Have you heard of ChatGPT, the new AI chatbot that's been taking the world by storm? What exactly is ChatGPT and how is it different from past AI bots? Why is everyone so excited about it? Does it really have the ability to replace people's jobs?! In this episode we break down what ChatGPT is in the simplest, "normal" people terms, discuss the various ways people are using its creative abilities to enhance the work they already do, and speculate on if it's really possible (and if so, to what ext...
Apr 07, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 115
What is it about relationships and love that pique so much interest in all of us? We know that our listeners love to hear about topics related to our love lives, but what's so interesting about these topics anyways? In this episode, we chat about the mystery of love and why the idea of love has such a hold on the imagination. We believe our listeners tune in for the realness of the topic, but also to gain more insight on how to approach their own relationships, since navigating relationship chal...
Mar 31, 2023•15 min•Season 1Ep. 114
Hot take: the Japanese sci-fi series "Alice in Borderland" is a better version of Squid Game (and came out first!) Netflix's "Alice in Borderland" Season 2 dropped at the end of 2022 and we need to talk about all the wild things that happened. The show is centered around main character Arisu who's stuck in a dystopian world in which the majority of the planet has suddenly disappeared, and he and the other survivors have been thrust into death match-style games in order to fight for their lives. ...
Mar 24, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 113
Gwen Stefani created quite the controversy in the US when she recently doubled down on her claim that she "is Japanese," but for the most part, actual Japanese people and those outside of the US don't understand what all the fuss is about. In this episode, we revisit Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Lovers past and pick apart why claiming Asian culture & identity has different implications for Asians in the US vs. Asians living in the actual country/culture being taken from. How can something that is...
Mar 17, 2023•15 min•Season 1Ep. 112
It's the final episode of the "season!" And what better way to close out a holiday season than to talk about quirky things around gifting? Giving gifts is such a fun part of any culture, but it can be governed by many invisible rules you might not be aware of. With our Asian upbringing in mind, we recount typical gift-giving situations amongst our Asian families. From the right gifts to the wrong gifts, we discuss all of the hidden elements to gift giving in Eastern culture. While some things ar...
Dec 23, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 111
How much do you know about couples counseling or couples therapy besides what you may have seen in trashy reality TV representations? To us, it feels like couples therapy is still a rather taboo subject, despite the idea of individual therapy gaining more mainstream acceptance. So what do you do when your relationship is facing repeated issues that you're not able to solve, but you're embarrassed to ask friends or family about professional help? Today we're sharing our personal experiences with ...
Dec 16, 2022•46 min•Season 1Ep. 110
Self-love and self-care go hand-in-hand, but how do we find a way to embrace these concepts authentically? In thinking about the self-work that we've done, we talk about how self-love and self-care relate. The podcast has always been about our struggles and introspection on the different aspects of our identity - even the parts we aren't fond of. Embracing all the different aspects of who we are can be difficult and messy, but doing so is the only way to truly find compassion for yourself. In fi...
Dec 09, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 109
Is there a reliable way to predict what's coming in the future? Sometimes, we just need to look to the past to inform what changes we might see soon! In The Fourth Turning, authors Neil Howe and William Strauss postulate that four unique generational archetypes govern the changes we see in American history. Each generation's development is informed by the events and social conditions of the previous generation. The archetypes feed into each other cyclically, creating repeating patterns of growth...
Dec 02, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 108
We're all searching for the "one," but what if there was more than one "one" for you out there? What would it take to work it out with multiple loves in your life? We've talked about dating and open relationships before, and we're taking it one step further with a discussion on polyamory. Many of you brought up this type of relationship structure on TikTok when we discussed open relationships, so in this episode we talk more about how this structure works and is different from other structures. ...
Nov 25, 2022•18 min•Season 1Ep. 107
As many of you know, Angela has been living that digital nomad life for the past year and a half. In this episode, we talk about how the pandemic has opened up remote work possibilities, including how governmental bodies (from countries down to cities) are trying to attract this newly mobile class of workers through generous digital nomad visas to literally paying people to start families to counteract declining fertility rates. We then discuss the pros and cons of this new way of life for both ...
