Desert Island Dicks - KUAN WEN HUANG

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

Comedian Kuan Wen Huang joins Dan to share who and what he'd hate to be stuck with on a desert island. Be sure to follow the podcast @dickspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At Sierra, discover top workout gear at incredible prices, which might lead to another discovery. Your headphones haven't been connected this whole time. Awkward. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment. Know the real cost of vapes. to you by the fda hi i'm dan from desert island dicks and i'm

being a bit quiet today because i'm recording this in my kitchen uh my boys are asleep upstairs and i've got my father-in-law staying so i'm trying to sort of tuck myself out the way and record this without um getting in anyone's way but um that means i'm in our quite echoey kitchen. Anyway today's episode features comedian Kwan Wen Huang. He's really funny he's from Taiwan originally and I really recommend you check him out. His stuff's really funny you can obviously see his stuff online because it's 2023 and that's how the world works. He's also got shows in Edinburgh this year and he's got a podcast as well. We discuss all this sort of stuff in the podcast. But yeah, just check him out. He's really funny and just really interesting as well.

I thought he made some really interesting points on things. And yeah, it was just really fun chatting to him. So I really enjoyed this recording. Thank you to everyone who's downloaded this and all our regular listeners and those of you who've left reviews recently. Really appreciate that. It's always nice when you get in touch with us you can always get in touch on our social medias at dixpod on instagram and twitter if you want to have a word or you can email us dixpod.com slash contact and you can fill out a form there and give us an email if you would like

if you're new to this podcast then thank you very much for downloading it. We've got loads of episodes in our back catalogue for you to delve into. So yeah, have a little rummage and see what you can come up with. And obviously, if you do enjoy this podcast, then make sure you subscribe and you won't ever miss an episode. You're familiar with how these things work, aren't you? It's 2023. So I don't need to explain all that too much. Okay, it's Sunday night as I'm recording this and I kind of want to get this wrapped up and published so that it's with you nice and early on Monday morning.

So I'm going to stop talking now and instead let's have the podcast. It's Desert Island Dicks, the show that sees you marooned on a desert island after a plane crash with the worst people and worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they're a dick is up to our guest. And here to share their Desert Island Dicks with us today is comedian Quan Wen Huang. How are you doing? Yeah, hi. I was wondering when I was supposed to just jump in the queue. Hi. I'm good.

I'm good. It's a sunny day in London. No complaints. I know. Yeah, it feels really like so needed at the minute. I spent an hour and a half this morning killing aphids on my plants and I've tried every other method and nothing worked except just kill them every single one of them but I always tell myself I'm doing what I need to kill the plants alive but Buddha's teaching is that never kill any life forms and I was killing hundreds of them. Bad karma is coming to get me anyway. Isn't it an insect that like keeps them for pets i bought them so i've ordered 25 ladybirds do we say ladybird or ladybugs in this country we say ladybird for no no good reason at all ladybird so you can buy ladybirds uh and they will eat them so i'm waiting

for them to arrive the problems i've tried methods. People tell me that if you get marigolds and the smell from the marigold will keep them away. So I tried that last summer and the aphid just ate up my marigold. That's the worst defense ever. I've used salt water before, but it killed one of my weaker plants. And I've bought some of the petisat.

It killed some of the bees. I can't kill more bees. Anyway, yes. plants and I buy some of the pet sisa it killed some of the beasts anyway yes good okay so it's a lovely day you're fresh from the slaughter of all these aphids it seems like a perfect time to get stuck into talking about the worst people and things he could be stuck on an island with yeah let's get him some really negative energy well i mean it's half positive the weather is positive your destruction is on the surface you know your your decimation of the aphid it's bad for them but good for you i'm so i don't know i'm like i i enjoy doing this but my friend told me that my resolution this year should be becoming a better person and a specific friend even gave me this task every single time about to critique some walker walker by sort of appearance and he was a now

three things positive about him and now at least an hour of onslaught against innocent people well it's only three people and the rest are just things and stuff so we'll be all right let's get on with it then because i feel like you're raring to go you're on a desert island who's the first person joining you okay i've thought long and hard about this. My original candidate was Owen Jones. Because, but then I decided not because I thought he always had good motive. He's just like a very angry, I wouldn't even say a bulldog, he's more like a very angry chihuahua until he barks so much some other bigger dogs. I'm not saying, okay, I don't want to go there, but I didn't choose it because Owen Johnson was once fiscally assaulted, right? So I would be easily taken out of context or be cancelled. So I've decided my first person is the Guardian film critic, Peter Brasho.

Okay, right. And what is it about him that annoys you so much? I think he's dead inside. I feel his, I've never met in person but um from his work i feel he's so dead inside you know you sometimes suspect someone is a walking zombie and when they open their mouths some fly would just escape and fly out i feel um peter brussel has reached that state he's almost inside. I mean, he's just a walking corpse. I still read his work, though.

I'm not trying to be a hypocrite. But, okay. So, first, I noticed is that sometimes I don't know whether he was just being subjective and he's not afraid of having different opinions from the majority of the audience or he actually enjoyed you know some snobbish arty people be like what everyone loved this i'm just gonna hate it for no reasons so the first time i noticed that is he gave a two

star review to joker um with hawking phoenix and he described it as the most disappointing film in 2019. And there was a bit of backlash. Because some people, you know, like some people, especially the Andrew Tate or Joe Rogan, really loved that film. I think they were trolling Peter Pritchard. They even sent him death threats. And I watched the film The Joker.

