#50. Stephen Yuan: The Noodle Shop
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What is up, everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. You can always reach us at thehonestdrink at gmail.com. And of course, you know what to do. Go ahead, rate, comment, and subscribe.

We got a cool guest today. He's the editor-in-chief and founder of The Noodle Shop. The Noodle Shop is a grassroots media organization that focuses on covering Asian culture, identity, family, and relationships while also breaking Asian stereotypes. So really, it's about producing and recruiting the next generation of creative Asian voices and giving them a platform to be heard.

I think it's a really cool idea and there's probably not enough concepts like this out there. This is a new project he's working on, so they're going to be putting out more written content, video content, and he's also going to be launching his own podcast soon. So be on the lookout for that. It was a really fun time talking to him. We had a full house on this one. It was me, Howie, and Eric. And I hope by now you can tell who's who. But without further ado, please give it up for Stephen Yuen.

All right. Cheers. Do you like to go by Steve or Steven? Steven, please. I would prefer Steven. All right.

What is this? Mortlock 15. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Welcome to the show, Steven. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. A little spice to it. Anytime, bro. Yeah, Mortlock. Ooh, that is spicy. A little spice to that. It's sweet. That's got some hot cha-cha going on. Ooh.

You like it? Caramelly. I do like the flavor of it. Yeah. I do. It is caramelly. And it has a very long lingering taste. I think it's the candy. More like 15 years. All the sugar in our mouth. It's all the sugar. I feel like it's been a long time since we actually talked about whiskey on this show. Well, we know the listeners are always asking, what whiskey did you have? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, what's the what? The Mortlock 15 year? Yeah. It's good. I got it on a trip recently to Beijing. They have these whiskey shops just in the mall now, like little whiskey clubs. Interesting. So I asked the owner, I said, hey, what's good? They had everything. They had like Yamazaki, like 30, like it's nothing. Oof.

If you can afford it. Anyway, Steven. Hi. Welcome to the show, bro. Thank you so much for having me. You bet, man. I've been good. This is an interesting experience for sure. I remember you guys talking with Lee about this. You guys were all like Petey fans, I think, right? Oh, no, he was. And Howie likes Petey. I don't like Petey whiskey. Okay, okay. Because I'm like way on the other end. You don't like it? I like them like super smoky. Oh, shit. So you like them, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like the Lafroix and stuff like that.

I was going to bring one today. Really? I'll drink it. I appreciate it, but I don't prefer the whiskey stuff. I mean the smoky stuff. Do you guys drink Baijiu? We haven't on the show yet, no. Oh, fuck, shit.

You like Baijiu? I was going to bring a bottle, yeah. Really? Next time. We'll have a round of Baijiu for sure. Yeah, that'll be fun. Are you like, I just want to stick on the Baijiu for one second. Is that something that you've been on for like, because I didn't have it until I moved to China, right? Baijiu for the first time. Was that something that you had here or? Yeah, so my family's from Henan. They drink a fuck ton of Baijiu there, obviously. Like my grandmother drinks it still, you know, she's like 78. She drinks like earlier on every day.

First time I had Baijiu, I was eight. So we kind of grew up with it. Wow. Wow. I only drink Baijiu with Chinese food, but like jiaozi especially, jiaozi and like jiucai. Well, do you only drink it when you're eating or do you ever drink it when like it's not a meal and you're just drinking? Sometimes, yeah. Really? Yeah. Well, when she gets crazy, right? Depends on the day. But no, Baijiu is nice. I appreciate Baijiu.

We'll try it next time. Is he the only one here? We'll get shit-faced on the show. Yeah, all right. I just, I don't think we know how to drink it. Like, we don't really know anyone that drinks it. But if you meet someone that drinks it, then maybe we can go along for the ride. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, we should do a Baijiu show next time. Yeah. Bring it on next time. Like, good Baijiu, it's like all types of alcohol, right? There's bad scotch, there's good scotch, there's bad vodka. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. We just want the good stuff. We won't remember the show, but it's fine. Like, we'll record it.

But Steven, I was really interested in kind of what you're doing with the noodle shop. It's called the noodle shop, right? Correct, yes. So what is the noodle shop? Can you explain it to kind of our listeners and even Howie and Eric? Sure. For now, it's a medium publication.

It started off as an idea, like maybe a year ago, we shot a pilot for last Christmas and I realized how much work goes into video production that I didn't know or understand. You know, and then COVID hit and I've been doing a lot of writing. So I just set a goal to write both things I care about in June every day. And then I put on an ad and a lot of people responded. So I think what I found really interesting was there isn't a lot of

Asian people don't talk about shit. That's just a thing. I think you guys have talked about this on the show. I've heard a couple of times. Good shit, bad shit, doesn't matter. We just don't talk about shit, especially from a first-person perspective. I don't know if you guys agree with that.

I 100% agree. Yeah. I feel like it's... It's like we're not in touch with the emotions, right? Well, it's not that we're not in touch, but it's just like I feel like there's this awkwardness to share with family, right? There's this awkwardness. Like, not to say we're not close to our parents and siblings. Of course we are. But I think like at least maybe this is an Asian thing.

But I feel like there's always this like kind of awkwardness to share like real feelings and emotions with your family, with the people that are supposed to be the closest to you. Right. But there's this like, I don't know how to explain it. Do you share with other people though? Like friends? Like is it easier for you to share with colleagues? It would be easier for me to share with friends than it would be my own family. Cool.

And it's not that I don't want to, it's just I just feel it's awkward. And I feel like they would feel it's awkward too, you know? For sure, for sure. Because like we don't, it's not like that, you know? We're not only saying, oh, I love you and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That might be more of a Western thing in terms of like people like really like expressing a lot of emotion like to your parents maybe. I don't know. Yeah, so I mean for now it's a publication on Medium. Put on an ad, a lot of people responded. They wanted to write something.

So we view ourselves as a platform that seeks young Asian creative people, especially writers for now. And we try to tell stories in like a first or third person perspective.

But what's the mission? Like, what's the mission for this? The mission, it's really funny. I just had a conversation yesterday with a friend. For me, personally, the mission is about things. I feel like our generation, and I feel like I'm on the edge. I was born in 1990. I think you guys are a little older, right? Yeah, we're not. We're not. I know, I know. My generation and older, I would say, is...

We didn't think about a lot of these things when we were younger like our identity, our part of society, etc, etc, who we are, all that shit. But I think now that we're older we think about it but a lot of us already stuck in our ways and our jobs and families, whatever. Whereas I feel like with the younger people they can still really make a difference. You know, so I think for me the personal mission is just to let, put more stories out there for them to feel like that's okay.

But is this really pertained like for like Asians or is it just- Yeah, I mean, the way I see it is there's this brand, you guys, I'm sure you know, FUBU, For Us, Buy Us, right? But who knows? And sure, we're not starting a clothing company, but I think the idea is the same. I think the idea is, you know, I want to find like Asian kids in like Hungary or, you know, in like Czechoslovakia.

I think one of the first things we're looking at is like stringing stories together. So hypothetically, one of the things is like we talk about interracial dating a lot. Right. But for example, if we string three stories together, something like chicken soup noodle for the soul. Do you guys remember those books? Yeah. And we publish them in short story format, you know, where it's all girls. So three Asian girls through three very different lenses, like one from Africa, one from Singapore, one from the U.S.,

you know, just to kind of string together new forms of media is what we're trying to do right now. Yeah. We'll see how it goes. I like it, man. I really liked that idea. And I think there's definitely not only a market for it, but there's a need for it from where I stand, like to, just to give young Asian people more of a voice, um,

There's an article I saw that you had written that I thought was a pretty good article. And you were talking about how come there's not that many Asian writers. Right. And I feel like that's all connected in terms of expressing yourself or even the creative arts. There's not that many Asian writers.

you know, Asians doing it in terms of they all kind of gravitate towards like this more stereotypical jobs, hard sciences, like you said, like, you know, mathematics or science or engineering and shit like that. And so like what, what kind of spawned you, like what got you to notice this and want to write about it? Um,

I do a lot of reading, but also I just, I feel like, especially with recent events, there's been so much focus on like African-Americans and their history and their culture, which is great. You know, there's the whole entire Me Too thing as well, which is also great, but it also makes you kind of reflect on other things. Like I think we also as a society. It's like, hey, we're here too, right? Yeah. And I, you know, when Andrew Yang happened, I just, for me, it was really cool.

cool to kind of see the effects of this would have down younger kids and most most importantly their parents right because i actually don't think the problem is with the kids the problems with the parents right so what seeing andrew yang make some asian parents go you know what maybe my son or daughter can go into politics and it'll be fine right so like it doesn't necessarily need to go in my opinion from doctor to dj it can go from like doctor to hairdresser

right or doctor to fucking you know I don't know chicken shop owner it doesn't have to go from one extreme to the other yeah for sure for sure so I think our goal is to kind of just show different shades of Asian people I guess if

I think that's great. And he's the first guest that ever brought up Andrew Yang. I used to always bring him up. Huge fan. Fucking Yang gang, bro. Huge fan. Fucking Yang gang. And they're early. Because he was on Joe Rogan very early in his campaign. And he made too much sense that that's a problem. What he said just made too much sense. And he's fucking Asian. So, I mean, it's going to be... Let's call a spade a spade, man. I mean, that definitely...

hurt his chances of actually being considered like a serious. So you don't think the U.S. is ready for an Asian president? Not right now, no. No? No. Look how big of a deal it was just to get their first like black president. And now the kind of the spotlight is on women, right? Because you got Kamala Harris, right? Where do you fit in with like Latino? Like does it go black, woman, Latino? Yeah.

Asian or? Probably Latino before Asian. Wow. I would probably guess you would see a Latino president before you saw an Asian president in America. Yeah, I agree. And you just know that even if it was Asian, it wasn't going to be Chinese, given the current situation. Yeah, of course not. How awkward would that be? You would never. Look, number one, you would never get all the votes because most people would be like, what the fuck?

fuck even with Andrew Yang no I mean it's like you know you see a Chinese face you see a last name Yang and especially now with all the tension between US and China right and how tense it is there and the atmosphere they have there there's never gonna be like ethnically Chinese US president in the near future for sure in my opinion right I think there might be we'll see well how long how long you guys before we die

So what, next 50 years? Before we die, then next 10 years? We'll see. Depends how you live.

It's true, but it's like what you just asked about you think America is ready for an Asian president I mean you can just go down the ranks, you know is America ready for an Asian pop star in America You know like a Chinese like a guy that's like a well isn't like kpop really popular there. Yeah, that's for different reasons Yeah, it's different. I'm saying an American. What's the reasons then? What were these reasons cuz kpop's from Korea, right? Yeah, like it appeals to a certain type of audience and

I think their audience demographic is very similar to Disney's. A lot of parents, a lot of kids, a lot of teens. I don't know. Check that out. I mean, I see an Asian kind of pop star popular in America pretty soon, relatively soon. Do you have a name? No, no, I don't. But I can see it. I can imagine. The closest is like what, Rich Brian. He's also not American. Yeah, he's not American. Exactly.

But like a president, I can't imagine that in the near future for America. But I can imagine some sort of big... But that's what I'm saying. Like you've got to go through the ranks, right? I feel like step by step, man. Like you're jumping to president. You have to put your toe in the water first. You're jumping to president. The American public has to kind of get like used to the idea. We don't even have like a full-fledged male leading role that's not a Kung Fu star. Yeah. I mean, come on. Getting there though. Getting there.

