Chinatown 2.0

Olivia Xing is an actress, standup comedian, artist and student based in LA, and she recently did a one-hour comedy special called Party School where she told jokes about China, the US, politics in both countries, and the immigrant experience.

00:00 Teaser
00:44 Intro
02:48 How Olivia got started with her Party School comedy special
08:19 Chinese debate show 奇葩说
12:12 How Chinese comics and rappers deal with censorship
16:26 Olivia's biggest takeaways from her comedy special
18:38 Richard's favorite jokes from Olivia's comedy special
23:29 ESL comics: English-as-a-Second-Language comics
25:13 Minority comics shouldn't pander to stereotypes just to get laughs
30:02 Fellow professional comics she admires
32:36 Cultural outlets for the Chinese diaspora
35:25 Why there are so few male ESL comics
37:33 Recommendations of ESL comics to follow
42:45 How Olivia deals with bombing on stage

Indigo was co-founder of Sina Weibo, or China’s Twitter. After Weibo, he started doing angel investments and incubating new projects. One of his main investments included the largest off-line art selling platform in China. Recently he got into the world of web3 and NFT. He writes a blog about frontier tech, and teaches online courses on stock investments in these areas. He is based in Vancouver.

I spoke to him about China’s startup environment since 2009, his takeaways from doing angel investments, his views on web3 especially NFTs, and his observations of target countries of Chinese immigration.

02:24 Indigo's work at Weibo, post-Weibo investments, and classes on Web3 & investing

08:35 Phases of development of China's internet sector

11:08 Streaming commerce

17:14 Exit of venture capital from China

19:06 How young people in China today are evaluating a career in entrepreneurship

22:12 Out-migration from China: Evaluating Singapore, Japan, Vancouver

29:28 Indigo’s advice for making angel investments: sourcing via personal connections, working on a platform full of entrepreneurs

32:23 Why streaming commerce is popular in China and not in the US

35:39 Three uses for NFTs: digital collectibles, creator royalty, soulbound tokens

46:08 Indigo’s life vision includes continually getting involved in businesses with young people

Peng Dang is a standup comedian based in Texas. Peng moved to the US from China in his twenties, speaks absolutely impeccable English, and more importantly, tells jokes like a local pro. I find his sets funny, educational, and wholesome. I’m not sure if a comedian wants to hear their jokes described as “wholesome,” but I mean that as a compliment.

We talked about how his English got to be so good, what life was like for him in Alabama, Atlanta and Dallas, how he honed his comedic skills, his views on "freedom of safety" on China's streets, the infamous Tony Hinchcliffe incident, and more.

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode. Feel free to like, share and subscribe!

0:00 Peng’s standup about Chinese builders

1:52 Blue material

5:54 How Peng got started in standups

6:39 Standup about Chinese railroad builders in the US

8:15 Peng learned to speak English by listening to punk rock while in China

14:37 Standup about kung-fu

15:23 Spending time in Alabama and Atlanta

21:37 Standup about the Chinese language

23:39 Gun safety and crimes in America

27:30 Standup comedy TV shows in China

29:30 Overrated comedians

Amy Yu is a bilingual standup comedian based in Canada.

We talked about how standup comedy changed her life, how she thinks about telling jokes in Chinese vs telling in English, and how to properly tell a dirty joke.

I also had a pretty serious debate with her about the role of artificial intelligence in comedy.

0:00 Amy’s standup set

01:04 Debating the role of AI in art creation

22:31 How comedy helped Amy with mental health

28:17 How to deal with bombing on stage

31:48 Amy’s (and Richard’s) comedic influences

37:02 Telling jokes in Chinese vs English

38:32 Jokes about going on a date with a Chinese American

39:40 Blue material

Dan Chan is a magician that has performed at corporate events at fortune 100 companies and lavish parties hosted by celebrities. He recently got to perform for Elon Musk at the PayPal 20-year reunion party, hosted by Peter Thiel.

Prior to his illusionist career, he was an employee at PayPal, where he met Thiel.

Dan has also been grooming his 14-year old son to become a magician, who has been doing his own $1000 shows in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We talked about how Dan decided to become a magician, how he received his training, his experience of tiger-parenting his son to learn magic tricks, how he found success in Zoom-based magic shows after Covid dropped all his bookings, his plans to build a private VIP magic mansion in the bay area, and his plans beyond magic.

