Scam Inc. from The Economist, a Conversation with Sue-Lin Wong
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Welcome to the New Voices podcast. New Voices celebrates the brilliant women shaping how we understand China today through their writing, research, and in-depth reporting. I'm Cheney Zhu, your co-host for this episode. I'm the New Voices chair and board member based in New York. And I'm Megan Cattell. I'm a journalist, editor, and occasional co-host of the New Voices podcast. I'm happy to be joining Cheney today from a very snowy Boston.

Our guest for this episode is Su Lin Wang, the Southeast Asia correspondent for The Economist, as well as the host of the award-winning podcast The Prince, which chronicled the rise of Chinese President Xi Jinping. We actually interviewed Su Lin at the end of 2022 about The Prince, so if you're interested in that, please check out our archives.

Su Lin has recently launched a new podcast series, Scam Inc. from The Economist, currently on the cover of that magazine that explores a global scam economy involving human trafficking, corruption and money laundering. My investigation has taken me from Kansas to the Philippines and from London to Singapore. I found that I wasn't even asking the right question. This wasn't the work of one mastermind fraudster or a single organized crime group. It was a global industry.

And it's much bigger, more powerful and darker than I ever imagined. Wow, what a wide reaching and fascinating yet urgent topic. Welcome back to New Voices, Su Lin. Thanks so much for having me. It's a delight to be back.

Yes, and we're so happy to have you back and to talk about Scam Inc. Before we dive into your newest podcast endeavor and investigation, we'd love to rewind the clock back and catch up with you since the last time you joined the New Voices podcast. Back then, you were preparing for your new post to be Southeast Asia correspondent for The Economist after being a China correspondent for many years.

Tell us how your life has been since then and how you're finding the new beat. Yeah, there's been a lot of change. So I guess the last time we spoke, I was moving on from covering China to Southeast Asia. So I've been in Singapore for about two years now.

and have been really enjoying traveling all over this incredibly diverse region. I guess over the last year or so, I've been really focused on trying to understand the rise of online scams in Southeast Asia and how that's affecting the whole world.

It's been a big shift leaving China. I was there for about a decade, first as a student and then as a journalist. And China changed a lot while I was there, while we were there together, Cheney. Yes. And I think it's been great and really exciting to learn about a very, very different region and live somewhere else.

that's still in Asia, but again, so, so very different. And in fact, actually, I've become really fascinated by the Chinese diaspora in Singapore and Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia, because I think

There's so many different versions of Chineseness and there's so many different ways to be Chinese. And moving here has really reminded me of that. And I just I love sort of walking down the street and coming across three different temples that are all practicing like very, very different Chinese folk religions from southern China. That was not something that I was necessarily exposed to living in mainland China.

That's fascinating. You know, we have in the New Voices community, we have so many different aspects of the diaspora represented. So I know that a lot of our listeners would be keen to hear more about that. Did you find that your previous experience of covering China, did that serve to be helpful in your Southeast Asia coverage apart from seeing different sides of the Chinese diaspora being represented in Singapore where you're currently based? And

What were some of the new challenges that you came across and how did you troubleshoot them? I'm sure as you're in a new country, new region, a different place, still in Asia, but I'm sure in some ways different. Yeah, I mean, I would say one of the biggest stories in Southeast Asia is the rise of China and how that is changing.

reshaping the region, you know, both at sort of a very elite governmental level, but also among business and society. So having spent time in China and having covered China, I think has been really, really helpful in helping me understand what I'm seeing in Southeast Asia. That having been said, I think there's also a trap that I don't want to fall into, which is to view everything in Southeast Asia through the lens of US-China competition.

So I think that is one story here. But there are so many other really important, interesting stories that actually have nothing to do with great power rivalry between America and China. So I try to bear that in mind and, you know, do those big geopolitical stories while also trying to get out and about, speak to all kinds of people and find other stories that really are about Southeast Asia for Southeast Asia's sake.

What are the challenges of covering Southeast Asia? So Southeast Asia is 11 different, very, very diverse countries.