It wasn't my most favorite film per se, but I did like it. I think it was very different from all the super villain superhero movie and i could see why a lot of people find that they resonate with the film so i thought it was a bit harsh for him to give a film two star and i also feel because he can't really emphasize what people will feel like i wouldn't say that the society of life hasn't been fair to them, but you can see how the modern society makes it more difficult for some men to think that,

oh, if we can turn back in time, I can just do women fashion as much as I want. So that how they really identify themselves with the character, right? So I thought, nah, you're a bit harsh. And then he gave Don't Look Up on Netflix another two star and he criticized don't look up on Netflix another two-star and he criticized don't look up as

almost like a hundred and forty five minute of SNL sketch neither has the comedy effect of succession Which the producer of don't look up also called produce or it doesn't have the seriousness of the topic What it married and my impression is that but what is the problem with an SNL sketch? If it's effective and it entertains people, also make people aware of the topic of climate change, which is the whole point of Don't Look Up, what is the problem?

And I thought, you're just a fucking snob. All you care about is theatre, opera. Why is SNL sketch not comedy what is the section like a drama type of comedy only that type of can be comedy but he still hasn't got to me when it really got personal is that he gave everything everywhere all at once a two star and that really really screwed me up that's it you know what i was trying to think when you when you were talking i was thinking i'm sure there's a time i've read a review from him that was so you know when you watch a film and then you want to read the reviews afterwards just to sort of like see what other people are saying

about it and i'm sure it was one where like there was two different reviews in the guardian for some reason and one of them had been like yeah this is brilliant blah blah and then it was his and it was just like well it doesn't quite work or something and i loved it i watched it twice in two days when i first saw it i thought it was so good and i'm like you miserable son yeah yeah and i i i appreciate those i personally i'm a fan of everything ever all at once but i also think that film can do with a version that's 20 minutes shorter at least but he's he's worth writing he was such a snob. I feel like he was switched off maybe 20, 30 minutes in. So he didn't really fully watch the film.

And he had the cheek to try to make him sound small by ending, maybe this film should be called Nothing Nowhere for a lot of times. This is like an open-mind comics elementary joke. And also it really got to me because as an East Asian, I see so much of our cultural, how to say that, the nuances really be integrated and explained. I know there will always be a disconnect for people who don't know the culture. But I've seen so many, either people in Asia or other people who have East Asian heritage

but growing up in the West. And they say, wow, they just really speak to me, this film, the difficult relationship I've had with my mom. So my problem is that, because I've read other film critics' work and some of them would say, I don't really get it, but I can see how some people might like it. Or just a bit of appreciation and say, I may not be right just because i don't have understanding of certain thing so

here's this this guy who's been so much in his own world and he has so much sway and say and power and he doesn't have the humble attitude to say you know i don't like this film i'm fine for him to say that but maybe it's because i don't really get so that the East Asian culture the Buddhist culture I just want a bit of that sort of honesty is that he had this like I don't get it why people like you and Until the wind went on to win big and Oscar he kind of have to soften his attitude He was all about supporting Cate Blanchett for the Oscar Best Actress this this year I'm like as if that white bitch needs another one.

This may be a show. You're the final job. I'm so glad. I'm so glad this film prevailed. I just, if I, Cate Blanchett, won the second one because there's an overacting tar, which no one watches, right? The production cost is roughly a box office.

Fuck it. Anyway, sorry. So the reason I say Peter Bradshaw would be a bad choice on an island is because he's dead inside he's not gonna do anything also he never pay he never pay for a film ticket movie ticket probably for his entire life yeah so how would you expect him to do some labor but no horrible horrible and any conversation you have with him because he has watched so many film and that includes so many bad film right so any sense of joy he may have as a person is long gone gone now no yeah yeah yeah i just think there's that thing with him like with everything everywhere so you know i'm biased because i really

like the film so it's always a bit of like, often it's quite hard when there's something that you really like and you see a critic go, oh, it's rubbish. And you kind of go, well, fuck you then. I'm not going to trust you. But I think there is a thing about certain critics maybe. It's like, because it's rare that something fun wins the Oscars. Normally it's like, oh, that's a sad film.

Like, you know, he lost his child and then this person died. Oh, that's going to be an Oscar film. So it's so refreshing when there's a film that's just really fun and funny and upbeat. Exactly. It was a David versus Goliath. And I actually went back to that article and see how other people say it. So his words include, it was a mad succession of consequence free events because he was saying that the plot just jump jump between different universe the para universe concept but a lot more than one person writing but no but the entirety of all the universe were

at stake you just didn't get it do you and he also say that strangely laborious doubt and over determined never letting up for a single second to let us care about or indeed believe in any of his character no because lots of people can identify with the daughter so much pressure and torture from michelle young the mom turn the daughter into a monster is something so many people of my heritage can relate to how could you say that even if you don't agree how could you say that it's never letting out a single second for let us care about or believe in any of this character tons of people can do that just because you you cannot i think you should have the curiosity about what other people might think. Am I the one who has a very sort of pigeonhole life? Am I an average tower?

