Original subtitles

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.