Nothing makes us feel older than not understanding a word that Gen Z or Gen Alpha says because the kids be changing their slang so quick, it's hard to keep up! In this episode, we talk about skibidi toilet, rizz, and more confusing terms the kids are saying nowadays. But in all seriousness, we ponder why slang has developed this way and also the cyclical nature of recycling concepts and trends from other generations into the new age. What's the craziest slang you've heard recently that made you ...
May 16, 2025•19 min•Season 1Ep. 175
Have you ever stopped to think about if you live your life out on the edge? It sounds cliche, but how close to "average" is your life? If you've wondered these things, this week's episode aims to dive into this exact topic. From a young age, your podcast hosts have been pushed to excel in all areas of life. From academic studies to extra-curricular pursuits - all the way to careers in adulthood. And looking back, neither of us could say that this was the average experience in the US. Where does ...
Apr 25, 2025•17 min•Season 1Ep. 174
With all of the technological innovations that we live with everyday, are we already living in the future? From home help robots to invisibility cloaks, so many things we imagined to be impossible are coming to life today. And although not all the promises of technology are here just yet, many advancements promise to revolutionize humanity tomorrow. One area of advancement live today is artificial intelligence. Not yet the SkyNet idea of tomorrow, but different algorithmic products already perme...
Apr 18, 2025•18 min•Season 1Ep. 173
White Lotus Season 3 has come to an end and we have...thoughts. We're discussing the whole season in review of our most WTF moments - the ones that lived rent free in our heads for days after watching it. From the infamous brotherly love incident to the completely unhinged cocktail lounge monologue from Frank, we relive it all. And yes, we do talk about the most ridiculous and unbelievable moments to us from the season finale, and what we think creator Mike White's "moral of the story" is throug...
Apr 09, 2025•20 min•Season 1Ep. 172
If you're an OG listener, you know we started the pod as a hobby during the pandemic. But we weren't the only people following creative pursuits - so many people experimented with baking, cooking, drawing, and many other interesting activities. This week, we're taking a moment to explore why creative passions matter. For Angela, being a creator is what she has pursued since leaving corporate America. The podcast and Real You Mandarin have been professional expressions of creativity, but she also...
Apr 04, 2025•17 min•Season 1Ep. 171
Do you believe in telepathy or ESP-like phenomena? This week we discuss "The Telepathy Tapes," a podcast that explores if non-verbal autistic individuals have the ability to read minds. The ability to look into another's mind is considered a fantastical power, but what would it take to convince you that it is real in certain individuals? In-house "woo woo" Angela and "skeptic" Jesse debate the ways that the podcast presents this concept. Many of these non-verbal individuals engage in something c...
Mar 28, 2025•19 min•Season 1Ep. 170
Did you hear about the SUV-sized drones, plasmoids, orbs, and other strange objects in the sky over New Jersey/the East Coast the past few months, or is this the first time you're hearing about it? We discuss this strange phenomena that started around the holidays in 2024 and continued for several months, where folks were claiming these large drones and other unidentified aerial objects were following them or seemingly "mapping" their neighborhoods. Despite the sheer volume of sightings and vide...
Mar 21, 2025•25 min•Season 1Ep. 169
We're back with a life update where we chat about the most fun recent things we've been up to during our off-season break, Angela being re-energized and doubling down on Real You Mandarin efforts, Jesse enjoying the semi-single (read: open relationship) life, and coming to terms with getting older and potentially wanting plastic surgery?! Let us know what you've been up to during our break in the comments below or on social media! ------- Use promo code "whereareyoufrom10" for 10% off the Real Y...
Mar 14, 2025•17 min•Season 1Ep. 168
"The Happiness Curve" is a concept that postulates that on average, a person's happiness acts as a U-shaped curve where you are happiest in your youth, happiness starts to decline in your 30s/40s, and picks back up as you get into your 50s and beyond. In this episode, we discuss what we think about this phenomenon. Full disclosure, we did get the decades slightly wrong lol, but we generally discuss why we think it could be that people get happier as they get older due to things like changing per...
Dec 20, 2024•23 min•Season 1Ep. 167
Have you ever spent hours in anticipation of your next escape, only to find that you can't quite see yourself in that narrative? If you're a gamer, you might find that to be common, depending on the category of game you're primarily interested in. This week, we're discussion the issue of representation in big box video games. Video games have to walk a fine line between representing an escape, while allowing the player to immerse themselves into the world. The details of immersion can often make...
