Asian Uncle

Let me know if you enjoy my content! What if death isn’t a door slamming but a corridor unfolding? We sit with Live Buddha’s teachings and walk step by step through the six bardos—life, dreams, meditation, dying, luminous reality, and becoming—to rethink what happens at the edge of breath and beyond it. The journey starts with a stark sentence, nothing ends suddenly, then widens into a practice: y...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A lightning strike burns a wooden pagoda to the ground and opens a sealed palace lost for 1,100 years—gold and silver glitter in the dark, a Buddha’s relic rests unbroken, and a forgotten chapter of the Silk Road awakens. That shock sets the tone for our journey as we trace a personal path from Xi’an’s Terracotta Warriors through the Hexi Corridor to the Mogao...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A single photograph can hijack your imagination. We open on a stiff, gloomy wedding portrait from the early Republic era—faces almost smiling, bodies too still—and the internet’s verdict is swift: a ghost marriage caught on film. From there we dive into the real world of spirit weddings across Chinese history, where families use ritual to honor the dead, settle...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Lanterns and firecrackers might steal the spotlight, but the heart of Lunar New Year was forged in fields, rivers, and cold nights when timing meant survival. We explore how a lunisolar calendar guided farmers and fishers across China and Southeast Asia, why the holiday moves so easily with immigrant communities, and how the great Spring Festival migration turn...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A failed mission, two daring escapes, and a satchel of seeds—hardly the origin story you’d expect for the network that redefined the ancient world. We start in Chang’an—modern Xi’an—where walls and lanterns meet clubs and street food, and where the past still steps into the present. From there, we follow Zhang Qian, the envoy sent to find allies against the Xio...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! What if the mind that won’t stop is the very tool that can save you? I share how a midlife slide into rage, anxiety, and numbness led to a solo drive across America, a 1 a.m. call to my mentor, and two blunt words that changed everything: meditate. That moment didn’t make the pain vanish, but it gave me a path—one I followed from rest stops and dark highways to...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A mountain named for a bird without a single feather in sight became the place where awe, fear, and faith collided. We pick up after Nalanda and head to Vulture Peak, where a cable cart straight out of a carnival ride dangles us over the valley, monkeys tax our snacks, and a sudden swarm of bees turns daylight into shadow. The hike asks for patience, the descen...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A single note from Australia landed in our inbox and knocked something loose: the reminder that stories travel farther than we do. From there we head straight into the noise and grit of Bodh Gaya at peak crowd, then break away to chase a ruin that once held the world’s attention. What looks like scattered red bricks in a field turns out to be Nalanda, a 5th-cen...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Forget cookie-cutter marriage. We travel from Lugu Lake’s “Kingdom of Daughters” to the windswept frontiers of Manchu clans to show how families reinvent themselves under pressure—and why it works. You’ll hear why the Mosuo’s walking marriage is not casual tourism folklore but a finely tuned matrilineal system where women hold authority, partners meet at night...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A final pilgrimage pulled us back to Bodh Gaya, and the road there told its own story—dusty tracks, crowded buses bending past safe capacity, cows and monkeys on the move, and a raw look at poverty that stripped away any romantic filter. We came for the Bodhi Tree and found a city surging with pilgrims, merchants, and quiet moments of grace. Somewhere between s...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A monkey bathing in a hotel water tank wasn’t on our itinerary. Neither was showering in the dark with brown water, or turning down a lunch with the exile prime minister. That’s how this journey went: messy, revealing, and strangely transformative. We set off for Dharamshala expecting spiritual clarity and got grit first—dusty streets, sleepless nights, and a t...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Two brothers, one wife, and a pair of boots on a bedroom door: that’s how the story begins, and it upends everything most of us assume about marriage. We take you from a Tibetan monastery to long mountain drives with a talkative local named Tashi, unpacking how fraternal polyandry works, why it persists, and what it reveals about land, poverty, and family survi...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A pilgrimage can start as an escape and turn into a confrontation with history. That’s where this journey leads: from windswept passes in Tibet to the cedar-lined streets of Dharamshala, where a 10‑day visit with the Dalai Lama shifts how we see faith, politics, and the stories we repeat without thinking. We share what the camera can’t show, the mistakes of tra...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A sleepless 4:30 a.m. confession turns into a journey through fear, love, and the surprising clarity that comes from looking death in the eye. We pull threads from years spent in Tibet—watching sky burials, learning how impermanence sharpens gratitude—and weave them into a story shaped by a single hospice call where I translated a daughter’s final goodbye and h...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A road where distance is measured in bodies, not miles. That’s where I found myself after a rough fight at home sent me back to my mentor’s monastery on the Sichuan–Tibet border. When a group of villagers arrived in leather aprons and battered knee pads to ask for a blessing, I learned they were headed for Jokhang in Lhasa—the temple that holds a young Buddha s...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Death rituals reveal profound truths about a culture's deepest beliefs. My journey to witness a Tibetan sky burial transformed my understanding of mortality, compassion, and spiritual connection. The day began innocently with breakfast at a Buddhist academy before my guide (a Tibetan spiritual teacher I call LB) drove me to a remote mountain burial site. W...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Perched at 4,400 meters above sea level, my second journey into Tibet began at Daocheng Airport—the highest commercial airport on earth. The breathtaking landscape transformed before my eyes as we drove through mountain passes where all four seasons appeared within a single journey, the scenery shifting dramatically with each change in elevation. My destination...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Hidden away in the remote Tibetan highlands exists a world vastly different from our own - one where polyandry (the practice of one woman marrying multiple brothers) makes practical sense, where bathrooms hang precariously off cliffs offering panoramic views, and where sending your youngest son to become a monk is considered a privilege rather than a sacrifice....