I know it is supposed to be your subjective opinion, but on it, I would say that I have a very limited like experiences. I'm not an immigrant. I'm just a privileged white man working in one of the wankiest newspaper. By the way, I'm a guardian reader, but that's why I criticize that,

right? Cause you can see there must be lots of cunts in the guardian i can't imagine so my first candidate is peter brescia i think i've done enough criticism of him so i'm gonna refrain from doing more yeah i think i think you've done a good job on him and i just think as well like just having that kind of critics mind on the island you know when you go god the sunset's beautiful isn't it peter and he's like well i don't know i mean i'd like to see a bit more orange over that side really you know and you think oh fuck off where's the joy yeah you can always find something and i do wonder when

someone who's like a lifelong critic of any art form will they be rejected by the therapist because it would still be so damage a person this is the money not worth me i don't know so i don't want to be around here i will continue to read his stuff i would disagree with him from time to time in my little room but i don't want to be trapped in a physical space with this guy no yeah fair enough fair enough okay well that's the first person joining you who is the next person on the island with you prince louis is it prince louis or louis how is it how is it to pronounce it i think it's louis i've got i've kind of got so little interest in the royals these days that i've just forgotten which one he is um i'm gonna say

he's the younger of the three though isn't he yes yeah yeah so there's like boy girl boy and he's the youngest one yeah okay. Okay. So Prince Louis. And what's wrong with Prince Louis? Okay. First, I am going to acknowledge he's a 10-year-old child, so there will be a lot of sympathy towards him. But I want to remind everyone he is a disaster waiting to happen because he's not only a spare after they change the succession role,

he's a spare of the spare. His sister comes first. So there's no chance that he's ever only a spare after they change the succession role, he's a spare of the spare. His sister comes first. So there's no chance that he's ever going to get there. And you now look up to the identical position. Basically, we're talking about Prince Harry and Prince Andrew, right? Now, I know people's opinion on Meghan and Harry can be very, very divided. I'm just going to say it's a future financial liability on all taxpayers prince louis and uh we can just only hope he doesn't grow into a sex monster and he lives in the era of social media

which means that whatever dirty stuff prince andrew did because prince and i didn't know until i watched a documentary recently so it's funny when they try to celebrate Charles coronation and channel 4 to show this documentary of Prince Andrew's dirty laundry for the past decade but he was a ladies man and he was not ashamed of it and I thought he was always on the sideline because when I came to the UK Prince Harry was the hot throw up Prince Andrew was a little bit of that annoying, old, sort of creepy hack. But it turns out, when I watched one documentary during the Falkland Wars, he was seen as a national hero.

He was the one that's fun, that's a lot more possibly perceived by the public compared to Prince Charles, who was the heir waiting in line. But Prince Charles now, finally, he became, I've got for how long, the king. And no one cares about prince andrew and he just the lesser royal what purpose do they serve i don't know future celebrity

reality tv show so so this is what's going to happen to prince stewart and you think that he is uh from that environment and everyone's gonna treat him nice and for no other reason just because he come from that bloodline i don't know i don't like the whole idea of it i don't know what we're gonna do with it in the future i know it's so weird and like there's so much money is being spent on them it's like why do they have to be so many of you you know like if we're gonna have to pay for you at least have a smaller family like introduce a rule where you can only have a limited number of offspring yeah like every year there should be like like a like a competition and the least talented of them they'll be completely stripped of the royal title and then every five to six year you will allow a commoner to join the royal family

based on their merit maybe there's a way for royal family to survive. So if that were to exist, you would expect Princess Eugene or Beatrice to be long gone. Oh yeah. The only title they have to choose is that ridiculous outfit and hat. So yeah, I just don't. So I just imagine this little child would not do anything. And also, he would expect to be served, even though he's told he's grown up in a relatively normal environment i normal my ass oh no so my second day is prince louis i'm sorry little child but you're going to be a monster yeah i i agree i think you know you're right it's a sort of a time

bomb really waiting to happen i mean the best result is he doesn't do anything interesting but we still end up paying for him anyway which i think is you know is a shame he made you an open only fan account you'll be that desperate like what can i do uncle harris done it all the only way i can go is to reveal the royal dick my brother thinks of it the other thing about being on an island with him it's like you're gonna have to look after a child and that's just really annoying not just any child not even a cute one the most privileged child in the world and i think he's the one that um kate middleton spoils to a degree i think they raised the first two based on expectation they will have to take up royal duty in the future and by the third one i think they've relaxed and case like i'm gonna enjoy being a mom so you can see little chel was a little bit out of

control he was pulling faces on the on the balcony of buckingham palace he was yawning during prince chel's uh coalition ceremony he didn't see that from charlotte so i just thought that's exactly what the queen did with prince and because Prince Andrew was the Queen's favourite and look what he turned out to be. In fairness to the boy, it's a very, very odd scenario to grow up in and I wouldn't want to be in that situation. On the other hand, you do come with millions of pounds and a hefty amount of privilege.

So I think it's on balance. I don't think it'd be good to be stuck on the island with yeah he's the residual value as a celebrity as a media's attention target will be users on the island anyway and he won't do anything and he will expect to be served so nah not not this one no fair enough a good a good choice uh who's going to be the third person then joining you? The third person, I think, it should be famous enough in the Western world, but I'm not quite sure everyone knows him.

So it's a Chinese artist called Ai Weiwei. Ai Weiwei, yes. And he's also quite known for being the, how to say that, human rights political activist. He speaks against the Chinese government, etc. So it's like the Western media, Western government, the liberals, darling.

But I'm deeply suspicious of this guy because I feel like whatever he does at first, his father is a famous poet that really goes through shit with the Cultural Revolution, right? Right. But in a way, his father was like a poet. It started to start well for me.