And I am increasingly of the view that nothing binds the region except being physically like proximate on a map. Three things bind the region. One, they're physically, the countries are physically proximate on a map. Two, everyone believes in ghosts. And three, the food is amazing. But in a way, I think to group the region together means otherwise.

I risk missing a lot because every single country has such a different history, a different, often colonial history with the exception of Thailand, which wasn't ever colonized. Yeah. Different religions. It's different languages. Everything is so, so different. So that has been a big challenge for someone coming to this beat fresh. Right. But it's also been a complete delight to try to wrap my head around this

really, really distinctive region. Although, yeah, I mean, it's obviously a lifelong challenge. I could spend my whole life covering Southeast Asia and still only scratch the surface. So I would say that's... This is not a monolith. Exactly. I would say that's been one of the challenges.

We actually had a question here about that triumvirate relationship between ASEAN, the U.S. and China. And could you talk about like if you wrote about that kind of power triangle? And then secondarily, what was one of your favorite stories that you did about Southeast Asia for Southeast Asia's sake? I think every country in Southeast Asia has slightly different considerations when it comes to figuring out how to balance the U.S. and China.

But over and over again, the overwhelming message I hear as I travel around the region is we don't want to choose. So no country wants to, you know, say they're with China or say they're with America, which I guess if you think about it is an incredibly rational position to take. So that would be the overall dynamic.

But within the 11 countries in Southeast Asia, there is a lot of diversity. You know, you have, for example, the Philippines, which is an American ally getting closer and closer to the US, is on the front lines of China's bullying and aggression in the South China Sea. And then on the other end of that spectrum, you would have countries like Cambodia and Laos that have very clearly pivoted towards China in the past several years.

I've had so many fun reporting trips in the region, but one story I did last year was I took a 32-hour cargo boat ride to one of the contested islands in the middle of the South China Sea that has a tiny civilian population of Filipinos living there.

on it. Oh my gosh. So the island is known as Thitu Island internationally and Pagasa in the Philippines. And it was a horrific boat ride, but amazing to be on the island. And I made a podcast episode about it. And then I also wrote a feature story about my travels for The Economist. Mm-hmm.

Wow. Yeah. And that also wades into those geopolitical waters, pun intended. Exactly. Yes. And I guess that's sort of the perfect economist story is to find something really interesting, but also revealing about a broader issue. Right. As you finished up your time in China and toward the end of that, being in Australia and then moving to Singapore, throughout all of that kind of tail end of your experience, Su Lin, you...

reported it hosted The Prince, which won press awards, Webby Awards in 2023. And we were curious about, you know, since you've released The Prince and some time has passed, we're curious about the feedback that you got from people around you. We also wanted to ask

Yeah, great question. Yeah.

We still get comments. Actually, I just got an email from a family friend this morning saying, can't wait to listen to Scam Inc. Does your mum appear again? People love the parental appearances and things in our work. The personal touch. Which was difficult for me because, you know, working somewhere like The Economist where we don't even have bylines in our stories, when my producers suggested we interview my mum, I was very resistant because

which I think is also because I hadn't had any experience making podcasts. So I didn't understand just how different the form is compared to print. But they turned out to be completely right because overwhelmingly the thing people remember from the prints is my mum's appearance, which, you know, I have mixed feelings about because I put in a lot of time and effort trying to understand the Chinese Communist Party and

And modern Chinese history and Xi Jinping. And yet, I guess what really struck people and what stuck with people was my mom cooking rendang. Yeah, you make a very good point that I guess it's the personal that people remember in podcasts and not just podcasts and storytelling in general. So my mom...

I did listen to the episode and I think it was just bemused and still slightly confused. But we do meet people who sometimes say, oh, I heard you on The Prince. Apparently my parents were out at dinner a few months ago and someone asked them if they were connected to The Prince. And yeah, so there's all kinds of funny stories like that. Yeah.

And then in terms of how The Prince has been received, I'm really, I guess, flattered and struck by the fact that sometimes I still meet people who say they listened and I'll be in different parts of Southeast Asia and the podcast will come up. So for a journalist, all we want to do is make journalism that people listen to and read. So that has been very thrilling.

