People Don't Hate China Anymore

It's almost as if people in America want what China has. Listen, I think the days of people blindly hating on China are over. And here's three reasons why. All right, everybody. Just a little bit of context for making this video. I have just gotten back from a trip to China, which I enjoyed very much. And we still have a lot more videos and content of that trip coming out. Although, now I am back in Manhattan. And uh yeah, I don't know behind me if you can tell, but I'm on East Broadway, but it could also be Guang Joe still. But anyways, um I've just seen a major shift in the perception of China as a country in the past 5 years. Now, I think there's been a gradual shift in my lifetime. You know, growing up, uh China was just known for cheap goods and orange chicken. That was like, you know, at that time. And and it's changed a little bit. Obviously, the pandemic hurt China's image for sure. uh a as I guess you could say which is fair because you know it was a big uh big event that you know happened across the world and affected a lot of people but in the past four years since then with the help of Tik Tok memes technology and just the fact of people realizing how much they need China I've seen a major shift especially amongst the young generation so those are my three reasons guys I'm going to dive into them but one is the memes the memes have helped a lot and if you think about the amount of user generated content about Chinese people. And I'm talking about the ones made in China, which everybody in China has a phone, and a lot of those phones are even better than the iPhone in certain ways. But the amount of user generated content is insane cuz China is four times the size of America and population. So you can imagine that I don't know. I would bet that the con amount of content made in China every day probably rivals the US to be honest, but just now a lot of it is starting to show up on your algorithm. All right, guys. Here we got a fish mark. East Broadway, baby. Fresh lobsters. Get your lobsters. Get your penguis. Yeah, guys. Hey, man. Sometimes when immigrants leave one country, they just come to the other country and just kind of operate the exact same way. It's really not that different. Oh, razor clams. I think the viral memes coming out of China have done a lot because if you think about movies, how many Americans, non-Chinese Americans or non, you know, movie geek Americans really watched any Chinese movies recently? Like Natu is the biggest animated film. It was in theaters in America, so some Americans obviously watched it. But ultimately, it's the memes. It's the stuff that pops up quickly. And I'll say this, I think a lot of people in America were exposed to some Chinese meme, but they didn't really register and didn't really fully think about it until the whole Tik Tok to Red Note migration happened. Then people's algorithm started changing. And then they started seeing all these memes and just videos out of China, whether it was the technology, the futuristic cities, the funny baby videos, the cooking videos, some of the weird food videos, some of the weird mukbang videos, of course, like the lady with the octopus tentacle that's like almost ripped out her eye. That was kind of crazy, you know? I wish they would maybe stop doing that. But, um, yeah. So over the past four years, people, especially curious people on the internet, have h have seen so much Chinese material that has humanized Chinese people. Of course, the government, and I feel like as a Chinese American, as a proud American, I don't know why I feel like I have to say this, but like I don't agree with everything the CPC does. I obviously don't even agree with everything America does either, but it's no wonder that you're starting to see this content. It was always being made, but it was kind of left on the do yin side, the Xiaoong shoe side, the other Chinese apps. But now due to the migration and like people copying videos, reposting them, or just just people being more open to seeing Chinese things. I mean, I I think it's done so much. I mean, I'm even starting to see Chinese brain rot content. I thought brain rot was just something that Westerners did, honestly, like like, you know, cuz the Danish are kind of funny like that. I don't know. Like, that's what I thought. But now I'm starting to see Chinese brain rot. So I guess it's just I I guess it's China's just like anywhere else. Here I'm in uh I'm on East Broadway. I believe this lady is Fujian that owns this store. And I'm just looking at some of the products and they're all straight from China. So they're different. Like I might get this frozen pancake here. This is a dai. Um, it's got like a it's it's like a chongyo banging, like one of those scallion pancakes, but it's packed with a whole bunch of other stuff. But here they have like frozen dried razor clams, right? And then like here, this is what I was actually thinking of getting with some of these dried shrimps. These are huge. Like, look how big these dried shrimps are. Oh, man. That's a lot of flavor, bro. All right. going to buy it. Point number two is that people are finally realizing that America just needs China. America just needs China. And I think that you can say that phrase and Americans