The Iced Coffee Hour - From Exchange Student to Comedy Success | EMOTIONAL DAMAGE

Episode Date: May 28, 2023

THE FIRST 1000 PEOPLE TO SIGN UP FOR FIZZ WITH CODE: ICEDCOFFEE GET $10: https://www.joinfizz.com/icedcoffee As a special offer our viewers receive free access to Fund&Grow's Business Funding Masterclass: 5 Steps to Securing $250,000 in Business Credit. Click on the link: https://www.fundandgrow.com/icedcoffee for this amazing opportunity today. Fund&Grow is also extending a special $500 discount for all subscribers! NEW: Join us at http://www.icedcoffeehour.club for premium content - Enjoy! Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselbyhttps://www.instagram.com/gpstephanhttps://www.instagram.com/alex_nava_photography Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [e-mail] GET YOUR FREE STOCK WORTH UP TO $1000 WITH OUR SPONSOR PUBLIC - USE CODE GRAHAM: http://www.public.com/graham TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Introduction 02:31 - Chinese Financial Culture 07:01 - Growing Up In China 15:38 - Off-Brand Chinese Products 20:00 - Immigrating To Ireland, Then The US 24:36 - Jack Flexes A Fake IQ Test 28:03 - Experiences In Ireland 32:59 - Moving To The US As An Actor 40:23 - Finding Video Inspiration 48:01 - Emotional Damage Meme Beginnings 53:12 - Graham Reusing Floss 01:00:24 - The Current Climate Of Comedy 01:09:28 - The Oddest Thing About American Culture 01:13:40 - How The Business Is Broken Down 01:22:19 - Are Humans Good-Natured 01:27:23 - Biggest Threat To Humanity 01:36:09 - Current Chinese Culture MY NEW COFFEE IS NOW FOR SALE: http://www.bankrollcoffee.com/ The Equipment used: https://tinyurl.com/y78py5g2 Audio Equipment Used In Podcast: Shure SM7B mics, cloud lifters, rodecaster pro audio interface The YouTube Creator Academy: Learn EXACTLY how to get your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube, rank videos on the front page of searches, grow your following, and turn that into another income source: https://bit.ly/2STxofv $100 OFF WITH CODE 100OFF For Podcast Inquiries, please contact [e-mail] *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today we're talking with the one and only Stephen He, who you probably know from these two words. Emotion, no damage! Even though you might recognize him from his wildly popular comedy skits and TV series, behind the scenes, he's an incredibly shrewd businessman, entrepreneur, and comedian, who's about to share his secrets of success, money, and the realities of living in China. If you do not pass this exam, we're talking about 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds here. You were basically, like, shackled to a life of labor. On this episode of, subscribe if you haven't done that already.

Although before we go into that, we got to thank our sponsor. Now, thank you very much, Graham, for that wonderful intro. Before we get on to that, I'm sure a lot of you guys are college students that want to build your credit, but you're either scared you're going to overspend or you're like Dave Ramsey and don't want to take on any debt. And if that's the case, then today's sponsor Fizz might just be the perfect solution for you. FIS is the debit card that builds your credit and earns cash back. With Fizz, you get a credit limit based on how much you have in your bank account, and they offer an auto-paid feature so that your bill is paid off automatically,

every single day. And of course, if you're like us, you might be wondering, But Graham. And Jack, how does Fizz make money? Well, FIS's revenue comes entirely off of the interchange fees that merchants pay, so it doesn't come from the cardholders. And the best part is that you don't need a credit check, security deposit, or co-signer to sign up. Fis also reports to all three major credit bureaus building a credit score like a normal credit card would without having to worry about building up some insurmountable debt. So sign up for Fizz today and get your card instantly on Apple Pay will your beautiful first edition FIS card gets shipped to you directly. FIS partners directly with MasterCard and LeadBank and also international students can apply

without a social security number. So sign up using our link down below and start building your credit in a safe and accessible way. Again, the link is down below in the description. And now what that said, let's get to the podcast. How many waters do you need, Jack? Just two. This guy's actually incredible. He will go an entire podcast without a beverage, which to me is just maniacal. To be completely honest, because I don't understand how you can talk for that long without needing to know. Oh, you're right, but yes, your mouth gets so, like, dry. So dry, yes.

Yeah. He doesn't want to spend money on the water consumption. Our water bills out of control. We should totally talk about cheapness because I take pride and how cheap I am. I have such a cheap person. That's Graham's favorite conversation topic. That's great. Let's see who's cheaper.

You know, his frugality is actually real. Like, a lot of people are surprised when I hang out with him. He's not joking. He's actually that frugal. It's incredible. I think it's reasonable. I bet it is. No, I believe you because I think it's only to be proud of. You know, I am as well. Did you grow up in a household that was cheap or like, like, like conservative financially?

Oh, very much. By the way, are we rolling? Yeah. Okay, great. Oh, wow. Nice. I like that. Just roll right in with that intro. That's awesome. I grew up in China and the mindset was very different. Like, I didn't know anything about investing at all. I didn't understand like financial intelligence or inflation or anything like that. Like, I remember growing up my, my concept of money was,

I make money and I save it. Like if you were a smart person where I came from, you saved it. The not-so-purpose of make money and spends it and they get in trouble for not having money. And so the saving kind of mentality was really a part of my childhood, like my upbringing. But that's the culture as well.

I feel like in a lot of Asian countries is just to save. Yes, always saving. Yeah. Really? Oh, yeah. That's the... Did you not know this, Jack?

No. Okay, so I have a very biased perspective. Go on. Stereotyping or anything that is not what I want to be doing here. But in college, I was at UCSB. Now, the people that drove the Porsches, the people that drove the Camaros,

the people that drove the Mustangs, the people that wore the Louis Vuitton, I noticed where the foreign exchange dudes, usually from the Asian countries. And I always kind of thinking, like, okay, what's like the trend? here, you know, because I can't be oblivious to something like, do they don't have money?

Oh, I can give insight to that. So, yes, during that time, like the recent, maybe 20 years, and my lifetime is very much within this, China had a massive, massive boom. Like, China went from, I'd say my grandparents,

you know, there was not an abundance. Like, people were hungry a lot for my experience. I can't speak for the whole country, but just my family's experience. And then my parents' generation were born. And when they hit adulthood, that's when, like, China exploded. All of a sudden, everything was made in China.

So these businesses sort of popping up. And as you can imagine, like anything in manufacturing, you know, logistics, where we would make the stuff that you see in, like, Walmart, that put a lot of wealth in China. And all of a sudden, people who weren't used to having wealth would gain wealth very, very fast, like become millionaires in a year and so by opening up a factory or you know the entrepreneurs who would take advantage

to that massive boom and then this is funny in my generation when I was born which funny I was born in the one child policy so I didn't know a single person like a classmate with a sibling not one like maybe what would happen if you ended up having a second kid

I don't know because you can't just stop that my understanding is that isn't there tax. So it costs money or I think I don't if we could talk about that on here. Does the baby go by-bye? I believe so if it's female. I think the males were well this right here I've heard the exact same thing now I don't know if this is true or not

but this is just like a lot of Americans perception of what happens I'm sure a lot of viewers can relate maybe a lot can't. But like a lot of people think that like the the women babies less desirable because yeah they like go up for adoption or something like that the less desirable yes i have heard of that uh well the the answer is i actually don't know i never i was never told the actual rules okay um but yeah you could only have one child and there was this pressure that your whole family's lineage kind of rested on your shoulders and so you can imagine right the pressure this is where the whole you must get A, you know, all that culture of being extremely tough on your children kind of comes from,

is that you don't have anyone else to carry on the lineage. And that plus the big pressure in China at the time of the economy and what kind of careers we had access to. The opportunities. Yes, the opportunities. It was a much, like, tougher competition than it is here. Just from some personal experiences, when I was 13 years old, we were about to do this thing called

Zhong Kao and that is where it's like the deciding point of if people continue on education or don't and my experience growing up was it was largely accepted that if you do not pass this exam and get into a school because if you didn't get into a school

that was the end you went out, you got a job you didn't continue education we're talking about 13 year olds 14 year olds here Wow okay that's the impression that everyone around was kind of having was

if you didn't continue you were basically like shackled to a life of labor to being a delivery person forever or a farmer you know you would have a bad life basically we were told that our parents would beat it into us

the school the society would beat that into us that you have to pass this exam and the passing rate was not high from what I know from my city back home it was less than a half less than a half get to continue on education

where you would have a hope of a good career you know like a good income where you could raise a family and things like that that was my experience growing up I don't know about other parts of China but I'm from Shenzhen

and so you can imagine that the massive like stress and pressure that society puts on and a family puts on to a child which they're definitely children 13 year old is definitely a child. And yeah, that was the concept. Like, I never learned or understood financial intelligence

in the way of like investing in how to make money work for you. It was just rather simple of, you get money, you save it because likely, you know, you're not going to be able to get money in the future or things will happen that will cost money. A lot of concepts were a stranger to me when it's coming to the West. And I take responsibility, this is my, this is my my individual experience because I am particularly uneducated in this field. It took a while for me to understand medical insurance and why the hell people have it.

Canadians feel the same way. Don't worry, it's not just you. Yeah, so like in China, you get sick, you go to the hospital, you get what you need, and that's it. That was the end. And you paid like, I know, the price of a pizza for a regular visit.

So it was never anything you consider. It's all subsidized by the government, though. Oh, I don't know. Because there's no way you can pay the price of a pizza for some actual... The government really owns everything, though. So, of course, they're going to provide healthcare to their citizens. Citizens make a lot of business. They're very productive.

The government wants to help those people survive and keep working. I fully admit I am very uneducated in politics in China. But yeah, the reason I bought up like kind of the field was Wow, that was a long tangent. People like, that's what people in my parents' generation got wealthy when no one was used to being wealthy in China. And as a result, they kind of gave their children everything that they didn't have. And I knew many, like children who was either my classmate or close to me, friends who were

like this. And that's where you see the Louis Vuitton wearing kids outside. because we kind of growing up anyway now may be different but growing up we considered coming to the west to mostly England, America, Canada these countries is considered like the best place to send your kids

for a good career and a good life and when those very rich Chinese people send them over they just give them everything they want so that that represents a very small number of children and we actually have a name for them we call them Fu or Dai which translates to rich second generation.