Getting there. Very quickly. You see some progress in Hollywood for sure. But there's no like full-fledged, especially like romantic male leading role. Like a sexy male. Yeah. Right. Who would play him? Well, that's a thing, right? We got to discover him first. Yeah. They're not out there. I mean, who's like the most famous Asian male star now? Like John Cho? John Cho. He's not like a sex symbol. No, the new Marvel guy. What's his name?

The Simu Liu. Oh, Shang Chi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's not a big name yet, though. He's like, he's not like a name. Right. Yeah.

It's the same for girls though. I mean, like Awkwafina is big, but she's not like Julia Roberts. You had Lucy Liu back in the day. Because women are sexualized there and men are not. Asian men are not. Did you guys feel that growing up in the US? For sure. So one of the pieces I think I wrote, I mean, one of the topics I write about a lot is just dating in general, but also like interracial dating. For a lot of my 20s, I mostly dated white girls.

which is fine. I was young. Um, you know, and you say it like you have shame or something. Well, you know, it's people change, right? Um, now it just happened that way. It wasn't by design or anything. That's what I meant. Um,

But like the amount of times I've heard people say, I'm just not attracted to Asian guys for like no reason. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And like, yeah, I'm not consistently attracted to say African girls, but that's an exposure issue in my opinion. Right. And even having said that, they're absolutely black girls who I think are beautiful. I would never say I'm not attracted to black girls because they're black. Yeah. It's just not true.

But I've had so many people tell me that. I'm just like, wow, that is, I think that's racist. Yeah. Right? I'm not sure. Or have you ever heard this? Like, if you dated like a non-Asian girl and then they go, wow, I never thought I'd be attracted to an Asian. You're the first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, or something like that, right? Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. It's definitely interesting. What about you, Eric? You ever had anything like that? No. No.

No, I don't discriminate. I'm saying towards you. I'm saying like, have you ever had any of those kind of remarks towards you? No. Well, I did. And it really fucks with like growing up there as a young kid, as a teenager, it really fucks with your fucking confidence, man. You know, like your sexual confidence. Right. And I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, white area. My school was predominantly white. And so I was like one of the very few Asian kids there.

And yeah, it was like, there was this different kind of nervousness.

an increased amount of nervousness for me to like approach like white girls versus approaching Asian girls. You know what I mean? And it was weird. It was weird. And like when I go to social events, like you have this anxiety and exactly what you say, like you just got this feeling, whether it was real or not, but you definitely got this feeling like just like white girls and even like ABC girls there, right? Like just weren't attracted to Asian men.

How do you feel now, if I may ask? I feel it's a lot better. But I feel like there's definitely still some of that depending on where you are and what kind of community you're in. For sure. And I think it's not like they were born that way. I think it's also through culture and media and entertainment. You kind of get brainwashed because the Asian man in America was never sexualized. In fact, it was opposite.

I do think that's changing though, to be like a hundred percent honest with you. Yeah. Um, which is cool. I'm looking forward to it. Did you see that, uh,

Did you see that ESPN 30 for 30 on Bruce Lee? I still have not. Oh, dude. Is it good? It's fucking... It's good. I need to watch that. It got me like emotionally. Yeah. Like I got choked up. Yeah. I got choked up because it kind of touched on kind of these things we're talking about like the... Because like, you know, Bruce Lee was trying to be a star. Right. Right? In America. And he was full of confidence and everything like that. But like...

America just wasn't ready for him yet. There wasn't ready for him to be a star, a household name. - How do you think that would start? I think the way I understand it is that this is gonna have to be a process.

of course right like it's not people aren't just gonna wake up one day and it's gonna change right like does it start with like movies and like what porn or like how how does it start the specific steps i don't know but i've it's it's all gonna all needs time we should start a movement you know we should it's gonna happen naturally with time yeah we should start moving right now me and you steven let's start a movement facebook facebook no but i think i think like the things you're doing

is all part of that process. Right? Like your mission with the noodle shop to create a platform for young Asian voices. I mean, that is the process. Yeah. You know, what's been really cool about it to be a hundred percent honest with you is like, I've been here seven years. I've done my fair amount of shit. Some of it good, some for not good. But this was, I think the first organic thing because there was zero expectations going into it. And like, I put out a, a notice on like a Facebook group, um,

called ACN Writing, and like 20 people responded that they want to contribute, you know, and then I met a girl in Shanghai who's now my partner in this, and she's amazing, and just like the energy that she brings to this. We now have 12 staff writers who are unpaid, who just onboarded in like Kenya, you know, three on the East Coast, Singapore, Portugal,

Just seeing that response from a younger generation has been really, really cool, to be honest with you. You're going to have a lot of passionate people to be part of this. You know what I mean? We hope so. You guys included, hopefully. Hell yeah, man. Like you said, we're all doing our part, right? Yeah. The writers you have, they're just in it just because they just believe in that mission, that message, and just kind of want to express themselves. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, a lot of them are very young. You know, like we have this guy named Kyle who I think is like 19 or 20. He's in Boston and he's very part of the whole Black Lives Matter movement. You know, he did a program called Bows for Bows Lives Matter. I'm butchering the name. I'm sorry, Kyle. But basically he sold bowsers to raise money to donate to- In Boston. In Boston, yeah. This is happening now, I think. I'll plug them. But basically he used the bowser as a gateway for Asian kids to talk to their parents.

because a lot of Asian parents in the US first generation or even older, they don't really give a fuck about this. They don't understand it. Right. They're just like, no, no, stay home. Keep your head down. Yeah. Right. So he's using this as like a way as a fundraiser to have these conversations. So what is he doing? He's selling buttons, right? Yeah. It's like Girl Scouts cookies. Right. And what is he doing with the money? He's donating it to the Black Lives Matter movement. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. That's awesome. 20 year old kid, you know, or 21. Uh,

so like it's people like that that have volunteered to kind of help us out and write so our goal for next 30 60 days is to write um and then look at new forms of media and see where that goes really we'll see how that goes that's awesome man i wish you the best of luck thank you i appreciate it like i and also something you written in that article that you did about the writers really struck me as like how how important because like

you think about the consequences and when you say, oh, there's not a lot of Asian writers, a lot of people might be like, okay, so what? There's a lot more other important shit to do. But like, you're right. You highlighted the importance of having like articulate and skilled and talented writers that represent your culture because they're going to be that written legacy that kind of passes that culture and understanding of that culture to people who might not be aware or might not understand that

they're gonna be that lasting voice. It's gonna be that written word, right? Well, now it's like digital, but like it's still written word. And to have people who are good at it, who are good at getting that message across in a way that people can accept it and be entertained by it as well, that's extremely important. - Yeah, yeah. You know, like the thing that really fucks with my head is all Asian cultures have a really rich history of the written word.

Right, like China's been documenting shit for thousands of years, as has Japan, Korea, you know, even the islands to a degree have documented stuff. And just somewhere along the way, we as a culture have lost it for like whatever reason, right? But I think what a lot of Asian families value these days, and I think a lot of it's because of wars in the 1900s, but it's not arts and culture, even though we have a very rich history of that. Like China has a super rich history of arts and culture, right? Yeah.

So I think maybe there'll be the next wave coming, whether it'll be the next 10 years, 100 years. I don't know. We'll see. I think it's because it's not a priority, right? It's like survival's priority. Yeah. But maybe we're kind of past. I think maybe our generation was the first one that kind of went past survival. Yeah. Right. Because even our parents who immigrated, there was still a lot of survival, right? You know, when you see the younger kids now, it's really about change.

it's really cool to see, to be honest with you. - Well, like, it's good you say priority because like, okay, if it's a different, if it's not prioritized now, what took its place, right? And like, you can point to like money, right? Like, like everything-- - Security. - Security, right? Exactly. I guess ultimately money is security, right? So it's all about security. It's all about make your money, be successful financially to have that security. And that's been like,

the main goal and priority of most well pretty much every family right let alone asian families i feel like more so in china like china yeah but in china it's more like like i don't i don't care what you're passionate about do something that has the biggest chance of you actually making money yeah but like life was hard man like uh i've been here seven years y'all been here longer but when i first came here we're riding scooters you know and like just random old ass lady would cross the street without looking and you get

pissed at her and now I view it very differently because you have to understand for the first 50 to 60 years of her life there were no roads there were no scooters there were no street lights there was no look left right and we are imposing our views on her at 60 that's kind of hard to change it's not really fair yeah I don't even need to go back to my grandmother I can go back to my uncles they were rationing right and I'm sure you guys have similar experiences they were rationing back then which is totally fine that's just where China was

I just feel like we're so myopic. Like the United States for the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s was violent as fuck, you know, and people were terrible and that's what the UK was the industrial revolution and

China's having its moment now. That's just part of history. Yeah, it's kind of like Renaissance period or it's re-Renaissance period because it's had several Renaissance periods in the ancient past, right? But I think that's exactly right. I think you're going to definitely see the ABC. And when I say ABC, it falls into the umbrella of all Western-born Chinese people. You're from Canada, CBC or whatever. But all those kind of Western-born Chinese people

In a few generations, it's almost going to be unrecognizable to the culture we know of what an ABC is. Because a lot of us, our parents were the first generation that had moved and immigrated to America for many of us. So our parents came with that very Chinese mindset. A lot of them, they were very conventional or traditional. And they brought that culture over. So we're a little more close to it.

Inevitably, and it brings me no joy to say this, but inevitably through generations, that's gonna get diluted. That sense of closeness to the old country is gonna get diluted. And just look at us, our Chinese and Mandarin isn't nearly as good as our parents. So that means our kids is likely gonna be even worse. You know what I mean? So-

Things like this and the cultural understanding, because they had actually had firsthand knowledge, things like that, it's going to get diluted. And so I think culturally speaking, maybe the pressures and expectations and the mindset of, you know, future ABC type kids are going to be completely different than what we know and what we grew up with. Right. No, I completely agree. I wanted to go back to what he said earlier about the whole ABC thing. I've always found this really interesting, you know, because...

I have a lot of European Asian friends and they don't define themselves like that. Right. They're just Dutch. Right. Or they're just Norwegian or they're just Spanish with like the Spanish ones are like incredibly Spanish, you know, like you just hear it in their fucking accent. Right. But like it's us. And I guess me included as well, but more of the Americans where you need to define yourself. And I feel like that's actually very, uh, ironically American of you to need to distinguish yourself like that. Yeah. Right. Which is great. I mean, as part of the beauty of America, it was the beauty of America. Um,

you know? And I, I, but I, if you had, I don't, do you guys have kids? Do any of you have kids? No. Right. If you had kids, don't you wish that they don't limit themselves like that, that they wouldn't say, Oh, I'm ABC. Cause my dad was ABC, right? You just, just, we hope for a better future for them, a more inclusive future. Um, and I, I think for me personally, that's done through media and that's why I'm in media right now. Like I want to look, I want to find Asian kids from Helsinki. They exist. I promise you, you know, there's Asian people everywhere. Um,

but we want to build that new world order, I guess you can say in a way. Well, what about like, because you're in China, we're in Shanghai now. So,

what about starting off here in terms of just digging out all the stories you can, because I mean, forget Helsinki and everywhere else for now. I mean, I'm sure there's so many, you know, young and talented and ambitious and passionate Asian kids here, whether they're ABC or not, or westernized or not with incredible stories to tell. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're looking into it. Definitely. Once again, this was not something that I planned. It just organically happened this way over the last month or two.

and we're just trying to figure out what we wanna be at this point. But it's a very exciting time and I have a very exciting staff on board. When you work with young people like that over something they're very clearly passionate about, it's very energizing. - What was that spark though that sent you down this path? I mean, I know you started this and you saw you got a really incredible positive response, so that kind of gave you encouragement, but even before that,

what brought your mind space to even like in this direction to even do this? - Okay. You know, a short answer or a long answer? - Whatever, whatever you want to do. - You know, I think for me, it's when you, you all, you guys are all from the US, you understand when you talk to non-Asian people about Asian people, they just all think everyone's Chinese.

