well hey there guys and welcome to
another video now before I even begin
this video I just want to put it on
record that this is not a video bashing
fat people and neither is it is it a
video about fat pride this is basically
just a video about the experience of
being fat and what it's taught me so
this is just one of those strange
subjects that's cropped up basically
because it's been on my mind you know
I've got this trip coming up in a month
and I want to lose some weight if you're
sensitive about your weight and you're
planning to come and live and work in
China or even if you're just coming here
for a holiday it's going to be quite
challenging for you China's had a very
politically correct place now before
people jump down my throat and call me
discriminatory for using words like fat
and obese and overweight and all that
please understand that in the West
we're very politically correct China is
not the culture here in China is to be
very direct and it can be quite a shock
to people when they first come here
certainly was for me and I can actually
speak from experience actually being the
kind of person who gets fat quite easily
or overweight chubby I also lose weight
very easily but I kind of go up and down
and I have my chubby periods and my
slim periods and you know it's always
been a part of my life in fact I know
all about being fat here's a picture of
me when I was 14 I was really really
overweight and I was a fat kid at school
which is why I'm very conscious about it
and also why I can speak on the subject
with a bit of authority here now in
general most people in China are slim if
you walk around on the streets here
you'd see about I'd say a good
eighty-five percent of people are what
we in the West would consider slim and a
lot of them are actually very skinny now
this is a genetic trick this is not
because they exercise because they don't
Chinese people don't do regular exercise
like we do in the West they don't go to
gym it's not part of the culture
some of them do play sports like
basketball etc or badminton but I was
actually quite shocked to find the lack
of physical fitness in China most people
haven't done a day of exercise in their
life unless of course they're all it's
kind of strange old people do exercise
and what they'll do is they'll get up
early in the morning and do Tai Chi and
go work on the exercise machines but
young people just don't exercise and
what to be honest most of them don't
need to because they are always in a
good shape
now you might wonder why they're so slim
well it's definitely down to a very high
metabolism
most of the Chinese people I know who
are very slim they they eat if they
don't eat a meal say for instance they
skip lunch or they skip dinner they will
actually start to feel weak to even
start to shake and a lot of them will
complain that their stomachs hurts and
they have no energy you know just
because they haven't eaten lunch which
for a Western like Westerner like myself
is really weird because I can literally
go for like three days without eating
and I'll still have energy of course I
will feel hungry but it's not the same
so their metabolisms are burning really
fast and in fact if you like for
instance I got a Chinese Beyonce and if
I touch her skin she's actually burning
hotter than you know for instance I am
most of the time let's just to to the
very possible and it's happening there
is however a bit of a change in the
Chinese youth and that is because China
has now suddenly gotten rich as most
people know there's a lot of new money
here and it's always been traditional
for yeah well at least for boys in China
if they're you know sort of a little bit
fat it shows wealth and it shows that
they come from a powerful family or at
least you know prestigious family so
what you get is you actually get a
situation where you'll have rich parents
basically just constantly feeding their
little boys and treating them like
little emperors we call them and so you
actually do tend to see a lot of
overweight young boys in China these
days obviously not in the past but now
and that's just because of the vast
amount of foods that they they're just
constantly eating this doesn't matter
what time of day if you look around
you'll always see people eating in China
but they almost force-feed these little
boys until they are you know bursting
and so yeah that's a little different
although generally when they hit their
teens and they hit a growth where they
just grow and they become skinny at
least that's in my experience having
lived here for ten years I've actually
seen you know friends children who are
ready chubby suddenly just become really
tall so yeah it's basically down to
genetics anyway I'm going on a bit too
much about why Chinese people often and
I should be talking about you as a
foreigner like me being in China and
being fat all right so the first thing
you're going to have to learn to deal
with being a fat or overweight foreigner
here in China is the fact that you're
going to be the only one you're going to
be walking around and all you're going
to see are skinny people the occasional
chubby person but unlike the West you
just don't see obese or morbidly obese
people here and you very seldom actually
see fat people so you do stick up that
will bring me to the second point the
second thing which I'm going to talk
about which is probably the biggest
thing is discrimination
now in the West we're very politically
correct to a fault actually to a point
where if somebody's morbidly obese we
don't point it out to them
say hey you looking healthy or hey big
man or you know all this nonsense I know
I've been fat before in the West and
people avoid the subject they don't tell
you that you're fat and we grow
accustomed to that because we have a
very I suppose warped kind of picture
what we look like in our minds come to
China though and everybody is going to
start calling you fat when I first got
here I thought it's very rude as quite a
shock to me because when I came to China
was what I weighed about twenty
kilograms more than I do now
the climate here as you can see that's
not only rain but I'm sweating it's
really hot and humid here all the
walking that you do here you know you
don't drive as much it really it does
actually help you lose weight but anyway
I was quite a bit heavier when I got
here and also the couple of times have
put on a little bit of weight I'll see a
friend or a customer that I haven't seen
in a couple of months and the first
thing they say to me is they'll say wow
you're better than before and I kind of
think well thank you very much and
you're uglier than before but you know
that's just Chinese culture they're very
very direct when it comes to looks if
you go get a Sun Tan the next time they
see you they'll say wow you're blacker
than before it's just the way they are
so if you're short tall fat skinny
they're going to comment either way
they'll say wow you're too short or wow
you're too tall or you're too fat or
YouTube then and it's very normal
