video1111965886
===
[00:00:00] So I am so stoked to have you here, Andrea, actually, because when we first started messaging each other, I discovered I was not the first person ever to think of Big Asian energy and thinking of combining big dick energy with Asians. don't know. It's a good thing or yeah, but actually for mine, like it came out with a chat with a buddy of mine Peter Shallard.
We were on a camping trip, but it turned out you guys, like you and had this thing. Tell me about that. All right. This is not a name drop at all, but I'm namedropping it for you. When we were [00:00:30] talking, you brought it up. So I'll tell you first of all, I'm an entrepreneur, so entrepreneurs do never think anybody's invented anything.
'cause everybody's just a rehash of other people's ideas, right? So I just wanna get that outta the way. But when you reached out, funny enough, I've used this term and there's a hashtag that you can go back until I saw 18, 19. So yeah, the hashtag list was existed. And what happened was don't even know, 'cause don't wanna sound like, I think on the internet, people know that 'cause I'm based outta California, so for Asian Americans across the country we know a lot of the content and the [00:01:00] culture comes out of California, which is good and bad.
I know it's very California centric and I know that my New Yorker friends are like, oh, you think California Asians are all the ones who make the content and the culture. But you forget about the Chicago and the Houstons and all the Seattle. it was right after Crazy Rich Asians, and we were thought of thinking about what's next for the movement, for representation, for role models and everything.
And at the time SMO had yet to land I don't think he had landed Marvel yet. And I know, I think you remember him mentioning he might want to be the Marvel superhero. [00:01:30] Oh man. But as much as I could say people know, you can tell the kids say the Riz, but he's a very charismatic dude and he is got this energy that sometimes like commands a room.
Yeah. And he's very confident guy. Yeah. And so he was like, he could own it. And so that's why in his roles, he has a little bit of that alpha energy, not in a negative way. He's like a alpha minus, like he's not always he's not like a dominating, nah he's not like trying to get everyone's attention.
I feel like there's a quiet confidence about the guy sometimes when he like walks in, like there's a [00:02:00] vibe. He plays guitars and likes to serenade people. He just came out with a new music video, right? Oh, he did? Oh, yeah. When hit. Yeah. Yeah. I called and told him I'm like, don't sing.
I'm just kidding. So I think we were playing in LA just hanging out and then I think there was this idea that we were saying, We need to have that energy. But it's a specific Asian brand. It's like an energy that's confident. Hey, we started these startups. Yeah. We created, these platforms that everybody used.
Mm-hmm. Crazy Rich Asians blew up. But it's not like the growing energy, like the overly aggressive energy. But it's a very confident [00:02:30] energy. And then we're like, oh, that's like big Asian energy. It's like big, right? Oh yeah, I like that big Asian energy. And so we started using that in like the la world. And so there was like a conference that people were at. And then I think Luie Lin also shouts to Luie. He was Mortal Kombat. And he used it in his talk. So there was these different moments in terms of at the time, Asian American males especially, Ludi
I think he had just come off of a Black Mirror, big episode. And then CMU was coming off of Kim's convenience about to be Shang Chi. Mm-hmm. So there was this energy that's Hey, they're confident there're gonna be these [00:03:00] protagonists, that people are rooting for, but it's not overly aggressive. It's not what we think of as like big dick energy, right? So they started using this hashtag big Asian energy so much that I think, if I remember correctly, SMU used it in his book. So one of the chapter titles in his book itself is Big Asian energy. So this is not to say that there's a first word, whatever this is, to say, Hey, there's something in the zeitgeist that's hey, a movement's coming in which people organically like yourself there's a need for this newer energy that is more nuanced, which is, hey, I'm confident I know who [00:03:30] I am but I'm not here to over. But I know like we are the future kind of thing. And I think that's the energy that hopefully, we'll get across in this episode in the podcast.
I think people, there's all these rumors of what I sound like or who all the people we talked about are. But I am confident, but I like to say it's like am who I am, but I'm not trying to force people to be, like follow me I don't think you come across oh, this is the best podcast for Asian America, or, oh damn, now.
How to change. My entire tagline. Biggest podcast in Asian America the biggest podcast in the world. No, obviously not. I love that [00:04:00] explanation and I think you're absolutely right. There is this thing in the zeitgeist that I feel like when we started talking about it, it clicked for me immediately and I've been like chewing on that.
Because I think that historically there's been a depiction of Asian Americans as being kinda like shy or like the smart nerdy kids but not that we're the sidekicks, the sidekicks are Spider-Man, where the spice sidekicks to the Indiana Jones and that kind of vibe.
Yeah. So this is always a question, which is what is big Asian energy mean to you? What does that confidence and how does that differ from bd? Correct. Good [00:04:30] question. I like that you branded Western and b d E. ' let's continue to put that association together.
It creates good positioning. I think, back in the day I don't know if you grew up or people listening when they grew up, I grew up in a time where the people in dominant media and cultural forms in America, at least Western media was like, wall Street was the, Gordon Gecko was this alpha energy.
And it's very I own the room. Do you know who I am? And I think you have to be outspoken. You have to like command a certain presence. Whereas I feel like Asian energy [00:05:00] just doesn't really have that kind of same thing. Asians, I will say, acknowledge that there's a little bit of the patriarchal energy in Asian culture.
I think that's not great, but the energy is more let me show you through soft power, which is, some people use that. Let me show you by being a little bit more nuanced. A lot of more like harmony based, a lot of Confucianism is in there, which is the kind of like the balancing both the yin and the yang.
So I feel like that is built into the Eastern philosophy, which then translates itself into the Asian leadership style. I'm a founder, but I'm a technically a [00:05:30] c e o of four or 500 people in my ecosystem. And my c e o style I know doesn't sound generally like a normal c e o.
Like talk about what's your CEO style? I don't think I'm that emotional, but supposedly I'm more emo than most CEOs. I think I'm a little bit more intellectual and nuanced than most CEOs, so I just think it's insulting to think people are don't understand the concept, so you dumb it down.
And I generally tell our team, oh, here's how we make money. Here's how we lose money. Here's y I can't do X and it gets me in trouble. It has gotten me in trouble where I try to say [00:06:00] something that's more nuanced and somebody takes it and be like they don't care.
Andrew lives in his fancy house and I'm like, no, I don't. people don't know anything about my background and they project, but I think what they're doing sadly is projecting like a western, like stereotypical white c e o. Which I could see why you think all CEOs are the same, but this white adjacent, which is basically what they're saying.
I'm like, no, you got the wrong model, minority myth, the thing going on here. Mm-hmm. Whereas I built this company kind of using immigrant kind of hustle. So people know, like for me, the way I run the company a lot of it is servant [00:06:30] leadership because acts one of the big love languages in Asian American kind of culture.
Asian culture in general across the diaspora is servant service is, yeah. It's like my mom she doesn't know how to say, I love you. Her life. Oh. She'll say, I love you, she'll, I'll cook rice and fol your clothes for you. Yeah, exactly. She'll send me home with more food than entire villages can finish.