Just talking about, you know, Sulin, that you are trained to be a print reporter and an economist. They have, you know, the tradition of not having any bylines and moving to this new medium in connection to your newest podcast, Scam Inc., which just recently came out a few days ago. What lessons, apart from, you know, getting into the personal that the audience, especially with how people say that audio journalism is, quote, an

intimate form of storytelling? I guess, obviously, sharing more personal things, first person narrative maybe goes a longer way when it comes to, you know, audio journalism. What were some other things that kind of helped you gear up for Scam Inc that you learned from The Prince? I was quite frustrated making The Prince because there were just so many...

stories and voices that we didn't have access to. And I really had to figure out how to report around Xi Jinping. It wasn't as if I could show up at Zhongnanhai with my podcast equipment and like walk in and interview China's leader. So I

And that was something I didn't completely understand going into the project. But my producers kept saying, we need to find good voices, like not analysts, not talking heads, but actual characters who have memorable moving stories and who can speak to us on tape. And so that was very challenging given the subject matter.

of the Prince. And so when my editors asked me to pitch another podcast series, I said to myself, okay, I want to find something that actually is going to be more accessible. And I'm going to be able to find people who, who will sit down with me and speak on microphone and share these incredibly emotional, personal stories. So what could I, what kind of series could I pitch that would be more likely for this to happen?

And so as I was going around Southeast Asia and learning about the region, I realized that online scams was such a huge story here. But also, you know, given where the economist, they have a lot of global implications. And so I, that was one of the reasons I wanted to make this series because of The Prince and because of all the constraints we had making The Prince, I

I thought perhaps doing something like Scam Inc would give me the opportunity to really deeply explore the podcast form. I was very excited. I caught up with our sound designer after Scam Inc came out. He comes at this completely from an audio perspective and sort of leaves...

the journalism to the rest of us. But he was saying, oh, Scam Inc. has so much more emotional heft to it compared to The Prince. And I take that as a compliment because I think that's really one of the benefits of the podcast form.

I'm glad that the team really helped you, Su Lin, with problem solving and working around how do we tell the story of Xi Jinping when him and his leadership are not going to get anywhere near a Western reporter. In terms of Scam Inc., let's start with how it all began, how you got the tip about this Kansas bank being closed.

falling to an international scam operation. How did that come about, the story that sparked everything in episode one of Scam Inc.? So as Southeast Asia correspondent, I guess I came to it in a slightly different way. If I were an American Midwest correspondent, I probably would have just heard about this

you know, crazy bank collapse and try to unravel the story. But for me, I had already started hearing about scam compounds and criminal syndicates in Southeast Asia. And I would speak to my sources who work on organized transnational crime full time. And I would sometimes just ask them, you know, what's the craziest story you've heard about the rise of online scams? And people kept saying, oh, didn't a bank collapse in rural Kansas? And so that actually was how I got onto this. It was

experts in the field who would sort of casually mention it in passing, not that they necessarily had gone and dug into it themselves because they were much more focused on the Asian angles. But it was that that made me realize, oh, there's something there. Maybe we should show up in rural Kansas. So Sam, my brilliant producer, and I made the long, long journey. We flew, we ended up flying, I think, from Dallas to Garden City and then renting a car and driving to

for three hours to this tiny town of Elkhart in southwestern Kansas. And there's actually a road in the middle of the town. On one side of the road is Oklahoma and the other side is Kansas. So it was very remote and quiet.

People were very suspicious to begin with of these two journalists with me, with my funny accent. Don't think there are many ethnically Chinese people in Elkhart. And it took us a while to convince anyone to speak to us on tape. We actually just spent a whole day with our recorders off. We decided it'd be better to just try and build trust and spend time with the locals. And they were very, very gracious hosts in the end. And luckily we managed to

to get some incredible reporting and stories that ended up in the podcast. That's fascinating. I love how you took that outside-in approach. I understand that coming into a different country where you're normally based and being in a rural part of America, it can be difficult to gain trust. What were some of the barriers that you had to, you know, kind of break through? And how did you eventually gain the trust of people to talk to you on the record?

