Just know that there always will be someone that u think is doing better than yourself but they also have problems that you arent aware of that comes with said success. With regards to the parents, ive come to understand that the nagging would probably not stop but also that it comes with what they think is good intentions. Albeit not pleasant to listen to, i kinda figured to just let it be considering our parents are also growing old and its not worth it getting annoyed and into the multiple heated fights as ive did in the past. p.s. stay strong bro/sis and hope that you find more confidence to realise that you are doing fine as you were
Famous Asian American Jonny Kim who is a Harvard Doctor, Navy Seal, Navy Aviator, and NASA Astronaut had a little brother. Jeff Kim, imagine how badly he felt growing up knowing he could never live up to his big brother who is so famous and has so many accolades and titles.
Must have been multiple clones because seriously how would anyone even get the time to pursue all those different careers? Even if I never had to sleep I wouldn’t have enough hours in the day to achieve all that😂
Took me up to my mid 20’s before I realize I can just ignore my parents comparisons to others. I’ve been much happier in the past 10 years for doing so.
"Moms/dads friends son" - this resonated with me so much. I'm from Eastern Europe and we've got exactly the same issue with one of my parents. I was unfortunate to have one of my parents constantly comparing me to his friends son. When I was 19 y.o. my dad literally told me that at that point (1st year of uni) I should have been already making £5k/mo net at least, otherwise I'm dumb. A few years later, all this comparison extravaganza came up to a point that my dad decided that I'm a complete failure and stopped contact with me/any meaningful conversation whatsoever. I'm in my 30s and I'm still recovering from this, the damage done to psyche is insane. Thank you for your video, hope if could help others to start their journey of healing themselves. Also here's one saying to add to those Asian ones, from Russians: "Не беда что своя корова сдохла, плохо что соседская жива" which translates in English to "It's not a problem that my own cow died; it's bad that the neighbor's is still alive."
As a Vietnamese, i always feel incredibly fortunate to have my parents who never compare me with anyone but instead just support me on my path. My friends’s parents are different tho, every time i go hang out at my best friend’s house her mother always publicly shame her and praises me by pushing her down and saying stuff like “ *my name* is such a good student, hope my daughter is like you” till the point our friendship literally became uncomfortable for a while, not telling this story to brag or anything, just my personal experience:) great video!
The fact that you felt like maybe you were bragging says a whole lot about our culture - like some participants said during the social media experiment "I think they posted online to make me jealous". As if we are supposed to be responsible others' negative feelings about us simply living our life. I guess we did learn that by having our own parents tell us that to perform well so they can be happy. Such a sad reality.
Yeah I can see how that would make you feel guilty all the time, I mean of course when I was younger being compared to smarter kids or especially my cousins in our home country who could do math in their head even though they didn't have calculators or good books or whatever just made me angry at them even if now I know it wasn't their fault.
My mom did this a lot. It actually ruined my sister's relationship with with best friend. It got to the point where she started resenting her friend because of my mom's constant comparisons, and it drove a wedge between them that they're still repairing to this day
I was being compared to a NONEXISTENT KID, whos supposed to be on another level, and on another school too, conveniently . my mom (years later) told me it was supposed to make me more diligent & motivated. no, it made my younger years miserable. now she wonders why I rarely visit / call her
Children have an intrinsic need for acceptance. Ideally this would come in the form of unconditional acceptance/love which would communicate to the child that it is allowed to be itself and pursue self expression. But, if the praise/love from the family is contingent on giving the right answer to certain questions (what do you want to be?) it sends the message to the child that to be accepted, which is a just like oxygen and food, you must supress your true self. This leaves the child with 2 options: 1 is to be authentic at the cost of acceptance. 2 is to supress the self in exchange for acceptance. In reality only option 2 is available for the child because children are vurnerable and dependent on their parents for survival. We will therefore always pick to supress ourselves in exchange for our parents acceptance.
In Korea, people will often talk about feeling 눈치 (nunchi) and 남의 시선 (the public gaze) more strongly than in other countries. I really enjoyed this video and think much of the content you produce is incredibly interesting and informative. I've actually used a couple of your videos in my lectures. So, thank you
The claim that Asia encourages envy feels overly reductive. Confucianism isn’t as deeply rooted as it’s made out to be; China operates more on Legalism, prioritizing rules and stability. Comparisons are a global phenomenon (just look at Instagram), but in Asia, they’re often a push to improve rather than a source of punishment. Also, China’s career paths are far from narrow, with opportunities ranging from tech startups to social media influencers. Comparing to a “model kid” isn’t any worse than chasing Instagram’s fake perfection. Asia isn’t about envy-it’s about striving for success.
I'd also add that the competitive aspect of asian upbringing also explains the lack of emotional connexion between peers, after all if you're competing with everyone then you can't be close to anyone. Especially on the off chance they get better grades than you and become the next example your family uses to illustrate just how better they are at X subject and why you should strive to be like them. Which feeds negative envy and then you end up with friendships that are all about waiting for anything bad happen to the most successful of the group so that the others feel better about themselves.
We have the "mom's friend's son" thing in post soviet countries too :D literally it's called the same! And it was definitely employed by my mom, telling me how her colleagues' children were doing so good in school (unlike me) and where better than me at chores etc
Oh my goodness. I have an African family who I was separated from due to complicated reasons, but this was the first thing I noticed. I hadn't seen my family and almost a decade and they immediately started comparing me to my older cousin. I didn't know about this family dynamic so I was a bit confused.
Born and raised in Vietnam, when I was a kid, my parents didn’t compare me to other kids but they constantly told me how rich and successful their friends’ children are. I don’t know whether they want to imply anything but since then I’ve always been jealous of other success/ good things/ luck/ etc as well as have seen myself as failure since I determine I wanna be an artist - which doesn’t guarantee a decent income. Another side effect is that when I was still at school I always tried to get good grades and got in top 3 of the class every year, I found myself successful and would have a good life later on. However since then I have carried this pressure of maintaining this “successful” state. There is a norm for this but I don’t remember the exact word, the concept is generally about high-score kids in school may face difficulties when they realize they are just “ordinary” people in life. In my case I even see myself “mediocre”, this harsh truth has gradually killed my confidence. Till now I still feel it hard to accept the fact that I may just live a normal life, no extreme wealth or high achievements or ambitions. Hope I get to phase that I can truly treasure my point of view or way of living.
Growing up, my mom ONLY complimented other children on their looks, their hair, their eye color, their clothes, etc. The ONLY time she commented on my appearance was critique, both directly and passive aggressively. "Oh, that's what you're wearing?" "Wow, that outfit shows a lot." Took me a long time to realize that one of the biggest influences on my low self esteem was my own mother. I think she did it out of jealousy that her daughter wasn't as ugly as she perceived herself to be.
Sorry I have not watched the whole video but I would say another crucial outcome of this comparison culture is that a lot of Asians do not treat people whom they deem as "below them", whether it be culturally, economically, or by having a darker skin tone, with the respect they would probably afford for people that tick their boxes of excellence. It's a shame because they position themselves in a constant atmosphere of competition and draw their worth from it but also expect others to participate and experience their life in the same manner.
I had to almost "get over it" myself. I hate using that phrase because my mom would constantly use it to justify her treatment of me my whole life. I had such a lo self-stemmed growing up. At one point, I broke. Almost ended it all, but thanks to hearing of my friends' own struggle and I hate ending it all without doing anything in life, I stopped. Started listening to advice from people around and...manga/anime (haha yeaaaa I'm a nerd who uses medium to escape to). I just thought to myself one day: why I look up to those heroes in story but never try to become one. I had to re-learn how to forgive myself when things go bad, to reward myself for my own personal achievement no matter how small, to accept that jealousy is normal and to be happy for my friends when they succeed. The most important thing I had to re-learn was how to love myself; and even to this day, sometimes I just hate being me (wish I have a better face, better voice, better drawing skill, etc). It's hard, and I'm still learning everyday. Still, I do get triggered whenever my mom would bring it up; the funny thing is, if I start comparing her, she would get mad and, just like any other humans, come up with justification for it.
