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Traditions We Thought Were Asian Culture But Were Absolutely Made-Up

#japaneseculture#kleenexbox#filipinochurch#napkins#speakmandarin
the transcript auto-captions · entered into evidence

0:05 You know how like when you're a kid, you kind of don't really know what your culture is and you kind of figure it out as you go along and you grow up and you watch and observe your family do certain things. Is there anything that like you thought was just a part of your culture, but it really was just your parents doing it? Cuz like for me, one thing I really believed was that I thought that it was in our culture after Filipino church to go to the parking lot and exchange fruits. >> What the hell? >> Because we So like Filipinos, a lot of them grow fruits in their backyard. And then they give it to other families. Like my family would always give infinite persimmons to other families. And so like when you're in a Filipino church and everybody's doing that everyone brings their fruits in the trunk. >> It's just farmers market.

0:55 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a farmers market, yeah. So yeah, so after church, we go to the parking lot and everyone's got their trunks open with fruit. And you just get whatever you want and trade like, "Oh, do you have like chayote? Do you have like persimmon?" And then we come home with like a basket of assorted fruit. >> That's kind of cool. >> I thought that was Filipino. >> But it's not. >> No, it's just them. >> It's the SDA church. >> Well, it's just like a it's just a first-gen immigrant Filipino thing who are growing fruits in their backyard that go to church. It's so specific. I never saw it again other than at literally at Central Filipino Church in Glendale. >> I feel like I also missed out on a lot of Japanese culture things because of the church stuff. >> Yeah, yeah. >> So like there's something that we made specifically that's SDA Japanese church stuff. But like uh some of the stuff

1:45 that I started doing later was like, you know Obon? >> Yeah, Obon festival? >> Yeah, but it was at a Buddhist temple. So like I don't know. >> Oh, because it's conflicting with your religion? >> started getting um hired at different like religions or like churches, Buddhist temples to sing. So, I started going and visiting them and I was like Yeah, I was like that's dope. Casio piano? >> Casio piano, [laughter] yeah. Damn, so that's not He can take money from other churches for jobs? That wasn't like weird? >> That's a gray area for sure, dude. >> I think he He's just a musician first, so he didn't care. But like >> Not a child of God. [laughter] >> It was confusing to me because at church, you know how they make it seem like everybody else has got the wrong one, so they're all devils. Right? And then so I was conflicted like

2:37 but we're at my best friend's like Buddhist temple, my dad's singing, we're like hanging out with these people, but like at the same time I'm not allowed to learn like any of the ████ that they do. It was conflict Yeah, it was so weird. But like I think I missed out on a lot of the the Buddhist stuff because of that. >> That's true, yeah. Cuz SDA, especially when it comes to like Seventh-day Adventist itself is already kind of like obviously it's weird, but then when you subset it to different ethnicities, it's even weirder. It's like way more uh they're just kind of freestyling all of those things. >> I don't know the inverse. Something that I thought I was like my family was doing all I was like, why you guys doing that? And then I found everybody does it. ████ going to fast food spots, my mom and my dad would take so many napkins and put them in the ████ glove box. >> That's an Asian thing.

3:27 >> So many and I always be like, damn fool, you don't need that many napkins. You don't Like this thick, you know what I'm talking about? >> That many? >> Oh, it was just >> You don't [laughter] do You guys don't do that? >> That's a Chinese thing. >> No, we do like this much. And then add it up. >> This >> Well, you you don't do it every time. >> was doing that at Chipotle? >> No, no, no, no. I'm just saying nowadays Chipotle's like the best spot. But I'm just saying >> Oh, do you do that yourself still? >> Yeah, maybe it's a force of habit. I was taught it. I go to a spot if I'm running out of napkins in my glove compartment in the in the car cuz you always need a ████ ton of napkins. Yes, I even have a Kleenex box, but for some reason I was taught it. I go to a fast food spot if I'm running low on napkins, I grab a giant stack, throw that ████ in my pocket and it's like huge, right? And then I go back once I'm in my car. >> Dude, if his Kleenex box is packed with brown recyclable like tissues. >> He reloads the Kleenex box? That's