0:00 Dan's magic

2:24 Dan at Paypal

05:13 Starting out performing magic at local libraries

08:47 Dan studied at a clown conservatory

09:24 Dan disliked studying but enjoyed magic

11:58 Teaching his son to reverse-engineer his success

13:49 Dealing with flops

14:42 How Covid made him pivot into Zoom magic

16:28 Plans to make a private magic club in the Bay Area

20:42 Tiger-parenting his son for the career of a magician

23:15 Plans to become a better speaker, do a TED talk and write a book

Alec Sorensen is a career coach who helps people take action on life-changing business ideas they've been putting off.

Alec is also a follower of the Mormon church, a Japan-living American at one point, a California-to-Texas transplant, among other things.

We discussed how he got into career coaching, his faith, cultural shocks in Japan, why he moved to Austin from the Bay Area, and more.

0:00 Intro

1:20 Alec as a Coach: His thoughts about the coaching industry, and how he uses habit building techniques to help people achieve their goals

12:18 Growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and thoughts on the Broadway show The Book of Mormon

20:26 Joseph Smith's controversy: His spiritual experience and his motives of starting the Mormon church

27:21 The question of polygamy: Does the current church endorse it, and the logic behind the practice

31:59 The Mormon church hierarchical order and how apostles are selected

35:39 Religion vs Crypto: They are both a commitment to fulfilling an unrealized vision

40:48 Alec's experience as a missionary in Romania

45:53 Missionary KPIs and follow-up of new converts

49:44 Alec's experience in Japan: Learning a new language, and living in a remote village

53:35 Chinese vs American parenting: Expectations of parents of their children, and why economic factors allow for more flexibility

58:44 Replaceability of the working class, China vs US

1:03:34 Japanese stereotypes that proved true during Alec's stay in Japan

1:11:38 Alec's experience as a crisis counselor for male rape survivors

1:18:46 Alec's opinion on microdosing and other mushrooming techniques used in counseling

1:19:28 Illegal drugs, coffee, tea and sodas: Why the church frowns on their use

1:21:57 Coaching: Why coaching, Insecurities, Working with clients to get them results

1:31:47 Decision to move to Austin: All the pros

1:38:08 How he gets clients from conducting pilots

1:48:30 Conversations in Austin vs conversations in the Bay Area

1:51:37 Cognitive dissonance: How some champions for change in the Bay Area are somehow ill-prepared to pivot when confronted by people of different opinions

1:54:43 Argument for the legitimacy of Russia's invasion

1:58:54 Outro

(Episode in Mandarin)

Karol Guan is an entrepreneur. This interview was recorded in Nov 2020. At the time she was co-founder of HelloAva.co, a startup that recommends skin care products based on a combination of AI and doctors. Karol studied Fashion/Apparel design at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

We discussed how the 2020 Covid both helped her startup grow and presented challenges to the way she worked, how she felt about being a woman in the male-dominated startup space, how her training as an artist and creator at Parsons prepared her for entrepreneurship, how she felt about sexual harassment in the venture space and beyond, the career paths of her friends that have returned to China, and more!

0:00 Intro

02:34 HelloAva is the StitchFix for cosmetics

11:41 Rewards and challenges for being a startup founder

16:01 Dealing with messy logistics at her startup during Covid

25:52 Women in startups 36:53 Sexual harassment in venture

45:54 Finding one's calling in life

1:09:45 Reflecting on career paths of friends returning to China

1:14:56 Being Cantonese

1:22:05 Karol asks Richard about his takeaways from hosting Chinatown 2.0

Erin Cuellar is Director of Operations at STERIS, a manufacturer of medical devices. At the time of the interview, she was senior operations manager at the same company, and her role was essentially that of a plant manager.

Her responsibilities included supervising teams, managing KPIs, and maintaining quality controls.

Erin comes from a very different world than I do. She dropped out of college, worked at a local manufacturing site, joined an apprenticeship program, got her journeyman’s card which is sort of like a full license to practice in the trades, and moved from state to state for employment in manufacturing.

