All language subtitles for Being.British.East.Asian.Sex.Beauty.and.Bodies.S01E03.HDTV.x264-DARKFLiX_track3_eng

Being British East Asian is tough.

You can be body-shamed
by your own community.

Instead of saying,
"Hi, how are you?"

they go, "Hi, you've got fat."

You can feel bad for looking
different...

Quite a lot of faff...

SHE LAUGHS
..for a few lines.

...and you can be fetishized for your
race.

They love this oriental aesthetic.
They love it!

Sometimes it feels like
you're never quite Asian enough

and never quite British enough.

This is something that will
not change overnight.

I'm Elaine Chong.
I'm British-born Chinese...

I've got this, I've got this.
Go, go, go.

...and I'm going to show
what it's really like

to be East Asian and British.

Not that long ago, I was obese,

and I got a lot of grief
from my family about it.

Aunties have always told me
to lose weight

and made comment on how big I was.

But I'm not the only one
who's been fat-shamed.

No matter your size, Asian women feel
a lot of pressure to be tiny.

Ming's Singaporean,
and was a rising pop star in Taiwan.

Like, for me,
my goal was to be a singer

and I would do
whatever it took to be that.

At that time,
I really abused my body.

The sad thing was that as I lost
weight, the more popular I became.

If you look online and you
look at some K-pop diets, like...

I brought you something. OK.

So they could literally just be
having, like...

THEY LAUGH

And then some nuts.

And this is what K-pop people would
eat, which is really crazy

and really sad. There you go.

Bon appetit. Oh, my God.

It's cabbage, nuts and misery.

So is this breakfast or lunch or...?

For some K-pop stars, this is
a meal for the whole day.

Oh, no!

That's so bleak. Yeah. It's crazy.

So shall we start lunch?
Yeah, why not? Cheers! Mmm!

This is awful.

MING LAUGHS

At one point,
I wanted to kill myself.

I just didn't want to be alive,
which is really awful to think

that I was driven to that point
purely by my weight alone.

And to be honest, it even took me
a while

to even realise I had an eating
disorder.

I've just realised
for the first time in my life,

I've never actually heard someone
talk about these issues in Asia

and call it what it is,
an eating disorder.

I always associate it
with people in the West,

and that's something
that they go through.

But of course that's what it is.

It's just that over there,
you think about it as discipline.

It's always seen as a good thing.
Something to be proud of. Yeah.

It's good to be that self-controlled
Asian woman

who is very tiny and petite.

Once I did accept myself,
it took about three years

and I slowly went back to what
I now believe is my natural weight,

and I'm really happy-

So the expectation is to be skinny.

But in Asia, food is love and our
families are always feeding us.

How am I supposed to be slim and eat
all of this at the same time?

Here's the thing.

In Chinese culture,
if you're a lady,

yourjob is to find a hubby,

and you can't find a hubby
if you're chubby.

LAUGHTER

I've been chubby all of my life

and this was a big concern
to my mom, so much so

that she actually sat me down
when I was a kid and she told me,

"Evelyn, if you don't lose weight,
men won't find you attractive."

And I was like, "Oh, wow, OK."

And I took that in and I thought
about it and I was like,

"Then I guess men aren't for me?"

LAUGHTER

Do Asians have an unhealthy
relationship with food?

I don't know, but I think there's
something about Asians and food

which is, when you come
from a culture

that isn't very verbally expressive,

like, we don't say "l love you"
to each other, we don't hug,

so there's none of that physical
affection either,

then to me, I think food sort of
slips into that

as that method of communication.
Yes, definitely.

So my mum's not going to hug me,

fine, but she is going to make sure
if I'm back,

she's got my favourite dish
ready for me. Exactly.

Every time I go back, my mom always
asks me,

"What do you want to eat?
I'll make it."

And then the other side of it
is that I got fat from eating

and overeating and being fed
and stuff,

and then it's like, "No, no, no."

"You have to lose weight otherwise
you won't be attractive

"and then you won't find a husband
and then your life is doomed."

Do you know what a mukbang is? Yes.

Mukbang is the online eating craze
from South Korea.

Mukbangers livestream themselves
eating,

and millions of their fans
watch them gorge on huge meals.

Some people say that it's about...
you watch it

because then you can satiate your
cravings without having to eat. Oh.

Who gets pleasure from watching
somebody eat? It's a bit pervy.

I'm worried about who watches
these videos

and what they do when they watch it.

Oh! I guess, but I suppose
I've always imagined myself

as the person doing the eating,
so I'm like, "Yes!" Oh, I see.

So... I thought we could do one?

Do you want to do one? Yes.

I just press there. Cheers.

SHE BURPS

Wow. This is not that easy.

Are we done?

When was the last time you ate
like this? Yesterday.

ELAINE LAUGHS

The mixed messages about eating
stresses me out,

so I turn to fitness.