Or they all think everybody looks Chinese or maybe Chinese or Japanese. But you have to understand Asian people make up the majority of the people in this world. So I think it's just incredibly naive to think we're all the same. So I think what originally started this for me was just to be able to show that, yes, we're Asian, but every Asian person is different. There are Asians who play the guitar or do podcasts, but they're also Asian doctors.

That's kind of how this started for me. I've never really kind of fit into anything, so I've always had an identity crisis. I was telling you guys about my past. I grew up in Germany and then Canada, but I would never consider myself ABC. Not as disrespect or anything. Some of my best friends here are ABC or CBC, but I just don't really fit that mold. So I've always kind of been on the outside looking in, and now just kind of seeing that

Grow and you know, I'm I just turned 30 so I'm very comfortable with who I am for the first time in my life You know It's just it's a very empowering moment to kind of Instead of looking at your life two or three years at a time look at your life 50 years at a time You know, it's an active decision I made over the last year, you know, you guys do a creative art here as well So you guys understand you understand this versus getting an accounting job or something, right? you know, so I just I Decided to take a year away from everything and kind of focus on this and see where it goes. I

But what's this identity crisis you're talking about though? Like what do you mean by that? Yeah, so the best way I can summarize this is when you ask most people where they're from, they'll tell you where they're from. When you ask me where I'm from, like you guys have done tonight, I tell you a series of events, right? I don't really identify with anything more than another at this point. I would say I'm Canadian. I'm legally Canadian. But there are times I feel very Chinese. There are times when I'm drinking baijiu with my grandmother where I feel very Chinese.

Every time I go back to Germany, I love Germany. I feel very German. So I don't have that root, I guess you can say. How old were you when you left China? I left China at three in 1993. Okay.

And then we left Germany in 99 and then Canada 2000. - Are you fluent in Mandarin though? - Hi, how are you? - So is it more of just like, you don't want to, you just view countries as kind of, it's just land with borders around it. And like, I'm a human being. So like, why do I need to label myself

any sort of nationality. Nationality is not necessarily, it's like a very human construct. And it has nothing to do with like kind of who we are, I guess. Is it kind of more of that kind of philosophy? It's like, you just don't care to label yourself as any nationality. It's like, that's not how we should be defining ourselves. - Right. I don't really think you have a choice in how you feel about that. Or at least I don't, right? Like I wish I could just simplify and identify as Canadian, but that's just not reality.

Like when Tim Hortons first opened here, I felt incredibly Canadian, you know, and I was very proud. Or then the Raptors won. Yeah. No? Yeah, yeah. You don't like the Raptors? I like the Raptors. I respect the Raptors. You know, but like you're making it sound like that's a choice. I don't think that's, for me at least, that's not a choice. You know, like I just don't identify. There are absolutely times as I get older now, I feel much more Canadian. And if you were to put a gun to my head, I would say Canadian.

Yeah. I can relate. And like, I think, you know, had your parents decided to stay in China, they

um, you know, it would be a different outcome for sure. Totally different outcome because you know, like your ancestors would have been in China for like thousands of years as were our ancestors in China. And it was literally like 0.1% of our family lineage that decided to move somewhere else. And so this notion of like an identity crisis, um,

makes total sense to me. Yeah, for sure. Totally makes sense. And, you know, if you've, if like, if you've been somewhere for like thousands of years, like an Eskimo or whatever, right. And you just get tied to that piece of land and, and like you, you kind of wonder like, why did they stay there for so long in such a difficult place like the desert? Right. And it's just because they're so tied to that culturally and socially. Yeah. And, you know, then, you know, our parents decided to uproot the families and,

and move somewhere and then you have an identity crisis. I think that like there are millions of people, billions of people around the world that are starting to experience that identity crisis because people are becoming more mobile and we're able to move around the world. You guys like kind of talked earlier a little bit about

you know, like the notion of like role models, you know, not enough Asian writers, not enough Asian presidents, not even one, except for she. He's a great one. Not enough fill in the blank, right? So there's a lot to kind of like talk about there. What, I guess, who are your role models growing up? Yeah. Asian or in general? Anyone. Okay. And do you think that there's,

like a need, like why do we feel the need to have Asian role models? To even define it. Yeah. It'd be like Asian role models, a role model, right? Right. Why do we have to categorize it like that? That's a bad. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. Um, you know, I think the word role model is really interesting. Um, I, I didn't have any, I don't really know how to answer that. Like my father was absent from my life at a very young age and my mom never remarried or anything. Um,

And I think now I understand the importance of having a strong male role model, as you said, in your life. I don't really have any, whether that be athletes or business people or personal, I don't really know. Now I do actually, I'm working very hard at trying to make change and be a better person now that I'm 30.

So now I would say, that's ironic. It sounds to people like Joe Rogan. Yeah. And it sounds like that's driving you, right? Like, I mean, Justin asks you kind of, you know, like why you're doing this and sort of what's the origin story. But it sounds like, you know, you...

you want to tap into like Asians everywhere. I totally, that it actually fascinates me. And I would not to draw like a clear distinction between like Chinese people in China versus Chinese people outside of China. Like, because I respect both, but it's two different worlds. Right. But like whenever I travel anywhere in the world, I remember I was taking my parents about five years ago to the, um, the Redwoods in California. And there's this city called like Arcata or something like that. And it's like,

I mean, it's pretty white, you know? Yeah. There was like a Chinese restaurant there. I'm like, Hey, can we go to the Chinese restaurant? And my mom's like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trust the Chinese restaurant there. Why are you going to the USD? Exactly. Right. And it was like, I had no intention of eating the Chinese food. I just wanted to meet the people there. Why the fuck are you in Arcata, dude? And so, like,

To me, it's fascinating. Like when you talked about like finding all the Asian people around the world that kind of grew up

and sort of had this culture shock of like, or not culture shock, but maybe like split identity of like thousands of years in one place. And you know, Chinese people are super duper traditional. So like from an early age, you're basically like indoctrinated in Chinese culture because like it's the most powerful culture, the longest living culture, right? We just kind of forget that cause we grew up, you know, um, overseas. Um,

But it fascinates me that then you grow up in a different culture. So you're kind of like in this split identity. There's no culture that I think is so deep and rich as Chinese culture. And that's why our parents held on to it so strongly. Then you go to another place, which is like 180 degrees different. I grew up in Texas. And so you don't really know who you are. What role models do you have? If you're like a white dude growing up in America...

Role models are all around you. Just close your eyes and pick one. If you're an Asian person, like Bruce Lee, and so I think we're searching for these things because, like you said, there's more Asians than any other race in the world. And so it's silly to say that every Asian should be an accountant or a software engineer.

we can be anything we want to be, but growing up, were we able to find those people that connected back to like what we wanted to do? Like if, Howie, like growing up, you want to be like a rock star filmmaker, like who would you look up to? Well, yeah, exactly. And I used to get shit from my family, you know, because to be like, what the hell are you doing? And I'm the only one in my family that pursued that path. And they'd be like, what?

- What? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. - So is the takeaway here that kind of an identity crisis is kind of almost like a very universal Asian thing? - Yeah. - For ABCs especially? - If I can just kind of jump in quickly, I actually, me personally, I don't view it as an identity crisis, right? I feel like the word crisis has such a negative attachment to it. - Well, you used the word identity crisis. - That's why I said I wanted to jump in and correct that, 'cause I think that word is just so used constantly. I feel like this is your part of what's gonna come next.

right and like i think that's just that's really awesome it's great that there are things we need to work on but that's we're gonna work on them you know and i when you see the younger asian kids these days they very they are different because i'm right on the edge i'm on the edge between millennials gen x right i think it's before me and yeah i think gen z gen z gen x is before okay yeah gen y yeah so like i'm right on the edge and it's really cool to see um

Yeah, I didn't really have any role models growing up. Now I try to look for them through media. I think that's actually one of the really cool things about doing shit like this or YouTube or TV and media in general is now with the internet you can

see so many people. I think that's actually probably one good thing about social media actually is. Well, especially, especially if it's long form social media. Um, I mean, there's not that much long form social media, although it's kind of, I think increased a little bit in the recent years, um, with the format of podcasting and things like that, how, how popular it's been. I mean, podcasting has been around forever, but it's only recently become like super, super popular mainstream. Right. Um,

You know, so like it's like that really short form, like few second clip kind of social media. Like I just can't really like keep up with that kind of shit. But like long form social media where it's either written article or podcasting or video or things like that, where you can really kind of sit down and have like,

have an honest conversation with someone like over length of time to like really get your points across and to really have a discussion right i mean instead of just blaring your own thoughts and just like and okay i i said what i wanted to say and now done my ears are closed but i actually have a back and forth right i got that's that's really important and i hope long-form stuff

you know, like this really kind of gets more popularity, even here in China, you know, I hope the podcast community gets even more popular here. And I want you, I like, I encourage, I highly encourage you to do your own podcast. I think we will. I think we'll look at at least two in September, but you know, going back where you said with long form, I just, I find it so interesting. I think we like we as a culture probably need that the most, right? Cause like I said, Asian people just don't talk about shit. Like, you know, my, my,

My mom's going to hate me for saying this. She'll listen to this. But my grandfather on my mom's side was sick for at least 10 years, you know, like vegetable sick almost. And up until like three years after he passed away, God rest his soul, I had no idea what the fuck was going on.

Like every time I ask her, she's like, oh, yeah, it's fine. He's getting better. It's a long thing. Right. But like there's no and like I was like 25, 26. I wasn't like a kid anymore. Right. And like obviously I want to help in whatever way I can. I want to at least try to understand what's going on. Dude, Asian people don't talk about shit, man. Like it's even amongst your friends. I don't know what I'm sure there's things you don't guys talk about either, especially with emotions and stuff. Right. Or.

Well, I mean, amongst the three of us, if you listen to any of our previous podcasts, you'll know we're pretty open with each other. We make a point. That's good. That's awesome. I mean, you have to look at sample sizes. I don't know if my family is an outlier, but my mom...

And yeah, they over-communicate. Dude, that's awesome. They took a shit. It's like, yeah, I took a shit. I took four shits today. So I think there's a whole spectrum. But I think in general, I found like I have lots of Chinese friends and lots of coworkers and stuff. And there's definitely sometimes a more subtle form of communication that's less direct. And it's part of the culture to be more respectful and to be a little bit less sort of like,

absolutely, you know, kind of crystal clear about what they're thinking, especially if it's sort of a negative emotion. Things are a little bit muted, right? And it feels like they're beating around the bush sometimes. Right. When in reality, you know, you want them to just cut to the chase. Yeah.

