But Where Are You Really From Podcast

Jesse Lin 0:20
This week, we’re talking about something that we really love – food. But in particular, we’re talking about one type of food that we really love a bubble tea slash boba, depending on which coasts you grew up in. Sorry, I’m still in the boba camp. I just want to say it’s still in the boba camp. But I want to recognize that we got a lot of bubble tea oriented listeners. So this week, we’re going to be talking all about boba and we’re going to give you guys a history lesson on boba, where it came from, what’s the current sitch, where we think it’s going to go in the future? And why seems like so many non Asian or sorry, not not Asian, but non Taiwanese people really enjoy drinking bubble tea. So!

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Angela Lin 1:06
Yeah, and the reason Jesse went into the defense is because I shot a glare at him

Jesse Lin 1:14
It’s not what it’s called.

Angela Lin 1:17
Well, it’s whatever first thing you call it is what you’re saying it is and you started it with bubble tea, I’m like you’ve lived on the East Coast for too long, Jesse

Jesse Lin 1:28
Okay. Well, I was I was in my defense. I was looking at the outline. So the outline had bubble tea so then I just read it.

Angela Lin 1:37
Oh, Jesse.

Jesse Lin 1:39
Anyway, would you like to give our listeners the history lesson of the episode?

Angela Lin 1:45
Yes. And I think it’s as always Jesse and I don’t know shit about shit. And we googled a bunch of stuff right before this episode to bring you what we’re going to talk about, besides our own experiences, obviously, but for the history. It’s interesting, because I think both of us knew it was from Taiwan. But we are at least I didn’t really know what the like backstory was, and it TBH doesn’t look like there is a single consensus of the backstory. But everyone at least is in consensus that it started sometime in the 80s in Taiwan as an accident, or like a happenstance type of like concoction. Which shop did it is like contentious. There’s one in Taichung and one in Tainan. And they both claim that they’re people like through the bubbles, or through the pearls, whatever into like a random drink. And we’re like I invited boba, but either way, 80s in Taiwan. Something that I found interesting in the history though, is that tapioca is something that we tapioca is the like base ingredient for the pearls or the boba bubbles whatever you want to call it and I’ve always associated tapioca with like, definitely Asian people Asian food, if not, specifically Taiwan, because like the most common thing it’s used for, that people know about is boba. But fun fact, which maybe you already knew, but I didn’t is that tapioca first came to Taiwan, between the late 1800s and mid 1900s during the Japanese colonization of Taiwan, where they brought it over via from Brazil via Southeast Asia. So it’s actually a South American thing is the cassava plant is where tapioca comes from. And I had no idea that it was not like indigenous to Asia somewhere and definitely not Taiwan. It all gets a little fuzzier than but in terms of like how it got to the US, I think the general notion is that around like between the 60s and 90s was when like, more widespread immigration of like Asian people to the US started, and in the 90s in particular, Taiwanese people immigrated a ton into the LA area. San Gabriel Valley also the like most Asian most Chinese populated the SGV and boba started as kind of like a secondary or tertiary item that would be on menus and it was kind of janky like in those Styrofoam cups. And it was like not anything fancy. It was like the you know, mom or grandma running the restaurant, would just have it like a $1 add on type shit just to have like a more expanded menu, but it was not like no one had specialty boba shops or anything like that. And no one thought it was going to be like a main staple. It was just an an added thing onto menus and then somehow became like the thing it is now.

Jesse Lin 5:23
Well, I mean, yeah, I can definitely still remember not recently, but to support that, like, maybe when we were younger when we would go to those, like, Fahui at temple. So this is like, I don’t know, not a carnival, some kind of giant meeting some religious meeting, and they would have like, vendors sell traditional Chinese food. And I remember I got like, basically that, but it was like hot tea with condensed milk and they threw some. They threw some boba in it, and I was like, wait, this isn’t cold. This isn’t what I was. But yes, I definitely can back that up with some first hand knowledge. But that quick question. Do you think that most people know that bubble tea is from Taiwan?

Angela Lin 6:08
No, I don’t think okay.

Jesse Lin 6:10
I also I was wondering, too,

Angela Lin 6:11
I think Asian people know or many Asian people know, maybe not even all Asian people know that it’s from Taiwan. But yeah. If you know, you’re probably Asian,

Jesse Lin 6:25
If, you know, you know listener.

Angela Lin 6:26
Yes.

Jesse Lin 6:28
So as we alluded to, at the top of the episode, there’s some contention the contentiousness between the usage of bubble tea and boba and I actually think there when I was looking into it, there are different ways of naming different attributes of it. So in one of the articles is says the bubble tea, the bubbles don’t refer to the tapioca, or that zhen zhu it refers to when you shake it, there’s milk bubbles at the top. And then I guess for for us boba is just, boba. T

Angela Lin 7:03
It’s the whole drink. But some people refer to it just as the pearls, the tapioca pearls. Well, actually, and then this relates to the other historical, historical It sounds so ancient that way but like the other fun fact about the like history of boba is that, even though people debate about, like, which shop created it, no one debates where the name came from the boba nickname for it, which is super weird. It’s a named after a Hong Kong actress named Amy Yep, who was a sex symbol in the heyday. And her nickname was boba because bba is another way of talking about boobies. And she had big boobies, so it’s so bizarre. Oh, I feel like Asian culture has like random like very perverted tendencies. This is like one of them. Which is like let’s name this like fun drink that kids drink after boobs. So bizarre

Jesse Lin 8:09
What do you think about this bubble tea versus boba like when did someone first say bubble tea to you instead of boba

Angela Lin 8:15
Somewhere on the East Coast for sure. It was like very clear to me that it was a an East Coast West Coast divide when I first heard it there because and and like, I also read the same thing you read that it technically was named bubble tea because of the bubbles of when you shake it like the drink forms bubbles. But no one who talks about bubble tea is talking about that. Like they straight up call the pearls the bubbles. So then everyone thinks the thing is called bubble tea, because the pearls are the bubbles. So then I’m like, you’re wrong. That made me so pissed. But then you know, I lived in New York for seven years and you still live there. So you just kind of have to accept it at that point because no one calls it boba but just like, you don’t even know it wasn’t started here. I mean, it wasn’t started in the US in general. But then yeah, first US outpost was definitely West Coast. So then it just became like a West Coast East Coast thing.

Jesse Lin 9:13
Well if I remember correctly, for the most and it’s been a while since I’ve, when I when I went to Cha for Tea last time I was home like, you know, a month or so ago. The difference between the menus because I think like distinctly on the east coast on the menu, they write bubble milk tea, and on the west coast, it’s either tapioca milk tea, they just have the milk tea and then they have like toppings and then they have you know, tapioca pearls, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the menus themselves are, I think, inherently different. I think sometimes people think that boba or bubble milk tea has to be this like a very thick, rich thing, but you can always get the lighter version of it, which isn’t exactly that because you know you’re not putting milk in it and it’s not actually tapioca. But you can do like the grass jelly or some like lighter form like the smaller tapioca pearls and stuff like that still very good and it’s like a different distinct thing like more refreshing

Angela Lin 10:09
Yeah so I think that’s also something interesting is that while we’re tapping into like two different things here right like one is like the idea of boba or what can be encompassed by is not just a tea with milk and the tapioca pearls which is like the most default thing like you’re saying there’s so many varieties now of like, types of tea or like if there’s milk or no milk if there’s fresh fruit or no fresh fruit if you want boba or you want like pudding as your topping or like random other shit as your topping right and then but all of those things can be called boba like when you’re saying like I want to go get boba it doesn’t mean that you are just going to get like that default thing you’re probably maybe you have zero tapioca pearls in your thing and no milk like me and this is still considered like a Boba run that right? Yeah. And so that’s one whole thing. And I think we want to talk about like the new trends in boba flavors and stuff too. But something that you really dug into which I’m I want to pick apart as well is more of the like cultural significance of boba in like Asian American life. Because for me, I have never been like a huge boba fan in general. I think I liked it when it first came out because I was like, oh, this is fun and you and like, I was younger then too so I was like yum sugar, and like chewy things. I don’t know.

Jesse Lin 11:37
Yeah.

Angela Lin 11:38
But then as I got older, I just I didn’t like it that much. So if I got it, I would get it without the boba pearls. Or I would just go to like, hang out. So it wasn’t so much that I was craving the boba itself. It was like friends would be like, hey, I want to go get boba you want to come? And I’d be like, well, I want to hang out. So yeah, I’m gonna go get the Boba with you. And we’d sit there at lolly cup. That was like my most common. I don’t think it was as big of a thing for you. Because maybe it was too far for you and your high school but like for kids at my school, we went to Lollicup, which was like a very big thing in the 2000s in Irvine / Orange County area. For boba and I would get like the crispy chicken, which is a very like Taiwanese street food snack that is often served with boba, and we’d stay there for like hours on end. And it I bought the thing just to have an excuse to be there. But I wasn’t there because I was like I’m craving boba versus other people probably were.

Jesse Lin 12:46
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the articles did dive into it. It’s also from Eater, which is how bubble tea became basically, like this thing of a generation. And it does talk about how it’s almost like emblematic of a specific generation of Asian Americans because of how many life things that is tied to like you’re saying, it isn’t just about getting the drink, but it’s like hanging out with your friends. Like when you’re in the Lollicup, or I used to go to Tapioca Express a lot. When you’re in the line at Tapioca Express, there’s always like flyers and posters and stuff for Taiwanese things, or like Chinese things. So like, part of it’s like, you’re there to get the drink. Part of it’s like you’re there to hang. And then like, also, while you’re there, you’re like subtly absorbing Asian culture things cause they played, they would play like Taiwanese pop music, and they would have all these like, things that are from what was the contemporary culture of Taiwan back then.

Angela Lin 13:48
Yeah. And that article did touch on this, and I don’t think I recognize this in my own like history until I read part of that article, but it’s like, these were safe spaces for us, right? Because it was like, it’s one of the few places where you would go and everyone was Asian American, I mean, not everyone there’s sometimes they brought their white friends or whatever, but it was like the majority of the people there are Asian American and it was one of the few spaces where you would be the majority and that’s like somewhere special for you know, for people that are part of a minority group. So I don’t think I recognize that at the time but there I think I did feel a level of comfort going and I feel like purchase of the boba was your ticket in so I gladly paid it even though I didn’t want it that much. But yeah, we’d see there for like four hours, you know, three to four hours just like hanging there and feeling comfortable with ourselves.

Jesse Lin 14:56
That’s interesting, because like, as you mentioned that I also think about like, how I could feel more comfortable being like flexing my Asianness in that space and other places, you know, like when you go to some Asian places and you’re like, oh, I can say the language and I feel like this power? That was the kind of place where you’re like, I know all the words to the food menu like I can actually order in Chinese like, so. Yeah.

Angela Lin 16:35
Yeah, well actually, let’s break that down further because I think there’s an interesting like, it started a while ago, but I think it’s certainly like diverging further now which is that the article that you sent and we read is postulating that boba is like integral to Asian American culture not just like Asian immigrant culture but Asian American one of the first things that kind of like signaled Asian American identity right? Or that we could claim. And I think that’s true but I do think in the topic of boba and speaking to what you just said about like feeling proud that you could order in Chinese or whatever right, is that there’s now a split between the like authentic OG Taiwanese run boba shops and then these like hip you know, like, first gen Asian American run type boba places so for example, like Boba Guys is getting fuckin huge right and they are Asian American. I don’t actually even know if the founders are of Taiwanese origin they may or may not be but they don’t have to be but basically it’s like the old school way versus the like new generation way and I think they value different things like you’re there for the hang you’re there for the gram you’re there for you know, the the like, experience less so to say like this is authentic and what I mean by authentic is like authentic to like actual Taiwanese boba which very values like high quality tea because tbh these you know, the first gen run a boba places don’t care that much about the tea right? It’s like it sometimes there isn’t even tea and it’s like there’s like Boba Guys it’s like a Korean banana milk which is like there’s no tea today it’s just like straight sugar it’s like a shit ton of bananas syrup milk, like you know anyways, so the tea is not like at the center anymore of of first generation run boba shops versus you can tell that it’s like you can tell when you’re in in authentic Taiwanese run boba place when you like get a kick when you drink the milk tea because the tea is actually strong and it’s like high quality and then the others are toppings because we we read this and all the articles but it’s just it was just a refresher of what we’ve been hearing our whole lives with our moms probably which is in Taiwan, there’s this texture that everyone values a lot which is qq. Yes, that is often written like the letter Q even though that’s not actually what it’s what it where it came came from, but anyways, so this qq texture is is kind of like It’s chewy, it’s bouncy, it’s like it’s not just to describe boba it’s also to describe like other things, but it’s a very like coveted texture in Taiwanese culture. And so in like authentic Taiwanese run boba shops they don’t just have boba like yes having like qq boba is also very important, but they also have like other toppings that are very qq and Karen took me to one of these in South Bay where they have like noodles and I was like, What the fuck? Why am I getting noodles in my boba and it’s I think it’s still made out of tapioca but the shape is like little short noodles. So you get like a mix of all these different like qq toppings but just like you get some boba you got some noodles. And then I think there’s like cubes or something I don’t know. It’s just like this whole schlep of stuff. And then also like, yes, boba guys has like a ton of toppings as well. But I think some of the more like traditional things that even kind of come from like herbal medicine, right, there’s like grass jelly, and like, things like that, that white people probably don’t like as much because it’s sometimes it’s not like, it’s sometimes it’s a little bitter or like it’s just a flavor they’re not used to so like, the more mainstream places are not going to put that on the menu versus somewhere that is like run by OG Taiwanese people will be like, that’s what Taiwanese people like. So I’m going to put it on the menu. So that’s something I find really interesting is like seeing this divergence right now, between the like, first gen kids that are doing their own thing, picking up something that started in Taiwan, but making it more of this, like Asian American thing that may not be so true to the core, but is like taking the life on of its own versus the like, OG Taiwanese trend that is also thriving right now but like in a totally different way. Okay, well, why don’t we talk a little bit more about the broadening appeal? What did you learn about the non Asian people who are now discovering, and embracing boba?

Jesse Lin 21:40
In the New Yorker article, chronicles of a bubble tea addict, the author talks about how she was part of a student group in high school, and part of what they did or it was in college, something like that. And part of what they did is at an event was to have boba at the event. So I think part of the reason why non Asian people might like boba is because we know it’s a palatable and easy thing. And we push it as a thing that’s like, you know, you’re at the student event, there’s bubble tea, you’re at the blah, blah, blah, there’s buble tea it’s like very, it’s easy to drink, very accessible. So we push it as like a, this is a, you know, easy to digest, no pun intended thing from our culture that you’ll enjoy. Because the people in popular culture like it, and it’s easy to stomach, for lack of a better term. Yeah.

Angela Lin 22:33
So that’s your hypothesis of how it entered into white people’s sphere?

Jesse Lin 22:40
Yeah, that we push it that we pushed it as a thing that we enjoy, that’s coming from our culture. I also think that because it’s so so not like, not synonymous but because it is so intertwined with, like, Asian American culture from the 90s. It’s now become like a studiable thing. So when I was googling around, I found a partial thesis submission called “Want to get boba, the bond between boba and Asian American youth in San Jose, California”. So it’s like so as you were mentioning, it’s so engrained into some people’s lives. Not in a way that they’re thinking about it consciously, but like there are some patterns of things that they’re doing in pursuit of the boba, that now it’s become a thesis studiable thing. So I think that because of its popularity, and its connection with Asian American culture in the US, it’s also become more noticeable.

Angela Lin 23:40
Okay, shall we move into trends in boba?

Jesse Lin 23:44
Yes, trend alert trend alert.

Angela Lin 23:47
Yeah, so I looked up a lot of shit because I felt very knowledgeable about this topic, since I’m not like that into boba. And tbh the trends that are still floating in the US are not that like crazy. I’m like, oh, I’ve heard of this already. You know, this is like, this is still a trend.

Jesse Lin 24:09
Yeah, yeah

Angela Lin 24:09
I think the like, I think we just wanted to have this fun conversation because to see like the evolution of it and how like some crazy combos have popped up. I think in the US the craziest right is still the like, cheese foam thing? That seems to be the most like out there thing that is definitely caught on and people love it. I haven’t tried it yet. Have you?

Jesse Lin 24:34
I think I have. I think I have.

Angela Lin 24:36
Did you like it?

Jesse Lin 24:37
Yes. I mean, it’s, you know, I don’t think you can not like it. It’s like, well, that’s a lie. As I say it’s like not liking chocolate but I know some people don’t like chocolate. If you like sweets in general, you’ll like it.

Angela Lin 24:51
See, that’s my thing. I’m not a huge like when I order boba I order 25% sweetness or zero.

Jesse Lin 24:56
I don’t think you’ll like that. It’s very, very rich.

Angela Lin 25:00
Yeah, and I had to look it up because I was like, are you melting cheese and put it on putting it on boba? Because I don’t understand but it’s cream cheese, right? It’s like so it’s like whipped cream cheese with some salts on top so that there’s like a savory element to it. But it’s not like American craft cheese melted onto your boba or something.

Jesse Lin 25:22
No no no. This like, if you’re thinking about like, what will be the equivalent of it at Starbucks? Like a salted caramel.

Angela Lin 25:29
Yeah, so that’s probably I think that’s the like most out there one that’s trending in the US which is not new by any means. It’s been around for many years at this point. But I looked up some fun ones that are trending in Asia because they’re obviously where we steal all of our trends from and let’s see, there are some interesting ones. Oh, okay. Well, there’s one in the US we have like creme brulee milk tea right? I’ve seen those on a couple menus but I don’t think it’s like that different from the cheese foam thing versus in Malaysia right now there is a creme brulee one where they literally give you like, you know, the like flame flamed, creme brulee topping on top of your, your milk tea. So that’s one it’s like next level takes too much operational use, I think to trend in the US

Jesse Lin 26:29
That’s definitely for the gram.

Angela Lin 26:31
Yeah, as for the gram. In Taiwan, there’s one where I don’t know how I feel about this instead, one of the new toppings is oatmeal. Like it’s literally just like cooked oatmeal at the bottom. So I guess they’re pushing it as like a breakfast. Now you can like have boba for breakfast because instead of boba at the bottom, it’s like oatmeal. So then you’re eating your breakfast greens or whatever.

Jesse Lin 26:57
That doens’t sound good.

Angela Lin 26:58
I don’t know. No, I don’t know if that’s gonna catch on at all. And then the most like, it’s not bizarre. It’s not bizarre, but it looks bizarre to me is you know how in Taiwanese culture or maybe it’s Chinese I don’t know where it originated from. But we have the tea eggs cooked in like tea and star anice and like other whatever. Right? But anyway, tastes really good. There’s a shop in Taiwan that’s serving. Well, they serve the noodle things in the tea like I talked about, but oh, it’s actually made from sweet potato not tapioca. I was incorrect there. But when you get your boba they put a tea egg on top. Because they’re known I guess for the, the egg.

Like in it? Or..

Just no, it’s on top. But it’s like the way it’s it’s for the gram as well, because I’m staring at it right now. But it just looks a little bizarre because there’s like you got your boba. And then it’s got like, literally, like wet tea egg on top. But I guess I guess the idea is that, you know, it’s like, it’s an egg that’s cooked in tea, and you’re about to consume tea. So you could like eat it while you’re sipping on your boba, and whatever. But

Jesse Lin 28:24
I don’t know if those are. That’s a stretch.

Angela Lin 28:28
Well, this last one, I think white people would be into so then the US would be into which is alcoholic?

Jesse Lin 28:35
Oh, yeah, I saw that. I saw that in one of the articles where they were like, talking because a bubble tea again, it’s like originally not an expensive thing. It’s like a small add on. But of course, like, in the great tradition of capitalism in America, like we always take like really shitty things and we’re like, how can we make them more expensive? Okay, upgrade ingredients done. Okay, turn the ingredients to alcohol we can charge triple the amount of money. Like I don’t know if I would ever hop on board for something like that.

Angela Lin 29:04
I don’t think I it doesn’t sound like it would taste good to me. But this one I actually read. I’m sure they’re doing it in the US too. I think I’ve seen it on a menu or two as well. But this one is from Singapore and they have flavors like Nutella Bailey’s. Maybe that would be good. Maybe. Taro Tequila sounds fucking disgusting to me disgusting. Green tea, Heineken also doesn’t sound that good. And then pineapple thyme rum. I mean, I guess once you start removing any semblance of milk tea for bad you’re just putting alcohol and like a fruity thing together though. It’s fine, but that’s not really boba.

Jesse Lin 30:28
Alright, so I hope you guys enjoyed this lively discussion around food. I think this is like the most passionately I’ve ever talked about food ever. And it’s not even real food is snacky food, which is very on brand for me. But let’s move on to the fortune cookie part of our podcast because we always like to end on a sweet treat. We wanted to reveal to you guys what our favorite boba combos are. Angela, would you like to go first?

Angela Lin 31:00
Yes, I think tbh I don’t have like a favorite favorite. But my go to is something very similar to what I’m drinking right now. Which is I don’t really tend towards the milk tea part. Because you know what something I find really ironic about Asian Americans love of milk tea, boba tea is that so many of us are lactose intolerant. So I can’t have boba unless I have like, come prepared with the lactaid. So So yeah, so that’s a big element to it. But even now, like especially on the coast, we’re so like, what alternative milks do you have? So like, everyone has oat milk and almond milk and whatever. So I get that sometimes, but I actually do prefer the like non milk boba. And so, if it’s like in the afternoon, because I don’t drink that much caffeine anymore. I don’t want to like spike, so I’ll get the things that are uncaffeinated. My one of my favorite ones is winter melon, which a lot of people don’t know what that is who are Chinese speaking when they hear it in English. Yeah, it’s a and I think I like it because it’s not too sweet. It’s got a little bit of sweetness, but it’s not too sweet. And it makes me feel connected to my Taiwanese, like upbringing because you didn’t drink that when you were growing up? I drank a lot of that.

Jesse Lin 32:25
It’s the very light soup and the dong gua was like this white thing, right? And it’s usually when you eat it. It’s very soft. Yeah. Okay.

Angela Lin 32:32
Yeah. And then you could also buy it like 99 Ranch. They have like canned dong gua juice, or whatever. But right.

Jesse Lin 32:39
So what’s the flavor when it’s in a tea like that though?

Angela Lin 32:42
It’s just very subtly sweet. Like, very subtle. It’s kind of like crisp and subtle. And yeah, I’ll get so I’ll get winter melon tea. And then for the topping, like I said, I’ll either get aloe vera chunks or lychee chunks because yeah, the other day I don’t like boba that much. And, but if I’m feeling fucking indulgent, then I will go for a milk tea of some sort. And I’ll get the pudding topping cuz but that’s like not that’s not my go to it’s that’s too indulgent.

Jesse Lin 33:19
You’re like literally setting yourself up for gastrointestinal failure.

Angela Lin 33:24
Well, if I’ve already gone that path, I’m taking the lactaid already. But, yeah. How about you?

Jesse Lin 33:31
Um, I want to say recently, I’ve been really into the brown sugar boba craze thing.

Angela Lin 33:38
Oh you have such a sweet tooth!

Jesse Lin 33:40
I know, it’s really bad. But I really like it. So sweet. It’s delicious. But if I’m going to a place that has like everything, where it’s like you have your your teas, your milk teas, whatever. And there’s also food. I would say nostalgia dictates that I would get something that’s like a Black Milk tea with tapioca pearls or green tea milk tea with tapioca pearls and then an order of that crispy, salty fried chicken.

Angela Lin 34:07
Yeah. Very nostalgic.

Jesse Lin 34:12
Yeah, every place we went to when we were growing up, that was like the combo you could get that as a combo.

Angela Lin 34:17
So that’s our favorite stuff. If you enjoy this episode, if you have strong thoughts about your favorite boba combo, or the history of boba or your experience with it as an emblem of your Asian American upbringing, we want to hear from you. So write us in with comments or your story for a potential feature on an upcoming reflections episode, email us at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com the you’re is Y-O-U-R-E. And as always come back next week for a fresh new episode.

Angela Lin 0:22
Today we are talking about dating outside of the race, interracial relationship. I think we’ve touched on this briefly in some of our past episodes where we’ve talked about relationships, dating, sex and intimacy, that kind of stuff. But we wanted to dig into this in particular, because I think there’s a lot of like cultural things that maybe our family upbringings brought into the mix in terms of like, the way we were looking at who could be prospective partners as well as the way society and where we grew up, kind of shaped, probably the way that we were looking at who we would be attracted to, and all that stuff. So we wanted to dissect this also, because Jesse and I have mainly dated outside of the race. So it’s, yeah, so let’s just dissect our own personal lives further. Oh, and also, today’s my wedding day. So I’ll be in Spain, having my one year late post COVID wedding.

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Jesse Lin 1:42
I was gonna say it’s an interracial wedding too, but I guess that quite translate. If you if you know, either of us personally, you’ll know that our history with dating people is basically like, we don’t date people of the same of our own race. And, as Angela mentioned, there’s very, very many reasons for that. And we’re gonna get into it now. So I will try to dig deep into my self honesty pot, and say that, I definitely feel like I don’t, I don’t date within the race. Within the race, let’s use this terminology. Because I feel like I would have too many things in common with the person in a way. And also behind that the dynamics of attraction are also really, really complicated. Like I do find Asian guys attractive, like I’m into them. But it really took me a long time to get there. Because of how we grew up and being bombarded in the media of this whole like, if you wanted to be masculine, you had to look a certain way. And you had to have a certain body type. And usually, those images were not images of Asian men. So it took a long time for me to come around to the idea that Asian men were attractive, although I kind of like knew that all along, I had to like uncondition this like other muck out of the way. And then after that, like I said, I feel like they’re just too similar. And also, sometimes when I think about it, I’m like, I carry a lot of problems with me, like a lot of trauma baggage with me. And I’m like, these people probably do too, because we have kind of like a shared experience, right? So I’m like, do I really want to like these things together? Like, they might understand better, but also like they’re bringing their own emotional baggage that’s similar. So I’m like, I don’t know, I don’t if I want to do that

Angela Lin 3:53
You want different emotional baggage is what you’re saying.

Jesse Lin 3:55
That’s right. That’s right. I want the emotional baggage buffet, not the what’s the opposite of buffet with the same thing every day? Is there such a thing? I don’t know. I don’t know. The same. I don’t want to I don’t want to have the same thing. Yeah, basically. What about you?

Angela Lin 4:12
Interesting. I think some of the same stuff. Definitely the media portrayal and the societal messages about what is attractive or supposed to be attractive, definitely influenced the way that I looked at all men. And certainly Asian men. I think, for me, the bigger thing bigger two things is my own rejection of my Asian ness. Because I mean, we’ve talked about this but like, yeah, we didn’t want to be Asian and growing up is like, easier to be white. And so what why it’s not what better way but like what additional what greater additional way can I erase my own Asian-ness than to try to find a life partner who is not Asian so that I can like, tell myself how un-Asian I am, right? Especially because I think at a young age, like when we’re teenagers, adults are like this too, but especially when you’re teenagers, all you want us to be accepted and to be loved by other people. And you seek validation from the outside world. So if you were able to attract and maintain a not Asian person who at the time we thought was like superior to Asians, because we didn’t want to be Asian, then you’re kind of like validating to yourself, how important you are, because you’re able to, like, magnetize a superior person, right? So I think that was a lot of what, like, caused me to seek that out when I was younger, at least.

Jesse Lin 6:00
Yeah, that’s, I definitely feel that. And I want to add to that, like, there’s even there’s like parts. There’s moments in my life where I look at the people that I’m attracted to. And I’m, and I have to ask myself that question. And the question is, am I attracted to them because they’re attractive? Like, they actually look good and I enjoy their appearance? Or am I attracted to them, because I want to be this person, because of all the privileges and the handing to you on a silver platter that you get as a person when you look a certain way. And honestly, for a long time, I couldn’t delineate that. And that was like really fucking me up because I was like, not couldn’t couldn’t distinguish if I was interested in the person or interested in this idea of the person. Yes. Yeah.

Angela Lin 6:55
Yeah. And I think there’s also, like, definitely, when I was younger, I think I did similar exercises, where I had to be like, am I attracted this person because of this or because of some other thing? And for me, I do think there was a point in my life where I was like, if this person weren’t white, how many points would I subtract from like, how attractive I think they are? Right? And like, when you have to ask yourself that kind of question. It’s actually pretty revealing because I think sometimes I was like, this person is terrible, or like they you know, they’re not special. And if they were Asian, or if they were a different minority would I think they’re that interesting. No. So it’s, I definitely think a lot of it is just a mirror onto ourselves of like, what we wanted to be and therefore what we were trying to reel in ourselves.

Jesse Lin 7:52
Yeah, I totally agree.

Well, I think we can also take a look at it from the lens of like, what our cultural expectations are in terms of who we date and by cultural expectations we mean our parents because they’re, they’re the enforcers, the arbiters of culture.

Oh? Oh of our, our culture?

Well, you know, it’s not like other Asian people are like you must date Asian people they don’t know you like that. They don’t care,

Angela Lin 9:40
I don’t know the way you said it was like, oh, wow. Our parents are like influencers. They’re like on the cutting edge of culture.