Right now I'm smaller, which means
the Asian aunties are nicer to me.

The pressure to be skinny
and stay skinny

is a source of pride
for some Asian people.

YouTube is full of viral challenges
showing off how small they are.

Yeah, no. Oh, no! No way.

Like, this is ridiculous.
Yeah, no.

No way. I'm more like A3.

You know what I am? I'm like...
this way.

Oh, yeah, exactly.

When you said A4 paper challenge,
this is actually what I imagined.

The average woman in China
is 5ft 1 and 57kg.

Right now, I'm 5ft 9 and 67kg.

I'm tall for a Brit but in Asia,
I'm basically Godzilla.

So, like, I, at my smallest,
was a size 2. Oh, my goodness.

You see? That's, like, half of me.
Yeah.

It's hard to imagine an adult woman,
maybe, getting into...

Yeah, it's funny how Asian sizes
work because, I mean,

in the UK, I'm maybe a small
or extra small.

But in Singapore,
if I go to a sport shop,

I'm only a large or an extra large.

And if a small is an extra large,

then what does someone who wears
an extra large wear?

There's no size for them.
They don't, do they? Exactly.

And it's sad because it makes you
feel

there's something wrong with you
because clothes don't fit you.

Exactly. You can't exist
in the world as other people can.

Oh! 100%. I feel it.

In Asia, there's a stereotype

that the Asian kids who grew
up in the West are bigger,

even if they're not at all.

It's completely normal for everyone
to make unsolicited comments

on your weight and to tell you
to lose some, no matter what.

Hey, guys,
and welcome back to my channel.

Today, we're talking about
how to forgive yourself.

Usually when I arrive back
in Hong Kong, instead of saying,

"Hi, how are you?"
they go, "Hi, you've got fat."

And they'll say it in Cantonese.

It's literally a three-word phrase
the same as "How are you?"

So they'll literally be like,
"Hi! Lai ho fai!"

That's the thing that I hear most
and I don't even speak Cantonese,

yet I know what that phrase means.

I'm tired of feeling this constant
pressure from my community,

so I'm seeing Michelle to get
some help with my body issues.

When you're body-shamed,
for example,

what meaning are you associating
with that?

So what I would usually get is,

"Oh, you're bigger
since I last saw you!"

And they're saying it with a smile
and they're saying it as they say hi

and it makes me... I want to
shrivel up

or not take up so much space.

Like, I feel not appropriate.

Even washing my hands in the sink,

I'm not going to...look up in the
mirror, you know? I feel like...

...genuine disgust and dread.

You are being hurt by the comments
and rightfully so,

and I don't think in Asian culture,

it's ever really recognised enough
that it hurts.

A lot of this emotion is shame,
and it's not yours.

It's their problems with their body,

projected onto you.

They have internalised
the culture around them

of being told
that they were never thin enough,

so they've just carried on
the cycle.

Like a baton that was just passed
on. Yeah.

So how about we move over
to the mirror

and let's get some of these
beliefs out of your brain.

Just the first thing
that comes to mind

when you look at your reflection.

I feel a bit nervous about doing
this.

It's not, um...
fun to look in the mirror.

Oh, it makes me feel
so uncomfortable.

I feel...wrong, somehow.

I feel, um...

I feel not...

...not enough, somehow.

But then at the same time I feel...
also too much.

I want you to go back
to a younger version of yourself,

a moment in your life
when you were body-shamed.

I think I was about seven.

I really liked horses
when I was little,

but I was really anxious
about getting on the horse

because I thought I would be too
heavy.

That was such a paralysing fear.

I was like, "The horse might buckle
under me or something."

So go back to her. OK.

And say, "l'm sorry." I'm sorry.

That I never gave you the chance.
That I never gave you the chance.

And the best part of this...
And the best part of this...

...is that I'm going to take you
horse riding.

...is that I'm going to take you
horse riding.

And we're going to have
a lot of fun.

We're going to have a lot of fun.

Because you deserve it.
Because you deserve it.

Hello, hi!
Are you ready to ride today?

I am, but I am a bit nervous.

Push yourself up
and swing your right leg over.

I feel like a kid.
I feel like Louis is really sturdy.

He seems quite happy, I think.

Yay! Whoo!

How are you feeling, good?

I'm feeling good. ls Louis OK?

ELAINE LAUGHS

Yeah! Sit up nice and tall.

I think Michelle was right.

The only way I can work through this
is to get back on the horse,

so to speak.

The worry that I felt when I was a
child about maybe hurting the horse,

like, it was completely unfounded.

Well done!
Thank you for putting up with me.

It's become even more clear to me

that my weight is not linked
to my happiness.

It's not about me physically
at all, at any size.

And because of that realisation,
I feel a lot lighter.

Physically and mentally.

And that's a relief.