Exactly. But that's love. I on a jacket, down to criticizing me. That's her way of showing love. It's just, why don't you do better on this project? when you did that video launch, man, you could have done better. And I'm like, I know, right? I love you too. Can I ask, is she proud of that you are speaking [00:07:00] kind of the voice of her culture?
I think she is. I didn't tell actually my sister told my parents about my book deal. Apparently they were really shocked by it. And they were like, what? And they, but they never told me. Like my dad will never outright show it to me, but he would show it to my sister.
Then my sister does the work of coming around. So like we have this weird triangulation sometimes where we'll pass a word to each other. you have siblings? Yeah. Same. My sister who I'm really close with sometimes I'm like, I tell her something that why don't you [00:07:30] just tell mom and dad?
And I'm like, because that's not how communication works in this family. We triangulate. yeah. It's funny. Yeah. And so what was your upbringing like? my upbringing was I'm very Americana. I think we'll talk probably about this later. I see myself, I don't think I'm a third culture kid.
I think I'm like a both culture kid. So I was very Asian and very American. So my very American experience was, I grew up in New Jersey. So I grew up in Woodbridge, New Jersey. Shouts to the township of Woodbridge. It's like cool. there was a movie back then called Sandlot.
It's like a very sandlot movie. Where I'm used to, play [00:08:00] kickball on the streets when the car would come, everybody like, car's coming. Oh my God. in my mind, I'm picturing like this in Cepi tone and Yeah, it's that know like Little Rascals. Yeah.
Put your shoelaces untied. is, I can't even make this up. some of my friends I still keep in touch with where I used to knock one of my best friends to this day, I still talk to him, George ASINs. So I'd knock on his door and open, there's no locks. Yeah. So I'd be like, Hey, is Georgie home?
And they're like, no, Georgie's down the street at Greg's. And I'd be like, all I ride my bike over to Greg's place so it was like, where are the [00:08:30] bicycles? Where are the bicycles? And which lawn are they? And that's when you knew whose house everybody was at?
Yeah. Playing like Super Nintendo, the SpaghettiOs and stuff. So I had a very traditionally Americana experience. Most of your friends were white? yeah. we're the Asian restaurant in town. My parents had a restaurant called Huna and Palace, and that my sister and I were the only Asian people in town.
Wow. There's pictures of this. You could see the class photos. And so my crushes were like this white girl, Emily Nihart, which I tried to figure out if I could find her on Facebook. Emily, what are you doing now? that was it. And then it was Italians, primarily [00:09:00] Italian, Eastern European, and Jewish.
And I played baseball. I was a pretty good baseball player, and so I did that until middle school and I moved to California in middle school. Why'd your parents move together? I'm assuming that they decided and not you. Why'd your parents move there? If you really want, the deep cut is, I have it's not really part of my Asian identity, but I have a rheumatoid arthritis and the climate's really bad there 'cause of the humidity and, oh, shoot.
Best doctor. I don't think I've ever said this on a podcast. I just, but you just said it so organically that I just felt like I had could share. The best doctor that [00:09:30] studies at the time, j r a juvenile rheumatoid arthritis is Dr. Emory from U C Ss f and so I was pretty serious the liver was failing from jaundice. Oh damn. And I had yellow eyes with like one of the signs. And so it got so bad it took me off medication, but there was no other medication to keep me from the pain. 'cause I was inflaming, my joints were always swelling and I couldn't sleep.
So they basically said climate was a big part of the issue 'cause of the barometric pressure. And so they moved me to California, which the climate's a little bit more less humidity out [00:10:00] here. And then I started a new life found. I was like, oh, there's Asians. It's people will look like me.
What? People look like me? People are like, they talk about Asian stuff all the time. They eat Asian food all the time. Yeah. even then, because this is, I don't know where we wanna go with this 'cause this is gonna be such an organic conversation. Yeah. But my parents, because when we were in New Jersey, I had cousins, a couple towns over.
Like my mom's brother lived in town. or couple town, like 30 minutes over in Springfield, New Jersey. And so we would drive 25 minutes to Springfield. We would always do things together. And in my mom's [00:10:30] family, we would only speak Mandarin primarily, right? And the kids would speak English, but we were speaking Mandarin.
Everybody would yell at us, in they're like, it's, yeah. Just Because Asian people, we don't talk to each other. We yell at each other. Yell at each other. Yeah. So people are so aggressive. which just so funny, right?
'cause this is such a contradiction to the idea of, wanna keep hearing the story, but such contradiction to the idea of Asians being quiet and shy. I'm like, have you ever been inside an Asian household or gone to a dimm some place or to hang out with or a wedding Indian people at a market?
Oh my God. Yeah. You don't even let, you don't even hear a speech at the wedding. No, [00:11:00] people were just screaming at each other. Yeah. speaking of our wedding, I'm Taiwanese by birth and I went to a Taiwanese friend's wedding and I remember the best man got on stage to make a speech.
Nobody could hear him. All you could hear is like the parents' generation drinking No. And I'm like, this wedding has nothing to do with the kids. Yeah. It's just an excuse to gather and drink. Exactly. You're talking about sentimental feelings. No, I'm good. We're good. Gimme the Hennessy. The Remy hen the xo, Remy XO Sparkling, but don't drink [00:11:30] the sparkling apple cider.
That's tea. If we're gonna be paid, we're gonna have $500 a table. We have to actually drink all the Remy that we pre-bought. Yeah. Because the guys need that. And then otherwise we call the weddings are like the fundraisers. 'cause you actually that it decently cheap to pay.
But the red envelopes you got you. Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. That's why the bride and groom usually put up with it. Because you're like, man, if we do a Chinese banquet, no one's gonna hear any of the bridal party, but we're gonna make $200 a head. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. So what wanna do that's the entrepreneurialship mindset right here, right?
Yeah. Guys, [00:12:00] welcome to the entrepreneur part of the podcast. This is what we're here for. How to develop Big Asian energy. Go get married and throw a red envelope party. That's how you fund your first startup. Yep. That's your startup capital. Your seed money is your fundraiser at the, banquet.
Yeah. lion dance will then get the margins up because that's, it's relatively cheap, 'cause these are volunteers usually for the lions dances, but then it looks like it's more festive, so people chip in more cash. Oh man. Because they're like, oh, why you pay for a lion dance?
Dude, I gotta write this down. I just got engaged two weeks ago, so I Oh, really? I like take [00:12:30] yeah. Oh, congrats. I didn't see that on Instagram. Okay. Yeah. think I just posted it like, like a second ago. yeah, my partner's white, so I have to make sure to hold up my end of the bargain by throwing these wet.