4:19 funny. >> What is that is when you go to like a fancy restaurant and you go to the bathroom and you see the paper towels that are like four different sheets and they're folded and they're hella thick, you just take the whole thing. You take all of it. >> My man. >> Who did you learn that from? >> I learned that from Nick Dunn's school of uh paper towel recycling. >> You are the pioneer. Your mom and dad weren't telling you to do that. >> Uh we would do that with other napkins, but this is just my iteration of it. This is how I made it better. >> He's a higher class. >> Yeah, this is just what I do. >> And jackpot Jackpot is when you can find those honey packets. >> If they're leaving out honey packets. >> I mean that's that's free for take. >> You're taking a good amount of those. >> Okay. >> You're filling up your old honey bottles with that, brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> brand? >> Yeah, all of it. >> In my 20s every time I would travel and go to different hotels, I would always take a hand towel and just throw it in

5:09 my bag and take it so I always just like cuz you know you need rags to just >> I feel like white people do that, too. >> Sometimes I take little saucers. I'm like, "I love that saucer." >> That's not really relegated to ethnicity. That's just ghetto. >> Yeah, that was just >> talking about stealing, right? >> This is just stealing. >> Yeah. And uh a little look into my life. >> I thought that everybody was more like okay with being naked. >> Okay. [laughter] >> And then you learned the hard way. >> I didn't realize that was a that was a culture thing like a Japanese like like meaning like So like um >> Like at the onsen? >> Yeah, like if we go so like you know like those I didn't go to onsens growing up, but it was normal to um like those ████ like those camp meetings. So we would have like meetings where the church would go on camps, right? And then like sometimes they ran out like a dorm, and then

5:59 um some I forgot why, but there was this one in this university in Monterey Bay, and the way that their showers were, it was like a tower like this, and everyone's facing each other in a circle, and the shower heads are are come like coming out like >> So you see each other while you shower. >> And I thought it was so cool because like you could shower and talk to each other. So I could go with my friends and we're like showering. And then like culturally I think we're not as ashamed like to be naked. So growing up like >> guys have it all over TV and ████ all the time too in Japan. It's different. >> Like we have bathhouses cuz people didn't bathe at home. So it was normal >> So you have a different level of maturity about it, huh? >> Yeah, or like if we had a big jacuzzi, like it was common to be like let's just be naked in it or whatever. And then so I think that was a big shocker when I realized how much

6:50 like that was just a more Japanese thing, yeah. >> Yeah, it's a lot of Asia in general >> are more okay with nudity. >> Yeah. >> Sexual harassment here if you do the same thing. >> Yeah. >> Or or bathing with people. That was like a like cool like okay like you could bathe with people. Like that was fun. >> You don't like that? >> I don't like that. >> Hey, we go to the spa together. So imagine that. Okay. All right, you know how we went to the spa yesterday? >> We're flirting with each other. We're not naked. >> But in Okay, so imagine that, but we're just all naked. >> I'd rather kiss you with my clothes on. That's That's what he's saying. >> I'm just like kiss you with my clothes >> Cuz that's Chinese. >> Yeah, yeah. That's Chinese style, dude. At least they're done way. That way it was not gay. That's what my dad would always say. >> Did you have anything that your dad would do that you thought everybody did? Cuz I feel like your dad's pretty

7:40 eccentric. >> Smoke cigarettes in the house. >> Inside the house. >> No, no, no, no. Only if your mom wasn't there, you know. >> That's crazy. >> [laughter] >> No, no, no, I'm just kidding. She No, he would uh >> Your mom wasn't a smoker though, right? >> No, she wasn't. She ████ hated it. Man, my dad was kind of an anomaly, dude. Like, he would do like to me growing up, the the most Asian things we did were just going to eat Asian food >> [laughter] >> and go to my grandma's house. Like, that was pretty much it. Everything else just seemed very like yeah, just I don't know. We didn't I don't As a kid, I was always like, "How come we don't do this?" >> Oh, so you were never like you never even thought you were doing anything cultural. It was just family unit. >> It was just a fam- like we would just do things together, but like we didn't >> So, not one thing your your parents were like, "Hey, we're doing this because

8:30 we're >> Well, even even I would always ask I would say, "Yeah, how come we're not more ████, dude? How come we're not more ████?" >> Why don't we do no ████ stuff? >> Raza, your last name is Dunn. >> I was like, "How come we don't speak Mandarin in the house?" And they were like, they would just be like, "Cuz you >> What were your traditions? Did you go to the ████ uh Altadena Christmas walk every year? That's it? >> No, dude, I swear I feel like we didn't do much. Like, we just did do things like our version of spending time as a family was just going to dinner and just like doing Chinese stuff with other families. We didn't go to church. >> Damn, you're lucky, dude. >> Yeah, bro. Like, so it was just kind of weird. >> miss out on Saturday morning cartoons. >> No, I would have to go to the chi doctor. That was like the most Chinese ████ I would do. You know? Like >> [laughter] >> Like, it was just weird cuz I would always be like, "How come we don't speak Mandarin? How come we don't >> What was their response? Shut up, kid. >> Yeah, they would just kind of be like, "Cuz you don't want to learn." That's

