All right, guys. Welcome to the late night show with the Kumaar's.
The kids are sleeping.
It is late.
That's why it's a late night show.
So today we're going to be answering a really popular question.
I've been asked this question hundreds and hundreds of times.
Logesh, how did you marry an American?
So today we're gonna try to answer that question for you.
However, a little caveat here. We're not saying you have to date and marry an American.
You can date whoever you want.
But we're just saying that these points that we're going to share with you worked perfectly for me .
These things that Logesh did honestly made me fall head over heels in love with him.
So, here we go.
So the first thing is do not treat a person differently because they are an American.
One thing that I really appreciate about Logesh is that he didn't put me up on a pedestal
or act like I was any better or worse than him for being American.
I felt like it's equal.
and honestly guys like at the end of the day, we're all part of the human race.
It doesn't matter if we're from Malaysia or from America or whatever country.
We're all humans.
Just treat one another with the same love and respect that you would your own family members.
Yeah. Initially, I was like kind of nervous.
Should I talk to her differently or what?
So the first like I guess a couple of days was kind of awkward.
But then it got so much better
and I was like, "You know what? She's just like same as someone else, right?" In that sense.
She's an amazing, awesome person
Don't get me wrong. I love her to bits.
But in that sense, I treat her the same that I would anyone else.
The second thing is to embrace the local culture.
For Logesh being a Malaysian living in America,
he really was firmly planted in his Malaysian culture.
But, he did a really great job of learning to embrace the culture around him.
He didn't just try only Malaysian food or just Asian food in general.
He would go out and explore the local cuisine.
Like biscuits and gravy and chicken and waffles which is now one of his favorites.
Oh, yeah!
Even just the way he talks here in America changes.
He uses a slang here.
He kind of has adjusted to our way of mannerisms.
Yeah.
It's not that he's trying to be an American.
It's that he's trying to be understood and fit in.
So I love that he still has his firm Malaysian-ness about him.
But he also has really learned to love and appreciate America.
Yeah and a lot of people you know, sometimes in Malaysia they give me a hard time
Because like why are you speaking that slang and the accent?
I do it here. When I go back to Malaysia, I'm back to like "Lah" and all that.
But when I do it here, I have to embrace local culture you know and that's very important
Because I can't just keep holding on to like all my culture and not embrace what's local.
Because there's so much beautifulness in American culture too
that it also opens up my mind and experience to other things.
So that helped to bridge the gap between our differences, right?
Yeah, it helped that we were both understanding of each other's cultures
and that you are willing to learn and partake in some of the really awesome parts of America.
The key thing of that is, it helped each of us understand each other even better.
Yeah, good point. Right? She starts to understand me a little bit more about my culture
and I get to like, "Oh, that's why she wears shoes in the house".
I no longer wear shoes in the house. No. No.
We follow the Asian way.
So, I was like but...
if I didn't embrace local culture, I would not have known why, right?
So, the third thing is being willing to learn and ask questions.
This kind of goes along with embracing the culture.
But, you know there's a lot of things here in America that Logesh didn't fully understand.
Honestly, I don't fully understand everything here.
But being able to ask questions and learn, makes a huge difference.
For example, I took Logesh to an American wedding
and he didn't know a lot of the customs.
Why are they tossing the bouquet?
What's a garter toss?
It was great that he was able to ask those questions and learn from that experience.
Yeah, they did some garter bouquet tossed all those things and I caught something. The garter?
Yeah, the garter
and they said I'm gonna get married next.
I was like, "What? What's happening?"
It's interesting. It's cool.
But, don't ever feel embarrassed to ask questions you know.
People usually think that, "Oh, if I'm asking a lot of questions it makes me look stupid".
It's the opposite.
It makes you look actually interested and makes you look intelligent and smart
because you want to get to know things that you don't know.
So, ask as many questions as you want because I asked, till today.
Americans have so many idiosyncrasies.
I'm constantly like, "What does that mean?"
Like I have no idea.
A lot of slang words you don't know.
Yeah, like the other day, just two days ago, I was asking Rachel's dad...
Like, "What does dovetail mean?"
Dovetail, you know and he's giving me examples of like how would you use that in a sentence.
Like, "Whoa. Okay, cool".
Ask questions.
Point number four and probably the most important point here.
Know how to cook and how to use seasoning.
You will blow any American's mind.
So this is a funny one right because I used to not know how to cook.
But I'm a Malaysian.
Food is very very important to me
When I move to America, I'm sorry to say this, not many good food here.
If you really want good food, you gotta pay a lot of money.
So, I'm like the only way to eat good food is I gotta cook.
So, I called my mom. I called a lot of people back home.
Like learned their recipes. My friend's auntie and all that.
So, I learned how to cook.
Fortunately, learned all this before asking Rachel out.
So, it came in handy. You know what I'm saying
Because Americans, they haven't tasted good food, guys.
They've not.
I'm telling you. You give them that Malaysian food.
They blow their mind.
It's true. Learn how to cook.
Number five, recognizing that Americans come from an independent culture
versus Malaysians coming from a more community-based culture.
Neither is right or wrong. Just different.
Like for example for Americans like myself, you have to plan things in advance.
