Real You Mandarin: The Podcast

Ching Ching is another Taiwanese friend that Angela met through her Japanese language school in Kyoto. They actually first met through a double date with their husbands, since Ching Ching was in the same Japanese class as Angela's husband! Although born and raised in Taiwan, Ching Ching has lived the past almost 13 years in Norway with her husband, and now speaks intermediate to advanced level...

Sean and Angela met in Japan at a local Japanese language school and got to know each other as classmates speaking only Japanese with each other up until recording this podcast episode together.  Sean Hsieh was born and raised in Taiwan through age 13 when he moved to Singapore to attend an American-style international school. He took an extreme approach to this big life shift by deciding to cut o...

In celebration of my first Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month living outside of the U.S., I'm reflecting on my Taiwanese-American identity and how it's evolved since immigrating to Asia. As someone who was constantly insecure about both my "American" and "Taiwanese" identities growing up in the U.S., living outside of that context has finally helped m...

Many of us often joke about attending weekend Chinese School back in the day and still only graduating at the same Mandarin level as third graders in the motherland. However, for many ABCs/ABTs who are now parents themselves, there is a sudden wave of anxiety around the idea of how to pass on their family's language and culture when they're not even confident in their own abilities to begi...

Many of us were raised to believe that success in our careers is the most important thing we can strive for in our lives, so we chug along climbing that corporate ladder without a second thought. Then suddenly for many of us, we hit a quarter life crisis and we're struck with the thought, "Wait, am I really happy right now? Is this what I want to be doing with my life?" Our guest thi...

We received such positive feedback and immense interest from all of you when we had Zhifei on recently for an episode discussing psychedelics, that we decided it was important to have a follow-up episode on the topic! This time we've invited Mei Yuan, a first-generation Chinese-American who grew up in China and moved to the States for graduate school, who now works as a therapist and has exper...

We're so incredibly proud to announce the release of our final course module "Self-Growth Journey" from our course Real You Mandarin: Self-Expression ! We reflect on our own personal experiences with these topics, from Angela's second-generation experience of trying to process her triggers and traumas with her immigrant parents, to Crystal's personal interest in manifestation...

Who says growth always has to come through suffering? Out of all places, I recently learned to practice gratitude, appreciating the present moment, and going with the flow on a two-day solo trip to Tokyo Disney, all while rediscovering how important it can be to integrate more joy and play into my life. In this episode, you'll learn vocab like 活在當下 / 活在当下 / huó zài dāng xià ("livi...

For many of us in our 30s and beyond, while we've been finding out more about ourselves as adults, another aspect of getting older is coming to terms with the fact that our own parents are also getting older. With that comes the inevitability of discussions around medical decisions, potential changes in living arrangements, financial/estate planning, and more. Do you feel prepared to have thos...

In a not often spoken about topic in Mandarin, we're joined again by Zhifei from Xiaogua Chinese, where we discuss our respective experiences with psychedelics. What started as a conversation broadly about our mutual interest in self-growth quickly pivoted to this topic where Angela shares how therapeutic MDMA was her initial gateway into this world, and Zhifei shares her deeply profound exper...

Frequent guest and Real You Mandarin: Beginnings partner teacher Jane Liu is back again, and this time to talk about one of her favorite pastimes... camping! We talk about how camping in Taiwan is unique compared to in the West. Jane goes camping often throughout Taiwan's beaches and forests, has camped in the U.S. before, and has previously lived in a camper van traveling across Europe and Au...

I moved to Japan y'all! Sorry for the delay in episodes recently... it's been a lot prepping for this new major life chapter. In this solo episode, I reflect on the experience of deciding to immigrate to Asia as an Asian-American, comparing/contrasting with my parents' own immigration 30+ years ago from Taiwan to the U.S., and what major differences I've already experienced culturally/societally t...

Zhifei is the Creator of Xiaogua Chinese, popular Mandarin teaching platform that focuses on comprehensible input and practical/real life Mandarin. As a polyglot herself (speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, English, Portuguese, and is learning French!), she fully understands the struggles that language learners face, especially in achieving a level of fluency that feels "real" to well.....