Wow. Hey, reverse colonizing here. Go reverse colonizer here. So is she, what kind of white is she Dutch? She's like Canadian. Canadian. Small town Canadian. But her family is Italian and Ukrainian. Oh okay. Like white, they're oppressed whites a little bit, yeah. They're like, that's true. Mu true. Italians are like immigrant, No, north American Italians are immigrants. Yeah. Yeah. They have the immigrant mindset for [00:13:00] sure. Like her grandmother who I met literally lived in a little house in the prairie type cabin and walked two hours a day to go to school and come back.
Like immigrant mindset. For sure. I respect that. Again, as I mentioned, grew up in Jersey. Yeah. A lot of my friends were Italians and people were like, we got along because they were just immigrant kids, the parents actually spoken very thick accent. My friend Gregory, who is our actual real person is like his mom would be like, yo, Andrew you eating, you staying over for dinner? We made spaghetti. We made ravioli. You wanna come? And I was like I love ravioli versus CMA that [00:13:30] I'm having, or not probably what. My parents had a Chinese restaurant, so they wouldn't bring stuff like I speak Cantonese and Mandarin, but the Cantonese dish like is hum.
You got lot telephone? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is so good. She, yeah. So it's like a salt for those who are ABCs who don't speak any Chinese. I'm not judging you Mandarin or Cantonese. Yeah. by the way, if you're listening, you don't speak any of 'em. You have to come on at least know how to say your name and know how to swear.
I think those two things are really important. Yeah. Yeah. And account count basic numbers. Yeah. Whether Yeah. Vietnamese Koreans [00:14:00] trying to be all east, shouts out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Indian, all of 'em. If you're gonna criticize your parents' culture and say, I don't get it, and you wanna make movies and write about them and shade them on subtweet them, then you've gotta know your parents' culture.
Come on. Can't. Shame them and be like but I don't wanna speak to any Mandarin. I'm like well, you have a chance. cause very likely they tried to speak to you in their native tongue, but you were a hundred percent. I think it's a sewer power. So I wanna come back to your story here. 'cause I'm really curious how you got your big Asian energy.
'cause when people meet you, I think that the first thing I noticed, for example, is one, you have a [00:14:30] very welcoming vibe. Like you're very easygoing, you're a very welcoming vibe, like very friendly, but there is an unquestionable big agent energy about you. Like very confident. You're like I got this shit.
I'm leading. and I'm guessing that's how you got, maybe this is a part of the story, that's how you got started with, boba guys and run these companies that have, hundreds of people in them and command that level of, I don't know what the word command is, right?
But certainly lead. I think that is such superpower. I think that has to come at the intersection of those two parts of like our Asian selves, is that [00:15:00] charisma and that charm and that connectivity, especially growing up, same story, right? Like us, Asian American, so many of us, we learn to fit in everywhere.
We become the chameleon, right? We become the chameleon. We just know how to fit in. you throw us into a party or a dimm sum restaurant or a gala we'll fit in, we'll find a way to fit in. Yeah, generally, it hasn't always been the case. I'm sure and anybody listening would, we didn't always fit in.
I've said maybe in 2023 where we're in now, but yeah, I didn't always, wasn't always the case. First of all. Thanks for the compliment. Asians can't take compliments, so I had to learn how to be white and be like, yeah, I own that. Yes. That makes, [00:15:30] that's part of the big Asian energy is accepting a compliment.
maybe the third time, but like at some point accept it. Yeah. Otherwise it just gets awkward. And you just spend that, you waste your time going back and forth. It's like fighting for the bill is the same kind of pinging pong energy. It's complimenting.
No, it's you. Yeah. But anyways, to answer your question, you tied back to an earlier question is I think it was if it weren't for me trying to figure out and fight for who I was in New Jersey. And then, not wanting to be passive, my parents did train me in a culture to be like, I did watch Asian movies growing up.
Because my parents
back [00:16:00] then there has, and phones. So you had to watch the media that your parents or your family did. So I grew up watching Chinese soap operas and when I moved to California, there was a very well known. Hong Kong Cinema movie, which is one of my favorites to this day, which is, oh, you know it, yeah. Yeah, I hear the music in the background. Oh, yeah. King. Oh man, Chinese theater. Ever watch every single one of them? Oh, all of it super's tragic and, oh, man, go watch. Get your Asian culture. Here it is. What so much of, like you think Irish Italian gangster movies are [00:16:30] tough. Now you gotta watch the Young and Dangerous Tai series.
I think they're remaking more of 'em now, but the first three are so heavy. You cry, you laugh, you think of badass, but that made you maybe proud. My favorite character to this day in almost all of representation in media is Sang Guy, which is Jordan Chan's character. You remember him?
He's the one, I don't think I'm the alpha, I don't think I'm like, is he the Longhaired dude? No, that's Eking Chungs. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. That's the main protagonist, but his best friend who kind of fights over the girl with and all that stuff. Oh Okay. Yeah.
And in the first [00:17:00] movie, he like leaves and because the guys have a falling out and they're like this kind of brotherhood because they're like this triad. And then he leaves and he comes back. I'm ruining the first movie, but I guess it's a 30 year old movie.
He comes back and he brings his entourage from Taiwan. I'm gonna come and we're gonna take back these bad guys. They're all gangsters, but I'm gonna take back these unethical bad guys. So that the way he comes back and he's like this kind of, it's not an alpha energy, it's actually like a wild energy that you're like, I can't pin you down.
But it's I know who I am and I'm [00:17:30] loyal. Yeah. So Asian energy is, I'm loyal. Don't fuck with me. Like I'm gonna keep to myself unless you fuck with me. And, I got it. I got my cool with me. 'cause it's collectivist. So I That's right. We're community. Yeah. And he comes back in this very iconic scene in the movie that energy is what I carried throughout my entire life.
And it's not an aggressive energy, but I call it like an apex predator. Which I think is sometimes a western energy. I feel like I'm an apex protector. Like I'm gonna smile and be like, Hey, I'm laughing. I smile a lot. I have a baby face, people say, but when you like, really fuck with my [00:18:00] team my community. Oh, then you know, gloves are off. There's no hold back. Yeah. I have been known to be like, no, just back the fuck up because you don't touch Asian, elderly that's like a soft spot for me. 'cause I grew up with my grandparents living with me Of course.
I used to be a code. You don't touch babies, women, and Asian elderly. And now people are messing with that. I'm like, what? Yeah. It's So that is like a sore spot. For sure. So anyways, that came out because I moved to California and I was like, wow.
There's people who look like me and they look and feel like a little bit of the movies that I grew up watching. So you found a community while you were in LA [00:18:30] when you first moved and you set San Francisco. Yeah, San Francisco. There was, because the, I don't wanna get too deep into this, but, were a lot of gangs actually in San Francisco. Which I had friends in those. And so I grew up pretty, I don't wanna sound like humbling or self-effacing about it, but I didn't grow up with a lot of money. my parents didn't go to college.
And so my dad had a failed restaurant in New Jersey It was another reason why they moved was 'cause the restaurant wasn't doing well. my dad didn't have any corporates or education. So he drove the Muni bus. So I grew up my life was a, I don't say on the streets 'cause I don't wanna sound like again oh, he's trying to [00:19:00] act hard. But yes, you know me, I grew up tangible examples were we couldn't afford babysitters in San Francisco. So we were like restaurant brat. So we would work at the restaurant Thursday and during the tour buses.