there's no sort of social etiquette as
far as this is concerned so if you're
fat be prepared for people to tell you
that you're fat all the time
I mean all the time and this will bring
me on to another point I want to do
bring up so the next thing I want to
talk about is the honeymoon period that
most foreigners go through when they get
to China it's an interesting place full
of all these new wonders and cool things
to see and do and very friendly people
and yes Chinese people are very friendly
but when you don't understand the
language it's actually more friendly
it's as soon as you pick up on the
language you start hearing the comments
around you and they're all very
straightforward and very unflattering if
your bet you're going to hear people
saying wow look how fat he is in public
out loud and I'll give you an example I
took some subscribers of mine we've just
come to China I took them out for dinner
and both of them were really overweight
and they were having the time of their
lives they're really enjoying their meal
and you know everyone is friendly to
them and say hello waving and they
thought everything was great but at the
table next to us and people walking past
we're constantly commenting and saying
wow look how fat they are how can they
be so fat and like really kind of
derogatory comments but because they
couldn't understand they were in
Oblivion and they were happy and
everything was cool so what happens to a
lot of foreigners including myself is
when you start to understand the
language and you start to pick up on all
the comments you know a lot of that
honeymoon sort of stuff wears off and
you start to actually
change your mind about people being so
friendly and nice now it's not that
everybody it's just incredibly
judgmental
it's really just a different culture and
you know the Chinese people just have no
idea about our Western sensibilities and
you know a lot of the times we don't
have any ideas about there was I mean
they're Chinese sensibilities so I'm
just trying to prepare you all any of
you guys who are fat out there who want
to come to China for whatever reason
just be prepared to be insulted and
shocked and there's nothing that can be
done about it it's basically just a
cultural difference anyway I want to
tell you guys my story about being fat
and how it's changed my life and why I
recommend that anybody should actually
be fat at least one time in their life
so let me find a quiet place to sit down
and I'll tell you all about it okay this
is a slightly more quiet place I should
say so let's get started I'm just going
to tell you about my own personal
experience of being fat and how it
changed my life you see when I was very
young I was born and grew up in Cape
Town which anyone who knows South Africa
knows Cape Town's sort of the big
touristy place it's it's still very
beautiful over there
you know beaches and mountains and it's
a really nice place and it's a very sort
of outdoorsy place especially since my
my old man is a very outdoor sort of
person pace to go hiking a lot go out
swimming at the beaches when I was young
so I was always very slim until when I
was about 11 years old we moved up to
Johannesburg because my old man was
looking for business opportunities in
Johannesburg is the financial capital of
South Africa also the most dangerous
places
so long story short without boring you
we moved from a place where I used to go
out a lot and you know socialize with
friends to a new city living out on a
farm sort of far away from anyone and
anything in a very dangerous city so it
wasn't actually viable to go out so I
basically ended up either being at home
or at school and I lived a very
sedentary lifestyle basically just stuck
behind a computer and that's where my
love of computers really developed
I mean I'd always loved computers since
I was the first time I used the computer
and when I was six years old
but yeah I basically just became you
know quote-unquote a computer nerd and I
sat at home all day went to school came
back ate unhealthy and I became
incredibly fat so by the time I was 13
you saw that pictures are splashed up
here again that's when I was 14 I was
like horrendously fat I weighed more
than I do now I weighed I'm not sure but
probably close to 100 kilograms which is
a lot and you know that's the worst time
of your life to be better SATs when
you're in high school that's when you
want the girls to be interested in you
that's when you want to be popular and
it taught me a lot of humility it told
me how people judge other people and it
told me how important image is in life
you know you can have a million people
sort of try to tell you that it's what's
inside that counts and personality is
what counts but in the real life in real
life it doesn't really work that way
image really counts and people are very
superficial and you'll find this across
the board it doesn't matter if it's to
do with business relationships
friendships everything the way you look
really does impact you know your life
and the way you live your life now of
course I personally believe that a
person the the personality of a person
and who they really are and the skills
and the things they're capable of you
know that supercedes looks any day of
the week but when you just out there in
public trying to do general things like
like I said work or making friends and
you know starting relationships looks
really are important
and it's just the sad truth of the life
a lot of people don't want to admit this
but it's true
so having gone through this whole period
in my life where I was overweight and
fat it taught me to you know judge
people for who they are not by the new
no not because of the way they look and
so I'm actually very grateful for that
period of my life it also put a lot of
things into perspective for me and
things that I never would have thought
of in fact if I wasn't so fat when I was
that age I probably would be a real
[ __ ] to be honest so I I can in a way
suggest for everybody to go through a
fad period of their life just to see
what it's like to see how people treat
you and you know it actually forces you
to develop a very robust personality
anyway that's enough of that
nonsense it's time for me to say goodbye
to all of you guys for this video anyway
and once again I just want to say this
video really is just about being fat in
China and the way it will impact you as
a foreigner I hope you found it
interesting if you did you know please
subscribe or like or comment and you
know share it off to your friends it's
the first time I've ever said that by
the way I never like this whole like
subscribe comment kind of thing that
people do but I kind of would appreciate
it if you guys got my videos out there a
little more I'm trying to put more time
into them I'm actually taking on less
work these days so I can spend more time
filming and hopefully I can get more
interesting content up for you guys
anyway that's it it's time for me to go
until next time guys as always stay
awesome