#64. Dr. Ryan Thorpe: Thinker's Dilemma
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What's up, everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. You can always reach us at thehonestdrink at gmail.com, Instagram, or WeChat. This episode is hosted by Eric and myself, and our guest today is a university professor, a writer, an author from Texas. He has a multi-book publishing deal with Rutledge and Athan. He teaches humanities and writing at the University of Michigan in Shanghai, Jiao Tong University Joint

Institute. He is also the director of the Shanghai Writing Workshop and the editor of the Blue Tiger Review. So today, we get into a really interesting and revealing conversation about the differences in education systems between America and China. We talk about the gaokao, which is like the mother of all exams. And our guest, being a professor, a writer, an author, working here in China, we ask him if he's had any experiences with censorship.

He also pulls back the curtains for us and reveals the truth about publishing a book, working with agents, dealing with publishers, and the realities of making a living as a creative writer. We put away an entire bottle of Jack Daniels on this episode, so needless to say, it was a really fun time and it was a real pleasure having him on the show. So without further ado, please give it up for Ryan Thorpe.

That kid's name was Ryan.

like a white name yeah super white names like Ryan go clean your room it's like fuck you mom oh my god what am I gonna do with you it's like having like it's like Troy or Taylor yeah very white names yeah trust me when I when I put Ryan Thorpe down I know that contest judges when they're looking at my writing are just like that's a super white guy

What kind of contests here in China? Well, like there's a lot of literary journals put on contests every once in a while. And every once in a while I send something out to it. And yeah, I don't do it all that much just because there's a lot of money involved in it. A lot of money involved in sending your writing? Yes. Like to submit your writing to most major literary journals, it can cost anywhere from $10 to $45. Wow.

And if you do that... Just as an entrance fee? Yes.

And if you do that enough, it gets really expensive really quickly considering the average acceptance rate's like 5%. So, yeah, you can blow a lot of money in order to get a very little bit of money back. So, yeah, that's... It's like paying for a lottery ticket. Yes, it is like paying for a lottery ticket, except for you get to write your story and submit your story out and hope that they like it.

And, yeah, it's very – it's already like submitting your work is always a very self-conscious kind of thing to be doing. But the fact that you're putting money on it and you have to back it up with money makes it so much worse because then you're like, wow, I'm both untalented and poor after you get rejected. It hits you two times. Yep. Yeah.

All right. Well, let's give the listeners a little bit of background about you, Ryan. So you're a writer, you're an author, and you're an educator. Yes, I'm all those things. And you're from Texas. Yep. That's why we are drinking today Jack Daniels with a little bit of Coke.

Keeping it southern. We topped ours up with Coke. What do you mean? We all have Coke. I made his too. It's beautiful. Beautiful ratios you've mixed. It's like caffeine and booze. What's better than that?

Yeah, except for didn't they ban alcoholic caffeinated drinks in America? Oh, did they? Well, because people were partying all night long on these things. Well, they banned certain drinks like Four Loko. Yeah, I remember Four Loko got banned because people were just drinking, drinking, drinking, partying. People were dying on that shit. And they were dying because they couldn't stop. Oh, I remember. Yeah, yeah. Which, you know. Well, what's the difference between that and Red Bull? There's no alcohol in Red Bull.

Yeah, Four Local was an energy drink with alcohol in it. It was made for the partier. Right, right.

The one who wants to live a party lifestyle. Red Bull, you have to at least be conscious enough to mix in your alcohol to it. And Red Bull gives you wings, so it's different. You know, you might not crash as hard. Well, Ryan, we spoke briefly before this, and first of all, I want to congratulate you because you just signed a five-book deal. Wow. Well, two deals. Yeah, two deals. One for two books, one for three books. Yeah. So, yeah, I signed a two-book deal with...

with Rutledge for essentially a textbook and a scholarly book. And then I signed a three-book novel deal with a Texas press called Athon for a young adult fantasy series. So, two questions. How do you go from writing textbooks to young adult novels? What's the crossover there? There's not a direct crossover. It's just like, I don't know, as...

A young professional, you don't ever just do one thing. Like you have to have your hands in a lot of different pots. Diversify. Yeah. So like, you know, one thing is my scholarly work, which is me as, you know, Dr. Thorpe as professor who has to get tenure, has to make my university proud with scholarships.

scholarly professional publications that look at my field and try to advance knowledge in some sort of special way. And as an educator, they're very interested in me publishing more textbooks and getting my name more out there in a very professional kind of way. And then the other side is, you know,

Ryan as artist or Ryan has a creative writer where I am writing creatively. So, you know, my PhD is in creative writing. So there's both a scholarly side to it and a kind of professional research based side. So is it accurate to say like the academic side of it is really kind of to build up your credibility, go through the formalities, um,

of being a writer and an educator and the novels that you write, that's really to kind of satisfy your creative juices? - It's just, I'm weird in the sense that there are definitely two sides of me that are competing. And I always thought I was gonna get a novel out first. I really did.

About a year and a half ago, I was at Asia TEFL, which is like a giant second language learning conference in Bangkok. And I got an email that was like, hey, I saw your abstract. I see you've been doing a lot of these talks on second language creative writing. You should really come and talk to me. And so I met with a Rutledge publisher and said,

We had a really great conversation. And then, yeah, about six months later, about a year ago, I got a book deal after writing a lot. So what's it like to write a textbook, though? I can't even wrap my mind around how do you even start writing a textbook? Well, writing the scholarly book is way more complicated than writing the textbook. Because the textbook, you know, I've been a professor for, what, 14 years now? Yeah.

So like a textbook, it's just me putting together a lot of my lessons from over the years into kind of a cohesive, logical step-by-step way that other teachers can kind of follow the way that I think about a class and can approach a class and students can read kind of what I'm thinking about things. And then there's activities that I've done over time and then you get to insert readings. And so all of that sort of business is, is,

That part is a lot easier because there's very little emphasis on expanding the realm of knowledge in any sort of way. Because in an introduction to creative writing class, you're kind of just doing the basics and you're expected to cover the basics. And I do it a little bit differently. But like all of us are covering the same skills no matter what creative writing teacher you ever have.

You know, a scholarly book is expected to take and acknowledge what is the edge of our understanding right now of a field and push it back in some sort of way. And there's just infinite more research, infinite more logical progression, you know, and it's so painstaking to like establish exactly what your point is and then just push back on that.

edge of knowledge just a little bit. I kind of get it. Would it be accurate to say that a textbook you're writing for your students, really, or for students, and the scholarly book you're writing for other professionals, other educators, other researchers in the field to your peers? Oh, definitely. And that's what also is so frustrating about writing a scholarly book, because like...

The audience for it is so much smaller and the people who do read it are going to be the most difficult readers in the entire world because it's not going to be some freshman student who's like, oh, I'm interested in creative writing. Let me just kind of glance at this book who – that's a very unchallenging reader as opposed to like –

Some masters or PhD student in the field who's like, oh, this is something I'm interested in. And then you have somebody who's already somewhat of an expert in the field looking at your work.

And that's a reader that's looking to challenge you in various places. And that's somebody who I'm going to have to run into at a conference at some point. It's going to be like, hey, Ryan, I read your book. Here's my list of grievances. And you're like, oh, man, you're the one. You're like, bring it on. I'm serious. I should have gotten into this. I'd be like, bring it on. I don't have the intellectual capability, but I have the...

what would you call it? The, oh yeah, what do you call it? What do you call it when it's the, you have like the personality for it. What do you call that? You have the...

predisposition. Yeah. But I don't know. I'm always very non-confrontational whenever I run into people at conferences who seem to have like... Bring me, bring me. I'll be confrontational. You just kind of nod. He'll be your anger translator. You know who I am? You just nod a little bit and you're like, that's a very interesting point and I'll take that into consideration in further drafts. And like, there's nothing you can say in response to that. Like... Why don't you go read a book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving Up? I don't know.

So Ryan, I think one of maybe the elephants in the room with someone like you is why are you here? Why are you here in China or Shanghai of all places?

Like every other kind of young professional that I think is in Shanghai, I think there's two stories that you tell there. One is how you got to Shanghai, and the other one is why you chose to stay in Shanghai. Because I've been here for almost seven years now, and I think you come to Shanghai for one reason and you stay for another one. What were your reasons? I came to Shanghai...

Kind of, I don't know, I was a very young professional when I came here. I wasn't even 30 yet. And, you know, I had most of a PhD at that point. And I had bounced around at a lot of different universities in America doing little adjunct jobs. And, you know, you couldn't get jobs.

really good benefits there. And as somebody who almost had a PhD, it was so difficult to find a full-time job that was really gonna take care of you. And so, yeah, I had lived in South Korea several times before 'cause like as soon as I finished my bachelor's degree, I moved to South Korea and I taught in a kindergarten.

And that's where most of my teaching style probably comes from because I was teaching 30 hours a week every week with no vacation for the entire year. And you develop a very hardened approach to teaching, teaching in a Korean kindergarten where nobody can understand what you're saying at all.

But like I got in a lot of trouble because I kept going on discourses about book history or the history of reading or, you know... To kids. Yeah. To five-year-olds. To five-year-olds. I was like, let me understand. Let's talk about literary criticism for a while because when we're reading Jack and Jill, we're really looking at a socioeconomic struggle here. Yeah.

And my students just eyes glazed over. This is really about class warfare. All right, June, put the Jack and Jill down. Yeah. Okay, here's Dostoevsky. Yeah. And my principal just kind of pulled me aside one day and she's like, Ryan, you need to go to graduate school like yesterday. You need to chill out. And I think that was her polite way of telling me that my calling was not to teach kindergartners.