So we would serve, This restaurant while my dad was driving buses. Like it's like that 10 year old Asian kid who was in every restaurant. Yeah, that was me for sure. Running tables and doing math homework afterwards. Yeah, I would wash dishes. I was shorter, I'm tiny 'cause I'm like a young Right.
10 years old. But I would spray the food bits on the dishwasher thing, not thinking that it was like people's [00:19:30] germs on my face. I was like, this is funny. It's sprinkling on my face peel string beans. I'm pretty good at wontons. And so I do that. And then I grew up in Fisherman's Wharf where my family restaurant was.
So my aunts and uncles and my dad had a family restaurant, but my dad basically didn't make enough money there, so he had to drive buses. But We were like the neighborhood kids where the community in Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco was like all these shopkeepers, so they were black.
They were Persian. They were like Latino. So they were like, oh. And so you speak like people are like, oh, Chino amigo. Like they would say like that. Yeah. And I would be like, [00:20:00] oh. And so people talk about racism a lot. I grew up, I would say not seeing a lot of racism.
There were like the Chinatown, like Jackie Chan jokes, like Bruce Lee jokes. But it wasn't like, it's a different experience of what it is now. Yeah. And I think this is such an important story because I think exactly right now you're a c e O, you run these companies, you're on the board of these things, you have books coming out.
I think that there is a, oftentimes this foreigner view, That I think a lot of people have of Asian Americans especially, who are well off. I was like, oh yeah, you're like you're taking your China money. But we don't realize [00:20:30] that so many Asian American success stories really were these kind of stories.
There were kids there. The majority. The majority are, absolutely. And that's actually what I'm trying to say is that like it's, the laundromats, it's a small businesses. Like Asian American entrepreneurship has such a big history and we don't think about it as entrepreneurship, but that was the only way they could survive.
You're not gonna get an accounting job at a top three firm in New York. No. Like you went and you owned a tiny little stall at the, Asian mall and you started doing books for local businesses. I. Exactly. You had to do the books. [00:21:00] You had to wash their clothes, not know how to file taxes.
'cause it's not in your language because back then there was not many translation services. It was talking to the bank and you don't even know how to talk to the bank. And they don't wanna help you. They don't wanna lend you money. It's big Asian energy. 'cause it's a confident energy.
'cause you have to survive. Yeah. That's in many cases, you also had to leave and flee a war torn country. If you're Vietnamese, Cambodian shouts to all the Southeast Asians, Those are war torn. my dad communist China. So if you're leaving that you're like, oh, this shit is crazy and America's gonna be bad.
I don't know any, I don't know the [00:21:30] language, but it's not gonna be as bad as where I'm leaving. That kind of energy is a big Asian energy. I'm listening. And you're not even Asian. It is my team listening. If you're Latino, you're from Central America, you're from the Caribbean.
Same stuff. That's why we all kind of bond over this kind of sadly collective trauma. That's absolutely the right word for it. It is. It's the post immigrant foreigner collective drama. Yeah. 'cause we saw our parents go through with it, we talked about this, like they were dealing with a very different set of problems that we didn't experience.
We didn't, but it's still passed on. Why you still passed on How we feel obligated that make the best of [00:22:00] all their sacrifices. So now we have a chip. A hundred percent. Yeah. It is the immigrant fight. okay, so you came from restaurants and you fought it on the street.
You learned to create your community. How did this lead to you creating boba guys? That's a straightforward thing. I was in business school and I was in Shanghai. I was with my uncle and he took us out to ice cream and he lives in this area called, which is an expat area of Shanghai.
And I was figuring out what I wanted to do, and I already knew, I had a inkling that I wasn't always like a great corporate person because I was too passionate [00:22:30] and outspoken. And ever since, I went to Berkeley and so in high school, college on, I was always a little bit of already a leader, so I didn't know that I was type A.
asked him, I said, Hey, uncle Michael, I said, why is all these lines for Haagen-Dazs? It was like Haagen Dies, which is in America it's like generic. But in Asia there's this huge line in the ndi, Haagen-Dazs. And he goes, oh, they love ice cream out here. And I was like, oh, interesting.
I was like, American culture does that well, and I thought the whole lactose intolerant dairy thing, all the stuff that you know Americans about. Yeah. We deal with it. We just, we eat it anyway. [00:23:00] Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there are, but it's like there's no real allergies in China. Asian culture.
You just got a little puffy, go take a nap. Yeah. Exactly. You, yeah. Just suffer through it. Yeah. And so when I came back, I had a good friend. We worked at a company called Timbuktu together, my co-founder Ben, and I was like, Hey, What if we made something consumer culture? 'cause we were thinking about startup ideas.
And at the time, blue Bottle and Phil's coffee in the Bay area were really hot. This is 2010, 11. So we're like, what if we did an Asian blue bottle? An Asian Phil's coffee, which is like a higher end, but culture [00:23:30] specialty beverages, which is what we call it now.
And most of these drinks, we already said this back then, most of the drink trends were gonna come from Asia anyways. All these interesting, you know why 'cause Blue Bottle, at the time was getting but it was Japanese style coffee. That drip coffee is all Japanese equipment.
We're like That's fascinating. I had no idea this hipster Portland. But it's true though. Yeah. Like kombucha, like Yeah, exactly. And turmeric matcha. Yeah. Yeah, matcha. Exactly. That was just coming out at the time. Yeah. So we're like, how come Asian people are not getting credit for it? But we're like you wanna make an Asian cafe?
[00:24:00] And we're like, I don't know, but what if there was like a thing and we don't really drink, we get Asian flush, so we don't really drink alcohol. And so my co-founder and I were like, why don't we drink bow ball all the time? We're like, why don't we do like a probably switch out the ingredients because we're getting older.
My metabolism's starting to suck, so I'm like, maybe if I could change the sugar out change the milk to be more natural. At the time, people used powder, so no shade, but it was just cheaper. Yeah. And so what if we changed out the milk the syrup, and we showed everybody how to make it and story told a little bit differently and made people proud.
And so they packaged it. [00:24:30] And so that's how Boba guys came to be. And at the beginning, not everybody understood that. So they were like, oh, you're like whitewashed. Or you sold out. And I was like, if you remember the early days of Boba guys, to this day right now we have a T Boba.
I make like. All different cultures, but like white people say Tgu on the menu. I don't say it translates to Iron Goddess if you don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But on the menu, we had a debate in the team, it's oh no, we should call it Iron Goddess Ola.
I was like, no, I wanna make Americans say Tgu. If they can say Timothy Shaima, I'm pretty sure they can say ti. So so we, to this day, all our 20 plus stores have t [00:25:00] we have, which is like pineapple cakes. Yeah. So Taiwan number one. And then we did a Saap Sapin, the Saap Sapin drink, which is a Filipino dessert drink.