Like I'll have like people that I know that I work with, that I trust, that I work closely with and they'll call like, Hey, how's it going? And kind of beat around the bush. And then, then they'll mention something and I'll be like, why didn't you just fucking say that from the beginning? Like, Oh, you know, yeah, well that's a very Chinese thing. It's very Chinese. Yeah. Um, don't you think though, as like Asian men, I think especially Asian men, Asian men don't talk a lot about a lot of things. Yeah. That's what I was going to say is that especially in China that I, that I've noticed is that there's the gender role, right? Um,

And I mean, I've mentioned this before as an example where I would be in the situation and I like to express myself. I like to talk on my emotions. And my significant other would be like,

why are you doing that? Just be a man, eat it up. Really? Yeah. Back when we first started dating. Sure. Okay. Not until later on, like she started getting to understand the way I am and stuff like that and it's all good now. But back then, it was like, yeah, she's like,

be a man like what is this like what does that mean what is this anxiety shit like what is this like like you know like you should just handle it you know basically she's saying like stop being a pussy yeah literally yeah it's like you're not allowed to have any type of problems or if you do deal like you're supposed to handle it no man like Jay-Z even had 99 problems you know so like men have problems yeah the bitch wasn't one man but that's what I'm not calling you the bitch haha

She listens now. I know I can understand how that came off. I'm saying VV, I'm sorry. But yeah, but, but going back, it's like, yeah, you have, I mean, that's the general stereotype and many people have it, you know, here, especially,

So there's no wonder that parents will be like that and that kind of gets pushed down to the kids. And then we kind of think like maybe that's the way we're supposed to. Like my dad, we never have deep conversations about emotions. What emotions? What are you talking about? What's awkward, right? It would be awkward to have one, right? For you or for him?

For both. Okay. For both involved. For everyone involved, I think it'd be awkward. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should do it on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll be fun. No, but I think it's not only a gender thing, although you do make a good point with the gender thing. I think it's also just the overall cultural thing. And it's almost like, I'm just gonna, I can't speak for other Asians, but I can speak for Chinese, right? Okay. It's almost like there's this, with ingrained in this culture, there's this subtext of like,

Don't fucking be selfish. It's like, it's never about you. It's about other things and bigger things and the good for everyone and the good for the family. And it's not about you.

So there's a sense of like, if I feel like I want to have a conversation about how I'm feeling, oh, the struggles I'm going through, you know, like, oh, woo is me, you know, cry me a river kind of thing. I feel like I would be being selfish. You know, we all got problems. Yeah. It's like, it's like, how entitled are you to think like, oh, you know, talk about your problems. Everyone's got problems. Right. Right. So there's this sense of like, I don't want to be selfish. Right.

So I'm not going to be like, I'm not going to make it about me, you know? And so there's this less willingness. Do you think that's healthy though? No, no, no. I don't think it's healthy. No? I don't. So it's something you all recognize needs to be changed. Yeah. We just ain't changing it. Yeah. You know, our families aren't changing it. So Steven is like... But it will change over time. I hope so. You talked earlier about like finding like young Asian creative people. Sure. And like kind of finding that voice. And, you know, I was thinking that, you know, like...

you have, you know, folks like maybe Justin, Howie, myself, even yourself, we're like a product of a very complex environment. Yeah. Right. Not a homogenous environment. Like we grew up in like different places, like, like almost like tectonic plates just crashing against each other. Right. And so I think that,

That whereas maybe we weren't sure of who we were before, as we get older, as you mentioned, we start to become more confident. Good. And we start to have more of a voice and we can forge a new path. Right. And I like what you kind of, like your mindset of not having, it's not an identity crisis. It's that, hey, like,

we're trying to figure out things. And once we do, we're going to have a really powerful voice. Um, what do you think the role is of a lot of these young Asian people? Do you think that like they've grown up in an environment where maybe it's more common to have Asian people overseas? The parents are a little bit less overbearing. So there might, they might not be sort of like have as much baggage, uh,

you know, some of us older folk. And do you think that, who do you think the audience is, right? Like, certainly, like, I would love to hear these new, you know, powerful Asian voices. But do you think that, you know, like,

there would be a bigger audience that like whites, blacks, all over the world, like there's a new Asian voice and the stigma of being Asian that we've kind of experienced a little bit in our own way. Do you think that like we'll kind of push past through this so that we're going to have like a much bigger audience and a new voice, which is not an Asian voice, it's just like a voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm going to answer the second question first because I already forgot the first one. It's okay. It's okay. It's a long question, right? It's a fucking long question. Sorry, I'm sorry. Wait, I got to start. I was going to forget the second one as well. Was there a first question? No, no, no. Yeah, yeah. You had to interrupt him just so you won't forget the second question too, right? All right, go. Fuck, what was the second question? The voice. Yeah, do you think we'll appeal to like...

Do you think we'll appeal to just like, you know, Asian people like ourselves that are trying to find ourselves? Or do you think we'll appeal to everyone? This is going to sound absolutely terrible. I apologize. But I really don't care. And I don't think about it that way. I think how we might relate to this, but a lot of directors, when they write stories,

writer directors they don't think about the audience they think about an audience of one right can you confirm that yeah yeah of course you should you should think that way right so i guess for me it's that's kind of how i approach it um at least for now what because it's so raw there's so little out there like we we don't really know what the fuck we are right now and eventually as this grows it'll be a contribution of other people's identities as well and their values and their sweat for now it's mine you know i i'm the captain of this ship and we'll

I don't really think about who this is for. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you do it as you go, right? Cause if you got something to say, so, um, what are you trying to say from this and whoever the fucking audience is, hopefully it's, there is an audience. Um, what do you want them to get out of your message? So the noodle shop right now is a publication where Asian writers contribute stories and mostly in first perspective. Um,

they're usually very young. We separate our stories by flavor. So there's a spicy section, there's an umami section, there's a sweet section, and there's a sour section.

Is spicy like relationships and shit like that? So I wrote a piece called Dating. I think the myth of an Asian penis or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Where sweet are, you know, sweet stories are supposed to be stories that make you feel good after. I'm trying to target the emotions rather than the topics, right? Because certain stories are supposed to make you feel certain ways.

Um, umami is our creative writing section. So that's like poetry, listicles, whatever. Sour is the ones that are supposed to be like, really? Rants kind of stuff. No, that's, that'll be anger. Maybe we do bitter one day. We've talked about it, but sour is more just like, it makes you think, it makes you like jolt and spicy is self-explanatory. Um, what do I want people to take away from this? I don't fucking know. Relatability, like someone that,

someone who wrote something down they spent time explaining their part of the story and it makes you appreciate that they did that i think it's just storytelling right it's just storytelling it's just relatability exposure well i like i'm absolutely curious sure like i was like i mean thank you i want to know about like other asian people right and i want to know about other asian people that have a point of view yeah

I want to know about Asian people who grew up all over the world. Right. I mean, when I walked in, a shout out to Temporary Humans. TH. But, you know, you were like, oh, you know the TH guys. Yeah, yeah. So, like, I'd never met freaking Dutch Chinese people. Right.

That was fucking cool. I like hanging out with Dutch Chinese people. They're cool until they speak Dutch. Then they're fucking annoying. Yeah. Because I know like four of them, right? Yeah. And like we've had dinner sometimes and they're speaking Dutch. I'm like, why the fuck am I here? Well, the key is that you have to have a strong enough ABC contingent to just overwhelm

Override that shit. Yeah, we don't like... Squash that shit. We always have like strong... You know, we bring our white boys into the equation. You've got to... You can't have them be more than 50%. Then you're screwed. I agree. It's a harsh-ass language, man. I don't want to listen to that shit. But yeah, like Chinese people in Helsinki...

that's the coolest shit. I mean, I almost feel like I just want to buy a plane ticket, like whenever COVID ends and then just travel every country and then just like find like Chinese people who grew up in that country and then just be like, what the fuck are you guys doing? Can I add one thing? Sorry, not to interrupt quickly. Yes, but also no, right? So it is Chinese people in Helsinki, which is cool, but that's been done. I think what we're trying to, or what I would like to do is Chinese people in Helsinki talking about something that you understand.

So like with him, for example, or like one of the things we talked about earlier was like growing up in white neighborhoods.

right something you understand something you understand you all understand that but you don't understand what that's like in helsinki you know what i mean right it means different right yeah but it's like but it is relatable in a sense oh sorry that's not a word it's comparable personally to you right and also relatable whereas the other one's just relatable you know so i think that's kind of what we're looking at i think probably what we'll start is with dating right because

Asian girls, white dudes is a tale as old as time. And anybody can write about it. But when you start having somebody from Kenya, somebody from Beirut, somebody from Lisbon, somebody from New York, from Texas, and then Alaska, all write about it. All Asian girls write about it.

you know, from their twenties to twenty fives. I think that then becomes very interesting. Totally. It all goes back to this message, man. And we've said this on the show before. It's an idea of like sending out a message to people like, look, you're not alone. Right. You know, it's important. It's first step. It's really important. I feel like, you know, like I've gone through like some personal like shit in my life in terms of my own mental space and things like that.

And the rare moments that I would listen to someone or read about someone or...

like interact with someone and it gave me the feeling that like oh i'm not alone in how i feel right like like because it can be very isolating some some feelings and a lot of emotional baggage right it can be very isolating because you're thinking like no one else feels this this way like this is so out there and so off i'm so strange but like this is my own shit like no one else feels this way and when you do find someone that can really relate to that

All of a sudden, like that feeling that you're not alone really, really helps. It really, really helps. It's like a beacon. It's like a light there. Well, and...

I, like I'm starting to get more clarity into, cause we haven't read some of the stuff, but yeah, no worries. And so we're kind of just like talking through it and, and like, it's thank you for helping us understand. Right. Cause I know, like I, I try, I can tell that you feel really passionate and you have a vision for it and you're, you're learning how to articulate it. You're learning to build a community of people that can articulate it. And I,

It sounds like what you're looking for is people that are similar enough that you share some kind of common experience, but yet different enough that...

you can learn from each other because like if we're all just wallowing together right it's like okay yeah we're not alone but we all suck together but there's enough difference in someone who grew up in a totally different environment yet you can relate to okay like okay they're in Beirut right but yeah you still had childhood sure right and there's still like things that bring you together but oh I didn't know that right oh you did this

And then from that aspect, you can find that maybe they're confident in an area they're not confident in and you're confident in an area they're not confident in. And then together, you're actually stronger, more confident. And I really enjoy it. I don't want to just hang out with all ABCs. I actually really enjoy when there's a mix of people that do share something together, yet they're actually quite different as well. Yeah.

But I feel like going back to what you were saying earlier about identity, I think this is the identity. You're not Canadian. You're not German. You're Western educated or whatever, just like many other Asians around the world. Yeah. And maybe that is the identity. Yeah. I mean, to tell you the truth...

That really bothered me for 29 years of my life. It's something that was very painful. And at this point, I've really moved past it and I've just been okay with that. I don't need to really call myself... Legally, I'm Canadian. That's how I describe it. Passport is Canadian. And a lot of Canada I love. But I don't know if it's... We have a slight on our shoulders. I don't know if it's from the railroads or some shit. But I just feel like Asian people, whether it's media or porn or whatever other industry, music has made us feel we're so inadequate. Right.

But why was it so painful for you? Was it because of these things? Because of all the media and porn and all that shit? Yeah, a combination of things. I think for me, I've never felt a lot of Asian stereotypes growing up. Because first of all, I grew up to be really tall, really young. I'm about six foot now, but I was like five, seven by 12. I played sports at a very high level. Soccer is my main sport, but I was very competitive.