I'm thinking of the Finnish culture. We had something like a "uniculture", a shared, common set of values, etc. I'd say up to the 80's, and still in the 90's, but it was already crumbling down. Guessing my generation (gen X) killed it. However I can't remember that much comparisons. And what usually happened was "this kid can behave well, why can't you". There was deffinitely an idea of good, "real" professions, and good hobbies. Also the idea "what will the neighbors / everyone think" was extremely strong. I guess it might be that we don't explicitly compare due to cultural beliefs. There was an idea that only a certain amount of luck exists in the world, and you could transfer luck from your neighbor to yourself by showing envy, though essentially praising a nice cow the neighbor had. After you envied the neighbor by praising their cow, the said cow might drop dead, because essentially you cast an evil eye. This belief was ancient history already in the 1980's, but I can see reminescents of it. The stereotypical Finnish person is bad at accepting compliments. Meaning we're hard wired to refute any compliment given to us. If you compliment my jacket, I'll respond with "oh, it's just some old rag". This type of response was a way to defend yourself from the neighbor's envy (aka evil eye). Though in reality, in year 2024, I'd respond "thank you" to any compliment. Like said, the culture of the past doesn't exist in such volume anymore. Except when I recently complimented an older person's scarf, and she immediately refuted.x) Anyway in the past people didn't compliment their own kids or anyone else's either. Old people here can get a bit weird about some things, because they never ever received a word of praise in their childhood. Kids were raised to be humble and to conform. Being different was bad, unless there was an acceptable reason, like you are a hard working person, but you do night shifts, so you are living in a different schedule due to work. Need to add: just as a curiosity, during the last Trump presidency there was a poll commissioned by a big news media, that showed Donald Trump had like a 10% approval rate in Finland. 90% of the people here loathed him to some extent. I'd say it's based on our old cultural values, which I just explained. Someone who brags about their achievements, lives in luxury, doesn't do "real work", and lies a lot, just goes so much against the values here. I remember the FB memes comparing Trump to our then president Niinistö, showing our president shoveling snow on the yard of his fairly ordinary looking house. And sitting on a stair as he came too late, so all the seats were already taken, when his poet wife performed at the Helsinki book fair. Seeing our president act like an ordinary person made people proud to be Finnish, and Trump was shown in comparison as the loathsome example.
It's great to live in a small and safe country where politicians and the richest people are and act like normal people. And they can do that without being disturbed by a ton of people in public spaces.
so true about the India segment, i think thats where we differ from east asia in terms of comparison behavior/psychology, whereas my chinese and korean colleagues are hellbent on being academically and financially proficient and as a result boost themselves socially, we indians tend to work for social prestige and hierarchal status from the get-go, and we become financially or academically proficient as an unintended side effect, rarely it is both. great video on the plague that is envy
I’d love to see a deep dive on how this compares and contrasts to how this works in South Asian cultures. South Asia is described as an “honor culture” which is very under-researched in comparison to East Asian “face culture,” but the ways in that it is “same-same but different” are very fascinating. Personal experience is that a bit less emphasis is placed on humility and status anxiety is more overt in South Asia but I am not born into either culture, I have just lived in both regions and so have an ‘outside the house looking in’ perspective.
This happens a bit in East Europe too, not as much as in Asia but its there, what I hated the most was that my parents would compare me to someone better but when I would say things like well this one classmate got worse grades then me they would fire back with don't compare yourself with other kids, while they would do that all the time it was so infuriating.
"If I can't have their love, at least I can have their envy" what saddens me is that unlike admiration, envy is often bad for both subjects. Any short-lived feelings of superiority are short lived and unfulfilling.
this is so true. it got to the point that I now have to train myself to celebrate my friend's success and "force" myself to be happy for them, because internally, I was just "taught" differently. I was "taught" that whenever my friends or some other kids do better than me, I should be ashamed that I'm worse than them. That leads to me know feeling envious and some what angry whenever someone is more successful that I have to look for an excuse to say that it's because of luck etc and secretly hope for the downfall. It took me a long time to identify this shadow and now I'm working on improving myself but it's a long journey. Good luck to everyone who feel the same, just know that it's not permanent, you can always be better with enough self reflection :)
It is disturbing that there is only a few jobs considered successful. As you mentioned there is only so many jobs for doctors, lawyers, and other high level jobs. A kid who studied to have on of those acceptable jobs could end up stuck with a huge debt and nowhere to go because there are no jobs available to him.
Also, society cannot exist if everyone becomes a doctor or lawyer. How will you have running water if no one wants to work in plumbing or construction? How will you have buildings at all if no one is an architect? Where will you find food if no one wants to be a chef or farmer? How would you clothe yourself if nobody is interested in textile work or fashion design? Literally society is held up by the jobs people feel are undignified. Wow.
Yeah, from personal experience it destroys your sense of everything: sense of self, sense of trust, sense of direction, sense of safety, sense of stability... Are they simply saying it to butter you up or are they genuine? Can you trust them or are they also talking behind your back? It's absolute destruction. Hooray for my work up for bpd ✌️ /sarc
I grew up with my parents constantly mentioning the accolades and achievements of the children of family friends. Though they never went as far 1:1 deliberate comparisons, that and the lack of any recognition for anything I did drove the message home. At the expense of my self-worth, self-esteem and interpersonal skills, I ended up being the scholastic high-achiever that ended up in a technical field (though I never felt good about it)... only to find out that I had now become the neighbour's kid that was used as a point of comparison, breaking the self-esteem of a younger generation. The fact that my misery was now fueling the misery of others would have broke me if I wasn't already seeing a psychologist.
For over 20 years, I have lived the life of another. Once I failed to live up to those expectations, I was given the ability to live for myself. The problem was that I never had a self. I never knew myself. I have no wants, needs, and desires. The only thing I can think of is wanting nothing. To feel nothing, see nothing, hear, nothing, smell nothing, taste nothing, and think nothing. I am not asking for death or attempting suicide. I simply want to become nothing.
I feel you. I was never given a choice. Loved like it for so long that when I was slipping and finally given one I was.. lost. And still am. Is disgusting how many parents expect a child to live their fustrated dreams.
*"Haiyaa~ Look at your cousin, he's 10 and he started his own company"* -Asian parents when talking to their child, probably As someone who got compared to other in the childhood, can confirm. It's wild how normal parents to compare their own child to others
Haven't watched the video in full yet, but algo boost. I grew up being compared to my childhood best friend, and that's probably why I can only determine my worth by sizing myself up against other people even as an adult. I can't really bring myself to blame my mom (who did most of the comparing since dad stayed tf out of parenting besides being a breadwinner), because that's the way people treated her all her life. In my brain, I know this is all stupid and wrong. But unlearning something that's been hard coded in your brain isn't a cakewalk
it is interesting to see different cultures. remember to drink water , also for a longer attention span stop scrolling through the comments and watch the video
What I love about this channel is how it tells the facts while still humanizing the people discussed. She really knows how to tell the story so you can relate to the 'victims' but also understand where the issue arose from and why the "perpetrator" is how they are. It's almost always something about the past that forced some thoughts/opinion on a population and the population just repeat it for generations even as society is changing. Some things take many generations to substantially change after the first real attempts of change.
Previous long-term partner was east asian. And she (and others I knew) were constantly also comparing their romantic relationships with others. I had a response during a particularly frustrating conversation similar to the clip at the end where I was like "If you like XYZ's way of treating his girlfriend why dont you date him then?"
I used to be this way all the way until I got to university... I too fell on the sword of seeking to be a lawyer and had a minor BA subject (philosophy) as a package. Philosophy helped me to realize all this and it's made me realize that worrying about others should tend towards empathy - most people are suffering quietly even if they project an outwardly good. Life is hard for everyone and we almost all feel inadequate
thank you for the video! i don't think my mom actively compared me or my sister to our peers, but my dad compares us now because HE WANTS GRANDCHILNDER (he was promptly informed that if he wanted grandkids he could birth them himself because we are not doing it in this economy). but i still compare myself to others a lot. when i was a kid there was a huge gap in the level of life between my family and the families of my friends, so the comparisons were kinda inevitable. i mean with time i've learned to distinguish this train of thought and just concluded that "oh, this successful person came from a better environment\had more opportunities growing up etc etc so IT'S OKAY that all this takes more time for you: that's because you had to find and learn it by yourself". the thing that i still can't get over with is comparing how other people cope with different problems, difficulties, fallouts etc. it always seems like everyone does it better than me. HOWEVER. i'm still alive and that's a plus i think, still coping, maybe just not as quickly :)
This is definitely not as issue limited to Asia. Here in Australia my parents were terrible for this. I _dreaded_ getting report cards at school because my parents were never satisfied and were always asking why I was wasn’t doing as well as other people in the class. It really stressed me out and upset me. Looking back though, it wasn’t my fault. It was their fault. They were just really bad at parenting. I was always starving at school and underfed. They never taught me anything themselves. How was I supposed to succeed when I had so many more serious problems to focus on than school.