So that is exactly what you were describing earlier. And I know I've seen many of them myself. I was not one of them, unfortunately. Yeah, I had quite a few Japanese and Korean friends. They were very much, like their families were very much, don't show, don't know flash, very modest, save. And be like very frugal. And like that was really important.

Yes, it was. wow, that's fun to think about back then. Like, growing up in China, there were a lot of experiences. I'd love to share with you guys. Please, please do. I'm so curious. Like, going to school, everything was cash, by the one of those kids, everything was cash. I barely, I didn't really know about bank accounts.

Like, my parents probably had them. I probably had. But for me, it was cash. Like, you would get your allowance. And I'd probably get like a hundred yuan every week. And I'm living through such a happy memory. What's the conversion? What would that be?

Like a few dollars America, I believe? Yeah, probably less than $10 maybe. Okay. And what you could buy with it. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. A $10 allowance a week? $20?

What is it? $40 a month? My allowance was $2 a week. And this is backed in, too, so of inflation. That's true. Pretty decent. A better reference is probably what it could buy. rather than the dollar exchange.

Like what I could buy, I remember. Oh man, I'm so having you been thinking about this. On the way to school every morning, it was like 7 a.m. And I was the monitors who had to get there extra early to take care of all the, all the responsibilities. I would stop by like a rice noodle stall. And these were all hole in the walls, literally. Like they didn't even have a front wall.

It was a building with a room cut out of it, let alone not having a door. They didn't even have a wall. and it would generally be like one person running the whole style you know making rice rolls and and serving people making financial transactions and cash which now I think is probably not very sanitary thinking back on it and I remember a rice roll would cost like five yuan going to school in the morning and I would maybe get like an extra soy milk

or an extra shalongbao and that was that was everything and I particularly remember as well well, the people that I saw were very happy. Like, I remember this one guy who ran a rice roll stall. He would need the dough and make the food. And he would dance to it every day. So I'd go get my food and I'd watch it like, like, working away dancing. And I always like remember that because I like to think he was, that was his dream.

You know, I like to think he probably came from somewhere much worse. And he's just so happy to have his own stall and to have his own business and to be able to feed kids on their way to school. You know what? Before we go into that, though, I've seen a lot of people try to get into businesses, and I've seen firsthand just how difficult getting funding could be, which is why our sponsor Fund and Grow wants to help. That's because Fund and Grow understands the challenges small businesses go through when they try to get the funding that they need.

Traditional bank loans come with tons of restrictions in the slow corporate bureaucracy. That's right, Graham. However, Fund and Grow offers a simple and unique alternative. With a 12-month membership, you can secure up to $250,000 of credit at 0% interest without giving up any equity in your company. Funding grow also has over 4,4.9 star reviews because their streamlined funding process delivers fast and efficient results

that has already helped out tons of small businesses. And as a special offer, Funding Grow is offering a business funding program showing you the five steps to obtaining up to $250,000 in business credit. And also, as an exclusive bonus, you can enjoy up to a $500 discount on their services. So take action now and begin growing your business.

Visit Fund and Grow today down below in the description. And now what that says, Let's get back to the podcast. And then like bubble tea swept over. I remember the summer that all of a sudden everyone went from drinking cocoa out to bubble tea. And it was it multiplied like more than Starbucks's today. Just took over the whole the whole city.

I remember that. And so yeah, it was cash. And the things that we would kind of flex or be happy about was, oh, look, I got the new snack. I got the new spicy peanuts. Yeah, that was awesome. There would always be stalls outside the school in like a car that could be wheeled away in a second year.

And they would sell the strangest things. Now that I've come to the West, I've realized that a lot of the things they were doing were taken from the West. Like there was this year in school. Wow, it must have been like 11 or 12. Yeah, 11 or 12, where all of a sudden hash browns became the thing.

No. Like the McDonald's hash browns? the exact hash browns they have in McDonald's, the exact shape. Yes. And I wonder where did they get them? Because later on I realized they were the McDonald's hash browns. Is this like an off brand?

Does someone figure out how to buy it or just go to the supplier that McDonald's goes to? Like those were the stuff like growing up what I remember. Wow. Off brands was huge. Oh my God. I love this topic. I genuinely love this topic.

Oh my gosh. I've made a lot of videos. skits about off-brand products. That's like my childhood growing up. So every chip bag I brought was off-brand, every, like, drink. Give us an example. Like, do we have Doritos? And then you were like, what's...

Yes, the product would be sometimes pretty close, sometimes way off. Like, you'd go to a stall, and these would be like shacks. You know, the part of a building, products just laid upon like a wooden board with ledges. Sure. It put bags of stuff on the wooden board. And I remember I drank stuff. I drank this lemonade drink that I thought was Sprite. I didn't even know what Sprite was.

But it tasted completely off. But we're like, oh, well, this is what you drink. You know, we grew up here, this is what's available. We had off-friend versions, definitely of potato chips, lots of potato chips. Pringles. Pringles would be an easy one to knock off. Oh, yes. So many.

Oh, my God. Don't get me started out restaurants, bruh. Which ones? Restaurants. I swear, where I grew up, this was Sun Zin, Lohuchi, Sunzhen. There must have been like five off-brand KFCs exactly where they would copy the exact items, KFC sells. Like KFC will come out with a rap, they would come out with a wrap, and they were like five times cheaper. I have no idea how they managed to swing that kind of prizes.

Was KFC not in China? It was in China There was no legal issue Oh bro I bet Good luck trying to shut that Yeah I bet at this moment There are shops with my face

Just plastered on the front And I don't know anything about it In China Yes I bet I bet I bet I bet I bet I bet Yeah You shut one down and five more to open up Like the next day They're quick

It's a real thing Like for no reason you just see someone's pineapple juice stall was like Tom Cruise face slapped on it going like this I swear you see that everywhere you go it's probably still happening today

so I love that stuff the off-brand But now Jack brought up a question though legally can they ever I mean I know they're not they maybe can't shut them down so what's the strategy is it just to open up and like

just do as much business as possible I think it was such a common thing that people took it for granted. Like, I don't think KFC ever went, oh, let's close them down. I doubt that. Well, being an American company, I see they would probably want to do that.

But culturally, no one went around going, like, that's not supposed to be here. We kind of just enjoyed it. This is the part of it all. But copyright does have a bit of a different, oh, my God. But, like, how exact were they in their copying?

Like, KFC, do people know, oh, that's KFC? Was the name similar to KFC? was very, very similar. They copied the art. They would draw exactly the same, but they might swap out like, instead of a, what do you call that thing, it's a bow tie or it's a regular tie.

They would swap out little bits. There were, I remember products that were so similar to the real one. It really take you a second to see, oh, there was an extra dot on the wording. Or, you know, oh, this one has an extra line at the bottom. Could it be named Kentucky Fried Chicken, like KFC? I bet there was.

Like most of the time, I would see them switch up one word or one syllable even. But I'm quite confident. There are a few that straight up pretends to be. Not even hiding, just straight up saying we are KFC when they're absolutely not. So did you pass that exam when you were 13? I was wondering that. I didn't do it. I actually immigrated.

Before. Yes, right before. Literally right before. I immigrated from Shenzhen to Ireland. and I became an Irish person through immigration. And China, so if you immigrate as a Chinese person, you do have to forfeit your Chinese citizenship. So that's what happened.

I came over and I joined the Irish system. And that was a whole other world. It was throwing myself into a very different social structure with different language, different manners. All of a sudden, everything I knew was different. So I was very much thrown on the deep end. What were some of the differences between the two? Oh, I thought of two things.

Let me say these two things before we continue. Oh my God, it's going to be so funny. This is like a stand-up bit. Everything we talk about is great. There's two off-brand things that I remember specifically growing up that when I came to the West, I was like, oh my God, this is how things worked. First one was movies. Oh, this is terrible because I am in the film industry.

This is terrible. This is what it was like in China. Growing up to watch a movie, you went. down your building out to a stall that had essentially a cardboard box with like 200 DVDs inside it. And they were all rip-ups. None of them were licensed or anything.

They all had like a... These were, they didn't have boxes. They were like an envelope printed with the movie poster. You would take out and you'd be like, oh, this is this movie and you'd pay like something ridiculous like two yuan, like nothing, sense for it. And you brought it home. And usually it was...

was a different film because it wasn't what it was advertised as I had a buddy buy one in New York thought it was Harry Potter put it on and it was a video recording of like some other movie someone was in the movie theater with the camera

you would get that all the time and you would hear some like coughing in the back yeah in fact you would feel lucky if you didn't get that if I bought like a film put it out and it wasn't a secret like recording in the cinema it would have been a special moment for me we saw it like someone's head

in front of the thing like blocking up part of the bottom of the screen. Same with video games. Oh my God, you would buy a video game and plug it into a computer or be a completely different video game. And that's another big,

I want to share this experience because it's going to be so funny to you guys. The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road, that's the Volkswagen Tiguan. Its sleek exterior makes a first impression you can't ignore. Step inside to find available

full leather seats and wood accents. Under the hood, the available 201 turbocharged horsepower engine gives it a fun to drive edge. The refined Tiguan, you deserve more style. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SuvW, German engineered for all. Growing up, there was this game everyone played.

It was like the, oh, you talk about it in school, you know, is the popular thing. It was a racing game, like a need for speed, like that kind of reason. But in a cartoonish style, not realistic style. Mario Kart. Dude, let me tell you. So, it would be high, you'd like practice on the weekends to get better and all that. And you'd pay for the newest skins, the best cars.

It was the cool thing. Everyone did it. And then I remember I came to the West and I kind of stopped playing that. And I lived in the West a while for a couple of years. And then occasionally one person just brought up this game, hey, hey, let's play Mario Car. I was like, okay. They flipped on the game.