And so, yeah, I went back and then I got a master's degree and then I went back to Korea and I taught one more year except for I was teaching at Daegu University. I was in the English education department and I was teaching how to become an English teacher in Korea.

essentially. Like I was teaching future English teachers in Korea and I loved it. Except for, I realized once again that I was like deeply unqualified to do it. Cause like, yeah, when I got to South Korea the first time, like I thought I was going to receive teacher training and I got no teacher training at all. Like you, you, you walk into this,

And they're like, okay, you're going to be with this teacher for the morning. And you're like, oh, that's great. I get to learn from another veteran teacher. And I watched him play bingo with this class for an hour. And they're like, okay, Ryan, it's time for you to go teach. And I'm like, I just watched you play bingo for an hour. What am I supposed to do? Oh, you're teaching phonics next door. Like, good luck. And I'm just like, I don't know how to teach phonics. And yeah.

so yeah, like once again, I got to South Korea a second time and I felt kind of deeply underqualified. So I went back to graduate school again and I got a,

dual focus PhD in TESOL and creative writing just so I could kind of like look at the two things I really cared about. And then I went back to the TESOL or TESOL part is the English as a second language. And what is like, can you share a little bit more about that? It's interesting. Yeah. Can you explain what is English as a second language? Like, what does that mean? TESOL is to teaching English to speakers of other languages. Um,

which is because there's a lot of terminology problems when it comes to TEFL a lot of the time because it's teaching English as a foreign language versus teaching English as a second language versus teaching English to speakers of other languages. And scholars in the field will differentiate those pretty quickly in terms of how is English being used. If you're in, say, South Texas, then you're expected to be bilingual in Spanish and in English. Yeah.

And because both of them are being used around you in a constant kind of flux as opposed to, you know, other countries where, you know, you might be in Germany, for example, and you're learning English. And it's not really a second language so much, but you're using it because it is a lingua franca around the world. Like it's you're using it to talk to people all over the world outside of your own culture. Right.

And, you know, but Tesla is a very kind of umbrella term for all of those. And it's looking at the actual practice of how somebody learns English and looking at best practices and how can we make this process better and more effective. So Tesla is like a universal standard. Can you say that? Well, it's not really standard. It's kind of just an umbrella term that we use to talk about any kind of English language teaching. Okay. Yeah. No, it makes sense. The, um,

I think in different environments, the needs of the speakers are going to be a little bit different, as you mentioned, right? Like you could be in like South Texas and you grow up in a Latin Hispanic household and then you pick up the language or you could be like, I had friends who grew up in Hong Kong, moved to the US, you know, and 10 years old and, you know...

went through some kind of language program. But it makes sense, like all over the world, you have people that are trying to pick up skills in this new language or like a second or third or whatever language in a different language other than their native language for different reasons. It could be for professional reasons. It could be for other types of reasons. And so like the language learning needs are a little bit different. One of the things like our, so a lot of the listeners are,

for this show, we have different platforms that Justin publishes. And one of the platforms is based here, like Shimalaya in China, where we have a lot of listeners and a lot of people, they listen to the show partly, you know, for the charisma of the hosts and the great guests. But they also listen to kind of in this whole Tesla kind of notion of they're trying to listen to native speakers in a really natural way, talk about topics they're interested in, but also, you know,

be able to expand their knowledge a little bit. So it's interesting. Do you have any tips for people, like based on your experience in China, do you have any tips for people, you know, young people here in China that are trying to get better at their English? Yeah, like, I think it's just important to have fun with it. Like, I think that when I'm looking at

the way that English so often gets taught in China, it, there is a lot of root memorization that's going on, which is, um,

good at a certain stage, like early in somebody's language learning kind of journey, I guess, is that, you know, you have to learn a certain number of set words at the very beginning. But as you develop later on, you have to start seeing the language a little bit differently. Like using a language on a day in and day out basis is a creative act, right?

And it's a moment of creativity. And it's a moment where you are using words and language in a new and surprising way all the time. And you're going to have more – you're going to develop faster for longer if you're enjoying the process in some sort of way. So I just find it's important to keep a good sense of humor about it and see it as a form of play because –

that's all language is always a creative act, no matter whether you're speaking your first language or your second language. And if you look at the way that kids learn languages so effectively, they learn it through games more than anything else. And it's deeply important to continue seeing kids

all language activities as an opportunity to be creative and have fun with it. Cause like, if you see it as a chore, you'll do it as a chore and you know, you will burn out and it ends pretty quickly that way. I think that's really well said. I think we sometimes forget like the purpose of language, the, you know, the purpose of language being to express yourself and, you know, you, you,

You know, we think of this, we can think of it as this like academic discipline and like, I got to learn this. I got to get better. I got to get to this test level, et cetera, et cetera. And like the first question people will ask, you know, maybe it's like, like what level are you? Yes. But the reality is that, you know, if you can understand, if you can,

tune into this podcast you can listen you can understand 50% of it that's great you're having fun with it and you're gonna get better through that exposure the other thing is like if you're using the language and you find ways to express yourself in cool ways then you're learning again like my my I was FaceTiming my niece she's

19 months. And I guess at this point, my brother says that she should know about 18 words. So she's kind of like reaching that milestone, but it's amazing what she can do with those 18 words. And it's lovely that she's expressing herself in different ways. Yeah.

And so I think even with 18 words, a child can be extremely expressive and people can understand her. And so I think people get really caught up, like how many words do I know? How can I, my level is this and that. But it is, I think, a fun process. And I love what you said about it's a creative process. So you don't have to be perfect with the grammar, perfect with everything, because if you're stuck on perfection, like Shakespearean English, you're never gonna actually achieve what you really want.

Yeah, and Shakespeare made all sorts of errors. Like, you know, yeah, like I'm a huge Shakespeare fan and, you know,

When they were printing the first folio, like there's no two first folios that are exactly the like because they kept changing the spelling of different words as they were printing the first folio. So even in Shakespeare's own works, they can't even agree on how words are spelled or what words come in certain orders. Like, you know, it is a moment of play. And, you know, when you're hanging out with your friends and you're talking with somebody and you're

laughing and you're having fun because somebody said a joke or somebody used language in a surprising way, then yeah, you're having fun. And that's also taking ownership of the language in some sort of way, which is partly why I was so interested in both creative writing and second language learning, because I

For me, creative writing serves as such an important opportunity to start taking ownership of your language. And it gives you an opportunity to close the gap between a reader and literature. Because if you're writing creatively, you're creating literature in your own way. And it's an opportunity to really think and kind of...

Meditate on what it is that you want to say and kind of develop an individualized voice in another language. And, you know, that can be deeply empowering. Yeah.

Well, I agree with everything you're saying in terms of if you want to improve any language, it doesn't have to be English. You know, the key is to have fun with it, treat it like a game, try to use it creatively. That way you're less reliant on just trying to memorize characters and words and rather really internalizing them and making them a part of your vernacular and the way you think. But do you think a lot of it has to do, like the pressures here have to do with the...

like the fierce competition that young people here have in the educational system where everything is so exam-based, test-based. So everything is about scoring, what you're scoring on that test, right? And so when you make that the criteria, when you make that the goal is to do well on an exam, then that just breeds more people just trying to just memorize or...

You know, it's hard to make it a fun thing at that point. Well, it is. And it's scary. Like, you know, I'm a professor at Jiao Tong. So my students are some of the best test takers in China. Like it's to think about how,

competitive it is. Like when I look at my class sometimes and I'm thinking just what these parents went through in order to get their kids to sit in that seat in my class, it gets ridiculous to think about because this is an end step in a long plan that so many parents have had in terms of trying to get their kids into a great university here in China. Because like China has a

serious seat problem when it comes to universities. And it has a really, even a deeper seat problem when it comes to top universities. And there's, you know, and getting into, because students take the Gaokao here in China to get into universities. And the Gaokao is so difficult to explain to,

to people in America about how competitive the Gaokao is and just how vicious the Gaokao is. Like if you want, you can take the Gaokao anytime. Old Gaokaos are available online and you can take them like, and you know, I have a doctorate in English and I take the Shanghai Gaokao for English every single year. And sometimes I get a little confused by the questions. Um,

And these are high school students who don't have the same backing that I do. And I feel, you know, legitimately sorry for them. And there's a writing portion for the English Gaokao. And when you ask students,

English students, when you ask students at Jiao Tong, like, what did your high school students, what did your high school teachers teach you to prepare you for the writing section of the Gaokao? You know, you hear very similar stories. You know, I was told to use long, complicated vocabulary words in order to impress the readers. I was told to make my handwriting super neat.

Because they grade neat handwriting higher. I was taught to use super long sentences because longer sentence structures reveal a complex understanding of the language. So like you have every single time I get an incoming crop of Jiao Tong students, it's a large group of students whose understanding of style is a mess.

Because they have a very strong understanding of how to score well on a test because they would not be in the seat that they are in if they did not test well. But like, you know, at the same time, they have to kind of take a step back and kind of reevaluate the way they're thinking about writing because, you know, sometimes short sentences are excellent. And sometimes simpler vocabulary is more effective. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, as a professional educator here in China, can you expand on, you know, for our listeners who aren't here or, you know, for our non-Chinese listeners who might not understand why it's so competitive and what the Gaokao is, can you kind of expand what you've seen so far in terms of the education system and, you know, why it's so competitive here? Well, it's...

Part of it's a number problem, you know, because Americans, myself included, like we have such a different understanding of what it means to take a standardized test.