In the course of 13 years, she moved between five different states. At least one of the moves was the result of a plant shutdown thanks to outsourcing.

But Erin and her family, which includes a husband and three children were fully resilient in transitioning to new homes, new jobs, and new schools.

In fact, about a year after our interview, Erin moved to Pennsylvania to become Director of Operations at her company. I became interested in the trades in recent years after noticing and following the works of Mike Rowe and Andrew Yang, who both highlight a change in the mix of American jobs available as well as people willing to undertake those jobs.

In the US, there just seem to be fewer opportunities in the trades sector, and even fewer young people looking to enter those fields.

Mike Rowe looks to encourage the youths to get into these areas, whereas Andrew Yang sees the loss of these opportunities as the force that hollowed out middle America, which disenfranchised large swaths of the population, leading to rising support for the wings of the political spectrum.

In today’s conversation, Erin and I talked about what it's like to work in a manufacturing plant, her experience of working in the trades as a rare species of a woman, her moves around the country in pursuit of various manufacturing jobs, how does she think about raising her kids, and why she thinks it's a good idea for young people to consider a career in the trades.

Bruce Wang is a Chinese cowboy. Not an ethnically Chinese person that was born in Texas, but someone born and bred in Yunnan, China.

He came to the US as a college student. He adopted a Southern accent, started dressing like a cowboy, and started making videos about how cowboys spend their time.

We talked about why he decided to become a cowboy, why he felt the cowboy culture reminded him of his hometown of Kunming, how he felt different when speaking a different language, and how he dealt with an identity crisis.

We also talked about whether he has encountered acts of racism and racial ignorance, his plans to dedicate his Ph.D. to the intersection of languages and cross-cultural understanding, and more.

John Stevenson is a Black American who grew up home-insecure, but later graduated valedictorian of his high school. He went to Dartmouth and later graduated from the Political Science program at the University of Chicago. He now owns a yoga studio, does contracts for various government agencies. And he has ambitions to run for governor of Maryland.

Today we talk about his experience as a homeless person growing up. So he would be adding his unique perspective from that particular angle as well. His views of China from his vantage point, having worked in Washington DC, the state of Black politics, including his views on Black Lives Matter, and his plans to run for office and the reason for choosing Maryland at his home base. This will become apparent as the conversation unfolds.

You will notice that in future conversations, including this one, we might deviate from China, Chinatown or Chinese diaspora topics. Enjoy!

0:00 Intro

5:05 Ambition for Political Career: reasons to go into politics

8:38 Questions on the relative competitiveness of the US in the world stage

18:53 America's vs China's foreign policy

21:02 Government Systems: Reflections on Democracy and Autocracy in the US, China, and other parts of the world

26:51 Decades of white nationalist rule in high black population density areas

30:15 Comments on Multiracial and cultural heritage

33:57 Inequality and Desegregation

39:16 Born in Louisiana, Family, Childhood, and grown-up stories

44:18 “No shared vision of the future” as one of the reasons of Most American Divorce

1:01:57 What does homelessness and food security mean to you?

1:08:22 Biased assumption toward people of homelessness at different levels

1:13:38 Critique on the tendency in which people take poverty as the proof that there is something wrong with them

1:26:15 Distrust toward public institutions

1:39:18 John’s plan in pursuit of his political vision

1:41:53 Politics in Graduate School: Black people did not graduate from UChicago, political science department, for 14 years because they all dropped out

1:50:47 Anti-fascist movements

1:53:51 Left wing vs Right wing activities: should we be alarmed

1:59:17 Black Lives Matter

2:03:57 There should be a pluralist vision on “Black Live Matter”

2:07:07 What do you think are the Reasons that black folks support Donald Trump?

On today's Chinatown 2.0, I speak with Ellen Lee Zhou, or 李爱晨, a two-time candidate for San Francisco mayor, in 2018 and 2019.

She ran as a conservative in a city where the mayor had been a Democrat for the last half a century. On top of her “non-mainstream” political ideologies, she had zero experience holding public office and raised very little money compared to her competition.

Despite all this, she won 4% of the votes in 2018, and 13% of the votes in 2019. And in 2019, she was second place in the race.

Ellen is a staunch supporter for Donald Trump, as will be quite obvious to those of you watching the video interview.

