Granny Phen's Wonderland: 大象奶奶的美國日記

Today is Valentine's Day! I am going to share an episode that I came across accidentally. Here is the original episode. The podcaster's name is Liu Xuan, he grew up mostly in the US, but for Taiwanese, his name has been somewhat familiar, mostly due to his father, a well-known author, Liu Yong . In the episode , Liu Xuan invited his wife, Cardin, to talk about their 2024 - the ups and down...

When talking about the Amazon Rainforest, what comes to your mind? In today's episode, we are going to talk about TFFF - A momentum currently under discussion in Brazil that is using the Amazon Rainforest as an investment in the stock market, in order to have a sustainable funding for the conversation and protection. TFFF stands for The Forests of the Future Fund. This topic is inspired by the...

It's the Year of the Snake in the Lunar New Year - Let's talk about Red Envelopes. Do you know what scenarios Taiwanese usually give red envelops and any taboos around how much you should put in it? Today's episode is inspired by Fan Chifei's video where she talked about how she upset her mother by mistakenly put the amount of money that included a number "4", which pronounced similar to "death" i...

Recently, Taiwan’s hotels stopped providing toothbrushes, and toothpaste. This seems to have sparked a lot of discussions. To me personally, has been a new normal in the US and some big cities in the Western Europe for some time, as far as I noticed. Do you like it? What's your view on this? This topic is inspired by an episode which talks about the same topic in Mandarin and hosted by Fan Chi...

In 2025, I am adding a new topic called [Phen News / Fun News] I will select one news story that I have feelings about to share with all of you. The thought is that most of the news stories being broadcasted in Taiwan or adjacent countries are produced in Mandarin. I hope to bring some of those stories to my English-speaking friends or listeners. Today's topic is, "House Sitting" which was inspire...

Happy New Year in advance folks! Today, I am bringing some festive melodies from Appalachian Chamber Music Festival (only a few short clips, and these melodies were believed to be common and famous Christmas songs), and a short introduction of the Harpers Ferry Historic National Park. Highly recommend check out its official website for the Top 10 Tips to get the most out of your visit, along with...

Most people think cross-cultural relationship is challenging. Last episode, we had Lily, who moved to the United States from Taiwan 12 years ago, now has her sweet family with her husband, Quacy, living in Denver. Today, we are so honored to have them on the podcast together to share their story - How they met, how they navigated the challenges, whether culture-wise, food-wise, throughout their re...

I met Lily and Kinny at the same time when we all prepared TOEFL exam to study in the U.S. After more than 12 years, I am glad my podcast brought us virtually together again. Lily now has a beautiful family in Colorado, after spending 4 years living in San Francisco. I am so honored to have her on the show to chat about her journey. Hope you will also be inspired by her positivity and like her int...

Me and Kinny met in a English school in Taiwan, to prepare us to attend the TOEFL exams to study in the US. She is a Japanese majored student, and she went to the UK to study Marketing in 2013. She's now in Taiwan, and learning Spanish. What a cool girl she is to have Japanese, English, and Spanish under her belt, let along Mandarin. Let's have her talk about her opinion to learning more l...

I always appreciate native English speakers who are willing to learn other languages, because English is so widely-used globally, and it's just so convenient to use English to communicate. In this episode, we are giving credits to my friend, Gio, who are not only willing to take the initiative in learning Spanish, French, Japanese and Mandarin, but also maintaining a long-time pen-pal relation...

I had spent a couple months in Australia where me and Pat connected virtually. We have been friends and chatted online for a couple years so far, and today's episode was the first time we spoke directly. It was a huge pleasure to me to have Pat participated in the podcast to talk about her language learning experience, mainly English, and shared her insights abut how to continue learning multi...

One of the most obvious characteristics about myself is, English is my second language. So, today I am inviting one of my friends whom I met in college and can speak more than 2 languages as an American, Reid, to the podcast, and let he share his opinions on language learning, and how this experience impact his profession, for example, sports commentary. That's really cool!

Some resources I talked about in the podcast below. Sorry I did not do a good job organizing this podcast(maybe spent too much time in writing in my own language). I talked about how excited and uplifted by that I picked up writing in Mandarin, which I did feel bad that I cannot describe what I usually write the same in English(because my English is not that good), though the same kind of talking...

Have you ever wondered what caused the many dialects in the United States? And what are the major accents? According to a renounced English teacher, Karen Chung, in National Taiwan University (NTU) . What she suggested was - Time. Here is her academic page, including her interview with one of Taiwan's KOLs via Youtube, and her own podcast about her learning Mandarin. Her parents were German an...

Imagine you walk into the sauna and a person follows you in and starts to smile at you. Would you responded? You said, "Of course! What if this person is my Miss Right / Mr. Right?" Yes, that could be. But that could also possibly a subsequent heartbroken / grieving if that Miss Right / Mr. Right leaves you in a couple years. If you politely ignored, you could end up the day with a peace...

Two things want to add to yesterday's episode - The one is the "bird example" in yesterday's episode - A previous version of me, before knowing Zhuangzi, used to think that in order to challenge myself, I should go to a foreign country to compete with all the outstanding people around the world; if I can make it, I am really "something". After knowing Zhuangzi, what I l...

I have been sick for quite a long time, even now, sometimes it took me a little more effort to stay awake given the remaining effect of previous medication. But an Oriental Philosopher, Zhuangzi, helped me a lot, both in my recovery of sleeping disorder (now I can sleep really well), and my viewpoints of the world. So this was the reason I recorded this episode. I believe most of the Western philo...

Hiring a skilled professional to complete home-improvement projects seems to be a common thing in the USA, but this is my first time hiring a person setting up a standing desk other than hiring movers. I was lucky this was a somewhat comfortable experience. When my mind was wandering today, I was thinking, is it possible to let myself not too worry about if I could carry on a conversation? Could i...

Hey y'all, I believe most of you in the North Pole might have been celebrating the long holiday weekend, but have anyone of you experienced any family conflicts during the holidays? In this episode, PhenPhen is sharing something that really have bothered her quite a long time. I guess for an relatively older adult who has started over in her career to face the aging pressure herself, as well a...

How many of you have bad experiences with noisy neighbors? I believe throughout a lifetime, you might have bumped into once, twice, or if unfortunately, triple times of noisy neighbors. Poor Granny Phen had a crazy upstair neighbors perpetually moved their furniture items during midnight, to be more specifically, 1 am to 5 am! That was really devastating and brutal! On the flip side, this is a goo...