That was because I grew up in Daily City, south San Francisco. And all my friends were either, actually, I didn't have a lot of Chinese friends. My friends were either Filipino or Mexican. Yeah. So that's why Boba guys and my co-founder grew up in Texas. And he was pretty much around Latino people, so I know it doesn't look like it.
And they, people wanna put this model, minority myth on us. I'm like, no. Like I grew up. Around cultures that really made me feel welcome. Filipino [00:25:30] culture. Mexican culture. Yeah. And I felt it's harder to do it. 'cause people wanna say different things. But we try to be, for a boba company, we try to be as inclusive as possible, which is really hard to do.
Because it's already an ethnic drink. Yeah. So we're trying to de-stigmatize kind of that. But you're Taiwanese, you know this, the Taiwan was colonized by the Dutch, the Japanese, Chinese. Oh yeah, absolutely. Taiwan doesn't have an identity 'cause it was essentially westernized by the Dutch.
Yeah. And the Japanese occupation came Totally, Yeah. I still have like extended family who speak Japanese and their whole culture and education. my first grade, I still [00:26:00] was doing it in Taiwan. And the entire military style schooling culture was Japanese.
Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And this is such an interesting thing because there's such a cultural identity around Boba, right? Boba is like the third generation Asian American drink. Yeah. 'cause I didn't know this until I talked to Chinese friends in China, and they're like, yeah, we don't really drink Bob tea as much.
Yeah. I'm like, wait, what? It's amazing. It's the only thing that I drink. But it's the ultimate, right? It's a modernized version of essentially a classic Asian drink, which is tea. We drink tea, everyone drinks tea. course. [00:26:30] Yeah. you said it, right? It's I think it is like the third gen.
It's the whole industry is converging, right? In America. And in China and Asia. Because I go back to Asia a lot. I'm actually gonna be in Asia in two weeks, and it's basically, we call it like specialty beverages or yeah. If you go to Like a night market or like a street food theme. It's oh it means basically translate just broad beverages as a category. Yeah. You wanna drink orange juice, a little bit of a cap a cider like that's just all different beverages. So starbuckses are basically becoming more like boba, basically specialty drinks.
And then in Asia they're [00:27:00] adopting more coffee culture. So you're converging the coffee cafe culture with kind of this broad beverage culture. And they are gonna intersect. They have been, we've been arguing, not arguing, but like it's the premise of our book that the future of specialty and beverages and cafes is basically boba.
Because boba is generally broader than coffee because you can have a coffee boba and you can have a matcha boba, you can have a passion fruit, tea, boba. You can have ot like a. Brown sugar milk, boba, like there's all these different styles. Boba is all encompassing. It's a universal Yeah. [00:27:30] Boba swallows it all.
Yeah. It's the grand unifier. It is the great uniter. It is rich and poor. It's rich report, right? Without getting it. You said it. the T is British technically. And you know how this whole thing is about, I could say this in this context and somebody's point, I wanna take this outta context in Twitter, but this is reverse colonization because basically t culture came because the Asians primarily China traded with the Britts when back in the day, and then it caused this opium morph thing, right? And there was a trade imbalance. And then they're we're trying to do something with it. And one of the kind of the traders. The [00:28:00] ambassadors brought back and there was a milk tea culture, which was from Northern Asia, which is like Russian Mongolian.
That's actually where milk tea. Oh yeah, that's true. They did goat milk and stuff too, right? Yeah, exactly. wow, okay. Most people don't know this. So they brought it back. And then the British are like the queen and the print, the king is oh this is actually really good.
Yeah, we can make it British milk tea and call it like English breakfast, and then yeah. And then it came back. That became English breakfast. English breakfast, milk tea. Which is, they had it for breakfast and then the blend that they did a black tea blend. Oh, yeah.
And they controlled, which [00:28:30] India, at the time. which is where a a lot of English breakfast, black tea is actually from India. They're like, Assam, Nogi, wow. Sri Lanka Selan. So that was actually the base blend of English breakfast teas.
And then the Chinese teas started getting big. But then the Hong Kong, which was a British colony. Yeah. That became like a thing. Yeah. So they had like, which is the the classic. Yeah. Yeah. So all Hong Kong style, milk tea for sure. All to basically colonization. Dude, I did not expect to get a history lesson on tea and colonization on [00:29:00] this call, but I'm so glad that I did Big Asian energy is very philosophical and very intellectual of course, because anytime you throw a couple of Asian people into a room to talk about stuff, they're gonna make it super philosophical and intellectual, especially over tea. You know what's funny? that's so funny you say that.
'cause we talked before we jumped on this podcast, like Westerners have this stereotype. If you're a westerner, or even westernized listening to this. There's this idea that, oh, they don't talk about feelings. They don't talk about philosophy or whatever.
I'm like, no, we're talking about Confucianism. And there's chain, which is [00:29:30] like these proverbs. So I think my mom she doesn't care about my feelings. I spill my heart out about starting a company, how everybody says, I'm like a capitalist. And they don't know what I do in the community, all this kinda stuff.
I'm I'm mad all the time. And my mom, she's like listening and I think she's not listening to me and she goes, I was like, and then she goes, frog in the whi, which is Yeah. Frog in a well, which is people who are unable. She's they don't see you don't have perspective. They're ignorant. Yeah.
That's all she says. And then I'm like, I'm stopping crying. I'm like, okay, you're, that's a mic drop mom to say that. Oh, that's like an Asian parent mic drop moment. [00:30:00] That's a hundred percent. It basically is four characters and I'm done. Yeah. And then, and sounded like back to emptying out the peanut jar and random nuts in there.
Does every Asian family have a peanut jar? I did not realize this, but I've always had one and it's from like an old can of like old cucumbers is it, I swear to God, last night went to see my parents. This is, I can't even make this up. My mom made. The pickled like spicy Taiwanese cucumbers.
Yeah. She knows that's my favorite thing. but it's in a jar. That was an old nut jar. I swear. It just came out of it. She just, she was [00:30:30] like, Hey, it's Andrew, like I made this for you. And I was like, oh. It was, yeah. I don't know. We, it's a conspiracy. We might have the same mom or at some point there's definitely something that's going on.
It's like the drawer with all the old plastic bags I saw. Oh yeah, you have that too. Of course. And then of course you have the whole people, it's a memes now, but like the whole cookie. The cookie tin with the sewing kit. Oh yeah. My grandma had one what the hell?
I don't even know where to find those cookie tins anymore. I've never seen them, but every family has one. Yeah. only Christmas time do I see something similar. or Walgreens maybe like these, like butter, like classic. it [00:31:00] was before WhatsApp group we chatted WhatsApp groups, so I have no idea how they all coordinated this.