So absolutely right. I do want to comment while not everyone can be an engineer, doctor, or lawyer, academic endeavor is more "value-added" than striving to be a pro football player or a movie star. Even if the scope of success is wider in the West, it too can be full of family pressure and toxic culture. Along with Buddhism and Taoism, even Confucianism recognize that: in the form that one needs to be true to oneself. Before unification by the Qin 2300 years ago, the way to get ahead is to bring in the head of an enemy; after the unification, not so much. By offering Confucian virtues, and the meritocracy of the Civil Exam, people feel a sense of fairness (though the Civil Exam didn't really start in earnest till the Sui and Tang Dynasty). As you say, under such a system of competition envy is inevitable, but if people think it's fair, it stabilizes the society (i.e. the Ching Dynasty fell 6 years after they abolished the Civil Exam in 1905).
I think the point on fairness and meritocracy is valid, but the last example is slightly flawed -- the Ching Dynasty fell because they were already plagued by many other problems and was becoming extremely unpopular. It's likely the removal of the civil service exams is an effect of an unpopular regime than a cause of their unpopularity
This is a really good and necessary discussion! I think too, that it is not just East Asian families but affluent western families as well. There is a push to achieve from the successful parents who dread that their children will not do the same or better. They think their children also have resources so why not do well. So children then do multiple activities with children of the same background, and are compared against them. Think private school swim team, ect. 😢 You get scarred from having no real friends!
I'm lucky my parents were a lot more relaxed when it came to things like comparison. My mom always said "I don't care what you do as long as you are happy and can pay the bills."
I'm 38 and not in the best place in life and my mom still compares me to others. I'm the type who isn't motivated by comparison, I'm motivated by encouragement.
Me neither. Comparison doesn’t help, that’s why. There are no tools we are given to succeed when we’re compared to others. Just “be better”. I would if I could, obviously. Comparison does nothing but fuel motivation through fear, shame, envy, and resentment. It’ll drive someone to the top sometimes, but the top is lonely if you only get there by hating others and wishing success only on yourself. It’s VERY empty and leaves people realizing too late that they are shells of humans who only exist to be good enough to others. Ooooof.
Envy has always been a thing that transcends culture. It's usually people who come from the same socioeconomic background who are not comfortable when one makes it because it then forces one to question why they were able to make it and you weren't. You see this a lot in the African American community when one makes it, everyone starts hating and nobody is happy for you except for the people looking to make a living off your success.
in pakistan we do this too but i think to a lesser extent. its still bad enough that i can’t really talk to my cousins or share my life details with them because they will compare and stir drama to make themselves feel better. they learned this from their parents and environment for sure, and as someone who lives outside the country its a bit annoying seeing people take all joy from what they have by comparing it to others who have more 😭😭
And then there's the other side, when you're the kid that others get jealous of. Can't get real friends, can't show your grades, can't show your hobbies (because even that gets measured by others) can't look like you're happy, can't look too good, or else people want to tear you apart. Either that or you constantly feel responsible for other people's envy and bad self-esteem because you know their teacher or parents or friends compared them to you. You can't even be too much of a good person, or they'll resent that too. You're also not allowed to complain in front of others, because somehow that ALSO makes them hate you. Oh, and don't go imagining that someone like me feels like they are good enough and have good self-esteem. nonono! I also had to deal with constantly being called a failure because as long as you breathe, someone somewhere will always be better than you in some way! Even if for that they have to compare you to someone who has nothing in common with you.
I used to be very competitive in elementary and middle school, always so envious of other children who were better than me even tho I was consistently in 2nd-3rd place in my class. I grew out of it because I realized my parents were very chill about my grade, as long as I wasn't doing too badly. Having a family who never compare children definitely helped.
I grew up with a lot of comparisons, in what might be a somewhat unique way - I was compared to both my brothers, (I am exactly in the middle, 3 years both ways for me, and the only afab child), who both have ASD and ADHD, as do I. While they were diagnosed at around 6 and 4, I was diagnosed at 17, so growing up, any time I wanted attention or 'acted out' or struggled, I was told I wasn't allowed to. My brothers needed all the support my parents could give, and I, in comparison, shouldn't. My parents wanted me to be the 'normal and easy' kid, and when I wasn't they got resentful quickly. To this day, I struggle with comparing myself to others, especially in terms of support systems. Why should they get support and love and care if I was never afforded any? Why do other people get to share their burdens and feel safe and loved if I am not allowed to? Questions like these are both incredibly easy to fall into and incredibly harmful to think - the issue never was with me. It's caused issues I have now, and those I'm responsible for dealing with, but it's not my fault my parents decided to have children, it's not my fault I'm neurodivergent, and it's not my fault that I didn't get the support I needed to thrive as a child. I cannot change what they think of me or how they treated me, but I can change how I think of myself and how I treat others. If nothing else, I am human, and I firmly believe humans are worthy of respect and love.
its interesting how western kids and otakus are so enamored with asian pop culture (anime, video games, etc) but totally ignore asian inner life and asian history. glad this channel exists.
Not east Asian but I have been compared but they never really did the justification part. I personally knew the person they compared me to and I started actively hating/resenting that person because it was constantly "so and so is like this", "so and so did that" as if the skills I had over said person didn't exist (the skills my parents relied on because I was always the tech support)(also they did this to my hobbies basically called them cringe). The typical low self esteem thing that was countered by my friends hyping me up. Eventually that resentment I had turned to my father and step-mom. I started ignoring whatever they said, be it compliment or critique because I thought it was a manipulation attempt. Whenever they try to ask me about what I like doing or what I'm thinking about I avoid that question or just answer by saying nothing. As it stands now I'm just waiting for graduation and getting a job so that I can leave. I'd be lying if I said I ever got a compliment on my work or grades, it was always "it's not enough" "you can do more" even though I'd be reaching my personal limit of my abilities or methods (they never gave ways to improve because obviously). Edit: I didn't get a nuclear revenge plan I just shut myself from them, talking but never really letting them near instead trying as hard as possible to give the illusion of closeness. I get irrationally angry at the slightest comparison anyone targets at me and I don't think I can ever get rid of it.
Me being alil boisterous Italian kid in the Oakland public school system who could never sit still and barely passing classes but could always get by on the fact I that could make the teacher laugh and hold an intellectual conversation with them. I got along with most of the students but oml did some of the quieter kids (not just Asian students) DESPISE me. Thanks for the video I can understand where they were coming from abit better now with all of the external pressure to be “confident” like me even though a lot of times I would be jealous of the studious kids flawless grades.
Funnily enough, I never felt envy when my parents compared me to their ACQUAINTANCES’ kids. I mostly felt anger if not apathy towards my parents. I was a terrible test taker all my life, but I still turned out fine. I think what saved me was that none of my kids I was compared to were in my grade level and my actual friends in my grade level were all academically inferior to me, but genuinely appreciated my academic prowess. They reminded me that objectively I was still way up there if I wasn’t competing against the best. I think I would have turned out very differently if I didn’t have non-Asian friends growing up.
I can relate..... I can't relax. When I come into a room the first thing I do is to compare myself to the people present in the room. I hate socal gartering where I have just to sit and pretend to enjoy a conversation with a good looking, high achieving person with a shinny future.
I’m sometimes do get the kind of envy where I see something cool someone made, and I’m just like “Yoo, that looks so cool! I wish I could make something like that!” So…I’m not exactly jealous, i just wanna improve my skills, so I can do better and make something awesome.
My Parents didnt even do the comparison game that much, but their parents still did it to them, like a whole lot, so despite my parents best efforts I still inherited that kind of mindest anyways.