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Few travel experiences have challenged my worldview like my journey to a remote Tibetan mountain temple. Arriving after a bone-jarring twelve-hour drive through rugged terrain, I expected to find an ornate religious structure. Instead, I encountered hundreds of orphaned children living as young monks, their curious faces lighting up at the sight of my camera. T...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! A chance encounter with a devout Buddhist au pair changed everything about my understanding of spirituality. After watching her weep for crabs we cooked and eventually leave her family behind to become a monk, I found myself on an unexpected journey to the remote corners of Tibet – places where foreigners rarely venture and Chinese visitors are almost unheard o...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Ever heard of Dongguan? Few Westerners recognize this southern Chinese megacity that operates as a manufacturing powerhouse—but for years, it harbored a secret economy built around what might have been the world's most organized prostitution industry. Join me as I pull back the curtain on my three visits to this remarkable city between 2005-2010, where I w...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Journey with me through the shadowy world of China's elite entertainment industry as I pull back the curtain on experiences few are willing to discuss. Drawing from my year managing a KTV club and witnessing the evolution of "duck culture," I reveal how this underground economy operates and has transformed over time. My story begins at my sister&...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! Stepping back into the shadowy world of Shanghai's KTV clubs, we pick up where we left off in the previous episode - exploring life as a "duck" or paid male companion in China's evolving nightlife scene.  The unexpected relationships formed with wealthy female clients reveal complex human stories beneath the surface of simple transactions. M...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! China's opium war shame has shaped its modern approach to drugs and nightlife in ways few outsiders understand. From the death penalty for drug distribution to mandatory rehabilitation programs that leave permanent marks, these policies directly impact entertainment venues like KTVs (karaoke television clubs). Walking into these establishments as both a ma...

Let me know if you enjoy my content! The shadowy economics of high-end Chinese nightclubs comes into sharp focus through this unflinching firsthand account. Taking us behind the velvet curtains of KTV establishments in early 2000s China, our host reveals the carefully orchestrated hierarchy that kept these businesses profitable and protected. We journey through the nightly routines of an assistant...