understand what you're saying because literally so much stuff is made in China. Everything is made in China. Well, not technically not everything because actually only 15% of American imports are from China. Uh recently in 2023, Mexico did overtake China as America's main uh importer or exporter. But actually a lot of people suspect that a lot of those imports from Mexico are even from Chinese-owned companies anyways. And even if the the thing itself, this is crazy. was like I don't really know what's going on right now. But uh even if the product itself is not originating in China, a lot of products rely on Chinese materials. And actually something else that you know when you put it this way, it even is more striking that actually almost all your household items are made in China. your clothes, your gadgets, your toys, any little gadgets you buy on Amazon, Teimu, uh, Wish, really all those products. Uh, Sheen, Fashion Nova, all made in China. So, China still makes like everything. Yeah, I just talking to the camera. And, uh, All right, I'm about to cross the street. Oh, shoot. What? Oh, man. Oh, they busting. Uh oh, they busting the market. They busting the market right here. Uh yeah. So that's I think it's interesting that when the NYPD does that. Obviously I I noticed online a lot of people have like um different feelings about that cuz they're like, man, they're just people trying to hustle. People are just trying to make a living. And it's like, why isn't the NYPD just stopping all the crime on the subway? Why are they putting any sort of uh uh attention towards these like uh these people selling stuff on the street, you know? And yeah, anyways, that happens in New York all the time. So, dang, it's crazy. We saw that. Um but yeah, going in back into it, basically all that stuff was definitely made in China, by the way. Uh America needs China for just so many reasons. And uh whether it's a Chinese-owned company in another country or it's Chinese materials, whether it's assembled in China doesn't even matter. It's probably relying on Chinese materials. Even at this point, a lot of the luxury brands like LV, Gucci, like it might be made in Italy, as in assembled in Italy, but a lot of the materials are still coming from China. I mean, for a long time, people already thought everything was made in China, but they really assumed that everything cheap was made in China, right? Oh, made in China. made in China is cheap. It's cheap. It's low quality. China just makes everything. It's They make the lowquality stuff and the high quality stuff. Now, I think for a while the lowquality stuff made up a larger portion and that was just the stuff that you know would always break. But nowadays, you can't really say that accurately to be honest. And even China itself has tried to do uh its own like kind of marketing campaign of like reowning made in China and kind of changing what that means. But the truth is they do make a lot of the cheap stuff that still breaks but also a lot of the highquality tech and clothing and all that other cool stuff. All right. And the third thing that really has helped China soft power and basically helped people uh not hate China anymore is not really the movies and the music as much, but it's the technology. Like once people know that your country can produce and design high techch gadgets, they basically see it as a metric for an advanced society. And once the west sees China as an advanced society, gives it that label, like they gave it to Japan a long time ago, then now people are like, "Oh, they're kind of on our level now." Obviously, there are a lot of poor people still in China, a lot of villagers, and a lot of rural lands, of course, a lot of farming, agriculture, and things like that. But basically, also, China has this other side that is like super high-tech. And I'm not just talking about the lit up cities, you know, or the the drone shows. I'm literally talking about everything. I'm talking about the Xiaomi Sous7, the fastest EV 0 to 60, and it looks dope and I saw it in person. I show speed drove it. I mean, these EVs are out of control. Now, obviously, some people's criticism, oh, how long are the EVs going to last? How long do the batteries last? Is it is it going to break down because it's a cheap Chinese good? How safe is it? Hey, I don't know. But these cars are dope. And listen, as Asian people, we tend to put or I guess just any people, they tend to put Japan on a pedestal as far as cleanliness and manners and everything. You know, Japan has this whole tradition called omotanashi, which is kind of like the polite service philosophy, right? And it's really rooted in Confucianism, Zen Buddhism, and Shintoism, right? So yeah, obviously the overall China society, it doesn't have all of those philosophies built in. So of course people in China do treat each other a little bit differently on average, but I would say overall people's behaviors are getting better. Like I remember 10 years ago, man, I was watching all these videos of Chinese people uh getting hit by cars and then nobody helping them up, you know? And that was like 10 years ago. That's what we saw. And that was kind of like, oh my gosh, Chinese people are scared to help each other because they don't want to take responsibility or it might