My Parents always compared me to my Successful Cousin who is always good at everything he did no matter what. One day he got into a Horrific Car Accident and died. At his Funeral, I was the one laughing the loudest at his coffin. Everyone looked at me like a Freak. It was one of the Happiest Day of my Life. 🙂
My dad is the middle child of 11 siblings and all of them love comparing their kids. I grew up with constant comparison to 40+ first cousins. was always among the top 5 in education and salary prospects, plus I knew my worth from a young age so never really bothered competing to out do my cousin's like my dad wanted. Even when I'd get the 2ns highest in our yeae (out of 160) my dad would never give a praise to my face, but id always hear from my cousins how he'd brag about me to their dad putting them down. Im in my mid twenties and just found out recently my dads still competing with his siblings to get me a better looking marriage partner than my cousins, all without ever asking me what i want. Im not even on the worse end of the comparisons and it's pissing me off, can only imagine how bad the average and below siblings must've had it
Absolutely fascinating seeing the stark differences in culture from "east" to "west." Also, INVU by Taeyeon is actually a great song, appropriate usage there lol
THANK YOU I WAS LOOKING FOR THIS DESPERATELY i was deep down quora trying to understand my OWN SOUTH ASIAN culture. I was wondering if I'm crazy or if anyone else has noticed this.
Your videos are so well at informing the audience on the subject matter, after a some point it touches too deep and makes me mad xd (very good work btw i love your channel)
Use AINI to get 55% off your first month at Scentbird sbird.co/4hs9Y9q
aini i love your videos so much but i can’t support if u keep getting sponsored by scentbird :(( pls do some research on their CEO
lei chee jor seen huh?
this channel is a good example of how generalizing entire regions in a pedantic manner for views can warp the viewers mind. there is no more or less envy than any other place just as you travel in a rich part of the city, middle class and lower class. Just more internalization of east asia doom posting from Western perspectives by someone who thinks they can paint a region based with their own biases when in reality East Asians simply dont care about echo chambers created by foreigners for foreigners.
you often put hanzi which is great but i wonder if you also have chinese voiced versions
Easy Asian parents are immature themself. I haven't seen one person who isn't extreme right wing. Even young people.
My grandma always said "Todo o trabalho é digno".
"All work is worthy" or "Every job holds dignity".
Mentirosote
Well, not to the Asians.
my mom said often : « Il n’y a pas de sots métiers, il n’y a que de sots gens » which means : there is no dumb line of work, only dumb people !
An old saying that can be traced back to Aristotle himself.
Todo Aoi
This video reminds me of a story of a kid in China who was pushed by his mother really hard to become a doctor even though he wanted to become a Designer/Artist (or something similar). He went through medical school and on graduation day he went up to his mother who was overjoyed, gave her the parchment and said "Here you go, you got what you always wanted" then went off to become an Artist (and AFAIK he still hasn't spoken to her).
Compare yourself to who you were, not other people.
My lecturer once told a story of his classmate in medical school (bioengineering is a medical faculty specialisation in Korea rather than an engineering specialision in Singapore where I am) who went missing immediately after graduation only to suddenly regain contact after two years.
Turns out in the two years he went missing he went to France and became a rather successful pastry chef.
Lol damm
We had a similar story in my high school days (around the mid '00s, for reference), so this story might be older than you think; the version we passed around was a guy who had completed aced Cal-Berkeley (or Stanford, really, any one of the top California universities would work), aced everything he possibly could, handed this parents the diploma, and then proceeded to never talk to them again.
"Is it moral for adults to push children into exam hell to make money?"
Adults from six Asian countries would not answer this question.
The six Asian countries are China, India, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
Why wouldn't parents from these six countries give an answer?
If they answer that it's not moral, they would be admitting their own shameful actions. If they answer that it's moral, they would be admitting that they are sociopaths themselves.
i wonder if many of these lawyers and doctors actually never really had good motivations for their careers and end up being terrible people in a position of relative authority thereby abusing others. do they stay in their jobs only for the money and reputation? these careers also come with built-in sunk cost, since those degrees are expensive and require a ton of effort to obtain... so are there perhaps entire cohorts of east asian doctors and lawyers who find minimal satisfaction in their jobs?
Growing up, I had an academic Asian mother that expected the best from me. High marks in the 90s at least. That was already problematic enough for a kid whose age was in the single digits, but the one time, she pulled me aside and showed me a newspaper article that had the photo of one of my classmates in it. I don't even remember what the article was even about. All I remember was my mother telling me that she wants and expects to see my face in the newspaper someday, just like my classmate. It was such a bizarre expectation that even kid-me knew it was utterly unreasonable and I should not take her words to heart.
And the ironic thing is: my mother wasn't even a good student.
!!!
This is so, so relatable. Most parents (that I know of) like this weren’t good students when they were in school.
Tiger parents are trying to live through their kids. They're insecure about the fact that they were not high achieving kids so they project it onto their kids. My Chinghua and MIT educated dad seldomly compared me to anyone and has never set ridiculous expectations for me. He doesn't need to brag about his kids' achievements, since he can just brag about his.
The idea that Asia breeds envy is oversimplified. Confucianism isn’t as influential as people think; daily life in China is more shaped by Legalism (practical rules and social stability). Comparisons happen everywhere (hello, Instagram?), but in Asia, they’re seen as motivation, not punishment. Plus, China’s professional diversity is booming-from influencers to tech entrepreneurs. Is comparing yourself to the “perfect kid” really worse than chasing Instagram’s unrealistic standards? Asia doesn’t breed envy; it breeds ambition and hard work.
@@HappyMerchantI hate to break it to you but that hard work and ambition comes from discipline and dedication. Not violently yelling at your own kid till they fit that unrealistic mold. There’s a reason why it works over there but not here in America. Even if it does work, it’s not the most realistic way to do it.
Lmao, them not even being the top of the top makes it even more real. My dad had trouble with schooling because of poverty growing up but then got mad at me when I still did bad at math despite literally having high marks on all other subjects.
my parents were the opposite, they said mostly bad things about other kids. it gave me the opposite effect. i was selfish and arrogant. terrible social skills. i changed a lot after i realized that those people actually live a better life than me, and everything my parents said was a way to cope with our poor difficult life.
hm, I'd almost argue that both ends of upbringing can result in similar effects. if you're constantly compared to others, one can also start to feel selfish with terrible social skills, because you're always worried about succeeding etc.
That’s interesting. Not common the East but I wonder how frequent this complete opposite approach is in the west. I’m not aware of it from anyone I know but the parents are probably doing this when other adults aren’t around
Lol
i had the same experience!! my parents were really poor but they managed to paint the opposite picture for me, where we were actually the better ones than our peers. nasty business
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson I'm caucasian. My mother had low self-esteem and also spoke negatively of everyone else around her. It had a bad effect on me. I gained this sense that everyone is stupid and can't be trusted, and simultaneously that I might be hated and distrusted by other people if I made any little mistakes (it's common for unloved children of mean parents to become "perfectionists"). Terrible formula for extreme anxiety.
Was compared my entire life, and I would be friendless and hateful my entire life because of it.
One day, I think I snapped and compared my parents to the parents of those they compared me to.
"Why cant I go to new zealand every year? Why dont I have the newest Iphone every year? Why are their parents never arguing? Why do their parents treat me better than you?"
I repeated it non stop, non stop, non stop, until eventually they started crying at some point, because I didnt care what they said. Till today, if they even want to bring anyone to compare me to, I just said "go ahead, make them your kid. See if anyone would want to be"
DAMN critical hit
@@collyflower6623 Yeah. Went for the jugular.
ouuch
Please don't do that. I used to be compared a lot and during my teenage years i changed my strategy to make them taste their own medicine. I constantly looked down on my family and always comparing them and criticizing them. I became the BULLY. At the end this behavior almost ruined me. Now as an adult, I'm trying to be more empathetic and nice.
Taste of their own medicine. But yeah, as long you don't go overboard, you should be fine. But just be careful.
Being asian is like being born into a constant competition and constantly being exhausted.
Americans: first time???
@@qjtvaddictThis is true I've worked in a few Asian countries like Japan and Korea in a corporate environment and have also worked in the states. And I would say the work environment is tougher in America. I did longer hours in Japan but it was far less intense than when I worked in New York.
@@qjtvaddict the meme doesn't work here at all.
@@jw841 Yep, actually much more warm and collaborative in our suffering in the East, in the US people really take all this absurd, imaginary human institutions extremely seriously to the point you can do over some arbitrary rule.