I liked white girls from a young age. My first girlfriend was white. You were an anomaly growing up. So were you listening to all these Asian stereotypes and being like, what the fuck? Did it even make sense to you? Or did you understand them? You just didn't apply to you. I think what bothered me is the masculinity aspect of it growing up. I view myself personally as a fairly...

heterosexual and masculine male for better. Yeah, no, but like, it's, it's, it's, that's how I view myself. You know, it's not how other people need to view me, but like, I've never struggled too much with my own confidence or things like that. What pissed, pissed me off is because people assume that of Asian people.

yeah it's but did people assume that of you i mean because look i'm meeting you for the first time in person you come off as a very confident person you're you know you're quite alpha in a way right like

So that you just grew up that way, like your surroundings and your experiences just kind of, you were always like that. Or was there a period of time where you were like really kind of like had like confidence issues and stuff like that you had to overcome? I would say no. Cause I have an unfortunately large amount of ego. So no, I haven't. But recently. So you never struggled in that way? Not in that way, but I have struggled mightily in other ways, you know? And, um,

It's something I've just come out of fairly recently. I think earlier we were talking about how I had three acts in Shanghai. Dude, my second act was depressing, it was dark, it was very lonely. I just was very unhappy with who I was and what I was trying to achieve. A lot has to do with role models, but now I'm past that. I haven't struggled in that way. What I have struggled with is just dealing with our own people putting pressure on ourselves. I think it's the bigger issue actually.

right like how much asian people limit asian people you mean like expectations yeah our parents our culture you know what is expected in the company what is expected even here right even peers dating out of ktv whatever you know like that has bothered me much more than what other people have done to us and i think for me that's the first step you know you're starting to see some of that change already with like younger parents and it's really cool but

I've mentioned earlier, I think like what's important is the parents because the parents control whether or not these kids are allowed to explore other stuff and build curiosity. Like my mom let me do, you know, and I'm really grateful for that. Well, I think, I don't know. I, I have a slightly different perspective than you in terms of that kind of expectation and pressure and where it comes from for me. Like, yes. Do most, a lot of Asian parents have like a traditional conventional kind of

like path for you and expectations, of course. But we all know that already. It's like, it's such a cliche and it's such a stereotype already. It's like, okay, that's already how it is. So it's like, you're kind of in a way, well, at least for us now as more, you know, grown up people, we don't depend on our parents as much where we kind of know how to deal with that because it's already expected. It's like, yeah, that's the way it is. Right. And we've kind of,

We've kind of resolved that or come to terms with that in a way. But what gets me is even your peers, your other people who are relatively in the same age group or maybe a generation up or a generation down. And when you go out into the world, you talk to them, there's almost like this...

there's almost like this sense of judgment if you're not doing something that forms, that goes to like their expectations of what you should be doing as an Asian male. Like, like even just like, if I say like, oh, I run a podcast, I produce a podcast. It's almost like this, like kind of like, oh, man, it's like, oh, so you don't do anything really serious. Yeah. Yeah.

people i'm not going to name their names but like but there's like there's there's like this almost this like look of like oh okay that's cute you know like oh that's cute like oh i run i manage a hedge fund you know that's what i do yeah you know what i mean like and they tell you the number right because yeah yeah so there's kind of like obviously not everybody right there's a lot of creative people who are there who are very supportive of this

But there is also, what I'm saying is there is also this kind of expectation from our own peers, not just our parents. I feel like we know how to handle our parents already. We know how to handle the older generation. We expect that from them. What we don't really expect it from all the time, though, is our peers. And it's kind of there in a way. And there's like this competition there as well. Asian people are just very competitive. I don't think this is an Asian thing, though. I think this is just a general thing. It could be. It could be.

I don't know. Every person that I've talked to about the podcast thinks it's awesome. So I don't have that same experience. Well, it's not that I don't think it's awesome, but it's like, it's cool you're doing it, but it's like, okay, for you, you also have a full-time job. So it's like, you're doing this podcast on the side. It's like a hobby for you. So like, oh, fine, that's cool. But if you were to say like, I run a podcast like as a living, like that's my career path, then it was kind of like, oh...

- Yeah, so I very much agree with Justin on this one because I look terrible on paper. Like my, you know, and I've spent a year doing a head hunting job, so I know what looking good on paper means, right? I look terrible on paper, right? - Like your resume would be pathetic. - Yeah, like there is no firm in Shanghai that would hire me, you know, for what I want at least.

And I completely relate with what you said. Like I started my first company here at 22. The company was called Vomit. You know, it was a fitness program. I'm not kidding. People worked out until they threw up and then we gave them a free class. But like this is...

I've lived with that feeling for seven years in Shanghai and I'm just at a point now where I'm very comfortable with it. You're like, fuck it. Yeah, because I understood it's not about other people. It's about how honest you are with yourself. Exactly. If you do a podcast and you fuck around, you can lie to everybody else, but you know...

If it bothers you, that means you in yourself have this kind of doubt of yourself and this like expectation of yourself or this lack of confidence in what you're doing yourself if you're letting other people's opinions bother you. Right. But it's about the amount of work that you put in. You guys all put in work here. We're here on a fucking Friday night for crying out loud. I mean, to be fair, we're drinking. But, you know, you're willing to put in the work. So why the fuck do the other people's opinion matter, right? Like as long as you're okay with what you're okay being podcast full time.

you're investing time in figuring out how to grow it, right? What you're doing wrong, analyzing, watching game tape. I think a lot of it's in like in, in our own head, right? I mean, I like, you know, part of it is the expectations that like, you know, um,

Asian parents or Chinese parents would ever have in terms of like they want you in a hard science right they want like in a money making profession like we're brainwashed like Justin said like that's established from an early maybe like a predominant amount of parents right we had a cinematographer one of Howie's friends Faye on the show yeah I listened to her dude she sounded like a boss man yeah it just it was she just she just

Such an agile learner. For sure. And her parents are part of this sort of maybe newer generation of parents that are a little bit more liberal, et cetera, right? Right. But I think it goes with the territory, right? Like if you go back 50 years in America, the parents weren't as liberal. And if you want to be a rock and roll singer, they would shit on you. It's the same thing. It's hard for the course. I think that while I acknowledge that there's this whole Asian lens to it, what we don't want to do is –

you know, kind of over index on this Asian lens, right? Like all cultures suffer from similar things. And so like, I think sometimes we just like, okay, we, we kind of tell ourselves this Asian narrative over and over and over and over. Right. That's part of it. I think the other piece is just like, you know, if you want to run your own business, right. Like, which, you know,

you know, Justin does or you do, right? There's that inherent like lack of security. And unless you're really fucking balling it, right? Of course people are going to be like, like if you're fucking making millions of dollars with your thing or you're making millions of dollars with your podcast, people will be sucking your dick, right? But it's because you're just getting started and it's a big move,

And, you know, Asian people are sort of like, they're all trying to get these finance jobs or whatever, corporate jobs, et cetera, et cetera, right? Like Howie had big balls. He had a nice job. He was like a general manager and he said, fuck it. I'm going to just put my balls on a table. I'm going to be a film director. That's what I really want to do. Yeah, he went out and just went to New York and made his short film out of a whim. So that has nothing to do with being Asian. I respect that, man.

Um, but I think that like the Asian story needs to be told. Right. Right. Yeah. I think we're talking about two different things right now. Right. I think on one hand we're talking about our own personal experiences and what we have felt on the other end, you know, I'm talking about the next generation. Uh,

For sure. Dude, I really respect that. That's cool, man. How's that going so far? Yeah, it's great. It's killing him, though. He's got too much. He gets too many deals. He's got gout right now. At what point are your parents going to be like thumbs up? Like when you win the Oscar or what? Actually, I mean, to be honest, I mean, you guys met my mother. I'm so proud of you. Yeah, my mom is really cool. I'm very lucky to have her.

because she's been supportive since day one. Cause I went to film school. I mean, I went to art school. You know what I mean? And like, she's the one that fought to like, my dad was like, no, you're going to go study this. And my mom's like, no, you are one of the chosen ones.

Yeah, she was, you know, like I said, like, I'm very lucky to have a mother like her. And even to this day, like, no matter what I did, she's just like, follow your heart. You know, if you're unhappy, then change, you know, do what you need to do. And I'm like, like, even like changing career paths, going back to directing, like literally, she was like, you seem very unhappy. Then if you need to stop, stop and do it, you know, however long it takes. How long have you been doing this for, if I may ask? Since 2016. Okay.

Yeah, well, that's when I quit and then moved to New York, wrote a script, shot it, came back. Nice, nice, respect. And then next thing you know, this is my career now. Cool. Yeah, it's just one of those things. I think it's also like going back to what we were just talking about before, not your film career, Howie, but kind of like just like our own personal. But our own personal experiences is also like this –

And we're all guilty of this. We judge a book by its cover, right? We judge you based on what you're doing right now, but we have no idea all the experiences and circumstances that you've been through leading up to who you are now. And no one takes that into account, right? But from our own very personal and selfish perspectives, we know all these things. So it's almost like this idea of like,

It's almost like we expect more respect than we actually deserve, given that people aren't going to know your whole life story. Right, right, yeah. You know, so it's a little bit of that as well, I think, for sure. Do you feel like, because I guess through what you do at the noodle shop and just who you are, Stephen, you interact with a lot of kind of like...

you know asian people right sure sure yeah especially the younger generation as well it's like do you growing up for me yeah especially in the west in new jersey

there was this concept of like self-hating asians okay did you ever come across that like people who are like like they're asian american but they were like i'm american i'm american like they would never in a million years like identify as like chinese for sure yeah you're like i'm american i went through that i think we all do at one point right like however long it lasts is one thing but we all do at one point

- Yeah. - For sure, yeah. - Do you still see a lot of that or is that kind of like not a thing anymore as much?

I don't know man, it's really interesting. I think obviously I talked to our US team the most about this. There's a really big movement in terms of being proud of where you come from and where you are with Asia. But in America right now, you think people are going to be proud to openly be like, "Oh, I'm identified as Chinese as well." Especially given the climate there. It might be different now. It might be changing. I don't know.

I know this is going to be a really shitty answer, but I really don't think about a lot of those things like that. I think about what we can do with what we have currently with some of our team. And they're great. I can't extrapolate that to the majority of the young kids. You look at some of the Asian kids on TikTok and you're like, fuck, we're in terrible hands. But then you meet somebody like Kyle and you're like, this is very different. I think that...

I really want to go back to the U.S., just spend time with the family and stuff like that. But I'm not going to buy into all this shit, right? Because everything I'm getting is secondhand. We know that we have a president that's sort of like...

turning back the clock. Sure. But just removing that factor for a moment, where are we in society? You know, I don't know. I think we've made a lot of progress probably since I grew up. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. And there's a lot more role models and like all that stuff. Absolutely. Definitely. A lot of progress. For sure. So I think like this role model thing is really powerful because... Shit takes time, man. Yeah. Because when we grew up, it's like we didn't have...

people that were confident. Yeah. Right. And so now like, I mean, like just coming to China, ironically enough has been really profound for me. Cause I went through all the same experiences. Like, you know, I think we can all relate to each other. Right. And you know, the self doubt and all that stuff. And,

part of it was just meeting other like not Americans but like Chinese people that grew up in other places and then realizing that like wow like there's a lot of awesome badass people out there for sure absolutely and I think like this is going to

you know, kind of generate a lot of momentum. Can I tell you guys something like just off the record? Yeah, you can edit this out. I don't really give a fuck. But like I have, you know, I told Justin this when we talked, you guys, I think are the only Asian based Western podcast that is like keeping it real. You know, like there aren't, there aren't that many like Asian podcasts. We're not going to edit this shit out. Yeah.