Like the Gaokao was run once a year. And if you do not, if you have a bad day, you know, your stomach is upset. You can't focus one day. You didn't sleep well the night before you have a bad day and you tank that test. You do not get to take it again until the following year. So you just lost a year of your life because you had a bad test day. The Gaokao lasts two days and.

And when it happens, I never know exactly when it's happening. But when I walk into Jiao Tong and I see the students lining up at the main gate to take their pictures because it's their wish to do well enough on this test that they will end up at my university, like, I know that it's going on. And the measures are incredibly strict, you know.

You know, they run drones over the classroom to make sure that there's not wireless communication. You know, students are isolated. They're bused in. They are searched. Like it is an intense process. Like they go to cram schools. They are staying late. Like,

When I have conversations with my Chinese students about how much studying they did to pass the Gaokao, they're in classrooms 60 hours a week studying and cramming, trying to get a good grade to go into one of the top schools. And that's just a numbers problem. And the fact that there's – I don't know exactly what the numbers are. Yeah, I've had a few drinks. Yeah.

But the population is just so large and there's just new crops of students every year that dwarf any numbers you're going to get from basically any other country. Well, maybe besides India, but basically any other country. And there's so few selected educational seats and admission, right? And just within universities here alone, but even if you want to even scale that down to like the top universities, which obviously everyone's competing for,

then it gets infinite. Like it becomes a fraction of that. So every year you have all these kids competing for like so few spots. It's a dilemma. It's a dilemma for students that really, you know, no other country can, I think can really relate to how competitive it is. Right. Just because of the sheer numbers. This is fascinating. I have actually have several questions, but one of the questions that I,

we might be able to talk about is to your point, Justin, can we find an example or some similar metaphor like elsewhere in the world? Like, you know, let's say sports academies in the U.S., right? Is there some other parallel example where the competition is

at such an early age is so brutal that it produces, you know, people that are incredibly skilled and talented, like, like, you know, football, you know, the, the soccer football academies in Europe. So I think that's one like topic. Then the other one I just wanted to mention before I forget is I'd love to get your perspective around what,

what's the output of this, right? So you have these incredible students who have really mastered a certain skill. And, you know, that in and of itself is...

a very powerful thing. Like, like how do you think that plays out in terms of like China competitiveness and society? Like, you know, maybe they're, maybe they write like really long, like shitty English sentences, but like, what's the positive, you know, like where you have this society where people are so fucking competitive and when they put their mind to something, they can execute better than anyone else. Like, is that a negative thing?

And are we going to have like poorly written second language, you know, creative writing forever? I'm just curious, like what's the kind of the positive and the negative that playing out? Yeah. Those are both excellent questions. And when we look at the first side of it, like it's important to note that like the competitiveness to get into a college is

this is not the first hurdle that they hit. Like the gal cow is the second major exam that they take. They also have to take the junk cow, which is the one that they take out of middle school to get into a decent high school. So like you're already going over one hurdle just to get into a decent high school. You're just weeding people out. Yes. That might set you up to get,

Into a decent high school, which might set you up to get the right preparation so you can take the gal cow to get into a decent college. So, like, the competitiveness is so hard because in America, like, I was in middle school and I went straight to high school, didn't take a single test. Like, I was like, yep, graduated eighth grade, going to ninth grade. Well, like, no wonder, I mean...

You know, just as an aside, no wonder when I was in fifth grade and I'm like, I don't know, 10 years old, I'm sitting in my uncle's study in Houston, Texas. And he worked for NASA for many years, like brilliant, brilliant guy, led all kinds of teams. And I remember him saying, it's like, Eric, you know, you're in fifth grade now. You got some time to play around, chill. But once you hit sixth grade...

you better mean business because that's it, man. Cause six, seven, eight, that's where you're going to make it. I mean, like I'm in America, right? I was born in America. Like, you know, and he was like, nope, you know, six, seven, eight, you got to go balls out. That's going to determine your future. And, you know, like my parents were relentless. I remember getting beatings when I was like, uh, from first and second grade, just relentless beatings because, um, you know,

It's like the stereotypical Asian parent or family kind of mentality. Yeah. But I mean, the culture is so powerful of Gaokao that it made it all the way to Sugar Land. Yes. I'm not cussing, by the way. I got some criticism. We all did. Shout out to Aunt Grace. Love you. Hope you're...

Hope you feel a little bit better. But I know you're listening to the show. We love you. You know, we appreciate the parenting. I know it was a little bit tough, but... No, just on a side, we have a lot of listeners that were saying we're cursing too much on this show. No, Eric was cursing too much on the show. We're dropping F-bombs way too much on the show. They're like, we can't tell the difference, but they're just like, we can't tell the difference, but we think the guy Eric is Eric because he says...

a lot.

But anyway, what were you going to say, Ryan? What a tag phrase to be associated with. I know. I'm mofo Eric. He's like, yeah, that's a guy that asks lots of questions and just says mofo. That's what he's known for in the comments section. Got to be known for something. But yeah, like every... Speak to your second question about what is the output of this. Like, there is an output. And I think that...

Every single year you hear rumors about how the Gaokao is being adjusted to try to adjust the output essentially to where like if we rekey and recalibrate the Gaokao slightly, then we might get a different kind of applicant that might be more useful. And there's been a lot of emphasis on creativity and the kind of creative output because the kind of –

that are required for the English writing section in the Gaokao are very, um,

practical for the most part you know uh you know chinese student is having trouble with his friend who will not study very much what kind of advice would you give to the student or you know uh student a is not doing their homework all the time what would you tell student a to you know uh help them out you know student is coming and visiting your uh

is visiting your hometown, what kind of letter would you write them to, you know, prepare them to visit your hometown? So all the questions are basically trying to get you to like lecture your friends to study harder. And so like, well, it's, it tries to give you a specific audience and a specific situation where you're entering into a rhetorical situation where, you know, both your audience and your tone are well-established.

And, but they're not very creative. Like you could have way more gap activities towards like, Hey, like here's three pictures, you know, tell me a story that involves these three pictures. And in which case, because students are taught stock phrases and sentences to be using on these exams that because the questions are so well established. You know what? It's interesting. Yeah.

It's almost like training an AI algorithm. Like it's a weird human form of AI where they establish the parameters and they continually sort of this, rather than rhetorical, I could use the word recursive and this recursive algorithm. And, you know, basically it's like self-adapting and they get better and better and better, but they're just human beings. But that's exactly what an AI program would do almost. And, yeah.

Yeah, it's challenging. And I do see to where there are moments where this impressive study habit shows itself at the university level. Like, teaching at the level I do at Jiao Tong, like, there are problems that I had all the time teaching, even at very good schools in America, like, I just don't have at Jiao Tong. Like...

If I assign an essay, all essays will be turned in at the beginning of class in a neat pile and they're ready for me. You know, students are not absent from class. So, Ryan, do you think that like...

and this might not be an either or, but I'm curious, like, so would you rather have, do you think it's better for the educational system, it's better for society to have this really prescriptive approach in the beginning and then have people build up that discipline and then eventually you can teach them other outlets and then, you know, expand their mind? Or do you think it's better to, you know, have the system that we have in the U.S. where you really open it up in the beginning and

And, you know, it's not as prescriptive and, you know, you give people much more choices, but then you encounter issues where people can't do the basics. Like what's better or, you know, like, or could you combine these two approaches? I think you like, I don't know. I'm not an expert in early childhood education, but... Neither were my parents. No, just kidding. Just kidding. Thanks, mom and dad. And that was the last time Alex got a Christmas present. And...

But, yeah, no, it's – I do think it's going to be a compromise of some kind between these two systems. We – and I think it's kind of – we have to ask ourselves what the goal of education is.

A lot of criticism of the modern educational system is that essentially the modern educational system in the form that it is currently functioning is not designed to create thinkers. It's designed to create good workers. And that's why we have deadlines. That's why we have set schedules. That's why we have appointed class meetings.

Like, you know, essentially we are preparing people to enter a corporate world at some point. Even in the open method that we have now is that we are essentially preparing workers to

for the general workforce by making them responsive, by getting them used to deadlines. Soldiers for the workforce. Soldiers for the workforce to where, yeah, we want you to be creative inside of this box. And we want you to be really creative. Get to the corners of that box. But isn't this everywhere, right? Because the SATs have gotten a lot of criticism as in the recent years for being the same sort of way, right? It's very standardized and you don't really, it's really kind of...

Like a lot of it is just not really creative. It doesn't really examine the creative parts of you or for people who operate in just different ways, who think about and approach problems, solving the different ways. It's not really geared for those kind of thinkers who kind of think outside the box. Yeah. But it's, it's also a different way that college admissions is set up. Like in China, the Gaokao is your ticket into school. Right.

Like in America, we have a much more holistic admissions process. Maybe now, but it used to be the SATs were weighed very heavily. They were weighed heavily, but you still turned in your high school transcript. You were still talking about what kind of things you did. You still wrote an essay to your college where, you know, I'm sure you both wrote college entrance essays where-

you want to go to a school and you tell them a little bit about yourself and you do a sample of your own writing that is much more creative and much more open than any opportunity that they have in China.

And that the overall admissions process in America is a much more holistic understanding of you as a student. Well, to your point about the questions on the GAL call sort of helping to shape people's approach.

And it's this rhetorical approach where people, it's all about studying and stuff like that. The US process definitely is more holistic. Although the SAT is weighted, people spend lots of times in sports, volunteering in their classes. Yes.

you know, they might take a couple of SAT classes, but that wasn't really the norm. Maybe it is like these days a little bit more. But if you look at the output of how the system is designed, the behaviors of the student and where they invest their time is much more holistic. Yes. And then in a China, of course, because...