I think in a way, he's a twisted version of a netball baby. Do you know what I mean? Like, any other ordinary Chinese citizen who wants to become an artist that has sort of four meters of attention is not in his privileged position. And I just thought he's always posturing that the way he fuses everything

together so for example he was uh detained by the chinese government for 81 days on okay i think the pretension the charge was tax evasion and whether he evaded tax we don't know we suspect that he just made the Chinese government unhappy, so he was detained, fine. But then he had an exhibition, and he recreated all the different cells with figures inside and to show his personal life. This is someone who has such a big ego and want every part of him to be commercialized and looked at. He's like the human right version of Kylie Jenner it makes sense to is one

of the is one of the Kardashian he's like a white woman inside basically he's a white millennial woman inside and why he does his specific brand is human right violation and torture porn whatever happened to him they were legit they were true but you always recreate and tailor them for Western gays. And there are a lot of people who do exactly the same thing he does, doesn't get the same level of attention, because the West just like to look at him and say, you're Chinese and you look so Chinese, you almost look like a terracotta warrior. Now say something against China so we can feel so good about ourselves. I think that's very dangerous

in simplifying everything to such a degree. But the main reason I don't want him on the island I don't know if you're aware one of his famous work with Tate Martin in 2010 was exhibition called the Sunflower Seats. Yeah, I went to that. Yeah. Yeah, it was quite stunning So there is a town Jingdezhen in China, that's famous for producing old China porcelain. So he commissioned to make sort of almost identical to real sunflower seed but all by hand. So they will be created with porcelain and they will be hand painted, right? Yeah, so I think it was just for months with just making porcelain sunflower seeds for him because there was hundreds of

those, like millions of them, weren't they they the whole turbine hall was full of them yeah but if you look at this he was basically the project manager he was the marketing executive who made those fucking porcelain seats all these poor villagers right did he even contribute to one or two percent of them manually did he even make some of them no he just provided this concept that is the most capitalist in slavery i do we even argue how much he paid the villagers it's not i don't know so you can imagine this kind of person going to that island always still trying to to make it about him and if we need to i do not trying to create a safety boat or build a shell start a fire he's not going to do anything because i always what he always good at is to get other

people to do dirty work and he get the media attention for it so interesting i've probably not questioned it that much myself and falling into that thing of being like great you know he's this outspoken artist and like he's brave and he's still living i don't know if he's still living in china because he was for a long time, wasn't he? No, I think he lives in the UK now. OK, because I think for a long time, like he was like insisted he'd still live there, you know, and continue protesting. Oh, this is great. But I think, you know, you raise some really valid points there. And I mean, just on a practical level, being on an island with like a sort of conceptual artist might be quite dull

isn't it imagine his conversation with peter bradshaw jesus i know i was thinking that peter bradshaw really kissing his ass like oh great i'm gonna suck up to him and he's just like well you're just a critic there's all the tension between those two guys you've got to navigate all that i just think it's going to be painful. You go, okay, Weiwei, are you going to build something over there for us, a shelter or something? I'm going to find some fish. And you come back and he's just made

like a sort of sculpture that symbolises your position on the island. You're like, I just need somewhere to sleep. Can you just stop with the art? Yeah, it's activism porn and human right porn and torture porn and the way he talks to bbc interview i don't know whether that's the way he talks his because he lives in america for quite a while maybe is hindered by is that for example english is not my my first

language so every now and then when i talk to you i have to stop to really look for the right word but he talks in a tone it's like a c-list regional theater with such a cliche say my eyes are welled with tears when i think about my life oh my god it's just cringe it just cringe for me but you guys love it because normally you don't see much so the people especially liberals are very afraid of being accused of being racist, even though they're a valid point you should criticize about the Chinese government. So they feel like, oh, my God, thank God a yellow person is doing that on our behalf. So we love it, but we just need to love one. That's enough.

We don't need too many of them. That's what I don't like about him. No. Okay. Fair enough. Well, I think you've got an interesting group of people to stay on the island with. So I think it's just the interplay between them. I like, you know, like a very rich, privileged child,

a film critic and an artist, I think. I just think it's a great group to be stuck with. Thank you. Because I listened to other episodes and some people are so tame. They don't like, oh, this type of people, this type of people. And I thought, I'm going to go bitchy. I'm going to full-on bitchy but um i wish i could talk shit about owen jones but i'm not gonna do it today anyway i think someone you know what i think he has been chosen in the past and uh i'll have to look it up i can't remember who it was that chose him now but

yeah i know what you mean about him though like i would say i'm on the left but sometimes i'm like i'll just fucking calm down is it now me being illegal smuggling the false candidate by not officially choosing it but still incessantly talking about it because he has this funny side of him that's most of typical gay he would just uh post a picture of his upper body now slightly more toned and muscle and just say that oh uh happy with myself or oh just dropped by the beach with friends things like that but you know his intention to say look how gorgeous i am i do find it very cute though maybe i'm not happy because i can't get him well i think there's a lot to unpack there but i'm only going to give you three choices i'm afraid

yeah so we'll stick to the first three yeah unless like he'd sort of hidden away with i way way because you know different people because he was you're a podcast listener and this is a podcast ad reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from lips and ads choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to lipsonads.com now.

That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com. Okay, now mercifully amongst the wreckage of the plane, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least some food and drink left over unfortunately for you it's your least favorite food and drink in the world what are they and why are they so bad beans on toast beans are toast yeah okay let's get into this good choice okay i have to specify i finally managed to taste uh much better quality beans so i'm gonna specify it's beans from the tesco waited that land level i'm talking about yeah okay in my old job i had a boss who is spanish british she was spanish but she was

born here she was brought out here she's still stickful in spanish she had lots of cousin in spain and she looked spanish to me so i was kind of seeking more spanish and one day we're talking about nostalgia and home food and she then said oh i just really missed the day because she's not very rich right higher tax break income tax bracket i just read the uni days when i have nothing but i just prepare myself some beans on toast and i remember looking at him and think you are not spanish you're a taste buddy i don't think any spanish person will ever say beans don't taste it's so disgusting yeah how do you call those beans that you put in english breakfast what's the name of those beans baked beans baked beans yeah uh are they really special for a british person no i i can't stand them i think they're awful and i like i like

beans in general like other kinds of beans and i like them if you cooked a stew that had a tomato sauce with some kinds of beans in i would be very keen on that but like the baked beans in a tin i just i've never liked them and i've never understood why people think that beans on toast is some kind of treat you know it's like i mean apart from beans on toast is some kind of treat. You know, it's like, I mean, apart from anything like, toast is supposed to be like crunchy with nice things on top. And it's like, so what you've got is like warm, soft, damp bread with these fucking beans on top. I just think they're awful.