Say that again. Yeah. No, because like I keep taps on this now because I'm, you know. It's going to be our new like slogan. Yeah. No, because like you're here and you guys have all kind of been here for a while. So you keep it real. And, you know, this isn't like, oh, look, come to China. Look how fast WeChat is growing. None of that shit. Right.

And first of all, there aren't a lot of Asian podcasts to begin with. I think I listened to you guys and I listened to dumb founded has one. I don't know. I got dumb founded. Yeah. Dumb is pretty good. I used to listen to him. No, he's in LA. He's a Korean rapper. He's a rapper. He's an LA based rapper. OG rapper. Um, and like, there aren't a lot of other ones unless you kind of like Angela Duckworth, Asian, um,

my friends back home have one but they're also small so what you guys are doing one day I promise you there's gonna be some Asian dude somewhere that's looking through Asian podcasts and you guys are gonna be on that hit and he's like man these guys did it y'all are an inspiration I promise you that'll happen like within the next couple years well I was I was thinking that earlier and we were talking about like you know looking for role models and stuff like that but then at some point you're just like

At some point you're just like, fuck it, I'm gonna forge my own path. And I'm gonna be a role model for others. And I think that's sometimes what happens is you just get to the point where I can't wait for a role model. I just gotta be one. - Well that's one of the things that I think keeps us going is trying to be a positive force in the community. - I hope you guys do, man, for sure. - Well it's also that fuck it mentality. When we almost go back to this, it's like the subtle art of not giving a fuck. It's really that fuck it mentality which I started adopting

a while ago and you know i i've gotten my fair amount of shit from it for it like but like it's really just like a truly fuck it mentality isn't that a nice feeling though oh it's so liberating i think this is what people so liberating what people don't understand is there's a difference between you know so you're not giving a fuck and being rude right like you cannot give a fuck and you know man prioritize yourself without being an asshole of course yeah right um

Yeah, my ex was really into that book too. I read it. It's a really good book. It's a great book. Well, here's the thing also. If you are just an asshole and you don't give a fuck, you're just perpetuating your own behaviors. I think Asians are super sensitive. We actually care too much about what other people think, right? Really? That's part of our culture. Okay. It's like, right? So in some way, you know, at least I think...

I speak for myself and maybe for some of us, it's like we grew up and we're kind of like taught to be very respectful and more, you know, more respectful than most. So I think that we kind of need to not give a fuck because we care too much about what sort of other people think. It's a common thing, right? Right. That's part of the whole worrying about what other people think.

Huh. Right. Well, it's like your reputation. Not Justin's being all hard, right? He's like, I don't give a fuck. Right. Like two episodes ago, we're like being emo. Oh, I'm not so good. I got to really improve myself. Like, like, yeah, no, look, I think everybody has to improve themselves that you should definitely give a fuck. But I also think you should,

The older you get, the more, if you invest time in yourself and understand certain people you should absolutely give a fuck about, but the rest of them is, you know. - Well, the not giving a fuck is not about, is not like, oh, I don't give a fuck about anything. It's more about choosing what to give a fuck about. - And being in control of that choice. - Being selective. Yeah, and control, but also being selective about what you give a fuck about. - For sure, for sure. - And there's a lot of things that we previously gave a lot of fucks about

whether it was consciously or subconsciously, that we, if you put some mindfulness to it, put some like attention and effort towards it in terms of analyzing it, you realize a lot of things we were giving fucks about really aren't that important, right? And we're lumping them into these priorities and it's affecting our decisions and how we feel and a lot of things, you know? And, you know, a mindset that I've kind of adopted more recently is,

Well, maybe not even adopted. Maybe I had adopted a long time ago, but I kind of like had a term for it. Okay. An explanation, a definition for it more like, it's more like,

Anarchy of your mindset. You know what I'm saying? Like anarchy where there were always these rules and boundaries and expectations and paradigms and etiquette and expectations of how you were supposed to think, how you were supposed to live your life, how you were supposed to think about how to move forward. And what I adopted is kind of like anarchy almost where it's like,

There are no more rules. Like, why am I, why? Like, there's enough rules in society already around me. Why do I need to impose more rules in my own head about what I should do or what I shouldn't do or what I can do or what I can't do? And it's more like, it's just like, it's like an uprising in my own mind. It's like, fuck it, anarchy. Let's burn the shit down. That's why you started a podcast. Well, it's one of the reasons.

but it's like it's like burn that shit down and start anew and every day is a new day and i get to be a new person every day i wake up you know it's more of that kind of mindset i guess you get my mind steven you bust out the candy that's funny i was looking around i was like yeah i just i don't know what we're all thinking about the candy the whole time yeah i brought candy candy you're right okay howie this is a trick actually while they eat the candy i actually would really love for a minute talk to you yeah um

Because I think, just to keep you guys up to date, last year when I turned 29, I had a midlife crisis.

Already? The early midlife crisis? I don't plan on living. See, I don't want kids. I don't want to live that long. Quarter life crisis. But basically, I was in a job that paid me very, very well. They treated me very well. It was an interesting job. I don't want to get into too much. But basically, I was just like, all right, fuck this. I quit. I had some life savings, and I decided to get into film for the rest of my life. So I feel like we could have our own separate podcast aside from this. But I think what I would love to hear from you is,

for me, this entire change, everything you see tonight started from this, right? One night I went down African American film history wormhole,

You know, and you look at where African-American film history was in the 80s when Morgan Freeman first started, and the amount of roles that black people were allowed to play. There weren't that many. There were like four or five, like a secondary character, butler, driver, whatever. And then in the 90s, a change with action. And if you actually just look at Will Smith's entire career log, what he could play in the 80s and what he could play now is very different. You know, now we have like Black Panther, 12 Years a Slave. And I think what it does to like...

young african-american kids in the u.s who grew up watching black people who can be leads who can be rom-com leads male and women who can be superheroes it's very powerful in my opinion right um and then kind of reflecting on that with ours people and that doesn't exist so i actually made a bet with my friend of mine uh his name is daniel where if crazy racial Asians did well

I would take a career in this. I would seriously look into it. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. That's my priority. I love the noodle shop. It's great, but that's really not my priority. So you want to really get into film? Yeah, I want to get into film because it's, you know, and this is where the writing came from as well. Right. But what people have to understand is that I went back and studied the African-American part. So like that took 30 years. We're not going to take 30 years, but we're still going to take at least like 10 years, five years. Right.

And Crazy Rich Asians is such an important first step because it allowed white people to see a bunch of Asian people on screen and enjoy the movie. Like, fuck this. The story isn't very good. Like, we can say that here, right? I hated the movie. Yeah, yeah. The story is just not, the characters aren't very dynamic. It's a good movie. I thought it was very enjoyable. I couldn't even finish it. I had walked out halfway through. Dude, I thought the, yeah, I agree, but the production design was fucking amazing.

amazing. Although it's an important first step. I agree with that. It's a first step. So here's the thing. You can't have 12 years of slave if you don't have Crazy Rich Asians. Would you agree? Yeah. Okay. So here's my take on Crazy Rich Asians and my problem with it.

which is, I mean, I'm not saying I'm anti crazy rich Asians because for what it did, it caused a lot of attention. There's a lot of, you know, but that's also why I don't like it for sure because it, there's such a spotlight on it because it's such an anomaly. It's so like, Oh my God, this is a fully Asian story. Ah, ah, ah.

until it gets normalized you know what I mean where it takes a movie like this for it to get normalized it's a process for sure I get it that's what I'm saying I'm very supportive of what it did but at the same time I'm looking forward for the future what do you stand on the farewell

I haven't watched it yet. You still haven't watched it? Yeah, I still haven't watched it yet. You gotta watch it. Actually, one of the, Faye, the DP, her first AC, which is the first assistant, shot that, worked on that. Dude, there's some young Chinese filmmakers that are actually really interesting, like B-Gun, Derek Kwan and them. You should definitely check that out. Did you see Gook? I have not. I have not seen it. So I think for me, why I made this jump, because I've done a lot of shit in my 20s that just, I didn't know what I wanted to do in my 20s.

The way I explain this, in my 20s, it's like walking to Baskin Robbins. I tried 60 flavors in my 20s. And in my 30s onwards, what I've decided is I'm going to find the best lemon ice cream in the world.

right which hopefully will be in film and media for me hone down on one thing but we can definitely talk more about this for sure do you want to be a director or screenwriter so for me it starts from writing and how we can comment on this because I believe it needs to start from the writing regardless of production company or studio whatever it needs to start from the writing because that's what we have

It's also the biggest... Yeah, how he's always saying that. Like, it all starts... Like, he would be happy to do, like, a feature or something if he had a great screenplay with a script. I have a short film right now that I'm looking to shoot. We've got a lot of separate time. Do we have something here? Do we have something for you? No, but, you know, I think going back to, like, a lot of things I'm trying to do with the noodle shop is great, but...

my thesis for film is kind of what drives me. It's the same thesis as Asian masculinity. It's taking like what Bruce did to the next level, right? Like how do you do what Bruce did in a rom-com? How do you be the modern day Bruce, right? You know, it's funny. So I have this one script that I have that I've been, you know, it's always like constantly going back and forth on working on, which is slightly based off of

my high school experience. And, you know, you always have the coming of age stories and I think I mentioned you in this before, right? Yeah, so you have those coming of age stories and stuff like that but like, you know, using myself as an example and kind of glorifying it a little bit, it's like I want to tell the coming of age for the Asian student, you know, in a non-Asian school but the guy's not a nerd, the guy's not like, you know what I mean? It's not about like, oh, the Chinese guy. Or you break the stereotype. Yeah, it's just, he's just a fucking coming of age story, period. You know what I mean? That has,

happens to have like a you know a Chinese family you know as the main cast you know it's normalizing like that's the biggest thing for me is normalizing things so like even as like sorry real quick it's like when I was doing music because I used to play music and I was like the lead singer and guitarist

I hated when people... I remember people saying, you don't have a big Asian audience. Right. And I'm like, who the fuck cares? I don't care. It's fine. You know what I mean? It's not for them. Yeah. And then at one point, though, we played this Asian showcase and this guy came up to me. He's like...

I just want to say thank you for doing this because I'm looking around and I see white people looking at you. It gives me confidence. And I'm like, if that helps you normalize things to live in America, then great. But this is not supposed to be a special thing. You know what I mean? It should be like whatever. Normalizing comes with quantity, right? When you have enough, when you reach a critical mass of things, it becomes normal, like this podcast. Well, I mean, I think that this is...

Where this goes back to the subtle art of not giving a fuck. Right. We honestly shouldn't be giving a fuck about that. I mean, think about this, right? If you look at like non-Asian sort of that film, like there's plenty of like these coming of age, like nerdy guy becomes like, we're almost putting this, you know, we're overcompensating or being self-conscious. There's plenty of weak people.

white stereotypes all the time. And that's not perceived as weakness. That's just perceived as reality. People are normalized to that. So I think I do...

acknowledge that, you know, there's this sort of like some Asian sentiments and stereotypes that we want to get across. But if we, if you guys can make a film where there's not that self-consciousness. Can I ask something quickly? Sorry, before that. I think your opinion is so fucking important. Like, there needs to be more people like you. Because I absolutely... I don't know about that. No, no, no. Okay, well, at least with that opinion. Right? Because, like...