Jesse Lin 9:49
Well, you guys listen to the episode with Shibani they represent this like very fixed time capsule of culture and it’s kind of interesting. It’s like visiting a museum, because those things don’t exist anymore. Like, it’s it’s a very good point. But I will say with my parents, and I’ve mentioned this before, they’ve never really brought up anything related to dating. I’m sure the expectations are like, date a, nice Asian girl, nice Asian girls, Taiwanese, nice Asian girl speaks Mandarin, she probably cooks very well, some, you know, your regular kind of concept of what a good wife would be like, but obviously being like extremely pink sheep, it did not pan out that way. And I don’t think either of my parents have really mentioned anything about that. In terms of a specific race that they would like me to date. I think the most recent thing that my mom mentioned was that, like, she just wants to make sure that I’m seeing someone that is kind. And she was also like, I like people who are gregarious, like, very friendly. And she also said she would like to be able to communicate with this person. So I guess this is where the gregariousness comes in. Because even if you can’t speak the same language, you can be like, yeah, and you know, get along that way. You have many, you have many layers there to share.

Angela Lin 11:16
Interesting. I could talk for hours, I could talk for hours about this, because this, this was the second half of what I was saying of like, my big reasons is, my parents cram this down my throat from when I was like, at any, at the first age where like, boys are potential, like, interest in your life instead of something you hate, right? Because when you’re younger, you’re like, Oh, I hate you, you vice versa with girls, right? But then, basically, from the time I could have ever developed a crush, they started like, trying to brainwash me with these, like, very strict rules. It was very weird, because at the same time that they were like, you’re not allowed to date. They were still indoctrinating me with their, like hopes and desires of who I would end up being with. And for them, it was well, it was weird, because when I was growing up, when I was younger, my dad was always more kind of like, aloof in the conversation where he made it seem like he was more liberal about the prospects of like, whoever I would be with. But my mom always had like, a very strict opinion. And she was like, has to be Chinese or Taiwanese, like, can speak Mandarin. Like has to be this kind of person. Yeah, um, but it really was pretty focused, because I think I had this conversation with other other friends as well. Because, you know, we teed up this episode as inside or outside the race, but the race is a very broad term, right? And for some parents who are Asian, they’re like, hey, as long as you like, kind of look like me, you’re, you’re good enough, right? Like also Asian. For my mom, it was not also Asian It was like, had to be a Chinese speaking person, because my brother would also play the like, what if she ends up with the Korean American or whatever it she would be like no. It was, it was all no, except for like these, this very narrow band. And we talked about this in our like, dating stuff, dating episodes, but like, because she was always indoctrinating me with this stuff, but also, not allowing me to date. I was like, I felt even more fucked up. Because in my head, I was like, I’m not even attractive to anyone, because like, I have had zero relationships. And you’re trying to like crush my probabilities of ending up with someone even further by limiting me to this, like very tiny percentage of people. What if I just end up alone forever? Like, I think it was a really like, negative loop for me, because I just felt pretty, like hopeless to me where I was like, you. I don’t know that I’m gonna be able to fulfill this. And maybe I’ll just end up alone. So it was it was a pretty like, rough kind of, like, a expectation or like, thing to live up to.

Jesse Lin 14:13
Yeah, I mean, it is a lot of pressure. Let me ask you a deep probing question. Do you feel like being squeezed that way actually drove you away?

Angela Lin 14:25
Yes. And that’s why I was saying it’s, it was a huge influence to me. And what is funny though, is I was pretty adamant of like, well fuck that if you’re going to be so like, strict with me that that’s all you accept then like, I’m not gonna date someone who’s like that. And I think for me, I I didn’t didn’t explicitly say like, I’m not gonna date Asian people. It just kind of like worked out that way. But it in my head. I remember thinking Like, oh, wouldn’t it be ironic if I did somehow still ended up with like a Taiwanese American Yeah. And I remember thinking that and then also at the same time, it was like, I mean, I wouldn’t care. Like, if that’s how I ended up with great, but like, I’m not going to be seeking out that person. I was like, that’s the only kind of person that I can end up with. So I was never like, I was outwardly like, fuck that. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna do this kind of person, because you’re telling me I have to, but inwardly I was, because I felt so like, unappealing to people. Because I had zero dating experience, I think secretly on the inside, I was like, I don’t care like I, you know, I, I’m gonna end up with, like, whoever is interested in me that I’m also interested in. And even if it’s a Taiwanese American, my mom secretly wins this in the end, like, I’ll suck it out. Because that’s better than being like alone, which was my like, fear, big fear.

Jesse Lin 16:00
Got it. So I know, we’re supposed to be talking about like, into, like a racial makeup of the date, people we date, but I did want to ask, like, did you ever get a sense from your parents, aside from the race and language component of the kind of person they want you to date?

Angela Lin 16:18
No they did not give a fuck? No, that’s not true, actually. Like, you know what, it’s not true. And it is true. The only other thing they said is, well, my dad really pushed that they should be rich. That’s it. They didn’t give a shit about how this person treated me, or I mean, I’m sure they did, but they never spoke about it. They did not care about like, intellectual, you know, compatibility interests, that kind of stuff. Um, I think there was always though an unspoken thing that like, they should be at the same kind of like, intellectual. Like, what I don’t think at the time, I was like, I’m going to go to grad school, but like, you know, whatever I ended up with, I think they were implicitly saying, like, wherever you’re at, they should at least be at that to be like acceptable. I think that was always there. They never said it. But they never talked about personality or whatever. I think my mom had this very naive belief that like, as long as she could communicate, natively, you know, native tongue wise with someone, she would get along with them, no matter what. I’m like, that’s pretty bizarro to like, think that way because we’re not all the same.

Jesse Lin 17:36
I am always curious, because like, they’re coming from such a different place where it wasn’t even possible to date somebody not in the race, right? So sometimes I think about it. And I wonder if they even kind of what you’re describing, like, they just can’t picture it for you. Because it didn’t exist for them.

Angela Lin 17:56
Yeah.

Jesse Lin 17:57
But because of the pressure that we had in like, the, I guess the negative associations that we had with our culture growing up, we were like, we do see possibilities of dating other people, and we’re gonna go, we’re gonna do that. And we prefer doing that.

Angela Lin 18:10
Yeah, and I think I talked about this a little bit previously. But I mean, looking back, now I have a lot more empathy towards what my mom was trying to get at, which is, I think she was coming from a place of fear herself, which is like, I can see how she would have wanted to be able to rely on like, future family, right? She’s like, forecasting out very far when I was like, 11 thinking of this stuff, right? But like, you know, thinking into old years, like, Who am I gonna spend time with my, my family, my extended family, and like, I want to be able to be very close with that family. And language being a barrier will be a detriment to me being able to be close with them. So I definitely have a lot of empathy for that, especially now, because I am married to someone who can’t speak Chinese. And I totally understand it. I just think the way that it was presented as, which is so typical Asian parent, right, which is like this is a mandate, you have no choice, like that kind of way of presenting it made it much more unlikely that I was gonna end up down that path. So I feel for her and I’m trying everything I can to like, make it smoother, but it – yeah, it was not the right approach at the time.

Jesse Lin 19:32
Well, what do you think are? What do you think are some of the good points and bad points to dating someone outside of the race and let’s just say for the purpose of what we’re discussing somebody that doesn’t fit this Taiwanese Mandarin speaking mold that our parents would be most interested in?

Angela Lin 19:52
I see. Um, I think the pro of dating someone outside the race is definitely, I’ll expand on your diversification of emotional baggage. That’s not really the top of my list of like, I want different kind of baggage. But for me, it’s definitely like diversity of thoughts and diversity of culture. Because you know, like, we grew up Taiwanese American, we have our own culture that we were raised on. And we have a lot to offer to, you know, there’s a lot of interesting history, customs, food and stuff that we bring, because of the way we were raised. I really like exchanging those things with Ramon, he’s from Spain. So it’s like really fun to see him light up when he’s like, oh, let me teach you how to make this like tapa that we eat in Spain all the time that like any bar has this and makes me feel at home or like, Oh, I’m gonna turn on like flamenco music, because I really like you know, it’s fun to share those things and to broaden your own worlds. By having someone introduce there’s, it’s like you add up multiple little worlds, and it becomes like a bigger world. Right. So I think that’s one of my favorite things, how about you.

Jesse Lin 21:12
I have to agree, I think that, although I, I need to preface this with I have not dated cultured white people I mean like a white person from Europe, or a country of like, long historical significance. Most of the white people I’ve dated are people who were born in the US, and that means their culture is trash. So..

Angela Lin 21:34
Hey, whoa.

Jesse Lin 21:36
No, but I mean, like, they don’t have like, they don’t have those things that you mentioned, there’s no flamenco music, there’s no, there’s none of that stuff. But each kind of person brings a different flavor, as you mentioned, to the relationship. And although it might not be a preference, or knowledge or information that is historically or culturally important, it is a different perspective, like you said, and I find that very interesting, because you never know what a person is going to be interested in, and like where those interests come from. And those are the moments where you really learn a lot of stuff, because you become you’re interested in the person, so you become interested in what they’re interested in. And from there, you learn a lot of different things that you probably personally would never have gotten any interest in, or tried to figure anything out about or find more information about. So I definitely agree with you that I think dating people of different races helps to bring a different perspective and helps you learn new things, even if they aren’t from a country of historical relevance.

Angela Lin 22:49
Okay, what about your con, or cons?

Jesse Lin 22:53
I will say that, for me, there’s always a little bit of distrust when I’m dating people outside of the race, particularly when it comes to white people, because I’m very cautious of dating people who are rice queens. And I have, do you know what that term is?

Angela Lin 23:10
No, but I can guess.

Jesse Lin 23:13
A rice queen is basically a white gay man. Or it could be it any kind of person who’s like a real into Asian people and like fetishizes Asian people. That’s the main thing that I’m on the lookout for, because while I like getting attention, I don’t like getting attention for that only specific reason. It’s very uncomfortable. And usually there’s like, some stereotypes attached to what the rice queen thinks you are. And I don’t like that. So that’s like, the first thing that I’m kind of like, oh, that can be kind of icky. It’s like a little bit of minefield, you might find someone who’s really nice. And it’s like, oh, no, I also, you know, sometimes, depending on the person, it’s not every person, but it can be really hard to explain to a person, what their privileges and just come eye to eye on those experiences, because we grew up. I don’t know, I want to say that I was low middle class and really kind of middle class. And I’ve definitely met people and dated people that were, you know, their family had money, and they didn’t quite understand the mismatch of perspective and like, why I would see certain issues a specific way, and not be able to reconcile those different perspectives. So I’ve definitely found that that’s been also a challenge, although it’s not necessarily a racial challenge, per se. I think those are like the main ones. It’s like always, making sure people aren’t like really fetishizing you and like, trying to get on the same page with somebody.

Angela Lin 24:54
Yeah. I agree with you. I mean, the rice queen thing is basically the gay version of yellow fever, right? So yeah, that annoying. Although let me throw this back at you though we hate people who have yellow fever who are rice queens. But what is the difference between those people and us where we were like, I’ll only date a white person.

Jesse Lin 25:17
I mean, to me, I don’t know if there really is a difference. Because you’re in both situations, you’re making a preference choice for not necessarily the person, but just how they appear and the associations with that appearance. So I don’t necessarily see that there is a difference.

Angela Lin 25:41
But then, so then based on your own, like way that you approach people who have those tendencies wouldn’t wouldn’t it be the same way with like, white guys who’d be like, Oh, are you Oh, my, but that I guess that’s the difference is that white people would never think like, oh, you’re only into me, because I’m white? Because that’s their the majority’s. It’s just like, oh, no, I’m special. That’s what you like me.

Jesse Lin 26:10
I think this is one of those that was like, kind of relate to saying which one of those things that they don’t need to think about, necessarily, versus like, as a minority person, you’re constantly thinking about all these like, weird things that are not really related to you as your person, but are also important to they’re not related to you as a person, but they are very prescient everywhere in terms of how people think and see you. And that’s not necessarily the same case for Caucasian or white people.

Angela Lin 26:43
Yes. And I’m thinking about it further. I think there is also a difference in that, like, a lot of times that people who are attracted only to Asian people are attracted because they attach like you said, the stereotypes or like, they really like manga, and they really like boba, and they’re just like, I just love all these things about Asian culture. You are those things. Yeah, you were like the embodiment of all these things. Versus for us. It’s not like, I love football, and I love hamburgers. And you are the embodiment of every American thing – corn on the cob! Like, we’re that’s not what we’re looking at. We’re we are pining after what society has told us is the superior thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jesse Lin 27:41
That’s what we want. We don’t care. We don’t care about you. We want your privilege.

Angela Lin 27:46
And not to say that’s any better. But it is, I think, not to say either is better than the other, but they’re different. They’re different in like, what you’re actually seeing the other person is offering to you. So interesting.

Jesse Lin 28:40
All right. Well, listeners, we are entering the fortune cookie, since we always like to end on a sweet treat. And we thought it would be fun to discuss, what’s the thing that we have the most trouble explaining to our partners? Angela, would you like to go first?

Angela Lin 28:59
Yes, I have it. Um, it’s funny because we were very light. And then you introduce this as the fun close. But the thing I’m gonna say is like pretty heavy. The thing that I’ve had the most trouble explaining to Ramon is the concept of duty. And like duty slash obligation and saving face like they’re, they’re all kind of interconnected, right? And, like as to why I’m making the decisions that I’m making in my life. Like at work, if I’m like killing myself at work, he’ll be like, why are you doing that they don’t pay you enough like the you don’t need to be doing XYZ. And I would be like, I told them I was gonna do this thing. Like I I put myself out there. I made this promise and it’s my duty to do this thing because I said I was gonna do it. I’m not talking about like, I was gonna like double check the file and I didn’t do that. I’m talking about like big projects, right? Like, or like, we were talking about decisions with the wedding and stuff. And I like vetoed some things because I was like, No, because that would like, be really embarssing, like it would be disgraceful. And he was like, I didn’t even think about it that way. Like, I’m like you don’t understand how much how much importance and weight the idea of like presenting your best foot forward and like saving face looking good in front of other people and like being a really like, dignified person that’s like true to your word is important to Chinese culture, and how much that is ingrained in me in the way that I make decisions and the way that like, my parents will perceive things and stuff. And it’s been really interesting because it’s been coming up more recently, I think because of the wedding. We’re like planning a lot of stuff. But it’s, it’s something I’ve recently like dissected I was like, this is this is heavy. And it’s like, it wouldn’t be something I’d have to explain to another, like Chinese Taiwanese person, or even a lot of other Asian people also have this kind of these values. Right? So it was a big disconnect. And it’s something that we’re like, learning yes, and learning together and like working through and but yeah, it’s it’s really difficult to explain that kind of thing. Because otherwise shown to us, it’s just like, it’s just understood. Like, that’s incredibly important. But how about you, hopefully it’s lighter than mine?

Jesse Lin 31:42
I’ll keep it light. I was gonna say something, not not heavy.

Angela Lin 31:46
No throw your real answer, throw your real answer.

Jesse Lin 31:49
No, this was my really answer. But it’s, it’s really just the little things like, the way that I think about it is that when you’re with another person of the same experience. So a Taiwanese American person who can barely speak any Mandarin, there’s some things that you have gone through that are very similar. And so it’s almost like you share an inside joke, your life is an inside joke. And so there are many things in your life that you can just understand, you don’t need to explain it. And it’s all these like small things out in the world. Like when you’re ordering food, or you see something funny on the street, or you’re talking to someone about something specific, like what you were just saying, those are all things that you don’t have to explain necessarily to someone who’s lived your experience. And it’s always something that you have to explain to somebody who’s not of the same race. And a lot of the times kind of like what you’re saying, it’s not, you just can’t explain it. And or, like, if you’ve explained it, like explaining an inside joke, it’s not funny anymore. Or it’s not interesting anymore, or just as kind of like it factually doesn’t seem to have significance, right? Because I think that’s kind of like what Ramon is saying, He’s like, this doesn’t make factual sense, necessarily, right. So it’s those things where you’re just kind of like this is very important, but you’re never going to understand because it’s like a lived experience thing. And me explaining it even doesn’t make it make sense for you.

Angela Lin 33:21
Well, we’ve gone through a lot, a lot of our own baggage on this episode. If you listeners have an experience a story about someone you’ve dated or the way your parents brought you up thinking about this topic, or you vehemently disagree with us on what we on our perspectives on interracial dating. Write us in at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com the you’re is Y-O-U-R-E. Remember that we’re always looking for listener submitted stories for our reflections episodes. So write us in about this or anything else you want to and maybe you’ll be featured on an upcoming episode.

Jesse Lin 0:19
This episode, we wanted to take you back to our homeland and explore a key thing there that is not here, which is a centralized, quote unquote socialized health care system, which covers everybody in the country and provides them access to pretty nice health care. And I think that this is something that we’ve wanted to look into for a while because it is something that’s really cool coming from a small nation island of like less than what 35 million people. And we we thought it would be interesting to take a look at how their system is formulated. And maybe how we can take some of the learnings from that and see if a system of that kind could ever be rolled out here in the US. So just to kick things off, I think that we’re going to go through a few key pieces of information about the national healthcare system in Taiwan. First of all, it’s been around for a while now, especially since Taiwan hasn’t been a country for very long. The system was launched in March of 1995. And overall, I think it’s proven to be very effective. And I think before the National Health System was set up, there was a lot of gaps in insurance coverage similar to here in the US, it was something like only 57% of the population in the country was covered by some form of health insurance. And it wasn’t even very clear if those were plans of equal parity, meaning that everyone had the same access to the same coverage, the same cost. So in fact, a good amount of people in the nation, the island nation did not have insurance coverage. And one of the one of the main things we want to talk about is like how this system came to be in Taiwan, it seems like before that they placed the system in place, it was very similar. I was reading an article where they had like different kinds of insurance for like different kinds of laborers so they had like, my mom talks about it Actually, she says she has, she has the jian bao, but she also has like Farmers Insurance or something like that. And the article that I read said, like each job type had their own kind of like specialized industry insurance. And so part of the reason they rolled out this system was to improve the efficiency by just like streamlining everything into like one administrative, like one administrative entity. And there was a second piece that was in the article that I read that was talking about how the other part of it was kind of advancing social justice, although social justice I guess you may consider is like a newish term or newishly more popular, but it was the idea that they wanted to be able to cover everyone and give everyone the opportunity to access health care.

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Angela Lin 3:11
I think a lot of people when they hear the term like universal health care, they think it’s just free health care for everyone. And that’s not the case, at least in Taiwan. What we are talking about here is just that everyone in the country is part of this program, this national health insurance program. And they have the same level of access to doctors and you know, services, but there is still like out of pocket payment involved. And we can get into like, generally how much and whatnot. But it’s not free. And it’s not. It’s not free to taxpayers, certainly. And it’s not necessarily free for a patient when you just you don’t like walk out of a hospital without paying anything, right. But anyways, is still infinitely more unified and simplified than our current system. But I just want to put that out there because I think I fell into that where I was like, oh, when I hear the term universal health care, I just think it’s like free for everything. Yeah, yeah. And part of the history also of how Taiwan came to be with the system is they knew that they wanted to reform their health care system, which is fucked up like ours back in the 80s. And then they basically looked around the world and looked to other countries to see which ones had like better systems and what they could adopt. And in particular, they looked pretty closely at the UK’s single payer system and that’s what I guess this, this type of function is called single payer system, which is basically like there was no like Blue Cross and Kaiser And like all this stuff, it’s just like there’s like one facilitator. It’s that kind of systems called the single payer system. Some random Princeton dude help them.

Jesse Lin 5:11
I saw his name was like, Reinhardt or something.

Angela Lin 5:14
Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So US had some influence apparently in this I yeah, I think his last name was Reinhardt and he was a Princeton professor or something. But he was married to a Taiwanese woman. So that’s where the connection came. But for some reason, Taiwan was like, hey, what do you think? And he was like, you should do the single payer system and they were like, okay. But hey, I don’t know it worked out, I guess. But that’s a fun fact of like, randomly how they landed on the current system. To be fair, I think he did already write a few papers about how fucked up the US healthcare system was, and sort of like analysis on other global competitive systems. And that’s probably why they tapped into him, but it was just so funny that they’re just like, hey, US rando

Jesse Lin 6:06
You random person. Well, as Angela mentioned, I think it’s very interesting to look into how each of the systems works. And so we’re going to look into specifically how healthcare in Taiwan is covered under the system here. Because as Angela mentioned, it’s not free. And so it’s a good idea to understand what healthcare for all actually looks like in Taiwan. So, overall, there’s like a mix of government subsidies and premiums paid from the taxpayers or the citizens. And it’s actually interesting, because I didn’t quite understand the difference, but they’re like, it’s not a tax, you pay a premium instead, which I’m like, I don’t really see what the differences like but you’re paying for it one way or the other. So yeah, so you do get you do pay the government for the insurance. For needier individuals, there are subsidies so like everyone is able to get covered regardless of their income and things like that. Um, but as it relates to like other pieces of how the insurance works, I didn’t actually know this for a while, I thought that like all the doctors and stuff were like public employees, and they’re actually not. So like, a lot of the studies also said that most of the general practitioners and most of the operators in the insurance in the health care industry are actually private, with the exception of like large government hospitals, and they basically compete with each other for the money that’s paid by the government for all the services and I think a key difference again, between the UK, UK single payer system and the one in Taiwan is also that in Taiwan, you don’t need to see a you don’t need to referral to see any doctor. Whereas in the UK, they use general practitioners to like if like an HMO like it is here, you have to see the general practitioner and they have to clear you to see refer you to see a specialist. But in Taiwan, this is not the case. And you can see basically, whoever you want, provided they have the slot open.

Angela Lin 9:31
And then the copayments and stuff as we mentioned, it’s not free to go to doctor’s visits and to stay in the hospital, but it is a lot more reasonable than in the US. With that said we’re obviously looking at this from a Western mindset. So we’re paid US dollars and looking at this thing like wow, it’s so cheap, but I don’t know if it’s really you know, I’m sure it’s not like gonna break anyone’s bank. But I don’t think people look at it as like as dirt cheap as we do because we’re paid in dollars. But anyways, um, in the US a big reason that people go bankrupt is hospitalizations. And you can’t control how long you need to be in the hospital. If you’ve been in an accident or you have like chronic illness or all that, and that can easily rack up to be like five, six figure bills pretty quickly. In Taiwan, I saw that the coinsurance for inpatient care is capped at about $1200 US for any like, single visit, even if you stay for multiple days. And then if you have a chronic illness that you’re in there a lot, then they even have an annual ceiling and it doesn’t go over $2100, which is like…

Jesse Lin 10:54
That’s pretty legit. I think my deductible was $2000.

Angela Lin 10:57
Yes, yeah. It’s comical compared to what we rack up like, you. I remember when I had food poisoning in the middle of the night when I was at NYU, I thought I was gonna die. Like it felt like I was dying. And they were like, Oh, we could take an ambulance. Or you could wait for the like NYU shuttle to public safety. Yeah, the public safety bus to take you to the hospital. But the ambulance will cost you like $3,000? No, it was 1000s of dollars. And I was like, I will wait for this free shuttle bus because I’m not gonna pay for freaking 1000s of dollars for an ambulance. So yeah, just to get used to the hospital would be more than this annual ceiling of chronic illness being treated for weeks on end in a hospital. So that for sure is like huge round of applause for making that happen.

Jesse Lin 11:51
So I mean, we’ve covered a lot about how this system works. So it sounds like a natural segue into like, what are the great things, and we were touched upon a little bit before and what are like the not great things about this system. Um, I think, obviously, since it is a universal system, one of the benefits is that almost everybody in the country is covered by the system. Everybody has like a national national ID card health card used for paying for services. And one of the big benefits of this is that when you go get services done, you use the card, and the payment, and the service transaction happens very quickly. And I think that’s also a big issue that we have here, which is that you never know how much a service is going to cost here, you go to the doctor, they’re like, Oh, it’s $15 copay. Four weeks later, you get a bill that’s like $500. And you’re like, what the hell. So I think that’s also one of the great things is that like, all the services are negotiated and the card basically, you can pay and you know immediately how much you have to pay. And I think as I mentioned before, you don’t need a referral to see a specialist. So you can basically go to any hospitals see any doctor you want, provided that they have the you know, available time slots to see you.

Angela Lin 13:05
And going back to the card just so that people aren’t totally lost. With our episode title, it’s the card itself is called Jian Bao. So that’s why our episode is named as such our favorite kind of bao. But yeah, and another pro, which is not perfect by any means. But at least a step in the right path is with your Jian Bao card. Another benefit is that any doctor who has it when they put the chip in to the reader, they see the last three months of your medical history. So it is also a digitization of your medical record, at least to a certain extent. It’s not perfect because I looked up it was basically like it’s only three months. And then you can find up to three years of history through a different system. It’s like, you know, comically the same as the US and that there’s like 5 million different systems that don’t connect but at least the Jian Bao is everyone has it. And at least for like your most recent history, any doctor you go to can see that which you’d have to just repeat verbally and like get paper, you know, documents and shit if you really wanted to do that in the US. So that is definitely a step in the right direction that Taiwan also has.

Jesse Lin 14:25
Nice. Well, I think we did talk a lot about how the system works and kind of in connection to that, like a lot of the good parts of it. So maybe it’s worth visiting like which parts of it are not good as well in thinking about how the system might work here in the US.

Angela Lin 14:41
For me what I think is the worst part of their system is exactly what you said is the good part which is from the patient point of view, the ability to go see any doctor you want and without a referral any specialist in the whole country sounds Fantastic, and you’re covered, and you have no problem saying, theoretically, that’s fantastic. From a doctor standpoint, it’s terrible. Like I was reading articles where healthcare workers are like, the patient is in heaven, and the doctor is in hell.

Jesse Lin 15:15
Yeah, I saw that one.

Angela Lin 15:16
Yeah. Because they don’t have time to do anything. Like they’re constantly seeing patients, which in the US is also the case. But can you imagine if there is zero gatekeeping at all, so the doctor’s time, there would just be like, an overflood of it. And one good example I read was like, the ER, the emergency room is like, there’s no delineation of what’s an emergency and what’s not an emergency, which is really bad. Actually, if you think about it, like if someone just got run over by a car, and they’re like, on the brink of death, but there’s all these old people, and they’re just like, I have a cold, and I just want to see the like doctor in this hospital. So then they’re waiting and like clogging up the queue. And, as far as I read, one of the complaints from the ER doctors was like, I can’t prioritize between those things. Like, it’s just, I have to see all of them. So then, you know, arguably, some lives are more at risk, because of this, like kind of no prioritization. And also from my own experience, too, because I got sick when I was in Taiwan a few years ago, nothing big. I just, I literally had like, bronchitis or whatever. But I didn’t go to a big hospital, I just went to like the neighborhood clinic. One of the drawbacks is that the doctors have zero time for you. So like, they’re just rotating you in and out, you’re literally a cog in their wheel, you know, like, the, it’s like, it’s both because of the way the system works. And in terms of like, their incentive, and also just like the number, the volume of patients that they have to see, but they have no incentive to build any rapport with you. Because it’s just like, I need to get like 50 patients through my door in the next hour. So I’m giving you literally two minutes of my time. So I saw that essentially every visit is between two to five minutes, which is like absurd, because in the US, at least they try to build some rapport like I do, you know, one medical and these Urgent Care things all the time in the US. And it’s always doctors I don’t know very well, or at all right, but they always tried to be like, Hi, I’m Dr. Johnson, blah, blah, blah, you know, like, whatever builds a little bit of rapport with you. And that in and of itself takes like five minutes. And this doctor, I had bronchitis and I waited, it was not a short wait, by the way. Because, yes, as we mentioned, lots of people going to any doctor all the time, I think I waited like an hour. And I only saw him for five minutes, or whatever. And it really I felt like I wasn’t even a human. Like I walked in, he like pushed the patient out. And I like he was like, come and come in and like wave, like, push me in the same chair that that patient just came out of. And then he just started like shooting random things up my nose and like taking my temperature. Like he wasn’t asking me for anything. He’s just like doing all this shit. I was like, What is happening? And then he just like, pushed me out. You know? Like, it was just like, Okay, I’m done. Here’s your prescription. Goodbye. I’m like, Okay, bye. What just happened. Um, so I think if you’re not able to go to one of those big hospitals and get like, really well known doctors or whatever, there are a lot of downsides with just like, access to a doctor doesn’t mean it’s access to a good doctor. That’s one of the biggest complaints that I saw from the patient side is just like quality is not well controlled. It’s it’s extremely variable, from doctor to doctor hospital to hospital. And then like I said, for the healthcare workers, it’s like, I don’t get why anyone wants to be a doctor. tbh. Yeah. Which is not good for the future of healthcare in Taiwan.

Jesse Lin 19:06
Yeah, I also did read that the fact that it’s so cheap, incentivizes people to go a lot, but there was also some, like, some of the articles were saying, like, it may or may not be like a uniquely Taiwanese thing to do that. Because it like, for example, in the UK, I don’t see I don’t think they see the same level of GP visitation just because people have free access to the GP. So they’re saying like, it’s kind of like a uniquely cultural thing where people like, as soon as they feel unwell, they’re like, we’re gonna go to the doctor. And so because there’s no, the GPs are not in charge of sorting people out, as you mentioned, like there’s all all the points of the system are overloaded by like the person making the choice of where they want to go.

Angela Lin 19:50
Yeah, I think the cultural thing is interesting. My speculation is that it has to do with and we’re just making broad strokes stereotypes, but some of that’s true, right is that Asian people respect authority a lot. And if you’re a doctor, you have quite a bit of authority because you know, way more than the general human about how to stay alive and to live as long as possible. So I especially if your first visit or whatever, you found anything wrong, I’m sure that’s why people keep going back. It’s just like, hey, it’s free. And you said, something’s wrong. I’m gonna go back until it’s fixed. Yeah, versus you actually mentioned a while ago that your mom hates going to the hospital in the US, right? Like she won’t go get checked up on ever in the US?