Was it a fact of just staying there for a few days, just turning off the recorders, approaching people without microphones? Or did you embed in the community in a different way? The story of this bank collapse in rural Kansas is that the CEO of this small bank, Shane Haynes, embezzled $47 million from his own bank, and that led to the bank collapsing. But I guess what made this story difficult to report is that

He was an incredibly well-respected member of his 2,000-person town. He was a part-time pastor. He was really active with his daughter's high school. He, I think, volunteered at swim meets. And he was, at one point, very senior in the American Bankers Association. He had testified in Congress on behalf of farmers and rural Americans and the challengers.

that they face accessing banking services. And so a lot of people in town were very, very cautious of speaking to us, even if they had all kinds of feelings about what Shane Haynes had done. It's still a very, very tight-knit community. So for any outsider to enter sort of raises eyebrows. So I think that was the biggest barrier. But with a little bit of time and shoe leather reporting, we managed to get a couple of the key

key people involved on tape. Yeah, that's quite a feat to get them on tape for this type of narrative storytelling. We'll be back after a short break.

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Your new podcast, Scam Inc. from The Economist, explores the global scam economy that you've already begun talking about that involves human trafficking, corruption and money laundering. That's quite the global topic. Really, you're covering transnational syndicates. So how did you script out or map out the rest of the series from that beginning Kansas story?

So I knew I wanted to make a series about how the global online scam world is an industry and it's a multi-billion dollar industry that is probably bigger than the illegal drug trade. Although we don't have good numbers for any illegal industry sort of by definition. Based on my reporting, that was what I discovered. And it was hugely challenging trying to figure out how to tell such a

sprawling global story in an accessible way for someone who, you know, is maybe coming to this without any background knowledge. So I guess the two parts of the story that are

Perhaps more well-known are that there are a lot of scam victims all over the world who maybe fall for pig butchering scams, which originate in China. And that's why the name is quite distinctive. It's a Chinese phrase, shuazhoupan, where criminals identify a target, the quote unquote pig, and then fatten them up by trying to build trust with them and then eventually go in for the slaughter and scam them for sometimes their life savings and even more.

And it's this incredibly tragic scam because on the same day, it often has a romantic element so that the criminals lurk on dating apps. On the same day that someone loses their life savings, they also lose who they consider to be their love interest and romantic partner. But actually the criminal syndicates behind...

Pig butchering scams, which are perhaps the most famous scams, also run all kinds of other scams, you know, government impersonation scams where they'll pretend they're, you know, the tax office or customs or malware scams, job scams. They're really, really entrepreneurial and they're constantly creating new scams. And so I think that aspect of the story, I knew I had to sort of tell it

quite early in the podcast series, because that's sort of the way into this whole world. I mean, then I think the other part of the story that's

Also, perhaps more covered in the media is that a lot of the low-level scammers are actually victims of human trafficking and they're not sort of nefarious criminal masterminds necessarily. And there's hundreds of thousands of these people who are trapped in huge industrial scam compounds in countries like Myanmar and Cambodia. So that was...

Those were the sort of initial stories that I knew about and knew we'd have to include in order for this to be a comprehensive look at the industry. But then I wanted to get into...

okay, but what's it like if you're inside these scam compounds and you're not a low-level scammer? Like what kind of debauchery do the middle managers and bosses get up to? And what are the karaoke bars like? And what are the luxury hotels inside these scam compounds like? So, you know, that's one episode we get into. Then I go to China and I trace the roots of this whole industry to Chinese syndicates and, you know, even triads that date back more than two centuries. And then I look at how...

how they ended up in Southeast Asia and how they've infiltrated the highest levels of government in countries like Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines. And I go and do this deep dive into this just unbelievable story that was very big in Southeast Asia last year where a small town mayor in the Philippines was accused of running a scam syndicate as well as being a Chinese spy. And then I'm like, okay, so there's hundreds of billions of dollars

swirling around in this industry. Where does all the money go and where does it end up? And so then I trace the money from the bank collapse as well as the buckets of billions from the scam industry more broadly. And it takes me to all kinds of places, you know, to the English Premier League, to high-end property in New York and London, to Singapore's biggest money laundering case of all time. Then I'm like, well, what do we do about this problem? It's so enormous and it

only getting started. And the criminals are making so much money that they have access to the best and latest technology. So with the rise of AI, this is going to completely change how crime works. And then finally, we end up back in Kansas for a bit of a reckoning and some answers. Wow. And so how long did that take you to do the entire investigation and get everyone on tape? Yeah.