Seems like it's our bloody karma of some sort.
my chinese mother kept comparing me to my cousin, who dropped out of hs because she dislikes studying and she gave some spare money of that waitress job to her family. since we live in italy and degrees do not garantuee a job at all, they thought, unlike usual asian parents, that education is not important and thus they viewed me as an idiot for even going to university. my parents still supported me but wouldn’t stop comparing me to her, who had a job and was just such a perfect child. she randomly got pregnant at 17 and suddenly all comparisons ceased.
Funny how it all works like that, huh? Compare compare compare and telling you how you should be like you idolized cpusin only for it to come crashing down the moment that cousin messes up. Makes it worse when the people who compared you to them turned their back on said cousin and painted them to be a failure.
Makes a kid wonder whether they'll be next on the chopping block. 🪓
This hits close to home. There is a lot of time I feel envy and resentment towards other people because of my Chinese upbringing. I feel like I'm never satisfied with my life because there is always someone who is more successful than me. I live in Europe and a lot of my friends can't understand how I really feel due to the lack of cultural upbringing. to I destroyed a few friendships because of the constant envy I feel towards my friends. For example I'm in my 30s and I'm still single while everyone in my surroundings (friends, siblings, relatives etc) are in long term relationship, getting married, buying a home etc. My parents are also nagging me about getting a partner. When one of my close friends who also was chronically single got into a relationship I felt so much resentment that I start being toxic towards them. When they broke up a few months later I felt so much schadenfreude even though it also hurt me to see my friend being heartbroken. I'm trying to work on myself and unlearn this behaviour but is really hard to do since it's wired in my brain.
Im 26 and id say i share a lot of your sentiments due to similar upbringing. However something just snapped in me about 3/4 years ago and ive adapted a not givng a f*** attitude with majority of life. The only thing i lament sometimes about would be the fact that i'm still in college overseas (stayed-back 2 years) while most of my close friends back home are in the work force, getting married, buying houses etc. This in itself is already a huge red flag in the chinese culture, at least in my personal circle.
I mean one would only compare themselves with someone better which i dont see it as something bad, it helps you strive for improvements and etc, its the moment when one just sighs and resign to fate and start doubting oneself that i think makes it "toxic"(strong word but i cant find another to express it). Just know that there always will be someone that u think is doing better than yourself but they also have problems that you arent aware of that comes with said success. With regards to the parents, ive come to understand that the nagging would probably not stop but also that it comes with what they think is good intentions. Albeit not pleasant to listen to, i kinda figured to just let it be considering our parents are also growing old and its not worth it getting annoyed and into the multiple heated fights as ive did in the past.
p.s. stay strong bro/sis and hope that you find more confidence to realise that you are doing fine as you were
its ridiculous how much i relate to this comment
wow you sound toxic as fuck, get help
do you compare yourself to Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos?
Please get some help. I hope you get better. But still a lot of it is still you being toxic to yourself and being terrible to who you call friends.
Famous Asian American Jonny Kim who is a Harvard Doctor, Navy Seal, Navy Aviator, and NASA Astronaut had a little brother. Jeff Kim, imagine how badly he felt growing up knowing he could never live up to his big brother who is so famous and has so many accolades and titles.
Must have been multiple clones because seriously how would anyone even get the time to pursue all those different careers? Even if I never had to sleep I wouldn’t have enough hours in the day to achieve all that😂
If I were Jeff Kim, I would crash out and give up on life. I'd probably be a wandering hobo and let nature "run its course" on me.
I love that meme where it’s like “my worst fear is that my mom and johnnys mom are friends”
If my brother were that successful, then he would be there for me so I would have nothing to worry about.
Took me up to my mid 20’s before I realize I can just ignore my parents comparisons to others. I’ve been much happier in the past 10 years for doing so.
Your profile picture tells a different story ..
"Moms/dads friends son" - this resonated with me so much. I'm from Eastern Europe and we've got exactly the same issue with one of my parents. I was unfortunate to have one of my parents constantly comparing me to his friends son. When I was 19 y.o. my dad literally told me that at that point (1st year of uni) I should have been already making £5k/mo net at least, otherwise I'm dumb. A few years later, all this comparison extravaganza came up to a point that my dad decided that I'm a complete failure and stopped contact with me/any meaningful conversation whatsoever. I'm in my 30s and I'm still recovering from this, the damage done to psyche is insane. Thank you for your video, hope if could help others to start their journey of healing themselves.
Also here's one saying to add to those Asian ones, from Russians:
"Не беда что своя корова сдохла, плохо что соседская жива" which translates in English to "It's not a problem that my own cow died; it's bad that the neighbor's is still alive."
Thanks Russia for this kind of thinking which my country inherited from you :|
@@lopatou_ovalil7361And mine too. "Great" russian culture isn't it
As a Vietnamese, i always feel incredibly fortunate to have my parents who never compare me with anyone but instead just support me on my path. My friends’s parents are different tho, every time i go hang out at my best friend’s house her mother always publicly shame her and praises me by pushing her down and saying stuff like “ *my name* is such a good student, hope my daughter is like you” till the point our friendship
literally became uncomfortable for a while, not telling this story to brag or anything, just my personal experience:) great video!
The fact that you felt like maybe you were bragging says a whole lot about our culture - like some participants said during the social media experiment "I think they posted online to make me jealous". As if we are supposed to be responsible others' negative feelings about us simply living our life. I guess we did learn that by having our own parents tell us that to perform well so they can be happy. Such a sad reality.
Yeah I can see how that would make you feel guilty all the time, I mean of course when I was younger being compared to smarter kids or especially my cousins in our home country who could do math in their head even though they didn't have calculators or good books or whatever just made me angry at them even if now I know it wasn't their fault.
My mom did this a lot. It actually ruined my sister's relationship with with best friend. It got to the point where she started resenting her friend because of my mom's constant comparisons, and it drove a wedge between them that they're still repairing to this day
I was being compared to a NONEXISTENT KID, whos supposed to be on another level, and on another school too, conveniently . my mom (years later) told me it was supposed to make me more diligent & motivated. no, it made my younger years miserable. now she wonders why I rarely visit / call her
Children have an intrinsic need for acceptance. Ideally this would come in the form of unconditional acceptance/love which would communicate to the child that it is allowed to be itself and pursue self expression. But, if the praise/love from the family is contingent on giving the right answer to certain questions (what do you want to be?) it sends the message to the child that to be accepted, which is a just like oxygen and food, you must supress your true self. This leaves the child with 2 options: 1 is to be authentic at the cost of acceptance. 2 is to supress the self in exchange for acceptance. In reality only option 2 is available for the child because children are vurnerable and dependent on their parents for survival. We will therefore always pick to supress ourselves in exchange for our parents acceptance.
In Korea, people will often talk about feeling 눈치 (nunchi) and 남의 시선 (the public gaze) more strongly than in other countries. I really enjoyed this video and think much of the content you produce is incredibly interesting and informative. I've actually used a couple of your videos in my lectures. So, thank you
I love reading your work on Korea Times😊 Keep writing!
Wow I’m very honoured to hear that, thank you David - appreciate it! :)
The claim that Asia encourages envy feels overly reductive. Confucianism isn’t as deeply rooted as it’s made out to be; China operates more on Legalism, prioritizing rules and stability. Comparisons are a global phenomenon (just look at Instagram), but in Asia, they’re often a push to improve rather than a source of punishment. Also, China’s career paths are far from narrow, with opportunities ranging from tech startups to social media influencers. Comparing to a “model kid” isn’t any worse than chasing Instagram’s fake perfection. Asia isn’t about envy-it’s about striving for success.
@@HappyMerchantCCP comment
@@miss_jessThat’s funny!
I'd also add that the competitive aspect of asian upbringing also explains the lack of emotional connexion between peers, after all if you're competing with everyone then you can't be close to anyone. Especially on the off chance they get better grades than you and become the next example your family uses to illustrate just how better they are at X subject and why you should strive to be like them.
Which feeds negative envy and then you end up with friendships that are all about waiting for anything bad happen to the most successful of the group so that the others feel better about themselves.
She did a vid on the lack of emotional connexion
We have the "mom's friend's son" thing in post soviet countries too :D literally it's called the same! And it was definitely employed by my mom, telling me how her colleagues' children were doing so good in school (unlike me) and where better than me at chores etc
It's always the house chores in post soviet countries haha. It's annoying but not as bas as it's in east asian countries.