Yeah. it's an international conspiracy. So I wanna talk you brought up a good word, which is perspective, right? And it sounded like when you first started there was some pushback. And I think that's always a tough thing, right? Because one, I feel like if you're an Asian American and you're trying to create a brand or trying to create a business of some sort, there's always gonna be some scrutiny around it.
and it's a little bit different. I feel like my white friends don't quite understand this. Like they think they do, but it's not quite the same thing. What was your experience with that? My experience is [00:31:30] having Asian parents, nothing you do is, it's good.
Nothing you do to please them. So people are like, You can you handle, back in the day it was like Yelp reviews. Oh, Andrew you take the Yelp reviews so much, or I'm like, yeah, it's annoying. Yeah. But I'm like, that's no different than my parents criticizing. Yeah. You know me, this is a true story.
My mom, goes to our grand opening in one of our stores. She goes to our grand opening. She sits in the back. She goes, oh, I'm Andrew's mom. I'm Andrew's mom. But she also, afterwards, I see her for dinner. Yeah. And I said, thanks for coming out, mom. my mom goes, oh, I don't know.
Waste of money.[00:32:00] She goes, why is that slow? Why is it so slow? There's this process we had with these slow drip things and she goes, what? Then it's, I waited so long. That's the whole point. Slow bar. Yeah. Yeah. Slow bar. We called it the name of the method. We did what's called slow bar Boba Guys, we started out as Slow bar. It went viral back then. Yeah. And my mom was getting mad at Why Slow Bar was slow. This is like mindfulness before mindfulness. Yeah, exactly. I ain't waiting five minutes for it. Made brewed in real time. Milk tea. That's what this artisanal shit.
[00:32:30] she basically scolded me at dinner. No, you make money if you did it in batches and all stuff at the grand opening of the visit, dude, after the grand opening, swear to God. I was like, okay, thanks for the feedback. Yeah. And so if you're wondering now why we batch our teas, which are still made the day of.
Yeah. It's because my mom basically scolded me at dinner the night of our, it's a complex P t s D in every drop of tea that's being made. is a joke. It's, no, it is. It is. I actually can't even think it's a joke because it's too real. I promise this is [00:33:00] not a plug, but I'm working on a book called Big Asian Energy right now, Uhhuh.
And it talks about the seven patterns that I see so often in working with Asian Americans. I work with Asian Americans as coach and one of the things that we talk about is like the achievers, right? The pattern is whatever it is you do, you gotta do more. Whatever it is, and I trace this back for myself to that exact thing.
It's like no matter what report card I brought back, no matter what report card, the only thing that'll ever get mentioned is what is the percentage missing. So I will bring back like a 92% and the question is always what happened to the [00:33:30] 8%? I know. cousin had that a hundred percent.
Why didn't you get a hundred percent? Let ask you some questions. Sorry if I do this a little bit. Let's do it. So you then, it seems like you erred on the side, you were the quote unquote, what people would call it the overachiever model minority, right? So did you have anybody in your family that, did you have a sibling that was like, not that.
So actually in my family, like my sister like she was in those seven archetypes, she is like the rebel and commander, she was achieving more stuff. But she also just had this whole thing where there was a lot of pushback with my parents. That's [00:34:00] her way of dealing with that kind of pressure.
I still remember a story and I hope it's okay that I share this, and if not, I'm just gonna have to talk to her about it. But she got mad because my mom wouldn't knock on her door before going in. She like barge in right all the time. Oh yeah. There's just no concept of privacy. she just barges in and my sister got so mad and she was just like, look, what if I'm changing in here?
I deserve my privacy and she'll push back. And then so for, show you not for a week, she protested by stripping naked and walking around the house. It made my dad so uncomfortable. He would hide in his office [00:34:30] literally the entire time. Oh no. But that was her way. So I was actually more of the chameleon and the caretaker of the family.
But I definitely had that achiever like pattern when I was growing up. It's like nothing's ever good enough. Man. That inner critic gets loud. Your sisters might be listening, so your sister probably is. She's super amazing. Turned out well I was more the screw up of the family for sure.
Yeah. No, and you know what though? I would say maybe your sister had big Asian energy already, so she, oh yeah, she did. That's like smart energy. That's like intellectual. Oh, my moms wants to [00:35:00] like fuck with my brain. I could do that one better.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think she was early big Asian. She was the early big Asian energy For sure. Shouts to your sister. Yeah. Yeah, man. So where do you see this? 'cause you're really again, I know you don't wanna name drop, so I'm gonna name drop for you.
'cause in our conversations you talk about the community that is there in LA and in San Fran. I think the last time we're chatting about it, you were talking about, you've been there and you saw the growth of so many different, people like Sherry Cola. You saw, Nora the growth of that overall community.
So I'm really curious, including.[00:35:30] know you guys are quite close, right? you said that, you guys were crash at your place back in the day. Oh, back in the day when he was starving. Or people won't believe that about him, but yeah he was very humble beginnings for him, for sure.
Yeah. For sure. was from Toronto, but he would like, he had big dreams. So my question really is from what you witness in your own stories and the story of so many people around you. What are the differences in the people who end up going to create these kind of businesses, like Momofuku or the Sherry Colas, the NORAs and these kind of people.
Like what's the difference in the way that they [00:36:00] act compared to this depiction of, shy Asians that we've dealt with for so long? Yeah. I think two ways. One is they somehow figured out the formula of culture. I think all of 'em, this is not hopefully it's a credit to all the people, almost everyone that people think right now in does Asian diaspora, zeitgeist.
They are almost all brilliant in the way they see culture. not get enough credit for kind of be able to see it. I know people have different opinions about people who are like public eye and everything, but he they understand it and they know where the positioning is. Sherry, same thing. Eddie Huang, [00:36:30] like daca, big bro, Eddie Huang, David Chang. That's why they have podcasts and they do so well because they have a point of view of how they could see where the diaspora is going and what's needed and where does that diaspora and the narrative fit in the greater narrative of.
Western culture. Or global culture. Because there's nuances of Asians in Asia don't give a shit about the Asians and Western culture. That's another, subtlety. Yeah. It's like Africans versus African Americans. Yeah, exactly. Totally different ways. I hear that.
Yeah. A lot of my black friends say my Nigerian friends, some of my best friends are from Nigeria. And we bond over [00:37:00] immigrant moms 'cause They get it. Yeah. They get it. It's very similar actually. People don't even know how close are the Nigerian moms.
At least I could speak to that, that I know, like a handful of 'em. And then like Asian moms, I'm like, wow, they're really similar. And yeah, and the block experience and I don't wanna speak for that community, but I could see similarities in the different cultures. I would say it's the cultural competency that a lot of 'em all have.
The second part is they are very gritty and the work ethic is just really next level. Oh yeah. I don't think people give 'em credit for it. People grind it out, watching, [00:37:30] again, it's not that oh, my cool friends, it's just that I'm from California and in the East coast, my stores are SF New York, la so when as Boba guys was popping off, I saw, early day, comedians from San Francisco, from LA from Australia, that when they came here they didn't really know anything, but they like bva. And we had similar hours. Everybody has like weird after work, like NightOwl hours.
similar creative energy. But the energy was this energy of grittiness. It was like here's my take on it. And it's almost You don't know how to take no. For an answer. Yeah. [00:38:00] And I think that's what bonds a lot of 'em together. And I, the only reason why I do sharing about this is because if you're listening, there needs to be the next gen.