Nov 18, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 106
Inspired by a viral TikTok video Angela made about her uninsured dental experience in Korea a few months ago, we're discussing some of the ways healthcare is different outside of vs. inside the U.S. As a self-employed freelancer, navigating the world of uninsured life after years of Corporate America-backed insurance plans has been... quite an adjustment! We talk about the cost differences with how much Angela paid abroad vs. what the same procedures would cost in the U.S., how the actual experi...
Nov 11, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 105
Have you ever thought about what racism looks like in other countries, especially Asian countries? We're exploring that this week through the lens of Angela's travel experience in Korea and Japan, as well as stories told by those living in these countries. Racism is a difficult subject to broach in largely homogeneous countries. While there are certain small pockets of non-local workers and expats, it can be difficult for certain actions or associations to be considered racist. In many cases, so...
Nov 04, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 104
It's spooky season! Are you a fan of All Hallows' Eve? Do you love to watch horror movies and spook yourself with scary stories? If so, this week's titillating episode of Asia-based Reddit horror stories is just for you. Jesse shares his scary story find about a young group of travelers camping in the wrong forest in Japan. Angela follows up with her own frightening tale of a sleepless apartment haunting in Taiwan. Will our story subjects escape their ghostly hauntings and live to tell the tale ...
Oct 28, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 103
Do you ever wonder where the soul goes after you die? Do you believe that there is a life between lives that you could experience as your soul-self? This week's episode is focused on learning more about that specific experience - a life between lives regression. Angela walks us through her experience with this type of regression therapy as a step up from our previous discussion with her about her past life regression experience. We discuss the different insights she gained while undergoing this ...
Oct 21, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Are we in a recession?! Whatever you wanna call it, things sure are expensive right now! In this mini episode, we invite Angela's husband Ramon back on the show to weigh in as someone who follows macroeconomic trends closely. We start by clarifying some confusing economic terms that are flooding the headlines right now: inflation, interest rates, recession, currency devaluation, GDP, and more. We then talk about the disconnect between the messaging we're hearing from the press (i.e., "the econom...
Oct 14, 2022•19 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Have you ever wondered if you could know your best friend even more deeply? We're going to answer that question for you this week as we play 36 Questions to Fall in Love for our 100th episode celebration (we only had time to answer 20 though, lol!). It's both incredible and humbling to have been doing our podcast for over 2.5 years. What started as a pandemic hobby has really grown into an amazing way for us to express ourselves and connect with a larger community. The questions to fall in love ...
Oct 07, 2022•41 min•Season 1Ep. 100
With the red hot popularity of Korean content flooding the market now, did you know that Netflix's new "Money Heist: Korea" is not a standalone original, but rather an adaptation of the widely-celebrated, Emmy-award winning Spanish version ("La Casa de Papel" aka "Money Heist") that just ended the year before? While it's well known that Hollywood has ripped off countless pieces of non-American media for its own blockbuster remakes (i.e., The Ring, The Departed, Lake House, various anime adaptati...
Sep 30, 2022•13 min•Season 1Ep. 99
In this episode we mix two controversial topics together: religion and racism. Friend of the pod Keith Koo (previous guest on EP#21 Adulting 2.0) joins the show to share a whirlwind situation he's been in for the past year and a half involving freedom of speech within the church. He was wrongfully terminated from his role as a volunteer teacher by his church for "bringing race into the church" by using last year's Atlanta spa shootings (that claimed 8 victims, 6 of which were Asian women) in one...
Sep 23, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 98
As people who struggled hard to successfully pay off our own student loan debt, we aren't thrilled with Biden's new student loan forgiveness plan, but not just for the reasons you might think. We are in fact happy for the one-time beneficiaries of this program because we know how hard the road to repayment can be, but there's a lot we're not so pleased with. Namely, the lack of attempt to fix the core problem behind the broken higher education system extorting young people for everything they're...
Sep 16, 2022•17 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Tensions between Taiwan and China have been high since essentially the beginning of modern-day Taiwan as we know it (circa 1949). But if you've been following the headlines of late, you'd have seen that things reached a boiling point in early August when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Taiwan and became the highest ranking US official to do so, seemingly challenging the One China policy. In this episode, we start with a TLDR of the history of China-Taiwan tensions, followed by ...