And I went, they copied the game I used to play. when I was back in China. No. I legit thought Mario Kart copied the off-brand game that we used to play. And it took me like a month to convince me. No, Mario Kart is the original. Wow. That is such a funny experience.

You grew up thinking that's the thing. And you see this, wait, wait, the controls are the same. You can drift too. Wait, what? You can get items that you could use on people. They copy it. No, but it was the other way around. Oh, my gosh.

Oh, that's the story I wanted to tell. It's so funny. Gosh. That's crazy. So how were some of the customs different than when you moved out from China? Yeah, when I moved to Ireland. I got a very hard kind of experience because my mom put me into an Irish school right off. It's literally the day.

I've told the story before. The day we landed in the airport in the morning at 8 a.m. we went to this new home that I'd never been and my mother had married an Irish man and she's like this is your new father I was like wow everything's so disorienting 8 a.m. we landed 11 a.m. I was in school

and my mom said here's the principal here's Stephen good luck goodbye How is your English or Irish I didn't speak a word What language they speak there? In Ireland English they speak English Don't laugh great You look more Irish than me

you probably have I'm not the most cultured guy I've been trying to leave the country Jack was asking what I thought his IQ was before this that's not an IQ question that's a trivial knowledge question that is proven to have no correlation

with IQ I agree I agree that is trivial knowledge Graham that's so funny that is completely detached okay I'm just uncultured that's simply what it is I've never left the country

never got an opportunity to yeah this guy locks me in Vegas in myself and I can't leave. Not until you get the podcast. I can only leave when we have to shoot a podcast. I go right back into the cell right afterwards.

Dude, that is so funny. That is exposed. Okay, they speak English and Ireland, but you didn't know English. They do. I thought Irish was a language. Oh, it is. It is a language. Yeah, okay.

All right. Oh, it is a language. Yes, it's a language called Gaelic that only about, I remember the metric. That's a shit question now, isn't it? Yeah, some people don't know. Well, hold on. Let me just point this. He says his IQ he measured was 155, which I'm just going to call completely yes on that.

That is like, that is human, right? No, it's human. It's just like, I mean, genius is 140, right? Like that's how you get into mens. No, I think it's 135. No, it's 140. Are you sure? Yeah.

And he also thought the average IQ was 80. So that's all I'm going to say, that's all I'm going to say, guys, I don't want to, okay, I'm not going to talk more on this IQ thing. But he's making fun of me. I want to know what I am. I think the average is eating is hanging around these guys. That's funny. How do I do?

I want to know. I want to test my list. Well, he took a free test online. Oh, bro, you can't take him. That's the same. That's the worst. Yeah, and he's all, you wouldn't believe him, man.

I took an hour on this test. It was like the hour long one. No, you got to like take an actual test, man. It was an hour long. You know what I took my test? Because I gave him. So I took two IQ tests. Okay.

The first one I measured like a 127 or 130 or something like that. The next one was a 141. And that's not, that's not right. It can't be that far. Well, hold honestly, you can't say that. But then, obviously, I didn't disclose the fact that I took the test at a Scientology Museum. So, of course, they're going to... Scientology.

Yeah, the numbers are probably not the most accurate. But it took a long time. It was a full-on, hour-long test. You know, we did all the behavioral tests. We did the aptitude test. Oh, wow. So there must have been some sort of, you know, true to the... How did it get so far off each other?

Well, I don't know. I think people change. It was a couple years between each. Oh, a couple years. Oh, okay. No, it wasn't back to back. No, no, no, it was a couple years. Okay.

Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, people do change. How old are you, Jack? 24. 24. You look older. I'm 26.

Yeah, well, I also, I had a bad allergic reaction that aged me about 30 years a couple days ago. So I look like I'm 50 right now. It looks like Jack has a bit of a sunburn, like a very, very light. Like you saw a little sun. Yeah, my lips are all chapped. No, you look fine. I did stop. I don't know.

Thank you. I look. older than I, people... How old are you? I'm 26. People think I'm an actual dad. Really? A lot of people think that... No, I think you look about... I feel like you can go anywhere from 22 to

35. Oh, awesome. But you could pass for anything in between, no matter what you say. You could say 30, you could say 22, I think. My hair probably makes me look way more mature than I... You carry yourself. Very mature. Oh, I do. Yeah. That's probably because of the trauma that I went through

what I was doing. Also, we were talking about the Irish experience. where we went to Limerick. My mom kind of moved the whole, moved myself to Limerick. And I remember in the school, there was one other Asian person and he was Filipino.

So within miles, there was no one who spoke Mandarin. And I didn't speak a word of English. So it was sink or swim. My days were miserable. The only way I could cope was to copy people. Like if I saw people sat down at the chair, I would sit down on the chair.

but if they took out a red book, I would take out of my red book, but I had no idea what anything meant. How do they put you in class? Wouldn't they test you in and realize like you don't speak the... Well, they know I don't speak. So why would they put you in there? How does it not make sense? How do you sit and listen to them?

It kind of is like that. I sit there and I just wondered to myself, what's going on today? How is it? So how do they expect you to sit through class on that? I don't know what they... I guess they just... But you couldn't have possibly learned anything. No, absolutely not.

Absolutely not. I guess the first time I moved to Ireland, I was eight. So a little bit earlier, I went back in like chunks, China, Ireland, China, Ireland. So the first time, eight-year-old me probably was more malleable.

Is that the word to use? I picked up language faster. So first year, geez, I could not understand anything anyone would say to me. And I developed like a defense coping mechanism

where I would just play dumb. Like if someone, if the teacher is speaking to me, dude, what else by the good? I'm just going to stare at you. Not understanding the single word you said. When people brought me places, I would just go with them. And I remember they put me in the special needs class as well with other mentally challenged children. Probably because they thought I was mentally challenged. For good reasons, yes, I did very much behave very dumb. That was like the first year. And then just through living, I started to pick up what words meant. Like occasionally I'd know what food meant or what big, large activities went. meant what riding a bike meant. And then by two years, I was able to communicate.

Like, kind of normally, I would be able to communicate, but with many holes. Like, this is so embarrassing. No one would teach me this stuff because no one spoke Mandarin. So, I would say things to a group of Irish kids like, hey, can I read your bike? And then everyone would laugh at me.

And I'd be like, what's so funny? It's ride, not read. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, it was a lot of that experience. hundreds and hundreds of times. And that's kind of where developed the defense mechanism to play stupid. Wow. When you first went there, you had no idea how to speak English.

Were you effectively just to mute? Did you just not say things? Or did you like how? Yeah, I didn't say anything. Yes, I just sat there. How would you do tests and pass anything? No, I wouldn't pass any. The only thing I had, this is kind of funny, actually.

The only thing I understood was numbers. So to the Irish kids, here's a guy that is, completely silent that doesn't understand anything, but he would like, no math better than the teacher. And so they thought it was kind of something like a son, someone like a savant, you know.

But in reality, I just didn't speak the language. And my math was very advanced. And so I would, I would know quite often, actually, math topics better than the teacher does. So that created a funny little perspective that to other kids might have been entertaining.

The teacher wouldn't call on you, though, because they knew, Like they learned, I'm sure, after time, okay, don't call on Stephen because he won't speak back. Yes, that is true. Yeah, they did call on me and I don't know what I always fail because I would stand up and I don't know, and I just sit back down. Would you ever just speak Mandarin though?

Like, just like explaining something? It didn't make sense to me to speak Mandarin. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't. I suppose it was such a social, like, subconscious hit that I developed a shell and I developed like a coping mechanism. to dissociate in a way.

And that, I believe that kind of made me really introverted, as you can imagine. And so I spent the vast majority of my childhood, even my uni days in my room. I would play video games. I would not go see a single person. And I feel that about Ireland, that I'm a little sad that I missed out on that whole experience. I've never went to a single party. I never went to the bar, which all the kids as soon as they're 18 they went to. I had one friend who would occasionally accompany FIFA with me

and that was it and even in my uni days I spent the whole time in my room it was only after that when I went to like acting training that I began to open up in terms of personality and actually be able to talk to people and share a connection tell stories like learn how to interact so yeah that was quite the experience I'm glad I'm the way I am now it's very

I enjoy company you know I enjoy talking to people I enjoy hearing the stories now. And it's much better than playing video games in my room. When did you come to the US? About five years ago. I came here because of an acting school called the Neighborhood Playhouse. So I wanted to become an actor when I was 13. And now, after understanding a lot more,

I understand the reason I kind of started was because I needed validation because I felt lesser. I felt really lesser. Like everyone else had what they had. and their parents came and pick them up from school when I had to walk home alone. Kids, other kids could have that. I couldn't. You know, there was many situations where like I'd be, I'd be in a living situation

where another kid would, for dinner, for example, will get the fresh bowl of rice. I get the leftover bowl of rice. It's just a lot of experiences in distilled that lesser feeling in me. And because I felt lesser than people, I craved, you know, for people that tell me I'm important and I deserve to be here. And so for that result, unconsciously, that's why I wanted to become an actor. And now that I know that, I have much more power over that. And it's like, oh, I don't kind of crave validation as much as the child version of me did.

And so because of that, I did a lot of theater. I went to London to do a bachelor's degree in acting. And then I was 20 years old when I graduated my bachelor's degree. I went to New York to the neighborhood playhouse, which, to my knowledge, is one of the best acting schools on the planet with many Oscar winning alumni who are actors as well. So that's why I came. And then I finished the acting school. It really changed me as a person

because a lot of the, a lot of the defenses I built up I wasn't aware of before. But through that process, I learned more about myself about what made me the way I am. And that's actually the reason I can change myself now

because I understand. Oh, so I feel this way because of an experience lives inside me from when I was 12. And that has helped big time. So then went into the industry, did a bunch of stuff. I was in, like, Comedy Central.