And also toast. I'm not trying to be a carb or like bread snob, but there are so many good type of bread you can choose from french baguette or the sourdough something slightly better i would have toast sometimes i would have sandwich but it's really my first choice it's kind of more like i i love like for example french toast is it the one you know like with the egg and then you fry it right i love french toast but toast is just really really bland and the beans i had a colleague who's uh british of asian origin i think his family was from punjabi

and he then say that he's so worried about the hygiene status of his mother's village food he would prepare a whole luggage full of baked beans tins and In India, he just eats that. Just think how much his cousin would have wanted to kill him by the insult. You think you're better than us. It's just disgusting. I heard the episode. Lovely comedian, very great comedian

Tati McLeodod she complained about bubble tea as a taiwanese i was initially offended and but but i listened to her rationale and i think i completely accepted texture is something you get used to when you're a kid now beans for me are sweet stuff we have them with shredded ice especially uh the the the red bean or among beans i don't know if you know that so for us we don't really have chocolate and our dessert tend to come from those beans for me the texture of the mushy beans and something to go with dessert that's why i have a hard time to adapt to some mexican food because beans are heavily featured in mexican food and i never like the idea of baked beans i it's weird though it's the funny

like often like the cultural stumbling blocks where like they're not necessarily the stronger flavors like I've gone to Hong Kong to see family and there'll be things I've never tried before and they don't taste like anything I've ever eaten before but they're great but then it'll be something like you know like the the pudding the desserts that have beans in them I find really strange because it's such a, it's like the wrong taste and texture at the wrong part of the meal. Yeah, I've assumed beans are supposed to be for savoury stuff for you guys, right? Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah, but my wife, you know, she's grown up with like buns with red bean paste in them. And so she really likes them. And to me, I'm like, this is just not something for me. And it's not a strong taste, but it's just like, it just doesn't work for me, you know. And also you fart afterwards. To get your protein out. Okay, so you're going on the island with a load of bread and a load of tins of beans,

and we can see what you can make of that. What is your drink choice then? Okay, Twining's green tea. Okay. They are disgusting. I mean, I love, I know people on this island love Yorkshire tea, but I find them a bit too strong, and I worry how soon they will stain my teeth.

Okay, I don't want to bleach them yet. So I typically go for Twining Lady Grey to be specific, with a citrusy flair. And I tend to bring back green tea whenever i do a home visit but because of covid i wasn't back to taiwan for three years so i decided to give the long green tea a try and i thought i've never tasted bleach but i can imagine it's probably it was so bad so well okay so i guess for you know for lots of people listening to this like you know tea in this country means a very specific thing of course like in asia tea is like there's loads of different kinds you know and it's just like a much more nuanced thing so i think people

here you grew up you know it's like tea with milk and then maybe some herbal teas or like green tea so like for you like what would what's what would you say the main difference is like when you taste twining's green tea like what's your green tea what should it taste like because um you always associate green tea with a bit more um bitter taste right and with green tea you don't really add milk or add sugar or anything. So a good green tea will only give you initial kick for bitterness.

But once it reaches the deeper part of your throat, there will be a natural sweetness. It's not like umami, but it's a natural sweetness that would come back. And it's unlike sugar. It's very smooth and it will wash down and so when you go to a chinese restaurant the tea they have tend to be mediocre quality but they're really good when you're having grease greasy food and the kind of good quality green tea i talk about like my father drinks green tea every day and he drinks it when he reads and the older guys will drink it and play chess

but like the chinese chess and for me uh green tea's caffeine works stronger compared to coffee or black tea so i can only have green tea until four to five p.m in general but for me it is a very refreshing drink and also it's a drink i would not think of adding anything fattening to it yet it still have a taste compared to water actually one of the most popular soft drink in my home country are not cokes or pepsi it just just green tea slight lower quality but just green tea yeah so coca-cola they do green tea as well and just give a different name it's really tricky buster so yeah green tea are the most popular soft drinks back home. Yeah.

And I always think, you know, on this island, we say a lot here that it's almost more frustrating having something that's a bad version of something you love than it is to have like just something else that's shit. You know, just something that's just... It's almost insulting. Yeah, just saying it's always reminding you that you're not having the thing that you really like.

So to have a bad version, like I love tea, but you know, like when I worked in the office, there's certain people I'm like, I'm not like, do you want a cup of tea? I'm like, not from you. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not from this guy. Cause it's like, I really wanted a cup of tea

and this is just horrendous. I'm not drinking this shit. Some people take so much pride in saying, I make the best cup of tea and i thought is this even a competition like how much difficulty is involved in making a tea you don't assemble the tea bag you don't hand cook you don't you don't start the fire to boil the water so the only thing you have different is how long you leave the tea bag in, whether you put milk in or after, and how hot. For example, some people will wait until the water was slightly cooled down after you boil it.