The tone is set where this test determines everything. That's where all the energy goes. Definitely. I mean, my perception, at least here, is that that's where all the energy goes. Whereas growing up, it's like very few people went to those SAT prep. Some people did. Really? Where I was growing up, at least around my time, everyone was going to the SAT prep. But it didn't mean they didn't play sports. It didn't mean they did all the other stuff. It was much more, I think, a balanced approach. Yeah, no. There is a massive...

Yeah.

And in America, it's a very honored pastime of having the high school part-time job where you are working a job that does not appreciate you very much. And you are doing something basic and, you know. You're bagging groceries. You're bagging groceries, you know. And it looks good on your application. Yeah. To where, you know, hey, like I had a part-time job. I was successful. I started at this rate. I ended at this rate.

And, you know, these are the things I learned by working with a real company. And, you know, those experiences are valid in America and they're encouraged in America. And if you are a 17-year-old kid hanging out in a high school in America, it's expected that you have some sort of part-time job. And real life experience dealing with angry customers and you're much more socially adjusted. But, you know, I've always...

I've always been suspicious, right? And this isn't from any grounded evidence, right? But it's just me. I've always been suspicious, though, because I understand everything you guys are saying. I know. But I've always been really suspicious about like for real admissions into the top schools in the United States, into the Ivy Leagues, into all that.

how much of all that periphery extracurriculars, you would say, that look good on application, are they really taking into account at the end of the day? I think, in my mind, they were always used, like if you had two really close applicants, and close test scores, close grades,

and you wanted one to edge over the other, you would start looking at the extracurriculars and see what else they've done. And that would give one person the edge over the other. But it didn't really weigh heavily into their decisions. It was more about their tests, their grades throughout high school and their SAT exam scores.

I think it factored into it dramatically. Dramatically? Dramatically, yeah. I went through this experience. I went to a good school. I was a top student. I mean...

just a good test taker, almost perfect scores on SATs and all that stuff. But I wasn't well-rounded enough and I wasn't mature enough. And it came through through my essay, through... I mean, I did all kinds of extracurricular activities. I was president of different clubs. In my mind, well-rounded. But to get into the top universities...

you really, I mean, the bar was really high. I mean, I literally only missed four questions on the SAT. The entire test, I missed four questions. I was top point whatever percent of my class. Look at you, Eric. But some of the top programs that I wanted to get in, I was like wait list or I didn't get in. And I know looking back, it's because I wasn't well-rounded.

If I was valedictorian number one in everything, I was absolutely the elite number one, probably would have gotten in. But they were looking for someone who was in that top 1%, but also very well-rounded. If I had played basically sports, definitely would have been a shoe-in. Because I would have learned the people skills. I would have learned how to articulate myself, tell my story. But I was a one-trick pony, but I wasn't quite that prize pony. Well, yeah, like...

When I was in my undergrad, I studied abroad at Oxford. And at Oxford, there's a mandatory interview that you have to take before you go there because they're looking for a certain kind of student to go there. In a sense, a student that is both willing to admit what it is that they don't know.

to where like the tutors who sit in on the interviews, they specifically start asking incredibly advanced questions at some point just to see the point at which the applicant will admit that they don't know something. And at the same time, they're looking for students that are willing to ask questions and willing to engage and have a conversation back and forth. And, you know, because that's something that

you know, when I'm interviewing new professors to come to Jiao Tong University, like, I'm like, how do you deal with silence? Because that's something you face in China that like, when I teach Americans, like Americans will not shut up sometimes in class. And you're like, so what do you all think about that? And everybody in the class has an opinion. And then you get to your Chinese class and you're like, so what'd you guys think about the text? Yeah.

Doesn't matter how inflammatory, doesn't matter how incendiary, doesn't matter how provocative the text that you assigned. Students are just like, well, you know, it was cool.

Well, is it sort of fear to like express anything that might you like, they might think like you might just come back at them or like, you know, bite them, bite their heads off if they say something wrong? Well, they're not used to arguing with their teachers. It's a dynamic. Yeah, because that's something that in a Western education is standard is that you're supposed to

discuss actively with your teachers. Like, I'm going to ask you a question. It's not always a trap. Sometimes I just want to see what you think about it, to see that you are thinking about it, you know, because this is a, you know, really great text that you look at in a class. They're always the beginning of a conversation. You know, they're asking a question and any really good text out there is asking a question that is something that you linger with.

and that you hold on to, and that you don't always understand on your first pass. And it's a question that you grow up with as you think about it over time. And you want to see your students at least recognizing that there is a question being asked of them, or that there's a conversation that's beginning to take place. And it takes a lot

Yeah.

Oh, that exists in the professional world here too, even after they graduate. You know, like, just like, really, just tell me what you think and we'll chat about it. And it's not surprising to me. I mean, if you think about the whole notion of the Gaul call, there is an answer. There's a precise answer to every question on the Gaul call. And it's a common answer, right? Like you can't answer, there's not a subjective answer to it. So every Gaul call...

that you take, I would imagine all of the questions have a defined, well-defined answer. So there's no argument, there's no debate. Basically, there's an answer to it. So like they've been trained, you know, for a long time from the zongkao to the gaokao, et cetera, et cetera. And it takes time to kind of open their minds up a little bit. It's really interesting. You know, I'm going to kind of

share something so we have a um ryan i don't know if you know this but um we have a wechat group that's associated with um the honest drink no i didn't know that yeah you can join um i think you'd be popular people ask you for advice oh yeah so um can i can i bring this one up well you can bring anything up what are you looking at me for i don't know well you know because you you had a long soliloquy in there so i don't want to get banned or something no i'm kidding i'm kidding so so

Let me try to be concise about this. But anyways, we have this little group and, you know, so people, you know, they're listeners of the show, friends of ours, guests. We thought we'd create a little community, right? And we put some basic ground rules, but we wanted to be pretty free flow, right? But we, you know, we asked people like not to,

put a bunch of personal stuff in there. We asked the topics to be somewhat relevant to what we talk about in the show and the ethos of the show. We said, don't send like a bunch, like audio text and things like that, just so that like we could be kind of simple and focused. And, but we wanted to hear everyone's sort of opinion.

And what was really great was that people did offer their opinion. And then this past week there was a debate and people were debating about what topics should be relevant to the chat and people were getting fierce. Yeah. It was very divided. How, how many people are in this channel? Over a hundred. Yeah. Like, like I run the Shanghai writing workshop and the Shanghai writing workshop has like 10 different chat groups about different things. And like,

The fiction chat has over 300 people in it and 300 writers trying to agree upon anything is hilarious. And we had a similar reckoning in my fiction chat this last week to where like, I was like, there's 300 people in this room and you're posting a cartoon about middle age. Like this is a chat room about creative writing. Like if it is not about creative writing, like I'm going to get mean here. And like, it's,

Like there was a real anger that I started feeling towards people that were just, you know, so purposely posting things inside of the chat because like it's almost like spam at that point. It is. And it's,

It's hard for people who are not the administrators of chats to understand sometimes because in China, the admin is legally responsible for everything that happens inside of the chat. So like you can't not look away if you're the admin, like you have to be cognizant of what is happening inside of your chat rooms and like,

So I got really tired of the fact that like I would come back to my phone and be like, you have missed 137 messages. And I'm like, my goodness, people like you don't have 137 things to say about writing. I promise you that you don't like, you know, and then like.

Yeah, like... But like you brought this up, Eric. Like when the debate was going on in the chat, we were looking, right? And at first, when it was first happening... You guys wanted to clamp down. Yeah, but Eric was like, this is amusing. It's like a social experiment, right? Like we got all these people who didn't know each other into one chat because the only thing they have in common is they're fans of the show. And

And they get into this chat and then you see kind of how it plays out. And I even texted Eric. I'm like, it's kind of like Lord of the Flies happening right now. You know what I mean? It's like all hell's breaking loose. Some people are rising up and some people are supporting that guy and another people are supporting the other side and they're kind of just going at it. And it was very interesting to see. And really the debate of that particular chat was, is English education important?

really a topic we can really be talking about in the chat because they were talking about like, you know, there's a lot of listeners want to learn and improve their English. So they were sharing all these like their test scores and it just became this whole English education chat. But people were like, eventually they were getting emotional in that moment and telling each other to shut up, right? They were like, well, you don't like this topic? Then shut the F up. Yeah.

Wow. And then they're like, you can't tell me what to say, what I can't say. You know what I mean? And then I'm like, okay, go back to the call. Well, they still have another year before that happens. What's about to happen is the graduate school exam. The graduate school exam happens on the 26th of this year month. So like that's about to happen. But let me ask you this, right? So I'm going to kind of put you on the spot, right? So you're like...

You know, you want your students to be open-minded, discuss, debate, you know, and be able to have a dialogue with you. But then you're like clamping down on your WeChat groups and you want to be the, like, you know, you're like, no, you can't do this, you can't do this, and you're getting frustrated. And then you want to be all China style on them. So, like, what gives? Well, it's two different things. Like, you know...

The Shanghai Writing Workshop is a non-profit thing that I do on the side that, you know, I am not being paid for in any kind of way. In fact, I lose money pretty regularly on trying to run this public enterprise. And I...

I'm completely okay with anything that gets said in those chat groups as long as it pertains to writing in some sort of way. But, like, I am not interested in what your pet looks like today. Or I'm not interested in you sending me a picture of your lunch. Or, you know, like, that has nothing to do. People do that.