I was in Showtime. I did a bunch of movies where they weren't huge, like not many people saw them. But I was the lead and stuff. But that was not a career. That's a whole other story. How did you even get into that? Like Comedy Central, like some of these things

are pretty big. How did that take on? It was just an audition process. At the time, I did a lot of theater. I did 61 stage shows and haven't done one since. It's been a while. 61 stage years since I was 13 years old.

In Sun Zun, in Limerick, in London, Edinburgh, and New Jersey and New York. So I've done a good amount of theatres through my journey that I've built up. And then I entered the film industry. And at first it was waking up every morning submitting to 20 acting jobs. And I was really hungry. I had drive like crazy. So I would actively lose money to beg for a job. I was like, I will fly to Illinois to do a Shakespeare play at my own expense, fly and lodging.

And they'd probably pay nothing anyway. I was that hungry. I just wanted a career. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the Orange One. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea and milk. Habinero?

More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. But I was also very, I was unaware of how kind of difficult it was to have a career inacting. Like I didn't know the stats. Or rather, I might have known the stats, but I was emotionally disobeyed

associating myself from it. I was delusional thinking, I'm the one in a million, you know, I'm going to be the lucky guy. How were you doing all of this when you didn't know English? Oh, no, I knew. Well, I took me two years. Yeah. At this point, Jack. At this point, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, oh, I thought you said from 13 to whatever age you had. Yes, oh, from 13 to 17. I did a bunch of theater and then 17. And at 13, you do English fairly fluently. Yes, I did. Because I started when I was eight. Yeah. So I could speak well, maybe with a strong accent. Yeah, probably with a strong accent. Yeah, probably with a strong accent. And then 17 went to train, 20 years old train again, 22 graduated, went into full-time. And the way I got into these roles was to wake up, submit to 20 jobs. And out of those 20, like maybe a week, I'd probably do three auditions, five auditions. And a lot of them were by myself in my room. So I'd set up the camera, I'd perform, I'd send them the tape, or going into the room. So I was in New York at the time.

about travels at the place. The whole experience, every actor is familiar with this. And occasionally I would land. My landing rate is very, very, very low. Very low. Like, what's the ratio on that? I have applied to about 3,100 jobs.

And it wasn't just me. It was also I had an agent who would apply on my behalf as well. So with the two of us together, we'd apply to like every chance. And I was hungry enough to not care about money at all. Out of the

3,100 applications, I landed, I'd say seven. Wow. So it was terribly bad. What's typical? Oh.

Like what percentage is typical? When you look at stats, so I will specify as well, landing a job is barely anywhere close to a career because like I was on Comedy Central for one day and

And, how should I just, like, okay, here's an idea. Of the seven jobs I landed, and if I was like flexing my acting achievement, they would be pretty strong. You know, people would go, oh, you were in Comedy Central's, Alcoffina, Nora from Queens. They'd be, oh, yeah, cool, good for you. But I have never made a month rent. So as an actor, you're expected not to make enough money to live. And there's many stats to back me up. like sag after actors.

I remember it's about 96 or 97% of sag after actors. That is the professional union here in America. 96, 97% need another job because their acting cannot they cannot live on their acting. So having a career

is like rare, extremely rare to just earn 40K, 50K a year. And then being the one in a million, obviously that is a lot rarer. Right, right. So how were you supporting yourself through that time. Oh, that was my mom and dad. That was all about mom and dad.

Supporting actors since, they made a joke about this at the Oscars. Yeah, and it's the serial time. Like, my mom and dad supported me big time. And it was because of them, I had the time to, and the energy to go at it as hard as I did. So if they didn't support me, I would have to like wait tables, which actually did through a short period of times. But I'm really fortunate in that rent was covered my mother and father and paid for that. And most of living was covered yeah, for like two years.

And we did have some we did have some hard like conversations there because of the reality of it, you know, I was I began really starry-eyed and really delusion and I remember like this was the moment that changed

for me and it's kind of when I started to go into content creation as a strategy It wasn't a passion. It was me trying to use a new media as platform, adds a strategy to leverage against traditional. Where do you find the inspiration for a lot of your videos? A lot of the comedy. What's the process like?

There is a real, wow, that's a great point because there is a struggle there. The struggle is this question of, are you an artist or you're professional? And from my whole career up until now, I've chosen the professional. And the difference between an artist and a professional to me is an artist expresses, a professional delivers.

The difference is the direction. An artist makes what they want to make. A professional makes what the audience want to see. And I've always taken that route. And that's lead to a lot of burnout. I'll give you the clearest example. I came up with the Asian ad character, maybe 200 and some videos in. And it was a hit.

It was a massive hit. And I was like, oh, dude, this is so exciting. bro, I have so many ideas because I grew up with this like a joke about that I had like 20 ideas and then I made all 20 and I ran out of ideas

You could just repeat the ideas though Like that's where you go back to Idea 1 And then you just add a few of the sprinkles in there I had to so I had to do that I had to do version 2s of things that I'd already done I had to repeat jokes that I maybe add a little bit But it was the same joke How many times can you joke about getting B

in math? I've done it maybe five, six times now seven times. Yeah, but you could do A minus. Oh my God, it's so bad. Hey, why no A plus? I guess this goes back to a little bit of the, a little bit of the experience thing, the audience experience. I would hate to see my favorite YouTuber do the same thing over and over again. I'll get bored and three, four times. And so I care about that for my audience. I always try to bring fresh out into content and never redeliver the same value. If I do make the same thing again, I try to add all brand new value in there.

So I made 20. I ran out of ideas. I was like, but it's not about what I want to make. It's about what they want to see. And the viewership was very, very, very, very obvious. Asian that video, 10 million views.

Asian that video, 10 million views. Skit about my acting career. 100K. Asian video, 10 million views. So it was very, very clear what the audience wanted to see. So I sucked it up. I forced myself to come up with the ideas anyway.

I made another 20. And I was burnt out, but I made it. another 20. I was burnt out, but I made another 20. And now we're like 80 skits into this character now. And yeah, it still's that question. Do I make content I want to make? Or do I make content people want to see? I make content people want to see. Great. That's been my approach. When you say exactly that, I look at what are people watching right now on YouTube? What are the trending topics? And I'm going to talk about that. Okay. Because at the end of the day, I make content for other people.

And of course, like, I like to interject my own little jokes, my own thoughts into it, because that's where I have fun. But at the end of the day, it's like, I'm doing it for the audience. And so I'll talk about whatever people want to hear about. That's great. So, like, I admire that. And, like, that discipline, like, for me, side hustle and passive income videos are my least favorite. I can't stand making these videos. But they consistently do well.

Like, over the course of a year, they're my most viewed videos by, like, two to three times. but I just can't stand making them. A lot of it's repeated. But people, for whatever reason, I don't want to watch the video you made a year ago on it. I want to see the new video today, even though it's the same info. I see that because, you know,

I've seen the same sort of skits that you've done, and I'm like, I don't want to watch the old one, I want to watch the new one, because you grow as your audience is going to grow. They're never going to look back the old videos. They only get recommended what's in the last few weeks. Okay, that's very fascinating. Yeah.

So anyway, it is that perspective. And I guess the best kind of advice I've heard about this topic is from my friend Ian and he mentions the way kind of he does it is he'll make two for the audience and one for himself. And I feel like that could really help in terms of creative burnout. Because I got to admit like the writing is the hardest part. If I get scripts every day, I can make 100 videos a month. That's easy. Shooting is easy. Performing is easy. Coming up with the jokes is hard. And in the way I work as well, it is more complicated. Because one of my advantages that took me past my peers is how fast I deliver value and how often I deliver value. My content is comedy skits. That is my main content. And of course, the value that I deliver is comedy. Laughs, basically. Where Key and Peel would deliver. deliver two laughs and three minutes, I would deliver 30. And that was my advantage in becoming

Stephen He and outgrowing all of those channels that I studied before. So if I have an idea, it's not really worth anything because an idea Asian dad goes to grocery tour. I still have to write 30 jokes. And that's where I have difficulty. Oh, we've already joked about the rice five times. Yeah. Have you thought about hiring a writer? I have, yeah, I have tried just Jesus Christ, I have never found a person who can do it in the way this channel has been doing it. Okay. Yeah, so very difficult. Walk us through your creative process.

You come up with the video, Asian Dad goes to a grocery store. Yeah. How do you, like, what's the first step? Okay, like what is like an Asian something that happens at a grocery store? That's pretty easy. I write jokes, so I find that we'll take that idea. Asian that goes to a grocery store. I sit down on my computer and I write about 30 jokes.

which oftentimes was writing like 50 and deleting 20. So I would write, hey, what's funny? The fish. Oh, there's always fish at Asian stores. Let's make a joke about SeaWorld. Hey, you always wanted to go to SeaWorld there. There you go. That's good.

Wow. Like, that's a joke. And then I go on and write another joke, another joke. And then after I write all of the jokes, I curate them in like a... You string it together to create some sort of narrative. Yes. And there's actually a massive skill. in the curating as well

because it's not about narrative at all. It's not about narratively stringing them together. First, we go to this section, then we go to the creation. The curation is actually about the experience. So this is where I've developed very advanced kind of ways to optimize for making the experience good.

So it's not random. It's not like I'm doing a banger, banger, banger, mediocre joke, mediocre joke. No, I'm actually curating them in a way that's the same. as you like a DJ. I'm not giving you all the beat drops up front. I'm not going to give all the beat drops behind.

I want the experience to be a way that I want, which is also a tactic for the algorithm as well. You can call it a retention tactic. Yeah, and then I put the jokes in the order that I want them by selection of value. What value is it? Is it a big laugh? Is it a small laugh?

Is it a chuckle? And then once I have the list of 30 jokes, I use narrative to string them into a coherent script. and I put in the characters I need to put in, I write the dialogue, and that's the script done. How long would that take you to do? I have found a hack recently. Usually that takes me like 15 minutes or three days

because I'd often try to force jokes out of my head and I have a really hard time. Like no matter how hard I squeeze, I'm staring up the paper and I just can't think of a joke. Or other times, like the emotional damage video It took me 15 minutes. I was like, oh, that's a big cool. We'd not be cool.

