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Discussion keeps the world turning. This is Roundtable. You're listening to Roundtable with myself Hye Young. I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yushun in the studio. Coming up, passive-aggressive people are like, no worries. But you know, you're definitely being cursed out in their head. Today we're diving into the drama of passive aggression, where feelings are hidden but the tone loud. And apparently a snack shaped like a Pokemon is worth more than your car. Forget stocks, just hunt for rare cheese puffs. What's going on there? Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcast. Got a question that's keeping you curious? From social issues to tech and everything in between, let us take a stab at it. Email us at Roundtable Podcast at QQ.com. Now let's switch it up. We've all been there. You asked your partner, are we okay? And they hit you with the we're fine. You know that toad. It's the international signal for you should be very, very worried. And it's not just at home. At work, passive-aggressive behavior can be even sneakier. Think of the co-worker who says, oh, I didn't realize you were handling that. My bad. With a sweet smile and the faintest whiff of judgment. Or the manager who leaves you out of the meeting and then says, I figured you were too busy. You've got so much on your plate. Thanks, I guess. Whether it's weaponized politeness, sarcasm that's just a little bit too sharp, or compliments that feel like low-key insults, passive aggression is everywhere. It's messy, confusing, and sometimes even kind of funny until it is not. So why do people do it? Is it about avoiding conflict, maintaining control, or just not having the tools to express frustration directly? Let's talk about it, because sometimes the things left unsaid are the loudest of all. What is passive aggression exactly from the aggressor's point of view? Yeah, passive-aggressive behavior is an indirect way of showing someone else some negative emotions, like you're angry or you're irritated. But you're not yelling at them. And you're not saying to them, hey, I'm angry. It's very subtle. It's not obvious. It can be hard to recognize sometimes, and this can be really damaging to relationships, both your personal relationships and your workplace relationships, too. There's a lot of passive-aggressive behavior that happens in companies all around the world, I would say. But what are some of these common manifestations of these behavior? Is that a behavior, or should I say it's kind of a sentence? It can be behavior, or it can be words, right? And passive-aggressive behavior can manifest itself in different ways. One of the ways is you bottle up your anger, even if you feel upset. You might feel really annoyed, but you say, just like Leung said, I'm fine. Well, you're not fine, but you're not saying it. That's an example of passive-aggressive behavior. Are you okay? You seem like you're upset. No, I'm okay. Well, that's passive-aggressive behavior. But that sounds like what happens in a lot of romantic relationships, and when the person being asked thinks, I cannot believe that you don't know I am upset and you're asking me that if I'm fine, then of course, I'm not going to admit to that. I'm just going to say, fine. Yeah, exactly. Anger builds up inside you, and another example of passive-aggressive behavior is you will cut people off. You'll just cut them off, and that might be your way of dealing with your emotions. You could block somebody on your smartphone. You could cut them out of your life and not even explain to them why they're confused because you never really expressed how you feel. That's another example of passive-aggressive behavior. I guess when people are acting in this way, it could be because, well, there could be a plethora of reasons, right? There could be a million reasons behind why you're behaving like this, and one of the reasons could be is that you don't know how to say no. So you'll actually delay doing things, or even worse, you'll do it poorly instead. When somebody asks you to do something, you don't have that confidence, or you don't have the ability to stand up and say, actually, no, I don't want to do that. That's not okay with me, even though that's what you really want to say. So then it comes out in other ways. You delay, you do a bad job, things like that. I guess an example of this, to take it out of the workplace, let's say that a parent signs a child up for, I don't know, a violin class. The child doesn't want to go to the violin class, but they don't say anything. But when they go to the violin class, they don't give any effort. They do poorly, almost on purpose, to get out of it. That's an example of passive-aggressive behavior. I wish, if I'm the parent, that the kid just would be able to express firmly and clearly, and that would save up so much of my money and time. But anyhow, in a perfect world, not just children, that's how we hope we could all behave. But am I alone when I say, I think every person on the planet has behaved passive aggressively at least once or twice in their lives? And I think people do it when they don't even realize that they're doing it. Here's another example. Sometimes people are afraid of conflict. So when a disagreement happens, they'll tend to shut down or they want to avoid that confrontation. And that might come out in different ways. Yeah, you'll avoid people at the office because you just don't want to have a difficult conversation with them. That's passive-aggressive behavior. But I think the person that's doing it doesn't even necessarily realize that it's passive-aggressive behavior. I think a lot of the time, it's not a conscious decision. Nobody sits down and says, I'm going to be super passive-aggressive today. It's Thursday, it's passive-aggressive day. No, nobody makes those types of decisions. It just kind of manifests itself, meaning it just kind of comes out of you in different styles. Well, it's good if we know that there's such a thing, such a psyche of passive-aggressive thinking. And I think for a lot of people, sure, they're not numbering the day to become okay today to engage in passive-aggressive behavior. But a lot of the times people know they don't really want to do this particular thing that's in front of them. And also when it's dealing with other people. But just to avoid direct conflict, to avoid saying no, to avoid being socially awkward or upsetting other people and not to come off as a difficult person. So many, everybody is experiencing