9:21 what they would say to me. I'd go, "Okay." >> Cuz you don't want to learn? >> The one asking? >> Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, "How come we don't try?" They're like, "Cuz when I try, you don't understand." I'd go, "Okay." >> Oh, so it's a processing failure. >> It's my fault. It's my fault. [laughter] It's a limit to They're like, "You can't even read, so." >> Do your sisters speak Mandarin? >> They would speak little bit more than I would. They would understand more. >> Huh. >> Because when they were younger, they would speak a little bit. >> have just, you know what? You should have been a rebel and learned Cantonese. >> But my mom speaks Cantonese. >> Maybe your sisters gave your parents a hard time >> trying to like learn and speak and stuff. >> they were just burnt out. >> That's what I'm saying. By the time it came to the third kid, they were like, "It's not going to work anyway." >> I just got the hand-me-downs. I got all the like the yeah, all right, you'll be all right. >> It's so funny. >> They were like, "Dude, we wanted a third girl." >> Yeah, they No, they wanted a boy, but they were just like, "All right, well, as long >> This boy. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, they're like, "Damn, as long as he

10:11 doesn't like kill himself, he's okay, I think." >> That really is a stark difference in like, I guess like maybe you're kind of a similar way where like I grew up so ritualistic where I was just born into things that were happening on schedule like all the time like going to church and going to, you know, Bible class and stuff like that and Filipino ████ Going to like yearly Filipino events and you didn't have to do anything like that. >> Oh, you know what I thought? Okay, well, what I thought was weird during summer, I was like, "Oh, all you guys You guys are all doing math workbooks, right? For summer every day and you guys got homework and you're by your parents?" They're like, "No." And I was like, >> Oh, there you go. That's ████ weird. You had homework by your parents? >> Yeah, my dad would give me like workbooks and then >> That's pretty Asian though. >> It sucked. >> They found out that I was just using the cop like copying it. So then when they would have to like rip out the answers and then I'd be like, "F███, yeah." Then

11:02 I would like wouldn't do it and they'd be like, "Did you do your work?" And I'm like, "Yeah." They're like, four problems today. Like, I think as a kid, I I needed structure and I didn't really have it. >> Do summer workbooks? >> You know you know what it is what I do remember though that I'm like, "Motherfucker had nothing to do with Japan." So a lot of their excuses for not learning certain things, they would blame it on, "Oh, it's because of Japanese culture." But then the older I got, I was like, "Wait a minute, you don't know how to use computers cuz of Japanese culture?" I'm like, we are very technologically advanced. >> That's like my >> Everyone in Japan like, hold on. And then like, they used to tell me all this ████ like, "Oh, yeah. Like, you know, um we're just Japanese, so we don't really like use cell phones and stuff." And then I go to Japan. I'm 14 years old. I see ████ grandmas with cell phones buying ████ on the vending machine,

11:53 being hella advanced. And I'm all like, "Ma, like, you're just making ████ up at this point." Like, "Oh, I'm a Japanese. That's why I don't do this one." >> [laughter] >> Ah, Japanese are only one discipline. That's why we seek a perfection. >> I don't use Nokia. I'm Japanese. >> I'm a Japanese I know. I'm like, >> Oh, you use Nokia. Only analog. >> [laughter] >> Start hacker. Only digital. >> So, they would make hella excuses like, "Oh, I cannot understand how to type that because of this Japanese a culture. It's a generation gap, you know?" >> Oh, only landline. >> Yeah. >> No cellular. >> They would make hella weird excuses like that to not learn tech, to not learn like how things work. >> And go, "Oh, Japanese a culture." >> They're just giving you the fastest answer to get you to shut up.

12:43 >> That's probably what it is. So, I had this whole image of what like, "Oh, Japanese people are like stubborn and >> Japanese people don't do >> technologically behind." And you go there and you're like, "WHAT THE ████ EVERYONE GRANDMA'S ON THE CELL PHONE." LIKE, everyone's doing some >> Their tech is more advanced. Yeah, that's funny. >> Oh, but I'm a Japanese. That's why I don't do technology. >> [laughter] >> Anything to shut the kid up. >> He's working.

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