We got... Well, that's kind of what was happening in our chat. No one sent the picture of their lunch. People were sending pictures of like kids. Yeah. Videos of kids. Really? Yeah. You don't follow the chat? No, I did, but I didn't see any videos of kids. There were videos of random kids. Yeah. What for? Just to see how cute the kid was. How could I? How could I?

Yeah, so you're in a moment where you're looking at just all these things that have nothing to do with it. And as an admin of a WeChat, I'm looking at the number at the top of the screen to see how many people I have inside of my chat room. And when there are lots of spammy things going on inside the chat group, the number of people who are in my chat start going down. Right, yeah, people start leaving. That's a great point. We were like, because...

If the content's not relevant and you have one or two people dominating the chat and being too vocal on topics that are not interesting to the rest of the group, it actually impacts the entire group negatively. Very negatively. Yeah. And same thing like... And you can't like...

confront somebody who's spamming your chat very, like you have to just remove them from the chat and then have your conversation somewhere else. Because like, you know, if you're in a chat room with 300 people, then that means every single time you're sending a retort to something, 300 people are reading it. It's like reply online.

all in the email groups. Yeah, reply them all. And like, yeah, like I had a friend of mine who was in the Air Force and like he would talk about how he would get hundreds of emails a day because somebody cheeky would say that he lost a paperclip and then 7,000 people would send him in a reply all email that, you know, is this your paperclip? Yeah.

In my company, what happens is like there's these like email aliases that people don't know. And somehow someone gets an email from that alias. And so they're like, they reply. They would just reply to that alias. It's like, hey, take me off the list. But they don't know that the list is the entire company. So then the next person gets it's like, hey, I don't think I'm on this email. And then it usually blows up. And there's about 20 emails before. And then people start getting pissed off. It's like, do not reply all mother...

There it is. You couldn't say it. Just say it once. Say it once. You have a quota of one per show. But so I think that like I work in. What do you work, Eric? I work in a field where, you know, kind of in a leadership position.

kind of role where I'm working with lots and lots of people in a matrix organization where they don't directly report to me. At the same time, I have to influence them. Kind of like you're in a WeChat group, right? And so you have to influence them. And, you know, sometimes less is more. And so, you know, my whole sort of

thought process this week and I was kind of Justin Howie myself was we were looking at and observing just like let it play out right because we actually want the people in the group to be able to you know have a conversation with each other and decide for themselves what they want in the group like of course we'll help steer it and we'll help shape it but if we have to like jump in on every moment you know it's

you know, very overwhelming, right? Overbearing. I agree. In the beginning, that should be the approach, but it reaches, sometimes it might reach a certain point where as the administrator or as the reason why these people are in a group in the first place, you have to kind of come out and show a little bit of leadership and

when things start getting a little bit out of hand right yeah because otherwise people are just being like fuck this you know like like are you feeling okay you want more we move out they get themselves out of the chat i'm doing okay just uh had to take a second well we're almost killing this bottle of jack daniels by the way yeah it's almost done with it it's been going down a little red we're going to finish this thing before it's all over

No, like, and the southern accent's gonna come in in just a second. Just dominate! The more whiskey gets inside of me, the more it's like... But you know how I can tell that you're southern? What's that? Just by the way he pours his whiskey. By the way he pours, like he literally... You pour it from like 20 feet up. Yeah, and it's usually like about 45 seconds. Yeah, you pour up to like almost, you fill up the cup with whiskey. That's strong. That's strong. But Ryan, let me...

let's switch gears a tiny little bit it's kind of relevant but it's it's something i'll be remiss if i didn't ask you while you were here as a writer in china um and an educator but really you know a creative writing is your passion uh do you did you ever have to deal or face anything um

Like, that had to do with censorship of what you could write, can't write. Was that... Is that even a factor in your line of work? Or is that not even a thing? Yeah, I get asked that a lot. And it's really not much of a thing for me. Like, because...

You know, like I was shocked when I went to bookstores in China and I found copies of 1984 in the bookstores in China. And then I was talking to my Chinese friends. I was like, I can't believe there's 1984. It's in the bookstores. It's everywhere. And they're like, yeah, it's in English.

And you're like, oh. But even still. Yeah. And the point being is that so few people can speak English fluently in China that the censors are less concerned about what's available in English over what's available in Chinese. And so, yes, because...

What it is that I write is all in English. It's never been that much of a trouble for me. Or as kind of like the popular saying in China goes, like, it's not illegal until it's illegal. It's not illegal until it's a problem. So the content you're writing, if...

If you were to write it in Chinese, the same stuff you've been writing and writing now, do you think you would have been censored already? Probably not because I self-censor pretty aggressively. Why? Even if you were anywhere else, that's just your process? No, because I want to stay here. Because, you know, it's...

you know, as writers, we all sit around sometimes and sometimes we joke about this is, will be in my book after I leave China. And cause we know that as long as we wish to get our visa renewed for the following year, you know, you have to keep it to yourself and keep it under your hat. And, um, you know, that's something that,

You know, because when you really think about it, self-censorship is way more powerful than state censorship any time of the day. Because, you know, the state can only be aware of so much that is going on. And, you know, self-censorship is something that a lot of writers, I think, engage in in China just because we're happy here. Is this some kind of virtue signaling? No. No, I'm kidding. It's like it's...

We've been talking about virtue signaling in the context of the US. Yes, but this isn't virtue signaling at all. He's stating a fact for the record so that if our show gets audited,

He's good. No, go on. Well, you have to be careful. Like, for those of us who are here day in, day out, like, I've been here for seven years. I plan to be here for many more years. You like it here. Yeah, I like it here. I'm comfortable in Shanghai. I love it here. This is the longest I've ever lived in one place in my life. Really? Yes. I thought you were in Dallas for a long time. I was, but, you know, then I left.

And, you know, we moved around some. And, you know, we moved around Texas. And then I left college and you move around some more. And, you know, I've been here for seven years. I'm comfortable here. I like it here. What is it about it here that makes you feel like, okay, this is where I really want to stay? Just the sense that, like, when you're in Shanghai, everything feels like it's happening at the same time. And, you know, there's a buzz about Shanghai that, like...

People are trying and they believe that they can build things in Shanghai when you talk to people. And the fact that like in Shanghai, you meet people who are so competent at what they do.

And, you know, that they have energy and passion about what they want to do. And people are building things. And the city is building. There's so much energy and development. There's so much energy here. Positive energy. Positive energy to where I look at the city and I'm just so proud of the fact that I live here. And that this is happening. And that, you know, you're here at this moment in this place in time that it feels like forever.

a weird privilege that you never knew that you were a part of. Is this, is this a feeling, is this a sentiment that you feel like if you were to go back home to Texas that people could understand if you were to try to explain this to them? Oh, not at all. Like every time I go back to Texas and you tell people that you live in Shanghai, it's, it's like telling them that you live on the moon. Like, they're just like, you live in Shanghai. Yeah.

It just sounds like you live on the other side of the world when you tell them that you live in Shanghai. And I'm like, it's a 14-hour flight, okay? It's not the end of the world, okay? There's nonstop Shanghai to Dallas, okay? Like during non-COVID times, there's a nonstop Shanghai to Dallas. But to them, it's just this alien world, right? Yeah. But is that a little bit of Dallas versus Houston?

I think it's a little bit of Texas. What, you think Houston's more open-minded? Well, Houston... Okay. I would recommend... Well, this is probably not easy. Just for the record, Ryan, you're from Dallas. Yes. Eric, you're from Houston. Both Texas boys.

Okay, just so the listeners know. That's right. Were you in Dallas, Dallas? Or what part of like what? I grew up in Plano. I knew you were from Plano. Somehow I knew. Yeah, like I grew up in Plano. Did you go to like Plano East or Plano West? I went to Plano, Plano. Is there like three? Yeah, there's three. You guys are getting way too Texas specific. So Plano is basically where everyone lives. Yeah, because Plano is where everybody actually lives.

Right. It's like the Sugar Land of Dallas, but bigger. It's more like the woodlands. Is it like the Puxi of Shanghai versus the... No, no, no. It's where the money lives. It's where the money lives. It's like Sugar Land, but bigger. Yeah. We used to compete against the Plano schools. Plano schools were the top schools in America, and they dominated in every category. We were...

We are very cognizant of the fact that we were some of the top schools. Were you in debate or what were you in? I was in academic decathlon. Oh, mother peeper. Yeah. Because I was in – and we were a top school. Yeah. We won the national championships. We did pretty good in ACTEC. So what I'm getting from this is you guys were both dorks. Totally dorks. We recognize each – it was like – I was the only jock. It was dork at first sight. It was dork at first sight. Yeah.

Justin is a jock. I was terrible at school. He was the first Asian All-State linebacker in New Jersey. I was the first Asian captain of the football team in my high school. But we weren't really that great at football, so it's really not...

Really not that great of a distinction. As opposed to Texas where it's kind of the state religion. Yeah, yeah. I've never prayed so hard except for in a football game. So you're not going back to Texas anytime soon. Once the travel bans or once it's okay to travel, are you going to head back anytime soon just to visit or what? Well, like, of course I miss my family and I'll see my family soon.

But they understand. And plus, I don't know, America is just such a mess right now. I don't think many Americans are clamoring to go back to America at any point. But the weird thing is, and this is just speculation. Again, this is ignorant speculation. But I feel like there are probably a lot of Americans in America who probably feel that

As bad as things are in America, they're probably worse in other parts of the world. And yeah, like I had to explain to my parents that like things are really good in Shanghai right now. Like, you know, we have the situation under control. Not only that, like when we had that small outbreak in Pudong about a month ago, like I was amazed at my own reaction to it, which is that I can

completely trusted the government to take care of it. I was like, you know, their contract tracers are going to be all over this. And they were. And they were. They were like, they're going to quarantine who needs to be quarantined and they're going to be on this. They clamped down right away. It was like a movie. It was like E.T. It really was. Like we're actually E.T. over here. Like they send in like 2,000 people to find one person. Yes. In America, they send one person in to stop 2,000 people. Yeah. And like I...