this because you can't say yes to everything or you're not happily saying yes to everything. So this could happen. That's why I was thinking it's so subtle that it could be recognized as someone's characteristic. Some people, they don't just say it directly and they have that kind of habit of using that kind of language. For example, by saying I want you to be here. They're trying to say I want you to be here, but they're just actually saying why you're not here. In a reverse way, yes. In that way, it could basically harm the people that is communicating with you or maybe even harm yourself when you are having all of that negative emotions in your mind and you cannot actually let it out because you want the other side to understand what you're actually thinking about. Right. So something about passive-aggressive, is this person is obviously unhappy and then there's anger, but you just don't want to express it in a direct way. And I can see this in our Chinese culture because we, or well actually in many parts of the Chinese culture as well as other East Asian cultures too, being direct is often seen as rude or confrontation. Oh, no, no, you don't want that, especially in the workplace, especially when it comes to expressing dissatisfaction. So instead of openly saying, I disagree, I don't like this, I'm upset, people might communicate through indirect cues, subtle hints, or yes, passive-aggressive behaviors. That's a great point because this might, depending on the language and depending on the culture of a language, passive-aggressive behavior might be more easily identifiable. The concept of being passive-aggressive is very well established and very well known in Western culture, maybe I should say in English, because everybody recognizes it and people will call you out on it, stop being passive-aggressive, just tell me how you feel. Whereas in other languages and other cultures around the world, that might just be part of being polite, right? So it might be misidentified as being passive-aggressive when actually it's just the way that people tend to communicate with each other. Yeah, when I'm getting through the paper and to research about this idea of passive-aggressive, I can understand these behaviors and reactions and feelings, but in the Chinese context, it seems like this person rarely describe things this way. We don't have actually a Chinese word for passive-aggressive, I would say. I think so. It's not that well known, but you can translate it. Yeah, of course, we can direct translate it, but there is not a well-known or common phrase for people to actually describe this kind of behavior or kind of thing. Maybe, as you mentioned, this could be a kind of cultural factor, so these behaviors might be seen as in some way reasonable or even normal or be seen as just being polite. I agree and disagree. I think, sure, without… See, this is interesting. Sometimes we need these language terms. It gives you license and also it gives you the tool to identify certain phenomena. And passive-aggressive-ness, well, passive-aggression, excuse me, can be one of them. And in the past, maybe we just think, this is maybe embedded in our culture, maybe because we want to save a face. Instead of creating open conflict, people may choose subtle signals to avoid embarrassment, and that's consideration for both parties. Maybe in our Chinese culture, we were thinking that this is emotional restraint as a virtue. Showing strong emotion, especially anger or dissatisfaction, can be viewed as immature or undisciplined, so these feelings are tucked away and sometimes leak out sideways. But with this term, now in English it's so widespread, but it may be in China, we're still learning, and then it's cool. Now you know when your boss, when your boyfriend or whoever, they're doing this, maybe there is a reason why they're doing that and they're practicing that skill, and that might not always be good. In fact, in English it's been seen as a very negative term, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it is a negative term. There's no positive connotations with being passive-aggressive. No way. People look at it in a negative way. I thought this was kind of interesting. This is from an HR website from 2023. There was a survey done from a language learning platform called pre-ply, and they found that 83% of workers said they've received a passive-aggressive email or message at work, but also 44% of workers admitted to being passive-aggressive at the office as well. Yeah, I can relate to that because a lot of the times you just, sorry, I'm kind of running in circles again, you don't want to say a direct no, but you're often dissatisfied with when you're working with other people. There are things that you're not okay with. Yeah, the office is, I mean, every relationship is a tough relationship to express yourself fully, openly, honestly, 100% of the time. And the office is a place where a lot of this behavior or these kind of expressions tend to show up. They asked Americans, who are the most passive-aggressive people in your life? This is the same survey, by the way. I have the number one and number two answer. Any guess what was number one? Parents. Mom was number two, 18%. Number one, coworkers. And just before we finish up, again, this is from the same survey, the five most passive-aggressive phrases ranked from number one to number five. Number one, you're too sensitive. Oh, that immediately enrages me. Number two, why are you so upset? Oh, my. Implying that you shouldn't be this upset, but yet you are this upset. This one's good. Number three, no offense, but that means the next thing you're saying is going to be rather offensive. Number four is whatever. That hurts. That's very passive-aggressive. And number five, the last one. Yeah, I mean, if that's what you want to do. Oh, my. That's so typical. That should be number one, shouldn't it? In relationships, in romantic relationships. I have nothing to do if you're thinking about that. Then what do you do in dealing with this kind of people or if you're on the receive... What if you're the aggressor and what if you're on the receiving end? Well, if you're the aggressor, then I think you have to be kind of self-aware of what you're doing at the time. So if you catch yourself being sarcastic, responding in a sarcastic manner, boom, right there, you know that you are being passive-aggressive. So monitor what you say. Also, be aware of whether you're being honest and also be aware of your behavior post-interaction, because that kind of behavior will often