Woman Frustrated After Boyfriend’s Roommate Calls Her ‘Racist’ Amid Chinese New Year Drama

A woman on Reddit was shocked after her boyfriend's roommate called her "racist."

"I spend a lot of time at my boyfriend's with his roommate. Both are Chinese. My boyfriend and I have had some issues due to cultural differences but we always work them out or come to some sort of compromise which I love as we don't want to completely change the other since we have very different cultures and we should find a balance," she began her post.

"The roomie, on the other hand, couldn't care less. He and I have had some issues in the past but I have always tried to understand if it was a cultural thing or him just being an a--hole," she added.

"The most recent issue happened because of the Chinese New Year. I had seen my dad earlier that day and he thought that it would be nice to send me back to their house with cake in honor of their New Year even though he only met my boyfriend once and has never met the roomie," the girlfriend continued.

"This is where I got pissed: I arrive at their house with the cake thinking they would be happy with the little gift but only one was. My boyfriend immediately sent my dad a text with the thanks but roomie just looked at the cake and didn't say anything. I thought he was waiting to taste it before saying anything but the thank you never came," she wrote.

When she later told her boyfriend she was upset by his roommate's lack of gratitude, he told her that they "don't say thanks very often" in their culture and admitted his friend was "rude to not say anything."

Her boyfriend also advised her to "let it go," but a few days later an argument sparked when his roommate thanked her for passing him a beer.

"That pissed me off. In a calm voice I said that it's interesting how he doesn't say thank you for [the] cake that was a gift from my dad but he says thank you for a beer. He got mad and said that in his culture they don't say thank you often," she explained.

"I told him that if we were in China surrounded by his culture I would understand, but right now we are in Canada where we do say thank you a lot and I have been very understanding of the cultural differences so far but this one means a lot to me and he needs to respect how I feel on the matter the same way I would if I was in China," the woman continued.

Her boyfriend's roommate called her "racist" and said she "was too narrow-minded to understand and that I was the one being disrespectful, not him."

After her boyfriend stepped in and told his roommate he was being rude for not acknowledging the gift, his roommate got "even more upset" and accused her of being racist on top of "ruining a friendship."

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Reader opinions in the comments section were mixed.

"I think that basically saying, 'You're not in China, you're in Canada now so you have to act how I say as a Canadian' is kind of an icky thing to say. He was rude to not even acknowledge your dad's gift. You all (minus your boyfriend) sound exhausting," one person wrote.

"Starting fights over someone not properly appreciating a gift that didn't come from you and didn't directly go to them is unhinged behavior. Almost certainly rude in every culture. Racist? No. Culturally insensitive? Maybe," another commented.

"Them brushing it off as 'it's cultural' is bulls--t. I'm Chinese, and my parents always told me to be grateful whenever I receive anything from someone else. Your boyfriend is just there to validate your feelings because they are both in the wrong. When you offered the roommate beer, because the beer was from you to him, he said thank you. Why are you so mad about these small things? If you want the roommate to go out his way to say thank you to your dad, you should have said so. Plus, they should not brush it off as a cultural thing, they are just too egotistic," someone else weighed in.

In an update, the woman who wrote the post shared that her boyfriend's roommate ultimately apologized for calling her racist and she also apologized for upsetting him and holding a grudge.