Olivia Xing is an actress, standup comedian, artist and student based in LA, and she recently did a one-hour comedy special called Party School where she told jokes about China, the US, politics in both countries, and the immigrant experience. 00:00 Teaser 00:44 Intro 02:48 How Olivia got started with her Party School comedy special 08:19 Chinese d…

Indigo was co-founder of Sina Weibo, or China’s Twitter. After Weibo, he started doing angel investments and incubating new projects. One of his main investments included the largest off-line art selling platform in China. Recently he got into the world of web3 and NFT. He writes a blog about frontier tech, and teaches online courses on stock inves…

Peng Dang is a standup comedian based in Texas. Peng moved to the US from China in his twenties, speaks absolutely impeccable English, and more importantly, tells jokes like a local pro. I find his sets funny, educational, and wholesome. I’m not sure if a comedian wants to hear their jokes described as “wholesome,” but I mean that as a compliment. …

Amy Yu is a bilingual standup comedian based in Canada. We talked about how standup comedy changed her life, how she thinks about telling jokes in Chinese vs telling in English, and how to properly tell a dirty joke. I also had a pretty serious debate with her about the role of artificial intelligence in comedy. 0:00 Amy’s standup set 01:04 Debatin…

Dan Chan is a magician that has performed at corporate events at fortune 100 companies and lavish parties hosted by celebrities. He recently got to perform for Elon Musk at the PayPal 20-year reunion party, hosted by Peter Thiel. Prior to his illusionist career, he was an employee at PayPal, where he met Thiel. Dan has also been grooming his 14-yea…

Alec Sorensen is a career coach who helps people take action on life-changing business ideas they've been putting off. Alec is also a follower of the Mormon church, a Japan-living American at one point, a California-to-Texas transplant, among other things. We discussed how he got into career coaching, his faith, cultural shocks in Japan, why he mov…

(Episode in Mandarin) Karol Guan is an entrepreneur. This interview was recorded in Nov 2020. At the time she was co-founder of HelloAva.co, a startup that recommends skin care products based on a combination of AI and doctors. Karol studied Fashion/Apparel design at Parsons School of Design in New York City. We discussed how the 2020 Covid both he…

Erin Cuellar is Director of Operations at STERIS, a manufacturer of medical devices. At the time of the interview, she was senior operations manager at the same company, and her role was essentially that of a plant manager. Her responsibilities included supervising teams, managing KPIs, and maintaining quality controls. Erin comes from a very diffe…

Bruce Wang is a Chinese cowboy. Not an ethnically Chinese person that was born in Texas, but someone born and bred in Yunnan, China. He came to the US as a college student. He adopted a Southern accent, started dressing like a cowboy, and started making videos about how cowboys spend their time. We talked about why he decided to become a cowboy, wh…

By Richard Yan

By Richard Yan

John Stevenson is a Black American who grew up home-insecure, but later graduated valedictorian of his high school. He went to Dartmouth and later graduated from the Political Science program at the University of Chicago. He now owns a yoga studio, does contracts for various government agencies. And he has ambitions to run for governor of Maryland.…

On today's Chinatown 2.0, I speak with Ellen Lee Zhou, or 李爱晨, a two-time candidate for San Francisco mayor, in 2018 and 2019. She ran as a conservative in a city where the mayor had been a Democrat for the last half a century. On top of her “non-mainstream” political ideologies, she had zero experience holding public office and raised very little …

Lin Yang is a grassroot political organizer who also works in tech. Lin had a full-time job working for Howard Schultz, helping him explore a presidential run. For those unaware, Howard Schultz was the founder and previous CEO for Starbucks. Lin also participated in campaigns for President Obama and Senator Ted Lieu from California. He also worked …

Wei Luo quit his software engineering job to become a contractor in 2006. After 14 years, he had a business (based in San Francisco Bay Area) consisting of 50+ employees and multiple business lines, including home renovation, interior design, cabinetry and appliances. Wei shared with us how he persuaded his parents to pursue a new career with seemi…

Jie Zhang has been an instructor, administrator and leader of American education institutions for more than three decades. She began her career teaching math to prisoners on Rikers Island (New York). Her most well-known positions included principal of the Ivy League feeder Stuyvesant High School, and principal of the now Chinese company-owned New Y…

Morgan Jones is a Black American that previously spent six years in China as a radio host, movie production assistant and EMBA English teacher. He is a “Chinese son-in-law” (中国女婿), a self-described Tiger Dad (“虎爸”) and a fluent Mandarin speaker. He got his EMBA from Cornell and bachelors from Middlebury College, or 明德大学 in Chinese. This episode was…

Professor Anne Chao is a Chinese modern historian that lectures at Rice University. She is also manager of the Houston Asian American Archive, an oral history archive that looks to document the challenges faced and contributions made by the Asian American community. As the daughter of a Taiwanese diplomat, Anne moved between Congo, Australia, Washi…

Rui Ma is an investment banker (Morgan Stanley) turned VC (500 Startups) turned podcast host (Tech Buzz China). Her show covers current tech trends in China, with a focus on power players such as ByteDance and Alibaba. Her diaspora journey included a childhood in the China countryside, college and grad school education in the US, a career of financ…

Jing Cheng is the co-founder and CEO of the largest North American Children's Chinese magazine, Pipa Magazine. She shares her inspirations for starting the publication, the challenges of running the business of print media against digital headwinds, and her philosophy and suggestions for Chinese immigrants raising bilingual kids. To learn more abou…

Sixiang Wang is an assistant professor in Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA, specializing in Korea’s premodern history. He speaks fluent mandarin, writes Chinese poems and is well-versed in China's history and culture. Sixiang described his journey of attempting to self-distance from his Chinese identity to embracing and mastering the language a…

Nuo Yan is a Tokyo-based software architect. He was previously based in Seattle and San Francisco, and was founding engineer at multiple tech startups, one of which was acquired by Pinterest. Nuo discussed his philosophy of avoiding shortcuts in software design and implementation, the purpose of life as completing a journey instead of checking boxe…

Jingzhu Yang started her PR company AmeriChina to bring Chinese companies to high-end and exclusive American events, such as Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and charity dinners with ex US presidents. In the peak year of her business, the company made revenues of 10M RMB (1.5M USD). Jingzhu covered these topics: * Why she started AmeriChina * AmeriCh…

Robbie Yan is cofounder of a quantitatively driven hedge fund based in China. We talked about the nature of quantitative investing, governmental efficiency in China and associated tradeoffs, argument for protection of privacy, China's startup scene, and more. Robbie shared with us: * What makes good quant traders * Mistakes that might occur in quan…