I was sort of looking at it for, I'd say the past year or so. And then I was on it full time for about six months. It's so wide ranging. And also some of the allegations or facts that you dig up that it's actually intertwined with governments as well is kind of...

mind-blowing. But yeah, we just wanted to telescope into the China episode specifically. I think that one is entitled The El Capone of China. And so tell us your approach to that episode specifically. And also, did it take inspiration from the Prince series at all? It did, actually. Because when I first moved to Southeast Asia, I thought...

I wonder whether the rise of online scams here is somehow connected to Xi Jinping's signature anti-corruption crackdown. And that was actually one of the first ways I came to this story, because when Xi Jinping came to power, he launched this campaign.

corruption crackdown across the whole of China. But one of the places that got caught up in this was Macau, which is where a lot of the casinos are. And so the organized criminal groups in Macau got pushed out into Southeast Asia because they couldn't really stay in Macau any longer. And initially they were mostly just doing their regular lines of business, prostitution, drugs,

online gambling. But the backend technology used in online gambling is incredibly similar to the backend technology used in online fraud. And so they pivoted when they realized they could make a lot of money scamming mainland Chinese people through all these different kinds of scams. And then around COVID, that all changed when these criminal syndicates realized, oh, why are we just scamming Chinese people? We can scam the whole world. And that was when

They started kidnapping a lot of English speakers and this became a really, really big global problem. So in order to understand the rise of this multi-billion dollar predatory scam industry, we really need to trace its origins.

to China. And just one other thing. So I would say that one really, really important takeaway that I learned reporting this series was that we've just witnessed the biggest shift in how transnational crime works in our modern history. So maybe we're used to

Perhaps we've seen mafia movies where we think of hierarchical pyramids with a kingpin at the top and a mafia boss or a powerful godfather and then he's sort of got tattooed gangsters reporting to him. And that's just absolutely not how this online scam industry works. It's much more of a network, sort of like

It's sort of the gig economy of the underworld where you might have a lot of different small groups that all specialize in one tiny part of the scam chain. So one group might just kidnap workers. Another group might just register foreign SIM cards for use inside these scam compounds. A third group might just do one tiny aspect of the money laundering. And so that makes it a huge challenge for law enforcement because it's not as if you can just go after people

the kingpin, knock him off and then get rid of the industry. Right. Yeah. It turns that model on its head. Exactly. And just a follow-up question and spoiler alert here for the end of the China episode, you make an assertion that the PRC government might be potentially in cahoots with these networks, especially along the Belt and Road Initiative. Is that right? Or what did you find along that line of reasoning? Yeah.

No, so I don't make that assertion. Other people on tape make that assertion. Okay.

Which is, I think, a very important distinction. Yes. Because actually, I think there's been quite a bit of bad reporting trying to link these criminal syndicates with the Chinese Communist Party. And there have been allegations that the Chinese Communist Party is behind the rise of online scams. But based on my reporting, I haven't found any evidence that there's some grand conspiracy that the party is directing these online scammers into.

In fact, actually, there's no country that suffered more from the scammers than China. Every year, millions of mainland Chinese file police reports after having been scammed. The Chinese Communist Party, last time I looked, has arrested more than 800,000 people over the past three years in connection to online scams. So I think the broad message that I'm trying to make in episode five is that

that the Chinese Communist Party has a very sort of murky history with organized crime. That is true. And I sort of dive into that in the series. But the idea that the Chinese Communist Party right now is behind this whole global scam industry has not at all been proven. We have no evidence of that. And if anything, I actually think China's been trying to do a lot, at least domestically, to try to stop mainland Chinese from getting scammed.

