Real Life in India as a Black American

the Rick Shaw drivers are driving and I'll be walking down the street and their driver will be like this as he's driving and I'm thinking to myself can you please you're going to you're going to have an accident please stop this is Chana kmer an American from New York City half a year ago she relocated to Mumbai India during our emotional conversation Chana shared why life in Mumbai is quite similar to life in New York was your experience as a black person in India and highlighted what makes dating with Indians so special I'm Marx an entrepreneur and YouTuber let's go what was your expectations before um mov well I had uh a friend who lived here who worked here for a while for several years I think he was here 3 four years and his advice to me was prepare to be overwhelmed for the first 3 months and then after that you'll be fine I don't actually never felt that feeling of being overwhelmed you never felt it no oh interesting yeah because you're from New York probably from I'm from New York and living here in Mumbai it's a big city so if you've been to any big city a big city is a big city right so it's busy the hustle everybody's running around working all the time and uh so I was just telling a friend that my life here is very similar to my life in New York oh really it's just in India um oh interesting so I go to work every day I come home from work yeah I go out with friends I go to brunches I go you know to parties yeah so I do a lot of this I go to the theater yeah so I do all the same things here that I did back in New York it's just an IND yeah what's the best thing about living in New York I would say the diversity of cultures and I think that's one of the things that's helped me to adapt so easily here is because I'm just so used to being surrounded by people from everywhere all walks of life all uh economic status all ethnicities from all over the world you know every kind of food that you want you can get in New York so it's you know I can go anywhere and not feel completely lost yeah and so that I'm I do that's one of the best things about New York is its diversity what was your biggest cultural shock so far in this neighborhood and I know this from uh someone that I work with who has family and his family um lives in this neighborhood or was from this neighborhood yeah that uh there there are families that have been here for many many generations and there is a family here who have uh three cows and so so basically cows they belong to families yes that's how it works here well that's how that's this these particular cows and they take care of they take care of these cows cuz cows are sacred here yeah and so they you see the cows you know you if you walk around here enough you'll see them cuz they're they live literally around here they have a one of their spots where they kind of rest is right in front of this building oh okay and so I'll often come out or come home and they'll be just hanging out in front of the building and or walking up the road you'll see them just you know they're tied to the post or whatever so I see them all the time I've kind of adopted them I think they're like my cows yeah um and so that's that's obviously something that you would see and one day they were actually sitting outside of my apartment building and I was coming from errands and I had some flowers and I stopped to talk to them cuz I love animals so I stopped to talk to the cows and and one of them was trying to eat my flowers and they just really sweet they look at you they have these beautiful Soulful eyes and I realized I didn't know that um one day I was walking home and the cows were there and there was a woman walking past them and she kind of like crossed herself like people do when they pass a church so here cows that significance of them like the spiritual religious significance is quite quite strong and there was one morning when I was on my way to work and I was in a Rick Shaw and the cows they were walking the cows and they had actually a security guard walking with the the woman who was walking with the cows and like stopping traffic so that the cows could walk down the street yeah so that's different can you bear traffic like I don't drive here yeah so ofine for cuz I I it's fine for me cuz I'm just sitting uh in an Uber but I wonder I actually do often comment how do the people who drive for living here how do they do it because it's it's a special skill like how do they stay sane and calm and you know because it's just intense it's there's no like there are Lanes but the lanes are suggestion are there Lanes it doesn't feel like there are there's actually even lines in the street but nobody cares okay and the the you know you've got Rick Shaws and cars and and everybody's trying and you've got scooters and motorcycles and everybody's trying to get ah you know get to where they're going faster cutting each other off and I mean it's it's just in the honking I'm from New York City and I've driven there and that's you know I would never want to drive here yeah yeah you recorded a memorable family event on your smartphone but the video file size is too large for convenient sharing or storage or you've captured an Incredible video on your highend camera but when you try to share it online you encounter format compatibility issues don't worry I've discovered the perfect way to fix that neat wondershare uni converter it's the ultimate toolkit covering conversion video optimization DVD burning and more uni converter Works quickly while maintaining High video quality simply download the app and upload your first