But Where Are You Really From?: An Asian-American Struggle

Netflix has finally released its highly anticipated adaptation of the beloved sci-fi series "The Three Body Problem," and we're giving you our honest review from the perspective of someone who binged the entire book series as well as from someone who had no previous exposure to the trilogy at all. **This is a minimal spoilers review. We only discuss Episode 1 not the full season, so if you haven't...

We've talked about the culture shocks & challenges we've faced being American-born kids visiting the motherland (in our case, Taiwan), but all of those experiences have only been in the context of short-term vacations. What's it like trying to do "real" things like applying for health insurance, opening a bank account, and other "grown up" things in the motherla...

What's it like to search for and buy a house in the US vs. in Japan? Jesse purchased a co-op apartment in New York City two years ago, and Angela bought a house in Kyoto last year. In this episode, we compare and contrast everything from the search process, to contracting/making an offer, to renovations, and everything in between. Would you rather buy a house in the US or in Japan now that you...

Did you know that there was a presidential election in Taiwan this year? While election madness is just starting in the US, it's already finished in Taiwan. The results have significant impacts on how the current major parties in Taiwan will govern in the future. While the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) candidate, Lai Ching-te, came out ahead in the presidential race, the party as a...

Do people around the world still believe that democratic institutions represent their best interests? Recent survey data reported by the Guardian shows that a portion of younger respondents favor more autocratic governments. A quick look around the world, and you can see more extreme political factions taking root in many nations. Does this instability come from democratic bodies that no longer re...

Are polyamory and open relationships becoming popular in modern society?! ...or is the media just presenting it that way and enabling problematic people to co-opt the concept of polyamory to justify their bad behaviors (i.e., cheating, using people, etc.)? Inspired by a recent read of the New Yorker article entitled "How Did Polyamory Become So Popular?" by Jennifer Wilson, we discuss wh...

It's the Year of the Dragon y'all and we're looking to tap into that energy of success, power, luck, and excellence as we wade through the new changes that 2024 has to bring. In this episode, we share our respective big new life updates - namely that Angela has decided that she'll be moving to Japan in 2 years, and Jesse is imminently moving in with his boyfriend! What's new fo...

The end of the year means that we're at the start of a fresh new beginning! It can be so exciting to start the year fresh, but new life chapters can be daunting! Coming into the holidays, we've decided to reflect on how we've progressed this past year. There have been so many changes that have happened to us - change in locations, careers, and social life. And there are so many new thi...

What do you get when you take a Hong Kong-born kid, move him to New Zealand for the next 13 years, and then have him cross over the ocean to the US as an adult? ... this episode's guest, Henry! You, our dear listeners, asked us to share more and different types of Asian diaspora stories beyond the US, and we listened! In this episode, we hear about Henry's story of identity and finding him...

What made a white college kid from the midwest decide to move to the other side of the world to live in China?! In this episode, we're joined by Nick Anderson, an LA-based Mandarin teacher who spent his formative young adult years living in China and other Asia-Pacific countries learning and teaching Mandarin. We talk about what that experience was like, compounded with his experience coming o...

Have you ever wondered what parenting in 2023 looks like? Are more parents disciplinarians or have more parents found their way to gentle parent? Our topic in this episode, gentle parenting, is a newer approach to raising children. Instead of the more traditional authoritarian approach that we were raised by in our own childhoods, gentle parenting parents approach their children with more empathy...

Finding new friends is challenging at any age, but it seems to get particularly more difficult as we get older. As we age out of experiences and environments that are more conducive to socialization (i.e., school), we naturally find less opportunities to make friends. Even in areas like the workplace, most people seem less open to making friends outside of certain environments. We also find that w...

Modern science has truly come a long way with regards to fertility and alternative ways to start families. However, even with these science-aided options like surrogacy and egg freezing/IVF, women are still forced to think about their options with regard to whether or not they want to have children when they are in their mid 20s to mid 30s. Since Angela is in this age range currently and has many...

Even though we're pushing towards our mid-30s, finding a healthy sense of self and self-worth can still be challenging. Sense of self and self-worth can be tied to the different types of validation we look for in life. Some of that validation comes from external factors - career, relationships, and personal history. Other types of validation come from within - peace with yourself, satisfaction...

It's time to get scary again! Since y'all loved our scary stories from Asia episode last year, we're coming back at you with new stories from the Eastern world! Grip the edge of your seat as Jesse recounts the haunting adventures of a Taiwan-based shaman. Will he successfully help out a distressed young man, or will he be caught up by the paranormal activity himself? Feel your breath c...

Harry Au is a therapist specializing in working with Asians in the diaspora, often 1.5 and 2nd generation Asians who are either immigrants themselves, or children of immigrants. In this episode, we discuss how Harry was motivated to dedicate his life to this work after seeing the benefits of working out his emotions in therapy for himself, and the common issues he sees with his clients. Largely ha...

How do you define "meaning" or "value" in life? In the US we often put work above all else, thinking that career success and status is supposed to give you some sort of meaning in life, or that work is supposed to be your ~passion~. But is that really the case? Now that we're in our 30s with enough work and life experience under our belts, we're starting to re-evaluate...

There are so many things about getting older that suck. But does getting older always mean settling down? Is there even a universal meaning to the phrase, "settling down?" Aging means thinking about what the future stages of our lives will look like. Some types of adventures decrease as we get older, to be replaced by other life experiences. In this episode, we talk about how our individ...

Many children of immigrants grew up learning their parents' language as their first tongue. Our first language was Mandarin, but like many other immigrant children, this was quickly supplanted by English. Despite attending Chinese School every week from the ages of 5 to 18, our current level of vocabulary and reading/writing skills are sadly on par with 5th graders in Taiwan, at best. As we&#3...

Clarissa Wei is a Taiwan-based food journalist and author of the new cookbook "Made in Taiwan," out now. Clarissa was inspired to use this cookbook as a vehicle to tell the stories of the people of Taiwan, and to shine a light on how the history of Taiwan -- from its various waves of immigration pre- and post-1949 to its all-time-high modern political tensions with China -- has affected...

There's a whole industry built around finding shortcuts in experiencing happiness, but do things in life actually make us happy or is it how we experience them that creates happiness? To complicate the subject further, happiness is a different experience for different people. Even in experiences we choose to repeat, we may find that our experience of happiness differs from one day to the next....

Jesse recently went back to Taiwan for the first time since before the pandemic. Although for less than ideal reasons (the death of his grandfather), he was grateful for the opportunity to reconnect with his extended family back in the motherland. We also hear about Jesse's shenanigans going out solo to experience LGBT nightlife in Taipei by himself, and what it was like finally being out to t...

After living abroad in Japan and Korea the last year, Angela's recent reverse culture shock coming back to the US has your co-hosts wondering why there's such a drastic difference in the quality of life between the US and many (East) Asian countries. In this episode, we talk about just how different our respective experiences were abroad with regard to the cost of living (food, clothes, go...

This 4th of July, we're pondering our Americanness from a different angle. As Taiwanese-Americans - in our case, born and raised in the U.S., with parents and extended family who were born and raised in Taiwan - to what extent should we be emphasizing the "Taiwanese" part of who we are? Inspired by frequent comments we receive on social media from both non-Asian Americans as well as...

Kristen Meinzer is a force to be reckoned with. She is an award-winning podcaster with millions of downloads, a culture critic who frequently appears on TV (especially to talk about the royal family!), and an author whose book "How to Be Fine" was an Audible #1 Bestseller in 2021. Aside from her incredible career, Kristen is also a Korean adoptee. Born in Korea but raised in Minnesota, s...