Jesse Lin 20:42
I mean, it’s yeah, I think it’s just a variety of factors. But she doesn’t really enjoy.

Angela Lin 20:46
I read this in the articles, but I know from firsthand as well is that I think a lot of that is literally just language and cultural and, and monetary, monetary to right? But my parents have held back on like, minor to semi big surgeries or like procedures that were needed until they were back in Taiwan, because they would feel more comfortable, they knew that they could get like some of the best health care that was available if they went to like one of the big hospitals in Taipei, and that it would be covered largely by the health insurance. So they would like draw out some of the, you know, the pain and the shit that they were going through to wait until they were back in Taiwan. And apparently, this is very common for people who live abroad who are not in Taiwan all of the year.

Jesse Lin 22:20
For the fortune cookie, we wanted to talk about whether or not we felt like health care for all if it’s something that could be successfully implemented in the US. And I think we’ve touched upon a few things that are interesting to start with. I want to primarily start with the culture component of it. Because I do think that a system of socialized health care does rely on some user responsibility to some end. And we can definitely see that in the Taiwan case, because we do see a lot of people over using the system visiting specialists visiting hospitals, in situations that they don’t need to do that. So it is very interesting to see that like there’s a system in place that covers everybody, but it really does rely on some personal responsibility, like personal exercise of judgment. I do feel like we have like, there’s very much I mean, we’ve talked about this in the past before, like related to work stuff, but there’s very much this culture of like work yourself to the bone and like don’t take care of yourself. And I feel like that’s the kind of thing where people would still not like even if there was free universal health care, like people would not necessarily over utilize it. But also like I you know, in the past recent years, I’ve gotten access to telehealth, and actually, I think a lot of people do now because of COVID. And I don’t feel like I’ve like utilize telehealth in more frequent way than I would normally see like a regular doctor. So like even though I have access to this and telehealth can give me like antibiotics and prescribe all these other things. Like I don’t really call them unless I unless I was like really needing to go to the doctor.

Angela Lin 23:57
Oh, I used it. I mean, it’s not like it was like a speed dial every week. I’m gonna call the doctor but I definitely there’s once there’s a lower barrier to it because they also weren’t charging the way.

Jesse Lin 24:09
It’s free. It’s free.

Angela Lin 24:10
Yeah. I remember I think I was talking to you when it happened or like the day after, but I got like a second or third degree burns from from cooking like burgers or something in the hot oil like spat. And I had like bubbles on my arm and yeah, anyways, like I could’ve treat it I did end up treating it at home myself. But I was kind of freaking out. So I sent a message to my you know, one medical people because I was like you can treat they have an option where it’s like treat me now I’m like, Yeah, why don’t you fucking treat me now? You know, I mean, and they did and I was like, whatever it is. You didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know but like I feel better knowing that a doctor telling me my the way I’m treating my burn is fine. I would definitely use it more for little stuff. Like I think I think you’d be surprised how much more someone would use health care if the barrier to entry is a lot lower. And by that I mean ease and cost. Yeah, there’s also the flip side because this is something I actually talk a lot with Ramon about, which is a huge gap that’s missing in the US healthcare system. And I’m I don’t think it’s really addressed in the Taiwanese one either, but we’re just talking about like, ideal future, right? Is preventative care. There’s no preventative care, like when you go to a doctor, it’s like, something’s already wrong with you. And they’re just trying to like patch the thing that’s wrong with you. Versus like, right now I recently did a program called Parsley Health that’s for it’s a women’s health program, and you pay out of pocket your own money, whatever, there’s insurance can cover part of it, too. But it’s fully preventative where you have a doctor, a medical doctor assigned to you, as well as a health coach. And they’re really focused on like, Okay, what are some like big health concerns in your lifestyle in general, so like, maybe you’re just like, I’m always tired, or I’m like, I have a bunch of acne that this has never gone away, or like you know, things you want to address that are not like life or death. And they will work with you on figuring out your diet, your habits, get bloodwork preventative bloodwork taken to see what your baseline is to like find the root causes of these just like things preventing you from having your best life, and like helping you to get towards that best life, I think that is like very missing in current health care. And if that were free, I would fucking go all the time like that would you know, I would be on a call with my doctor or my health coach, like every two weeks, because it would be a maintenance thing, where you’re just trying to, like maintain good health, not like, fix little shit that’s wrong with you.

Jesse Lin 27:05
What other parts of this, I think may or may not work here in the US. I think in reading a lot of the articles, there was a good one in Vox about it. Another thing related to culture is that the Vox article kind of mentioned all of the not nice parts about the system, like you don’t really get to see the doctor a lot, not being able to access specific treatments. But in the article, they were saying like a lot of people recognize that these are the problems but like in order to serve like the, the need of the most people, they recognize that they need to try to like work to like improve the system, and that it’s not going to be like everything for everyone all the time. And I also see that I think from a cultural perspective, that’s not how it is here. But because it’s very individualistic, right? It’s all about me, and like when can I get access to this for me now? Rather than, like, how can the most people benefit from this system? So from that perspective, I think it’s also very much a barrier. And I think we already see that in some of the conversations around people like, oh, we’ll lose losing your private health insurance. You know, people are very scared about that. And yeah, I don’t want to lose my private health insurance, like it works fine. But it’s very much that kind of thing where it’s like, Whoa, but we could move to something that could work just as good for everyone. And there’s some fear in committing to that, because we’re very, like individualistic society.

Angela Lin 28:37
Yes, I completely agree in general, because we’ve talked about this so many times, but in general, Asian, Eastern versus Western culture is way more community oriented than Western culture. That is true. And at the same time, I don’t know if they mentioned in the Vox article or a different article. But it’s good to note that before this system was first adopted, when the government announced that it was going to go into action. 80% of the population was against it. So actually, it was not like a Kumbaya. Everyone was like, Oh, yeah, let me just like give up my things so that everyone can be great together. Like everyone opposed it until it actually started working. And they realize like, Oh, actually, it’s probably this is better. Yes. So I want to throw us a bone in that, like, no one reacted that way in Taiwan either. I think the other related piece about individualistic attitudes, though, is I mentioned the word incentives. I genuinely believe that is the biggest barrier to getting us on this single payer system. Because America is centered on capitalism and you what incentives drive individuals. And there is a lot of different incentives for every single part of this system that is going to inhibit the ability to move to this kind of system. And one of the biggest is what doctors are paid in the US compared to what doctors are paid in Taiwan, in the US, doctors make shit until they are practicing but once they’re practicing, they’re making high six figure, right, to compensate for the fact that they work tirelessly. And under the single payer system, the way that Taiwan has it is that there’s a fixed budget for every year. And that’s spread out to cover every potential thing that any citizen wants to do with regards to their health in that year, which means that there was a fixed sum to go across every single doctor in America. And that means realistically, salaries are going to go down. And that that’s going to be the case for both doctors and the insurance companies. Because the insurance companies are like a mafia right now. Like, there’s a reason why it’s been really difficult for us to break the current system, it’s because insurance companies make a shit ton of money right now from us. And so for the government to be able to negotiate properly with doctors and insurance companies to make them feel like they’re still going to earn like, as much or almost as much as they currently make on this, like free market system. I just don’t believe that. Because if they’re gonna really be able to pay them as much as they currently make, it means that we the citizens, which is the other incentive, that’s fucked, is we’re going to be paying a shit ton of money out of our taxes to cover this if we’re really going to pay out the current prices of what doctors and insurance companies make today. So that’s my biggest worry is that it’s just the money doesn’t make sense from all different places.

Jesse Lin 32:11
Yeah, I think the incentive thing is a huge piece, because like to what you’re saying, there are many parts of the healthcare system where the incentive is not oriented towards a person’s health. And rather, it’s like oriented toward towards something completely different. And I also think it’s really hard for people to accept, like, under this single payer system, there are no insurance companies in Yeah, in Taiwan, their government is the insurance company, basically. So I can’t say that crunching the numbers. But like, in theory, I guess it could be possible for the doctors to be paid the same if you just removed the administrative waste on the insurance part, and made the money go to actually the people who are part of the health care transaction, meaning the doctor and the patient. But obviously, there’s a huge industry lobby to not have that happen, because they’re large companies that generate good amounts of profit. So I do agree with you, I think it’s a big problem, because it’s a, the incentive, it’s not set correctly, to keep people healthy.

Angela Lin 33:15
And then of course, that’s a whole other topic. But I do want to throw out that the taxing thing is going to be because taxes are the biggest recurring topic for any US new policy you want to pass is like, how is that going to work? And how is that going to be fair between citizens? And what does fair mean, based on every individual? Right?

Jesse Lin 33:40
Yeah, I that’s a good point. And one of the things I was just thinking about is just kind of like, at the end of the day, the legislative Yuan made the decision, and like, they kind of made that decision, knowing that it wasn’t popular, but that they believed it was the right thing to do. And just based on that alone, I just don’t think it will happen. Because like, think about the people who we have in the Congress right now, nobody is going to put their ass on the line to do the right thing, which is like the unfortunate truth. But I do want to say that like, I think the and I’m looking at the Wikipedia, maybe Wikipedia is not a great source. But there was a there was a quote in the Wikipedia that said, in 2009 interview, Michael Chen, Vice President and CFO of the National Healthcare Service, explained that one of the models that they did investigate was the United States, and that fundamentally, the health service is modeled after Medicare in the US. And it’s basically the same thing, except that their program covers all of the population, and Medicare only covers the elderly. So it doesn’t, it really doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch, because they’re saying that they have essentially the same system. They just cover more people under it. But I do believe based off of what you’re saying about the economic incentives and the political willpower, that I think it will be a very difficult thing to achieve. Well, on that note, I guess we can we can conclude this episode. As always, if you guys have any questions, comments, maybe you’re actually an expert on this topic to weigh in and correct us anywhere where we did not accurately reflect the factual situation or the actual opinion of the people living in Taiwan about the health system write us in?

Angela Lin 35:27
Or you are very knowledgeable of different reasons why it could or could not work in the US to adopt something like this. We also want to hear from you because we should have started with this – I genuinely think we should start this with any topic where we research stuff but – recurring disclaimer that we’re not experts at anything. And we are just talking about topics that we’re interested in that we do some like as much research as we can, as you know, lay citizens, but we are not experts by any means. So we’re always open to corrections and real expert opinion.

Jesse Lin 36:05
And you can send all those to our email at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com or you can dm us on Instagram, @Whereareyoufrompod and a reminder that we’re still looking for listeners story submissions, so if you haven’t already write us in we’re eager to read your story

Angela Lin 36:25
About anything. It can be about literally anything about everyone. Okay, well then come back next week for a fresh new episode.

Jesse Lin 0:26
This week, we are talking about education, specifically the importance of, of education in the Asian American community, and the kind of really multiple underlining of a specific kind of education path for, let’s say, first generation born Asian Americans. So I will kick off and say that my perspective on education because I actually recently had this conversation with my parents, from our parents perspective has always been to try to like put us into the position where we have to like work as little as possible, like, as little menial work as possible. Because I recently asked them about this, like, you know, you can make a good amount of money being like a plumber, or like an electrician, like stuff that doesn’t require you to go into an academic institution, like a university, like you could go to a trade school. And I asked them, like, why didn’t you guys present these as options? You know, for me to think about while I was growing up, and they’re like, well, it’s not like, we didn’t want you to explore those things. But we wanted you to be able to go to college, which seems like it seems like the only segue into a career that doesn’t require any physical work. And so they were saying, like, largely, we just wanted to prevent you from having to do a lot of physical work when you’re older. Because I think that they did a lot of those kinds of, and I think my parents still do some some like very menial, like very labor intensive jobs. What are your thoughts?

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Angela Lin 2:04
Yeah, I think I agree with what you said, I think there’s kind of two main facets that jumped out at me about why education is so important for Asian people. So I know you mentioned Asian Americans, and there is definitely like a slight nuance between Asian American and just Asian mentality in general. But I think Asian Asians, you know, Asia, Asians care a lot about education as well. But um, for us, Asian Americans, I think you’re right in that like a lot of our parents who immigrated here were not, you know, super well off when they were growing up in Asia. And they had to do a lot of manual labor type things to get by. Like, I remember my mom always tells the story that when she was in high school, she had to – she took High School is like, night classes or something, because daytime, she had to go help our grandma go sell stuff in the farmers market, to help make ends meet. So it’s like, things like that, that they don’t want to make us have to do. So they gravitate towards kind of the like, other extreme of like, well, that happened because of circumstance. And we are family was in that circumstance, because we weren’t able to get that like white collar jobs. And the way to get white collar jobs is to get as educated as possible. Right? So they push us towards that end. So I definitely agree, a lot of it is like to help us avoid the like more laborious parts of their own upbringings. The other side of it, I think, is bragging rights. Like I think a lot of it has to do with bringing honor and like something respectable towards your family at large. So being able to tell friends and family like oh, my son or daughter is a doctor or like a lawyer or some high powered business person or whatever, right? Or, like my mom say everything is talking about like, oh, you know, this ai-yi’s daughter just took her on this expensive vacation in Europe like, you know, those kinds of things. And you it’s like, it makes them happy to be able to kind of like brag about those things. And you’re only able to have things worth bragging about from like a career standpoint, if you are making enough money, which to your point can come from one of these trade things like plumbing and whatever, but like most people, at least in Asian culture associated more with like the white collar aspect of things where that money is coming from life.

Jesse Lin 4:48
Yeah, and I am very curious about another point you brought up which is like Asians in Asia, valuing education because we know for sure that they do, but I’m always really curious about like, how, how the more modern Asian people think of education because like our parents is like perspective of education is very, I want to say it’s like basic, but it is pretty basic. It’s rudimentary. Like, it’s kind of like college, and then you’re golden. But in reality, we know like, there are specific ceilings that you hit where you might actually need to do post grad and like further education and all that. And, for example, one of my mom’s friends who’s wealthy, sent her son to go to NYU. And so I’ve always I was looking at that being like, wow, that’s like a significant investment. And like, what are you expecting to get out of that necessarily? Like, if it’s just the cachet of saying that you went to a western university or you actually think that there’s some kind of learning or I’ve heard from some people that some kind of like learning advantage, like something more, let’s say a critical thinking analytical versus like rote memorization, or I’ve just heard some people say that the education is just easier to do here.

Angela Lin 6:05
Oh, my God is so much to unpack from what you just said. So much to unpack. Yeah, I know, that was a big bomb, I think there are just a lot of everything in what you just said, um, yes, there is a cache of the western brand. There’s also, college is often seen college or grad school, sending your kid abroad is often seen as the ticket to getting them citizenship, because then you can get, um, you know, sponsored by a company in the US and then work your way towards citizenship. So that’s definitely a big reason. And then what you said about, maybe it’s easier, I do think it is easier. But it’s just pretty cutthroat in Asia, and like growing up, going back to Taiwan every few years, I would see the like, intensity that my cousins would have to go through with schooling. They were just in school all day, it was like you’d spend all day in real school. And then you go to like night school that you would bu-shi-ban so like, you know, the like prep school to help, like, enhance their studies, and they would study all night until like, 11pm, or whatever. And they do that every day. And I’m like, What the hell? And then I was talking to my cousin about it one time and they basically were like, studying is everything because you the way you test determines your future in your life.

Jesse Lin 7:51
Well, let’s walk back to one of the things I was asking you about because like I was saying, you know, my parents don’t really have a conception past college, what studying looks like and you did go to grad school. So do you want to tell our listeners what it was like to talk to your parents about going to grad school? Were there any hang ups where they kind of like, what is this thing all about?

Angela Lin 9:13
No, I think that was an easy sell. Because it’s not like I was like, I want to go to grad school to study poetry. Like I was like, I want to go to business school again because I did undergrad school already. I was like, I want to go to my get my MBA so that I can make more money. So it’s like, like, it aligns with stuff they understand. And also at that point, like, I was an adult, where I had already gone into the workforce and like made my own money, not that much money because I worked in TV and barely had any money saved. But at that point, it wasn’t like I was going to them to be like, I want to go to school again and I need your help to like have money. It was more like I’m going to school again, just letting you know. Like I’m going to take out a loan and it’s fine. So, no, that wasn’t hard for them to understand. And also because my brother has been in school like his whole life. So compared to him, they’re just like, well, you already worked like when we know you can find a job because he had his like, PhD is basically like always schooling. So they already had that concept of like, continued education.

Jesse Lin 10:24
I always forget about that your brother did school forever, but do you think that they understand the purpose of it, like they understand? Maybe like the purpose, the difficulty and the payout, or they’re kind of just like, because you have a very good grasp on it. And you were kind of just like, this is what I’m gonna do. And, you know, just for you to know, they were kind of just like, whatever about it.

Angela Lin 10:47
I think they cared about the purpose and the potential outcome, but I don’t think anyone really understands like, the amount of effort or anything, it unless you do it yourself, like just getting in to a business school and especially like a top business school is so fucking hard. And then like, you know, lasting during those two years, and recruiting whatever was like so, so, so hard, and it’s really hard to describe that. Unless you do it yourself. So no, no way they understood like the difficulty level, but they understood the purpose. But I think it was always like, almost with everything that I’ve done in my life, like, I’ll propose, like, I’m gonna do this thing to do X to, like, have this type of result. And they kind of like are a little bit like suspicious. They’re like, okay, until they like, see the result. And they’re like, oh, I get it. Well, okay, so what do you think you actually got out of your schooling? Your NYU degree? Do you feel like it was worth it compared, especially to the cost? Because we haven’t discussed this that much. But like, fuck, the main of huge difference between us versus Asia is the student loan, the cost of education and whether or not that’s worth it?

Jesse Lin 12:06
I think what I didn’t particularly like about going to college in at NYU is that, I don’t know, I felt a little not supported in the environment. And obviously, it’s like a campus in those cities. Like, there’s a lot of stuff happening. But I didn’t feel like there was a good way to navigate those four years as a way to explore what I wanted to do. And I don’t, the environment did not encourage me to explore as much as I wanted to. Because I was just kind of like, Oh, well, here’s the track, it seems really difficult to move things around, I don’t have a lot of flexibility. So I’m just gonna keep running the track.

Angela Lin 12:46
And then when you ran the track, when you ran through the track?

Jesse Lin 12:51
I’m like eff that I don’t want to do that. Yeah, like, so I, I got to the third year of my program, where you have to do internship. And I did an internship at a hotel because at the time, I thought I wanted to do operations, like I’ve talked about this, like General Manager poopah thing. And I thought it was terrible. It was terrible, like, having to work a longer period of time there. And like talking to the staff, I was like, This is not like it, I will be fired, like in maybe a week or two after I get hired. So I, at that point, it was kind of like too late. I was like, Oh, crap, like what I’m going to do, because I’m already all the way basically through the program, and I can’t change. So then I had to find a way like within what I was studying, to pivot to something that spoke to a little bit more what I wanted to do, but was still in the realm so I didn’t have to like wing my way out of the program. So I ended up like concentrating and marketing and revenue management. And I did like a minor in web development. So that I could get some kind of like, like, move into like, more like an analytical like, not talking to people role, but still have that industry knowledge and take that to enter the workforce. I do think that it was it’s nice to have the first at least few classes you take to be general education. And I know that like when I was doing it, I was like, Oh, poor general education, like this kind of sucks. But this was the opportunity, opportunity to actually explore and study things that were not part of what I was, my major was or what I thought my major was going to be. And I found those classes to be a very, very interesting because it’s just stuff that I’ve never, never thought about before, never looked at before. And also really, really important to building like critical thinking and having a measured approach to thinking about new topics and being able to learn how to learn basically, that’s the biggest thing I learned how to learn in college.

Angela Lin 15:02
Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Because there is a mindset shift in, at least in the US between schooling up through high school versus in college. The big shift in higher education in the US is that it’s your time to think and there’s more answers that are correct. That can be correct, then, when you’re in high school, where it’s really more about, like memorizing, and just like knowing what the one answer is, I found that shift pretty hard actually, is, especially because like Irvine, where we grew up Orange County’s education system, at least when we were growing up was very good. But it was very, like, this is the track, you go on, you know, like, you just memorize these things and like, get good at memorizing love. And like, you’ll do well. Versus like, yeah, being called on in class randomly, and just being like, what, what do you think? It’s like, oh, I don’t know, what do I think? You know what I mean?

Jesse Lin 16:10
And it’s, it’s all really like, it’s all – like, like you mentioned, there are like some answers that are wrong, but like, provided that you can speak your thoughts with some proof points, like, almost any answer is correct. And I think that was like a really hard thing to wrap around to really move from what you were saying, which is like, you’re not really thinking for yourself. You’re thinking what other people thought previously in high school. And to move from that to independently thinking about something and like formulating your own analysis of something was very difficult. But rewarding!

Angela Lin 16:47
Yes, and not just thinking for yourself, which is apparently very hard to learn how to do as children going into adulthood, but also learning to be brave enough to speak your mind. Because that is not something that you learn to do in, in high school and before, right, especially when you don’t know what everyone else thinks. And you are kind of like putting out a new perspective that other people might like boo, or like, you know, or clap, clap and applaud you, because you don’t know until you see it. And I do think that is a good life skill to give people to prep you for real life, especially like work environments, because especially with like meetings with a ton of people and like, if you have a different perspective than others, you need to be able to be brave enough to like, speak your mind and say something that other people might not agree with, if it’s the best thing to be done. So I think college started that for me, but Business School in particular, definitely, like really solidified that for me. Yeah, because it was, well, business school can be pretty cutthroat. So it’s not as bad as like law school where, at least from what I see from TV, fake law school, right? It looks freaking crazy. But Business School is also kind of cutthroat. So you have to like learn to like stand your ground and like fight for what you think. And I think that was really useful.

Jesse Lin 18:25
Do you feel okay, well, we both went to what people would call label-conscious schools. Do you feel like there was an advantage? Like any kind of specific advantage and going to a ming-pai school versus, you know, local college or even a community college?

Angela Lin 18:47
Yes, I know. I think the location of our brand name school was almost more important than the name of the brand name school. My experience, and I don’t know if you experience, but every internship, every job interview I had, when I was still in New York, it would be like, Oh, I went to NYU. And they’d be like, cool so did I like no one cares. They feel like that’s almost like negative points if you also want you because they’re sick of hearing that you went to NYU versus when you’re outside of New York, people care a little bit more. They’re like, Oh, that sounds cool. Because like, I don’t meet that many people from NYU. Um, so I think it was more the location that helps than the brand name.

Jesse Lin 19:28
Yeah, I think the location is super important. And I feel like my money sure it it definitely bought some education that helped me to learn how to think critically, but mostly it bought contacts, like contacts with faculty because like I was in a very specific program, and so the, the faculty were all basically practicing, meaning that they’re like still working the industry in some capacity. They have lots of connections with people and so on. A lot of the experience was just being able to schmooze with your professors in those environments where other people who are able to give you a leg up, like give you a recommendation, give you a job, we’re present. And, yeah, I feel very strongly about that. Because before I graduated, like, literally two weeks before I graduated, I still did not have a job. And I went to a professor, and I was literally being like, please help me like, I don’t have a job, I don’t know what to do. And she set me up with an interview. So I do feel really strongly that part of the money just paid for access to that network.

Angela Lin 21:15
Yeah, that’s interesting. And that makes a lot of sense for your niche that you were in. I didn’t have any contacts that helps me coming out of NYU because I didn’t want to do what everyone wanted to do. Like, I went to Stern Business School. But at the time, I did not want to do finance. Everyone who wants to Stern Business School undergrad wanted to do investment banking. And I was like, I have zero interest in doing investment banking. I wanted to work in the music industry. So I was out there like hustling, finding my own contacts, like forcing my way into record labels and stuff. So I didn’t get any contacts out of my very expensive NYU experience. But I do what you were talking about resonates with me for Business School, like my MBA Business School, because Booth has a really strong network of alumni. So it’s not the faculty per se, but it is like the people come out of the school are top executives kind of everywhere. So and there is like a kinship that people have with the Booth network. So, so that definitely works. Or like that. Sounds more like, familiar to me for my MBA experience. And then I will say I think the name brand, honestly, was more for me for Booth, Chicago Booth, it definitely like puts you in, you know, gives you some halo effect for sure. So I think the brand name made a difference, because that’s a higher education choice, though. I think it is like there’s a difference between undergrad versus grad school because grad school is like you made a choice to spend more money and to stop earning money to go get your grad degrees. So like that grad degree better be worth it. Okay, so we’ve talked about like, what some pros and cons that we’ve gotten out of our respective education’s, and also the impact of the idea of education and advancing in society for Asian culture. I think we also wanted to touch base on new evolving kind of definitions of education or school schooling that is popping up, and how we think about it. And if we think like, it’s something that could be adopted and understood by our Asian families, or like future Asian generations, and I think there are a couple ways of like, these new forms of education that I’m thinking about, at least, like coding academies, and and that’s like more adults, like higher education, right type paths. And then there’s this other track that’s also for like kids. Um, so now there are new ways that some people are thinking about educating their kids, which is not going through the traditional like public or established private school methods. It’s more like there’s one in particular I’m thinking of, which is Elon Musk actually started a program…

Jesse Lin 24:24
Oh I remember you talking about this.

Angela Lin 24:26
Yeah, for just his kids originally at SpaceX, where he was like, fuck regular school, they don’t teach you how to think it, which is exactly what we were talking about. Like they don’t teach you critical thinking as a child. So he essentially hired like one of the best educators like us in America to private, privately educate like some of the kids at SpaceX, including his own kids. And then now the educator who started that program spun off and it has like his own program that he’s offering to like anyone. And it’s online. So you can pay to have your kids participate in this schooling. Currently, it’s not instead of regular school, it’s in addition to, but the way it’s evolving is clearly like in the near future, people are going to start trying to offer these as like, substitutes for traditional schooling because it teaches you actual critical thinking and like how to operate in groups and like, make executive decisions and things like that, so that you’re more prepared for life. So yeah, those are the two kind of like, newer types of education models that I wanted to bring to the table and discuss and you can choose whichever one you feel gravitating towards more to kick us off.

Jesse Lin 25:47
I’ll start for this adult one, because as you know, I don’t have any plans to have children. So I don’t know anything about children education, except for the fact that I was once a child. The adult the adults stuff, I don’t think it’s that foreign of a concept even for our parents, because I remember, my mom told me that when she moved here, and even, you know, a few years after she moved her they were taking classes at adult school. Do you remember this? I think your parents do as well.

Angela Lin 26:16
Yes. But that was English. That’s like ESL for adults.

Jesse Lin 26:21
But but I think the concept of like education after, you know, university, or high school isn’t weird, because they were they weren’t doing that. In fact, even though it was, you know, to help them learn English, it’s still something like a class that they’re taking. As it relates to like, the boot camps and stuff. I think it will be more difficult to explain what you plan on doing after that.

Angela Lin 26:48
But that’s, that’s an Asian thing in general, like, you have to like up level things all the time. But you could easily say like, I’m going to become a computer engineer, or like a programmer, and they would understand that.

Jesse Lin 26:58
Yeah, so you have..

Angela Lin 26:59
Which is not exactly right.

Jesse Lin 27:00
Not xactly right. You have to give them like the analogous the next best thing. But I think that like the same thing that you were saying about your parents understanding, you’re basically telling them I’m gonna go do this, because I think it will do x y&z and I’m like taking care of it by myself, I don’t think they would have any problems absorbing that. I don’t know if they would consider it like a legitimate replacement, though, for university because I feel like our parents are also in a sense very, they’re very conscious of the experiences that they’ve heard through their community, meaning that if they haven’t heard anyone else’s Aunties, son or daughter or whatever, do this, there’ll be like the I don’t understand what this like, there’s no value in this. No one else has done it like, yes, yes. So there’s no social proof for it.

Angela Lin 27:50
Stick with the tried and true

Jesse Lin 27:51
Exactly, exactly. But I think if it’s, you know, it’s something you’ve you’ve done your you’ve done your college and you’re just trying to retool, I’m not sure that they would have not i’m not sure they would understand it, but I’m not sure they would have a problem with it.

Angela Lin 28:04
I think I largely agree with you. And I guess my yeah, you already went in there. But I was gonna ask you like, well, what do you think if someone said they wanted to go there instead of college, like traditional college, because I think a lot of that is where it’s trending is that people like young people, Gen Z, doesn’t necessarily see the advantage of traditional college given student loan debt, because a lot of the other appeal of these schools is that it’s a way smaller monetary investment in the grand scheme of like, how much college education costs or grad school education, it’s like a steal, if you if you actually get placed, you know, afterwards with a job. Um, so I think that is where it’s gonna be like, a lot of people are going to start having like tough conversations with their parents, if it’s like, I don’t want to go to UCI, I want to go to a coding Academy, and I’m going to become an engineer either way, but this one’s faster and cost less money. So why can I do it? You know, I think it will. I think these conversations have started and will continue to start as education keeps shifting, especially after this pandemic, where everyone was just zoom schooling. Like, I think people are trying to feel like what the eff am I paying this money for? When I’m just taking online classes, even if it’s Harvard or whatever, right. So I have a feeling things are gonna keep shifting more towards like, considering unconventional education paths moving forward.

Jesse Lin 29:48
Yeah, I think that makes sense. Um, the only thing that I would add to that is like, I mean, it’s not really like invalidating the form of education more so that like, I feel like if you know, already you want to do that, and you’re like, very dead set on it, like that’s totally for you like you are already sure. And for me, higher education was not just the learning part of it. It was also the network part of it, as I mentioned, but it was also just like, a personal growing experience like living by yourself, navigating what it’s like to live with roommates to clean the toilet with between other people. And all of those, like social things, you need to understand how to do as an adult, which, yeah, it’s not a formal class in university. But, you know, if you lived on campus, and you live with other people, it’s like things that you learn that also help you succeed in life, but are not necessarily career things.