file uni converter will take care of the rest it supports over thousand different formats making it the easiest way to convert and compress your video files additionally it offers many AI features like smart dream and Noise remover all of which are free and especially for my viewers uni converter is hosting an exclusive giveaway comment I want uni converter for a chance to win a free wondershare uni converter license for 3 months we will select three lucky winners and contact you via email see you in the comments below is there anything that you start like enjoying here I think one of the things that's that is interesting that you can take advantage of if you choose to is not having to leave your house if you don't ever want to because you can have literally everything brought to you you can have Beauty services like everything I could have manicures pedicure everything everyone will come to you to do everything and it's not expensive and it's not expensive right it can be expensive but you can also find it so that it's not expensive but you know you can you know water gets delivered your everything everything your food groceries wine I have a wine delivery the wine in like 20 minutes I have my I have wine deliver so so that's different um but I also like going out and kind of roaming the neighborhood because I'm at a point I've been here long enough now I think that where people kind of realize oh she lives here H not a tourist yeah not a tourist she's not a tourist she lives here actually I was having dinner at a little cafe down the street from here yeah and I've been there frequently enough at this point where the waiter was like so do you live here I was like yeah I live here yeah so it's nice so I go out and now when I there's V Enders um selling produce like stalls on the street and the corners and stuff and I I buy some of my produce from the vendors and like now when I go out to run errands like I feel like I'm Norm on Cheers CU I'm walking down the street and people like hi every's like hi what's the difference in how people interact with each other on the street I guess New York is because it's like a super busy people don't really not interact each other the people who work here do but just people like just going about their day and about their business no but what you'll find is like the secur like people who work in my building you see the people who work for the families yeah that live in this neighborhood they'll kind you'll see them all kind of hanging out chatting and things all the time so that they do interact one of the things that's for me and I it's something I knew that would happen because I've heard of this experience I haven't really experienced it a lot myself is being stared at all the time like everywhere you go some of it is I know some of it's my hair because I've had people actually come up to me and ask me about my hair talk about my hair compliment me on my hair yes so I know some of it is that but some of it I don't know what because you know youd Wonder it's often there was you know like every time I walk out of my building and particularly interesting the Rick Shaw drivers are driving and I'll be walking down the street and their driver will be like this as he's driving and I'm thinking to myself can you please you're going to you're going to have an accident please stop because of me yeah that's funny but I will say that for the most part I haven't felt oh my goodness Tina you guys can't see what Tina's doing right now she really likes Max um see a turn I like you're going to edit this video right bro it you talking that um so it's basically for like being a black American in India it's like it's not very common and no not at all and so I don't I but it people don't assume that I'm from the US no never actually okay most often I get asked if I'm from Nigeria specifically from Nigeria correct okay interesting okay I don't know why but that's all always the first like if they say a place often they'll just say where you from but sometimes people will say are you from Nigeria no how people react when they say you're from the US uh mostly just you know yeah nothing no every I have one person go Biden but aside from that I like oh okay you feel comfortable here or like because of the stairs you I I I tend I just ignore the stairs honestly I don't allow it to to bother me yeah because I find if I people stare and then if I look at them they'll avert their eyes really quickly so it's not like some kind of a challenge or anything like that they're just like oh my gosh I've never seen a person who looks like that before and then and I look at them and they're like oh that's rude so um I do I tend to ignore it no I mean people don't it's I don't get any you know advances or people saying things to me or anything like that so I don't feel I'm like you they can look all they want just keep the boundaries there we're good I also have stairs like just now I was I was working at Dria driver he was like he was doing something and I was passing by and then he he did this and so he was like literally follow me and then I start smiling at him just on purpose like smiling and it took him like maybe 3 4 seconds to like smile back and stop W waving I don't I I I kind of wanted him to smile yeah smile me back yeah so yeah that's what I that that's what I go through all the time I was actually with a colleague of mine who is from here yeah and uh we were walking together and she said she commented to me she's like is this what it's like for you all the time like yes this is what it's like all the time but I I mean I don't it's not like I never