Sep 09, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 96
What the heck is a "himbo?!" We're discussing the rise of the Asian himbo (male bimbo) as an evolution from the traditional portrayal of Asian men in western media. How did we go from sexless and nerdy characters like Long Duk Dong ("Sixteen Candles") to ultra hot but super dumb characters like Jason Mendoza ("The Good Place")? How do we feel about this change and where do we hope representation will go from here? Tell us who your favorite Asian himbo is in our Instagram or Tik Tok comments! Fol...
Sep 02, 2022•14 min•Season 1Ep. 95
What does the promise of America look like in 2022? For some, the promise of the American dream still rings true. For others, the idea of America is beginning to wear thin. In honor of 4th of July weekend, we revisit what being American means to us and how that's changed since we first did this episode a few years ago. We dive into the transformative changes the country has gone through - culturally, politically, and socially. We also re-evaluate the strength of our American identities and where...
Jul 01, 2022•53 min•Season 1Ep. 94
Where in the WORLD is Angela? Angela and her husband Ramon have been on the road for more than a year now as digital nomads! We catch up with her in her current home base in Korea, as they wait for their next stop (Japan) to open up for tourism. We discuss what it's been like as an Asian-American who is NOT the local ethnicity to live in that country - from language barrier, to potential assumptions about identity, to expectations, and more. We also touch on highlights of traveling so far, inclu...
Jun 24, 2022•54 min•Season 1Ep. 93
Have you been following the recent cascade of dumpster fires in the crypto space where the entire ecosystem has been taking one beating after another, first with the crash of Terra, followed shortly by the Celsius fiasco? (Don't worry if you have no idea what I'm talking about. Read on...) Though the crypto hype has been real for quite some time now, many people still don’t know much about what crypto really is or why people care about it. In this episode, we finally invited Angela’s husband Ram...
Jun 17, 2022•46 min•Season 1Ep. 92
As a twist on our usual "Asians Doing Cool Sh*t" subtrack, while Angela is living abroad in Asia, we're finding Asians *in Asia* doing cool sh*t to hear from! Sunbin is a Korean-born Korean who has split many of her formative/developmental stages going back and forth living in the U.S. and Korea. In this episode, we discuss what her experience has been like as a third culture kid, technically holding a Korean passport, but feeling culturally more American. While most Asian-Americans we've talked...
Jun 10, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 91
Does it feel like things are spinning out of control sometimes? You're not alone! This week we discuss how being on social media has put us in a 24/7 fast-paced lane. With all of the different things happening around the world, having access to all of that information can be overwhelming. We discuss the ways that we have dealt with all of the news anxiety as well as what we have done to reconcile the privilege gap between our lives and the lives of others. Listen in to find out how we're dealing...
Jun 03, 2022•41 min•Season 1Ep. 90
Have you ever wondered what it's like to be in an open relationship and what it's all about? This week we put Jesse in the hot seat as we discuss the topic of open relationships. We put it all out there as we discuss our own opinions and experiences with the open relationship concept. From why you'd want to be in one to relationship agreements to managing jealousy, Angela asks all the questions you've been dying to know about open relationships. Is an open relationship right for you? Tune in and...
May 20, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 89
The Internet has made wonderful things like our podcast possible, but what are the downsides of the world wide web? This week we discuss the shadowy world of internet trolls and how the constant stream of negativity can have a real impact on mental health. We explore the mounting pressure from anonymous commentators as we have expanded across social media. From icy comments to pure vitriol, we examine where these comments come from and why it's so easy to share hate on the internet. If you've ev...
May 13, 2022•59 min•Season 1Ep. 88
**This is the Mandarin-based audio interview with our moms, available for those who are able to speak our mother language! For those who aren't able to, please head over to our YouTube version of this episode where we provide the English subtitled version of the video. Alternatively, you can listen to our shorter English recap of the episode where we reflect on our discussion with our moms (without our moms present)** YouTube video ep: https://youtu.be/bEUFbDP4I_g ---------- Happy Mother's Day w...
May 06, 2022•52 min•Season 1Ep. 87
Happy Mother's Day weekend and start of Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month! To celebrate, we had two incredibly special guests on our show... our moms! Because we recorded the episode with them in Chinese (Mandarin), we also recorded this shorter English recap for those who do not speak our moms' native tongue. With that said, if you do speak Mandarin, feel free to either listen to the Mandarin audio version, or watch the English-subtitled / Mandarin audio video on YouTube! (Th...
May 06, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 87