Okay, thanks for that clarification. And so listeners should go and listen to that episode on their own and listen to all the intricacies. Yeah, it's actually two episodes. So episode four, which is the Al Capone of China, and then episode five, which is called Scam State, both dive into this very question. Shifting gears for a bit, we are recording this episode when the Thai Prime Minister is set to visit Beijing and the issue of scams is expected to be discussed.

We would like to ask you about perhaps what governments can do. Su Lin, you just mentioned that the Chinese government has done, has tried to prevent more mainland Chinese from being scammed. What do you think is on the docket for some of these higher level like government meetings? I would say the most important thing to understand about Westernization

What we need to do at a society level to fight scams is that there has to be coordination between all the different groups involved. So a scam will often start on a platform that is ultimately controlled by an internet service provider, a telecoms firm. Then it might move to social media platform or messaging app, an e-commerce platform, anywhere where there's a lot of people who are just constantly online.

And then it might move to a bank or a crypto exchange as people transfer money. And it's only after someone realizes that they've been the victim of a scam that they might go to the police and make this a law enforcement issue. So the idea that law enforcement alone can tackle this, I think, is wrong. And actually, there needs to be coordination up and down that whole scam chain I just described.

At a governmental level, I think the governments that are sort of most advanced in trying to fight back against the rise of online scams are the ones that recognize this. Just because of where scams have originated from, I'd say that there are several governments in Asia that are sort of at the forefront. The Chinese government, although I'm not sure how replicable that is given the political system and the sort of digital context

totalitarian panopticon there. But countries like Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, that are losing billions of dollars every year to these criminal syndicates, are creating these anti-scam centers that might ultimately be coordinated by the police.

or some kind of consumer peak body. But then they try and bring in all the other groups and stakeholders involved so that everyone's sort of sitting at the same table or physically in the same office, that they can all try and coordinate when a victim reports being scammed. So I actually visited the anti-scam command in Singapore once

which is run by the Singapore Police Force, but they have banks and e-commerce platforms physically in the same office. And so when a Singaporean citizen calls up and says, I think I've been scammed, immediately the police can notify the banks and e-commerce platforms and they can try and stop the money being transferred out of Singapore.

And I think there are other countries that don't have this level of coordination and it's much, much more difficult to sort of stem the huge losses that we're seeing. That having been said, even in countries that are doing things and have woken up to the problem, the number of people who are getting scammed is still rising and the amount of money people are losing every year is still rising.

I mean, that's a question that you raised in the intro or in the trailer. Can scam ink be stopped? And you mentioned some solutions, coordination, anti-scam centers. Is that really your take in terms of like problem solving prevention of doing more coordination? Or do you think that as they say, cat's out of the bag? It's

It's hard to kind of wheel this back at this point if more and more people are being scammed year by year.

Yeah, so I think at a governmental level, these anti-scam centres and coordination among different groups is really important. And then hopefully the more countries that have these anti-scam centres, the more there can be coordination between different countries because these criminals are not just operating inside national borders. Like they take advantage of borders to sort of evade law enforcement. So in order to keep up with them, I think there has to be an acknowledgement of that.

But aside from this question of what to do at a governmental level, I think there's two other really important parts of this puzzle. So one is the sort of systemic issue and then the other is what we can do at an individual level. The problem is that

war, poverty, a lack of opportunity means that there are hundreds of thousands of people being trafficked into these scam compounds, but there's so many more people who are voluntarily choosing to work in this industry. Not because they're necessarily bad people, but because the alternative is to either be unemployed or perhaps toil under the sweltering sun in a field. And so if

They want to put food on the table for their families. And they're from a country where there aren't that many job opportunities and where the average wage, you know, in most of Southeast Asia, the average wage every month is only a couple of hundred US dollars. It isn't...