And it's done. Yeah. Walk us through that video. That video. Oh, okay. All right. Ah, this is going to get all the views. Let's go.

This is why we're here. The emotional damage video is called when Asian is a difficulty mode. Initially, I was playing dark souls. That was it. I was playing dark souls. And I loved how the characters died. You know, where it's called rag doll physics. When you get hit.

the character kind of like falls as if they have no bones. And I was like, dude, that's funny. I want to imitate that in real life. I wonder how that will look. And so I was like, okay, so let's write a skit where the character would like die 20 times. And for the sake of delivering the audience what they want, let's put Asian dad in there. And the difficulty mode I came up with was what if like being Asian was a difficulty mode because it's really damn hard. A lot of things are

particularly hard about our culture. Not that we're hard than anyone else, but being called your fat every day by your mom is emotionally damaging and moments like that. And so I went on to, okay, so we need like 20 deaths. All right, let's try something

that's funny that a character can die from. A character can die from being hit by a leaf falling from a tree, write that down. A character can die from stepping on a stone, write that down. And one of them was, what else can a character die from besides physical damage? Oh, I know.

Someone roast him and he dies of emotional damage. Write that down. And I wrote like, I don't know how many got to count on the video and many didn't even make it. So probably 20 deaths. Stron that together, how am I going to put Asian down this video? Obviously, he's not the character that dies because it's a video game. Let's put him as the

reactionary character. He's the one playing. So the main footage happens in game, but each death, I'm going to add the punchline by cutting to his action shot. He plays the game, character in-game dies. On screen, we put the death, emotional damage or whatever, and we cut back to him. He is mad. He is screaming at this game because he's so annoyed. And one of them was emotional damage. So that's how that video came about. You have to say it. Emotional damage.

Oh my God. Views for days. Let's go. Do you ever get tired of saying that? No, it's about the experience of my fans. That's lovely. It brings so much joy. Oh, my gosh. I've been waiting for you to say it. Oh, I have that.

Is that one of your most highly requested things during fan encounters? It's like, hey, can you say it? Oh, not that much, actually, not that. Really? Sometimes people will ask that, but mostly it's for a selfie or mostly I like this about my fans. Because I've really put a lot of effort into building a connection with them. they actually have conversations with me. Like, I appreciate that more than anything

because I've seen the other side. I've seen when a celebrity is viewed as a product. And then every interaction was, hey, can I get a selfie? You get a selfie. Thanks. Bye. And, you know, when you're looked at as a product, it doesn't feel so great.

But thanks to, you know, the connection that we have, every conversation is intimate. They come up, they go, oh my God, Stephen, you have to make this video again because my friend I was just talking about this and this blah blah blah. That's a real human connection. I love that.

I feel like if people looked at me like a product like they do a regular A-lister, then I would be starved of human connection. Have you thought about doing Asian dad doing cheap life hacks? Like extreme cheap skates sort of thing. Like that would be hilarious. Oh.

Like using like garbage bags is like trash bags. I love that you mentioned that. Garbage bags is trash bag? It's common, yeah. It's common a lot. of cultures. Garbage bags is trash bags. I didn't know this.

I did that all the time. And then people reached out for... You mean grocery bags? Sorry. Grocery bags is trashed. 155. 155. Yeah.

Grocery bags is trash bags. I did that in a CNBC video and everyone is commenting a little like, yo, he does it. Like my culture does that too. I didn't realize how common that is. Yes. One of the first...

Grocery bags is trash bags. Yeah. One of the first Asian culture skits I've ever made was this, uh, this, uh, this, parody shopping channel where an

Asian mother advertises used plastic containers as if it was like Gucci it was like come get your

used olive garden container that can contain three lunches for your child and it's just like a used

or a tub of cheese pots but you finish the cheese pots but it's like the grandma thing where you have the tin of biscuits

but instead of biscuits is knitting things you know you know that's the stereotype yeah that's exactly so that's a

great idea I've done a lot of skits about the being cheap That's of course one of the biggest laughing points I've read hundreds of jokes about that And also the off brand I still to this day love making off brand related skits Graham has some great things that you could take away For some skits you're making yourself

Oh great He reuses the same flosser Like there's dino flossers He reuses them What do you have it? That's disgusting I'll put it back in your pocket Take that out These are new fans

No, no, hold it. Take it out. Take it out. Why? Get a close up. Because that thing is, it's hanging on for dear life, to be honest. It's fine. It looks clean. Look it. Why is it all fringed, man? I'm not. At least he's sanitary. Don't touch it.

That's the least you can do, right? I always keep, like, one on me somewhere. I love that. How many times do you use that? Today? Yeah. Like after the Chipotle. Okay.

Yeah. Let me add a cheap lifehouse. of my own because I like she did this like two days ago when you go to oh my god you're going to hate this I'm going to love it wait wait hold on I'm taking when you go to Starbucks to get your latte yeah that's why I put my phone away all right my phone's away this is what I sometimes do you ask for a large ice latte right and then you you get the latte first you wait till you get the latte and then you say oh can I have a cup of milk I do the same thing and they just give you yeah I didn't know you deserve yeah you could ask for just cream

On the side, they just give it to you. And you mix it and you have two lattes effectively. All be even better. You get a regular black coffee. Okay. They give it to you. And then you say, oh, by the way, can I get a cup of ice? Yes.

Pour it over the ice and they say, can I get like a little thing of cream or whatever you might need? So you get three cups basically. No, the little cream is like a little. Oh, it's in a little. See, that's crazy because you're basically getting 300% the amount of coffee. Exactly. Yeah. The ice takes up.

Oh, yeah. When they pour the ice in that, yeah, you're really only getting half a drink. Yeah. the other half's water. So just get the normal coffee. Pour it over ice, which is free. There is a TikTok, too, that I've seen before that tells you how to get all the same Starbucks drinks for cheap by ordering them like differently.

Wow. Yeah. Like there's a way to order a macchiata by like getting one thing and something on the side. You know what I did with Alex? Here's this thing. We went to a sushi restaurant. Okay. And I noticed the Philadelphia roll was $15.

But you could get a salmon roll for nine. And I looked at that and I'm like, wait a second. So they're charging $6 just to put cream cheese on the inside of the roll. That doesn't make any sense. So I said to Alex, I wonder if I could just get cream cheese on the side. And I asked, can I get a salmon roll and just get cream cheese on the side? I'm like, how much is the cream cheese? And the guy was like, I've never been asked that before.

I think a dollar. And I'm like, okay, cool, a dollar. So he brings the cream cheese and brings the roll. So I'm in $10. And I just take the cream cheese and it. put it on the top of the roll. Oh, it's the same thing. The exact same thing.

I say $5. I never even see you ordering Philadelphia rolls. I like the Philadelphia rolls. I like the cream cheese. Yeah, this one, yeah, I do like the cream cheese. This one made sense because it was a filling roll. I didn't want to spend the $20 on like a fancy one. It was like, I wanted that.

Like for $10. I thought that was a good deal. But they don't, but they're not doing the math on that. Like someone should really, they should have charged $12 for that one. Not 15. Yeah, but wouldn't a restaurant like try to get whatever? whatever they can, you know, they'll, they'll, they'll, yeah, he said it was the first time he'd been asked that, so I guess nobody's thinking about it. Exactly. That's that IQ, Jack.

And your IQ goes over 150, start thinking, start thinking a way is to, you saw that, the Chipotle thing, though, right? Because there's a huge Chipotle exploit where you go in and you get a taco, and you basically load up the taco with everything they have there. So you get like the rice, the beans, the veggies, you get meat in there and everything. And then you ask for a side of tortilla, which is like 50 cents, and you just pile the entire taco into the burrito tortilla, and you overload the taco.

You can get double beans, double rice, double everything. You can get double chicken, and it turns out to be like three bucks. Wow. And you just set it into, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, or four.

Are you talking about, you're getting one taco? One taco, yes. Yes. And you get double, because double rice is free, double beans is free, double lettuce is free,

double all of that's free. Do they accept the chicken? Do they patch it? There's no way to patch it. I don't know if, I don't know if, There's no way. I think, like, they still do it,

but it's highly discouraged for people to go there. Because, like, I think, so this girl, she posted this TikTok, it got like 20 million views. It went super viral. And then there was a huge controversy because everybody started going to Chipotle using this exploit.

And they haven't, I don't think they've patched it because I don't know how they would. I don't know. You can't get double-wise, maybe. Yeah. It would have to be at their discretion to say, no, you, that's too much.

Yeah. But you go in and get, you know, $3 burritos or whatever it was. Wow. Yeah. So I try. I tried a life hack recently. Panda Express apparently used to, if you show up 15 minutes before closing,

give you discounted food. Or you would be able to get multiple meals for the price of one, because otherwise they throw it out. So I went to a few Panda Expresses. One of them offered, I think it was like 15 or 20% off on the meal, as just a courtesy, sort of like, we don't really do this, but if you want to. The other one, the lady ended up watching the channel, and she sent me a message afterwards on Twitter saying,

hey, I couldn't really explain this in the store, but we used to do this, and we ended up having issues because people would show up right at closing, and we'd have to cook food right before closing. A lot of it would go to waste. Or a lot of employees would purposely, like, cook up extra food just to be able to take it home.

So they stop that. But they used to do it. Interesting. Yeah, because I do know about the waste thing. At the end of the day. Yeah, they throw the food away. Yeah, bakeries as well. Like, that must be terrible.

Bakeries are incredible. There's this bakery. in my hometown. All the high schoolers knew about it. You can go in and ask for the day-old donuts. It was just like drive-thru donut restaurant. And you go in and they give you like a box of like 16 donuts. Whatever they have.

It's like a mixture of donuts in a bag, donuts in a box. It's just like this huge. It's like the leftovers. Exactly. It's like this donut cornucopia. It's smart. Yeah. And you go and you're like how much today?