be a scam or something like that. And there was all these incentives to make other citizens not want to help other citizens in need. And that was actually saddening back then. I remember watching those videos being like, damn, is that really what our people are like? Is that really what China's like? Is that really where all these attitudes come from? And then I'm like drawing all these different conclusions and drawing on these lines. And I think that was just one aspect of it. But I don't see that as much anymore. I think people are, you know, like they're getting they're getting better. I don't know. I mean, I don't want to say that. I I I hate having that perspective where I'm like looking at it from a Western lens and being like, "Oh, Chinese people are better now because they act more Japanese." But I do think that their manners got overall better. And um obviously the Chinese tourist stereotype was pretty bad for a while. There still are some bad Chinese tourists. But it was really bad 10 years ago. Like all the news and the kid riding on the the pyramids or whatever and like sacred stones and and just defacing stuff. Uh it was bad. It was bad. But people, you know, people learn. And I think this is a weird this is this is going to be a little bit weird thing to say. I don't know if how people are going to feel about this next statement, but I'm going to keep it real with you guys that like uh Chinese people I don't know. I think like the Chinese population is like a really good ideal population to like rule over. Like it's a huge population of people, but they kind of listen like just kind of like if the government wants to do something, it might be out of fear. You could say that. But I also think it's out of like I do think a lot in Chinese culture, Chinese people kind of know and they kind of get it. Like if it makes sense, they're like, "Yeah, that's that's okay for society." Like, "Yeah, that will make uh the country better." Like, "Yeah, maybe we should do that." Oh [ __ ] I almost got hit. Um but yeah, like they're thinking about that. So I I I feel like we got to give Chinese people credit. I mean, I would just say overall that, you know, things have changed and I'm just really happy to see the growth. And this is not some like pro-China, pro CPC video or anything like that. Like, I'm just glad to not to just see the progression in my lifetime. And I think that it's very hard for people to blindly hate on China the way they used to cuz China makes too much dope [ __ ] That's all you can say. The food. Oh, you like Soar hot pot, you a little adventurous eater, you want the mala, you want the the numbing tingle on your tongue. Okay. Oh, get smala sauce, by the way. Link down below. Um, but yeah, if you like Sichuan food, you like soup dumplings. You just like really great landscapes, China got it. I mean, you want uh futuristic cityscapes, you got it. You want safe cities, China got it. Um, you want just like it to be really cheap, China got it. Like what? Like what? Like you want those photo shoots that everybody's doing, the woo pian photo shoots. You China got it. China got it. It's kind of crazy. It's almost as if people in America want what China has. Like look at how the tables flipped. I'm not saying that there's not a bunch of Chinese people who still want to move to America. I think America is still one of the the greatest country for a reason to move to, especially if you're enterprising, uh you want to make money, things like that. uh if you want freedom, but it's kind of crazy that China has so much stuff that Americans want. And it's really hard for you to hate someone when you kind of want what they have to. Somebody had always said this, but I always repeated it. And the saying was whenever something bad happened in China or something weird happened in China, it was like, hey, anything that can happen has happened in China because it's so big that it's got to have happened at least once. And I think those that saying was usually used on a lot of um more towards like incidences that were considered bad or things that you didn't really understand. But I think you can use that saying for everything cool now too. Like everything cool or interesting has happened in China at least once. All right everybody, let me know what you think about uh my points. Uh, I could probably do a part two of this, but those are just kind of my thoughts coming back from China. Um, and just seeing all this wave of soft power media and it's just I don't know if it's ever going away. I guess maybe if there's another pandemic. Yeah, that would kind of hurt China. But I don't know. The young generation likes all the Chinese stuff. They like the gadgets. They like it. You let me know what what you think in the comments down below. Walking through Chinatown, New York. Yo, real quick, let me pop in with my friends at Changai Fish Balls. Hey, hey, hey. Business is good. We got the frame. Hey, got the free dongling cha aka iced tea here. Got a couple for a couple individuals in there. I just said they were my friends. Sorry they weren't, but I just I just got them free drinks. Where they at? Did you guys try the drinks yet? Try it. Let me know what you think. What you think, bro? That's good. Yeah. Refreshing on a hot day. All right.