Whether you're already a parent or on your journey towards becoming one, this is one of the most in-demand topics we've heard from both existing students and our followers on social media. That's why we 嘔心瀝血 / 呕心沥血 / ǒu xīn lì xiě (poured our heart and soul into) building this new module from our course Real You Mandarin: Self-Expression... Module 3: Fertility Journey & Par...

Kelly Mosa is a Taiwanese content creator (recently naturalized US citizen!) who shares both funny and heartwarming content about her Taiwanese perspective on life in Minnesota and moments of levity in her cross-cultural relationship with husband Nicholas. Little could she have imagined how many people would relate to her story, turning her platform into a thriving community of people like her bot...

A lot of us have started finessing our communication skills in our 20s and 30s as we work through our own self-growth in the language we're most comfortable in - English. And yet, when we want to apply these same skills of expressing our needs, setting boundaries, navigating conflicts with empathy, and other critical interpersonal skills in Mandarin, we lack the vernacular necessary to express our...

Does Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month mean much to first-generation Asian immigrants who immigrated to the U.S. as adults? We explore the concept of the Asian-American identity with Real You Mandarin: Self-Expression course collaborator Crystal Hsia, a first-generation Taiwanese-American and Mandarin teacher who moved to the U.S. 10 years ago for grad school. How does she feel...

In celebration of AAPI Heritage Month, we're launching a brand new course called "Real You Mandarin: Self-Expression," made for American-Born Chinese (ABCs), American-Born Taiwanese (ABTs), and other advanced Mandarin learners, focused on the most highly-requested topics from all of you! We're helping you navigate some of life's toughest challenges in this course created in collaboration with freq...

Gene Hsu is a fellow American-Born Chinese (ABC) who had a previous career in cross-cultural communication & management, teaching non-Chinese individuals about Chinese culture, mentality, and perspectives. On the side, he has also facilitated cross-cultural relationship mediation to help friends challenged in their marriages due to cultural differences and misunderstandings. Lastly, inspired b...

Meet Isy, a Hong Kong-based online Mandarin/English tutor and mother of two who appears on the surface to be the classic poster child for being a "third culture kid." She was born and raised in Taiwan, moved to South Africa when she was 12 and lived there through her early 20s, moved to the Bay Area in California for a few years, and now is living in Hong Kong with her husband and kids f...

We're back with Angela's "Real You Mandarin: Beginnings" course co-creator and Taiwan-based Mandarin teacher, Jane Liu - this time, talking about taboo topics and common mistakes in Mandarin. We dive into 3 specific terms: 1. "舒服 (shū fú)" vs "自在 (zì zài)", 2. "要不要約 / 要不要约 (yào bú yào yuē)" vs. "要不要約出去玩 / 要不要约出去玩 (yào b...

In this episode, we're joined by Angela's "Real You Mandarin: Beginnings" course co-creator and Taiwan-based Mandarin teacher, Jane Liu. We're talking about dating culture! What does it look like in contemporary Taiwan and how does that differ from our dating culture in the US? Although the apps are prevalent in both parts of the world, Taiwanese culture still tends to be mor...

Crystal Hsia (an LA-based Taiwanese born and raised Mandarin teacher) joins us again to cover the second half of our conversation around culture shocks. This time, we're going in reverse! After living in the U.S. for 10 years, what reverse culture shocks does Crystal experience when she visits Taiwan? We talk about how much more self-conscious she is of both her external appearance and the way...

Los Angeles-based Crystal Hsia, a Taiwanese born and raised Mandarin teacher, joins us as our first guest on the podcast! In this episode, we talk about culture shocks/differences she experienced after moving to the U.S. ten years ago. As a student, Crystal was confused by the need to ask questions in graduate school just to prove she had read the class material, and now by the work culture that r...

Meet your American-Born Taiwanese (ABT) host, Angela Lin. In this podcast premiere episode, Angela uses Mandarin to explain what you can expect from the show when she is joined by Mandarin teacher guests in future episodes, why she wanted to start this podcast, how it will help both you and her improve your "grown-up" vocabularies by discussing these real life topics with her guests, why she think...