Angela Lin 30:43
That’s a really good point. It’s the life education part. Yeah, for sure. It’s a very expensive life education. Yes. I agree. Yeah. And that actually leads me into the other form of education about the kids, because it’s something that Ramon and I have talked about for like future kids, because he’s definitely more of the mindset of like, I want them to like learn how to be real humans who think for themselves versus like, traditional education. He sees, definitely, as literally just rote memorization. And just like, you know, you’re not thinking you’re just spitting things out that people are telling you. And I see the value in that. But my kind of like devil’s advocate I always bring in is literally like, I need them to be socialized humans, I can’t have them be like geniuses who don’t know how to, like, interact with people. So I think that is kind of the balance that needs to be struck with these types of like, arguably, superior education forms for kids, but like, making sure their normal kids interact in real life as well.

Jesse Lin 31:51
No, no, I 100% agree with you. And I think that, you know, again, I I don’t plan on having kids. I don’t know anything about children education. But I feel like from what I’ve read about kids being schooled online this past year, is that it’s been very difficult. Children require that socialization, because everybody does, like think about how much we struggled this year, not seeing people and to be a young child in formative years, where your, where socialization helps you build your person not having that must be very, very, very confusing, and isolating. So I think it’s really important that, you know, even if it is a full time online thing, that children still have time to be children, like, they’re not adults, like you can teach them to think like adults, but at the end of the day, like kids, kids need time to be kids and play and have fun and stuff like that.

Angela Lin 32:48
Okay, well, that leads us into our fortune cookie close, which you’ll just have to use your imagination a little, you’ve already declared, you don’t want to have kids, but we wanted to close on our POV of how we will view the importance of and types of education for our future kids, I can start so I really do think that I will place less of an emphasis on brand names stuff, then like my parents did for me, it’s more important to me that they know how to think for themselves, they are able to formulate what they want to do with their lives. And not that they need the answer by like 18 or whatever, but that they start thinking earlier about it too because I think that’s what you said right was like you’re 18 then suddenly you have to like figure out what it is you want to do versus if you get your child kind of like exploring a lot of different topics early and like thinking critically about things early, they probably already naturally gravitate towards like this is the type of thing I like and like can be good at. And if they are able to get the connections they need the opportunities they need the kind of knowledge they need to do what they want to do, it’s less important to me about the name brand or like where something is then that they are well set up. And then what we just said earlier, which is like the socialization thing is like so it’s very important to me just being able to expand your horizon of like how many people could exist in your life and like could become some person important person in your life is like part of the fantasy and like the growing up part of going through puberty so I would need them to be able to tap into like many different social circles so that they feel fulfilled enough and are meeting different types of people like I don’t just want them to be like eggheads that are only with their like five to 10 other genius friends I need them to like, I dunno, go play a sport, go learn, you know, go get band like go surfing or something, you know, like meet people who have like, totally different backgrounds so that they feel like they’re getting exposed to the world. What abot you? Well, your fantasy.

Jesse Lin 35:17
Like it’s not, you know, like I want, if I were ever to have kids, I would want them to know enough to make their way through the world meaning like they know enough to not be swindled they know enough to not be lied to, like they know enough to make their own way through the world. And I think that’s really what’s important. Like same with you like, I don’t necessarily care that they go to a fancy college, I don’t even necessarily care if they go to a four year college as long as they seem certain that they have something that they want to do. And I think that’s fine because if you have enough drive and will to do something, it doesn’t really necessarily matter how you go about doing it. You know, you know where you want to go. It doesn’t matter which car you drive to get there.

Angela Lin 35:59
This is a fun topic I liked. I liked exploring this. If you guys have a perspective on if the type of education you had really benefited you or did not – wasn’t worth it. Or if you have a POV on these like new forms of education, or story around it that you want to share, write us in, telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com the you’re is Y-O-U-R-E. As a reminder, we are always looking for listener submitted stories for our reflections episodes. So do write us in with your experience around this topic or something else, whatever you want to share.

Jesse Lin 36:36
And we will have a fresh new episode for you next week.

Jesse Lin 0:00
This week, we are talking about whether or not the family is ever getting back together. And by the family, I mean, the United States of us. Obviously, through this quarantine and the 2020 election and the previous election, there’s been a lot of divisive messaging and just general bad feelings between everyone that lives in this country, about the direction that people want to want the country to move in, basically, and specifically, we wanted to talk about these people who are considered either independent, moderate, or centrist, and kind of get an idea of who these people are, and whether or not they are the wide majority of voters, or they are the minority of voters, or they’re a little bit of a voter in all of us.

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Angela Lin 1:12
And just a backtrack a little bit. So the reason we want to focus on this kind of like middle of the road or not middle of the road, but this more undefined group is in speaking about this like divisiveness of the country, what you’re hearing what most people are hearing about is like, very loud voices from either extreme of the political party ends. So either like very liberal Democrats, or very conservative Republicans, those are generally like the loudest voices across the board. And so it makes it seem like the country is totally split and like inconsolable on a lot of the major issues. And we want to discuss this like unspoken, for a group that is labeled in many different ways, like you said, moderate independents centrist, like all these other categories, who don’t really fit into either side completely, and maybe find some common ground where, like, we’re not as divided as the big media at least makes it sound like because they’re mostly highlighting the two extremes of like, super democrat or super Republican.

Jesse Lin 2:31
Yep, I have to agree with you there. I mean, even in doing the cursory research for this episode, there really wasn’t a lot of information reported about any political leanings other than Democrats or Republicans, like even when I was looking through the Pew Research, like, a lot of the stuff about centrist or moderate or independence was like a few years old, like the most recent stuff was in 2019. So I kind of get it because like, it does feel like things are polarizing. And without looking into the center focused or central leaning people and having research on that, it’s pretty hard to say like, what the viewpoints really are.

Angela Lin 3:11
Well, first of all, let’s also backtrack to say Jesse and I are not proclaiming that we know jack shit about this, we’ve like googled a bunch of stuff beforehand, and are bringing our personal POV into stuff. But we’re not, you know, well versed in politics to be like considered experts by any means. We’re just kind of discussing the topic because it’s interesting to us. But backing up on what you said about like how usually, especially in the media, it’s really pandering to more like the majority that fit into Republican versus Democrat. What’s interesting is that in looking at the research, so there was a there’s an ongoing Gallup poll of like asking people every month or so what they identify as political party wise, and even up through this past this month, May, it floats between anywhere between tbh, like 35 to 50% of people self identify as independent, and then the rest are split between Democratic or Republican, which then makes it clear that actually democrat plus republican is not the majority. It’s just the like, two most well known political parties because the numbers don’t add up. They’re not it’s not like 80% of the country falls within democrat or republican and 20% are independent or even smaller. It’s literally like up to half at any given point, prefer to identify as independent rather than Democrat or Republican. And that’s not necessarily something I think most people know because you just hear only about like, dems versus republicans and all that.

Jesse Lin 4:54
I also agree I think there’s a large swath of voters are looking for candidates and platforms are different from what the Democrats and Republicans offer. But there just isn’t a nationwide framework for that yet, right. So like, I think part of the reason why it’s so skewed is that even if you did have this independent group, they kind of have to fall into one of those party lines in order to get something done, because only those people are represented in the government right now. So I think it is definitely skewed. And it’s skewed, because it’s kind of this whole representation issue, right? If those are the only people there, you have to kind of tell the story by how they play it because you don’t have any other way to do it.

Angela Lin 5:36
So breaking down what you you mentioned, which is that the independent group, which like, could make up up to 50% of the country at any given point, they’re very split. And that’s something I think we saw in our research is just like, in the rhetoric of media, especially around election time, they’re always talking about this, like the indepedents or the moderates, or whatever being this like swing vote, but they’re not all the same people. And they’re like, they’re talking as if it’s like 50% of the country’s like all of one mind that’s just like, unaccounted for. But it’s actually like a huge sprinkling of like a really diverse group of thinkers that don’t fit nicely within either party and don’t think nicely with each other, necessarily, either. And it’s weird that I guess that never gets that kind of attention, which is like, they’re not all the same thing. Like you can label it as moderate. But that’s probably not even necessarily how they all feel about, like their stances on things is not necessarily that they want to compromise on everything. They just aren’t spoken for, on either of the big parties lines.

Jesse Lin 6:49
Yeah, I actually. So there’s some information in this Pew article that I looked at which corroborates your Gallup poll, which is that four in 10, US adults identify as politically independent. But they also say that most most of those in the independent group have some kind of lean towards one of the major political parties. And so what they found was a lot of the independent voters are actually they have some kind of skew in terms of those major ideological things that are usually split on party lines. But there are significant differences between the independents and partisans on some of the issues. So one of the things that they mentioned here was that nearly 6 in 10 republican leaning independents of 59% currently favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally compared with 37% among republican identifiers. And I think generally, is that like, the belief is not so clearly split on ideological lines, it’s kind of like issue by issue, they may have something that’s like leaning towards one side versus the other. And yeah!

Angela Lin 7:48
That’s exactly right. And I will just offer myself into this conversation, which is a big reason I think we were interested in having this discussion is that I don’t necessarily feel like I fit nicely into either political party. But to your point, I think I have leanings towards certain, well, I have leanings towards the Democratic Party for for many things. Also, because I’ve been registered as Democrat my entire time I’ve been able to vote. But as like, especially, like you mentioned, the last four years of like, super divisive politics, it’s just made me kind of like step back and take it more issue by issue and like, think about where I stand on each thing. And I don’t necessarily agree with everything that the Democratic Party is putting out there. And what’s funny is, I don’t know if we talked about this, but then last election, I spent like five hours reading about all the props for my local election stuff of like, what they were going to do with tax dollars and shit, because that’s the stuff that actually impacts your day to day life. So each proposition the arguments that you see afterwards for or against or paid for by organizations or private citizens or whatever, that want a voice and have some sort of like, sway on how voters are thinking about voting for that prop. And the Libertarian Party cares a lot about how tax dollars are spent because it kind of goes like core to their their main philosophy, which is like small government more power towards like yourself, and how you decide that you want to live your life and your personal, you know, money is a big factor and like, you know, how you carry your life. So they spent a lot of money kind of like writing up their thoughts on each of these propositions and whether it was worth while or not given the tax dollars that were going to be spent on it. And each each argument they wrote, I was just like nodding furiously along with it, and I was like, I’ve literally never even like I probably had only heard the word libertarian once in my life before that, you know, reading all those arguments where it was signed, like the libertarian, the San Francisco libertarian party or whatever. And I was like, I couldn’t agree more. You know, it’s so that is probably the most recent experience where I felt more like I feel seen. But, you know, to what we were saying earlier, they don’t hold that much power and like they’re not going to be the next big thing or anything, but it’s just that I think there are these like smaller parties that can speak more towards the like, a more holistic look how some of these like independent or moderate or centrist or whatever, are thinking that aren’t accounted for in the other big parties.

Jesse Lin 12:05
Yeah, I think I want to agree with you there like which political way or party or method that identified as was not a, you know, like, it wasn’t very pressing for me when I first was able to vote. And as I’ve lived, longer, 30s baby. And I’ve lived in the city for a decade, I’ve kind of been like, oh, like, it really does matter. Because like, I’ve lived here for 10 years, and like, how many things are still shitty, that like candidates have said coming on said they would do something about and haven’t done anything about. And so I also agree with you in the sense that, like, I’m also picking and choosing things in terms of my own perspective on each of the individual issues. And like those might line up with what people call party lines. But that doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily evaluating them on party lines. And I think that’s the main difference is that like, you might say that the views look Democratic, but they’re my personal views on it. And even though they that they parallel or that they’re similar, it doesn’t mean that I necessarily also agree with like everything that’s happening in terms of policy choices with the Democratic Party. I mean, like, there’s still this crisis on the border in the south. And I don’t think that the current administration is doing a great job in dealing with that. Of course, it’s a complicated problem. And I’m not saying that everything should be solved right away, but it doesn’t seem like much has changed. So for sure, I also agree with you in the sense that I’m not like a party purist, where I’m like, I’m all in for this party, regardless of like, what they’re doing, or not saying that, you know, it’s a necessary evil for them to do this particular thing, if they can resolve these other things. Like I don’t really believe in that. Like, I think that there’s smart enough people working in the government that can resolve the problems. It’s just kind of like the political willpower and the willingness to sacrifice political capital to get it done.

Angela Lin 14:01
I love that you talked about it more like you know, you thought about an issue by issue and you happen to agree with, you know, what the Democratic Party is saying on each of these things, but it’s not like you’re just like, okay, this is how Democrats are voting like, that’s the way I’m gonna vote. I think there is still a lot of that though. And part of why I think that happens is like the media and politicians, which is all you’re seeing during especially like election cycles, they love a good narrative man, and they love pitting the two parties against each other in this like good versus evil way. And I think that’s just a really like, not great way to frame up the American people by saying like, if you’re part of this party, then you’re like, a horrible human being versus if you’re the other party, you’re like, a good person. I feel like I don’t know where in our history as a country, it started becoming like – your political party started becoming conflated with your morality, or like how good of a person you are. But I feel like that’s a lot of the narrative these days is just like, oh, you voted that way. Like, you’re fucking, like, shit human.

Jesse Lin 15:16
Yeah, I was actually thinking about that too, because. And of course, you know, this is all behind my rose colored glasses, lenses of, you know, growing up in Irvine and all that stuff. But it felt like politics back then was there was less morality involved in it, right? Like, if you voted a certain way, people weren’t going to castigate you, in the sense that they weren’t going to tie your decision with whether or not you’re a good or bad person, like you’re saying. Because I feel like fundamentally, maybe, and maybe I’m wrong. Again. In the past, it was that people agreed on the problems, they just didn’t agree on this solution. And now I feel like people don’t agree on the problems. And many of the problems are tied to things that are social issues. And those social issues really engender a lot of emotion around people, for example, this the debate around gay marriage, like, arguably, yes, I would say that person who voted against this is not a great person, because it’s my right to be able to marry whoever I want. And I don’t see why someone’s religious bent should have any bearing on my own choice as to what to do whatever whatsoever. And I think stuff like that is it is bad is bad, but it’s like really hard to separate that from like, a rational decision that the person make, make may make. So like, they might make like unfavorable judgment on a social thing, but they might make good decisions on other things. And I think that there’s no space for that anymore. For better or worse.

Angela Lin 16:54
I think it’s a complicated issue, because I understand your feeling towards that, which is like I, you know, you are feeling like I have a right to exist, I have a right to be happy and to like, have a partner that I can call, you know, my the same level partner as like a heterosexual couple and all that stuff. I totally, I understand that. And that’s why I voted for that to pass, however, to categorically say that someone who voted against it is a bad person I also don’t necessarily think is, right. And it’s part of what is being fed by the media and shit is like exactly that narrative. Because if you think back to our first season, I think it was our first season when we had Lindsay on. And we were talking about religion, right? Like, I mean, she was she’s evangelical Christian. And we brought that up, and it was kind of like this weird topic for us, right? Because people who are super religious are not able to necessarily bend that way to like, even if they agree with you from like a human standpoint, that you deserve to be happy and loved and like all that stuff. Because of their like fervor towards their religious beliefs. They just can’t bend on that one issue. But I don’t think that makes them bad people, because like most of the Christian people I know, have been some of the, like, kindest humans I’ve ever met. And like, if you talk to them about any other issue, besides that you know what I mean, like most issues, besides that, they would agree with you on almost everything, and like, they’re the most willing to help you, you know, help generally people and stuff like that, because that’s what God tells them do and XYZ, but like, that’s where I’m talking about, like, these are really hot button issues, because they can be very personal and affect your personal life, for sure. But I don’t necessarily agree that you can label a whole, you know, a whole person based on one issue and where they fall on that.

Jesse Lin 19:05
So I mean, personally, like, you know, it’s not like, we had that conversation with Lindsey. And I was like, boo, Lindsey, I’m never got to talk to you again. But the honest truth is like, I’m never gonna let a person like that close to me. It’s like, I kind of get it like you have this like, end goal salvation with God. And so you can’t, like approve this thing. But that’s a big maybe versus my lived experience. Right now I’m alive. And I’m deprived of this right – or I was, not currently. So that’s kind of my perspective on it. So like, again, like, I have friends from different orientations and like backgrounds and stuff like that. And like, it’s not the situation that I would ever just cut somebody out based off of something like that. But I also would find it really hard to ever be like, fully close to someone like that, because fundamentally, we don’t agree on something that’s of import to me.

Angela Lin 19:58
Yeah. And I can tell just by your answer that it’s getting a very person v personal. And that’s why that’s why a lot of these issues are really hard to discuss and to look past.

Jesse Lin 20:12
Yeah, well, let’s talk about some issues that I think that everyone can generally agree on. But people seem to think disagree on. So I think in general, one of the things that we talked about with Anna in the past, and you were kind of like, well, this is stupid, like why can more people vote is access to voting. And I think generally, there’s this kind of like, weird situation where the decision, or the choice that the party takes on a particular issue somehow becomes partisan. Even though as you mentioned, like the I think the majority of us would prefer to be able to very easily vote, it’s not a fun thing to do. Make it as easy as possible. Even that whole thing, there’s specific things that generally people don’t agree about. So maybe we can do like one by one. So what’s your perspective on no excuse early and absentee voting? Because generally to be an absentee voter, you have to be like, I can’t vote for whatever reason. But like, do you agree that you have to have like, whatever reason, because usually the reasons pretty lame, like you’re just like, oh, I’m not here.

Angela Lin 21:15
I agree that most people don’t have a good reason. I also don’t necessarily agree that you shouldn’t have any reason, like, then you can’t necessarily track if they are registered in both states, or like multiple states or whatever, because you’re just like, la-la-la, like, let me just assign you up. That’s how people can game the system. And that that did happen this past election is that people were actually registered in two different states. And then they were able to vote in both states, and especially on ones where like, maybe you’re living in like a liberal state like California, but you are home, your home state is in like, Georgia or somewhere where like, your vote actually matters more. Because it’s a little bit more divisive on stuff like they were able to vote in both. So I’m not talking about the red tape of it. I’m talking about like people who know that they can kind of like, find this loophole to game the system.

Jesse Lin 22:11
Okay, I understand. I understand. I don’t know, I’m like thinking about the issue in abstract without considering like, the reality of it. You’re saying like, I don’t agree, because like people are gaming the system all the time. But like, if we were to get to a situation where that’s not possible, would you agree?

Angela Lin 22:27
Yeah, yeah. If it was literally just like, let’s make it as easy as possible for people to vote whatever way they want to vote. Yeah, one time – mail-in. We talked about even like, why can’t it be electronic? Like if there was some, like very secure way, right, like, yes, I’m all for that. But currently, government doesn’t work that way. They have like the jankiest setups for everything and it’s very easy to have like, many loopholes all over the place.

Jesse Lin 22:56
Yeah, no, but I agree with you. Like, I think it should be as easy to vote as possible without voting fraudulently, because it is fraudulent to vote in multiple places. It’s not legal.

Angela Lin 23:06
Correct.

Jesse Lin 23:08
Okay, so the next thing, requiring all voters to show government issued photo identification to vote.

Angela Lin 23:13
What’s the what’s the argument against that?

Jesse Lin 23:15
Generally, the, the, the reason why you wouldn’t want to is that some people don’t have IDs. Like, for example, you might be someone that’s homeless, you might be someone that was like, recently incarcerated, and you exited the system, and you don’t have an ID. So you can’t actually vote even though you’re allowed to vote. And also, just like people who don’t have IDs in general, so I can think of like you, you might have grown up here, but you don’t have like a license or something like that.

Angela Lin 23:41
The incarcerated and homeless part that is, that’s a fair point. I think, in those cases, there still should be another form to verify who they are, though. I think that is honestly the key thing that if people are like against it, it’s because they’re, it’s opening up the loopholes for like, fraudulent behavior. So if there’s some other way that they can vouch for their identity with like, I mean, if you just came out of jail, they fucking know who you are, you know, I mean, like, there, there should be some way you can, like, prove who you are. So I think for those instances, there should be like a backup way to verify their identity that doesn’t necessarily need a government issued ID. But if it’s literally just like, you haven’t gotten around to getting an ID, I’m sorry, but that’s not like you shouldn’t be allowed to vote if you can’t be bothered to get a $10 ID.

Jesse Lin 24:33
I don’t think it applies to that kind of like, casual situation. It’s the getting the ID part that’s difficult because you need a place of residence. And not all people can provide that. That’s the thing, or they can’t fulfill any of the other requirements it takes to get an ID. Because I remember when I got my Real ID you had to bring like, passport, Social Security. It was you have to have like a lot of documents on you to get it so it’s just not easy.

Angela Lin 25:01
If there’s a backup backup form of verification, I would agree with, you know, not being so stringent on the government issued thing. It’s just like the majority of the population would still fall within the government issued ID part. And then the other people who have like special circumstances, there should be a second way that they figure it out. But it can’t just be like, just show up and like vote like I don’t think that’s a good solution.

Jesse Lin 25:27
I think that’s rational, like making sure you know, who’s voting but making it easy for people to access that? Yes, not having it so difficult. Well, we covered only one issue. So maybe we’ll do the other issue, which is raising the federal minimum wage to $15.

Angela Lin 26:25
So this is where my libertarian part of me comes in. I agree that people deserve to be paid like humans. So theoretically agree with $15 minimum wage. My question is, where’s that money coming from? Which is a lot of the question that libertarians have in general is like, who’s paying for that? Where’s that money coming from?

Jesse Lin 26:48
I think maybe this is this, this goes to kind of what you’re saying, which is like, the ideal scenario versus the realistic scenario. And for me, I’m kind of like, well, this is the goal. Like, let’s try to figure out how it would work. I think part of the problem is that like, we don’t fix it, because people are like, well, how do we do it? How do we blah, blah, blah, and then like, nothing happens. And then everyone thinks the government sucks, because there’s all this gridlock about, like, how we should do something. And for me, I’m like, let’s just do something. Let’s do something. And then like, obviously, like, you know, have some backup plans, if something doesn’t work out well, but like, doing nothing is kind of worse.

Angela Lin 27:29
Yeah. That’s why things are sticky, though, is that the how matters a lot, because you can’t just say like, now everyone gets paid $15 an hour, because you have to figure out where that money comes from, like, literally, you know, you literally couldn’t just say like, let’s just give everyone $15 an hour, because you need to find the money to be able to pay people that money. The trouble with a lot of these, especially the social issues and economic issues is you can only do so many things. So like, that sounds great. But what doesn’t get done because you’re putting money towards this one. So I think that’s honestly, that’s a lot of where the like middle people, the non democrats or non republicans get caught is like, I agree, theoretically, with everything you’re saying from like, in an ideal world where money is free, and like we can do anything we want, I want all these things. But that’s not the world we live in. So if we have a limited supply of money that we can, or like, I don’t know, whatever constraint there is, besides money, but like if there’s limited resources, staffing, whatever to like, get X, Y, and Z done, we have to prioritize, you can’t have all of it. So then it might sound like we’re saying like, fuck, fuck people’s, you know, livelihoods. I’m not willing to pay them. $15. But it’s because we’d rather put that money towards, like, I don’t know, not building a fucking wall. And I don’t know, like, there’s, you have to pick and choose. It’s that’s just like the reality. So we can’t live in just an ideal world.

Jesse Lin 29:01
Yeah, well, I think that, you know, not all not all problems can be solved all at once. Like you’re saying, but I do think that there’s a place where the foundation or the groundwork for the current problems can be laid. And I think with this federal, like the minimum wage thing, I think most people like I think you said in theory, you agree with it. And maybe like where also where we diverge is that, I kind of feel like, hey, I voted these people into the government, they run the government, like this is what I pay them to do is tell them what I want, they have to go figure it out. I didn’t pay them to ask me how to figure it out. That’s what they’re there to do. So like, I want $15 minimum wage, go figure it out how to do it like that. And, of course, it comes to the trust of the government and like how well they can execute a problem like that. But for me, I’m like, that’s not my problem. Like I voted you and you should know how to do it. There’s like what all these frickin bureaus have people hired to execute these programs. And make sure that we can get the things that we wanted out of our elected officials. So I don’t see why it can’t be done. Well, I think that brings us to our close our Fortune Cookie, which is, you know, after we’ve had this conversation, do you think that, you know, the people across the aisle across the US can once again, embrace each other? I think we also have very differing perspectives, because I think I generally am more optimistic about things and you’re more realistic about the situation. And with all that said, do you think that we can bring those things, align those things, marry those things, friend, those things back together?

Angela Lin 30:46
Well, let’s start with you. Because I feel like I’ve been saying a lot of stuff.

Jesse Lin 30:52
It’s okay, you have lots of views on it. Like I said, I’m an optimist. So I feel like it is possible, because at the core of things, I feel like most people want the things that we discussed. They just don’t want to have to deal with all the stupidness around it, right? And I think if we can collectively focus on that, those things that we collectively as the you know, public of the United States want, we have more power to say to the government, like you guys are doing a shit job. We pay, we pay all of you to be doing a job that you guys don’t deliver on. So like, you know, if we can recognize the common things we want, I think we can drive it to really do something effective, and maybe enact some change. I think in the current situation, why we don’t see changes, because instead of holding our elected officials accountable for the things we want, we’re like arguing amongst each other on these like non issues that are like not important, necessarily. But I am optimistic because I believe that we have more in common than we have different.

Angela Lin 32:05
I agree with your last sentence. I do think we have more in common than we think or told to us that is different. I think I’m cautiously optimistic, but not within the same timeframe as you’re talking about, because I think we just got like in the next four years, right? I don’t think in four years, we will be in like the rose colored glasses, worlds just yet. I think because of the post Donald Trump world, politics has become this, a bigger dumpster fire than it has ever become. Because him being in office has polarized people so much that it like I think there’s always been this sort of like, you know, identity that you associate identity politics, right. That’s the whole term. But I think during Trump’s who’s gonna say reign as if he’s like a king, but his, you know, his tenure

Jesse Lin 33:02
His dominion of terror.

Angela Lin 33:06
While he was an office, just the fact that he was like, the face of the Republican Party made it so easy to demonize a whole, you know, a whole huge part of the country. And to easily label like, you’re a good person versus you’re a bad person. And I think we have a lot of hangover time to recover from that kind of thinking towards other people. Because I think pre Trump, like people weren’t so like you were saying when we were growing up in Irvine, right? Like, even if people had different political views, like it didn’t define them, it wasn’t like you were like, fuck you the now I’m like, never gonna talk to you again. Because I found out that you voted for George Bush, like, Um, but yeah, I think it’s gonna take some time. It’s gonna take like another cycle, I think before people just like kind of not forget about politics, but that once it stops becoming like, the main thing we talk about, because I feel like the last fucking four years like politics, and government has been like the biggest conversation that’s been like dominating over people’s lives, disproportionate to before what Trump was ever running for office. And it’s gonna continue being that way because now it’s like now we’re in the post Trump era where we’re trying to like fucking course correct and it’s like the exact opposite it’s like going like the extreme other end of like trying to undo stuff. So it’s not going to be the next four years that this whole like she said, he said like that person is a good person way of looking at each other is going to like resolve itself, but I’m hopeful that after this whole thing, like maybe once Biden and Kamala are out of office, by that cycle, we’ll be able to like, look back and be like, hey, that was kind of silly of us being all like mean towards each other. Maybe we can like, actually look at the issues and like find some common ground here. I do think at the core, as people we are, we have a lot more in common than the media and the like broad narrative is portraying right now. But that those are the loudest voices. And that’s what’s going to like continue being the way that people are thinking because we’re still in this hangover phase.

Jesse Lin 35:24
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. But I think that conversations like this are what are going to make people realize that their, their viewpoints on things are fundamentally more similar than different, right. And so hopefully, this reaches the ears of some of our listeners, and they feel more close to us.

Angela Lin 35:42
Yes, yes. Okay, well, we’ve covered a lot of shit and apologies in advance for you listening to me ramble furiously, for so long. I’m sure a lot of you have opinions that we talked about today. So if you want to weigh in on any of the issues that we discussed, or if you identify as more of this like, centrist, independent, moderate, whatever and accounted for group, write us in about your experience, or write us a story that you want to be featured on an upcoming Reflections episode, because we are still always looking for your stories. So write us in at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com the you’re is Y-O-U-R-E.

Jesse Lin 36:30
And as always, come back next week for a fresh new episode. And Happy Fourth of July everyone

Angela Lin 36:37
Happy Fourth. Oh, wait, I got my I have my like skull t-shirt that has American flag faintly shown.

Jesse Lin 36:46
And I have the most American thing which is money, money, money, money, Mr. Lincoln, the five.

Angela Lin 36:54
Oh, I love it. All right, well hope all of you have a safe and fun fourth.

Angela Lin 0:21
Today we have two special guests with us. We have Raymond and Rene from The Reel Asian podcast what’s up?

Rene 0:31
Thanks so much for having us.

Raymond 0:33
Good morning. Very good morning. It’s 6am – five in the morning. No, just kidding. It’s only 9am. Not that early. Not that early.

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Angela Lin 0:49
Funny, okay. All right. Well, we actually have a really fun, special different kind of episode format for everyone today. But before we go into that, we want to make sure to introduce who Raymind and Rene are so throwning it to you guys. Introduce yourselves however you want and maybe give us a little sense for what Reel Asian podcast is about for our listeners.