And so what's so, like, I get it. People say I make the best coffee, but I make the best tea. I'm just like, you're just not very ambitious when it comes to cooking or preparing something. Just give me the teabag. I'll deal with it myself. It's not the same with spirit, Michael. But especially when you're in an office that has the shit teabags like my office did. And it's like, well, you're working with this really bad material anyway.

Okay, I need to ask you, what are the shit teabags? PG tips? Are they okay? I think they're all right. I think like Typhoo and Tetley are really bad Tetley I think are shit tea bags, I think Yorkshire tea is good

and there's one called Clipper I think is good but again like it's a whole different world like when I've been to Asia like it's a whole different kind of thing you know it's almost like they're separate entities you know I mean you've got to treat them different as like there's you know like English tea that we have over here with milk and then what i drink when i'm having like dim sum that's just another thing to me you know but you can tell using tea you can

tell who the overcompensating immigrants are i'll give an example so twining is the best known for tourists right and also their shop is very flashy, exactly like a duty-free shop. So, if I go back to Taiwan, I don't have to... When I tell my friend, I share the tea, I say, I just got a Twining teabag in Sainsbury's.

I didn't even bother going to somewhere fancy. They think I travel somewhere close to Buckingham Palace and buy the beautifully designed teabag for them. But for those Taiwanese who want to stand out and say, I'm more British than other immigrants, they would say, I don't even like tiny teas. So it's not strong enough. I drink Yorkshire tea.

And that's what you tell who are the British. Nice. Okay. So you've got a lovely mix there of beans on toast and bad green tea so uh that's that's quite a shit meal that's a lot of people's nightmare breakfast i think so uh okay now fortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island the planes entertainment system continues to work but just your luck it only has two working settings one is your least favorite film of has two working settings one is your least

favorite film of all time and the other is your least favorite song what are they and why i will start with the song because i do realize when i go over the list there's a lot of mentioning of chinese stuff east asian stuff so i want the people to have some gapping space to breathe but he's all about he's asian we had enough so uh my least favorite song is bitch i'm madonna this is just the pinnacle of madonna trying too hard and to to use bitch in a song it's not even original anymore because britney has done it more than a decade before it's brittany bitch right when you hear that it's iconic when mandana did it said oh my god she really became i don't know how to describe it like that embarrassing auntie who had like two bottle of prosecco and got her strictly calm dancing outfit out just trying

to say i'm still young inside i mean like she really at the previous album there was some sort of similar stuff the mdna album and um what's what's that song um give me give me all the love or something i'm still okay with that but by bitch and madonna and i actually google because i noticed some cameo from celebrities right so she had Katy Perry, Rita Ora, Beyonce, Kanye West, and Chris Rock, even Alexander Wong. So if you are Madonna, I think having one or two guest appearances should be enough. If you need so many of them, there's such a strong reflection of insecurity inside. It's like, this is the end of me. I cannot continue with this permanent legendary

status anymore i need to try to retain the top position so it the whole thing smells of trying too hard and for me it's my least favorite song not only because it was so offensive i don't want to appear ageist but i i just feel like that's the end of the era for me i'm not the biggest madonna fan but i've always admired her, how she managed to have a comeback a couple of times. When people wrote her off in the late 90s, she kind of changed course and do the Don't Cry For Me Argentina, right?

She was Evita in the movie. And then she released Ray of Light, which was revolutionary. Because at that time, that kind of music, Americans don't listen to them. It was very European. And up to the Confessional Dancehall, I think, not just the music.

People are like, oh my God, a whole album is a dance album. But it was just as popular as any pop album. And the way she treated her over-50 party, right? Even though it was a bit funny when she broke her hip backstage. Those were all good. But by the time you get to Bish and Madonna, in 2000, okay, so it was released in June 2015. And I think that maybe the reason

why so many celebrities died in 2016, because that song offended the mighty power up there. And it's like, I'm not going to let you have it anymore. This song is so offensive. We all deserve to die. You know,

I've been thinking a lot recently. Like, I listened to a few like 80s madonna tunes like i thought that was like i love that era i remember like i grew up you know i was born in 82 but what bothers me about madonna is like i feel like really she should be treated much higher status than she is like she should should be up there like quite a bit more revered with like kind of like michael jackson and like george michael and people like that not like you know musically you know i think like she did she's had such a great career but i think like she should have just stopped a long time it's like

she just kept churning it out a bit too long and a bit too long and you're like ah there's just diminishing returns you know I think like she had like some really good stuff and and I think the other thing with her like obviously you know she's famous for like changing like oh this album I'm a cowgirl and this album I'm like whatever you know this album I'm a bit more serious and it's like it's all right but like i'm a big david bowie fan he obviously famously reinvented himself all the time but with him it felt a bit like oh since this last album i've been listening to loads of soul music so this is what i'm into now or like i got really into like german minimal like industrial sounds and stuff so that's where i'm going with this whereas with her it felt a little bit more like someone just went why don't you dress up like a cowboy for

this album and she went yeah okay you know i mean it's not it's a bit more superficial and i just find it a real shame you know i think madonna has always been very smart by i'm not saying like like a pest but she's really smart to capitalize or borrow other people's idea right so the whole point of vogue is that voguing was already there. And she had the iconic song, but she kind of borrowed and tapped into that subculture at that time. I think with her status, she could have just... So for example, I didn't mind Madame X so much because she just said that I live in Portugal.