No, I completely agree. There needs to be a healthy balance. Yeah. Right. Because you don't, you want it to be Asian, but like at the core of it needs to be a story, right? Like there needs to be, we want to normalize and not, we don't want to specialize if that makes sense. You don't want to be self-conscious because like it's easy to be the victim. And like, I completely acknowledge that, you know, and the analogy I always use is like you get dealt a deck of cards or a hand and

And you don't get, you didn't get the best cards. And so for African-Americans, the analogy is that they got dealt like shitty cards for hundreds of years. Like they didn't even get dealt cards. They were like fake cards. They were like, they put the card. They weren't even in the game. They weren't even fucking at the table. Right. Right.

And at the same time, you can like, and I don't want to speak for them, but for Asians, we can take it too far. And we can, we put the malts on ourselves. Yeah, I completely agree. And so like, there's that fine balance there. And so like, I love what you're doing. Like, I think you should keep doing noodle shopping, pursue this. It's like, look,

Like being Asian is fucking awesome. Yeah. And it's unique and it's a privilege. How many people tell you that being Asian is a privilege? I lived my whole fucking life until the last couple of years until I realized that being Asian is a fucking privilege. I've never heard that. It's a motherfucking privilege. It's a good question. It's a very good question. Yeah. No, it's great. I just never heard that. And so we have a unique point of view and...

This is a learning journey. You asked some questions about the podcast and all that stuff. We're on the same journey as you, right? And I think that there's going to be some great things that come out of it. But we don't want to parade the fact that we're Asian. We just want to make good shit for people. You make such a good point, man. Because you don't want the agenda to be so overly stated and obvious where people are like,

this yeah that's what i meant like you know like you wouldn't want to be fox news of asia exactly yeah i love that you you want it to be like you want it to be like palatable like where people just find it as good content period regardless of its message that's just good content because when it becomes too overly saturated with like a certain agenda where it becomes so obvious and clear you just get turned off to it you you turn off to it you're like fuck

this shit it reeks of weakness yeah and you want to get to a point where truly you don't give a fuck but not like in a bad way truly you're just like I really think they should change the title like the title should be focus on yourself

Yeah. Right? And your values. And you asked like... What title? Subtle Otter Not Giving a Fuck. The title should be just focus on... Yeah, but that title is more catchy. And I asked you earlier and like, I mean, like, you know, like maybe to some people it comes across a little bit cocky, but like, you know, like...

having talked to you for the last hour, it's like I really appreciate your brashness and your energy. Because you said earlier, I don't really care at this point of the audience. I know I should care, but I'm just trying to do something that resonates with me. And it doesn't mean you don't care about the audience. It just means that

your compass and your North star is defined by you. And then you calibrate over time. Sure. Yeah. To add to that, look, I've been called cocky and arrogance since as far back as I can remember. I think I'm just at a point now where I'm very comfortable with it. Right. I'm able to kind of separate my confidence and my self-belief from being a fucking asshole. I hope I haven't been that much of an asshole tonight.

But I do my best. And in terms of weight, it's not about not caring about other people. It's just, look, we all have limited amount of days on this earth. I would rather do something that I really believe in, something that benefits other people and that I believe can make money.

Like, I'm not going to tell you I want to be a saint or anything. No, the goal is to fucking have my own jet within like four years. I already picked it out. We did the paint job already. So Justin has a knack for coming up with the titles for the shows. I think this one should be called either like, I'm not an asshole. No, I have to tell people that a lot. Like, I'm at the bank and I have to tell people I'm not an asshole.

You have to tell people that at the bank? Yeah. Why? You just see me walking and they assume I'm an asshole. Wait, here? Yeah. Why? Why did they just assume you're an asshole? No, this is a joke. Banking process in China is very challenging sometimes. Okay. Yeah. I think the bank is an asshole. Honestly, the bank is one giant asshole. Yeah.

Yeah. How'd you come up with the name, The Noodle Shop? Oh, this is good. God, we got here. I should have done this earlier. I just originally thought about, and if I do have a podcast, by the way, I think it might be something like Shades of Yellow.

And this kind of ties back to... We should just use the noodle shop, man. I think that's a great name. No, the goal is to build a noodle shop as like an umbrella. Okay. Right? And I have the individual podcast. He's got big plans. Yeah. But, you know, the goal, the original idea was that, like, I want to just have conversations with different Asian people. Like, I'm always very different than you. It's very easy to classify all three of you as ABC guys who are in Shanghai. Oh, we're so different. Right? Right. But I'm just saying, too, like, a lot of white people...

You know to a lot of white people you do the same your your three ABC dudes in their late 30s or mid 30s Don't love me. Right, you know I think the goal if we're not just kind of show the difference and for sure the idea was noodles was in every culture in Asia that you have a different type of noodles, right you have ramen Japan and you have Chow Chow man Korea, you know and I had to do a bit of research but I found yeah, but

- And then one Chinese has like a thousand different. - Right, and that's the interesting part is that once you get past the national, then you have the regional, right? And the noodles are also something where you can have them for three kuai or three Michelin stars. So for me, it was a perfect representation of that. But also when you look at what LeBron James did with the shop, choosing the barber shop, the barber shop is a part of African culture.

I would love, love, love for one day where if you met up with friends for like a Friday night, like you just go to the noodle shop. You have a local noodle shop that is like relatively nice, quite peaceful. You have some noodles, you have some drinks. It's a place where like a lot of culture is exchanged, a lot of gossip is exchanged. You know, like Paris during their writing age. The noodle shop is to Asians what the barber shop is for black folks. Or the mahjong table. Or the mahjong table. For sure, yeah.

I already see this, all right? The KTD. The noodle shop meets the honest drink. Yeah, happy to do it, man. Hey, look, seriously, I'll say this on air, man. Because you're obviously a very creative guy. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. I think kind of like the concept, even the concept of the noodle shop, but even like the subcategories you have with the different flavor profiles and what they meant and what you're trying to do with film. Like, dude, I think...

I think with our powers combined, there's a lot of collaborative kind of opportunities maybe going on in the future. Always happy to. But it's like, it's all along with the same message. And I'm so glad like you, you, you're here on the show today. Cause it's like, I feel like you in many ways represent a lot of the things kind of like we kind of preach on this show.

A lot of the mindset things about number one, not giving a fuck. Number two, about confidence and just knowing your path. Yeah, we all go through shit. It's not like you haven't went through shit, but you come to terms with that and you're like, well, you're not going to let that define you. Again, like I said before, every day you wake up

is a whole new opportunity for you to reinvent yourself. Yeah, that's the fun part. Yeah, it's so fun. It's so liberating too when you can finally realize that you are not defined and chained to your past. Right. Because...

Truth be told, no one gives a shit about your past. No one's there documenting your life story. Your life story and everything you've did in the past, everything you regret, all the mistakes you made, that's all up in your head. There's no one in the real world that cares so much about you to care or even remember what you've done in your past and all your life events. So that's just a narrative we tell ourselves. So when you can free yourself from that and you understand that when you wake up, every single morning you wake up

is an opportunity to completely reinvent yourself. That's a very liberating and empowering kind of mentality. Totally. Think about boxing, right? So like, you know, when boxers go in and, you know, like, and they do the walk, right?

And, you know, they kind of choose like their song, right? Now, has anyone put like some fucking sad ass, mournful, like fucking gloomy song? Nah, they're like, they're all like just hard hitting, positive, confident, you know,

fucking songs, right? Right. But Asian Americans or Asian, you know, outside of like, we grew up and sometimes we were just constantly played this sad ass fucking song our whole fucking lives, right? Right. So imagine the fucking soundtrack that goes in your head every morning when you wake up. Oh, I can send it to you. I have a Spotify playlist. Yeah.

Nice. I want to watch it. I want to. There's a lot of David Goggins. It's like Frozen. It's like the Frozen soundtrack. I love fucking David Goggins. David Goggins. There's a lot of Goggins. Oh, you got guys? David Goggins is... Yeah, I'm a huge... Eric is a huge fan. Can't hurt me. Eric is definitely a huge fan. Yeah. I started doing some Goggins shit. But anyways... He's got his cookie jar going on. I got my cookie jar going on. So...

I mean, but imagine the soundtrack, right? I have like for many years, I had a pathetic ass fucking soundtrack. I mean, it was like- Wasn't your soundtrack a whole new world, Aladdin? It was way worse than that. It was like some fucking wailing violins and shit, right? But imagine like, no, seriously, do this exercise, right? And the next week- It was milkshake. At different parts of your day, think about what music, what soundtrack would be playing right now based on your emotions, right? Think about it.

And I think that like sometimes we play a fucking sad ass fucking soundtrack. We have these invisible scripts, these invisible soundtracks, this playlist that's just playing. I wake up sometimes, I get out of bed. It's a fucking pathetic soundtrack. It's almost like your idea, you said the word cloud is...

It's like a word cloud, but for music. It's a word cloud for music. The type of music you listen to more often kind of represents your state of mind. Even our dreams. Our dreams is like, I'm this, I'm that, right? So if everyone's listening to depressing, woo-wiz-me kind of songs, ballads, that kind of represents your mindset, right? Exactly. Like fucking sad-ass fucking Schindler's List shit, you know? Right. And no, like...

we don't have to do that. You don't have to play that soundtrack. Right. And I think that like having you on the show, right? Like, I mean, it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's really fresh. Like you're edgy. Thank you. Put some pop into it. Right. Like that. Like, I think we get emo sometimes. I think he just adds some youth into it. Cause we're, I just turned 30. I've officially started yelling to, for kids to get off my lawn, you know, like,

Can I add something quickly? First of all, I don't know how long. If you need a cut or whatever, just let me know. That's fine. We go as long as it needs. We do Rogan style, man. We got to go four hours, we go four hours. You know what? The one thing, this is when I turned to become a Rogan. This is what I learned from Joe Rogan, man. Joe Rogan had to learn to be nice. He said that before. When I heard that, it made me realize I have to learn to be nice. I have to learn to be nice.

you know, better. And like, it's a process, right? Like it's not no longer about who you were, who you think you are, your past. You can't control your past. Your past is only good for one thing. It's from learning about it for yourself. Yeah. You don't need to share with nobody as long as you know, you're honest with yourself. Nobody fucking cares. Right. You know, there's not much you can do about it. And I want to make it very clear to you guys as to anyone who's listening. For me, this is a very recent, this is like post COVID, you know, like,

I made a decision last summer to pursue film, but I made a decision this year to like change shit, you know? And it's, we talked earlier about my birthday, man, dude, I went into my birthday with anxiety and depression for the last 20 years. Wait till you're our age. That's a different kind of depression. Right. But you know, it's, it's at this point I do, I'm so comfortable and happy with where I'm at. And if I can share that with people, you know, like,

Life is short. Do fuck other people, man. Like there's people who matter. He matters. He matters. Right. But other people don't really matter that much. You know? Well, like, look, you brought up Joe Rogan and I'm going to get into it right now. I'm happy to go there. Because clearly he's had an effect on you. Very much. Um, and he's had an effect on me and it's not for what people typically think. It has nothing to do with his podcast. Okay. Um,

Like, look, I say this and some people laugh at me, but Joe Rogan to me, like, because everyone needs to define what is success to you. Right. Right. Everyone has a different definition of success. Right. You can, you know, maybe Elon Musk is your hero and that's cool. I respect. Yeah, of course. Fucking yeah, man. That's cool. But like searching this world and like kind of finding like what is success to

The moment, and this is obviously later in his career when he had already success with his podcast or anything like that. But a few years back, I looked at Joe Rogan and I was like, that is what success means to me. That is my definition of success. And the whole reason being is, at least outwardly, I don't know him personally, obviously, but at least outwardly, he seems to be

doing exactly everything he wants to do on his own terms in his own time and making a killing at it. So if you look at his three main things,

One is stand-up comedy. So he's a stand-up comic. He still performs. He makes money through that. And that's his main passion. Number two, he's passionate about MMA and combat sports. He's the main voice of the UFC. Makes a killing doing that. Does that whenever there's a big fight and he's happy to be there because he's friends with all the fighters. He loves watching the fights. He gets the best seat in the house.