I found it amazing. My own reaction to it was just like, I completely trust the government to take care of it. Like they're going to do whatever is necessary. Like, and then in America you have people who are whining about wearing a mask or whining about isolation procedures. And you just want to say, shut up. Like this is what's necessary to manage a pandemic.

Like, you know, you're talking about personal freedom and I just don't even understand what it is that you're talking about sometimes. Like, yeah, next time you get a surgery, why don't you tell the surgeon that I believe my personal freedom is that you don't wear a mask during your surgery or, you know, why don't you try having dinner in the middle of the interstate? Like, you know, like, yes, absolutely.

Once your freedom impinges on my freedom, it's no longer freedom. It's an imposition. Social responsibility. Yeah. It becomes dogma. It becomes dogma. And you should be... You got to do what you got to do in order to maintain a healthy society. But I just feel like despite all the information that's out there that is available to people, there are people...

you know, in the West, some people, not everybody, that, you know, still stick, even as bad as things are, they still stick to this mentality of like, oh, we're number one. We're the best. And when you tell them about other countries, they just feel like, well, it's got to be way worse in China, right? Like, you know, it's just like this assumption. Like, of course it has to be worse in China. But then you try to tell them the truth here and they have a really hard time swallowing it or even believing you. Well, like...

My mother, for example, had never been to Shanghai before. And when she came to Shanghai, she couldn't believe at how big it was. And like that drive from Pudong Airport to the middle of Puxi, like you're just seeing so much Shanghai. And they're like, are we still in Shanghai? And I'm like, yeah, you're still in Shanghai. And it's Shanghai for like two hours that direction. Like, you know, Shanghai is huge. Yeah.

And, you know, because, yeah, like people in America just do not understand how big Shanghai is. Like people like New York City is so crazy. You know, we have 8.5 million people in one place. And like there's 25 million people who are registered in Shanghai. Let alone the unregistered. Let alone the unregistered people who happen to be inside of Shanghai. Like, you know, it's 3%.

three New York cities stacked up on top of each other. Like, it's hard to explain to Americans just how big Shanghai is. And my mother didn't really understand it until she came here and saw it and was like, it is so beautiful.

It's mind-boggling. It's mind-boggling. And then you're like, oh, Beijing's bigger. Did you take her to any of the Pearl Tower or the financial? Yeah, we went to the Grand Hyatt. Yeah, or Cloud, whatever. Yeah, Cloud. I can't remember the name of that place. And on a good day, when you look out, like if you go to the Pearl Tower. Not Cloud, right? Vu? Oh, that's Hyde-on-the-Bund. Yeah, that's Hyde-on-the-Bund, yeah. Yeah.

If you go to the Pearl Tower on a good day and you can see 360, you just can't believe how many people live in town. It's crazy. Well, yeah. It's just when the air actually gets clear enough that you can see that far. Because the biggest limiter is not the number of buildings that are available, but it's how far you can see most of the day. And you get to the top of Shanghai Tower and you look out and you're like, that is a lot of civilization. Yeah.

I had the same feeling. Like every time, it doesn't matter how long I've lived here. I've been here seven years. I still look out the window and I'm like, that is just more people than my imagination can actually comprehend. Because every building has, if you just do the math, every building and you see the number of buildings and it's almost like you can't comprehend. No, you really can't. Like the number of people who live here is,

and are trying to get by are just amazing. Do you, you seem just, you know, from our interaction now, cause you can put away your liquor like, like a champ and,

Do you fit into that stereotypical model of a writer? A lot of people think of authors and famous writers in history or even just artists in general. You think of the Hemingways, right? People who were battling with alcoholism, just really crazy lives. Is that...

Is that something that's just part of being a writer or is that just like a stereotype that is not really true? I think it's a stereotype that exists, but like it's something that you deal with and you do. I don't know. I know that I live a slightly alternative lifestyle to a lot of people that are out there in the sense that like I don't go to bed until about 3.30 in the morning because I'm working during the middle of the night because that's the only time I have to myself.

to where like that's my time. You have kids? No. And if I had kids, I wouldn't be able to do that. But yeah, like, you know, being able to work all night is something that makes me very productive. A lot of times when people are talking to me, they're like, wow, Ryan, like you're doing a lot at one point. And, you know, yeah, like I don't get up until 11 or so in the morning. But yeah, like when you talk about

your Hemingway kind of characters, your Fitzgerald's, your, you know, Charles Borkowski-esque characters that are interesting.

Getting blindingly drunk and then writing like, yeah, I can drink whiskey with the best of them for the most part, but I still can't write when I'm inebriated. You can't write. It can't work. Yeah, but it's going to be slop. Writing is about decisions, and writing is about cognizantly kind of thinking about plot and imposing and logically creating a plot to a story. And you can't do that when you get sloppy drunk. Yeah.

Like I know that they did it, but I think, I don't know. I know quite a few writers and most of the writers I know, we all write sober. Like it's more about finding time to write at all. Well, do you think a lot of it is like, because when you get really famous and especially post-mortem after someone passes away, you know, there's this legend around the person, right? There's a lot of stories around this person that,

that may be slightly exaggerated in many cases. So do you think a lot of these cases are exaggerated to a point where the reality wasn't really that bad? Like, you know, they weren't that extreme, especially when they were writing? Definitely. I would probably say that's probably the case. Like you look at like Michael Ondaatje. Michael Ondaatje wrote English Patient, but he wrote another book that was less famous called Running in the Family.

which is where he returned to Sri Lanka and he was kind of looking at a lot of the family myths that were perpetuated that he'd listened to over the course of his life. And things had started out as nonfiction, had become mythology essentially. And something that seemed pretty simple at the time had become blown out of proportion over generations of storytelling and

And, you know, that's definitely something that I think happens. Like, I think there's a part of us that wants writers to be a certain way, that there's something comforting that says that that separates us from them, that explains why we're

We as average individuals don't have thoughts like that. They're like, well, I'm not an alcoholic or like I don't do drugs regularly or I'm just not like that. So therefore, that's the reason why I don't have thoughts like that. And that is a way of kind of partitioning them off from reality.

a standard existence that makes us feel comfortable as readers and as consumers of culture about an us versus them dichotomy. And I think that's largely untrue. Like, you know, even if you look at the really true versions of writers, like, you know, um,

A Moveable Feast by Hemingway was something that wasn't written to publish until way later because Hemingway felt like it was too incriminating to the people who lived at the time. And yeah, like they're putting away magnums of champagne at various parts during that story. But like,

He doesn't write like that. He's writing for the Toronto Star and he's writing, you know, very logical things when he's deeply sober. And, you know, but yeah, like I think it falls into kind of like that Baudelaire understanding of what it means to be drunk by something. Like it's not just drunk on alcohol. It's just drunk on an idea and it doesn't have to necessarily be alcohol. Like it's just...

The idea that of writing on something, you become drunk on it in the sense that it just absorbs you. And, you know, that's something I think as both an educator and a writer, I really tried to perpetuate, which is this like falling in love with an idea is a rough relationship, but it's one that you have to start at some point in your life. Well, this...

- It goes to the idea of like romanticizing certain things, right? Like, you know, on our brief phone call before we did this podcast, you know, you had mentioned that the kind of romance in creative writing has been lost for you. And that was due to like when you got exposed to like the whole business aspect and really dealing with publishers. Is that, can you expand on that? - Well, like,

Yeah. Since we had that conversation, I had another conversation with a young writer. Like a lot of times young writers come to me for advice in Shanghai and he was talking about how he was so self-conscious about selling himself to publishers. And he was like, yeah, like talking to a publisher, like I'm just selling myself. I'm selling myself. And I'm like, it's not selling yourself. Like you're a writer. They are a publisher.

This is just a serious conversation between professionals about what it is that you are doing. Like, you can't think of it as selling yourself. Like, this is their function is to publish. Your function is to write. Like, this is a conversation that you both are expected to be able to be partaking in. And, but yeah, like when you start talking to the publishers, you know, there is something that takes away from the romanticism that you had of what

It means to be a writer when you were thinking about it as an undergrad, you know, to when you're thinking about, oh man, being a writer is so fantastic. I'm going to get my word out. People are going to hear what I have to say. But like, you know, then you're in, you're talking to your Rutledge editor and they're like, this has to go to the marketing committee to find out how marketable your book is. So that way they can put various variables into some sort of formula that will tell us how

potentially successful your book will be. And like where, where it's going to appeal, which demographics, which demographics you're going to heal. Like, cause you know, publishing is a business. Like these are not nonprofit agencies, you know, which surprised me. Cause when I think of writing, it's largely a nonprofit kind of setup and publishing is a for-profit entity and

And it's that distinction is important because you start talking to these people and like just now, like, yeah, like the workshop was putting together an anthology about the coronavirus and we're sending it out right now. So I'm contacting publishers about trying to publish this anthology. And it's really complicated because I've never tried to submit an anthology out before. And there's a lot of different writers and photographers and illustrators that are in it.

And you start talking to these people and they're like, what kind of, you know, what ability will you have to continue to market this work? And what kind of ability will you have to increase sales of this work? And they're just working their own formula too, to where they're like, Hmm, this seems like a good idea. How much money is it going to be able to make?

