One in a Billion

As the Black Lives Matter movement spread across America earlier this summer, many Asian Americans began to reflect on their personal history of struggling for racial equality.  In particular, one civil rights group has pushed for attitude change among Asians to reach across the racial divide and join African Americans and other communities of color in the fight for social justice. In Season 5 Tru...

To whom do you feel indebted for your civil rights and citizenship status in America?  Your parents or your parents' parents? Or yourself? Frankly, I had never considered this question until I came across Eileen Huang's critical letter  urging the Chinese American community to confront their anti-Black racist statements and stereotypes.  In her words, "We owe them (referring to Africans Americans)...

Imagine this.  You have Covid-19.  You're running out of breath.  You're inside a hospital emergency room getting a blood transfusion. Suddenly this happens. There's a leak somewhere. Your bodily fluids spew and splash all over the bed sheets, some of the droplets land on the exposed skin of the emergency physicians and nurses risking their lives to save you.  Is this an impossible scenario? No. T...

It's been four months since the police shooting of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency room technician of Louisville, Kentucky. Her tragic death in her own apartment has triggered  ongoing protests demanding police accountability. As the sound of fury and cries of justice rage on across the country, there is one young African American woman who wants to voice her sorrow in a poem, dedicated...

 Who can assure you when you can't breathe? What do you need to hear from ER Doctors when you are in ICU? In the age of Covid-19, these questions are more pressing and personal than ever. In Part 2 of our Season 5 True Colors : " Finding Humanity in Emergency" Dr. Anita Chary and Dr. Paul Chen, both are ER doctors in Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.  They vividly describe their experience tr...

We kick off Season 5 today (July 14th) with a 10-part series True Colors. True Colors is about the color of one's character in times of crisis. How do you respond after you've seen the video of George Floyd dying under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis?  What can you do to confront anti-black racism in America? Veteran ABC News correspondent/anchor Ron Claiborne and I ( Host, Mable...

She never ceases to amaze me. Sanyee Yuan - a 20 something writer, actor, host, and Harvard graduate - is always chasing the next big opportunity by connecting with people who inspire her creative thought that would turn into a story or a script! I first interviewed Sanyee in 2012 when she spoke movingly about being raised by a single mom with two jobs, two kids - her and her older sister. Both gi...

What drives you crazy?  How about being called just that - crazy. If you are struggling with a mental disorder, you might lash out or turn inward. And when you do, that word "crazy" could feel like a weapon that cuts through your skin.  In this episode "This Asian American Life: Don't Call Me Crazy" - New York based writer/editor/illustrator Hannah Bae reads a chapter she's contributed to a new bo...

What's wrong with bribing your 3-year-old with a gold star? Or, if you're in China, it's a red star. Chinese American journalist Lenora Chu was a new mother when she first moved to Shanghai with her husband, she quickly discovered the authoritarian style of Chinese schooling clashed with her American upbringing in Texas.  How? What did she do? Well, she wrote a book called "Little Soldiers" descri...

Have you ever been tempted to trace your roots? What might pique your curiosity if your mother refused to talk about her parents?  For Scott Tong, he decided to find his home village precisely because no one seemed to remember his grandparents. What happened to them?  Why did they stay in China when his mother fled to America?  Check out my conversation with American Public Media's "Marketplace" c...

What if your father called you after you two hadn't talked for a year? What if you were looking for a better relationship with him, and you were finding you were running out of time?  In Part 2 of my interview with Mimi Wong, a New York-based writer and multimedia producer, she shared her reflections on those last few conversations with her father,  and her inner journey of reconciliation. Music u...

When was the last time you had a talk, or a fight with your father?  What might trigger your urge to call him, or to reflect on what's been missing in your relationship? In Part 1 of my interview with Mimi Wong, a New York based writer and multimedia producer shared her story, first published in  "How Watching Asian Father on Screen Helped me Face My Own."   The movie "Searching."  prompted her to...

Why would you give up all that you've studied or worked so hard for once you hit a certain life stage and decided to pursue what really makes you happy? In Part 2 of my interview with Chinese American documentary filmmaker Hao Wu, he talked about giving up the traditional notion of success. Making money. Making parents proud. Instead, he chose to listen to his heart.  This is a story about pursuin...