Number two. Number three, obviously the podcast, right? That might probably the biggest revenue generator he has. And that's just him fucking around with his friends, interviewing awesome, really cool people and learning from them. And he does it all on his own terms. There's not one thing he doesn't do on his own terms. And he does it on his own time and he makes a killing. And to me, that is success. Look, he's not Steve Jobs. He's not Elon Musk, right? He's not all these crazy...

crazy successful people who are under immense, immense amount of pressure, right? He seems to be doing exactly what he wants to do while minimizing the amount of pressure he has to deal with because he gets to do things on his own terms. But he's making a killing at the same time. And that to me is success. Right. Am I okay to jump in? Can I ask you something? So how he just described Joe Rogan, that's how I got hard first of all, second of all. Everybody has that feeling about something, right?

Right? Like him is that, which is great. You have something or you have something, how he's being a director. Your friends have people like that. What if I just told you, okay, here's the list of things you have to do and you can be that. Would you do it?

like if it's like you know because it where we live in a day and age now where if you put in the work right you'll you'll get there you may not get to some degree to some degree not necessarily i very much disagree with that like this bothers me right and let me explain my side of it because it when i say you're willing to put in the work it's not what you define as work right because how you think about work and you think about work is very different than reality

The reality for Howie, if he wants to be Steven Spielberg, is if script writing is what he's bad at, he needs to figure out how to fix that. And then one step after that. And that might mean doing Ayahuasca. That might mean climbing Mount Everest. That might mean cutting yourself. I don't fucking know. I know that sounds terrible. Whatever it takes. But I think a lot of people have this limit on what they're actually willing to sacrifice. And in reality, there's so many other things that you can try.

If what you want to be is be like Joe and make things on your own terms, there are other things you can always try. Does that make sense? - It makes sense in terms of you can aspire and try to take steps

to be that. The last segment was bad. I apologize for that. But yeah, but there are certain, I think there are definitely certain realities, which you're never going to be exactly that. Right. Like, and not to say that I want to be exactly Joe Rogan. I don't. Right. Right. You want to be your version of Joe. I want to be my Joe. But like, I take cues from him in terms of what he's done with his life. So for him, I can,

like his form of, for him, like standup comedy to me would be like something else, would be my standup comedy, right? Him commentating for the UFC would be my different thing of my version of comedy. Right.

So it's not that, but yes, you can learn things from them and strive to be like that. But look, at the end of the day, but there are also realities. There are certain realities in terms of maybe the amount of talent I actually have to be a commentator or to be a stand-up comic. Even though, let's say, for example, I really wanted to be a stand-up comic. There are plenty of people out there who their dream is to be a stand-up comic. They work day and night to try to be successful doing stand-up comedy.

There are so many struggling comedy actors or just even actors, but they just never get there because like, look, they're just not that good. It's not for everybody. Yeah. Well, they're just not that good. And that's the reality. No matter what they think internally. Right. And also luck. They're just not that good. Don't forget luck. No, I think luck is a big part of it for sure. Yeah, for sure. Oh, no. Joe Rogan has definitely had his share of luck. Yeah. In terms of timing and everything. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. But I mean, like, you know, I don't think Joe Rogan ever thought that, you know, he would achieve this...

I'm not going to say the word success because I think that's very subjective. Sure. I don't think Joe Rogan ever expected to get to this level of scale in terms of what he does, right? And you don't have to get to the point where you have a billion fans. If you really enjoy what you're doing, if you're constantly improving and growing and putting out great content or whatever it is, you know, like...

you can be happy with whatever your audience is, right? I think you have to get to a point where you can monetize so that you have some type of financial base. The ability to continue doing what you want to do. Yeah, exactly. The ability to continue to do things. Can I ask you a very Asian question? Yeah. Is this something that we can solve mathematically at this point after a bottle of scotch? Because what you just stated should be able, like, you know, the risk of 22 is very different than 32, right? With kids, without kids, very different.

So you think there's a formula to it? Look, here's the formula, okay? Like in a very rough, like more of a kind of a conceptual way. So Daniel Kahneman, you know, Nobel Prize 2002, right? Cognitive bias, all that stuff. So like a few years later, him and another guy, they did research around like, what does it take to be fucking happy? Yeah.

And they did the research and basically it's like $75,000 a year income in most places. You're good. Anything above that, more money, more problems, right? Yeah, yeah. So I think it's really two things. Number one is that what would you do if you couldn't fail? Right. You got to ask yourself that question. That's what you're basically asking. So all this shit about sucking Joe Rogan's dick and this and that, right? It doesn't matter.

Right. Or like, oh, I don't have this talent, that talent. No. If you couldn't fail, what would you do? Because you owe it to yourself to go for it. Yeah. What you have with the podcast. Right. Like you've you've you know, you've been the sort of the mastermind behind the podcast. Right. We have to give you props for that. Right. And then I think the second piece is just like, how much money do you need?

Like, you know, like money's not going to make you that happy, but you just need to have substance for your family, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't think that's a big deal. We're all fucking like educated and shit like that. Right. I don't think we're like going to starve and shit. Sure. So you got, you do your thing. You're lucky. You should be grateful that you're in a position where you can do this shit. Very grateful. I know. Like absolutely. I don't have a girlfriend. I don't have a family. I don't have kids. My mom, I have one mother and shit.

she's financially okay for now, you know, very thankfully and we have a great relationship. So she lived in Shanghai. She's in Vancouver. Oh, Vancouver. Okay. Yeah. I miss her a lot. Um, I miss my mom too. She's in Houston. We should have this, we should all give a shout out to our mother. Yeah, sure. Yeah. You know, I think, sorry, go ahead. No. Yeah. So my mom's in Vancouver. Um, I can't believe we're talking about it again. Uh,

Oh, it's been fun. No, it's gratitude, right? We're talking about gratitude. Well, I think we all feel gratitude. I mean, like, but what you're saying is absolutely right, Eric. Like, I mean,

I mean like Eric you're always kind of like the voice of reason you know what I mean like whenever like which is so interesting which is so great which is so interesting because in real life I'm not right if you know anything about Eric in real life he is absolutely not the voice of reason we're always like what the fuck Eric

what the fuck the devil but on the podcast on the podcast right he is absolutely owns the voice of reason fascinating and it goes back to what you said about him it's like it's so important to have people like him to have that kind of perspective and come come in because otherwise we get too much on our high horse and we like we kind of like saturate the message too much without like our agenda sure where it just becomes like it's not palatable anymore and no one's like everyone's like okay i see right through this right but

Look, I think everything we're talking about today, in a way, is exactly like kind of things we think about on a day-to-day basis and what we want to go through. And I think what we hope our listeners can kind of understand

Look, we said this before and it's about not feeling alone. Like I'm not, I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, I have the answers and now listen to me because I don't. And you shouldn't listen to me. But what I can do is I can tell you how I'm thinking, how I'm feeling, what I'm going through, what I've learned through the way. And if it's any kind of, if it's relatable to you in any way where you feel like, oh, fuck,

I'm not alone in this. And that feeling of like, oh, I'm not alone in this gives you all the energy and reason to kind of fight for yourself again. Otherwise you get stuck in this vicious cycle of like, I'm fucking never good enough. And it's just this vicious cycle downward spiral of like where you just lose even the motivation to help yourself. But

I've known from personal experience when I've listened to other people who I don't even know, who don't even know I exist, but I know that they're like, oh shit, dude, they're going through the same shit I'm going. Like I can relate to them. It gives you a kind of a new breath of energy where you're like, maybe, maybe it's worth fighting. Maybe it's worth fighting for myself.

And look, man, I think from early on, I think you've had the fortunate position of like understanding that it seems to me that like, it's about fighting for yourself. And there's, there's this misunderstanding or there's this gray area, so to speak of like, like maybe you can come off as an asshole, but it's like fighting for yourself doesn't mean you're an asshole. It means you're fighting for yourself, but you can be, you know, very kind and giving to other people.

But it's about knowing what you want, knowing what you're going to give a fuck about, knowing what you're not going to give a fuck about, which is equally as important. Right. And moving on from there. Yeah. Yeah. If I can just add one thing, maybe it's a good way to close this out. It's honestly been really great. Life is really short, I feel like, for a lot of people. And just the fact that...

If you're young and you don't really know what to do, it's okay to reach out. I feel like we grew up, I don't know if you had mentors growing up or older, because a lot of Chinese people are single children, right? It's very not common for Asian people to reach out, especially among closer age peers.

Right? Like not an uncle, not, you know, somebody in your life who you respect, who is like five or eight years older. I really wish more of us would try to reach out because if you, if you never reach out, you're never going to get helped. Yeah. A lot of people might think you're weird or, you know, you, they think you should, we, we don't do this or whatever. But if you just try to reach out and I think with the noodle shop is that that's the part that's been really surprising for me because that's forced me to be better, better, sorry.

right that's forced me to hold myself to a certain standard because these people have reached out and volunteered accountability right it's accountability you know for sure and tying everything up with role models is i'm at that point now where i realized that i didn't have role models growing up and if i can set some that'd be great uh hopefully they won't be terrible but

I really hope if we can leave this tonight with one message is that more younger people who are Asian, who feel like they're alone, you're not. There's Facebook, there's Reddit, there's a hundred different ways. And yeah, sometimes it's going to be a bad experience, but there's people who care.

And then, you know, to have people like you to just keep doing this, it's been really cool. Yeah. And for everyone who like grew up and kind of wish there was like a mentor or a big brother, then you get to the point where it's like, okay, like it's not just about you. You've learned so much. You learned, you went to the school for like a hard knocks. Yeah. You can be that big brother, right? Or sister.

Yeah, or sister. Probably not. So I think like, you know, for the elder statesman, you know, Justin and Howie, I think, you know, there's a responsibility. And very welcoming, actually. You know, I think it's very, I mean, personally, I mean, I'm at a place where I am very happy.

Dude, giving back is nice. Very happy. Fuck yeah. Yeah, that's one of the things about giving back is nice. Cheers. Cheers, guys. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Everybody knows when you bring shit, I'm going to fucking go to town on it. Dude, I'm going to go to town on it. Yo, we finished this fucking bottle, dude. Good. Mortlock 15. We've come to completely finish this bottle. Whenever people bring snacks, I fucking just go to town. I ate all your fucking candy. Thank you, Steven, for coming on.

Thank you for having me. I'm Justin. I'm Eric. And I'm Howie. All right, guys. Peace. We love you. Bye. See ya.