Fado, the Portuguese type of music was all that I listened to. So I had influence on it. Even though it wasn't a massive hit, it wasn't offensive to her fans. She could have just carried on making music that she liked to reflect her. I suspect the reason could be because she wants to be still relevant for the very youngest fans out there, but she wrongly asked her daughter for opinion. So imagine her children, they will have the most shelter,

the worst taste possible. So say, oh, this is the kind of music my girl, my daughter listened to. I'm going to do it. It turns out to be the worst business decision ever. Yeah. And I watched the video for the Bitch, I'm Madonna. And it just,

yeah, it just feels so sort of cliched and it's got Nicki Minaj in it, but for whatever reason, you know, they couldn't be in the same place at the same time, you know? So obviously she recorded her part separately. And then in the video,

it's like, she's not even there. They're just holding up like a TV screen with Nicki Minaj on it. But you have to give it to her that her facelift was very natural. I mean, for all the effort, the plastic surgery part was well done. I am first and foremost a big Mariah fan, but I was quite,

initially I was embarrassed by her behavior, but she has gone so extreme, she became funny. But in the late 90s, when her voice deteriorated and she didn't have the same level of popularity, she was hopping between different acts to do collaboration and do it did you know

that Mariah had a single with Westlife no I didn't know that's mad yeah yeah I think thank God I found you so she collaborated with Nicki Minaj Westlife who else she even did a single with Justin Bieber when she had a second Christmas album called All Santa. So she was trying that. And you know when someone with such an iconic status couldn't resist trying to collaborate with the youngest artists

because they are on the decline. And I would like them to do it with dignity. So the fact that that specific song, in that specific music video, their cameo from about 10... There's an article on the power ranking of celebrity who make a cameo in madonna's video there's that many of them so they just the whole thing smears i'm trying too hard yeah yeah but that's it and then it's like

you couldn't even appear in the video like she couldn't even like manage to turn up for madonna's video it's like just shows that it's not a very high priority It's a bit like yeah, I'll take the money, but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna fuck around with the video Yeah, so instead of trying something different Beyonce release a duet with Dua Lipa and you know that that's the start of her decline if that makes sense She does Beyonce I steal for now doesn't have to do that. Yeah, she just makes her own music So yeah, yeah, I think it's a real shame and i just think yeah i i think she's sort of almost i don't know at some point we'll kind of look back and be like bloody hell you were great but it's just sort of like ah well you just keep releasing music and and we're less and less interested you know so yeah i think it's a shame okay so that song joins

you um what film are you gonna watch on the island okay uh it's a shame. Okay, so that song joins you. What film are you going to watch on the island? Okay, it's a film about sharks called Meg. I don't know. So it's Jason Statham, and it's about the Megalodon, like the giant prehistoric shark comes back to life. Yeah, okay, Jason Statham. My intention towards him is not pure. He's my number one. He doesn't even have hair, but he's so sexy

if he doesn't speak, right? He's just, you know, he used to be a diver. Yeah, he was on the British diving team, wasn't he? Yeah. But I think his brand is very consistent. And when you watch whatever film he's in, you know what you get, right? So based on on that principle make was such a surprise i didn't even pay to watch in a cinema i just readily found it on tv i remember i wanted to go but i couldn't find the time and it was so bad in that because it was very okay i'm sorry i'm gonna go back to do some channel action again but being taiwanese it's my duty so there was an era, you start to feel why every Hollywood film has a weird involvement of some minor Chinese characters.

I don't know if you guys remember that. That is because for a film to be released in China, you have to meet the quota of Chinese involvement in the production. So the character or certain part of the team need to be Chinese, which also means that the film will censor themselves or their content so they won't be boycotted or won't be banned in China. So in a way, what we could have enjoyed has been compromised just because those companies want to make more money out of the Chinese market.

And Meg was like the worst possible example of that because the writing was so bad and the acting from the chinese supporting act was so bad and the actress acts i don't the whole thing just like because i'm sorry but it's still a bit of third world so their artists their taste is horrible and to accommodate that why don't make some film for them, right? Like Matt Damon has been burned. You remember Matt Damon? I'm not using that.

Is it called The War? A Great War? You remember Matt Damon saving Chinese people from alien death? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that one. I'm not even going to pick that one because I don't want to bother watch it, right? And Disney's live remake of mulan

oh my god anyway so man it's like there is no artistic reason to involve these people okay so they were trying to say that prehistoric shall lurk around the pacific ocean and they attack the tourists in hainan island lasagna beach which is the island, southmost island of China, something like that. But I'm just thinking, putting these in, you actually made the film horrible. And that's because what they're trying to do is the Chinese government say that, oh, if you don't meet our criteria, this film cannot be released in China. But in the Western market or in the rest of the world, we don't have the same thing.

I say we, it's funny. I'm not one of you. So the Western world was like, no, the world, we don't have the same thing. I say we, it's funny. I'm not one of you. So the Western world was like, no, we are not going to let you do this. It's an either-or situation, right? Because one side has no restriction, the other side has tons of restriction, and they want to make money from both. And that means that everyone else, without knowing,

have to be compromised to enjoy the Chinese level of stuff. And that infuriated me. I remember going back to Taiwan and watch Game of Thrones and all the nudity were out. I said, what? That's half the reason I wanted to watch Game of Thrones. That is because the broadcasting channel, the Sky, it's called the Star Group. It's part of the Sky Network.

They are based in Singapore. So they were added Game of Thrones based on Singapore's very conservative criteria, which means that the slags and the sluts elsewhere in Asia are like me, creating a nudity in Game Boy Film. And I just think we should not be allowing this and we should not put up with it. If they want to have all the censoring, all the editing, just do something for them. But let the rest of the world, when we come to film, we want something that allows artistic freedom of expression. Maybe that's too ideal, because there's always going to be commercial consideration.