Raymond 1:12
Sounds good. Okay. Hi, everyone. I am Raymond Luu. I am born and raised in the Bay Area, primarily in the South Bay Area. Currently, I live in Sunnyvale. I am the one of the cohosts and also producer for Reel Asian podcast. And basically the show is about taking a look at Asian American culture of pop culture, through the lens of cinema and movies. Typically the format of the show, we put a movie at the centerpiece of discussion, and then we just kind of myself and the other co hosts, talk about it in various angles, whether the movie in itself, the themes, characters plot, etc. Or and then we got to go into like maybe the macro sense of it, like what is this? How does this fit in the Asian American film canon? Aside from that I work at a university, I do a lot of nonprofit stuff. My two nonprofits at the moment is Project by Project and Hate is a Virus. I keep myself pretty busy. I wish I hadn’t. But that’s just my life at the moment. And yeah, I’m I’m so honored and privileged to be on this pod with you all. So I’ll pass it over to Rene.

Rene 2:18
Hey, thank you so much, Ray, for that wonderful introduction. You know, so basically, for myself, I am a California and bred and born from Fresno moved to the Bay Area when I was in my mid teens. And I am Hmong American. And I come from, you know, just kind of like humble beginnings. I’m one generation removed from, you know, families living in huts and villages in the jungles of Laos. And so coming to the Bay Area, and pursuing a career in technology, where I’ve been doing that for the last 17 years, is something I’m basically my ancestors, wildest dreams. And I really appreciate being able to, to be in the position where I can – to be able to do that. And so I’m a mother of two and, and a wife, but I’m also a Gamer Girl. And I’ve been working in the video game industry for the last 17 years, and have created my own studio called Tiger Byte Studios back in 2015. And, you know, the main focus there is to be able to, you know, create stories that reflect the community. And so one of my favorite kind of, and most like, important thing to me is actually creating this program called celebrate Hmong, where the main focus on that is being able to uplift you Hmong, Hmong community, in the visual arts, literary arts, performing arts and filmmaking. And so we’ve been doing that for the last three years. So being that not only is about like doing events, but also being able to give back scholarships and money capital back to the community, because one of the things that I wish I had was the encouragement of someone just saying, like, I believe in you. So –

Raymond 4:27
I believe in you.

Rene 4:28
Thank you. And so I’m so grateful to kind of have this opportunity to be a part of Reel Asian podcast, because it combines the things that I really love, which is like the, you know, Asians in the entertainment industry, and then also being able to sometimes talk shit about some of the video films that come out from it, you know, but also like really hard hitting facts. So I really love being able to kind of just be in front of you all and so thank you for this opportunity.

Angela Lin 4:55
Wow, I was awesome. Um, okay, well, Rene, I feel Like you already pretty much answered but where are you really from? So I’ll let you unless you have anything additional to add. I might throw it back to Raymond who we didn’t get a chance to ask that to yet.

Raymond 5:10
So where am I really from? How philosophical and deep do I really want to go? How much time do we have? I’m just kidding. I’m half Chinese, half Vietnamese. My mom’s Chinese family side. And then my dad is from Vietnam. But they met over here. But I’m a first generation American as American as apple pie, I guess. I guess you could say that’s that’s my really from moment there. And definitely you know, the the title of your show I every time I think about it, it’s like yeah, I think about all the different times I’ve been asked that growing up, but were you like really from like, I’m American. Yeah, but were you really from? The hell that’s supposed to mean so I just I just think it’s a very very important phrase almost comical in its in its own right, but yeah, I think it’s really great what y’all are doing with this show?

Angela Lin 6:07
Thank you.

Raymond 6:09
Does that answer your question, or do you want to go metaphysical where am I really from?

Angela Lin 6:15
What that’s fine, you can answer however you want?

Raymond 6:21
I don’t know. I don’t know my astrology or I know I’m a Taurus. That’s where I really pop.

Angela Lin 6:26
We’re from the stars. We’re all just stardust. That’s fine.

Raymond 6:31
Okay. Also, I just learned the phrase Mercury is in retrograde yesterday. I don’t know what that means. Does that does that mean anything?

Rene 6:40
You’re so cute, because that’s like the very introduction phrase when you’re getting your queer baby card is you know what mercury in retrograde is. Ray, welcome.

Raymond 6:56
I was with friends and they’re like, we’re doing something and they’re like, mercury, mercury’s in retrograde. And I was like, what? Like, I never heard that phrase before. And apparently there’s a Twitter account out there that’s literally just is merged mercury in retrograde and everyday is just either yes or no yes or no yes or no?

Angela Lin 7:21
Okay, well, now we know who you are. Let’s get into the fun stuff. So as you guys heard their podcast is centered around cinema and Asian American pop culture, how those things tie in together. We – Jesse and I are no experts in film and TV by any means. So our –

Raymond 7:41
Same here

Angela Lin 7:41

• well , we’re not as of film buffs as you guys. So our spin on this topic was we wanted to do a trivia game around the topics of kind of like TV, film, actors, actresses, whatever, but within the Asian American community, and each podcast is kind of hosting different categories. And we’ll be asking questions to each other to try to stump each other on some of these categories. And Ray asked earlier, what are we? What are we fighting for? We’re just fighting for glory here.

Raymond 8:21
What are we fighting for?

Angela Lin 8:22
We all have no podcast budget to have real prizes so it’s all for glory. Okay. I’m gonna kick it off, because I’m so excited. Okay, so the category our first category is, guess what type of Asian celebrity they are versus what type of Asian they’ve played, or what type of Asian everyone like thinks they are. Let’s start off with one that may be approach more approachable, okay. All of the actors who play the Huang family and Fresh Off the Boat are actually Taiwanese or Chinese American, true or false?

Raymond 9:02
Okay. Are we going around to lock in our answers?

Angela Lin 9:09
Yeah, do what you do?

Rene 9:12
Oh, false. No, no, no, no, no, no, it’s false. Okay, number one, Randall Park – he’s Korean!

Now this category secret Asian man Asian man if we had a soundboard right now we you would hear the opening riff to secret agent man. We can definitely edit that in. This 90s TV heartthrob with blonde hair is actually half Asian.

Angela Lin 11:07
I know who it is. I don’t know his name. It’s the guy from –

Rene 11:11
just say the beginning of the name of the TV show

Angela Lin 11:14

• Saved by the Bell.

Rene 11:17
That’s right.

Raymond 11:20
The guy who plays Zack Morrison?

Rene 11:21
That’s right. The guy who plays Zack Morris is German, Dutch and Indonesian – his mom is Indonesian. TV heartthrob Zack Morris is half-Indonesian. And so they actually had to bleach his hair blonde. Wow. It’s crazy. But I really wish they had leaned into the fact that he was like half, like not just like half Chinese. He’s freaking like South Asian, Indonesian you know?

Angela Lin 11:51
Yeah that’s special in Hollywood.

Rene 11:53
Yeah, totally. Right. Exactly. So I feel I feel come completely erased from the 90s. Right. No representation on screen that really mattered. And he was such like a huge thing. I really felt like they should have leaned in on that a little bit. But Oh, well.

Jesse Lin 12:11
Okay, I will do, okay, this obscure one. Kal Penn had a one episode appearance as Prajeeb in which of these TV shows? Sabrina, the Teenage Witch – the original 90s, early 2000 version, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, or Dawson’s Creek?

Rene 12:32
Oh, shit. Okay, hold on. So Kal Penn was was hot shit at the beginning of 2000.

Raymond 12:41
Harold and Kumar was when he like really broke into the scene.

Jesse Lin 12:45
Investigative work in process.

Angela Lin 12:47
Look at this deduction.

Rene 12:49
And when Obama went into office…

Raymond 12:56
Right. And I believe mercury was in retrograde. Every day, um, got it. Yeah. I’m gonna go with Dawson’s Creek final answer. That’s mine.

Okay, I was gonna say Charmed, but okay.

Angela Lin 13:13
But that’s not one of the –

Jesse Lin 13:14

• that wasn’t one of the answers.

Raymond 13:16
Oh, not Charmed. I’m sorry. Yeah, Dawson’s Creek, that sounds good. The answer is Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

Angela Lin 13:24
Well, Jesse I’m gonna correct you. It’s Sabrina THE teenage – she is the teenage which. Sabrina and the separate teenage witch

Jesse Lin 13:36
It’s definitely earlier where you guys are but I’m somehow like five times more sleepy, even though it’s like noon-thirty right now.

Angela Lin 13:48
Since y’all didn’t get that one. I’m gonna take it back to the category of Asians, like what ethnicity they actually are versus what people think they are for this one. Okay, so a little bit of a twist kind of question. How many of the four members of popular Kpop girl group Black Pink are Korean born Koreans. And I have multiple choice at this point. You can just choose me there are four members – I wrote 4,3,2,0?

Raymond 14:34
Okay, man, I don’t know Kpop at all.

Angela Lin 14:39
I barely know Kpop. But I watched the documentary that.

Raymond 14:43
I see. I see. Okay, so how many of them are actually Korean born Koreans.

Angela Lin 14:49
That’s right.

Rene 14:50
I don’t know anything about Kpop. So I would have to be shooting in the dark.

Angela Lin 14:55
Shoot in the dark.

Raymond 14:57
0 is a choice. I feel like yeah, zero. would be a surprising answer enough to be like this is surprisingly true, you know? So I’m gonna go with zero and say none of them are Korean born Koreans.

Angela Lin 15:14
Okay, Rene?

Rene 15:16
Um, Ray tends to be right. So I’m going to go ahead and –

Raymond 15:20

• I was wrong the last few questions!

Rene 15:25
Okay, I’m going to go with two – half and half.

Angela Lin 15:28
Rene great guess – it’s two!

Rene 15:31
I’m raising the roof over here.

Angela Lin 15:34
I learned this from the documentary. And I thought it was so like, it was kind of shocking to me to learn this. So the most surprising one is Lisa, who’s most known as one of the main like rappers of the group. She’s actually Thai. And she didn’t know any Korean until she moved to Korea to join this, like the training camps to become a Kpop trainee. So she was just like, can’t speak with any of you and like, don’t know what’s happening. And then is now super famous and knows how to speak fluent Korean. So that’s crazy.

Raymond 16:06
So you’re saying it’s too late for me is what you’re saying. I can still go to Kpop training camp

Angela Lin 16:10
That’s maybe half true. They all start when they’re like 12. So maybe you’re a little late on that one.

Raymond 16:17
Yeah. You know, never mind, you never give up on your dreams. That’s what I tell myself

Angela Lin 16:24
That’s right. That’s right. Okay, so Lisa is one of them. That’s not and then Rose was she’s Korean. The rest of them are Korean like ethnically but Rose was born in New Zealand and grew up in Australia. So she’s like, comparable to us, right like the first gen type peeps and then went back and became super famous. And then the other two were at least born in Korea, but only one of them is like born in Korea grew up in Korea, the rest of them had international like English speaking, you know, lengths of time abroad. So I found that super interesting.

Raymond 17:00
Is this on Netflix? Their documentary? I kind of want to watch it now.

Angela Lin 17:06
It’s a wild world to look at just because yeah, they groom. Groom is a bad word. That’s not that’s not what I mean. But like they they train them up since you know when they’re kids. So it’s weird.

Raymond 17:17
Maybe it’s bad word, but maybe accurate. Who knows?

Rene 17:22
They get paid lots of money to train 12 hour days and die you know from exhausting..

Jesse Lin 17:27
Not grooming they were guided by a strong hand.

Angela Lin 17:30
A strong male hand

Rene 17:35
While Mercury’s in retrograde Mercury’s in retrograde correct. All right. All right. Okay. Since I won, this 1990s supermodel – everything’s 90s okay, apparently for me, this 1990s supermodel has major beef with Tyra Banks.

Like still still from the 90s, to today?

Jesse Lin 18:03
Naomi Campbell.

Rene 18:04
What is her name? But also what is her ethnicity? Yeah, what’s the other so she’s half black half –

Jesse Lin 18:11
Chinese. Naomi Campbell

Rene 18:13
Is that everyone?

Angela Lin 18:14
I’m punting it. Yeah, Jesse got the answer.

Rene 18:17
Okay. Damn, he’s on it. Yes, Naomi Campell is half Jamaican and half Chinese.

Jesse Lin 18:22
I have this question on my side

Rene 18:24
Oh my God you cheater no wonder

Raymond 18:30
But they still got beef, Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell?

Rene 18:33
Oh, yeah.

Angela Lin 18:34
Lifelong.

Rene 18:35
Oh my god. Yah.

Jesse Lin 18:37
Okay, so I’m going to move the category to fun facts behind famous Asian movies. And my question is Parasite was originally conceived as a TV series, short film, play, or musical?

Musical. That would be great to see.

Rene 19:00
Oh my god

Jesse Lin 19:01
It would be really great as a musical.

Angela Lin 19:03
I would watch it. I would watch it.

Raymond 19:05
Okay, whoever is listening out there needs to turn Parasite into a musical. Okay. It’s pretty long. So I my gut feeling would be a TV series

Jesse Lin 19:19
Rene?

Raymond 19:20
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I’ll go ahead with TV series. I thought oh, you know, another one could be like a theatrical play, but..

Jesse Lin 19:29
It was originally conceived as a play.

Angela Lin 19:32
Rene, first guess!

Raymond 19:34
Don’t listen to me Rene. Don’t listen to me. Whatever I say say the opposite.

Rene 19:44
So apparently Rene only wins and Ray does not.

Raymond 19:49
Rene’s showing that she’s the true film buff of the office. I’m just there to be a voice

Rene 19:57
Ray’s just the beautiful face, but unfortunately it’s a podcast so you guys don’t see it.

Raymond 20:05
I’ve got the perfect face for podcasting. That’s why I got into it.

Rene 20:12
Okay, all right, I’m gonna turn it over to you Ray.

Raymond 20:14
Okay, okay alrighty. We’ll do another plot synopsis. So this one may be a little bit more – less obvious

Angela Lin 20:21
Jesse pick up your game .

Raymond 20:22
Okay. A Chinese American surgeon living in Manhattan is shocked when her single mother shows up on her doorstep pregnant. To help her mom save face and avoid the taboo in the Chinese community of an unmarried woman pregnant, the doctor helps her mom find Mr. Right. Cultures clash in this film that explores culture shock.

Angela Lin 20:47
No choices? Damn it. Come on, guys.

Raymond 20:49
No choices, it’s a movie.

Rene 20:54
This one is like way more obscure.

Raymond 20:59
Do you know it Rene?

Rene 21:00
No, I don’t, I’m like racking my brain like what the hell what?

Angela Lin 21:05
I don’t, I tap out

Raymond 21:08
Should I read one more time, would that help?

Rene 21:11
Jennifer Lopez’s Gigli.

Raymond 21:17
Got it! Do you want me to read it one more time? Or just give the answer?

Jesse Lin 21:22
I don’t think we’re gonna get it.

Angela Lin 21:23
I’ve never heard it.

Raymond 21:26
I was hoping in the middle was was the clue to help her mom save face. Saving saving face.

Angela Lin 21:36
I never heard – it’s a believable movie title that I’ve never heard of.

Raymond 21:42
It’s from Alice Wu go check it out. It’s great. One of the early on Asian American LGBTQ plus movies. Yeah, it was a it was a cult classic.

Rene 21:51
Alright, I’ll go ahead and go next then. This Wong Kar-Wai film, My Blueberry Nights, stars this Grammy winning actresses first time filming. What is her name? And what is her heritage?

Raymond 22:17
Oh, man. So do we get two points for guessing her heritage?

Rene 22:21
Yes, you do, actually.

Raymond 22:24
What about half a point if it’s just the name?

Rene 22:26
Okay, fine. Just the name and then I’ll go ahead and tell you what her heritage is.

Raymond 22:32
I know, I know the person. I don’t know. I don’t know the heritage.

Rene 22:38
All right. Well, we’re on the same team. So just wait.

Jesse Lin 22:45
I do not know this.

Angela Lin 22:47
I don’t know anything about this, but I’m going to guess at least the ethnicity. I feel like it’s a shocker, but I’m just gonna guess a generic one – Chinese!

Rene 22:58
Okay. Her name is Norah Jones.

Angela Lin 23:02
Oh my God, Nora Jones?

Rene 23:04
And she’s actually and she’s have European heritage and half Bengali.

Jesse Lin 23:09
Whoa, wow.

Rene 23:13
Yeah, so she is the main protagonist in My Blueberry Nights directed by Wong Kar-Wai.

Jesse Lin 23:19
Whoa, I didn’t even know she was in a movie.

Rene 23:22
Yeah, it’s her debut as an actress and she costars with Jude Law.

Angela Lin 23:34
Yeah, when he was still hot.

Rene 23:36
Yeah, I mean, like he still has his hair.

Angela Lin 23:38
Yeah, that’s right, pre-balding.

Jesse Lin 23:43
We’re just going to drag Jude Law today.

Raymond 23:45
Jude, I still love you, no matter how you look

Rene 23:54
I would definitely say it’s not one of Wong Kar-Wai’s best films. If you are in the mood for Wong Karr-Wai, In the Mood for Love is definitely the one that you should go and watch if you haven’t.

Angela Lin 24:06
Okay, I’m taking it back and I’m gonna stick with fun facts behind famous Asian movies. Okay, how long did it take to film the movie Searching starring john Cho. Here are your choices. One year? Three months? 13 days or five days?

Raymond 24:28
You said filming correct?

Angela Lin 24:30
Yeah.

Raymond 24:31
Okay, just filming. I will say five. Five days whatever the last one is.

Angela Lin 24:41
That was five. Yes.

Raymond 24:42
Yeah, five days. Okay.

Rene 24:45
I feel bad because I want a sorry dead air. I feel bad because I want to go with Ray because we did record an episode and I wasn’t on it. If Ray’s wrong then I’m gonna be wrong. I’m like, I’m gonna just shake my head at him just like SMBH. Yeah, and I’m gonna go with Ray I’m gonna say five and probably closer to three months ago.

Angela Lin 25:12
Rene, you got to stop listening to Ray.

Raymond 25:14
No, oh man!

Angela Lin 25:17
It’s 13 days, 13 days!

Raymond 25:20
Okay, I was like is it 5? Or I felt I knew that it was really short. I knew the length of how long I knew how long it took them to edit the movie, which was almost two years. I know the shooting time was varies a little. So I just went with a minimal, not very – Damn you. Why did you throw that five in there?

Angela Lin 25:41
To trick you obviously!

Rene 25:44
That’s why I don’t want to give you guys like multiple choice because then it’s your own your own self doubt. But if you get multiple choice, then you’re like, dammit, they’re leading me with this question.

Raymond 25:54
But that’s just me thinking way too deeply into multiple choice. That’s how I am in school too. I’ve answered D a lot. Maybe it’s B this time.

Angela Lin 26:04
It’s usually C.

So we’re moving to our closing Fortune Cookie section that’s what we call it because we always like to end on a sweet treat.

Raymond 26:55
Love it.

Angela Lin 26:56
And the topic we wanted to discuss unless it sucks and you have a different topic you want to discuss is our favorite slash worst basically the worst whitewashed Asian role.

Rene 27:11
Oh shoot, okay, I mean, I think what I was gonna say was like, either like the Mandarin in the Marvel’s Iron Man 3 or something along those lines or like or any like the other one is like the Ancient in Doctor Strange that was played by Tilda Swinton – that was like a really controversial one. I mean, everyone knows is super controversial about like Ghost in the Shells’ with ScarJo’s character that she plays.

Raymond 27:43
I was also gonna add Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball. I watched I watched a snippet of that and I was like, this is so trash. This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I can watch the whole Dragon Ball. Dragon Dragon Ball Z like they made a live action version of Dragon.

Jesse Lin 28:01
No they did not!

Raymond 28:01
White. Yeah, they casted a white guy as Goku.

Rene 28:05
It was terrible. Oh, boy. Yeah, there was also another one. They they took an anime and made it live action as well called The Notebook, no not The Notebook – Deathnote!

Angela Lin 28:19
You mean Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.

Rene 28:22
No, no, Deathnote. Sorry. Sorry. And that’s hilarious. Yeah, so it’s with Ryan Gosling who is actually supposed to be played by Henry Golding. No, I’m sorry. No, yeah, that one was really terrible. Super whitewashed as well. Oh my god. No. Okay, what else like it just like there’s no, there is, um, a long list of grievances that I could share about this, you know?

Raymond 28:46
Yeah, there was one where they did a Bruce Lee movie. I don’t it was based on Bruce Lee is one of the Bruce Lee movies. He has a lot about Bruce Lee. But it was told through like a white man’s narrative. So like Bruce Lee was kind of like, side character and I was like the fuck is this? And then another one is Street Fighter is a really old 90s movie. They made a live action version of Street Fighter the video game. And like everyone knows Street Fighter as Riu is like the guy right? But then they’ve made the movie towards the towards Guile who was played by Jean Claude Van Damme. So he was like the main guy and the and then Riu was kind of like the side character and I was like, what the fuck is this bullshit? Yeah, but I mean, I also love Jean Claude Van Damme so nothing against him. It was about him so I was like, oh, man.

Rene 29:35
I was gonna even throw back to you like way back in the early cinema days with like Charlie Chan and the like the dragon ladies and I was even gonna bring it up to like the 80s talking about how they were trying to add more Asian representation. So you have with a Long Duk Dong, 16 Candles, and Big Trouble, Little China Town were you know, it was – that was actually more speculative so it was interesting. But Gosh, yeah, I don’t know, I guess I have a long list of grievances in regards to this whitewashing or like, or crazy Asian caricatures.

Raymond 30:18
Yeah. Yeah. Very, very much. The there’s a laundry list of stuff.

Angela Lin 30:25
Agreed. Well, I feel like the good news is that Asians are writing their own shit now, like we talked about with Mindy Kaling and never have ever so like, it’s gonna shift. I hope so.

Jesse Lin 30:40
And I think people are bored of seeing these tropes, right? Like, how many times can you watch the same thing before? You’re like, this is boring. Like, why do you do this?

Raymond 30:48
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s a that’s another hot take there. Jesse. Yeah, no, there’s definitely certain tropes that are kind of aging out. And we’re starting to see a little bit more relative and real content, like the little subtleties, little cultural subtleties, that that we would get as like, first generations or second generations, you know, etc, then so and it’s great, because you can tell that the authenticity comes from like the person writing it, and it’s not like some white dude, it’s like, oh, this is what I think Asian people do, you know, so or how they eat or how they dress, you know?

Rene 31:23
Yeah, definitely. And, you know, I think one of the biggest things too, is being able to see more Asians in in like, not only film but also television, right. So as much as Eddie Huang talks shit about Fresh Off the Boat, because they basically watered it down. Also, at the same time, I’d love to see another like Margaret Cho coming back with another TV series or something like that. Right? So, you know, I feel like it is is it the golden era of filming for Asians? You know, I don’t I don’t know I mean, but at the very minimum, it’s really great to be able to actually have more and more content to talk about in in our podcast – Reel Asian podcast. And I’m really grateful to just be able to like talk about it because I don’t feel like there’s enough kind of conversation about it and because I think one of the things for sure, like between Ray and I we like to kind of keep it real keep it real keep it and even still like even though even though we try to do like a good synopsis and kind of an breakdown of characters and things like that, we also love to bring just talking points about like our own experiences with the the film and you know, sometimes it’s it’s you know, popular opinion and sometimes it’s like hot takes, right so I really I really enjoy being able to talk about it.

Angela Lin 32:51
All right, Jesse. You wanna wrap us up?

Jesse Lin 32:55
Yes. All right. Well, thank you both for joining this was really fun. Where can our listeners find you and find your podcast?

Raymond 33:01
Definitely come check us out. You can find us on Instagram Reel Asian podcast that spelled R-E-E-L Asian podcast and you can find us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or wherever you listen to your popular podcasts you can definitely search us up on Reel Asian podcast come check us out.

Jesse Lin 33:21
Well, if you guys have any questions for us, or if you guys have any questions for Reel Asian podcast, please feel free to reach out to those Instagram handles or you can also email us at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com let us know any comments, ideas, thoughts you have about recent movies or tv shows you’ve watched. And, as always, we will be back with a fresh new episode for you guys next week.

Angela Lin 0:14
Hey, everyone. I’m Angela Lin.

Jesse Lin 0:16
And I’m Jesse Lin. And welcome back to but where are you really from?

Angela Lin 0:20
Today we have a special guest Shibani Joshi.

Shibani Joshi 0:24
Hello, hi there.

Angela Lin 0:26
Well, we don’t know too much about you and our listeners don’t know too much about you. So why don’t you introduce yourself, what you do what you’re all about, and then we’ll get into the key topic that we want to cover for today.

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Shibani Joshi 0:41
Sure. So I’m thrilled to be with both of you today and for everyone listening as well. My name is Shibani Joshi, I am a business and tech reporter, and journalist, I have a bit of an unusual background when it comes to that I, I started my career on Wall Street studying business and worked on wall street for a number of years ended up going to business school, and doing strategy and business development for really big companies. And then decided to follow my passion, which was really what I wanted to do was to get into business journalism. And I did that at the time that the Fox Business Network was launching in New York City. And that’s when I made the leap, and began my on air career as a business and tech journalist. I ended up anchoring my own market show, I had my own dedicated tech segment across Fox News and Fox Business. And I’ve been tinkering with tech toys since I was six years old and that’s what I brought to the table that I really, really love. And that’s what I continue to talk about now, just from more of a freelance independent place. And I also speak and talk about to women and business professionals, I teach an executive MBA class about strategic communications, I talk about personal empowerment and sort of the ever elusive work life balance phenomenon because I’m, I’m living it and breathing it. And this is stuff that, you know, I’m trying to find my best practice best practices on. And I talk about this all the time, and experience the ups and downs of it. And it’s what I like to also incorporate in and, and what I talk about, and what I talk about is living an authentic, balanced life, that is of excellence. And that is very different than being perfect. And that is very different than being ambitious. It is something that I’ve been working a really long time on. And it is a work in progress. I tell you what.

Angela Lin 2:55
I believe that and so basically, in summation, you are way more accomplished than Jesse.

Shibani Joshi 3:03
Not at all.

Jesse Lin 3:04
Y’all was like, I’m I’m really excited to like, unpack what I learned from this conversation. So very, very, very excited.

Shibani Joshi 3:12
All, good.

Angela Lin 3:13
And in tying it to our podcast theme, how would you best to answer but where are you really from?

Shibani Joshi 3:21
Yeah, I’m from anywhere I want to be at that moment. You know, I my parents are from India. I grew up in Oklahoma in the oddest of places. I’m like a country girl. I watch college football. I do all of those things. And and then I moved to New York. So I am a city girl at heart. And now I’m in the burbs. And, you know, depending upon what I’m doing and how I’m operating. You know, I’m from I’m from everywhere. And sometimes I feel like I’m from nowhere. All of the above.

Angela Lin 3:55
That’s lovely. Yeah, we hear you on all those things. Yeah. Jesse’s in New York right now. And I also used to live in New York and we grew up in the most burbs of burbs in Orange County? No, yeah. I get it. Yes.

Jesse Lin 4:10
I want to say I love the answer. I think it’s so positive. Because I feel like a lot of the times, usually with our guests, and even among ourselves, we kind of default this default to this kind of like resignation. So you have like multiple layers, you’re like, the first layer is very positive, then the second layer is like, Okay, and then the last day you’re fine, like, okay, like this is I know, this is what you want, like you want the ethnicity and then finally give it to you give it to whoevers asking. But it’s really nice that you start with something like very positive.

Shibani Joshi 4:38
Yeah, great. And I you know, I think it’s a fair question. I mean, I think that I, I take it as a question of curiosity and not offense. I mean, maybe I’m naive in assuming that and I have struggled with my entire life people. Where are you from? What, what ethnicity are you and you know, I think people don’t look at me and necessarily think that I look Indian even though I am Indian and I people in India know that I’m Indian. But I think I have this sort of ethnically ambiguous look also where I think people are curious and are interested in knowing more, and they don’t know how to ask it other than, where are you from? Or Where are your parents from? Or where are you originally from? or whatever, all those phrases that we’ve heard a gazillion times, but I think just assuming the best in people is always, you know, a good good philosophy.

Angela Lin 5:31
All right, we’ll need to have that positive outlook rub off on us, on our cynical mindset.

Shibani Joshi 5:38
It’s a hard time right now. So I get it to where I’m particularly cynical right now, with everything that’s going on.

Angela Lin 5:45
Yes. Well, something that stood out to us because it really relates to kind of the core identity pieces, cultural pieces that we’re unpacking on this podcast is that you recently wrote an article for Elle Magazine, right? Where you discussed, kind of like the other side of Indian matchmaking, that really fun Netflix show that we may or may not have binged and so seeing that you had written this very personal experience, we thought that you’d be a perfect guest to speak on this topic, amongst others. So that is the main topic that we’ll be talking about in today’s episode is kind of where, you know, where does the concept of arranged marriages live within our communities, you know, cultural context, how does that differ when it comes to being Indian American versus someone in India, and your, any other, you know, personal learnings that you’ve had, through your own experience that we can unpack here?

Shibani Joshi 6:55
You know, I preface everything that I say by saying that these are my personal experiences, and the explanations that I have lived or that, you know, have been shared with me, I don’t have the deep context of, you know, historical knowledge or even regional, I mean, it’s very regionalised. In in India, the culture, the tradition, the language, the food, all of these things. So my experiences, hyper local, right, for the area that my family’s from, which is Maharashtra, which is the state in which Mumbai or Bombay is in. You know, arranged marriages do seem like an archaic concept, and from my parents explanation of the reason why it makes sense is, I do believe that there’s a benevolent factor in there. And I think it comes from believing that there’s more compatibility when like, is with like, so as many compatible categories and features that you can match up, you take out or you eliminate the complexities and the reasons for there to be discord differences, struggles, all of those things, and having been in a marriage, um, I sort of understand that logic more than I did 10 or 20 years ago, is that marriage is very complex marriage, it can be difficult at times, and if you are fighting and having differences in so many different categories, whether it is socio economic, religious, traditional, whatever it is, right. Adding more layers of differences and complexity can just make your life more challenging. And I think so I do think it comes from a benevolent place. I also think that society was just was just different. I mean, you were not meeting people from different parts of the country. There was no internet, all of these things. And so it really just became a matchmaking system that would match people based on lots of different data points.

