Why I Don't Miss London | Asian American in the UK

I knew a Japanese girl who said "England is so depressing in the winter I had to go to the pub and drink beer all the time", that pretty much sums up English culture in a nut shell.

London is a great place if you have money, hell anywhere is a great place to live if you have money.

This is the most insightful and well articulated account of what was happening within my mind for the past 4 yrs in uk. I am a 23 year female Korean and lived in Korea for my whole life until I moved to uk. I will be moving to Barcelona for phd in a few months, I just couldn’t imagine myself settling down here for the exact same reason !

Thanks for addressing the subject matter of ethnicity and identity. I was wondering about it from a previous video where you talked about the feeling of 'otherness'. I am korean by birth and was adopted to Denmark when I was a baby. I am taking my masters in Copenhagen along side danish students and exchange students and I am struggling with my identify as being danish, because a lot of people assume that I am an exchange student (which there is nothing wrong with) but they assume that I don't speak danish which can be so frustrating and people stick together in groups divided by nationality. But it was really nice hear your perspective on the matter:)

I'm studying abroad in the UK right now and can definitely relate to your experience with identity. Thank you so much for sharing! A lot of the freshers who I met were fascinated by the concept of being both Chinese and American. It makes me miss California where being Chinese-American wasn't so "rare."

I see some Londoners here that are clearly commenting because they are offended with this woman's personal experience. I've been to London. A huge chunk of my maternal aunts and cousins live there. Great city to visit, great monuments, great South Asian spots to eat (because English food is shit honestly), and great subcultures within the city. But London is very much like milk. If you stay too long (10 days is usually my threshold) it starts to spoil and one starts to resent it. It is dark, cold and wet for half of the year. Nobody wants that. This woman was speaking from experience and I think she was being very respectful. Nothing that she said is grounds to be offended.

I ran away from my work in London, literally quit my job ...moved back to Scotland, which is still in UK. Not personal, but so many rude people, expensive, dangerous and hectic.

You explained the whole culture sticking together thing perfectly. Thats pretty much exactly what it is, its that level of relatability that makes you feel more comfortable/safe around people of the same ethnicity and background

Finally!!! An Asian American understands British East Asians and the meaning Asian in the UK. With all due respect, I will sub you :)

Thanks for posting this. I am moving to London in a couple months for work and as an Asian American also from Southern California, i have personally been pretty terrified considering exactly what you mentioned in this video. Seeing and hearing about reflections makes me actually more calm because it helps me see that the things I suspected might be difficult are the same things that you found difficult, so at least I can prepare myself adequately and haven’t missed the mark entirely. So thank you!

I am sorry to hear about your experience. I hope you find happiness in the States. To each their own, I love London and the UK! Great place and people.

Thanks for sharing! I really appreciate your discussion of ethnicity and identity. Very thoughtful and through-provoking.

This is so interesting. I was talking to my friend about this the other day, because you're right, Asian usually refers to Indian, bangladeshi etc, but at universities there are a lot of east Asians (mostly chinese), who speak English as their second language. We were saying how we don't usually assume that they would be British (speak with an English accent) as we would with South Asians, because there are so few  (I had one Chinese British boy in my class throughout my entire schooling). We were saying that it must be a bit annoying, but I had the same experience when i went to the US, a lot of people weren't expecting me to be British,  so i sometimes felt I had to justify that. It just goes to show these issues are the same in lots of countries!

People do get down in the darker winter months. There is a condition called 'seasonal affective disorder' which relates to this. Part of the difficulty is lack of vitamin d from the summer sun. Maybe prepare for this a bit if you are prone to being a bit down

It's ok to want to be around your own people. It's time to be real about race. The races are different. It's ok to be Asian.

I totally understand how you are feeling. I am a Chinese Singaporean and I was living in London for 12 years. I went through the 2005 bombings and I totally agree with you about the seasons and the identity issue. Surprisingly, people still think Singapore is in China. Anyway, I came back to Singapore 9 years ago. Although I want to go back, I hesitated because of the attacks and work. Glad to be home. 🤗

I really enjoyed this video even though I’m not Korean American. I’m from Northern Ireland (also in the UK) and we have a massive asian population but my boyfriend is Korean and he knows maybe 3 Korean people. It seems that the only Asian nationality that isn’t here in abundance is Korean. And because of that there’s no korean food or restaurants here. Despite the fact he wants to stay in the UK, I often wonder if he gets a little homesick as the only people he interacts with are white Europeans/other Asian nationalities. There is an unspoken understanding as you said, between people from the same place. Plus it’s so interesting how weather affects people’s moods differently. NI is pretty much winter all year round but I’m the opposite as when I’m put in a hotter climate I get quite irritable. Despite that, I’d love to experience America as a student but I think I’d always have the worry about US terrorism too. Whereas here, it’s a worry but not to the same extent. So I guess it just goes to show we all have similar anxieties when faced with travelling somewhere new.

Hey what you said at 6:40 was so true! I studied in Newcastle England for a year, and being African-American, I always felt out of place. Yeah, there were some black students who i connected with, but no one really knew how crazy it was being an American and not sharing similar experiences both systematically and personally!

Hi Kchoi! I’m going to be a masters student at UCL this year and I stumbled onto your youtube today. Your videos are really entertaining and insightful; thank you so much for making them!

I am studying away from home, and where I grew up (Vancouver, Canada), there are so many Asians that i hardly thought about how i am 'different' from everyone else. however now that i've moved away to a different city for university, i get a lot of questions where people assume i'm an international student, or my english isn't good, or something similar to that. it's kind of frustrating sometimes but at the same time, i guess it makes me feel prouder about my ethnicity and makes me appreciate it much more!