But please don't take the Chinese crap into a film that's supposed to mean for the whole world. Just don't do that. I think meg is coming back with a sequel oh of course i'm sure it is no but i don't know whether it will be still given the west tension between and given the tension between the west and and china right now maybe this one will be rid of all those influences i don't know i don't know you know it's so interesting i never really knew that that it had that much effect. Like, I'm not a big film guy, so I never knew there was that much control

or, like, influence exerted from China over that sort of thing. So it's really interesting. I mean, just from my point of view, I remember this film coming out and I was like, I dislike Jason Statham. And, like, I just, I think I'd maybe like him more if, like, he was ever a different character. I think I need maybe like him more if like he was ever a different character I think I need to see him cast in a thing where he's not just like there's a big thing I'm gonna

go and kill it you know I mean I just I just can't I just feel like he's basically like a large walking testicle that's why we want But imagine if the same principle applies. So, for example, if the UK say anything that depicts the United Kingdom has to be positive, right? So if you don't allow British actors to be... Actually, British actors are all represented in Hollywood because they have such a thing for British actors. But imagine everything you see in the film about Britain is positive. There can be no criticism on Britain's shabby behavior or the British Empire past.

Nothing, none of those can ever be truthfully told. Like, how much will we be missing? And if France and Germany, if Germany were to do that, if Germany denies the Second World War will ever happen, and basically all the Nazi film cannot be made, and halfies the second world will ever happen and basically all all the nazi film cannot be made and half of the oscar winners will be so what i'm saying is we are very used to a film being very different and basically what a story the the storyteller the director wants to tell but every time they try to make money out of the chinese market they face a huge

amount of compromise and if they want to do that fine but don't that that take away uh the joy that the rest of the world should be entitled to yeah and i i'm actually glad that it's not i think it was horrible about i would say eight to ten years ago. There was like the really big climax of it. Right. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't know about that. But I still think, you know, regardless,

I still think a film about Jathan Statham tackling a giant shark is going to be annoying to be stuck with on the island. If he shows his bum, I'm going to watch it. Sorry, I'm not a child. Fair enough. Okay. Well, look, we're almost at the end because finally the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals which animal is it and why squirrels squirrels okay the gray squirrels now the indigenous rest squirrels in britain yeah yeah yeah uh what have you got against squirrels they they dug up they dug up the soil of my plants and had to i'm some very boring but i have to go by gravels to cover them and they just

keep burying random because i believe one or two of my my pot is sick and i don't want any cross contamination but then i just give up because the scrub with the dirty is that pulse and I don't want any cross-contamination, but then I just give up because the squirrels with their dirty hands, is that paws or hands? I don't know. They just dig everything. And when I saw them, they were approached. I don't dare open the window of the terrace side because I don't want the squirrels to come in

because I read a long read Guardian about the invasion of squirrels. Once the squirrels get into your house house it's impossible to get them out yeah i don't know why people see them as cute they're just giant rats with a for samba you know like giant rats going to to samba with a big tail nothing is cute about them but people feed them yeah but they just oh god i hate them really hate them yeah i don't really understand why rats get so much bad press and squirrels are just, like, complete... Like, not even just fine, they're, like, really liked, you know.

And it's just... I think it's just the fluffy tail. And I think because they jump instead of walking, that makes them cuter because they're always just skipping along. There was a lady in Wales that kept feeding a squirrel and wanted the squirrel to jump in her face and go on full attack. So I want this to serve as a cautionary tale for the uh in so that the ignorant people are they're thinking squirrel nothing but cute animal they are not they're vicious they're disgusting they just rat yeah and i think they'll be stealing your food they're gonna like it's

really difficult to hide stuff from them because you know they're probably going to be good at getting into every little tiny space that you find so yeah i think um i think it's a good choice and i don't actually remember sometimes they will heist that i don't remember where that is just leave a random note and also i'm not allergic to peanuts but if they touch so much peanuts i mean white people a lot of you are allergic to peanuts so you want to watch out lovely well look i think that's a fitting end into a very good selection of people and things that you've got there and i think your island is going to be an awful place to stay so uh so well done but let's move on to more positive things um what are you up to at the minute that people should

know about have you got tours coming up and things like that yes uh so i am going to the edinburgh french festival this summer uh for the ace toinge Festival this summer for the ACE2. I'm there almost for a whole month. It's at the Gilded Balloon at 5.40pm. Just try to find my name, Kwan-Wen, and you will see the show. It's a show about my home country, Taiwan, and about a past military service I've done. So I think that's quite interesting. Imagine me and the campus military officer you ever see. It's brilliant. Oh, can I plug another thing?

Yeah, please do, yeah. I have another small podcast called Comedy with an Accent, and it's all about languages and the comedy stage persona, and I interview mostly non-native English speakers who perform comedy in English. So there's a lot of things that we have all these glitches, and it's about that. It's a niche podcast,

but I think it's quite cute. Yeah. Lovely. We will check that out as well. Brilliant. Quan Wen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been so fun.

Thanks for having me, Daniel. so there you go that was desert island dicks for today and as i said at the beginning we've got hundreds of episodes for you to listen to so if you're a new listener or you just want to keep listening to dicks but this one is finished then yeah just delve into the back catalog because there's loads to choose from desert island dicks has been a sync clap production it was originally dreamt up and produced by james deacon and it was produced and presented by me dan benedictus occasional edit support comes from chris attaway and as always we get a lot of support from john deacon so thank you john for all your support. That's it. We'll be back again very soon with another Desert Island Dicks.

So until then, I don't know, just like I hope your week is nice. OK, bye.