And they're like, uh, four bucks. Like you know that they're just holding that number. Yeah, exactly out of nowhere. And you go and you get like 16 donuts. It's crazy. A great deal. Yeah. It's amazing.

I love it. I would love to see more restaurants in places doing that. Of the food that they're going to throw away anyway. I thought, I have heard like Pratt, for example, when I was in London, they used to fresh make all their sandwiches in the morning. And at the end of the date, they would give anything left to a homeless shelter. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, completely free.

Everything. That's good. So they never have leftover, essentially. I think some of the high-end restaurants feel like it devalues their food. Because I remember who was it? that we had on Joshua Weissman said that he was all, you wouldn't believe the amount of waste into this restaurant.

I saw that short. I've actually seen this short. Yeah, because I mean, if you're cutting like some crazy baseball state cut, right? Like all of the trimmings that go around that, they just get tossed. And this is on like super nice meat too. They just, yeah, it's just a cost of doing business. No. Nothing. No. Oh, sometimes

you said they would grind it and do some side dishes. But a lot of the times, the food just goes to waste. Yeah, all the trimmings. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, let's go back. to comedy because I have a question. Sure, sure. What do you think about the current climate of comedy, people kind of trying to tiptoe around certain jokes and everything? Because I noticed you, you very much lean into like the whole Asian stereotype and everything. Do you ever feel like you could be like talking about something that's like really sensitive or I don't know,

like being insensitive towards Asian stereotypes, which people are cautious about? It's intention. Intention is the most important thing. what are you trying to do? Are you trying to lightly satirize in a friendly way, in a loving way, and to share your culture with the rest of the world? Or do you have negative intentions? That is the answer to your question. It's intention.

Because I come from China, I don't have the upbringing of an American where I've noticed and I respect this because I know it comes from a place of protecting yourselves and hurt. I have seen the Asian accent I have seen the Asian accent being kind of villainized by experiences of bullying, of racism, of people who would use the way we are against us, who would do that kind of racist making fun of Asians in a negative way.

And as a result, I see in the United States, this obviously is not in China, but in the United States that is where the negative rep for our accent comes from but it would be an absolute shame to let the bullies take that from us it would be an absolute shame the real loss here would be if we

are convinced that we are lesser because of the way we are no no no we should wear ourselves wear our culture proudly we should it's totally fine to be who they are to speak the way we speak don't let the bullies take that from us if you're Asian we're proudly because damn I love being Asian

so intention it's intention what if let's just say hypothetically right there's a guy he goes he understands Asian culture he's super excited he thinks like oh these are funny juxtapositions

this like Asian stereotype to this like white American stereotype or whatever but he's white and he goes and he makes a joke what do you think about that Oh, then now... Because his intention, what if his intention is good?

He just thinks it's a funny thing and maybe he'll take bashes on one side and bashes on this side. Now we're talking about different cultural moments now. I am very new in the United States and I'm not fully educated on the culture here, but I can tell you this. If that white guy went to China

and told that same joke to Chinese people from China with fully positive intent and it's an actual funny joke, we'd love it but I'm not going to comment on American culture because that I'm not fully educated in

I know Americans can be very sensitive there was this like YouTube short that was scrolling I deleted TikTok I'm not on TikTok anymore but of course I kind of migrated to YouTube shorts I got to shut that down spending way too much time I want it there's this YouTube short and it was this guy and he was walking around to it was like a university

campus and he was wearing like like an Asian or Chinese like you know like the hat Yes, I don't know. I've actually seen the exact video. You've seen the video, and he goes around. So I'll show you the video, and he goes around to these people. He's like a just a normal looking white guy, but he's, what do you call like a kimono or something? Well, the female version is called a chi-paw.

I don't know what the male version is called. But he's wearing the rice farmer. Yeah, the rice farmer high, yeah, you could call it a rice farmer. Is that right? Is that bad to say? People, no, it's not really. People do wear it to farm rice. That's what I thought.

Okay, okay. So he's going around to university campuses, and he's like, He's all, do you find this offensive to American students, none of which are Chinese? And they're all like, are you Asian? And he's all, no. And they're like, yeah, I would say so, because you don't understand their culture. You don't understand what they've been through. That's highly offensive that you'd be wearing their clothes when you're white.

And he does this. And then he goes to Chinatown where like he's speaking to people that hardly know English, like very Chinese people. You know, like they probably migrated here in the past like 15, 20 years. And he's all, do you find this offensive? And they're like, no, I love it. This is great. to see that you're experiencing our culture you're trying to immerse with us

and yeah one thing I would hate to do here is to throw a negative view on anything because with my limited view of American culture I must respect those who are who come from a good place and there are many people

not Asian people who may like do that who may say oh you can't do that out of a place of love and respect. And that is, I very, very much appreciate that. Yeah, whereas how we think versus how they think, it may be different. Like, I don't know if you know about this, in China, Chinese people love white people who can speak Mandarin as well as we can.

Oh, we met up with, Jamah. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. They're like on TV. We went there. We went to Chinatown. Yeah. And we got Boba.

Yeah, we ordered Boba. Yeah. And I'm like, yo, do the thing. Do the thing. And he orders it. And you just see her face. Yeah. She lit up.

She was so happy. It was the same reaction in person as you see in his videos. Yeah. Because I was like, no cameras were on. No cameras. It was a great moment. It was a highlight of my trip to see her face light up. Yeah.

I think it was it Mandarin. Yeah. And then on top of that, she was like, I thought I knew you. Yeah. Because she recognized. Oh, no way. Yeah. Yeah.

It was awesome. Yeah. It was so cool. But it sounded amazing. It was like a beautiful language. And he was just like going back and forth with her. It's just like, oh, man. Yeah, of course. We love that. We love that. And this is the opposite perspective. It's true as well. I came here and out of absolute love and respect, I assimilated to the United States. I even changed my accent to speak the way I do now. And I think if one comes from a place of respect and love and. absolutely no negativity. I don't think there's anything wrong with it myself. That's what I think. I'm similar to you in that. It's like although I'm a pretty insensitive person, I don't take offense to many things personally,

whatever things I subscribe to religions or, you know, based on my physical appearance and stuff like that, I'm generally not very sensitive. Okay. But I respect the people that are sensitive to those things because I'm a firm believer. It's all about intention and not outcome. Absolutely.

And if their intent is to protect certain people, that's totally fine. Do I think it's an effective solution to it? Maybe not. But I respect their intention there. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah.

I think sometimes, like, to be completely fair and honest, if you're, like, defending certain people that you're not a part of whatever, like, you're also kind of, in a sense, like, agreeing that there is an issue there in the first place. You're kind of validating the stereotype. That is, I'm very new to that. I haven't seen that in any other nation before. Yeah. It's like you can't make fun of this certain group of people. because, like, when you make fun of them,

like the strikes or whatever, the cuts, they dig deep. And it's like, okay, well, you're kind of only the person here that's assigning validity to the statement. This is clearly an exaggeration of a stereotype. That's where the comedy comes in. It's not like you're just saying something as blatantly the way that it is, and that's funny. No, you have to exaggerate a stereotype.

Yeah, that is uniquely to the United States. Like, there are a few occasions of that coming from the heart in other countries, like the UK, like Ireland, where I was. But I do see, like for example, people who comment on my videos

calling me racist, I don't quite understand that. That is a different story. Racist towards who? Exactly. Towards myself? That doesn't make any sense. What?

No. So, yeah, it might be as you described, they have kind of taken something that could be originally good intent into something that is a bit overboard. But then again,

Again, I must admit, I don't know much about American culture to form a valuable opinion, especially I don't know enough about the experience of an Asian American because I, you know, I respect everything they went through. And now I might even immigrate and become Asian American myself, even though the way we are with some PC culture, the way we are here now, it could have come from a place of heart. It could have come from a place of protecting themselves. And for that reason, I don't know enough to comment at the moment. I just respect their experiences and I'll learn more about it. What's the oddest thing that you find about American culture that you think is weird? Oh, ah. On the large scale and on the small scale, let me think.

Well, okay, so all the small, individual things like American health insurance. That's a pretty obvious one. That's fair. Yeah. How much meat people leave off of chicken bones? That's true. That's true. That bothers me.

That bothers me. Well, I take offense to that. I don't leave any meat. You know what's funny? I'm that person. I leave a lot of meat on that bone. No way. That is very uncharacteristic.

It's not, though. Because I get weirded out. Anytime a meat's on the bone, it looks too much like the animal. And I get weirded out by that. Oh, I see. If I see like a vein or anything going through that, I can't eat it. He doesn't like eating stuff that is connected to bones. Yeah.

Or it is veins, tissue, fat, I can't, skin, I can't eat it. Yeah. It's got to be the pure meat itself removed from the bones. Gotcha. Like a nugget or a cut of, yeah. There's probably some word for people like that. Because that has to be some sort of a common thing, right? Scared of eating meat attached to bones.

I'm not scared of it. I get weirded out. I do relate in some cases. I do relate. I remember once I was eating crab and it was the whole crab. Oh, yeah. And you had to break the legs off. That's a little weird.

I could deal with that, believe it. I did feel a bit weirded out. So I do understand you. Soft shell crab is kind of freaky. If you've ever had that. Oh, you know what? I got that last night. It's a little freaky.

They brought it for free. And so I couldn't not eat it. And how was that? Dude, I have... It was... It weirded me out because you could see the pincher at the front. Yeah. And it was like the arm to the pincher.

Yeah. And I was just like, I don't like the idea of it. I don't like it, but I ate it. It tasted good, but it's a little too crunchy, and it's the idea. It feels like the animal, yeah. For me, it's sad because you're like eating the entire being. You know what I mean?