Thank you for walking us through that. Because like Jesse said, we knew very little about, you know, all the ins and outs. And so it sounds like from what you cover, then your parents did not try to inflict that on you, or did they, and then you kind of, you know, push back and then found your own way.

So the way that a quote unquote arranged marriage happens in the United States is, is very different. Maybe there’s similarities across different cultures, but there’s, there’s a lot of, you know, behind the scenes, arranging that can happen, you know, somebody’s parents might have called my parents or are you, you know, asking, oh, is, you know, Shibani interested in getting married, and then my parents would ask me, and I would say, No way, you know, I’m going to do my own thing, and I’m going to school and you know, whatever it is, and so, old school, Indian parents would still talk and they still, quote, unquote, network and say, and then they kind of leave it to the kids and say, do you know, do you guys want to? Do you want exchanged phone numbers? Do you want to talk whatever it is, but there is no, there, there is some orchestration and some conversation happening beside behind the scenes, and again, they are factoring in the categories and the characteristics that, you know, they would have done in India. You know, we we really struggle with balancing or, I did, you know, sort of balancing what, you know, what I thought would make a quote, unquote, happy marriage, and what is the recipe for happy marriage, I just didn’t have the research, I didn’t have the data, I didn’t have the questions of like, what to look out for, except for that checklist of what I knew was important to my parents, and to my culture, about a partner, Indian, educated, tall, handsome, you know, of the same religion, you know, whatever it is, whatever it is, those checklists. And, and what I know now is, gosh, that’s not enough to guarantee a happy marriage. Because, you know, after I had done all of the check, checklist, check off and I had married an Indian man, and I had married somebody who was equivalent to me in education, and ambitious, and, you know, a family person, and, and tall and all of these things. My marriage still didn’t end up working out. And now I look back, and I think, I didn’t know what to really look out for it, because I never had those conversations. And I, I wish I had, and I wish, I wish, you know, that would be a part of the dialogue that we have as a community instead of, what does it look like to others? What would the community think? How successful is this person that the like, outer trappings of, of really success, you know, what success looks like either physically, in a career, you know, whatever it is, it’s, there’s so much more to a person, and there’s so much more to making a successful marriage than those external, you know, those external categories. But I also think that some of them are important, you know, but I just didn’t have it’s like learning a language. I didn’t, I was never trained in that language. And I wish I had been and I think, you know, I’m changing that in my own family. And, and I think that’s the benefit of being in this country, is that we can talk about these things and experiencing experiences things differently than maybe our parents did.

Jesse Lin 14:25
Yeah, yeah. I think, um, you know, when you were describing the way that the arranged marriage works, there are a few things that would like lit up light bulbs. For me, the first thing was like, is this really that different from how our parents got married? Like, not really, they don’t call it an arranged marriage, but it’s not really like they had a plethora of choices. It’s largely, the choices are largely dictated by the family. And there’s usually some kind of compatibility there, right? So like, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t very likely marry somebody that’s like way out of your socio economic class. Because they’re usually looking for someone that is like in the same same boat. So, yeah, it’s so interesting because I never thought about it in that way. Because for some reason, I always ascribe some semblance of agency to my parents, but I’m like, did they really have a choice? I don’t think they really did. And, and the last thing you mentioned about having the conversation with, you know, parents preparing us for these choices, I felt like that really resonated with me. And I probably with Angela too, because oftentimes, we kind of like we’re like, faulting our parents, like, you know, they never, they never guided us to these decisions. But the reality is that they don’t even have the experience, right, like Angela’s mentioned that her, her dad is her mom’s first boyfriend, and like, first and only choice, so they don’t even have like, the way to prepare us for making these decisions. So that kind of brings me to my question, which is like, do your parents see the current situation in terms of there’s, you know, there’s still arranged marriages, but then there’s still there’s this kind of like, you’re free to make your own decisions on who you want to love who you want to marry? And like, what do they think about these two dichotomies?

Shibani Joshi 16:13
So that’s a great question. I don’t know what they think. Right? Yeah, I can tell you that I have a 35 year old brother who’s not married yet. And they are like trying to get him married. And he’s like, I’ll do it when I’m ready. And, and then my sister married who she wanted to marry, and he’s not of the same religion. And, and I have lots and lots of examples of that with my direct cousins also. So, you know, my parents never because of how they raised us in this country. And what I think they accepted as the norm is that they couldn’t force us to choose a certain mold. And I know that for my own kids, you know, is there’s so much that I’m teaching them about, about their culture and their values. And ultimately, they get to decide if you know, what parts of the culture they’re going to carry on and what parts they’re going to say, it just doesn’t serve us, you know, I see that straight up. And you know, how, what I hear from my cousins and my family in India, you know, and it’s something that I wrote about in this Elle piece, which was my parents came over here, and your parents came over here, and in the year that they did, and those values of the country that from which they came from, are frozen in time, from the date that they left. And so my parents have come here with 1970s values of India, and even my cousins, they’ll say that, that’s old school, India, you know, people I, you know, I, I told, you know, my own family didn’t know that I was getting that I was divorced or divorcing, and I was so terrified of disappointing them, of them, like abandoning me of, of like, what their reaction would be, particularly the family in India, because I just thought, wow, they are just gonna think this is so taboo, and I’m bad, and, you know, I’m just, you know, of bad morals, and whatever it is, and my cousin was like, eh, this happens all the time here now, you know, and he just kind of shook it off, and my aunts and uncles, they’re like, it’s okay, you know, they were super actually cool about it. It was my parents, and my parents and my family that had come from India that live here, that I felt like had the hardest time because they had not seen how India had modernized, how divorce was becoming much more common how these lack of arranged marriages that people were doing, quote, unquote, love marriages much more often. And that society had changed. And I think that that’s, that’s, and again, and that’s part of what I think, you know, I’m passing on my concept of Indian culture is is what they passed on to me, which for my kids is gonna be like, decades and decades and decades removed, right? So I get that they may not carry some of that stuff off. It may not even in and for people in India, it’s like so out of touch, right? So we’re all operating with these time capsules of what our culture is, was without real time checks, and every time I go to India, I have real time checks, you know, I’m like, Oh, this is normal. And this, people are going to bars and they’re doing this and doing that and like, what do I think is happening there and I appreciate that I appreciate the opportunity to recalibrate because life has changed there. And, and, and what I think of what my culture is, is, is an ever evolving thing. Just like who I am, you know, and that that’s kind of that’s It’s kind of cool. I think.

Angela Lin 20:01
That’s super interesting. And I love that you assign this time capsule type of analogy to it, because I don’t think Jesse and I have talked about it in those terms, either where when we talk about our parents values, I think we do make the mistake of making that assumption that it is the prevailing continued values and culture that’s going on in Taiwan, which is where our motherland is. And so it’s really lovely to hear from your side that your experience with divorce is that your family actually didn’t care that much. Because I think, for us thinking about that topic, it was a lot of like, well, as far as like, we know from our parents, right divorce and something even Taiwanese culture, that’s like taboo, and no one does it. And like, we have, I don’t know if you use the same term, but we constantly talk about like saving face, right, which is exactly what you mentioned before, the outward appearance that you have, and like the honor and the dignity that you’re providing to your families through your actions. And so for, for us, like even talking to my parents a while ago, many years ago, at this point by we were talking about relationships, and exactly what Jesse mentioned before that, like they don’t have that much experience, either, because they didn’t have dating and all that stuff. But when we talk about when things are rocky and whatnot, we had mentioned, my brother and I mentioned very briefly in the past, like, well, did you guys think about divorce at any point, you know, and like, that’s not even, that’s not an option, like that’s not within the realm of possibility. So just don’t even talk about that. And so that’s why I think we carried that feeling of like, well, modern, you know, modern time Taiwan must also think the same way. But really great to hear that, at least in India, that is not the case. And I think it’s time for us to have a little like, gut check with what reality is like, like, in our own motherland.

Shibani Joshi 21:56
And whether or not it serves us, I think that that’s something that you know, the saving faces is what you know, and in our culture, we say, you know, what would people think? And that’s always in the back of our mind. So like, what, what would our neighbors think? What would our family think? Well, you know, there’s a lot of this outward facing concern for saving face for maintaining status. And it can be, I guess, motivating in some circumstances, but I just think that it takes to Jesse’s point the agency out of our own lives, and I, I just in struggling with deciding to divorce it was, you know, it’s funny, because when I was, you know, I didn’t talk about it with many people, but with my quote, unquote, American friends, right? It was just like, no big deal. Okay? What like, think about it, move on, whatever you decide, it’s all good, like, just move forward. But I really felt this personal crisis of, can I be Indian? And be this quote, unquote, you know, good Indian girl, or traditional Indian girl, do these things like, can I hold my culture? And also get divorced? Or do I have to pick one or the other, and I really thought that I had to pick one, because there would be no space for me, you know, there’s just the tradition that we have, when we go to a Hindu temple, you have these ancient family names, and there’s gotras four of them and we all come from, you know, one ancient family. So you, you go when you share the family name, or whatever, and the priest blesses you. And I thought, like, what do I do in this circumstance? Do I go with my married one? Or do I go with my, my, you know, my pre married one? And like, will the priest even bless me anymore? Am I allowed, you know, like, I had these real crises of feeling like will I get rejected within my own community? And, and, you know, at some point, I just, I had to choose what my gut was telling me to do, my heart was telling me to do, I had tried everything that I had could for years and years and years, and I had just hit the end of the road. And at some point, I just thought, I choose me. And if that means I can’t do this, or I can’t do that. So be it, you know. And what I realized is, is that there are things that you can do right, to maintain your independence, your power, your you know, all of these things, but I think it’s it’s a it’s our own concept of what we think life should look like. And I am very fortunate to be able to act upon circumstances to create a life that I think is is really right for me, and I and I and I walk alone in that path, you know, I think I wrote in that Elle article, you know, I didn’t see my, my parents for a year, because my dad was so adamant that divorce is wrong. And he doesn’t believe in divorce. And he doesn’t think that I should divorce. And, you know, I had to be willing to walk away from them in order to walk my own path, and that was what I had to do. And I was for I, you know, I just, I got to the point where I tried, and I tried to keep it together, and I tried to do everything I could do. And then I just realized, I have to do what’s right for me, and it might come at the sacrifice of relationships, including with my own parents.

Angela Lin 25:52
Well, we respect you for picking the best parts of what is going to work best for you and not thinking of culture as something that is so rigid that you can’t make it your own. I think that’s something that we’re constantly talking about on the show is like, how do we redefine culture and identity for ourselves? So I think I’d love to pivot this into a more positive way where you’re already talking about some of these, you know, good things that you chose for yourself. I’d love to hear a little bit about like, what are the positive lessons and learnings that you got out of this very difficult experience that you had and how that’s affected the way that you are carrying yourself and the things that you’re choosing to pursue in your life as well. Like you mentioned, speaking engagements, and, you know, choosing the best life for you and like, how did this all affect that and how you’re carrying things forward today?

Shibani Joshi 27:28
Yeah, I love that I love being able to pivot and move it forward. You know, I think we’re talking about the perceptions of divorce and thinking I can’t get divorced as an Indian was just also thinking that divorce needed to look a certain way it meant having different you know, we even though we’re Hindu or Indian, we celebrate Christmas and we open presents together and we do Thanksgiving and we do all these Indian and American things. And you know, my concept of divorce because we didn’t have you know, we didn’t have it in our family was that is what I saw on TV. And what I thought America and unquote american people did. And so it was two birthday parties and two Christmases and like all of these things. And I think it was also part of what I really struggled with because I was like, I can’t do that, you know, I just can’t do that. It just doesn’t – that feels so hard. And um, you know, I think now in our, like normal like society wide dialogue, we’re having these honest conversations and you know, Gwyneth Paltrow throughout conscious uncoupling and I never read that book. But I think, you know, what it brought out was that there’s a different face of divorce a divorce can look in different look different than maybe what we thought it could look like. And then I think the other thing is, is that you know, what I am, I, you know, I am very excited about is, you know, I get to talk to people about this and not specifically about divorce. But I think my Elle piece that I wrote, I think that it was hugely healing for me. But then I also think it gave people permission, I received hundreds and hundreds of comments and emails and you know, just DMs of thank you for writing this, I resonated with this. This is my life. This was, you know, my my sister’s life, my brother’s life, whatever it was. And I think that, in speaking our truth and talking about these things more within our communities, we give one another permission to break the taboos and to break the rules and change the rules and only by talking about them, can we do that and I felt like I have such privilege in my life. And I have a platform and I’m you know a person that’s you know, in the media and it looks like my life is perfect, but my life is far from perfect. And and I would love to demystify that, that and shatter that perception, and then give people permission to do the same thing because if my life, you know, if this can happen to me, then maybe it makes you feel better that it can happen to you or it did happen to you or it’s happening, you know, whatever it is, it’s happening in your life. Because sometimes we just need examples to give us that feeling that we’re not alone. And, and I just, I just felt so full, like my heart so full by the responses that I got in response to that piece. And it really just made me feel like it wasn’t easy. And it was a huge risk. But I’m so glad that I took it. I think difficulties in life are test us, they challenge us, they grow us, we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t be who we are without having gone through the hard stuff. And this was my heart stuff. And I am on the other side of it. And I’m a stronger, better person for it. And I’m just I can only feel grateful for that, because there’s a lot harder stuff that’s out there that I know about. So I feel pretty good about, you know, the hard stuff that I have. I even feel lucky about that.

Jesse Lin 31:07
Oh, wow. That’s amazing, like a good a good way, a high note to transition over to the ending part of our podcast. Welcome everyone back to the fortune cookie segment. Because we always like to end on a sweet treat. What are your – what are your hopes for your kids in terms of love and dating?

Shibani Joshi 31:28
Oh, I love that. That’s so beautiful. I think about I want them to be again, I go back to your word Jesse agents, I want them to have agency over their life, I want them to I think the most important thing for finding a good partner is is to know yourself first. And so I want them to know themselves well enough to ask questions about what’s important. If you don’t know yourself, you don’t know what questions to ask. And so I would I want them to know themselves well enough to ask not just of themselves, but of their future partners what’s important. I want them to I want them to be happy. I want them to be with whomever makes them happy. I don’t want them to be deluded that marriage is easy. Marriage is a journey and marriage takes work. And I think that I think that it’s worth fighting for. And I think that they need to know that just like anything else. I think that’s also one of the the traditional elements of Indian culture is you don’t necessarily – it’s assumed that the marriage is gonna work forever. And I think that that you can’t assume that I think you have to work hard at it. And then I don’t know love is a is is is worth it. I still think that love is worth it. And I hope they each experience it and experience it many times if that’s what their path path calls for. So it makes me happy just thinking about that. Yeah.

Angela Lin 33:10
Love it. Okay, well, Shibani thank you so much for joining us on the show. We really loved hearing from you and really appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing as much as you did. If our listeners want to find you or hear about any upcoming projects you have, where’s the best way that they can get in touch or to follow along with your journey?

Shibani Joshi 33:33
Yeah, you can check me out at ShibaniJoshi.com. I have two blogs on there. I have a tech blog and also just my personal writing and essay writing which I wrote write about all sorts of things including some of the things we talked about today. And there’s a contact me form you can always reach out to me if you want to shoot me your thoughts. I always love that and you can find me across social media as well.

Angela Lin 34:00
Awesome, well and listeners if you enjoyed this episode, the topics that we covered or you have your own experience with what we talked about, feel free to write us in at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com, we’re always out for listeners submitted stories as well. So do write us in and come back next week because we’ll have a fresh new episode for you then as well.

Angela Lin 0:00
Today we have a special guest first guest of Season Four. We have Frank from 5am ramen. What’s up, Frank?

Frank 0:27
Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Angela Lin 0:30
Okay, so Frank and I actually know each other from, like, random happenstance of life, which is that when Ramon and I were living in Japan, wow, it’s over two years ago. Now that’s life just like flies by at this point, but um, we’re in Japan for a few months, we went on several ramen tours that I think we booked through Airbnb. But they were hosted by Frank and his company 5am ramen. And they were super cool. Because we well, ramen is one of my favorite things. So this was like, at the top of my list of things I wanted to do. And it was like, what better way to like find the best ramen than to just have someone shuttle me from like the best spot to spot around Tokyo. So we did we did it twice. Because we liked it so much. But yeah, that’s how I met Frank. And it’s cool that now we’re our paths are crossing again. And yeah, how have you been? I haven’t seen you in over two years.

Frank 1:32
I’ve been good. No, you both are definitely ramen tour a veterans I think, having done the tour more than once. But no, I’ve been great. Of course. You know, it’s been interesting turn of events around the world challenging and things like that. But no, it’s it’s great to reconnect here.

Angela Lin 1:48
Okay, well, I know you but Jesse doesn’t know you and our listeners don’t know you. So why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit about like, where you are and what 5am ramen is, and anything else you want to intro?

Frank 2:00
Absolutely. So Frank from 5am, ramen, slash Tokyo, ramen tours, I grew up in Tokyo. I’m actually Filipino and American, but spent my whole life in Japan. That being said, I’ve eaten a lot of ramen Up to now, including from childhood. If you add it all up, I’ve had 1000s of bowls up to now and that does not include instant ramen. So I love ramen. And a few years ago, I was fortunately able to create a business centered on ramen. And as Angela mentioned, I did ramen tours, basically, right before, you know, full swing right before the pandemic. But I think now very much still, I’m involved in ramen. And I definitely live and breathe ramen, let’s say.

Angela Lin 2:44
Okay, and you already mentioned a few interesting tidbits, but Filipino American lived in Japan your whole life. So how would you answer our very standard question on the show, but where are you really from?

Frank 3:00
I’d say maybe how much time do you have? Or I’m just as confused. I think it’s difficult because, you know, for maybe for some of us, and I’m sure many listeners can relate. it’s sometimes hard to put yourself in a box. I’m, you know, Filipino and American, you know, biracial, bicultural, whatever you want to call it, but I also grew up in Japan. So having grown up, you know, maybe feeling partially Japanese, but partially Filipino, partially American, maybe not, you know, quite one or the other so dominantly, I guess, but maybe a little bit of everything is the right answer. So Filipino American, that grew up in Japan.

Angela Lin 3:41
And how was that like growing up because I feel like Jesse and I have talked a little bit about, at least like my perception of Japan from I was only there for a few months, but like trying to assimilate. I was working there with my company. I was trying to, I was doing like normal business hours and trying to just like blend in. And so I have my own kind of, like, perception of the culture, but you grew up there, but you’re not technically Japanese. But I know there are some like norms, they place on people, you know, what was that like growing up? Where you were like, I’m, I feel Japanese. I’m not like, you know, blood Japanese, or was that any tension with that? Or it was just, you know, you just were?

Frank 4:21
No, I think you got a sense of like, what what it’s like to be here. And working here, too, is very different, you know, just like living here, as opposed to just visiting the country and maybe only seeing it on a surface level. Japan is a great country, of course. But given that, what is it 98% of the population, maybe even 99% is Japanese. You know, and you go back to the 80s and 90s when I was growing up. Yeah, I definitely stood out like a sore thumb. Although Japan is changing. It is becoming more diverse. It still is not that diverse relative to other countries. So it was interesting kind of growing up in that environment, as I said, not being living in Japan, but not being Japanese by blood. And you know, that’s kind of how Japan also measures whether you’re Japanese or not, right? Whether that’s right or not putting that aside, you know, you’re either Japanese or you’re not, they categorize you put you in that box, it’s very black and white in that sense. But for me, I guess what was interesting was that I went to an international school. And there were a lot of other kids like me. Whereas if I went to a Japanese school, it might have been a very different experience, I might have been the only non Japanese kid in middle school, high school, but at the International School, there were so many other confused, I joke. This kids were like me, so the experience was very relatable. And it wasn’t that unusual, you know, it wasn’t like, growing up, oh, who am I, of course, I think all of us, you know, in some way or another might have identity issues, you know, when we’re teenagers, for example, but it was never that pronounced, I was kind of, for lack of a better way of putting it maybe in a, in a bubble, within Tokyo. And as you said, you know, maybe now even as an adult, I can kind of hover back and forth between that bubble, you know, I would have trouble working at a very, you know, rigid, rigidly structured Japanese company, you know, I would that that would be difficult for me, even though I grew up here. And I would probably choose not to, but at the same time, you know, I can kind of be outside of that, but also be an insider as well, just because I grew up here, I know the ins and outs of Japanese culture, etc. So kind of finding myself in a unique position. I think within Japan.

Jesse Lin 6:43
It’s so interesting, because I think a lot of the times, we’re talking about how to orient ourselves as Americans who are in search of our Asian heritage, and you’re, you’re like, have two ethnicities, you’re a Japanese person in search of an American or potentially Filipino ethnicity. Have you gone to either of those places where your parents were from and tried to, like, explore? Like, what’s that feel like?

Frank 7:08
Right, right. Yeah, I guess in that sense, maybe like a reverse of what some people experienced or not a reverse but in the same way, at one point to, as you know, maybe a teenager, someone that’s, you know, not as confident with who they are. There was a little bit of that soul searching, rediscovering so yes, I would go to the US, go to the Philippines and be in Japan. And I’d be like, Who am I? We wouldn’t I wouldn’t necessarily scheduled trips centered on that. But every time I would visit those places, yes. It’s kind of like, okay, well, I feel American, like, you know, can I? Can I try and be a little bit more American, you know, you want to fit in, right? Same thing in Japan, too. It’s, you know, I’m not Japanese. But do I want to be Japanese? Do I want to fit in? Will I ever fit in completely? And maybe after a point, you realize, you know, it’s okay, if I don’t fit in 100% everywhere, you know, I’m something else. And I think a lot of us can relate to that. Right? Maybe you’re not, you’re not completely one thing that doesn’t define you that category, you can be several things. And that’s completely fine.

Jesse Lin 8:13
So maybe like one final question regarding like, discovery of heritage, because a lot of the people we talked to are Western born Asian individuals. And so like, our perspective towards finding our heritage is always this kind of like, tension between the western way of thinking and like, your roots. But your circumstances like a little bit up flipped, where you grew up in an Eastern culture, and you’re part of your background is rooted in Western culture. So like, when you were growing up? Did you feel like that was the thing among the people that you went to international school with, they were interested in finding out more about their, wherever they potentially originally came from, or it was kind of like, because you were in a Japanese environment in Japanese culture, it wasn’t so much of a thing that was ingrained in you to explore that you were interested in exploring?

Frank 9:07
Right? That’s a great question. I think, you know, for a lot of us in the international school, maybe there wasn’t as much of a burning desire to discover more about you. And a lot of I mentioned, there were others like me, I think, I don’t know if there was a burning desire to go to the US and they were already exposed to like, you know, American culture, whether this was pop culture on TV or at home, I think in a lot of these households, you know, there were, as you suggested, there were you know, parts of western culture already there the school to like, I went to an international school with everyone. So, the language of instruction was English, it was essentially an American curriculum. So, it was never, you know, in my case, at least, like rediscovering my American side also because I would regularly go to the US I was exposed to that Western culture from the beginning as well as even Filipino culture by visiting the Philippines a lot. And then of course, living in Japan. I was surrounded by it. So out of school, that was where the Japanese influences would, would come into play. So I guess again, it may be comes back to having a little bit of everything, this bubble within Japan being exposed to all of that. So, for me, I never really had to go back and rediscover that Western side, I was I was literally exposed to both western and eastern side. And I think now again, just being able to have that ability to choose, you know, relative to the situation, you know, understanding both sides, right, in this situation, I can be a little bit more Japanese. In this situation, I can be a little bit more Filipino and be I don’t know, louder. I’m going to stereotypes, that’s not a good thing. I think, you know every situation will call for certain things, right, and maybe being more like of a chameleon. But understanding, you know, both sides, not not identifying completely with one or the other. Again, I think it’s that chameleon like, aspect. That was definitely the case for me. And I think for a lot of kids that, you know, grew up in these international school environments, you have international schools around the world, it’s really unique experience, I think, at these international schools you’re at, you’re exposed to so many different cultures. And it’s hard to identify with one of them.

Angela Lin 11:13
Not to open up a whole can of worms, but as you were talking

Frank 11:17
Open it up, open it up!

Angela Lin 11:17
Okay, I’m curious, because Jesse, I don’t remember who you ask this to previously, but you said something like, when you were abroad in Spain, you met someone and they told you like, you guys care too much about race relations. And in the US, like it’s too big of a thing. So I’m curious, Frank, what, what it’s been like observing the US become a dumpster fire last year over you know, race relations, and all the all the stuff that’s been unpacked, in the past year as this like outside, outside view in right, like you have a stake in it, because you’re partially American, but you’re living in Japan. And like, I would imagine, the way the news at least is portraying it in Japan is from a Japanese point of view. So I’m curious what your like experience has been observing our crap going here?

Frank 12:11
Well, the the flames are pretty high, so definitely can see them. So no, I think, you know, what, what makes the US maybe unique in that sense, right? Regardless of whether like, it’s, it’s, it’s too much, that seems to have been your experience in Spain, right, Jesse, it was, you know, what, why is race such a big deal in the US, right? I have observed that maybe like, these issues are discussed more openly, people tend to want to discuss, you know, their identity, where they fit into the whole thing. So there is a lot more discussion, I think, and certainly compared to Japan, and certainly compared to me, you know, what, what I was used to growing up in an international community, you know, it’s just like, this is kind of who I am. And that’s that. So on the one hand, yes, there is a lot more of that discussion going on. But at the same time, that’s maybe what makes the US unique. You know, right. Now, you very much have an Asian American equivalent of civil civil rights movement, right, this is a good thing. And the US is a melting pot pot, you know, despite what’s happening right now, despite the tension that’s there, and Japan is really not. So, you know, these discussions, further progress. You know, these are good discussions to have. But, yeah, the US is, is a unique place, right? You know, what it means to be American is so different than here, where, again, it’s, it’s very black and white, right? It’s important to have these discussions.

Angela Lin 13:39
It’s interesting, because I agree with you, it’s important that we’re having these discussions and like, we care a lot about identity in the US. And maybe because we are this melting pot, everyone has a little bit of identity crisis, living here. But like, even listening to your responses, during this conversation, I’m almost like jealous because it sounds like, it doesn’t matter as much. Like it’s like, you sound like you’re pretty confident in like who you are, and like, you’re happy with this, like chameleon type status that you have, and it doesn’t bother you in the way that like, I feel like a lot of us are very obsessed, like, but who am I exactly? And like, where exactly do I fit in? And like, we’re just not settled anywhere. So I’m almost kind of jealous, but it’s not as big of a crisis issue for for those living abroad.

Frank 14:30
I think, you know, for all myself included, right, it’s still you know, this is not to say I’m always with my, you know, I’m always 100% confident, right? It’s, it’s still challenging, but it’s not so simple. I think it’s all relative to your environment, right? In Japan, I can kind of go in the background a little bit. Yeah, I think in the US, you know, with all these issues at the forefront, it kind of brings these issues front and center again, right. So it’s kind of an ongoing thing. You know, now these questions are being asked because all of all of you are being asked, right like, you know, What does it mean to be American right with everything that’s going on? Whereas, you know, in Japan, we don’t really have that moment, right? There were moments like that, you know, there was a few Japanese beauty pageant contestants that were questioned because they weren’t 100% Japanese like things like that. So if I was representing Japan in that capacity, not as a beauty pageant, contestant, I can try I entered once but I didn’t get accepted. But, you know, I think like if I was in that situation, maybe would again, bring those issues front and center so it’s all relative.

Jesse Lin 16:47
Well, let’s talk about food. Let’s talk about ramen and give us of all the things Japanese specialty. What is it that landed you on ramen?

Frank 17:01
What I really like about ramen is its diversity. There’s certain things that define ramen. And I think you know, outside of Japan, probably I would assume that I think the most common ramen is pork bone ramen right tonkotsu ramen, maybe some miso as well. But let’s say beyond those styles, even within the world of pork bone, ramen, miso ramen, there’s so many subcategories of ramen. And what I find interesting about ramen is that given that it’s actually only about 100 years old is that it continues to evolve. There are new styles of ramen coming out all the time. Of course, there are certain things that again, define ramen, if you go off too much in a bold direction, maybe you’re kind of moving away from the definition of ramen. But despite that ramen, unlike, say, soba, or udon, it’s not the same experience from ramen shop to ramen shop from region or region ramen is really diverse, and maybe tying it into what we were discussing up to now ramen really is a hybrid. It’s like a Chinese Japanese hybrid, and maybe myself being a hybrid. It’s something I can identify with. Of course, it’s tasty. And that’s the most important central theme. But yeah, ramen really is a hybrid.

Jesse Lin 18:08
So for those of us who didn’t go on a ramen tour, and used to think that ramen was just instant cup noodles, what are the primary characteristics of like ramen from Japan?