Dec 13, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 166
Have you ever taken a moment to look back on your actions from a different period of your life? Have you ever wondered why you made certain decisions and whether or not they were wholly yours? This week, we take a walk down memory lane and evaluate the impact some of our decisions in our 20s have on our lives right now. For Angela, the importance of building her own family has been pressing - both physically and emotionally. On the other hand, Jesse has struggled with finding meaning in the choi...
Dec 06, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 165
We've often grappled with reconciling our identities as Asian-Americans, straddling two or more cultures between our family's motherland and the western environment in which we actually grew up. For many of us who did not grow up in Asia, when the time comes to think about trying to pass on that culture - and especially the language - to our children or future children, that task can seem incredibly daunting. In this episode, we chat with guest Sunny Horstmann about how she set up the structure ...
Nov 22, 2024•37 min•Season 1Ep. 164
We've often talked about how food is one of the most easily accessible ways into a culture, and this episode's guest is a perfect living example of that. Lisa Cheng Smith, founder of Yun Hai Shop in NYC, started Yun Hai as a way to explore her Taiwanese identity. Growing up as a half-Taiwanese/half-American individual, the question of "but where am I really from?" has always been something she was trying to figure out, and Yun Hai allowed her to explore that answer for herself. Today, Yun Hai is...
Nov 15, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 163
"More money, more problems" as they say. But is financial inequality in a relationship a unique problem or does it just exacerbate existing ones? This week, we examine how financial inequality impacts the quality of our relationships. Having both had the New York experience, your hosts understand what it feels like to struggle on a budget. But these days, we're looking at the question of differing finances from different perspectives. What fears and insecurities does a financially dependent part...
Nov 08, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 162
The 2024 General Election is coming up in a matter of days... thank god because we are over it, lol. No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall on, I think many of us can agree that we are tired of the reality TV show style media coverage around the two candidates, the BS of the general political "machine" behind the two parties, and a frequently missing focus on the needs of the actual people of this nation. Despite feeling a simultaneous fervor and fatigue around the election, if ...
Nov 01, 2024•34 min•Season 1Ep. 161
It's that spooktacular time of year - Halloween! In keeping with the pod tradition, we've gone diving in the deepest, darkest recesses of the internet (Reddit) for more scary stories. And also as usual, we're bringing you horror with an Asian flavor - only stories based in Asia accepted. Jesse brings to the table a terrific story involving public transit. And let's face it, what's scarier than riding the bus? Angela follows it up with a cautionary tale around stranger danger. Does the story's pr...
Oct 25, 2024•42 min•Season 1Ep. 160
Jocelyn Chung is a Taiwanese-American graphic designer and writer whose new children's book "When Love Is More Than Words" was just released this week! In this episode we of course discuss the book, including its inspiration being a beautiful real life realization she had with her grandfather, all the fun Taiwanese easter eggs, and more, and also discuss her recent journey of claiming her Taiwanese citizenship and starting a life and community in Taiwan, and how all of this helped her feel at ho...
Oct 18, 2024•56 min•Season 1Ep. 159
Your besties are back with some new topics for fall! Before we get into a slew of new conversations these next few months, we'd like to update you on where we are. Life keeps moving, especially when we are on break from the pod. For Angela, that means a few months closer to starting her family and moving to Japan. For Jesse, that means a few months of continued exploration around life hobbies and going out. And for the both of us, a few new shared changes you'll have to hear about in the episode...
Oct 11, 2024•17 min•Season 1Ep. 158
You've heard Angela share her struggles with trying to improve her Mandarin, being at a loss knowing simultaneously too much and nothing at all, it seems. She's also explicitly said that there is a clear market for creating a resource for Mandarin speakers born outside of the motherland, but that she wouldn't be the one making it! ...well, she's officially eating her words because recently Angela felt compelled to bring something like this to life to help people like us finally be able to have m...
May 20, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 157
How do you go about seeking inner peace for yourself? We've spent many past episodes diving into mental health and self-growth. But as we strive to improve ourselves, how can we also embrace all that we currently are - the good and the bad? We individually found frameworks that helped us cope with the stresses of everyday life. Jesse found his calming mantra through a session on Calm, while Angela discovered "The Work" by Byron Katie*. Both frameworks help to process turbulent thoughts, by slowi...