Oh my goodness. I have an African family who I was separated from due to complicated reasons, but this was the first thing I noticed. I hadn't seen my family and almost a decade and they immediately started comparing me to my older cousin. I didn't know about this family dynamic so I was a bit confused.
"and two of us were adopted" 💀
and soon to be disowned :D
I LAUGHED OUT LOUD
That one killed me laughing :D
That got a chuckle out if me
I’m so glad someone else caught the joke 😭
holiday's at asian homes are like accomplishment olympics
Born and raised in Vietnam, when I was a kid, my parents didn’t compare me to other kids but they constantly told me how rich and successful their friends’ children are. I don’t know whether they want to imply anything but since then I’ve always been jealous of other success/ good things/ luck/ etc as well as have seen myself as failure since I determine I wanna be an artist - which doesn’t guarantee a decent income. Another side effect is that when I was still at school I always tried to get good grades and got in top 3 of the class every year, I found myself successful and would have a good life later on. However since then I have carried this pressure of maintaining this “successful” state. There is a norm for this but I don’t remember the exact word, the concept is generally about high-score kids in school may face difficulties when they realize they are just “ordinary” people in life. In my case I even see myself “mediocre”, this harsh truth has gradually killed my confidence. Till now I still feel it hard to accept the fact that I may just live a normal life, no extreme wealth or high achievements or ambitions. Hope I get to phase that I can truly treasure my point of view or way of living.
probably why east asia has a massive designer luxury market.
Growing up, my mom ONLY complimented other children on their looks, their hair, their eye color, their clothes, etc. The ONLY time she commented on my appearance was critique, both directly and passive aggressively.
"Oh, that's what you're wearing?"
"Wow, that outfit shows a lot."
Took me a long time to realize that one of the biggest influences on my low self esteem was my own mother. I think she did it out of jealousy that her daughter wasn't as ugly as she perceived herself to be.
Sorry I have not watched the whole video but I would say another crucial outcome of this comparison culture is that a lot of Asians do not treat people whom they deem as "below them", whether it be culturally, economically, or by having a darker skin tone, with the respect they would probably afford for people that tick their boxes of excellence. It's a shame because they position themselves in a constant atmosphere of competition and draw their worth from it but also expect others to participate and experience their life in the same manner.
I know a friend who's dad, mom, and brother is apparently like that.
That is true of every ethnic culture ever. Americana preach platitudes that they do not; it is but more informal and implicit.
First 20 seconds of intro and I can already relate as a child of Asian descent
I had to almost "get over it" myself. I hate using that phrase because my mom would constantly use it to justify her treatment of me my whole life. I had such a lo self-stemmed growing up. At one point, I broke. Almost ended it all, but thanks to hearing of my friends' own struggle and I hate ending it all without doing anything in life, I stopped. Started listening to advice from people around and...manga/anime (haha yeaaaa I'm a nerd who uses medium to escape to). I just thought to myself one day: why I look up to those heroes in story but never try to become one. I had to re-learn how to forgive myself when things go bad, to reward myself for my own personal achievement no matter how small, to accept that jealousy is normal and to be happy for my friends when they succeed. The most important thing I had to re-learn was how to love myself; and even to this day, sometimes I just hate being me (wish I have a better face, better voice, better drawing skill, etc). It's hard, and I'm still learning everyday. Still, I do get triggered whenever my mom would bring it up; the funny thing is, if I start comparing her, she would get mad and, just like any other humans, come up with justification for it.
3:56. To be fair, using Jonny Kim is a dangerous example because his father almost shot him when he was 17.
The police then shot said father to death.
😳
@@alperry02yeah very tragic upbringing
I'm thinking of the Finnish culture. We had something like a "uniculture", a shared, common set of values, etc. I'd say up to the 80's, and still in the 90's, but it was already crumbling down. Guessing my generation (gen X) killed it.
However I can't remember that much comparisons. And what usually happened was "this kid can behave well, why can't you". There was deffinitely an idea of good, "real" professions, and good hobbies. Also the idea "what will the neighbors / everyone think" was extremely strong.
I guess it might be that we don't explicitly compare due to cultural beliefs. There was an idea that only a certain amount of luck exists in the world, and you could transfer luck from your neighbor to yourself by showing envy, though essentially praising a nice cow the neighbor had. After you envied the neighbor by praising their cow, the said cow might drop dead, because essentially you cast an evil eye. This belief was ancient history already in the 1980's, but I can see reminescents of it. The stereotypical Finnish person is bad at accepting compliments. Meaning we're hard wired to refute any compliment given to us. If you compliment my jacket, I'll respond with "oh, it's just some old rag". This type of response was a way to defend yourself from the neighbor's envy (aka evil eye).
Though in reality, in year 2024, I'd respond "thank you" to any compliment. Like said, the culture of the past doesn't exist in such volume anymore. Except when I recently complimented an older person's scarf, and she immediately refuted.x)
Anyway in the past people didn't compliment their own kids or anyone else's either. Old people here can get a bit weird about some things, because they never ever received a word of praise in their childhood. Kids were raised to be humble and to conform. Being different was bad, unless there was an acceptable reason, like you are a hard working person, but you do night shifts, so you are living in a different schedule due to work.
Need to add: just as a curiosity, during the last Trump presidency there was a poll commissioned by a big news media, that showed Donald Trump had like a 10% approval rate in Finland. 90% of the people here loathed him to some extent. I'd say it's based on our old cultural values, which I just explained. Someone who brags about their achievements, lives in luxury, doesn't do "real work", and lies a lot, just goes so much against the values here.
I remember the FB memes comparing Trump to our then president Niinistö, showing our president shoveling snow on the yard of his fairly ordinary looking house. And sitting on a stair as he came too late, so all the seats were already taken, when his poet wife performed at the Helsinki book fair. Seeing our president act like an ordinary person made people proud to be Finnish, and Trump was shown in comparison as the loathsome example.
It's great to live in a small and safe country where politicians and the richest people are and act like normal people. And they can do that without being disturbed by a ton of people in public spaces.
Teddy Roosevelt gave us a banger: Comparison is the thief of joy
and anarcho communism is the solution to all of comparison problems
@@Dragon835-cs5os AnCom is not the solution to but the refined quintessence of envy.
so true about the India segment, i think thats where we differ from east asia in terms of comparison behavior/psychology, whereas my chinese and korean colleagues are hellbent on being academically and financially proficient and as a result boost themselves socially, we indians tend to work for social prestige and hierarchal status from the get-go, and we become financially or academically proficient as an unintended side effect, rarely it is both. great video on the plague that is envy
I’d love to see a deep dive on how this compares and contrasts to how this works in South Asian cultures. South Asia is described as an “honor culture” which is very under-researched in comparison to East Asian “face culture,” but the ways in that it is “same-same but different” are very fascinating. Personal experience is that a bit less emphasis is placed on humility and status anxiety is more overt in South Asia but I am not born into either culture, I have just lived in both regions and so have an ‘outside the house looking in’ perspective.
south asian and ngl both are same as they both make u wanna kys
I deleted all my social media back in high school and I've never looked back. No more Facebook, no more Instagram, no more TikTok.
This happens a bit in East Europe too, not as much as in Asia but its there, what I hated the most was that my parents would compare me to someone better but when I would say things like well this one classmate got worse grades then me they would fire back with don't compare yourself with other kids, while they would do that all the time it was so infuriating.
super off topic but it’s so fun seeing how your plant has grown since the last video 🤭
thank youu Klaize!! :)
"If I can't have their love, at least I can have their envy"
what saddens me is that unlike admiration, envy is often bad for both subjects. Any short-lived feelings of superiority are short lived and unfulfilling.
this is so true. it got to the point that I now have to train myself to celebrate my friend's success and "force" myself to be happy for them, because internally, I was just "taught" differently. I was "taught" that whenever my friends or some other kids do better than me, I should be ashamed that I'm worse than them. That leads to me know feeling envious and some what angry whenever someone is more successful that I have to look for an excuse to say that it's because of luck etc and secretly hope for the downfall. It took me a long time to identify this shadow and now I'm working on improving myself but it's a long journey. Good luck to everyone who feel the same, just know that it's not permanent, you can always be better with enough self reflection :)
It is disturbing that there is only a few jobs considered successful. As you mentioned there is only so many jobs for doctors, lawyers, and other high level jobs. A kid who studied to have on of those acceptable jobs could end up stuck with a huge debt and nowhere to go because there are no jobs available to him.