And as a writer, that's never something you really consider when you're thinking about what story you want to tell as a writer. You know, you're thinking about this is a character that speaks to me, or this is a situation that says something to me. This is a conflict that speaks to me as a person that I've lived through. And it wants you to elaborate on this. And as a writer, you want to elaborate and explore this idea in some sort of way. And, um,

You're not trying to do that in a publishing kind of sense. You're thinking about who's going to work this, who's going to be buying this, who's going to be reading this, what kind of audience is available for this, and is this audience large enough that it facilitates the publishing of this work? Because they're thinking about it in a very practical way.

And it took me a little bit of practice to be thinking about that in advance as I was preparing my manuscripts. Because now it's hard not to think about it as you're preparing your manuscripts. Like, you know, I'm not a famous writer. I'm just a guy trying to get his work out into the world. And as a result, like, I have a responsibility when I'm talking to publishers that I will try to get this –

these are ways that I can help doing that in some sort of way. And you realize just how little people read by the success, by the success markers, the benchmarks that in small publishers place for themselves in terms of what is considered a successful first book. And yeah, I tried to tell my writers that all the time who come through the workshop about, um,

what is successful. Cause like really success is considered 400 to 500 sales of a novel for a first time writer is considered a success for a small publisher. Does that vary with, within different markets? Is that China or is that just worldwide? Worldwide. That's like a first time writer putting out a book with a small press. They're happy if they sell 500 books and you know, that just floors you as a writer to where like, that's a success. Yeah.

500 people in the entire world buying my book is considered a success? Well, that's got to be encouraging in a way, right? Because then the bar isn't as high as you might think initially. And you'd be like, wait, maybe I can do that. I can get 500 maybe, right? Yeah, you do. But then you also realize that if that's the bar for success, then it's got to be way harder than you think it is.

Which is, yeah, it's hard. People aren't used to paying for work. And there just aren't that many readers out there. And publishers are sitting there working their calculators, trying to figure out how to make money off of the written word. And selling 500 books is considered a success. Gives you a sense of the scale. Yeah, it gives you a sense of the scale. Whether it's podcasting or books or whatever, if you sell 500 books,

500 glasses. Like you need to sell like 500,000 things to kind of, you know. Well, like to your point, it shows how hard it is to break through because there's so many people that are competing with you as well, right? Yeah. And like right now I'm working on this young adult fantasy series and I'm thinking like, wow, like I got to sell 500 books to really,

make this publisher think that I'm for real and that they might want to buy further things from me as a writer. Or thinking about Rutledge as a publisher. Rutledge is a very top-end publisher. They're going to set the market price for whatever my book is, and it's probably going to be way higher than whatever I think it's going to be. And people are going to have to try to pay that. I'm going to try to hope that

X number of people are going to buy that people slash libraries will buy this book in order for me to them to be interested in publishing me again. Cause you know, you don't want to flop on your first book. Well, without getting into the specifics, because this is, you know, your own personal business, but as a writer, as a first time writer dealing with a publisher is the deal you work out with them.

Would you consider it fair to the artist, to the writer? Well, it's very like, I definitely know much more established writers in my field. And I know that what I'm getting versus what they're getting are two separate deals.

Like, you know, you're just happy that you have the deal. But do publishers take advantage of that? Like knowing your first time writer, knowing that you might need them more than they need you, quote unquote, that kind of attitude. Do they lean on that? Do they leverage that? Well, definitely they do because it's a risk for them. Like, you know, if you are a more established writer, there's less of a risk for the publisher. Like it's not necessarily taking advantage. It's them...

their bets. Doing business. Yeah, it's them doing business. Like, you're a first-time writer that it costs them money to get your work out into the world. And if you're a more established writer, it's less of a risk for them to get your work into the world, which is kind of what I learned about literary agents, for example. Like,

I was trying to get a literary agent for so long and then they were like, well, Ryan, you haven't really sold any books yet. Like, and literary agents have to feed their families and they get 15% and 15% of zero is not a lot of money. So like you got, you can't really blame them for wanting to feed their families and making sure that you are a product that they can sell. And I,

Thinking of yourself as a product is something that takes some adjustment because you think of yourself as an artist and not a product. And, but yeah, like you are producing a product as an artist. Well, that's the eternal conflict between business and art, right? In all fields. And, you know, you want to get your work out there and there are compromises. And, you know, Didion says that all paid work is a compromise of some kind.

And it likely is. Well, you had also mentioned before that there basically is no creative writing career, right? And that through the education system, that doesn't prepare you at all for the business aspect of actually trying to make a living off of creative writing. Well, I think that's true for not just creative writing, but for a lot of degrees that are offered through America. Like you start looking at the degrees that are most popular

you know, unemployed. Like I think anthropology is number one in the sense that people are anthropology majors and not realizing that there's no jobs in anthropology. Once you finish an anthropology degree and you know, you're a creative writing PhD and you have a PhD in creative writing. And then you realize that, you know, you're entering into a field where either one, you're going to be writing books and you need to be more involved in

or knowledgeable about publishing than you currently are, or you need to be able to teach because that's how most creative writers make their money is by teaching. And like, yeah, after getting a doctorate, I didn't know how to teach creative writing. Um,

which is something that I definitely leaned into later in my career. Do you think there needs to be reform in the current education system to include more exposure and education on how to publish your books once you get out and how to make a living off of it? Yeah. And there's several programs in America that are very strong on that. And that's definitely something that's been talked about for a really long time.

But like that speaks to a larger concern, like a lot of people who get professional degrees in writing, you learn by writing these behemoth 15 page short stories that are huge, that you write in your MFA or your doctoral programs that nobody wants to publish in the real world because nobody wants to publish a 15 page short story. They want 2000 words.

max generally because the attention span of the average reader is pretty low actually and publishers know that and they're going for that sweet spot for them that will get them readers and you know

I think there is a benefit though, to programs being very realistic with their people about, Hey, this is what life is going to be like after you get out of this program and thinking a little bit about it might be useful to you. Like,

I definitely would have found it more beneficial if somebody had told me that my entire actual income slash health insurance is going to come from me teaching rather than from me writing. And I probably would have spent a little bit more time thinking about teaching rather than writing. And you had no idea about that before. Well, I had a bit of an idea about it, but like it was not a central conversation in my program. And, you know, most people who have a PhD in creative writing end up teaching somewhere and

And yet we weren't teaching. Like we were definitely participating in workshops and we were learning about the craft, but we were learning about the craft in a very almost medieval kind of way. Like you had a master artist that you were learning from in your university. You were learning the craft and then you share how that person taught you to new students. Like an apprenticeship? Like an apprenticeship. And...

That is dangerous, like, because we're not actually creating a reflective pedagogy where people are teaching and then thinking about what it is that they're doing, but essentially repeating what they've learned in their PhD programs, which is dangerous, especially when you're not thinking about reapplying it to a new context. Like I do when I come to China, like you learn what I learned in Oklahoma, but like.

What I learned in Oklahoma doesn't directly apply to what I do in China. Like it requires interpretation and it requires adjustment. And that's what you get out of a reflective pedagogy where you're thinking about what it is that you're doing in a classroom and you're adjusting it to the context that you are presenting it into. And any good teacher is going to do that. But that was a conversation I never had as a creative writer. That was a conversation I had as...

an academic writing instructor. That might be something that every, you know, that we see a lot in every realm is that the real world is the real world. And ultimately like what makes the world go around is you have to have customers. Yes. Money. Yeah. Comes down to the money. You got to have customers at the end of the day. Like there are real customers. Yeah.

And you have to find a way to appeal to them in some sort of way. There's passion and there's customers, right? Because there's the internal aspect of you've got to be passionate to do things. And you've got to have other people that are passionate together. Yeah. And I guess that's something I learned about trying to run a nonprofit in China. Like people in China, I so often run into this feeling that, you know,

Because especially in Shanghai, I think I feel like there's an idea that you get what you're paying for and that if something is being offered for free, it means by definition that it is bad because if it was valuable, you would be charging for it.

And the idea of the nonprofit doesn't exist in China. Like there is no idea of a 401 C kind of entity that exists inside of China. You are either a corporation or you are not a corporation. And those are your two options that you were have inside of China. Like you were either a registered company or you were a group of friends that hang around and talk about something. And,

And those are your only two options that are business or it's a hobby. Yeah. It's either a business or you're a hobby. And those are your only two options in China. Much like this podcast, much like this podcast, which is, you know, as Justin explained to me, it's a hobby. So, um, so Ryan, um,

Tell us a little bit more about this young adult fantasy series. Yeah, why young adult? Why this genre? Well, I've written probably 20 or so novels already before I got into this one. Like, I pump out novels. Really? Yeah.

enjoy. Shoot them out. Well, like you get used to writing them, but like I, you have 20 novels. Where can we read them? Oh, nowhere. Like I just, cause that's the whole point. I didn't even want to market. Like I was making enough money. I didn't want to bother. Like I wasn't writing them for other people's writing them. Cause I enjoyed writing them. And then finally, like I got to a point in my career where people are like, Ryan, you need to publish.