May 03, 2024•18 min•Season 1Ep. 156
What's it like to not only have an Olympic gold medalist mom but also have the chance to play her in a movie in China alongside the likes of Gong Li?! In this episode, we speak with Lydia Bai, a former Stanford volleyball star turned investment banker, now life coach, who had the rare opportunity to completely shake up her life and fly to China for this rare opportunity. *Her mom is legendary volleyball icon Lang Ping and the movie we're talking about is called "Leap" (2020)!* Through the proces...
Apr 26, 2024•23 min•Season 1Ep. 155
As the pandemic recedes, the dream of remote work forever has also shrank. But for those who can still telecommute, the allure of planting roots elsewhere has become "the writing on the wall." Reports of Americans moving abroad have historically centered on an older demographic looking to stretch their retirement savings. However, this new cohort of high paid telecommuters has come into focus - a group that seeks to achieve the American Dream while living abroad. With the economics, safety, and ...
Apr 19, 2024•17 min•Season 1Ep. 154
Look, we think service and gig workers should be paid a fair wage for their work, but at what point did that responsibility shift to the consumer instead of the employer?! In this episode we talk about how egregious tipping culture has become in the US, regardless of the level of service you actually received. We compare and contrast with tip-less cultures outside of the US, and bemoan how tipping expectations and pressures have changed due to the iPad checkout systems being used in even non-ser...
Apr 12, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 153
Our relationship with grief changes as we get older. The range of loss we learn to absorb over time is so large - so where do we learn how to cope? In evaluating ourselves, we find that most of our responses to loss are unique, individual responses. Growing up with families that did not necessarily express much emotion, we weren't able to learn a model of grief from a young age. And yet when we look at our parents' emotional reactions to tragic life events, we can't help but consider the differe...
Apr 05, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 152
Family structures have changed throughout time and vary depending on which part of the world you're from. Recent surveys done by Pew Research in the US suggest that prevailing attitudes towards the institutions surrounding families have changed. The importance of family and marriage have dramatically transformed over the last few years. Some of these changes are more inclusive and benefit family structures that have traditionally sat outside the norm. Single parents and married gay parents have ...
Mar 29, 2024•19 min•Season 1Ep. 151
Netflix has finally released its highly anticipated adaptation of the beloved sci-fi series "The Three Body Problem," and we're giving you our honest review from the perspective of someone who binged the entire book series as well as from someone who had no previous exposure to the trilogy at all. **This is a minimal spoilers review. We only discuss Episode 1 not the full season, so if you haven't watched the first episode this may not be for you. However, if you've just started the show, we won...
Mar 24, 2024•25 min•Season 1Ep. 150
We've talked about the culture shocks & challenges we've faced being American-born kids visiting the motherland (in our case, Taiwan), but all of those experiences have only been in the context of short-term vacations. What's it like trying to do "real" things like applying for health insurance, opening a bank account, and other "grown up" things in the motherland? In this episode, Angela shares exactly what that was like when she navigated these activities recently. Let's just say it was a ...
Mar 15, 2024•21 min•Season 1Ep. 149
What's it like to search for and buy a house in the US vs. in Japan? Jesse purchased a co-op apartment in New York City two years ago, and Angela bought a house in Kyoto last year. In this episode, we compare and contrast everything from the search process, to contracting/making an offer, to renovations, and everything in between. Would you rather buy a house in the US or in Japan now that you've heard what those two processes entail? Let us know in our Spotify poll or in our comments on social ...
Mar 08, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 148
Did you know that there was a presidential election in Taiwan this year? While election madness is just starting in the US, it's already finished in Taiwan. The results have significant impacts on how the current major parties in Taiwan will govern in the future. While the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) candidate, Lai Ching-te, came out ahead in the presidential race, the party as a whole has lost significant influence in the legislature. Amidst that, the Taiwan People's Party (TPP), a new...
Mar 01, 2024•16 min•Season 1Ep. 147
Do people around the world still believe that democratic institutions represent their best interests? Recent survey data reported by the Guardian shows that a portion of younger respondents favor more autocratic governments. A quick look around the world, and you can see more extreme political factions taking root in many nations. Does this instability come from democratic bodies that no longer represent their constituents? Does the general public now distrust democratic governments as the model...
Feb 23, 2024•23 min•Season 1Ep. 146