I'm not saying it's right, but it's understandable why people might opt to get into scamming if they can earn more money that way. And so I think until we don't have wars, poverty, a real lack of opportunity, this is going to

ultimately be an issue that continues. Now, obviously, that is really, really difficult for any one person or any country to solve. But I think that's an issue I explore in the series. And I think it's important to acknowledge that. So you've got

at the highest level, this systemic issue, then you've got what can governments do? And then I think at an individual level, it's really important for people to try and better understand the rise of this really, really dangerous illegal industry. And I would say I went on my own journey reporting this series because I started out thinking, you know what, I would never fall for a scam. Like I'd never be so stupid. And having spent many months working on this, I've completely changed my view and I have

realized that actually I am vulnerable. These criminals are so sophisticated. They really deeply understand psychological manipulation. They have all kinds of tactics. And actually one part of this whole series I became obsessed with was the psychology of scamming and why do people fall for scams and how could I fall for a scam?

And I increasingly think that these criminals know how to find our vulnerabilities and our frailties, and we all have them. They might not be the same, but we do all have them, whether it's greed or fear or loneliness or grief or boredom. And then they know how to go after them, whether it's by love bombing or gaslighting or using a sense of urgency or a sense of fear to make you do things. So at an individual level, I

I think it's important to acknowledge we're all vulnerable and we should assume that any interaction we're having online is a scam until it's proven otherwise, which is a very, very depressing thing to say. But I think that's where we're at right now.

Right. Yeah. I think your series serves as a warning to many people or as a reminder, at least, because you also talk about how in one of the episodes in Shanghai, you were a victim to a telecom scam a while ago. Almost victim. Yeah. Almost victim. Okay. Someone stopped you. Yeah. My colleague stopped me, but that's another thing. When I was in China, I wasn't in

my home country. It was completely different culture. I was speaking my second language. You know, I was again, more vulnerable to falling for a scam. So there's all kinds of scenarios in which I would be more vulnerable. Oh yeah. I almost like gave away a sofa on Craigslist or something in New York. It was here. So it happens anywhere and people can really trick you.

As the final part of our podcast, we have our self-care and recommendations corner. Sulin, I'm not sure if you remember this from when Joanna interviewed you, but it's just time to share. Cheney, do you want to share your recommendations first?

Yeah, sure. I'll go first. So actually your series, Sulin, made me think of another book called The Hidden Globe. I don't know if you've read it. It's by Atosa Aroxia Abrahamian, who she was a classmate of mine. It's about the hidden, like free ports, charter cities, and kind of the shadowy world where wealthy, ultra wealthy people keep their money.

I guess. So it's not exactly like criminal because it's all legal, but I think it's an interesting like corollary or maybe addendum to the scam world includes like duty free zones and like free ports where people put artwork and things like that.

But anyway, yeah, it's just like an interesting parallel economy to like what we think of as the formal economy. So I read that recently. It just came out, The Hidden Globe. Oh, wow. Okay, I'll check that out. That sounds very sort of related to lots of things I've been thinking about recently. Yeah, yeah.

Cool. I want to share a TV show I've been trying not to binge watch. It's called Mo, M-O, on Netflix. Season two just came out last week.

I watched five episodes in one night. I was like, no, no, I can't just finish all the episodes in one week and it's too good. So basically, Mo is a comedy sitcom, not really sitcom, but like a comedy show on Netflix. It follows the main character, Mo, who is a Palestinian American and is a stateless woman.

refugee. His family fled to, and it's also based on the main character who kind of plays himself. It's based on the writer, main actor's real life. His family fled to Kuwait and then to the United States where the family settled in Houston, Texas. And the show takes place in Houston. It follows kind of the challenges of being a stateless person, about being Palestinian American, and also about

Even for a show that covers such heavy topics in a really raw way, I don't know how the show does it, but it's equally as funny and heartwarming. I just think more people need to watch this. It's called Moe. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry.

It makes you just yell at the main character for being stupid. I just love how cross-cultural the show is because Houston, Texas, for people listening outside of the U.S., it's actually extremely racially and culturally diverse. There's a high Vietnamese population. Many Chinese people live there as well. A lot of Mexican influence, of course. And there's just a lot of immigrants who live there. So...

The friend group that Mo hangs out with, his best friend is an immigrant from West Africa. And then he's dating a Mexican-American girlfriend. The girlfriend is Catholic. Mo is Muslim. So there's a lot of like this exploration of being in an inter-religious relationship, inter-spiritual relationship as well. And just kind of like those cultural clashes, but also things that immigrants have in common. So yeah.