Frank 18:21
Right. I think I mentioned this on the tours, too. So we’ll be taking a virtual tour right now. But basically broth, noodles and toppings harmoniously coming together as the way I sort of look at ramen. And of course that can define a lot of their noodle dishes right? In Asia, for example, but there are certain things in the broth that I think make it ramen and maybe make a Japanese you have a lot of ramen shops using dashi or Japanese soup stock, right? These are elements like soy sauce, soy sauce for the seasoning, but let’s say kelp and bonito fish flakes kelp is basically giant seaweed. For listeners that might not be familiar with that and also bonito fish flakes basically dried bonito fish this is these are very Japanese elements that they’re used in the soup. This these things alongside chicken and pork bones, that’s where they took maybe a plate out of the Chinese noodle dish playbook right using things like that. So it’s kind of like these more delicate flavors not not the Japanese food is all delicates but you know these more delicate things like kelp again, the bonito fish plates combined with maybe these more meaty things that’s the soup for the noodles, ramen noodles or wheat flour noodles like a lot of other noodles out there but what really defines ramen noodles is consumed or an Alkaline Mineral Water lye water. Basically, this Alkaline Mineral water is what gives ramen noodles a more springy or firm texture. If this element is not in ramen noodles, sometimes people will not define them as ramen noodles. So basically think of ramen noodles is more firm udon noodles so don’t noodles are thick and slippery ramen noodles can be thin or thick But it’s really that Alkaline Mineral water that makes ramen noodles noodles. And then for toppings you have your usual suspects whether it’s egg, spring onions, as well as bamboo shoots, sometimes the decorative fish cake in the middle, things like that. So I think with those three things broth, noodles and toppings, if you have 2, 2.5 out of three, yeah you’re kind of ramen but again, this is everyone’s definition is going to be a little bit different. We have things like pineapple ramen here in Japan, you know, is that still is that still ramen? Right? You’re really pushing the boundaries? So it really depends on how I think you interpret ramen, but there are certain things toppings maybe especially in a soup that that define it. And sorry, I guess I should say noodles too, right? If you put rice noodles in ramen, maybe it’s no longer ramen as much as I personally love rice noodles. So it gets a little complicated. But you know, ramen shops will basically adhere to keeping a lot of those things that I mentioned and that will define their dishes as wrong.

Jesse Lin 21:10
When you decide pineapple ramen, I’m sorry. I just was at a restaurant the other day where I I saw pineapple fried rice and I just imagined like an empty pineapple used as a bowl for the ramen – that’s not what it is right?

Frank 21:23
Unfortunately not that would be fun, maybe. But they have fully committed to using pineapples. They’ve got a pineapple logo, the interior ramen shop, there’s pineapple decorations. There’s even like a little lampshade that is a pineapple not an actual pineapple that would be more epic. But be at full fully committed to using pineapples in the ramen. It is delicious. You know, maybe it’s not ramen, at least in the traditional sense, but it is very interesting. Again ramen being very young you know that there are certain things you can do maybe with ramen that you can’t do with other more traditional Japanese foods. I always mentioned this on the tours too, but sushi is so much more rigid right? In Japan there is a very rigid definition of sushi. This is sushi, this is not kind of like maybe again, what is Japanese in what is not right. It’s extended to this. You know, California rolls are not considered sushi. As much as I love California rolls. You know, again, this is sushi. This is not ramen, you know, it’s open to debate which is great. And what I find fascinating about ramen too.

Angela Lin 22:23
Okay, well you mentioned instant ramen, I want to I’m curious about that topic because something I noticed in Japan that was really cool is that the food scene is like largely a fresh based like fresh cooks kind of thing where in the US like if you’re super busy for lunch, you don’t expect that you’re going to be able to sit down at a restaurant and like turn around have an actual like fresh cooked meal in 20 minutes or whatever and be out the door versus in Japan I did that every day in my office so I’m curious because there’s that culture but then to your point instant ramen is like a huge thing in Japan as well where the shelves have like a gazillion varieties and like every 711 has like all the things ready for you to like you know make the ramen on the spot with the hot water thing and like and it’s like a perfectly acceptable meal as well so like what is this? What’s the thought between like ramen versus instant ramen because in the US are like instant ramen is like crap, you know? It’s like the it’s the fake chicken like powder that you crushed up with the wavy noodles when you’re eight or whatever and pop the snacks but is there that similar kind of mentality towards instant ramen in Japan or its it has its own place and is is also good?

Frank 23:42
It definitely has its own place and it’s definitely its own special world. I think for me I really rediscovered the world of instant ramen during this whole pandemic just because spending a lot more time at home and you know, no matter what you want of course like let’s say on the one end of the spectrum you have fresh ramen served you know piping hot at a ramen restaurant, right? If you go you know, one notch down or if it’s a spectrum left let’s say and you know you’re having from 711 you mentioned there it’s maybe a microwavable ramen right still with fresh noodles the shelf life is shorter if we move one notch back from there, there’s you know, frozen ramen you can get at 711 there’s also the premium instant ramen which you have non flash fried noodles and seasoning and soups, everything separated and proper like toppings you know, this is like a high quality instant ramen. And as you mentioned, there’s so many options for that here to coming from different famous ramen shops, maybe different regional specialties etc, etc. And then if we you know, go even for further back we’ve got the cup style instant ramen that what I was just talking about was the bowl style by the way, the ones that are shaped like a bowl tend to be better, more premium, and then the cup style is a little bit more basic flash fried noodles you just pop the lid open, you’re pouring the hot water. And then before that maybe the most basic, which I think is what a lot of people associate with instant ramen is the package variety, right? That’s the simple flash fried noodles. You know how many cents is it per pack, right? That’s the cheapest variety you can get not the best for you. So in Japan, you have the whole spectrum, right? If you’re, you know, at home, maybe cooking for a family, the pack of vaiety is great, just adding vegetables, and maybe some protein is good to upgrade it. But on the other side of the spectrum, you know, going for lunch, as you said, at at a ramen restaurant, you can be in and out in 20 minutes. Right, very convenient. So I think, you know, as consumers in Japan, we’re very spoiled. And you know, relative to the situation there, you know, it will call for different things, right? So I think yes, instant ramen included is a very important part of Japanese culture. And again, that whole spectrum there relative to you know, your your price point rather than you know their different price points relative to your situation and what you require at that moment.

Angela Lin 26:02
I am confused about the bowl one. So that one is not just adding hot water, or how does that one prep?

Frank 26:07
You do add hot water. So basically, it’s like a styrofoam bowl in the same way that the cup is right. But it’s a little bit different because the preparation takes a little bit more to understand. You don’t just you do pop the lid, but they’re normally two to four, or even sometimes five packets. So the first packet that you put in, for example, is the toppings. Maybe the pork like these are fresh or they are dried, but things like this you put on top of the noodles, then you pour in the hot water. After that, you’re going to be heating one of the soup packets on top of the lid just to keep it warm. So you remove the lid then you pour in a soup packet. And sometimes there are several soup packets, there might even be three sometimes and you can put them in at different times. Then after that you mix everything all together. So it’s just a lot closer to what you’d be getting at a ramen restaurant. And another big difference, as briefly mentioned is that the noodles are not flash fried. So you don’t have as much of that artificial flavor, which is often the case with the packet variety. It and I can tell you, it’s pretty crazy how far this fancier premium if you want to call it style of instant ramen has come.

Angela Lin 27:23
How have things changed for you in the past year because of everything?

Frank 28:10
Yeah, the pandemic certainly upended a lot of industries travel and hospitality, of course was you know, hit with a sledgehammer overnight. But I think, you know, setting the stage all of us in Japan, we’re very excited for the Olympics that we’re supposed to happen last year, right? You know, this was going to be Japan’s banner year. All of us were, you know, 100% 150% ready to greet tourists from around the world. And ramen tours included? Of course, that all changed overnight. It is what it is. And it’s certainly been challenging, you know, when you base a lot of your business around something specific and it’s no longer possible. Of course, it’s it’s very tough. But I think, you know, there’s always a silver lining. And you know, for me, I’ve pivoted to some other things, including online ramen tours, selling the instant ramen that I mentioned, you know, they’re the things that you have to look at. And if the Olympics had gone through, I would have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, excuse the morbid reference. But I think all of us in the travel industry, we would have been so bit busy that we wouldn’t have time to sort of stop and think about, you know, maybe other things that we could do. So the pandemic has allowed me to look at other things, maybe other revenue streams, and kind of reset everything. Of course the pandemic has carried on a little bit longer. I think that we all initially thought right. So in the background, it’s like, okay, please, tourism come back. We want to do all these things we were talking about, but at the same time it has allowed me and maybe to become a little bit more creative and think about okay, how can I still have these ramen related businesses, without people able, without people to physically be able to come to Japan right now?

Angela Lin 29:55
Well, we look forward to being part of your big hurrah, return to tourism whenever Japan allows us back in

Frank 30:02
We will rent a ramen bus limo even

Angela Lin 30:10
Well, shall we move into our closing section? Jesse?

Jesse Lin 30:14
Yes. Sofor our fortune cookie rank we wanted to ask you what’s your favorite instant ramen?

Frank 30:21
Yes this is a tough a tough question I think nostalgia wise because of the flavors that I grew up with. Sapporo Ichiban if we do the packet variety right we’re talking about just the the dried flash fried noodles packets

Angela Lin 30:36
Well whatever you you have this whole world of instant ramen

Frank 30:40
Okay. Yeah, how much time do you have?

Angela Lin 30:44
You get one

Frank 30:47
Frank talks for an hour about instant ramen but we edited down to five minutes I think Sapporo Ichiban I know that’s over there stateside, too. I do hear the flavor is a little bit different in the packets stateside, I haven’t had it in the States. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, but Sapporo Ichiban the package variety in Japan, especially the shio or salt seasoned ramen is a flavor like I will always love. You know, I have fond memories of my mom making that at home. So for me that’s very much nostalgic. I think if we get into the fancier bowl varieties, the one from Michelin star ramen restaurant Nakiryu you their Tonton men basically a variation of dandan noodles dandanmien. That is amazingly delicious. For the bowl variety to I think one of my all time favorites is also Sano ramen. Sano is a style of ramen that is relatively light with beautiful noodles, and a relatively light soy sauces and broth. So, again, Sapporo Ichiban for the packet variety. And if we move into the fancier, more premium bowl styles Nakiryu Tonton men Michelin star ramen, and also Sano original ramen made by a company called Yama, di. And the Nakiryu one is made by Nishin. So those are three. And I’ll maybe stop there. so I don’t go off on instant ramen tangent.

Jesse Lin 32:09
And which of these maybe all of them can our listeners get from you?

Frank 32:14
Oh, well, the last two I mentioned you can definitely get for me. I have a subscription model as well. So the Sano ramen is, you know, it’s relative to when you subscribe, but if people like it, and I’m happy to introduce that as like, you could just buy the Sano ramen. But the Nakiryu Tonton men, the Michelin star one that I mentioned, you can buy those in packs of five. And for everybody’s reference, anyone that does a purchase, you get video instructions on how to assemble them. So what you’re taught,

Jesse Lin 32:45
So don’t dump it all in

Frank 32:46
Yeah don’t dump it all in here, so you have a very easy, easy breakdown. And there’s also you know, background information on the ramen. So it’s kind of like you’re collecting the different roles at different times. So my idea was definitely to make it fun, interactive, and since people cannot come here, me bringing the moment to you. And I would like to think that everyone will be pleasantly surprised with how good these instant ramen were again, I was I felt the same way when I rediscovered the world sometime last year.

Angela Lin 33:18
I mean, I think the fact that you mentioned Michelin star ramen a few times as like something like the fact that a Michelin star restaurant would decide to make instant ramen i think is already telling in and of itself of like the quality that this must be because restaurants would not have that caliber would not want to like tarnish their brand by doing something that is shit, right. So very good.

Frank 33:45
No, you hit the nail on the ramen head. Absolutely. That is yeah, they’ve taken some ramen to another level here. Let’s let’s say that beyond the simple package variety.

Angela Lin 33:54
Well if all of you are salivating already thinking about all this ramen Frank has been generous enough to give our listeners a discount on his instant ramen subscription and you have subscription and just one time order to rate Yeah, so all the offerings if you go to instantraman.jp right that’s the URL and at checkout use REALLYFROM5 you’ll get 5% discount off your purchase thanks to Frank’s generous contribution.

Jesse Lin 34:30
And I believe free shipping.

Frank 34:31
Yes, shipping free Air Mail shipping to to the US. So you get it quite quickly. You know things are of course a question mark now with COVID are less flights and things like that. But the ramen does arrive very quickly. The only issue to the US right now is there’s no tracking. I haven’t had any issues so far people losing their things. But yeah, right now because of COVID there’s unfortunately no tracking but yes FREE SHIPPING and by air as well not by boat otherwise you get it In three, four months at this stage, so it’s only you know, some people have gotten as quick as a week other people like three weeks.

Angela Lin 35:10
Okay, well if you enjoy this episode if you have questions for Frank about ramen or anything we talked about today or you have a story of your own of living abroad growing up abroad or your obsession with ramen as well. You can write us in, telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com the YOU’RE is Y-O-U-R-E and we’ll pass along anything you want to Frank as well if you have a message for him.

Angela Lin 0:14
Hey, everyone, I’m Angela Lin.

Jesse Lin 0:16
And I’m Jesse Lin and welcome back to but where are you really from?

Angela Lin 0:20
Today? Well, first of all, welcome back season four first episode back of season four kind of crazy. Um, have you been Jesse since season three?

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Jesse Lin 0:34
It’s been interesting. Like, I feel like things are ready to open. And people are vaccinated and everyone’s just kind of like, holding their breath waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it’s a little weird. That’s about it.

Angela Lin 0:53
Life continues to be weird.

Jesse Lin 0:55
Yes. It continues to be weird and weird and busy.

Yes. How about you?

Angela Lin 1:02
Yes. Same, same, same, but different. also busy. Also weird. And I’ll talk about this in a hot second. But let’s talk about things that happened during this time. You turned 30 what up?

Jesse Lin 1:19
I’m not gonna acknowledge that because 2020 was a failed year. I’m still 29. And I’ll turn 30 next year.

Angela Lin 1:28
That’s fine. Well, I guess that entire topic for today?

Jesse Lin 1:32
No, I mean, no, it was really nice. Like the my pandemic pod which is a pseudo pod because they were still seeing other people but pod enough pseudo pod. We rented a house north of New York, like 30 minutes away from Hudson, which is like this quaint little town that a lot of rich people to decamped to during Coronavirus. Anyways, we rented the house for I think like three nights and we just hung out there and partied. And it was really nice. They got me a cake and some presents. And it’s just like this, the stuff that we kind of do that like every three every few months, and we get together and it’s like more relaxed has been like the shining light in all this like my little bit of like normalcy. So it was really nice to be able to have a birthday that felt semi normal in the middle of like all this insanity so that 30 wasn’t like a complete bust. Yeah.

Angela Lin 2:34
That sounds nice.

Jesse Lin 2:35
It was.

Angela Lin 2:37
Yeah, well, it’s funny because I turned 30 last year, also during the pandemic, because life has not changed at all in over a year. And my 30 was a lot less interesting than yours. I remember it was just a Wednesday. I did work. I ordered a pizza. That was my 30. It’s already coming up on redoing two years. It feels like we’re halfway through the past 2020 year and we’re still kind of like meh? Well, I doubt you guessed what the topic was because we were not good about talking about this topic, but today’s topic is turning 30

Jesse Lin 4:45
Dirty 30

Angela Lin 4:47
Because everyone I feel like when we were growing up everyone made turning 30 such a big deal. Like depending on how young you were. I remember when I was like a teenager I was like turning 30 here like cancion that’s like when you start dying, you know, it’s so dramatic when you’re a teenager like 30 is death. And then when you’re in your 20s, you’re like, I’m so youthful. This is – I’m an adult, but I’m not the boring, the dull, you know, boring type of adult 30s when that happens, so I feel like there’s a lot leading up to 30.

Jesse Lin 5:22
I agree 30 is like this huge milestone, because you have all these like, aspirations tied with that number. And you’re like, oh, I should be, you know, here, here and here with my career, my love life, whatever, by the time I turn 30. And that’s like, usually never the case, because you made all these aspirations when you didn’t know anything about life. And also fun anecdote, as it comes to my love life. Do you remember there used to be like, a, one of the guys at temple was like a fortune teller. And he basically, he towards when I was, yeah, yes. Like a soothsayer for your like life in the future. And he basically told me, like, don’t get married before you turn 30 or it’ll be like a disaster. And I was like, you know, originally, I was like, oh, that kind of sucks. Like, maybe I want to get married before I turned 30. And I’m like, that’s probably good advice. I don’t really want to get married.

Angela Lin 6:19
Well, you’ve passed that milestone. So you’re in the clear.

Jesse Lin 6:22
I can. I’m mystically blessed. Now in my marriage.

Angela Lin 6:26
Oh, my God. That’s funny. Yeah, I feel like what do you think weighs into why 30 is such a, like, important, seemingly important milestone,

Jesse Lin 6:40
I feel like there’s a lot of just media stuff. Like when you’re watching TV shows about people and any like sitcom, somebody turns like, 30. And it’s like a huge hullabaloo. They have some kind of crisis about they’re no longer 20. And they’re not young, and they can’t have fun anymore. Or like they feel too old to have fun. Also, like my mom told me that 30 was a important age recently

Angela Lin 7:08
In Chinese culture?

Jesse Lin 7:09
Yeah, I didn’t know that. She was like, Oh, it’s very important. And I was like,

Angela Lin 7:13
I didn’t know that

Jesse Lin 7:14
I think she was like, it’s the age to chen jia like make your family, build your own, like life kind of situation. So I was like, oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah,

Angela Lin 7:25
I don’t know that either. But that makes sense. It’s also not that different from Western culture. It’s just, it just sounds like the age when you’re supposed to become a real adult, and like, have a house and have family and bla bla bla, bla, bla bla. I’m like, thinking about it a little bit more. And I feel like it also, I’m, maybe I’m taking it too like scientific or whatever. But I’m like, I feel like it had this weight, because for a long time, it was seen as like midlife, like you’re halfway through your life, where 60 is kind of like, I don’t know, you either. A long time ago, 60, you could have been dead or like 60s when you retire. And you’re just like, straight up not doing much with your life anymore years old. So then 30 is like supposed to be kind of peak. And that’s when people feel the pressure of like, this is like the pinnacle. And I have to like have succeeded in XYZ by this point. And then I think about what’s really funny is that it has shifted somewhat in pop culture, in the last few years, like 30 is definitely still very important. And people make a huge hullabaloo around that. But do you remember when we turn like 24/25 and we had like, quarter life crisis, because I remember, I straight up had a quarter life crisis at that point. You skip that?

Jesse Lin 8:52
Um, I don’t remember if I had a crisis, I kind of like, this is what I say when I was like boring in my 20s. Like, I kind of had, like, I kind of retired. Like, I was just doing stuff. And I wasn’t necessarily enjoying it, if that makes sense. So I was like, doing my career stuff. And, you know, I was in a relationship for a while I was doing relationship stuff, and it kind of just felt like all those things that were building up to 30. But like, I didn’t necessarily stop to evaluate, like if those things made me really happy. So I didn’t have that crisis. Although if I had stopped to contemplate my situation, I probably would have but at that period of my life, and you were to like – we were just like, go, go, go, go, go go. So it was like really hard to stop and like, think about where you are going,

Angela Lin 9:51
Oh, I have my quarter life crisis though.

Jesse Lin 9:54
You’re more like, present in your life and knowing of self

Angela Lin 10:01
Maybe back then. I think it was just a I had it was like a pre 30 crisis almost like it’s what you’re supposed to have at 30. I had it like 25/26 or something like that. I it also for me is probably because it coincided with business school. So there’s like a pre Business School crisis and a post business schoolcrisis. Because it’s pre business school, you’re kind of like, man, something’s fucked up with my life that like, I gotta fix and maybe business school is how I’m gonna fix it mostly career wise, right? Like, no one, like, totally switch industry or function or something like that. And then post business school, you’re kind of like, well, I just like, took a whole, I took a two year break on my life. And I like bet everything on this decision because it costs shit ton of money. And am I really that happy in like this job that I got out of business school? Is this worth everything I sacrificed? And if it’s not, what am I doing with my life? So I think a lot of us have, like, post business school crisis as well.

Jesse Lin 11:04
I mean, I definitely, I definitely. I feel that, although I did not go to business school, but like, I can follow that in terms of like, just working in my career. Like, I got to a specific point where I was like, do I like doing this? Like, I’m fairly good at it. But like, do I want to do this forever. Still TBD. But back to the why 30 is important. I also feel maybe for ladies, it’s like a little bit of the biological clock thing. It’s like, tick, tick, tick, tick girl.

Angela Lin 11:37
Yeah. Yeah, that’s so real. That’s such a real thing. That’s super fucked up. I didn’t. I feel like when you’re approaching 30, you’re kind of like, Oh, I’m still young. Like, I’m like, What is age? You know, like, I’m still I’m youthful. I’m like age is nothing. And then when you get close to 30, or you hit 30, you’re like, oh, oh, wait, I have not as a woman, you’re like, I don’t actually have that many years left to like, be as prime as I need to be. And it feels so unfair, frankly, as a woman, because there’s nothing you can really do about it. I mean, there there are things you can do about it, obviously. But if you just want to have things go as like naturally as possible. There’s not much you can do about it if you wait too long. And it’s just pretty crazy. Because I have friends like business school, really shook up my viewpoint on age because like, when I went in, I was on the younger end and business school you there’s no age limit, right? Like it’s people who’ve had some sort of career already that like want to change a career. So it was kind of like, plus minus five years of age between everyone and I was on the younger end. So I have a ton of friends that like my closer friends were older than me, and they turn 30 like in business school, or shortly after business school or something like that. So then, it didn’t feel like a big deal to me, because I’m like, I feel really connected to these people. And they’re 30, who cares? Not a big deal. So that like turned it off for me like that. But I made a friend who was trying to have a family like shortly after business school, and she was 34 at the time, and she already had to do in vitro. And I was like having a really hard time with it. And like, it doesn’t always work the first time and like you put a lot of money and like emotional energy, physical energy into doing that, and it doesn’t always work out. And she told them she when she finally did get pregnant, it was 35. And she told me technically, the medical term is that she was having a geriatric pregnancy like she’s a fucking old ass woman. Pregnancy because at 35 biologically, you’re considered geriatric, which is fucking insane. Well, we thought it would be fun to kind of look at like, our pre and post 30 like, what we thought about certain things where we’d be in life versus the reality of where we are. So let’s talk about career. Jesse, what did you think? Where do you think you’d be at 30 when you were like, I don’t, let’s bring it back. Let’s bring it back. Cuz I feel like the most disconnected is probably like teenage years when you had just like, no real, no real semblance of reality of what 30 was going to be like.

Jesse Lin 14:38
Where I thought I was going to be at 30 as a teenager, career wise, honestly. I think at that point, it was a big question mark. Now if we’re talking about like, late teens, like 17/18, I had made this decision to go to do a hospitality program. So like I was thinking that I wanted to work in hospitality, but no, no, no, corrected. I don’t want to work in hospitality. So I don’t do that anymore. But that’s where I thought I was like what I thought I wanted to do like to work at, you know, a hotel and like, chat with guests and be that kind of, like that very old school concept of what a hotel General Manager is the guy that’s like standing in the lobby that’s greeting people and like very jovial. And then I actually worked in a hotel and realize that people are awful. And they really don’t care if you’re really nice at all. So I was like nah. Well, what about your teenage career aspirations?

Angela Lin 15:38
I mean, well, if it’s high school, no high school or college, I, I thought I was going to be working in the music industry, which is how I ended up working VH1 as real job. But like, I was very convinced at that time, when I was younger that I was gonna work in a&r. So that’s the talent scouting department and record labels. So you’re the one that like, goes to a bunch of concerts and like, discovers new bands, and like the next big thing, right, and I always thought that was gonna be like, exactly what I wanted to do. And like the most glamorous job, it sucks balls, it sucks balls until you are like a famous A&R Rep. And you just get flown places, you know, because I ended up interning at a couple record labels. And one of them I interned in the A&R Department and I was one of the only interns that was 21. Because in New York, they’re a bunch of clubs and like, little venues, but you have to be 21 to enter. So I had to go all the time. And it would be like three times a week that I’d have to go to some shitty tiny club and listen to some shitty-ass bands like, there are a lot of bad bands out there, man. And like you’re just trying to find the diamond in the rough. And I’d be so tired after like going to class all day and then having to stay out till like 11 or midnight to watch some shitty band. And then I have to pitch it every week. It was just horrible. And like, there so judgy in the music industry, towards you and towards everything. So I was just like, this is awful. I don’t want this goodbye. But I definitely thought I was gonna do some like hot shot A&R talent scout some big record label by the time I was 30 in like a huge office. Because when I in turn my first time interning, it was like so glamorous, because there these people, especially the people who like kind of made it, their offices, they have these like gold Platinum records with their names engraved on like, you know, the artists that they helped launch. I’m like, this is the shit and yeah, it’s not. There’s so much crap behind that facade.

Jesse Lin 17:53
Yeah, yeah. I agree with you. That’s kind of how that’s like kind of how I ended up in the hospitality. And then kind of how I ended up in advertising field. I was just like, Wow, it’s so cool. I’ve been like, literally, you joined in the next day. And it’s you. You walk past that like, front desk, and it’s like trash bags behind it.

Angela Lin 18:11
Oh, yeah.

Jesse Lin 18:12
And it’s just like, yeah.

Angela Lin 18:14
Okay, that’s career. What about relationships?

Jesse Lin 18:17
Well, as you know, I was very confused. Honestly, like, what I wanted, in my mind, and sometimes I still, like fall back on that and have to, like, dig myself out of what I’ve been dictated, is like this idea of a very heteronormative gay experience, where it’s like, just the same thing as how a straight couple might live their lives, but I’m just dating a man seeing a man or married to a man instead. And that’s kind of like what I had in mind. Like, once I was like, oh, yes, I am gay. But then like, through the experience of going to college and meeting people and actually dating, like, that has shifted a little bit where I, it’s not that it’s not that I don’t necessarily want those things, but they’re not so core to my happiness that I would be like so unhappy if it never happened. And it’s different, because I feel like when I was younger, that’s all I wanted. I wanted to be with the one the person that would be like, the Swiss Army knife to my life, like they would like my comic, my Savior, my, the person that makes me smile for all of those things. And now I’m like, I’m still looking for a person that will make me happy, but I don’t put that person as like, you’ll do everything for me now. Yeah.

Angela Lin 19:43
Well, because you face the reality of life now, which is that most people don’t find that kind of person. Yeah, that’s a made up person that TV writers have conjured up.

Jesse Lin 19:58
I certainly wish that TV characters for real.

Angela Lin 20:02
I mean, yeah, but you’d also be real bored. I feel like we I don’t know who I’ve talked with us about, but like, movies always end up like the perfect spot, right? And then if you ever tried to like, think about what happens after that point is either really boring or they break up.

Jesse Lin 20:17
It’s like, yeah, yeah, that’s exactly it. What? Well, what about you Miss? Miss Angela?

Angela Lin 21:08
I’m hard to say because I it’s funny, because I was anchoring on like, teenage. But do you remember when we were children? And we played that like mash game?

Jesse Lin 21:18
Oh, yeah.

Angela Lin 21:19
Oh my god. We’ve heard that like religiously, like every day, and it would be like, Who am I going to marry? What age am I going to get married? And like all this shit. And when you’re a child, you’re like, oh, late 20s. That sounds ancient. So I remember thinking, I think I like, you know, my, like, ideal age to get married was like, I don’t know. 23 or something like that. You know, when you’re a kid? Yeah, yeah. 23 sounds like an appropriate time to get married. No, no, no, no. But I definitely thought I think as I got older, I’m like, that’s probably not happening. But I at least thought that I’d be in like a serious, committed relationship for several years. By the time I was like, 27, or something like that. That’s not the reality of life at all. And I met Ramon, three and a half years ago. Now. So yeah, I guess I was like, 27/28. But like, I met him then. So it was not like, I’ve been in the stable thing. And it we could get married at any point. Like, that’s not what that was. And I think I’ve talked about this, but in the past, thinking back on, like my parents as I was getting closer to like, I think 27 was the first time that I made any sort of comparison to my parents age wise, because in my head, I’m like, Oh, my mom met and got married to my dad when she was 27. What am I at at 27? I remember thinking like, well, I’m single and alone. So I’m like, great. I’m on the right track. And she, by the time she was 30, she had my brother. So like, I turned 30. Last year, I’m like, I’m not popping out a kid right now. And I’m like, you know, I’m in a good relationship, but I’m not at that stage. So just like, it just, you know, I settled for, like, where things were, as I got older. And then now I feel like, you know, the 30 is not the mark for me. That’s not really where I’m gauging up. It’s, unfortunately, I am backing out a lot based on the biological element that we talked about.

Jesse Lin 23:21
So geriatric pregnancy.

Angela Lin 23:23
No, I’m not trying to have a geriatric pregnancy.

Jesse Lin 23:29
Yeah, it’ll be fine.

Angela Lin 23:31
Yeah, I think so too. But yeah, for those listening things that have happened. Well, yeah, we did the city hall thing. We did the city hall, because we were supposed to get married last year. And it obviously was put on hold and things were very up in the air and things are looking better now, for a real wedding. But we just didn’t want to feel like life was indefinitely on hold. So we did our city hall, part of it at least this past week. So I’m technically married.

Jesse Lin 24:05
And the photos look beautiful. Maybe not what you expected, but hopefully still a very joyous experience.

Angela Lin 24:13
Okay, well, where were your parents at? 30? Like, what were their lives like at this point?