What will you find if you bank on the Internet to fulfill your desire? How much money will you spend to make your dream come true in this digital universe? In this 2-part interview with Chinese American documentary filmmaker Hao Wu, he talked about "The People's Republic of Desire" - a film about live-streaming in China.  It's a story about the human longing for fame and fortune, as well as love a...

If you're a 20 something Asian woman trying to establish yourself as a writer in Tech, listen up. You can speak up, share your thoughts and yet, nobody hears you. You're ignored. That's Eda Yu's story. In "Don't Talk Over Me" Eda talks with Lauren Dai, another Asian woman working in Silicon Valley about tough challenges in a room full of white men. Who helped her? How did she get over barriers? Al...

If you have spent a good chunk of your life studying and working like a robot, how would you know to wake up one day, and say "I am not a robot!" That's Kou Aizhe's story. A former librarian and TV journalist, he was inspired by " This American Life " podcast to create his own show " Gushi FM ." The idea is to give voice to real people with real-life experiences and struggles. It's now one of the...

Part 3 of a Special Summer Series from Shanghai: In Context with Anita Xu: "How can this be...the rest of my life!?" If you'd invested almost your entire adult life training to be a professional landscape designer, you'd landed at your dream job. But a few years later, you looked around your workplace and you discovered something that would forever change your idea of what is a good life or what i...

Part 2 of A Special Summer Series from Shanghai: In Context with Anita Xu. Can you imagine your life's mission is to meet the expectations of your parents? Ever since she was a little girl, Carol pushed herself, moving to a big city from a small town, working her way up and up to satisfy her parents. Now, at age 33, Carol's lost. Her parents have changed their minds. They ask her to slow down, but...

Season 4 kicks off with a Summer Special Series from Shanghai: In Context with Anita Xu- "Why Risk It?" It's an intimate conversation between digital marketing professional Anita Xu and her college buddy Xu He. Xu He chose to become an entrepreneur after feeling unfulfilled in his first few jobs after graduating from a top journalism university in Shanghai. Anita, our contributing podcaster, is pu...

What makes people in China laugh? Why would they spend time and money to go to a stand-up act by an American comedian in Beijing? And, who is he? This is story about an American scholar turned comedian who dedicates his life to bringing Chinese and Americans together through humor and laughter.  Music Used: Brad McCarthy's One in a Billion Theme Song

What is love about? Can you show gratitude without spending or giving money? Can you show care without sacrificing your passion? To truly show gratitude, must you also sacrifice?  With these questions in mind, I interviewed Jinzhao (JZ) Wang, a 28 year old Chinese American a few months ago.  JZ told me she can't fully enjoy what gives her pleasure without also feeling guilty. Why? What is her guil...

Are you the person you or your parents want to be? Is your personal dream inseparable from your parents? Can it be? Should it be? That is Angela's agony.   How does she navigate around a set of cultural expectations to create her own path? Check out my interview with Angela Tang, a rising senior at Williams College, in Episode #3 "This Chinese Life: Whose Life is This Anyway." We want to include y...

What does it mean to be Chinese? 415 million Chinese millennials in China wrestle with crushing pressure to live up to a cultural identity and societal ideal. What are they? How do they cope? What are their biggest fears? Check out Part 2 of my interview with  author/public speaker Zak Dychtwald   "This Chinese Life: What does it mean to be Chinese?" Music used: Brad McCarthy's "One in a Billion T...

He grew up in a predominantly white suburban town in California. His parents would take him travelling around the world for work since he was a child. Then one day, he stumbled upon a movie - " Enter the Dragon " (starring Bruce Lee) that would strike his fancy about another world - China. That's where Zak Dychtwald decided to go right after he graduated from Columbia University six years ago. Wit...

An unexamined life is not worth living. What leads one to examine one's life? A surprise setback? An unforgettable encounter? An ongoing desire? All of these experiences tend to re-emerge or surge in our memory as we look back on 2017. In this last episode of Season 2 "Reflections on 2017: What's Weighing on My Mind," we listen to three compelling stories from Maggie Shi, Joel Tsui and Justine Yan...