We discussed her experience running for the mayor of San Francisco. We also talked about issues in San Francisco such as homelessness, drugs, crimes, high property prices, deteriorating standards in public education, government corruption, voter fraud, and more. For most of these items, we also talked about solutions put forward by Ellen.

We also briefly touched upon Ellen’s day job as a behavioral health clinician, where she works with doctors and nurses to treat the mentally ill.

Lastly, Ellen talked about her circumstances when she first immigrated to the US as a teenager some thirty years ago.

As usual, don’t forget to like, subscribe and ring the bell on our Youtube channel. I hope you enjoy the interview.

Ellen’s 2019 campaign website: https://ellenformayor2019.com/
Ellen on Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org/Ellen_Lee_Zhou

0:00 Teaser

0:21 Host monologue

3:33 Neighborhood coalition nominated her mayoral candidacy after acknowledging her outspokenness to fight opening of cannabis shops in Chinese areas

7:19 Her family dismissed her 2018 campaign given her lack of resources and experience

11:21 Supporters praised her courage to run and opponents mocked her efforts

12:23 Harassment by politicians and animosity from anti-Trump colleagues during her campaigns

14:50 Homelessness problem: drugs / out-of-city homeless people came for city's generous welfare / ineffective government spending to tackle homelessness

19:10 Walking through how a homeless person gets shelter and benefits from SF

20:39 Ellen's plan to tackle homelessness

24:20 Breakdown of different types of homeless people that ought to receive different kinds of help

29:21 Plan to run for mayor again if a special election takes place in 2021

30:14 Eight San Francisco city officials indicted in recent corruption probe

31:56 Sex trafficking and prostitution problems

34:22 How homeless people get money to buy drugs

37:22 Carjacking in SF

38:12 Lowell school's temporary replacement of meritocratic admissions with lottery & CA's Prop 16

43:06 Election fraud hurts mayoral candidates outside the right political circle

49:37 Discussion of her religion background as part of her candidacy

51:18 Problem of short housing supply has to do with City government sponsored free lawsuit service for tenants

53:44 Immigrating to SF from China as a teenager, knowing zero English and working as a seamstress

Lin Yang is a grassroot political organizer who also works in tech. Lin had a full-time job working for Howard Schultz, helping him explore a presidential run. For those unaware, Howard Schultz was the founder and previous CEO for Starbucks.

Lin also participated in campaigns for President Obama and Senator Ted Lieu from California. He also worked as a journalist in Asia for a while, writing articles for various newspapers like New York Times when was stationed in Taiwan, and the Strait Times in Singapore.

Lin is also the founder of a local newspaper for the town of Sammamish, where he currently lives. He started the paper after seeing that a lack of objective information led to a local election where the citizens were either uninformed or misinformed.

Lin is a Joe Biden supporter. Today we discussed his experience campaigning for elections, working as a journalist in Asia, how he started a local newspaper, why he wanted to vote Biden, and his view on the contentious California proposition of Prop 16 that wants to re-introduce racial preference in public employment and public education.

As usual, don’t forget to like, subscribe and ring the bell on our Youtube channel. Thank you.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/hc2f9BZ52hA

* Newspaper of Lin's hometown (Sammamish, Washington): https://sammamishindependent.com/

* Podcast associated with the Sammamish Independent newspaper: https://anchor.fm/indyonair

* Letter from Howard Schultz about his decision to not run for President: https://www.howardschultz.com/onwardwithgratitude/

Wei Luo quit his software engineering job to become a contractor in 2006. After 14 years, he had a business (based in San Francisco Bay Area) consisting of 50+ employees and multiple business lines, including home renovation, interior design, cabinetry and appliances.

Wei shared with us how he persuaded his parents to pursue a new career with seemingly low barrier to entry, challenges and turning points of his business, a severe problem of labor shortage in the contracting field, a squeeze on margins due to regulatory pressure from sino-US tensions, and more.

Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and ring the bell (YouTube)!