That's good. You want that. Well, sure, but when I eat, like, a piece of salmon agiri, I'm like, wow, this is, you know, 2% of a salmon. So I'm probably fine, you know what I mean? But like, this is like the entire existence of this animal is in my mouth. You know what I mean? It seems like it's a very fleeting thing. Like, it's just gone after a couple bites. I see. Yeah. Oh, that's a, that's a different experience from I remember growing up in the local home that we used to be at, where my grandma and grandpa

were farmers. Not in the modern sense. with all the machines, like they were, you know, hoeing things in the yard. And as kids, we often went and visited a grandma, grandpa, and we play with the chickens that ran around, and then we ate it for dinner.

No. Yeah, that's true. That's true. How was that for you, man? Was that sad? Is it harder for you to connect with animals because you'd, like,

play with them and then eat them? I know that sounds awful. Dude, that's what we do. We eat animals. It's strange putting in a joke perspective. But we don't play. with them. I feel like that I have a connection and a bond. Yeah. And I don't want like if I if I play with an animal, I can't.

It's an interesting. I don't want to know it. Yeah. You do you do like this is also a little bit after food security and things like that. But you know, if we went back to days where you had to hunt to eat, then I suppose you would connect more with the act of hunting or the act of farming and raising animals. So yeah, like for example, I bet my name. next generation, if I have kids, and they grew up in like this environment where they don't have to kill a chicken, they would probably be screamish as well. So, yeah, I think it's a matter of the security of the food, if you need to do that, if it is normalized by your culture, things like that. Yeah, so that's totally cool. It's totally cool for everyone. Wow. Well, going back to you, how is your business broken down now? Wow. Wow. This is Such a great question. My business now is mainly YouTube.

The videos, the comedy skits we make are like the front-running IP. They're the most important thing. I have other channels that make reactionary content. I repurpose things into short-form content. They aren't huge. They're not huge, especially the reactionary content that's actually currently losing money. And we do have to put in a lot of research into, or how do we... So what's the point of it if it's losing money?

It serves to build that connection for those who want it. And that's very important to me. Sure. Okay. And also, I do want to make it a profitable event or a profitable side of the business. So I will invest time and a lot of research. Like this week, I'm doing the research. I'm asking people who are specialists in the realm of algorithm and making videos,

how I can optimize in order to get enough views to be. not lose money. So I am making that advancement there. But the bigger picture is I have a like a journey that I want to take on of making cinematic content fully profitable in-house. So I have been a part of the traditional industry like film and TV for for a while and I kind of understand how things work. I have pitch shows to executives. and that's the part I didn't like. You know, you're at the mercy of a couple of people and they get to decide what gets made, what doesn't.

And so I took that like, I'm tired of begging for a job. I'm tired of begging to make what I want to make. Let's see if I can do it myself. So essentially becoming the studio that funds it and becoming the distributor that monetizes it. Obviously, our YouTube videos, every YouTuber has a career, we already do this with our videos,

but there are very few who can do it in the form of cinematic filmmaking. You know, when we look at this bismar, we think of Mr. Beast and all of that, and that's because of all their tactics work extremely well in competing for the algorithm. So if I bring on cinematic filmmaking, I'm at a massive disadvantage.

I do not have access to those tactics and devices that they use. So how do I innovate? How do I create something that can compete? so that my piece of cinematic filmmaking content can get your eyes as opposed to a Mr. Beast video or as opposed to a cat video or one of those. So that's the innovation. We've had two tries so far.

The first try is a big collaboration back in April and the collaboration was a large part of it of what tactics can I use to elevate this beyond my regular videos. I invited a lot of my friends who are huge creators in the Asian community of YouTube. Together, we shot three comedy sketches in one day, which is amazing.

The set was run incredibly well, and it was a traditional production. We did employ 15 people. We did put a budget into this. It was my personal budget. We ended up being quite successful. We took a unique achievement of holding trending 6, 7, and 1 simultaneously in the United States. Until this day, I believe I'm the only one who's ever done that.

Three spots in top 10 trending, including number one. Did you release them all right at the same time? Yes, I gave one video to, oh, I gave the set to my friends as well, so that the three comedy skits would be on three different channels launching at the same time. And we basically sent our viewers to each other's channels. Financially, it worked out. It really did work out. And that's what showed me.

Okay, so I can. employ 15 people, use cinematic equipment like cinema cameras, similar lenses, and do things that look good, you know, have a lighting team, have all that, and be able to make profit if I innovate on the retention tactics, on the things that matter in the algorithm. And a bunch of other tactics that are surrounding it as well, like outside, you know, like using our, using a promotional strategy that is very rare.

Like when you think of YouTube or videos, we don't really promote our videos. And most will share a story about it. But when nine of the biggest in the community come together and make peripheral content that kind of let people know we're coming together, we're doing this massive thing, it's amazing.

Then that drew more people to the thing. And so the next attempt is currently still ongoing. It's a show called Gynormal. Journal will play on the word ginormous. And it is a parody of a 1970s Japanese kaiju show. Kaiju show being Godzilla, Power Rangers, big monsters, fighting big mecca. And we're a parody of it. So we're making fun of how bad, those were back to them, basically.

And this, we are innovating again with a lot of new tactics and going much, much bigger. Now it is a six-episode actual script and narrative series with nine amazing creators who are great friends of mine and who happen to be more professional than most actors I've ever worked with. So I've got really lucky there. And now the challenge is how do we take that property and we have invested a lot of our own money into it

and make it profitable and not lose money. Yeah, so this try will see what happens. If we manage to succeed, I can go bigger and bigger until I achieve that business model to be able to be the whole operation in-house. What's the cost of like the budget? for that first film when you shot the three different skis.

That was $10,000 for the day. So it wasn't that's not that bad. It's not that bad. For three full-on videos, a camera of a team of 15 people, collaborations with a ton of one. It's because we did a lot of innovating. We did a lot of, okay, let's take a look at the way

a traditional set has been done. How do we save time on lighting? How do we save time on sound? In fact, I ran, I single-handedly ran the entire sound department. Oh, wow. So you're a good audio guy. I'm not a guy I know people are going to watch the video now

and go Jesus sounds terrible it's because I read it No I'm not an audio guy But I do have that I do have the scrappiness of No matter what it is Let's get it done I'll get it done

I don't know a thing about audio The night before I was up till 3am Sorting the mics that I just rented That had no clue how to use And reading the manual So yeah How do we create like 50K K worth of value with 10K

That is a very key part of the business model And then on Dronoma, I learned a lot as well. And we used things that are never seen in traditional Hollywood. We were very behind. And I think in the last three days, we needed to shoot a lot. We need to shoot like 80 pages. I need to check if that's the specific number. But we need to shoot way more than was possible.

If you ask any traditional set, that's ridiculous. 80 pages in three days. We ended up effectively tripling our product. activity by building and operating three sets at the same time. And we had, I'm not a director on the show, but I'll go direct the green screen set. You know, you go direct this. That person will take care of that. So with tactics like this and a couple more, we managed to get it done.

And that's a very large part of the business model. I feel like in the future, I'll have a lot more to innovate so that I can deliver your product that looks like it costs $10 million for 100K. and it can. I bet it can be done. I already own the cameras that show Oscar winners. So I know it can be done.

It just has to, you know, someone has to come and figure out how. So what's your team look like now? My team is very small. My team is very small. I have two editors that work with me all the time. And most others on my team are like the management level.

So they negotiate deals. They procure opportunities, things like that. And that's my team. Yeah, I have, I hope people very small. I do have that spirit of YouTube, but I'll do everything myself. You know, I don't know how to edit, I'll figure it out. Yeah. I don't know how to write.

I'll figure it out. What percentage of humans do you think are good-natured? All of them. Every single. And that is a really dangerous statement. But I have, there's this old Chinese proverb, which I really began to understand. recently and it means a lot to me and it's called Renzichu Xing Ben Shinsen, Sin Xiangjin and it describes

I'm just laughing all the way people could like people could judge me but it means all humans are born kind even though the experiences of humans can be different our nature is the same.

There's a very, thousands of years old Chinese proverb. And it's kind of like this concept that we are what the world has shaped us to be. And a lot of the times, it's not people's fault the way they are

when the world could have put something on them and made them into something that we receive as negative. And it has helped me to go a long way to understand. That is one thing I've had a growth as a person. Like before I obviously like with my experiences

I face bullies and there are many moments where I would hate people. But after understanding that proverb it's like an acceptance. It's like you sure you might have caused me harm but you are the way you are because of every moment you have lived.

because of where the word put you. So I can't really blame you for what you harmed me. You're a victim of your surroundings too if it's bad. So yeah, that is my answer to that question. So you don't think that there could be someone out there though that's born just naturally evil? That's a really good question because that steps align between belief and science.

And I kind of, I saw a little bit towards science. So the second you ask that, my brain goes to hormones, chemicals. Chemicals, yeah. Certain people are born, obviously, with like different mental disorders, stability, stuff like that.

Just certain synapses not firing in their brain. I'm sure that there are some that probably are somehow commingled with human nature, right? Yes, that are wired differently to how we consider as kind. Oh, well, when you put in that perspective, then it does make sense to me

that certain humans can be born with a biology that is different. I accept that. Yeah, I accept that. I'm a firm believer that like 99% of the people that we consider evil or like baddoers aren't actually like a part of that population that are born evil. But they're just people like you said that are subjects to their surroundings or victims to their surroundings. And that has kind of crafted them to who they are. Yes. But I do definitely think that there is a statistic there that are probably just

naturally born. Oh, I can see. I know it's a very, very, very minute group of people, right? And of the amount of people that we ascribe the word evil to, I think it's like hardly even a statistic within that. Gotcha. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Then I see what you mean that, that the biology of a person can be born with a difference that we consider evil. Yeah, I can understand that. I love the perspective, though, the open-mindedness perspective. That's kind of an epiphany I've been having over the past probably at this point six months. Okay. I'm like trying to understand why people that I just inherently disagree with do the things

that they do. Yeah. And I kind of have come to the realization similar to what you said that they're just a product of whatever the environment that they grew up in. And I grew up in a completely different environment and I'm a product of that environment. Yeah. And I just have to understand that similar to what Tom Bill you was saying, you see life through a lens.