And I see them, and I hope somebody listening will be like, Hey, oh I'm inspired by that and I wanna be next. And my true identity is I think I've always been like a coach or a leader. Ever since I was young. I'm like the eldest grandchild. And son on both sides.
So then a lot of that kind of like leader energy. Not saying I'm a leader, but I just always been my identity. You are a leader. Dude, I don't wanna say that, but my I'll say it for you. But as a leader, as a non-self identifying leader, [00:38:30] is that You just want the next generation to show up and be better.
That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I really hope that they're listening to you. That's why I love your podcast. I think when you hit me up, I was like, oh, shoot, your content is amazing. That's the leader energy, and we need oh, to create somebody listening right now, the next version of the next, hopefully seeing the next Aquafina Nora, the next Sherry, the next Ashley Park.
People don't know their backgrounds. All of 'em are like, what was it? Ashley was in musicals. I heard that she was doing musicals. I was an Asian girl In Mean Girls. I was like, who? Because I used to be big [00:39:00] Hamilton fan, so same generation. I was like, not many Asians in Broadway.
Yeah. So now she's huge. Back then she didn't have an Asian community because that wasn't where the diaspora was looking. So I totally think. Content like this. What you do plus the content that a lot of the ones we just named. they're building a huge movement.
And then a hundred percent, I have to say, this is not everyone is for everyone. I'm not for everyone. Some people I know, people say you know what? He's a capitalist. Or, I'm not even capitalist by the way. I actually am closer to a socialist, but they're like, oh, he's a capitalist 'cause he's a C e [00:39:30] O or, this artist always says the wrong thing on the media.
I'm like, everybody has their own path. There's more than enough to go around. Not everyone's gonna cover everything. So they're like, oh, that movie that didn't speak to me. I'm like it shouldn't. Not every movie, no. Crazier changes, speaks to everyone, everything everywhere. All the Once parasite does not speak for everyone.
Your goal is to create a whole multitude and a spectrum of content. That starts speaking to everyone. It is not just Asian world, this is immigrant, this is everyone. Yeah. People of color, women. Not every movie that's like little women didn't speak to all women. course not.
Barbie's for [00:40:00] everyone. I think Barbie is great for, that's actually my favorite movie right now. So I Sorry that my mini that's a Ted talk moment I had, so I apologize dude. No, that was perfect. That we're gonna put that into a snippet and that's gonna go, on all the socials for sure.
but that's exactly the message right There is a new upcoming generation. So we look back, I was just talking to a guy, he runs the Asian American Film School. And I got a, like a film history lesson. I did not realize how rich Asian American history in film was. Yeah. But it's like huge.
And I'm starting to see there are so many different generations and we are seeing this [00:40:30] new era in the past three years really starting to peak. And it's exactly as you say, I think people don't realize the 10 years of work that goes into the overnight successes. We hear these stories of oh, there's so many of these, movies and stars trending, but the amount of work that it went into, it is huge.
Yeah. I'm just gonna keep this to a simple thing, which is, what would your some of your advice be to this new generation of Asian Americans who want to, crack the ceiling and go to the next level? Have a good community around them? The one thing that the big Asian energy has on our side too, is most of us come from a cultural philosophy of [00:41:00] collectivism.
Yeah. So in that way, you have a community. Now in America, we think about individualism, which is more about, one person's gonna win or be standing out versus the group. Whereas a collectivist mentality is the whole group wins. I do think whole group wins when the high tides raise all boats.
And so like when people will say, posts, crazy rich Asians, people always talk about that moment. It proved that kind of stuff could sell. Yeah. And it wasn't because just Henry Golding or just Aquafina, or just Constance blew up. No, Constance was already big, but Henry blew up from that. And Aquafina blew up.
And what it did do [00:41:30] was it created a set of opportunities and if we continue to have that and not complain, you can complain, but not overly complain about this movie didn't do its job in representing this culture. What I would say, take that energy and say, you know what, you're right. This movie, this song, this artist, Boba guys didn't do this part well.
I wanna beat that, or I want to add to that. kind of, that's a collectivist energy technically. Yeah. Because that's saying I can contribute my chapter, my sentence in a greater song or a greater structure. But I [00:42:00] am lifting and then being inspired by the already existing work.
That kind of energy is, I think, the right kinda energy. And what people don't really know, and you alluded to this in the past, is that a lot of us came out, especially ones in California, New York, out of the same scene. A lot of us knew each other 'cause we partied together. We would go to each other's events like collaboration, shouts out, collaboration or I s a Wong Fu what they built. And Dan Matthews and Farris movement, they pulled everybody together. So when people were landing shows, like America's best dance crew doing [00:42:30] showcases on collaboration and singing and rapping and, Aquafina was more of a music artist in the beginning that, and dumbfounded shouts that he's a legend, like when all that actually happened, people even if you weren't best friends, you knew each other. And so when they pop off you brought people up. People who would open for another person. Or, hey, I need a guest speaker. For this book, and this author, I'm an author, so I get asked to be a moderator because I know what it's like to write a book with a big publisher. So I get to interview really cool authors because there're not many [00:43:00] Asian American authors. So that is this larger, symbiotic a little slower moving herd yeah. I do think is what is creating this wave, which is why I think it's sustained for so long now we have a really good run. I see this going continuously.
It's gonna turning into a tsunami and I think that, yeah. Yeah. I think that where we're seeing is there's always gonna be equal and opposite reaction. What we saw during the pandemic with Anti-Asian hate? I think that lit a fire, right?
A lot of people. Yeah. I think when I started talking about [00:43:30] this, it was subtle. Like it was responded to very positively, I think because people were like, yeah, actually, yeah. Why have we been so quiet? So my story was, I was watching this video, I don't know if you remember, there was video that went viral in Philadelphia where a group of like Asian kids were being bullied and attacked on a train.
Oh yeah, I remember that for sure. And it was so sad, right? Like it was, there was a time where Asian grandpas were getting hit in the head. And I remember watching that video and I remember feeling two things. One, I was so sad for [00:44:00] those two, like those three kids who were there and the girl who stood up and then got beat down.
Because she stood up for who she saw was victims. I remember. Yeah. And got angry. that is as a perpetual nice guy. Anger is not a feeling that I access very often. But I had that, you know what you're talking about like that Google I moment. you don't fuck with my people like that.
That came up for me. Yeah. And I think that for me is probably felt by a lot of other people who went, you know what? I think it's time. I think it's time we spoke up. I think it's time we stepped up and I think it's [00:44:30] time we opened up. Yeah. Now similar. I think that's how you ended up with a platform like this, right?
