Time To Say Goodbye

Greetings from Berkeley, Philadelphia, and Tacoma!  This week, we chat about Viet Thanh Nguyen’s recent essay on Asian America, race, and class ( Time ); the abolition of whiteness advocated by Jay’s former mentor, Noel Ignatiev ; and the dead-ends and possibilities of race talk in media.  * Remember to keep sending us feedback and questions via Twitter at @ttsgpod or via email at timetosaygoodbye...

Hi, all: Just Andy this time, with a Thursday edition bonus episode, in which I talk with Brian Hioe of New Bloom , a bilingual online magazine with radical analysis of Taiwan and East Asia. On Monday, New Bloom published an explainer essay on the very confusing phenomenon of “tankies,” aka people who argue that the true leftist position is to support the Chinese Communist Party as a check on US i...

Hello from Oakland, Philadelphia, and New York! It’s just the three of us this week, talking Koreaboos and soft power, protest goals, and, as promised, Robin DiAngelo’s bestselling book White Fragility . But before we get into all that, a belated shout-out to our long-suffering audio editor (and master gardener) James Nicholson. And warm thanks to you, our dear listeners and subscribers. We hope t...

Hello from the American rebellion! A packed episode on the BLM protests from our vantage point as cynical Asians and former Seattle residents. (Yes, Mukilteo counts.) We discuss the evolving Capitol Hill Occupied Protest both at the top of the show and in the second half, when we interview special guest Dae Shik Kim, Jr. , a Seattle-based journalist and activist. We also get into the latest contro...

Hello! This is our freshest recording yet—part one made just hours ago.  In this episode, we talk about the latest hotspot in the Black Lives Matter uprising: Seattle, near where Andy and Tammy grew up and where Jay has family; and Jay and Andy review the new ESPN documentary on Bruce Lee. We then welcome our special guest (and Andy’s friend and fellow Philadelphian) Nikil Saval, the presumptive w...

A special welcome to all new subscribers!   Today’s episode is about the murder of George Floyd and the actions around the country. A few days ago, Jay wrote in our newsletter about Tou Thao, the Hmong cop who participated in Floyd’s killing, and “the myths of Asian American solidarity.” Jay describes what motivated this post, and we discuss when Asian American self-reflection is useful versus nar...

Hello! In this episode, we chat about relocating during the pandemic, reading (or, in Jay’s case, not reading) physical books, and the University of California system’s recent decision to suspend use of the SAT in admissions. We then give a transnational welcome to Jenny Chan , professor of sociology and China studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and co-author of the forthcoming book, Dying...

Hello! We’re extremely excited about today’s episode, which includes a lengthy interview with Mike Davis, a friend of the international working class and the author of works such as Prisoners of the American Dream , City of Quartz , and Planet of Slums . We talk about “this moment,” and the need for dissent, street protest and the refusal of the false choice laid out in front of working people bet...

Hello from the US lockdown! It’s just the three of us this episode, chatting about soggy bread and soggier humans—and all things China, America’s best frenemy and the official scapegoat of the 2020 election.  1:00 - What's the deal with focaccia? Tammy loves it, but Jay and Andy associate it with terrible sandwiches on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. 3:17 - The Goopy cook and columnist Alison Roman g...

Happy belated May 1st, international workers’ day!  This episode is about organizing and health care “heroes.” We talk about cheering for essential workers, Whitmanesque yawps and coyote mewls, and the politics of “shelter in place.” Why are liberals so angry at people who need to get some air? And what’s behind right-wing protests at state capitals? We consider the underlying grievances and explo...

Hello! This episode is about the politics of the Asian diaspora.  We explain why we named our podcast Time to Say Goodbye and update one another on quarantine pickling (to Maangchi or not to Maangchi?). We then tackle the more serious topic of Asian American politics: How might we move beyond “seat at the table,” professional-class concerns and embrace an “internationalist” perspective that looks...

Welcome to Time To Say Goodbye ! Today, we have a bonus episode for you about Korean coronavirus test-and-trace—with Max Kim, a journalist living in Seoul who recently wrote a lengthy article for the New Yorker as well as an informative and timely piece a few months back for the MIT Technology Review . We are still experimenting with the format of these emails, so today we thought we’d highlight s...

EPISODE 2: African Guangzhou and Coronavoting in Korea Hello! Time to Say Goodbye is a podcast—with your hosts, Jay Caspian Kang, Tammy Kim, and Andy Liu. We launched this thing because, like you, we’ve been sheltering in place and wanted an outlet for our thoughts on the coronavirus, Asia, geopolitics, and Asian Americans. A short introduction to your hosts: Jay Caspian Kang is a writer-at-large...

Hello! Time to Say Goodbye is a podcast—with your hosts, Jay Caspian Kang, Tammy Kim, and Andy Liu. We launched this thing because, like you, we’ve been sheltering in place and wanted an outlet for our thoughts on the coronavirus, Asia, geopolitics, and Asian Americans. A short introduction to your hosts: Jay Caspian Kang is a writer-at-large for the New York Times Magazine and the author of the u...