Am I Too Competitive Because I’m Asian?

I’ve always wondered whether it was because of my genetics or cultural upbringing

Photo by Damon Lam on Unsplash

In BEEF, a show that illuminates Asian American repressed anger and rage, a group of Korean church members play a pickup basketball game. There is one team of church members who are new and outcasts in the Asian community, per se. Their ulterior motive is to swindle the church to profit the protagonist’s ailing construction business.

But there is also the super devout, holier-than-thou group, some of whom see themselves as better and superior to the new group at the church. This group has members and leaders of the worship team and are seen as the “stars” of the church. When the new group challenges them to a pickup basketball game in conversation, the leader says their team is “really good” and suggests that they shouldn’t challenge them because there’s no chance they will win.

The game finally happens, and the new group dominates the holier-than-thou group. The sanctimonious leader starts to show his true colors, kicking a trash can, yelling “fuck!” incessantly in frustration. But it’s not just this church leader — everyone involved (in this predominantly Asian group) seems to take something so trivial so seriously.