HB Kitchen & Bath: https://www.hbkb.us/
Alice Cabinetry: https://www.alicecabinetry.com/

0:00 Teaser
0:35 Host monologue
2:31 Guest self-intro
4:33 Getting into contracting business after helping handyman roommate with limited English skills
8:34 Making the decision to get a license and "do things the right way"
10:12 Transition from computer engineering to contracting, and convincing parents to make the jump
15:16 Description and evolution of multiple business lines: renovation, design/retail, cabinetry and appliances
22:46 Recap of duration of running the business, team size, number of projects
24:02 Initial friction to earn respect from laborers that dismiss leaders that don't work in the field
27:04 Challenges in recruiting new blood given a plethora of options and aversion to blue collar work
28:47 Suggestion for running home renovation summer camp for teens
32:52 Contracting going O2O
34:30 Growing up as a natural leader among kids and unhappiness with Chinese schools parochially focused on academics
37:01 Business opportunity for better consumer protection, vendor selection and service review in contracting
40:44 Concerns about manufacturing leaving China thanks to anti-dumping regulations

Jie Zhang has been an instructor, administrator and leader of American education institutions for more than three decades. She began her career teaching math to prisoners on Rikers Island (New York). Her most well-known positions included principal of the Ivy League feeder Stuyvesant High School, and principal of the now Chinese company-owned New York Military Academy, which US President Trump attended. She recently returned to China to run two international high schools.

Besides recounting her eclectic career, she also shared stories of helping prisoners get high school degrees, challenges in teaching American high schoolers as a foreigner, her firsthand experience dealing with pressure to democratize enrollment at magnet public schools, making decision to return to China despite overwhelming opposition from family and friends, and cherishment of the exciting work environment and an energetic team of coworkers at the two Chinese schools she now manages.

* Jie Zhang: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jie-zhang-67a97620/
* Stuyvesant High School ("Stuy"): https://stuy.enschool.org/
* New York Military School: https://www.nyma.org/
* Hongwen School: http://www.hongwenschool.com.cn/

0:00 Teaser
1:01 Host monologue
4:32 Guest self-intro
11:20 Pressure of running international schools amid China-US tension
15:55 Coronavirus deepened financial woes of US private schools (pre-college) that preceded the pandemic
22:04 Journey to State University of New York at Stony Brook and family ties to Chinese Physicist CN Yang
27:50 First job teaching math at a prison in Rikers Island in New York City
35:54 Transition to teaching regular schools, and challenges of teaching Americans as a foreigner
42:53 Her son (Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, startup) and daughter (Berkeley, speech pathology studies)
45:18 Transition from purely instructive to administrative roles
51:56 Willingness to take risks plays big role in advancing her educational career from teaching at schools to leading schools to returning to China
1:01:03 Assignment to “clean up” Stuyvesant after test-cheating scandal as interim principal
1:06:15 Natural esconsement to permanent principal as the first China Mainland born principal at Stuyvesant
1:09:36 Her response to public pressure to remove academically focused entrance tests for magnet schools like Stuy in the name of equity and inclusiveness
1:21:44 Chinese parents’ general anxiety and formulaic approach on getting kids to Ivy League
1:32:33 Kids at the academic “bottom” 5% at Stuy still do well in life
1:40:49 Leaving Stuy partially due to significant red tape and a lack of autonomy
1:46:00 Move to lead recently out-of-bankruptcy New York Military Academy, increasing communication with China education institutions not previously available at public school
1:50:00 Growing interest and increasingly clear reasons for leading American-style secondary education in China
1:55:11 Making decision to return to China at late 50s against overwhelming opposition from family and friends
1:59:28 Contrast the more lively, positive and cooperative Chinese colleagues with American colleagues seeking stability and resisting change
2:03:47 Clash with the ways of Chinese education admin lifers from local public school system
2:10:28 Strong pride in being able to make unique and significant contribution, and fierce love for passionate and diligent colleagues
2:13:08 Managing and dealing with people at work is just as hard between America and China
2:17:32 Strong chemistry between energetic Chinese subordinates welcoming western management methods and expat leaders tired of managing uninspiring and inert public sector Americans
2:25:30 Emphasis on mutual respect regardless of status as her management style
2:32:32 Anecdote of helping a sincere and unassuming Chine

Morgan Jones is a Black American that previously spent six years in China as a radio host, movie production assistant and EMBA English teacher. He is a “Chinese son-in-law” (中国女婿), a self-described Tiger Dad (“虎爸”) and a fluent Mandarin speaker.