manifest itself after the interaction has taken place. We talked about avoiding conversations at the office because you just don't want to deal with it. So be aware of that type of thing. And if you're on the receiving end of it, well, it's hard for me to say. I can say from a native English speaker's point of view, we in Western culture see a lot of the time just asking people, just tell me what you feel honestly. Don't be afraid to tell me honestly what you feel. I would recommend try not to use the word passive-aggressive during that conversation. Stop being passive-aggressive. That's a little aggressive and can put the other person on defense. But yeah, just encouraging people to perhaps just let you know how they really feel. Yeah, that actually reminded me of the cause of people can be passive-aggressive, because you need to accept it or accept your emotions or accept your anger. Because when you are being angry, you tend to be more passive-aggressive, maybe. But maybe that is the reason why that you're protecting yourself. You are in a place that you actually activated your self-defense mechanism. And that is why you're being passive-aggressive. So the thing is that you need to accept your anger at the first place. You know, learn to recognize and accept feelings of anger by just paying attention to maybe physical signals, like tension and discomfort. And you need to realize that it is common and it's normal and actually treat it in a good order that you should not hurt the other one that is trying to understand you. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, you can look out for kind of body reactions, your breathing, your heart rate or something like that. And just remember this type of behavior. It hurts you and it hurts the other person that you're interacting with too. Yeah, in a culture where indirectness, for example, here in China, is often a sign of politeness, expressing emotions honestly, but gently is a real art. It's not about being loud, it's about being clear, caring, and just a little braver, perhaps with our words. You're listening to Roundtable coming up next. Apparently a snack shaped like a cartoon character is worth more than a year's salary. What happened there? Stay tuned. Looking for passion? How about fiery debate? Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives? Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West and understanding is the goal. You're listening to Roundtable with myself Hae Young. I'm joined by Yu Shun and Steve Hatherly in the studio. Picture this, reaching into a bag of Cheetos, casually munching away when suddenly you spot it, a single Cheeto. Unlike the others, it's shaped exactly like Charizard, the fiery Pokémon icon. Would you eat it? Of course not. You list it online and boom, someone buys it for a jaw-dropping US$88,000 or US$630,000. That's right, folks. A puffed corn snack worth more than a year's salary. I need to make friends with this buyer. What's going on with it? So this Cheeto-shaped Charizard from this Pokémon franchise was auctioned off and sold for a high, high, high price. This Flamin' Hot flavor Cheeto, approximately three inches or seven centimeters long, bears a resemblance to Charizard, a character from this Japanese anime series, Pokémon. Everybody knows this for a ride. I don't know Pokémon. You're doing that thing again where you assume we know stuff that you know when we don't. And it's passive aggressive behavior. Apology? Now let me explain it. Yes, please. So it was mounted on a custom Pokémon card and placed inside a transparent card holder for display. To explain what is this Charizard? Pokémon's Charizard is a large orange dragon with turquoise wings and a flame at the tip of its tail known as Lizardon in Japan. And this dragon is one of the franchise's original creatures and one of its most beloved. Okay. So, yeah. Actually, there are reports. In 2020, Charizard was voted as one of the top 10 most popular Pokémon. I don't care. I'm not paying $88,000 for a potato chip or whatever it was, a Cheeto shaped like that. In fact, it was... So this was done by a sports memorabilia company, right? Somewhere between 2018 and 2022, and it was preserved during that time. And then it sold recently $87,840. And according to Forbes, it started as a simple kind of auction listing, but then the internet got involved and then this bidding war erupted out of nowhere. And the bidding began or the listing began at a pretty modest price, but then 60 different bidders got involved. And that's how it drove up the price to $88,000, almost $88,000 before the auction closed. It's craziness what some people are willing to spend that much money on. Did this happen in the US? I mean, this certainly didn't happen in China and well, but also Pokémon is originated from Japan, but it's popular all over the world. Cheetos, I think. Oh yeah, and Cheetos. Yeah, those are involved here as well, right? Absolutely. So why would somebody spend so much on an expired Cheeto, that snack? Is there an answer to that question? Feel free to throw in your thoughts. I think both of you have explained a little bit one thing Pokémon, another thing Cheeto, and both of them have a lot of fans. You know, a huge fan base can, you know, contribute to a lot of things. This golden auctions described it as an exceptionally unique item to the buyer. This isn't just a snack, it's a collectible with significance. Maybe someone just crazy about this Charizard or someone is also crazy about Cheeto. And bam, this is a perfect item that he should collect. Yeah, I mean, this isn't the only time this has happened. In 2023, there was a McNugget that was shaped like a character from the game Among Us, and it was auctioned for $100,000. That's one example. There are others as well. Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding cake, I think from from 1981. There were 23 cakes made for that, and one piece of cake sold for $2,500, a 40 year old piece of cake. Like people are just, this is just a thing, a thing for some people. It's a hobby, I suppose. Is it tax free? Is there a tax rebate? Is this a write off? Oh, this is interesting. And that brings us to the end of today's roundtable. Thank you so much, Steve Hatherly, and you shouldn't for joining the discussion. Thank you for tuning in. You can find us on Apple podcast at roundtable China. And also if you're so inclined and you're willing to participate, please send us a question to roundtablepodcast at qq.com, and we can air your question on the show. I'm He Yeung. We'll see you next time.