And I tried to publish and I realized that my novels didn't fit a box that was easily checked. What are your novels generally about? You know, my novels are generally about, you know, people struggling with different things, but I, I like to complicate genres heavily where, you know, people, genres are being crossed all the time because genres are such an artificial barrier for me. And yeah,

Like that was a barrier. That was an artificial barrier for me. But like when you start talking to agents and you start talking to publishers and you start talking to booksellers, they think in terms of genre and you start categories. Yeah. Categories. And you start talking to somebody about like, oh, I've got a young adult series. That's pretty good. And they're like, oh, well, that's great. So like later on in my career, I decided that I was going to just write an unfiltered, exactly

genre piece novel that fit very concisely into a box. And that's what I did with my young adult series. What's it called? The Willows. Is it? Okay. So for people who might not know, even really for me, young adult, something like, I guess a famous example of a young adult genre would be like something like Twilight. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. How about Piers Anthony? Oh, man. I love Piers Anthony so much. Yeah. Yeah. I think I've read almost... Well, like, yeah. Zantz? The whole Zantz. He came out with one. Yeah. It's like on episode whatever. Not episode, but... The whole, like... Do you know Piers Anthony? No, I do not. The magic of Zantz. Like, we all read this as kids. I know so much. I read Goosebumps. Oh, R.L. Stine. Yeah. And then, like...

Yeah, like Piers Anthony is looking at like the Incarnations of Immortality series. Dude, it's ridiculous. Okay, so hold on. So Piers...

Born in 1934. What does that make him? 86? 86 something, yeah. And according to Wikipedia, he has three more, he has four more Xanth books coming out. Oh, so this guy's still alive, still pumping out work? He's on 44 to 47 now. This guy just pumps out work. So he's like a legend. Oh, anybody... But he puts, it's young adult, but he puts a lot of sexual stuff in it too, right? I wouldn't consider his work young adult.

Like, because there's some sexual stuff. Yeah, that's why we like reading it. That's why you like reading it. Twilight gets a little sexual, right? A little flirty. It doesn't get as far as period. No, he's like, when you're like 12 and you're reading it, you're like, you're like, you get hard. Like, uh...

And you made it weird. And that's where we're going to end it, folks. Okay, so The Willows. What's it about? The Willows is not a... It's a story about a group of young people that are dealing with just this world that's collapsing around them. Really? And they're a group of high school students in, or at least what would be considered the equivalent of the high school in their world. Yeah.

So it's also fantasy. It's deeply fantasy. How much of their world is influenced by Dallas versus Shanghai? Very little of it is... At least actively when I think about it. I wasn't trying to think of either one. Oh, sorry. I really wasn't trying to actively think of it as Shanghai or Dallas. I just wanted it...

It's not the specific things. It's probably the themes that you see playing out. Like in the willows, there's an arcane ceremony of purging where like the evil of the forest is purged every five years. And in an arcane ceremony that has become, um,

outdated, and people are still participating in the ceremony. And there's something deeply Southern, I think, about that in the sense that there's a lot of arcane ceremonies that as Southerners we participate in. They're relics. That are relics. They're vestigial. Yeah. So, for the novels, you have a three-book deal, right? Yeah.

Are the three books connected? Is it like three books in a series or are they three completely independent novels? Oh, they're very connected. They're very, so it's like part of a series. Yeah. Like it's like Lord of the Rings kind of connected like to where you're following the same characters over three books. Okay.

And, you know, like it just keeps getting darker and weirder as the series goes on. When can we expect this out? How do we get to Willows? I want to read it. I've read the first one, but I kind of had to put the writing of it on the back burner until I finished the scholarly book that I owe, Rutledge. Mm-hmm.

And the scholarly book for Rutledge goes out in March, and then I'll be able to devote myself full time. So probably end of 2021. So fairly soon. Because like talking to publishers, publishers are so keenly aware of how people consume books. And they didn't want to buy one book from me. They were like, if people buy book one, they're going to buy book two and three.

They've invested in you, so there's a sunk cost. They're going to lose money on the first one, and they're hoping that you build up a fan base. Well, it's not that they're investing in me. It's just that they're looking at how people produce and buy books in the sense that if somebody buys book one...

And they believe that book one will be successful enough that if you buy book one, you'll buy book two and three. That's right. So they don't want me to come out with just book one. They want me to have all three books finished. And if it all works out, they're going to make money probably on the book two, book three. Exactly. And that's what they're thinking about. They're not thinking about is like, is this piece of literature a good piece of literature? They're looking at...

Amazon Analytics, and they're saying that people are binge-consuming a particular thing that they want to be consuming. That if you buy book one in a series, you're going to buy book two in a series. If you buy book two, then by God, you're going to buy book three because you've already bought book one and two. You've already invested two books in. You're not going to leave the third one out. And here's the thing, right? It's like we know that, I mean, creative people are –

producing things based on their passions. But, you know, this whole Amazon analytics thing, I think that like, if you're writing for an audience and you have people that can judge and assess your work, you know, in the long run, it's going to produce better works. Right. So like there's that downside of like, okay, I've got to be part of a certain sub genre or genre or whatever. But,

It's criticism, right? It's feedback. It's people voicing their opinions that's going to make things better in the long run. And it's really interesting to see that you're writing in this box and you can leverage all your talents, those other books that you wrote, and you can see what the feedback is and

and then optimize to that. And so it's not just a commercial thing. It's actually like you can become a better writer by getting feedback from people outside of your brain. Well, I think that's part of why I founded a workshop in Shanghai is that you always want somebody to tell you what they think about your writing. Because you never know how good or how bad your writing is until somebody else reads it.

Does it relate to kind of like in the beginning of the podcast, you were talking about like how it's still difficult for you to hear your own voice sometimes. Is it difficult for you to hear? Does it take some getting used to, is what I mean, to constantly have people critique your own work that you're so passionate about? Oh, definitely. And you see that all the time in people who come to the workshop.

early. Like you see people come and they're just not used to the fact that people are talking about your work and you have to stay silent while people are talking about your work. And, you know, as somebody who's been in a lot of creative writing workshops, you get used to the fact that you believe in your work to a certain extent and you know how you want your work to sound and

people who are uninitiated to that feeling, they come in and they hear people talking and, you know, you listen to a feedback session at a workshop and it's chaotic.

You know, guy one is telling you that it's too short. Guy two is telling you that it's too long. Guy three is telling you that you need to make it 25 pages. Guy four is telling you that anything over five pages is an unpublishable. You know, guy six is telling you that your character is sloppy. Guy seven is telling you that your character is too short. Like, and you as a writer have to be negotiating all these forms of feedback and

And realizing that nobody is going to universally love your work no matter who you are as you're writing. And that's just something that I think people realize through creative writing sometimes that it doesn't even matter if it's writing. Any product that you produce is going to have mixed reviews. Like dealing with the criticism that comes with producing something is

You know, it's something that I've learned through creative writing, but people learn all the time through whatever product that they're trying to put out there. I think that's a fantastic lesson. And to wrap it up, I just feel like, yeah, like what you said, reiterating what you said, it's, you know, any content creator, right? Whether you're writing books, us doing this podcast, someone painting something or a photographer taking pictures, right?

Like, nothing is going to be universally liked and accepted, right? And you can't go down this path of trying to please everyone all the time. You're not going to get anywhere with that, right? And you got to kind of just take the criticism and use it, but also kind of stick to your own guns in a way.

And I would have to imagine like sitting in these kind of critique sessions, God, it's got to be so frustrating probably to listen and not be able to speak. You know, a part of you is probably saying like, oh man, you just don't understand. You just don't get it. Right. And that's just the artist in you. I think every artist goes to that through when they're getting critiqued. Certainly, but the reader is never wrong. Right.

Just like the customer is always right. Just like the customer is always right. Like if you wrote something and somebody reads it and that's what they got out of your reading, out of their reading of your particular work, that's what they got out of their work. Like, and that's not their fault as a reader. And you can't argue that. You can't argue it. Like they said, I read your work and this is what I got out of it. And you have to decide what that means to you as a writer. Like,

Do I, does that mean that I need to make it a little bit easier? Maybe that's up to you as a reader, as a writer. But like, you know, when I read some things that are really popular, like 50 shades of gray or twilight, and I'm just like, man, this is, yeah, it may be bad, but it's sold.

And it's sold not just a little bit, it's sold enough that people at random house got a bonus based on that. And it got adapted into movies. It got adapted into a movie and it became a whole thing. And that scratched an itch that no book was scratching before it came before it. And, you know, I may not have been the target reader for that, which is probably one of the problems that we face inside of workshop.

Like just like with my scholarly book, it's going to come out and the most difficult readers in the world are going to be reading it and they're going to be giving me feedback. And that's a hard thing to be a part of. And a writing workshop works in a similar way. Like you're giving your fiction to 20 people who are highly trained readers, who are very sensitive to what it is that you're doing in terms of fiction or nonfiction or poetry or whatever genre that you happen to be working in.

Often it feels unsatisfying because these people are difficult to convince of things. Yeah, oftentimes you don't get the response that you're looking for. And you as a writer, though, have to have the conviction and the courage to know what it is that you want your work to be, that you're willing to just let it continue in the way that you believe it should be continuing. Well, that's wonderfully said, beautifully said.

Ryan, thanks a lot for coming on the show. I really enjoyed this conversation. Got to do it again. Definitely. After, yeah. Yeah, when your books publish, we'll come on and do it again. Yeah, we'll do this again in another year or so. And then when your books get adapted into movies by Hollywood, we'll do it once more. Hey, I'll be buying a much nicer bottle of whiskey at that point.

You gotta get us a spot, like, as an actor. Maybe, like, as an extra or something. As an extra? I think you two would make excellent extras. What about leads? That's gonna be somebody else's decision. There's a character named Justin in this book. Hey, we killed that bottle of Jack Daniels. It's completely empty. It's completely... It was brand new, and we killed it now. Completely empty. Cheers again, Ryan. Thanks a lot, man. That was great. Loved it. Thank you, guys. Alright, guys. That was Ryan.

I'm Justin. I'm Eric. All right, guys. Be well. Be good. Peace.