And the longer you live your own life, the more obscured your lens, gets and your perspective of reality is more obviously twisted. Right. It was your unique view. Exactly. And you just have to understand that everybody has a lens.

Yes. That understanding helps a lot. It dissolves the anger I used to have. It dissolves the negativity I used to have. The way that you can look a world very negatively, because things have happened to you and because other people have harmed you.

But now with the understanding of, it's an understanding in general. with understanding, it helps you be a better person where you are. It helps you make decisions that are not to give hate back to someone, but to improve yourself and to bring value to the world.

Yeah, so it's a very helpful thought. Interesting question and very deep. I don't mind that. What do you think is the biggest threat to humanity? Wow! There are too many. There are too many. Oh!

Just right off the top of my head, disease like weather and the earth and there's just so many things that could go wrong with our environment you know from extremely quick things like a meteor to to longer things

like resources running out or if something just changed we no longer has sunlight we're in trouble if we lost water we're in trouble there's so many things that go around there I'm very fascinated by the whole AI thing that is a very popular answer for the end of humanity

I don't know how it would lead to the end of humanity but like all the films all the films basically go Fermanator Yeah yeah yeah We'll think they're better than humans And end human

That's like everyone goes there I don't know if that'll ever be true AI What could I do that would I can't understand the film perspective right because it kind of makes sense If we craft AI to be the best living life form it can be

and it goes oh humans are drawing and dragging his back then yeah fair I can see that but I wonder how else AI can affect humans that might be the answer

I've had this mental thought for a while I'm intrigued by the concept of evolving into a being that is like an AI that is immortal that is not a that is not in this mortal coil

but can live as long as we want and can improve ourselves by adding, you know, capabilities and the thought is like how do we integrate with machine and the thought is kind of like if you copy your brain

sure you have another version of you that's running around and you can pretty much say it is you but your fleshy brain is still going to die like irregular And I gave up this idea, hey, what about if you replace it one by one? Because then you're in the grandfather's ship paradox, right? Each year, you just swap out 1% of your brain for a machine.

And the next year, 1%, next year, 1%. So you never really stop being you, and you never really start being the machine. You're always you. Then you wonder, what defines humanity at that point? That's going to be a big question. 50%. 50%. The great answer is right smack in the middle.

Are you more man the machine? That's it. That's it. If you're more, if you're 51 one way or another, then it's what it is. It's like you get a pass for. I'm still human. Yeah, exactly. 51% still counts.

Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. I like to think that it can be what we wanted to be. We have the power of the choice. We can decide to go back into what humanity always was or we can decide to change humanity into a new thing. I'd like to believe that's our decision. fascinating thoughts

very fascinating thoughts is there anything else you want to discuss I wanted to tell all the all friend stories of going back in Sharduk please do they will be whatever you want to revisit oh yeah oh I did

I told a lot of stories and I think they would be the clips that go viral you could always roast me as the Asian dad I don't have my costume man could just going heavy on me

that was good I actually I'm actually very impressed by your frugalism. Because I... Oh, there's a weird perspective now. Growing up, as a kid, even I felt this, that you would look down on frugalism, right?

Because you have this whole nation of people who's not used to having money, suddenly has money, and now there is the insecurity of, I don't want to be seen as poor. And that insecurity kind of manifests into, if someone is frugal, you might look down to,

down upon them. Like I had this person experience that very, very, very much regret now. But back then, you know, I was a product of my society as well, where we'd go to my, my grandma and I, you know, wait, actually, I should tell that story. I'm going to tell one story. And this is for the sound like great. So I remember, uh, I was young. I was like five. It was like four or five with my mom in China at the time. Um, and my mom all of a sudden, this was like right when things blew up. My mom said, hey, we're going to take you guys to a five-star experience. And me and my friend, it was like a playday. Me and me and a friend. And both our bombs. And she was like, guys, we're going to go to this like amazing. This is, we're going above the

budget this time. Okay. And that we were hyper hype. And we went to this restaurant. That was so new. And we were told like, this is, this is the international exotic. This is the American stuff. Right. This is from America. America. And to us, I was like, oh my God, that's amazing. America's great. Because we really look up to America, you know. And so like, wow, we're experiencing what is, what things are like there. And I remember I had like the best meal. I had, I enjoyed it so much. And I never eat any food like it. It wasn't rice. It wasn't, you know, the things I'm used to eating. And then there was a playground that we'd like going on a swing. I don't know if I've ever been on a swing before. And we had a blast of a time. and it wasn't McDonald's. But you know what, if you haven't had it before, it's delicious. I think it was the first McDonald's in Sun Zun.

And I remember it so fondly, so fondly. I'm surprised it wasn't an off brand. There are many come up immediately after it, but I always had... McDonald's instead. McDonald's. McDonald's. I probably reviewed like 10 in my channel.

And I always came. kept that experience. Then KFC came in, oh my God, it was the best thing ever. We would go hang out there if you weren't even eating. Even if like...

Just a hangout spot? Yeah. Even like you had lunch, but you still go, you get like an ice cream Sunday. You were the cool kid. You know, it was this spot. And then I remember this,

oh, such a visceral experience. My first time coming to the United States, I came into Penn Station, New York, and I saw the KFC sign. I was like, oh, there's my place. Let's go.

I was so disappointed, bro. I was so disappointed. It was dirty. The floor was greasy. There was one person running the shop and it was stained and rusted. And the food didn't taste nearly as good as I remembered. So that was a massive paradigm shift. I had always had this idea.

And then Penn Station crushed it for me. I'm sorry, man. You've gotten it since then, right? I got a bit It's not any KFC or McDonald's I've had in the United States Is nothing like the experience I had in China KFC's also gone all downhill to be completely honest

I ate it a little bit as a kid And it was really good but I've gone recently It's just I wonder what's going on bring it back man In fact I'll go to the back to China Just to have KFC It's so great over there That would be actually really interesting

Comparing the difference of like It's staggering bro Of KFC there and KFC here And also off-brain KFC there Yeah. That would be interesting. I got a good review and off-right KFC.

That would be hilarious. That would be a really good movie to see. Yeah. People would be very curious to see what the differences are. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them are so good though. Some of them are so good.

You might as well go to that rather than the real one. Was there like elitism when it came to like being a consumer of a real KFC versus a fake one? Like if you go to school. Fake one. Like a replica KFC. Yeah, like a replica KFC. Because you were saying there's a lot of off brands. So when you show up to school.

Like, does someone, oh, you have a MacDonald's burger. And I have, oh, you have Illinois fried chicken. I got a Kentucky fried chicken. From my experience, everybody loved the off-fronts. Okay. We might have even loved it more than the actual thing. Okay. Yeah, we loved it.

There was an intimacy there, you know. KFC felt corporate, which isn't a mad thing. We still enjoy the experience. But the off-run KFC was run by like a mom and pop. You know, they were in the back front of the chicken, and they came to the front to do your order. So everyone loved it. I definitely loved that.

That's cool. Yeah. Stories from China, oh, makes me happy just telling these stories. How hard would it be to revisit China? Would it be easy for you now? Is it? I believe so.

I believe so, because I am going back to see family this year, later this year. I haven't been in a while, actually. I do feel Chinese culture moves really fast. I've noticed this. ever since I came to the West, like, I'll leave for two years,

and then I'll get in contact with my Chinese friends, and all of a sudden, I don't know what people are saying. There's new catchphrase coming up. There's new expressions. The new hot thing has changed. You know, people wear different clothes now. People play different games now. So I have felt like you can lose touch very fast.

And now I do, I do feel when I go back to China, I don't know any of the popular movies. I don't know any of the popular activities people do. There's a weird, like, feeling. like I'm an outsider now. But oh well, I'm an immigrant, so I guess that kind of, that's fair. And as a kid growing up in China,

how was the general quality of life there? Because you said there all the pressures that the kids see. I also heard, I don't know what it was from, but I think it was like a clip from a podcast where they were saying that, I don't want to say the word, but like when you end your own life,

those rates are extremely high. I don't know if the statistic is true, in certain situations where the child is facing a ton of pressure from their parents to perform well. And they feel inadequate. Was the general quality of life and consensus amongst kids in China good, positive? Yes. Yes. Because when I think back of my life, and I don't know, I guess you could call me an average kid until I immigrated.

My memories are good. I could also be lucky in the way that academics seem easy to me, like math and all that came easy to me. But I do remember things were very good. I remember appreciation was the thing. And that's a very interesting concept I've kind of realized talking to other people's of international origins.

And it's kind of like the glass, half empty glass, half full question. It's, there is a definitive answer. It is the journey from where you came. So like the definitive answer, of that question is if you have a full glass and you pour half it out it is now half empty if you have an empty glass you fill half of it it is now half full so how that relates to us is for my grandpa grandma my mom and dad and me to come from a time where it was difficult to eat to a time where everyone had clothed and we're like we've got school to go to and we got books to

read and we can eat whenever we want to me being born and my life was absolutely luxury. I could eat meat every day. Like, this is, oh, people understate this, but it was a big deal. It was a very, very big deal that I can eat meat every day. And the fact that I got some mass on me, I'm not skinny. That was a great thing that we very, very much appreciated. So my memory growing up is my grandma would sing songs in the kitchen about the government

because, you know, she had food and all of those great things that, like, people in a better situation may take for granted. And so I think that answers that question. It's because we have seen such great growth and such great progress that we really appreciate everything we had. And we were happy. I was happy anyway. Yeah, of course my experience doesn't speak for everyone's experience.

It's an interesting analogy. That's where you come from. Yeah. Cool. I like it. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it. enjoyed this. Yeah, that was legendary.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, man. I can't believe I'm going to be on your channel. Wow. That's crazy today. Yes, we did it. All right, man.

Thank you. No emotional damage. Thank you guys so much for watching if you've made it this far. Feel free to add me on Instagram. Also check out, of course, subscribe. All of his links are going to be posted down below. With that, say, you guys.

Public.com slash gram. Pretty. When you make a deposit. See you. Cheers. man I love