Also, society cannot exist if everyone becomes a doctor or lawyer. How will you have running water if no one wants to work in plumbing or construction? How will you have buildings at all if no one is an architect? Where will you find food if no one wants to be a chef or farmer? How would you clothe yourself if nobody is interested in textile work or fashion design? Literally society is held up by the jobs people feel are undignified. Wow.
being told to only trust negative comments and that positive comments are secretly trying to bring you down is really so sad
Yeah, from personal experience it destroys your sense of everything: sense of self, sense of trust, sense of direction, sense of safety, sense of stability... Are they simply saying it to butter you up or are they genuine? Can you trust them or are they also talking behind your back? It's absolute destruction.
Hooray for my work up for bpd ✌️ /sarc
I grew up with my parents constantly mentioning the accolades and achievements of the children of family friends. Though they never went as far 1:1 deliberate comparisons, that and the lack of any recognition for anything I did drove the message home. At the expense of my self-worth, self-esteem and interpersonal skills, I ended up being the scholastic high-achiever that ended up in a technical field (though I never felt good about it)... only to find out that I had now become the neighbour's kid that was used as a point of comparison, breaking the self-esteem of a younger generation. The fact that my misery was now fueling the misery of others would have broke me if I wasn't already seeing a psychologist.
For over 20 years, I have lived the life of another. Once I failed to live up to those expectations, I was given the ability to live for myself. The problem was that I never had a self. I never knew myself. I have no wants, needs, and desires. The only thing I can think of is wanting nothing. To feel nothing, see nothing, hear, nothing, smell nothing, taste nothing, and think nothing. I am not asking for death or attempting suicide. I simply want to become nothing.
I hope you can find meaning in something🫂
I feel you. I was never given a choice. Loved like it for so long that when I was slipping and finally given one I was.. lost. And still am.
Is disgusting how many parents expect a child to live their fustrated dreams.
*"Haiyaa~ Look at your cousin, he's 10 and he started his own company"* -Asian parents when talking to their child, probably
As someone who got compared to other in the childhood, can confirm. It's wild how normal parents to compare their own child to others
Reminds me of that yearbook where the Asian kid wrote: “It’s not enough that I should succeed - others should fail.”
IT'S TRUE!
Haven't watched the video in full yet, but algo boost.
I grew up being compared to my childhood best friend, and that's probably why I can only determine my worth by sizing myself up against other people even as an adult.
I can't really bring myself to blame my mom (who did most of the comparing since dad stayed tf out of parenting besides being a breadwinner), because that's the way people treated her all her life.
In my brain, I know this is all stupid and wrong. But unlearning something that's been hard coded in your brain isn't a cakewalk
it is interesting to see different cultures. remember to drink water , also for a longer attention span stop scrolling through the comments and watch the video
you caught me lol
no
Thanks
Don't tell me what to do
Lmao called me out
What I love about this channel is how it tells the facts while still humanizing the people discussed. She really knows how to tell the story so you can relate to the 'victims' but also understand where the issue arose from and why the "perpetrator" is how they are. It's almost always something about the past that forced some thoughts/opinion on a population and the population just repeat it for generations even as society is changing. Some things take many generations to substantially change after the first real attempts of change.
I just screamed “LETSS GOO!!!” out loud seeing the notification for this
HAHAHA im so honoured thank you for watching!!
We're reliving our childhood trauma with this one LETSS GOO!!!
@@QuanNguyen-uc2sn LMAO yes painful, yet entertaining :’)
I had 18 years of therapy and I'm still not fully healed yet.
Fark bro. Get a new therapist?
get thicker skin, holy cow, Holocaust was even more tough.
THE QUEEN IS BACK
are you saying you support monarchy
Simp!
Previous long-term partner was east asian. And she (and others I knew) were constantly also comparing their romantic relationships with others. I had a response during a particularly frustrating conversation similar to the clip at the end where I was like "If you like XYZ's way of treating his girlfriend why dont you date him then?"
I really want to know what happened after you said that. How did she react?
I used to be this way all the way until I got to university... I too fell on the sword of seeking to be a lawyer and had a minor BA subject (philosophy) as a package. Philosophy helped me to realize all this and it's made me realize that worrying about others should tend towards empathy - most people are suffering quietly even if they project an outwardly good. Life is hard for everyone and we almost all feel inadequate
thank you for the video!
i don't think my mom actively compared me or my sister to our peers, but my dad compares us now because HE WANTS GRANDCHILNDER (he was promptly informed that if he wanted grandkids he could birth them himself because we are not doing it in this economy).
but i still compare myself to others a lot. when i was a kid there was a huge gap in the level of life between my family and the families of my friends, so the comparisons were kinda inevitable.
i mean with time i've learned to distinguish this train of thought and just concluded that "oh, this successful person came from a better environment\had more opportunities growing up etc etc so IT'S OKAY that all this takes more time for you: that's because you had to find and learn it by yourself".
the thing that i still can't get over with is comparing how other people cope with different problems, difficulties, fallouts etc. it always seems like everyone does it better than me. HOWEVER. i'm still alive and that's a plus i think, still coping, maybe just not as quickly :)
Thank you for making this video. It means a lot to me honestly :(
Can we normalize just being ourselves?
egotistical asian parents: no
23:27 No, thank YOU for making such good video essays.
This is definitely not as issue limited to Asia. Here in Australia my parents were terrible for this. I _dreaded_ getting report cards at school because my parents were never satisfied and were always asking why I was wasn’t doing as well as other people in the class. It really stressed me out and upset me. Looking back though, it wasn’t my fault. It was their fault. They were just really bad at parenting. I was always starving at school and underfed. They never taught me anything themselves. How was I supposed to succeed when I had so many more serious problems to focus on than school.
honestly i'm realising it might have been one of the many reasons i gave up on grades and school ironically
Congrats on the sponsor and thanks for all the great video essays
OUR QUEEEN HAS RETURNED
So absolutely right. I do want to comment while not everyone can be an engineer, doctor, or lawyer, academic endeavor is more "value-added" than striving to be a pro football player or a movie star. Even if the scope of success is wider in the West, it too can be full of family pressure and toxic culture. Along with Buddhism and Taoism, even Confucianism recognize that: in the form that one needs to be true to oneself. Before unification by the Qin 2300 years ago, the way to get ahead is to bring in the head of an enemy; after the unification, not so much. By offering Confucian virtues, and the meritocracy of the Civil Exam, people feel a sense of fairness (though the Civil Exam didn't really start in earnest till the Sui and Tang Dynasty). As you say, under such a system of competition envy is inevitable, but if people think it's fair, it stabilizes the society (i.e. the Ching Dynasty fell 6 years after they abolished the Civil Exam in 1905).
I think the point on fairness and meritocracy is valid, but the last example is slightly flawed -- the Ching Dynasty fell because they were already plagued by many other problems and was becoming extremely unpopular. It's likely the removal of the civil service exams is an effect of an unpopular regime than a cause of their unpopularity
This is a really good and necessary discussion! I think too, that it is not just East Asian families but affluent western families as well. There is a push to achieve from the successful parents who dread that their children will not do the same or better. They think their children also have resources so why not do well. So children then do multiple activities with children of the same background, and are compared against them. Think private school swim team, ect. 😢 You get scarred from having no real friends!
Before the cafe gets cold was such a lovely book.
I'm lucky my parents were a lot more relaxed when it came to things like comparison. My mom always said "I don't care what you do as long as you are happy and can pay the bills."
I'm 38 and not in the best place in life and my mom still compares me to others. I'm the type who isn't motivated by comparison, I'm motivated by encouragement.
Me neither. Comparison doesn’t help, that’s why. There are no tools we are given to succeed when we’re compared to others. Just “be better”. I would if I could, obviously. Comparison does nothing but fuel motivation through fear, shame, envy, and resentment. It’ll drive someone to the top sometimes, but the top is lonely if you only get there by hating others and wishing success only on yourself. It’s VERY empty and leaves people realizing too late that they are shells of humans who only exist to be good enough to others. Ooooof.
Envy has always been a thing that transcends culture. It's usually people who come from the same socioeconomic background who are not comfortable when one makes it because it then forces one to question why they were able to make it and you weren't. You see this a lot in the African American community when one makes it, everyone starts hating and nobody is happy for you except for the people looking to make a living off your success.