Yeah, I could just go on and on about this TV show, but I just think it's just great. I have become really obsessed with temples in Singapore, and I've been visiting a lot of them.

I think this sort of gets back to what I mentioned at the start of this podcast, which is I just love the mixing of cultures here. And so I'll sometimes be in what is an ostensibly Taoist temple in Singapore and there'll be a Ganesh that people are praying to. Or I recently went to one of the big famous Guanyin temples in Singapore, which is ostensibly Buddhist, but

But right next door is a Hindu temple that Buddhist devotees were going to visit after they prayed to the goddess of mercy. So I just find all of the mixing of different folk religions and spiritual practices and I guess local culture in a way, I don't even know if religion is the right word, so fascinating. So if anyone ever passes through Singapore, I'd recommend not just checking out maybe the biggest temples but hopping by little neighbourhood ones everywhere.

and trying to spot the syncretic nature of belief here. That's so interesting. That's your topic for your next series, religion. That's what I was going to say. Are we going to expect some cultural local analysis from Sun Lin in the future?

Let's move on to our self-care segment. So things that we are doing to just take care of ourselves, to unwind, relax outside of work. I guess I could go first. I have been doing a lot of snowy walks. So I think like in the past when I've co-hosted, I've talked about walking. But this year in particular, I've been enjoying and falling in love with walking.

snowy walks. And because I moved to Boston last year, and I did not get along with winter last year. I did not have the right boots. I did not have the right gear. I was freezing. I did not grow up in a snowy climate. I actually grew up in Florida, where it's a bit more tropical. So it was an adjustment for me. So Singapore and Southeast Asia is a little bit more closer to how I grew up. But so I had to learn. So I made it a point this year to really fall in

love and kind of romanticize the winter, right? So that starts with getting the right snow boots. So I have been layering up, gearing up, and I've been enjoying some walking trails near my home. It's been really amazing seeing people in my community since I live in a suburb of Boston. I'm seeing so many kids hit the hiking trails in the hills and they slide down together. It's like

so amazing to see kids outside, no phones, no devices, too cold. Your phone's going to freeze. You don't want to take your phone out in the snow. So, you know, it's so, but it's so great to see kids really just have that childhood, that

perhaps we had in the 90s before smartphones, before tablets and things, and just to go out and play for hours and hours. So that has been the way that I'm taking care of myself is unplugging and just hitting the trails with the right equipment in the snow. Sounds amazing.

I guess mine is I've been reacquainting myself with scents and candles. I don't know, they're quite calming at times. And also I've been re-saging my space with Palo Santo, which has really helped when you go through something stressful and it just kind of cleanses your surroundings. Yeah.

That is what I've been doing and also hopefully working on my meditation. What about you, Sulyn? I must admit, self-care has been lacking in the past few months as I've been racing to get this podcast out.

But, Megan, when I was listening to you talk about the kids in your neighborhood sledding without their phones, one thing that my husband and I did a few years ago was ban screens from the bedroom, which seems very basic. But we set our whole room up so that, you know, we went out and bought a bunch of alarm clocks if we do need to set an alarm. Yes. We only read in

physical books. We don't even have like Kindles or anything in our room. And that has really helped improve my sleep quality. And I find it a lot more relaxing because come the early evening, I just put all my devices away as long as I'm not on deadline and can really switch off from the online world, which I think

will otherwise seep into my late nights and early mornings. That's so much needed, especially in this crazy new cycle we're in, at least in the United States, you know, things have been crazy. So, but I think that's a universal, like good tip, just detach from them. Inspirational. Okay. Thank you, Su Lin, for coming on New Voices. Thanks so much for having me, Cheney and Megan. It's been great chatting.

You've been listening to the New Voices podcast with Cheney Zhu and Megan Cattell. Our producer is Wayne Kwong and our editor is Rebecca Liu. Music is by April Zhu. You can follow us on Twitter at New Voices and on Instagram at newvoices underscore network. You can also support our activities via Patreon. Patrons are invited to play an active role in our community. You can also receive bonus episodes delivered straight to your inbox every month. Thanks and until next time.