Like I think. A lot of people don't know what to do. And look, you took that and you made it into action, which is, I also respect anybody who's basically created something from nothing. It's called, I have no idea what I'm doing. So I don't know. Oh, you got a book deal and you have this I'm pretty sure you got, so you caught onto something.
But I do think, I would encourage, I dunno how much time we have left, but I would encourage, like in final set of final thoughts, is that mm-hmm. I think the protective energy what you're talking about is just an extension of our collectivism. ' cause you don't [00:45:00] know the people in Phila Philly or the elder, Vira Rashti in San Francisco. Or the one who was beat in New York. There's all these people. And of course this started a lot of it was the Vincent Chin stuff decades ago. Yeah. Is that, people didn't even know, even Asians didn't know who Vincent Chin was.
No. I think what the collectivist kind of big Asian energy. If there's one thing that is good that come out of it is that these things stirred up. sentiment that had always been latent. But it also then relies though the way out of this relies on an energy that is [00:45:30] actually gonna play to our strengths.
Because I think if you just say, if you just yell and be like, oh, don't beat these people up, or whatever, I actually don't think that actually is why people are hurting each other. I do believe it's not justifying anything, but I just think these things are happening. 'cause they're part of larger generational stigma.
I'll say this from my personal experience where I've talked not so openly, but I feel like this is a quote unquote safe space for me to say this. Yeah, of course. I've had death threats and I've had people also say very many times, what does Andrew know about oppression?
What is he? Basically they're saying, I am white adjacent, and I've been [00:46:00] already called that and you're not a minority. I remember there was this article on e s ESPN and it was talking about wat masaka or something the first person of color in the N B A. And on it, people were like, he was the Japanese guy.
He is like a Japanese guy, person of color. Yeah. And then it was literally the comment thread and I was just thinking whoa. I'm not here. there's so much trauma across all different minority groups and marginalized groups. Yeah. Women, L G B T Q, ableism, like indigenous Yes.
That everybody, but to discount like people of color, people in the other people in the margins that is [00:46:30] not helping. Yeah. And to me, that definitely woke me up when I was like, oh, so you think They're not in the margins because you think I'm not in the margins for sure. cause I actually just got a death threat.
And you say that I don't even know anything about oppression. So what does that actually mean for people who don't have a voice who don't feel like somebody's fighting for them. And feel, in many case, my dad, actually said this because I didn't even know he felt this way.
He felt hopeless. He said to me he lives in the Bay Area. He feels scared to go into San Francisco, not because he's old or because he's Asian, or because he's targeted. goes I'm [00:47:00] scared because before I felt like people would actually look up to older people or that I would actually have respect because in his world piety, respect of elders is a thing. Huge. Yeah. And Asian cultures. Yeah. He just now knows. He basically that's gone. And so he goes, I suppose you can go to Chinatown and no one's gonna do. He's no, Chinatown. They still beat people up in Chinatown. And I'm like, it's not that often. And I'm trying not to scare him.
and then he just done, he's done. My dad almost never goes to Chinatown, ever. Last time he went to Chinatown was because I [00:47:30] looped him into this Father's Day shoot. That was the last time before that. He didn't go into Chinatown for two and a half years. Yeah. And he lives 20 minutes, 25 minutes away.
And so that will tell you that sentiment did not exist 30 years ago. No. So that kind of fear, that kind of caution. I wonder if my dad's I regret coming to America. I bet. Before people were like, America's great, we're gonna pick ourselves up. We're gonna make this together.
Agree. I bet you a lot of immigrants now are thinking, you're like, man, I'm gonna go back. Yeah. This is not worth it. I might be in a war, but I don't know. I can't even send my kids to school without being feared that their [00:48:00] safety I think that's so tough. I agree. I think, a lot of times even when we're talking last time you said something like, big Asian energy, even just the words out there, that's gonna trigger some people.
Yeah. And I'm like, yeah you're probably right. Yeah. And I thought about that a lot. I'm like, when I even had talks about with it, with my publisher, and they were just like, yeah, like this it's even the title, without people knowing anything about it, they'll make all sorts of assumption and they'll project on it.
To me, I'm like, I think the solution here is people stepping into their own selves, unapologetically. And I think the more we see, the more we [00:48:30] recognize, the more we hear the stories in those kind of vulnerability, the moments, the true humanity of it, that's where we could stop the sense of division.
That's where the projections and the hatred and the anger dissipates. 'cause once you know somebody, it's hard to, like we've seen studies around this once you know somebody Yeah, exactly. Of a race, it's hard to become racist against that person because you're like, I know you now I know your story.
I know your background. So I, Yeah. I use the story. That's why I think it's important. actually wouldn't want you to change your podcast name or that, your book or anything, because I mean first of all, it's gonna attract attention, which is what you want. But then I'll give you then a, [00:49:00] hopefully if they're listening an opportunity to introduce the nuance and subtlety where I think who does it, who has big energy that I love? 'cause she has a song called it. Yeah. Oh, she's one of my favorite artists because her energy is super positive and vibrant and what she would say about music is just I just want people to feel crowd, very body positive and all that kind of stuff.
And, there's other aspects to her identity too, that she talks about. But I think it's big energy, but it's big, it's constructive energy. So I think if it's like a big energy, but like a Lizzo constructive. Yeah. And positive. I think it's a good thing. Yeah. So yeah man, [00:49:30] straight from the words of Andrew here.
Step into your big energy, whatever that looks like. Big Asian energy, big immigrant energy, big U Energy. Just Owning it, stepping it up, and fully open about Dude, thank you so much. You just got off a plane and we just chatted for like the straight hour and I dunno, however long.
Thank you. Oh yeah. And my coffee kicked in. So if I started speaking than normal, that all the caffeine that rushed. Yeah it's absolutely amazing. how do people find out more about you and all the stuff that you do, obviously go check out Obba guys [00:50:00] and the stores and all that.
Follow my personal stuff. 'cause I talk more about the leadership in small business. If you're an entrepreneur, a small business owner, like a lot of people follow my personal Instagram though, that's c cha million. So I actually, that was my a i m screen name. Everybody know me from high school will tell you that.
My God. But my a m screen name was C cha million. It's a chow, my last name c h a u. Chameleon. But Chow, yeah. And then actually you said earlier, it's because I've always been Asian, but that's the only aspect of my identity. I'm also like a nerd, but I also played a lot of sports, so I could always be between a nerd and a jock.
Nice. when I'm in [00:50:30] America, I'm very Americanized, but when I spend like a month in Asia, like I don't have to speak English for a whole month. So I think oh, anyways, that's the content I like doing. Then yeah, thanks for your time and anybody who put up through an hour of us, just, a lot of energy to spend.
Thanks brother. So appreciated. Go check out Andrew's stuff and hope to have you back down the road eventually when we have multiple seasons down the road, brother. No, I can't wait. I love long form content 'cause it allows people to be more Yeah. That's it nuanced and deep.
Yeah. So it's all super awesome. Thanks brother. I really [00:51:00] appreciate it. That was epic.