I have to admit, that transition to the sponsor segment and relating it to the video is both really creative and really funny
My ex best friend and I grew up hated each other because our moms kept comparing us. She stabbed my back quite some times too
Top notch as always. I wish that the world will have more people who have understanding and thinking skills such as yours before it is too late.
Wow you put into words what I have thought about for awhile. The competitive culture is intense
Vietnamese here. Experienced being compared to "the neighbour's son" throughout my childhood. It's relentless and at times unbearably distressing.
in pakistan we do this too but i think to a lesser extent. its still bad enough that i can’t really talk to my cousins or share my life details with them because they will compare and stir drama to make themselves feel better. they learned this from their parents and environment for sure, and as someone who lives outside the country its a bit annoying seeing people take all joy from what they have by comparing it to others who have more 😭😭
And then there's the other side, when you're the kid that others get jealous of. Can't get real friends, can't show your grades, can't show your hobbies (because even that gets measured by others) can't look like you're happy, can't look too good, or else people want to tear you apart. Either that or you constantly feel responsible for other people's envy and bad self-esteem because you know their teacher or parents or friends compared them to you. You can't even be too much of a good person, or they'll resent that too. You're also not allowed to complain in front of others, because somehow that ALSO makes them hate you.
Oh, and don't go imagining that someone like me feels like they are good enough and have good self-esteem. nonono! I also had to deal with constantly being called a failure because as long as you breathe, someone somewhere will always be better than you in some way! Even if for that they have to compare you to someone who has nothing in common with you.
I used to be very competitive in elementary and middle school, always so envious of other children who were better than me even tho I was consistently in 2nd-3rd place in my class. I grew out of it because I realized my parents were very chill about my grade, as long as I wasn't doing too badly. Having a family who never compare children definitely helped.
I grew up with a lot of comparisons, in what might be a somewhat unique way - I was compared to both my brothers, (I am exactly in the middle, 3 years both ways for me, and the only afab child), who both have ASD and ADHD, as do I. While they were diagnosed at around 6 and 4, I was diagnosed at 17, so growing up, any time I wanted attention or 'acted out' or struggled, I was told I wasn't allowed to. My brothers needed all the support my parents could give, and I, in comparison, shouldn't. My parents wanted me to be the 'normal and easy' kid, and when I wasn't they got resentful quickly. To this day, I struggle with comparing myself to others, especially in terms of support systems. Why should they get support and love and care if I was never afforded any? Why do other people get to share their burdens and feel safe and loved if I am not allowed to?
Questions like these are both incredibly easy to fall into and incredibly harmful to think - the issue never was with me. It's caused issues I have now, and those I'm responsible for dealing with, but it's not my fault my parents decided to have children, it's not my fault I'm neurodivergent, and it's not my fault that I didn't get the support I needed to thrive as a child. I cannot change what they think of me or how they treated me, but I can change how I think of myself and how I treat others.
If nothing else, I am human, and I firmly believe humans are worthy of respect and love.
I'm grateful I was told from youth "Don't compare yourself to others"
its interesting how western kids and otakus are so enamored with asian pop culture (anime, video games, etc) but totally ignore asian inner life and asian history. glad this channel exists.
Western kids…like the entirety of it? I think you only mean otakus
Not east Asian but I have been compared but they never really did the justification part. I personally knew the person they compared me to and I started actively hating/resenting that person because it was constantly "so and so is like this", "so and so did that" as if the skills I had over said person didn't exist (the skills my parents relied on because I was always the tech support)(also they did this to my hobbies basically called them cringe). The typical low self esteem thing that was countered by my friends hyping me up. Eventually that resentment I had turned to my father and step-mom. I started ignoring whatever they said, be it compliment or critique because I thought it was a manipulation attempt. Whenever they try to ask me about what I like doing or what I'm thinking about I avoid that question or just answer by saying nothing. As it stands now I'm just waiting for graduation and getting a job so that I can leave. I'd be lying if I said I ever got a compliment on my work or grades, it was always "it's not enough" "you can do more" even though I'd be reaching my personal limit of my abilities or methods (they never gave ways to improve because obviously).
Edit: I didn't get a nuclear revenge plan I just shut myself from them, talking but never really letting them near instead trying as hard as possible to give the illusion of closeness. I get irrationally angry at the slightest comparison anyone targets at me and I don't think I can ever get rid of it.
Me being alil boisterous Italian kid in the Oakland public school system who could never sit still and barely passing classes but could always get by on the fact I that could make the teacher laugh and hold an intellectual conversation with them. I got along with most of the students but oml did some of the quieter kids (not just Asian students) DESPISE me. Thanks for the video I can understand where they were coming from abit better now with all of the external pressure to be “confident” like me even though a lot of times I would be jealous of the studious kids flawless grades.
Funnily enough, I never felt envy when my parents compared me to their ACQUAINTANCES’ kids. I mostly felt anger if not apathy towards my parents. I was a terrible test taker all my life, but I still turned out fine. I think what saved me was that none of my kids I was compared to were in my grade level and my actual friends in my grade level were all academically inferior to me, but genuinely appreciated my academic prowess. They reminded me that objectively I was still way up there if I wasn’t competing against the best.
I think I would have turned out very differently if I didn’t have non-Asian friends growing up.
9:43 Aini graphic desing is my passion, jk love you
Comparison is the theft of joy.
15:30 Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and English skills
talking about envy - yeeeh, I can relate 💁♂
I can relate.....
I can't relax. When I come into a room the first thing I do is to compare myself to the people present in the room.
I hate socal gartering where I have just to sit and pretend to enjoy a conversation with a good looking, high achieving person with a shinny future.
Competition always, even among brothers and sisters. I'm so tired of it all I'm shutting everyone out of my life
i love how my parents compare me to their friends son but at the same time his parents also compare him to me
what a very good ending, Aini. As always, I love the depth you bring to this discussion. Thank you
The native australian bird sounds in the background is a good touch lol. they can be so friggin loud.
I can tell you I'm glad my Korean mother never heard of Johnny Kim. That guy is insanely OG. Navy Seal, Harvard MD, NASA astronaut.
How many languages do you speak? Wow. That bit was such a flex! So impressive!
I’m sometimes do get the kind of envy where I see something cool someone made, and I’m just like “Yoo, that looks so cool! I wish I could make something like that!” So…I’m not exactly jealous, i just wanna improve my skills, so I can do better and make something awesome.
My Parents didnt even do the comparison game that much, but their parents still did it to them, like a whole lot, so despite my parents best efforts I still inherited that kind of mindest anyways.
My Parents always compared me to my Successful Cousin who is always good at everything he did no matter what. One day he got into a Horrific Car Accident and died. At his Funeral, I was the one laughing the loudest at his coffin. Everyone looked at me like a Freak. It was one of the Happiest Day of my Life. 🙂
This story is genuinely horrible. Get some help…
My dad is the middle child of 11 siblings and all of them love comparing their kids. I grew up with constant comparison to 40+ first cousins. was always among the top 5 in education and salary prospects, plus I knew my worth from a young age so never really bothered competing to out do my cousin's like my dad wanted.
Even when I'd get the 2ns highest in our yeae (out of 160) my dad would never give a praise to my face, but id always hear from my cousins how he'd brag about me to their dad putting them down.
Im in my mid twenties and just found out recently my dads still competing with his siblings to get me a better looking marriage partner than my cousins, all without ever asking me what i want.
Im not even on the worse end of the comparisons and it's pissing me off, can only imagine how bad the average and below siblings must've had it
Absolutely fascinating seeing the stark differences in culture from "east" to "west." Also, INVU by Taeyeon is actually a great song, appropriate usage there lol
THANK YOU I WAS LOOKING FOR THIS DESPERATELY i was deep down quora trying to understand my OWN SOUTH ASIAN culture. I was wondering if I'm crazy or if anyone else has noticed this.
Your videos are so well at informing the audience on the subject matter, after a some point it touches too deep and makes me mad xd (very good work btw i love your channel)
i feel called out as an east asian who secretly envies everyone around me to some subtle/harsh degree
It took me 20 years to figure out my cptsd and how to be my own person, it was worth it to stay alive and trying a new path. ❤
INVU as a song choice is genius 😁