Jesse Lin 24:19
You know, I don’t have a very clear like chronological ordering of my parents life. But I do know, my mom told me she had me when I was like, 33 Oh, no, when she was 33 Oh, my gosh,

Angela Lin 24:35
in the future of your life. She gave birth to you

Jesse Lin 24:38
back to the future. Yeah, back to Yeah, Back to the Future, but like reverse order. Yeah. Yeah. She had me when she was 33. I don’t know how long my parents have been married at that point, but I can’t imagine more than three years. So they’re probably like in the same ballpark of like when your parents got married too. So like, both of our parents are, I would say, like late boomers for that, that time period

Angela Lin 25:04
I think maybe our parents were at the kind of like, tipping point between generations because both my parents are one of five plus children. And that was definitely like grandparents age was like all hands on deck popping you out so that you can take care of the other kids so that I can go sell things and like, make money and all this shit. And then all my aunts and uncles only have like max, two kids, one or two. Yeah.

Jesse Lin 25:34
I wonder because like, you know, our parents are, it’s not that they’re tight lipped about their experiences, but they’re not going to volunteer their experiences.

Angela Lin 25:42
That’s just the Asian way.

Jesse Lin 25:44
So I sometimes I wonder if it’s just that, like, they, they had this experience growing up in a large family, and they saw kind of the failures of it like the unfun parts, and they’re like, I don’t really want to do that. Like, I don’t want to deal with all that. And so they decided to just have one.

Angela Lin 26:03
That’s probably fair, I mean, it’s very expensive also to have that many kids.

Jesse Lin 26:08
Super time consuming. I literally and I don’t know if there’s like, there’s things where I learned stuff about my parents, and I’m like, that was frickin I can’t even say that it was ghetto. It’s just very, very crappy. Like this.

Angela Lin 26:27
What?

Jesse Lin 26:27
Well, okay, so I was just home this past week, and my cousin Jeffrey came over. And we were having a conversation with my parents. And he was talking about like he’s asking my dad like, Hey, have you ever seen something as a kid? Like something that someone was eating or something that someone had, and you were like, I really have to have that. And when I grow up, I’m gonna get that. And my dad was like, No, he was like, let me explain to you like how my life was. He was like, when your grandparents, my grandparents, so his parents would go out and work, they would shut the youngest two children in a trunk with food.

Angela Lin 27:03
What?

Jesse Lin 27:05
Right. I was like, why, like, that’s like child abuse,

Angela Lin 27:10
It is child abuse

Jesse Lin 27:13
He said, it was like a trunk, basically, to keep them from like, because there’s no one to take care of them to keep them from, like, making trouble or running away.

Angela Lin 27:21
What if they died in there?

Jesse Lin 27:23
That’s what the food’s for..

Angela Lin 27:25
No lack of oxygen!

Jesse Lin 27:26
I don’t know. I don’t know. But I was just like, this is like, this is on another level. And so God, and there’s just stuff like that, where I’m kind of like, I it’s like a little insight to their life, where I’m like, oh, you’re a little more normal than you should be given this experience like that, that you like function at all, you know, is like,

Angela Lin 27:50
Oh, my god, that’s, wow. I need to take up some of those stories from my parents

Jesse Lin 28:01
I’m sure there are and there’s like, yeah, so, you know, in comparison to our parents, I think we’re, we’re really, really quite different. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, yeah. Geez, Louise, man. Damn good.

Angela Lin 28:20
Also, I learned a lot, because the original question was like, why do we think our parents ended up having fewer children or, like were later bloomers or whatever, I think. And it’s sad, because I didn’t know about this till recently, until I played that Parents are human cards that we talked about that Chinese American millennial came up with. But anyways, um, I didn’t learn till recently that both my parents had younger siblings that died when they were young. So I’m sure part of the thing is like, I don’t want to have the heartache of like having a big family that I can’t take care of. And like, you put all your love and energy into creating this life that like, doesn’t exist anymore. So sad.

Jesse Lin 29:07
Yeah, I think that’s something that definitely they it’s not something that they would volunteer even in a regular story.

Angela Lin 29:12
No. And to your point of like, shit was rough back then. My mom explained that one of her well, her sibling that died was an infant when she died. And it was from a cold, like, it was too cold. And they died from the cold.

Jesse Lin 29:32
Like hypothermia?

Angela Lin 29:33
Yeah. And I was like, that’s fuckin rough. I’ve never heard of that of like, you know, in modern times, like, die from being cold. I’m like, Oh, that’s the age and then probably, you know, indicative of socio economic, you know?

Jesse Lin 29:52
Yeah. I also think maybe the last thing like why our parents didn’t have as many children. I think we’ve talked a little bit about this in the past, but like, they’re also kind of part of this whole, like American Dream thing where you’re like coming here to work on yourself. And they probably spent some time like doing that, and sailed past the geriatric pregnancy time period and then like, ooh, here’s the baby. So, yeah, well, let’s move on to the fortune cookie section where we are going to do a back to the future in reverse, where we predict our for 40s 40s or we can predict your 40s. Well, what do you think that the 40s is gonna look like, girl?

Angela Lin 30:39
Uh, that’s so hard for me to think about. It’s weird, because we’re arguably closer to our 40s than we are to our younger selves, and like high school and whatever. But thinking about 40 I’m like, that’s a different person. That’s a different life. Like, and that’s only 10 years from now. or nine for me, because I’m turning 31 in three months, which is insane. No, I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’ll be I’ll have a kid or two. Which is like a whole different thing. Because I it’s really hard for me to put myself in the like, Mom, category. And like, what the implication is on like,

Jesse Lin 31:22
You’re going to be the Ali Wong mom

Angela Lin 31:29
Probably. No filter? Mom. No filter? Yeah, I don’t know. It’s Yeah, for me, it’s very hard to picture that that’s, that’s most likely what it will be. I’ll be a mom of one or two kids. And that’ll be a very different identity than I’ve had before. And I can’t picture not much else. How about you?

Jesse Lin 31:52
Um, honestly, I haven’t really thought about it. But I’m hoping that 40 will just be like, I don’t know, like more of how my life is now. But better, if that makes sense. So like, working but working in, in a situation where I feel more, I don’t know, where I feel more like authentic at work, and also being paid more for it. And also, like, in the relationship that I have now, but like, a more stable relationship. And just like all the things that I like, in my life currently, but like more of it.

Angela Lin 32:33
Upgraded a little bit.

Jesse Lin 32:34
Yeah, yeah. Like more disposable income, stuff like that. I don’t know, if I have like big life plans. Like, I would love to buy a place. I think that’s like something.

Angela Lin 32:45
Yeah you’ve been talking about that for a while.

Jesse Lin 32:46
I think that’s in a like a reasonable horizon by 40. And kids, I don’t know, I have a cat and it’s, he’s a handful.

Angela Lin 32:56
So you’ve got Juniper.

Jesse Lin 32:57
He’s a handful. And I had to like, ship them away for the night before I left. And I was so sad. Oh, so sad. I was like, This is what it’s like to have a child disappear. Like, you know, put your child into daycare while you’re on a trip. And I’m like, I kind of understand why parents are like, like, you can’t leave the baby. Like I kind of get it now because I can’t I was like the cat

Angela Lin 33:21
Junipee

Jesse Lin 33:23
In summary, I don’t think that I have any big plans other than to just continue, like developing the parts of my life that I enjoy.

Angela Lin 33:32
Okay, yeah. Okay, cool. Um, that’s a good I think that’s a very realistic and a good way to look at 40. I think so. Yeah, yes. Okay, well, we wanted to open season one backup, or Jesus Christ season four backup season, season four, episode one back up with something a little lighter. So because sometimes our topics get a little deep, right. So hopefully you enjoyed this, but we want to hear from you as we always do. And reminder that we’re always looking for reflections episodes, listener submissions. So write us in about your story about you know what you thought 30 was going to be like, what 30 is actually like for you post 30 any weird, like, expectations that your parents had for you by the time you’re 30 anything around this topic? Write us in at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com the “you’re” is Y-O-U-R-E? And maybe you’ll get featured in our upcoming reflections episode

Jesse Lin 34:41
So yeah, send us your stories tell us if you had a COVID 30th and what you did

Angela Lin 34:46
God, was it more interesting then? At least mine? If not, Jesse’s?

Jesse Lin 34:51
Did you order a pizza and do a Zoom

Angela Lin 34:54
Was it good pizza?

Jesse Lin 34:57
Well, and you know, as always, Please join us again next week for a fresh new episode.

Jesse Lin 0:14
Hi, I’m Jesse Lin.

Angela Lin 0:15
And I’m Angela Lin. And welcome back to another episode of but where are you really from?

Jesse Lin 0:20
This week, we’re going to get a little intimate with you listeners. And we’re going to have the talk. If you guys remember that talk, you know that it’s related to sex and intimacy. So we wanted to dive right into this. Did you, Angela, get the talk from your parents?

Full Transcript (Note: Transcribed via AI, may contain errors)

Angela Lin 0:42
Absolutely not. There’s no way that they know what the talk is, or dared to talk about it. No, the best that my mom ever did was when I was dating someone. And I told her that he had stayed over, but he just literally like, we just slept. Like there was no nothing happened. But I was like, Don’t worry, like, nothing happened. Literally. We just slept. And she was like, oh, but you could get pregnant. I’m like, do you know how pregnancy works? Like I just told you that we just slept? And she’s like, Yeah, but you’re like, next. Anyways, so that indicated to me that her even her understanding of sex and how pregnancy works is maybe not that crisp. So certainly she was never trying to teach me that herself. How about you?

Jesse Lin 1:37
I don’t think my parents had the birds and the bees talk with me either. Because..well, I think there are a couple reasons. But one of the first reasons is probably that we learned about it in school, and I had to get a consent form signed by my parents. And so I explained to them yeah, we’re getting this course. And it’s gonna, like walk me through, like sex and stuff. But no, they never really had really a conversation about it. Okay, so I think my mom caught me watching porn one time. This was like, in the, like, the dial up days. So it was like, it took so long to load that, like, I’m not even sure she saw anything. But like, literally the next day, my dad had this conversation with me on the car being like, you should stay away from things that are like sexual in nature. And I was like, okay, like, this is kind of, like, I didn’t connect those things. I was like, this is kind of coming a little left field and weird. And also like, how do you know, I know what sexual nature if you never talk to me about sex, like, like looking back on it and kind of like, what does that what does that even mean for him? Like? Yeah, like is a like a pinup girl sexual nature or is like full nudity? Or like, what is that? So definitely, no, we did not get the talk from the parents.

Angela Lin 2:57
I yeah, I don’t know. I think there were many reasons why I looked at sex as like taboo growing up and there’s like many Asian element Asian cultural upbringing elements to a family upbringing elements to it, but I also think being surrounded by like a lot of you know, big Christian community and knowing that everyone was like waiting till marriage for sex and stuff like that. That definitely also played into my like concept of when it’s appropriate to have sex for the first time and beyond.

Jesse Lin 4:16
Honestly, I think that kind of made it worse because then you didn’t really get information from like trusted sources. So like people would make stuff up about about parts and sex and stuff like other stuff about like other myths. I can’t remember like, I remember there was one where it was like all girls have hymens and the hymen is like everybody has that. It’s like this thing you pop when you have sex with a girl that for the first time. And I’m like, I don’t think that’s real.

Angela Lin 4:46
Wait..

Jesse Lin 4:47
Wait, what’s happening here?

Angela Lin 4:49
Hold on , I don’t think the myth is that every woman has a hammer. And I think that it’s true that every woman has a hymen. But I think the myth is that the only the way to break the hymen is through sex.

Jesse Lin 5:03
Yes, yes.

Angela Lin 5:05
Yes, everyone has a hymen.

Jesse Lin 5:07
Yes, I misspoke.

Angela Lin 5:08
Okay. I was like, What?

Jesse Lin 5:10
Everyone has one, but like the idea was that like, it’s somehow this, like, everyone has it the same way where it’s like this barrier that gets popped the first time you have sex. And that’s like, not a real thing.

Angela Lin 5:22
Yeah, that’s definitely a myth because and I don’t remember where I first where they like debunked that myth. It might have been during sex ed or I don’t know, but there are like many ways you can break your hymen before like, I distinctly remember the easiest one to remember was like horseback riding, you know, something where it’s like, there’s like…

Jesse Lin 5:41
You slut

Angela Lin 5:42
…your your vagina is hitting something hard. That is not a penis. And it can break. And yeah, no, but I remember that for sure. Because the, like stigma that’s attached to a torn hymen, right? It’s like, Oh, my God, then you’re not a virgin you’re a slut. Yeah. So that, yeah, that was definitely one. Let’s get into many of the factors that kind of like shaped our perception of sex. And we loosely touched on it before, but in general, I do feel like in Asian culture, at least the way families raise their kids, it’s pretty taboo to talk about sex. Like, I think it’s fairly common that most Asian kids did not grow up ever having the talk with their parents, because that’s just not a subject that they want to have. Why do you think that is?

Jesse Lin 6:35
So I’m not super sure. I kind of feel like part of the I feel like there might be some like historical roots of it, because I just remember, like a few fables or tales from the past where you have like, Chinese emperors or like court officials who were like, met their downfall because they were like lustful. And they tied that to like, like to sin and like, they lost control of their lives pursuing this lust. So I think there’s definitely some like cultural, historical backing around sex, specifically sex for pleasure, rather than sex for procreation. Because I kind of feel like, I’ve never heard a story where it’s like, oh, they procreated, like they had sex for a baby and that was bad. It’s usually like, they had sex with multiple people and it was fun, and that’s bad. So so then you really only do sex for procreation…

Angela Lin 7:35
Yeah.

Jesse Lin 7:36
…and let’s face it, like, if you’re just doing sex to have babies, you’re not going to be doing sex enough to know exactly what you want. So it’s just gonna be a not fun experience overall, which probably means you didn’t have a lot sex, so then you probably didn’t have a lot of experience to pass down, like, what to do during sex, because it’s really just the procreation part of it.

Angela Lin 7:58
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I feel like there’s so much to unpack in what you just said. But for sure. One thing I agree with is that the way Asian people look at sex is that it has one main purpose and that is to pass down the family lineage by having children. So that’s your main reason why you should be having sex. I also think another part of what you said is very true, which is like when you go back into fables and stuff, but like continued on into modern times, it’s they do talk about this, like lustfullness in a bad way. And it’s always the woman that’s like, enticing the men you know, like seducing the man and like bringing him vice and sin and like his downfall. Right. And I, I think that ties a lot into the gender specific roles that Asian people, especially older generations place on the respective genders. And it’s like, okay, well, men are like more prone to having these sexual feelings. It’s still bad for them to act on them. But it’s not their fault, because it’s the women that are like corrupting them. And because of that kind of feeling. It’s also kind of implied that like, women don’t ever have the right to want to seek pleasure for themselves, because they’re always kind of this like secondary object, kind of to men. They’re like the supporting role. There’s not like the woman first, and then the man seduced her kind of thing. Like it’s always one way. And like, that’s definitely how I was raised in terms of thinking like, you know, it’s bad for you to think about sex and like you shouldn’t have sex. It’s like, the only time you should have sex is after you’re already married and you’re ready to have kids because that’s the only like, acceptable format for a woman to be having sex. Otherwise you’re like a loose girl. And you’re gonna disgrace us and you know, they’re just all these like underlying things because as a woman, you’re not allowed to have those desires and to act on them. Hmm. I also think there’s a second narrative that is spun a lot, which is that women are supposed to be this like, very innocent, pure type of character. And the only time sex comes into play is when there was like a predatory kind of like, man, yeah, that’s trying to impose their sexual will. And then, and like, how is that supposed to make me feel as like a young, you know, like a 12 or 13 year old? I’m like, oh, okay. So men are always trying to like, rape me essentially. Like, that’s like the narrative is, oh, you’re you never have those feelings. You’re just this like, innocent little thing. That’s just like living your life. And then suddenly, men are going to like up here and want this out of you and like, force it on you.

Jesse Lin 11:08
It’s I think it’s also bad in sense because it, it kind of implies that your only value to a man is that.

Angela Lin 11:15
Yes, yeah.

Jesse Lin 11:17
And something else interesting. You brought up and part of the reason why I feel like women who have sex are painted in such a bad light is because they’re the foil to the innocent woman, right? The image of the woman who has sex is smart. Bitch, if I only had a body in the 1800s, and I could fuck my way to the top. You bet I would. You know what I mean like, she’s, she’s smart. And so I think that they also paint that lady in a bad light, that kind of woman in a bad light. Because you’re supposed to be innocent. You’re supposed to be dainty and hopeless and blah, blah, blah.

Angela Lin 11:53
Yeah. And be saved by the man because you can’t do it for yourself. Yeah. Very interesting. I also feel like I grew up in a very, like, weird way where again, like, we never talked about sex, really. But it was like, implied it exists, right? And like it would come up in like weird ways. So my family I think we talked about this, but we always went to Vegas every year for Christmas for like the first 20 years of my life. And you know, Vegas is dirty, and just like grimy, but they’re always like, people on the streets, like, you know, they’re trying to like give you playing cards of like, nude women. And then they’re like ladies that are standing outside their strip clubs or whatever, who are scantily clad and like, trying to get men in. And I remember one time, I was like, Dad, you’re so gross. We walked by, like we were as a family walking down somewhere in Vegas, and we passed by some stripper essentially, in front of her establishment. And she was just like, oh, you know, like, trying to get people to come in and we pass by, and my dad make it made a joke. And he was like, oh, you guys will wait for me, right? I’ll just head on in and I was like, Dad, you’re fucking digusting. It’s just like, but the fact that he felt like it was okay to make that kind of joke in front of his family gave me the impression that within this like, Asian type of upbringing, besides not speaking about sex ever. The other weird element is that, like, it’s implied that everyone knows that men are always like, thinking about sex and like trying to have sex and like watching porn and like, doing all these things, and like, it’s frowned upon, but it’s like, okay.

Jesse Lin 13:43
Boys will be boys kind of situation.

Angela Lin 13:44
Yeah, exactly. And that was so disturbing for me for so many reasons. But I was just like, Fuck that. That’s not okay.

Jesse Lin 13:54
What do you think are the consequences of not learning about sex outside of like the anatomy of sex and like the mechanics of procreation?

Angela Lin 14:06
So many consequences, I don’t know for you. But for me it like, I think fucked me up as a very dramatic way to talk about it. But I do think it stunted my growth in a lot of ways. Because we’ve talked about in our relationships, right, like, romantic side that taking sex out of the equation, just like having a serious relationship with someone else. We felt stunted from not learning a lot about like communicating emotions from our families, right. And similarly, sex goes along with that as well. And because we, both of you, and I didn’t start dating until later in our lives. Similarly, I didn’t have sex and for the first time until later in my life, so I always felt weird. Like I felt really weird, I think because the media also always portrays like you’re supposed to lose your virginity in high school or something. Like, it’s always like, oh, when you’re like, super young is when that’s normal. So then I kind of felt like, every year I got older, and I didn’t have sex yet. I was like, super weird. And it was like, grating on me. Because I think when I was younger, I used to tell myself like, oh, you know, it’s fine, because I sold myself that like abstinence story, where I was like, oh, you should only have sex, if you’re like, in love. Well, first, it was like, if you’re married, which is like, so extreme, right, and then I got older, and I like dialed it back from to marry to two in love with, um, like, I mean, that’s the bare minimum, right? Like you, you don’t want to give away this like the goods to someone you’re not even in love with it. So I always hold on to this like very, like, idealistic fairytale, like, I’m going to be in love with the person that I have sex with for the first time. And then the reality is, life doesn’t work that way. And, and, like, I wasn’t in a relationship, or I felt that closely with someone for a long, you know, for many years of my life. And so I had to, like, eventually learn that it’s okay, to not have these, like, super strict confines around when it’s appropriate or not to lose my virginity. And then past that point, like, the frequency with which I’m allowed to have sex and things like that. The these all came later to me in life. And I think like the majority, quote, unquote, of people based on how the media portrayed, like, when was appropriate for that kind of milestone to have happened. And because of that, everything else just like snowballs from there, right. Like, because I started late then there are like, other consequences to that. So I do think it had a big impact on on my, like, sexual growth and, you know, knowledge around myself. You?

Jesse Lin 16:57
I agree. But in a different way, again, our paths diverge. So, I think because I was really curious about sex. And I was also trying to find like myself, because I was just coming to terms with the fact that I only like men and not women. I did start having sex in high school. But the problem for me with it, I think, is that I equated sex with love, and intimacy. And so it became kind of like, a really bad drug for me, because like, I would sleep with somebody, and then, you know, be into them want to hang out with them, we’re trying to try to develop at least some kind of like relationship with them. And, you know, now I understand I have to get a picture, like, it’s a better picture that like, you can just sleep with someone. And that’s cool. And like one time, and that’s fine. But at the time, I was like, still in high school, right? So like, having that happen where you like sleep with someone, then they’re like, not interested to you at all. Like, I didn’t understand that. And so like, that was just like a negative feedback loop where I was like, okay, now I need to find more, then it was like more rejection. So it was like, kind of like that, where I had the experience where, because I didn’t have authoritative figures in my life explaining to me that these things were different that like sex and love are not the same thing. I internalized that from the media, from seeing these depictions of people having sex and always being in love. And kind of, yeah, it just became kind of like a bad thing for me. Fun, but bad thing for me. So I had a different different kind of experience there because I internalized it a different way.

Angela Lin 18:53
Interesting. I learned something new about you every day, even though I’ve known you my whole life. Secrets.

Jesse Lin 19:00
A woman’s heart is an ocean of secrets.

Angela Lin 19:07
Okay, well, so we already kind of hinted at it, but it seems like both you and I learned the majority of what we knew about sex through the media, but that’s not life, right? So like, Where Where did you? Where did you start learning the real shit about what it takes to not just have sex, like mechanics and whatever but like to build real intimacy with a partner and things like that?

Jesse Lin 19:35
Yeah, um, well, the sex part of it was just mainly trial by fire. I mean, once you have enough sex with people, you’re kind of like, okay, I know how to do these specific things. The intimacy thing, honestly, it came like a lot later in life because like, I I just never had someone stopped me and be like, what are you doing like sex and love are not same things. And so I didn’t understand that until like, a lot later, I feel like I didn’t really get that until like I left, or was like, in the middle of college when I started to be like, oh, okay, I don’t have to sleep with like everybody, I need for them to like me. And like I can, you know, be friends with people without sleeping with them. So. And then, like, once I was able to get into a relationship that wasn’t just all about, like physical intimacy, then I understood kind of what the difference was, and what kind of work it takes to develop a physical relationship with someone and what kind of work it takes to develop a like emotional relationship with someone. And then it just, it’s kind of the same way with sex. It’s like practice, like you go through the motions, trial by fire, you see people break up with people, crush on people, all that stuff. And that gives you more experience until you feel comfortable enough with your own process of developing a relationship and you know, what you want in a partner. What about you?

Angela Lin 21:05
Yeah, definitely a lot of trial and error. Like you’re saying, honestly, it was very clunky learning all these things like actual sex. Very clunky. It was like a lot of googling, and like, me, kind of like scaring myself with what I was finding on Google and like hyping shit too much. And it was also because a lot of my friends are still but like, more goody two shoey or you know, up until that point. So there was no one where I felt comfortable being like, hey, here’s the reality, I’ve never had sex. I just need someone to like, tell me what to expect. There was no one like that, that I can really like turn to. So it was just like a shame for like secret googling for a lot of it. Until you know, things actually happened. And then the whole time was just like, is this what sex is? It was just like, so confused the whole time? I’m like, I don’t get why people like this. It was you know, because the media, right like paints your first time as such a magical and like, easy moment that like, you’ll, you’ll just get it and like everything will just like happen. And the reality is, that’s not what most people’s first times are like, and mine was certainly not like that. And I was just like, I don’t even get this. Like why. And then the intimacy part is I also struggled with that quite a bit. Because I think similarly with you, I think I did try to equate sex and love together, especially because I had this like weird thinking about like, you can only have sex if you are in love with someone, right? Which is just not the reality of like, why a lot of people have sex. And so even though I was like, if anything, I kind of feel like because I wouldn’t have sex with people until after a certain point. I was like, hornier than most people. Because I was like bottling myself up because I wouldn’t let myself get past a certain point. So, yeah, so I always had this like, you know, lustful desire. But then I knew that that was like, one part of it. Right? Like, lust is one thing love is another thing, theoretically, I knew that. But I definitely was just like, you were it was like, okay to have this, like, intimate, you know, time with someone. And then I’d be like, glued to my phone being like, when are they going to text me? And like, when are we moving into, like, the next age? And you know, it was just like, a lot of rejections of people being like, that’s not what this was for me to realize, like, Oh, yeah, that’s not what this was. And that’s not what it needs to be for anyone moving forward. And I think the intimacy piece comes with knowing that intimacy doesn’t even have to have anything to do with sex. Like, you can feel really intimate with someone by the connection that you have with them emotionally by, you know, the values and perspectives that you share and like, feeling that it’s the heart part of it, right. I feel like that’s the difference is like sex is the like, literal mechanics and the you know, physical part of it and intimacy is the emotional connection part of it. So I think, once I started having relationships with people where I felt that connection emotionally, then I realized like, okay, these are two different things, but also, they play into each other, right? So it was, it was definitely trial and error googling lots of mistakes, and then like a very slow growth into the right direction. I just, I feel like sex is one of those things that like you’re never gonna know everything about honestly. And something that I am still working on myself is like knowing what makes me happy. Because they’re like, I think that’s something I denied myself a lot. Growing up, because of this constant feedback of like, sex is bad wait to have sex, like don’t have sex. So I was constantly telling myself that and then it would, I would feel guilty, you know, when I’d have those desires. And so I didn’t explore my body and like, what made me excited or things like that when I was growing up, and I’m like, catching up now. So actually, for women out there who are also kind of like, still on this self discovery journey for yourself. There’s this really cool platform I found a few years back, and it’s called OMG. Yes. And it’s a women made platform where they like interviewed 1000s of women about what turns them on, and like, what specific techniques and things like that are, like pleasurable for them. And it’s, it’s kind of funny, because it sounds like porn, but it’s not really porn, because it’s educational. But there are like, literal tutorial videos of like women, real women. So it’s not like porn stars, or just like perfect body people. It’s like, women of all ages and body types. And they explain like different techniques that they use on themselves or a partner helps them with and that like really works for them. So I would recommend, and we’re not sponsored by them, so you know, it’s legit. But yeah, that’s been a really cool platform, because I feel like there’s a very lacking education around like women pleasuring themselves, and how that how that happens, because porn is largely geared towards men. Right? And, and there’s like, very little female oriented porn. But even so porn is not educational. So there’s just like, they realize there was this gap, and they filled it. And I’m, like, very happy that they did, because I always felt super weird, not knowing what could work for me. And then I’m like, oh, there are 1000s of women that helped build this platform. That must mean, I’m not weird, because other people need this too.

Jesse Lin 27:11
Well, I think we talked a lot about sex and intimacy, intimacy, you guys probably know way too much about us now. So we’re gonna move on to our Fortune Cookie closing segment, because we always like to end the episode with something sweet. So we wanted to give each other and you guys our best advice about sex and intimacy. Angela?

Angela Lin 27:39
Yeah, mine is already tied to what I was saying before about this platform. But I, largely speaking, I feel like a big piece of advice is just getting to know your body more yourself, like without a partner, because there’s a lot you can learn about, like, what turns you on what feels good, what like angles work, you know, I think, a lot you can do on your own. And then once you learn those things about yourself, it’s about communication, because I feel like much like with everything else in our relationships. Communication is so key, because I think a lot of times, you just assume that the other person will kind of like, get it or like, know what works for you. And you’re just like waiting for something to happen, that is not happening. Versus if you just tell them outright, like, okay, move this way, or, like, try this, or actually don’t do that. I don’t like that. Like, that’s how you actually learn what’s going to work when there’s two people, right, and two or more people involved. So I would highly recommend learning about your own body first, and or having that little exploration and then communicating what you’ve learned to your partner.

Jesse Lin 28:53
I think that’s great advice. Thank you for sharing that. I’m definitely very much that very much what you said. But I will add, like, know what you want and stick to it. And that’s not I’m not just talking about like knowing your own, like what makes you pleased in sex, but also like, how comfortable you are doing something and how far you want to go with someone and all that stuff. Like that’s your power. And you should never give that away to anyone. So if you’re in a situation and you’re like, hey, I don’t like this leave. Yeah, if someone else is in the same situation, they’re like, I don’t like this. Let them go. Like everyone should be free to make their own choices about it, and know yourself and enforce what makes you feel comfortable, because that’s what makes sex fun.

Angela Lin 29:46
Agreed.

Jesse Lin 29:47
Yeah.

Angela Lin 29:47
Well, thank you for that very good PSA for everyone. Well, yeah, like you said, now we and know you know too much about us. And so it’s your turn. We’d like you to write us in on anything that you want to share around this topic, whether it was the way that your upbringing kind of affected your outlook on sex and intimacy, or if you have advice that you want to share with other people, or whatever it is. I think there’s a lot of fun and interesting stuff around this topic. So write us in telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com the YOU’RE is Y-O-U-R-E.

Jesse Lin 30:30
Send us naughty stories, but not too naughty.

Angela Lin 30:34
Maybe like PG-13 naughty, up to R-rated is what we would like to receive.

Jesse Lin 30:40
This is the last episode of this season. And as with last season, we’re taking a breaky-break to rejuvenate our brains. Yes. So we will see all of you lovely listeners in…

Angela Lin 30:54
…a month or two, something like that, or two, whatever. We’ll announce it, you’ll know but we’ll leave back. Don’t worry. We’ll come back with another season of fresh new content, new guests, a lot of cool fun stuff. But like Jesse said, we need we need a break so that we can come back and give you the good stuff. All right.