Before showing up at someone's house, you make an appointment.
Usually, it's a few days. If not, weeks in advance
Things are usually scheduled out.
People were really protective of their time and space.
Yeah.
You guys from Malaysia, if you're watching or Singapore like you know...
we just show up in our friend's house.
We don't call, texts.
So, it's a different sort of like culture, right?
That's one of the biggest adjustment I had to make when I came here.
Because, I thought like here it's always like you're hanging out with friends.
You're eating together. You know, more often than not.
You're not doing that because people respect each other's time.
They have their own personal space and time and things like that.
So, you need to understand when it's okay to show up and you know be around people.
Even if you go to their house, there's a checkout time.
Like, okay you know you gotta say goodbye at a certain time
and give them their space back again.
In Malaysia, you can stay all night all day, you know.
It goes on and on, so kind of like learn to know that limits.
It's just different.
Again, no one's right no one's wrong.
It's differences, right? Learn to respect each other. Learn to embrace it.
Number six is recognizing your differences.
This one's a huge one
because no matter who you date or marry
you are two different people.
Bringing two different perspectives into relationship.
You have different upbringings.
You've lived different lives. You have different world views.
And that's okay.
That's actually really cool that you can come together
and sometimes you meet in the middle and create something new together.
Sometimes you have to agree to disagree.
There's no right or wrong when it comes to differences.
It's just different.
Yeah.
We, more often that not, we have different opinions.
But, we talk about it.
We wrestle through these questions and then we come up to like...
either a middle ground or like one or the other
Like, "No, I think you're correct" or I think like, "No, this point is correct" or whatever that could be.
But, it's fine.
People need to understand like you don't always have to be right.
You can always have differing opinions and that's okay.
Let's just respect each other
and more often than not, if it's an intercultural relationship...
you're gonna have a lot of differing opinions.
Like it's gonna happen. I'm sorry to break it down to you.
Because very very different upbringing
different backgrounds, experiences.
So, remember that that's the key thing that you're bringing into the relationship.
Number seven, sometimes you need to sugarcoat things.
Let me explain what that means.
So, Americans are not the most straightforward people sometimes
and this is speaking for myself, some Americans are very blunt.
but typically Americans will sugarcoat things.
So, for example, my personal favorite, if I don't like something, I won't say, "I don't like it".
I'll say it's not my favorite.
I don't think I've ever heard her say, "I don't like something"
I have but very rarely.
So you just kind of add like a little nice little twist on thing
so it doesn't sound as mean.
Yeah, so coming from an Asian background, we have no filter.
At least I am.
Like I don't say all. I don't stereotype all Asians are like that.
But, I have no filter.
So, if I don't like something, I'm gonna say I don't like that, okay.
But what I've learned is, being in a relationship with an American
I need to sometimes be a little bit more nicer with my words.
So, rather than like I don't like that like maybe I don't fancy that.
or maybe...
I've never heard you said fancy.
See. I'm not good at sugar coating, dude. See.
But, you have to find different ways to like say things.
Otherwise, you would sound kind of rude about.
It's still a work in progress, guys.
But, what she would say in that situation is like, "Oh, that's not my favorite".
In my mind, I'm like, "Oh, wow".
Give me this there's hope. Could gradually be your favorite.
No. Actually, that means she doesn't like.
Number eight, this is what Logesh did that really swept me off my feet
and kind of hooked me for life was...
he brought me back to his home country.
He took me to Malaysia.
Honestly, getting to see where he grew up, getting to meet his family,
seeing the really awesome culture he's a part of
made me understand him more and really fully grasp what made him tick.
Good example is he was always really obsessed with expiration dates on all of our food.
Like all the time and it just kind of drove me a little crazy.
Like it's fine if the milk's are overdue or the bread, whatever.
And then, I get to Malaysia and I realized that food spoils so easily
that everyone is checking all the expiration dates.
Like, "Oh, it's everyone here does this. Okay".
So, it just helped me understand him more.
But, it's just even seeing him in his natural environment was really neat.
I got to see like the pure 100% Logesh.
and again just made me fall so in love with him.
And the one amazing thing about that happened when I brought her back to Malaysia was that...
I got to bring her back to my hometown.
The place I grew up in.
I got to bring her back to you know to meet my friends and my family and everyone.
So, she got to not only meet everyone and see my hometown but see how Iinteracted with them.
Yeah, it's a big part. Yeah, so...
you get to learn so much more about each other, you know.
So that's why till today we make it a priority.
We try to go back to Malaysia at least once a year.
You know, it's important not just for Rachel and myself, but the kids.
So that's a huge one if you are trying to woo an American girl and you're living overseas.
Bring them back. Show them your food.
If you don't like your food then maybe it's not gonna work out.
Probably not (x2).
So guys we're not trying to give you any guarantee that this is going to help you woo an American.
However, this is what has worked for us in our relationship
and honestly continues to help us in our marriage.
Fam, I hope you found value in this video.
If there's something else that we could share with you guys that can bring more value to you
let us know down in the comment below.
We'll create a video about that.
Because this question in the title was asked so many times. So many.
So we thought we just answered it.
Let us know.
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