get I get stared at New York so it yeah sure it's like I mean New York would be rude perceived rude if people still I mean you never know I I I've been in spaces many spaces not just in New York in spaces where I'm the only black person in the room so I guess I'm kind of used to having reactions from people because I'm the only black person in the room or the only you know so I think that's part of why it doesn't bother me as much as it it could bother me I did some research about uh what it would be like being black in India because I was concerned that I might come here and people would treat me poorly I had this idea of you know like oh I'll never go on a date here the Indian men aren't interested in dark skinned women because there's a lot of you know more value placed on lighter skin and that kind of things that's not the case by the way I actually have been on more dates here than when I was back in New York yeah I have you tried dating Indians also I have dat yeah I've only actually the dates that I've been on here have been with men yes what's the vibe um it's they're men same uh I mean like for the biggest difference is just culturally I think and and understanding learning to understand the culture and sort of it having to like when I say something in my American English does it mean the same thing okay here you know like trying to trans translating like oh they speak English I speak English so it's the same but it's it's actually not the same right because the different words are used for different things words that I use that they don't use here they don't even know what it means so it's like there's a lot of you know like trying to sort out meet what people mean when they say things right so that and that's with anybody right that you you're communicating with that it's from a different culture a different country a different part of the world yeah so that that's part of the dating here too is they trying to sort all that out is it different like in terms of like let's say who paid the bill uh not for me oh I mean I have my own way that's my way so it doesn't work for you then we're not going to be able to but it's like for you like okay you you can if I can ask you share or you let you're asking me you're asking me I go I don't go dutch do not yeah I'm just curious like if it's like cultural if it's different I've talked to friends here who date and they do yeah so it's just you know everybody has their their way yeah it's even like that back in the US like some people you know some people do that back in the US too I didn't do it there and I don't do it here that's just my way yeah I'm not saying it's a it's the way it's just my way yeah exactly can you come by social life here in New York or I actually have I have a better social life here than I have in New York ah how come because I well I worked in New York City but I didn't live in the city I lived an hour north in the suburbs and so I didn't have a big Social Circle of people where I lived and so here because I'm in right in the city and I'm living in a busy part of the city where there lots of social opportunities here and then you know when people come here they want to they want to socialize they want to meet people xths right so I go out a lot I go a lot more here than I did in New York oh that's cool and also there's a lot of things that are happening here culturally I've been to theater here Trevor Noah was here you know there's there's um there's always the two cultural centers here so there's art exhibits there's photography exhibits there's you know performances like there's always something and even like little local I went to a local improv performance like couple blocks away from here this little uh improv group that performs and there's poetry slams and there's like there's just all there's so much going on here that you can always uh find something to do what do you do for a living I'm a teacher in New York you do the same yeah yes what's the any difference that you see here there's a different level and even you know all my students the students that I teach the level of the respect level and how they view teachers is quite different than in the US right so it's actually from a behavioral standpoint it's easier here because you don't have some of the things that you might find at least in New York I can't speak for the whole United States yeah so the kids are easier in that sense can you like give an example say you know I mean you could work in some schools in New York city where the the kids will curse curse at you or you know you know things like that that would never happen here hey guys wait if you enjoy watching my content from India you might be wondering why I'm doing it and how much money I'm making on this channel I've actually shared this in my latest video I also give advice on how I would approach starting a YouTube channel from scratch in 2024 so if you've ever consider starting your YouTube channel watch this video now yeah this one yeah yeah yeah yeah click on it

Channel: Max Chernov

Views: 597,204

Keywords: max chernov, india foreigners, india foreigners reaction, india life, india life vlog, indian lifestyle, india travel, india travel guide, foreigners in india, foreigners in indian food, mumbai vlog, mumbai, foreigners in mumbai, expat life in india, india vlog, foreigner in india, is india safe, foreigner, expat life, living abroad, american in india, foreigner in mumbai, mumbai reaction, black in india, what is it like to be black in india, being black woman in india

Id: pFHl8otpnMo

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 28 2023