He got his EMBA from Cornell and bachelors from Middlebury College, or 明德大学 in Chinese.

This episode was recorded in Mandarin. We discussed Morgan’s adventures in China, takeaways from his marriage to a Chinese woman, his relationship with Chinese in-laws, growing up Black in the US, and other American race issues such as affirmative action and recent police involved incidents.

We discussed:

Professor Anne Chao is a Chinese modern historian that lectures at Rice University. She is also manager of the Houston Asian American Archive, an oral history archive that looks to document the challenges faced and contributions made by the Asian American community.

As the daughter of a Taiwanese diplomat, Anne moved between Congo, Australia, Washington DC, and Taiwan as a kid. Her Ph.D. dissertation was on the social networks of Chen Duxiu, co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party and publisher of the influential magazine Xin Qingnian, or New Youth.

In this interview, we covered her multi-continental childhood, views on Asian’s involvement in politics, a history of discrimination suffered by Asian Americans, inspiring stories from the Houston Asian American archive, and her work on Chen Duxiu.

Houston Asian American Archive (HAAA) oral histories: https://haaa.rice.edu/

* Intro
* Multi-continental childhood between Congo, Australia, Washington DC and Taiwan
* Nativism, liberalism, populism of major Western countries today
* Black Lives Matter awakens Asian Americans to more active political participation
* A brief history of discrimination of Chinese, Japanese and Indian Americans
* Asians’ general inactiveness in the American political process
* Age-old question of mainstream assimilation for Asian Americans
* Stories from Houston Asian American Archive
* China’s history around the rise of Chen Duxiu and his publication 新青年

Rui Ma is an investment banker (Morgan Stanley) turned VC (500 Startups) turned podcast host (Tech Buzz China). Her show covers current tech trends in China, with a focus on power players such as ByteDance and Alibaba. Her diaspora journey included a childhood in the China countryside, college and grad school education in the US, a career of finance/tech in Shanghai/Beijing, and podcast operations from Silicon Valley.

We discussed Bytedance ban, Niall Ferguson's "TikTok = China's digital imperium ambitions" quote, Chinese female diaspora experience, China's sexist society, the notorious 996, her podcast-turned-business and more!

Tech Buzz China podcast: https://pandaily.com/podcast/
Rui’s newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/techbuzzchina/
Rui's twitter: https://twitter.com/ruima

Rui shared with us:

* Childhood in China's countryside, California education, work in China, return to Silicon Valley

Jing Cheng is the co-founder and CEO of the largest North American Children's Chinese magazine, Pipa Magazine. She shares her inspirations for starting the publication, the challenges of running the business of print media against digital headwinds, and her philosophy and suggestions for Chinese immigrants raising bilingual kids.

To learn more about Pipa Magazine, visit: pipamag.org

You can also subscribe to their WeChat public account by searching for 小枇杷


Jing shared with us:

* Pipa Magazine as a companion to kids and bridge to communicate with older generations

* Why young kids like to read the same books repeatedly

* Self-identity for kids with Chinese heritage

* Learning Chinese culture in addition to the language

* Maintaining emotional intimacy between first and second generation immigrants

* Immigrant parents need continual self education to keep up with kids' American ideas

* Pipa Magazine's way of teaching Chinese language in the context of Chinese culture

* The development of Pipa Magazine as a business since 2012

* The difficult business of the Chinese culture-themed magazine

* Pipa Magazine as between a nonprofit organization and a commercial business

* How donations can help Pipa Magazine's missions

Jing shared with us:

* Pipa Magazine as a companion to kids and bridge to communicate with older generations

* Why young kids like to read the same books repeatedly

* Self-identity for kids with Chinese heritage

* Learning Chinese culture in addition to the language

* Maintaining emotional intimacy between first and second generation immigrants

* Immigrant parents need continual self education to keep up with kids' American ideas

* Pipa Magazine's way of teaching Chinese language in the context of Chinese culture

* The development of Pipa Magazine as a business since 2012

* The difficult business of the Chinese culture-themed magazine

* Pipa Magazine as between a nonprofit organization and a commercial business

* How donations can help Pipa Magazine's missions