Season 4 kicks off with a Summer Special Series from Shanghai: In Context with Anita Xu- "Why Risk It?” It’s an intimate conversation between digital marketing professional Anita Xu and her college buddy Xu He. Xu He chose to become an entrepreneur after feeling unfulfilled in his first few jobs after graduating from a top journalism university ...…

What makes people in China laugh? Why would they spend time and money to go to a stand-up act by an American comedian in Beijing? And, who is he? This is story about an American scholar turned comedian who dedicates his life to bringing Chinese and Americans together through humor and laughter. Music Used: Brad McCarthy's One in a Billion Theme ...…

What is love about? Can you show gratitude without spending or giving money? Can you show care without sacrificing your passion? To truly show gratitude, must you also sacrifice? With these questions in mind, I interviewed Jinzhao (JZ) Wang, a 28 year old Chinese American a few months ago. JZ told me she can’t fully enjoy what gives her pleasur ...…

Are you the person you or your parents want to be? Is your personal dream inseparable from your parents? Can it be? Should it be? That is Angela’s agony. How does she navigate around a set of cultural expectations to create her own path? Check out my interview with Angela Tang, a rising senior at Williams College, in Episode #3 “This Chinese Li ...…

What does it mean to be Chinese? 415 million Chinese millennials in China wrestle with crushing pressure to live up to a cultural identity and societal ideal. What are they? How do they cope? What are their biggest fears? Check out Part 2 of my interview with author/public speaker Zak Dychtwald “This Chinese Life: What does it mean to be Chines ...…

He grew up in a predominantly white suburban town in California. His parents would take him travelling around the world for work since he was a child. Then one day, he stumbled upon a movie - “Enter the Dragon” (starring Bruce Lee) that would strike his fancy about another world - China. That’s where Zak Dychtwald decided to go right after he g ...…

An unexamined life is not worth living. What leads one to examine one’s life? A surprise setback? An unforgettable encounter? An ongoing desire? All of these experiences tend to re-emerge or surge in our memory as we look back on 2017. In this last episode of Season 2 “Reflections on 2017: What’s Weighing on My Mind,” we listen to three compell ...…

She carries the good genes of music and science from the family. Her grandmothers are physics professors in China, one of them plays the piano as a child. Her father is a computer scientist, her mother is a medical scholar. Yet, she struggled to learn the piano as a child. Her head was bored from slavishly following the sheet music. And her hea ...…

Kira Omans was just four months when she was abandoned in a public walkway near a bridge in Zhongshan, China. Not only was she discovered and adopted to begin a new life in America, she would go on to become Miss Pacific Asian American (2015), a model, dancer, and an actress with her first lead in a new feature film “Shoes.” How did she get bac ...…

What would you do when someone tries to break you down, yelling at you saying “You’re the worst!?” What would you do when no one believes in your startup idea, saying “it’s too idealistic. It’s never going to work!?” What would you do when you face humiliating questions and intense scrutiny in front of millions of TV viewers? Listen to Part 2 o ...…

What would you do when you hit a storm in the middle of climbing to the mountain top? Would you stop? Would you keep going? She would keep climbing. What would you do when your parents want you to marry a doctor or a lawyer, go to Harvard or Stanford? She would rebel. She would choose a different path, become an army officer and an entrepreneur ...…

In America, the freedom of speech a First Amendment right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The right to speak our mind is not only valued in the American culture but expected in our liberal democratic society where voices are votes. The American electoral process expects it, and American citizens demands it. But what happens when the culture ...…

It sounds like a simple question, “Are you Chinese?” But why would someone ask it? And what makes it difficult for someone to answer it? Eric Liao, our blogger/podcast intern at One in a Billion, started writing a blog about this question a month ago. When I first read it, it overwhelmed me with provocative ideas and perplexing analogies, and m ...…

How often do you hear these questions - “How high have you scored? How many hours do you work? How much have you done?” Quantity is, of course important. It is a metric of output or outcome. We live in a results-driven economy that relies on quantifiable data to measure growth and success. But that alone can’t be enough to define the meaning an ...…

This year, I’ve promised my husband to be in Boston for Christmas and New Year. For the first time, it hit me how important it is to him that we celebrate Christmas, not in New York, or in Hong Kong (my hometown), but Cambridge our new home. I realize that his heart is forming roots to this place we’ve settled down for more than two years now. ...…

What Makes You Different? How often do you feel different from your peers in America? Under what circumstances do you find your values at odds with your immediate cultural environment? How do you assert your sense of uniqueness? Listen to our latest podcast episode “What Makes You Different?” Twin sisters Chellie and Sara Zou narrate their blog ...…

The first time I wanted to deny that I was Chinese, I was 17 years old facing another 17 year-old. She was tall, blonde and huge from Chicago. “Where are you from?” She taunted me as I was sitting quietly in the corner, watching with wide-eyed wonder every teenage girl dancing up a storm on a chair or on a table. It was our Friday night “break ...…

Snap Judgments. Stereotypes. Implicit Bias. They exist everywhere, across and beyond Harvard. When I was a graduate student in the Regional Studies East Asia Program, I had experienced attitudes and comments that were sprinkled with presumptions from faculty and administrators whom I thought, would or should know to suspend judgment before they ...…

I spent most of my 20s pretending that I had no fears. Fears are messy. They mess up my optimism, my can-do spirit, they hold me back. I turned a blind eye to them so they wouldn’t slow me down. I realized that I had chosen a career, television news, that is relentlessly fast-paced and fiercely competitive especially in America’s top media town ...…

Before I launched my media startup in 2012, I never imagined that one day, I would form a company to create a digital platform for young people from China and America to share personal stories and to build a network community. That was a quantum leap from my job for decades as a TV journalist writing and producing for American network news in N ...…

Finding Love in America: Are You the One? Since I began dating seriously in my 30s, I found myself often asking if the guy I was seeing at the time was “the one” I wanted to settle down with for the rest of my life. Frankly, I was less “husband hunting” than on the lookout for a devoted life partner in a committed relationship. To me, devotion, ...…

What do you look for when you are seeking “the one?” I believe the answer lies mainly in when you are looking and why. When I was in my 20s, dating in America was a form of self-discovery. “The one” was usually someone, Chinese or non-Chinese, who opened my eyes to something new, something fun and exciting, something profound and intriguing. Th ...…

If you are a parent, what does your child’s name say about you? In America, most parents pick a name that reflects the femininity of a girl, the strength of a boy, or their own personality and individuality. In China, a child’s name often embodies the parents’ hopes and dreams. They are idealistic and aspirational. If you want your son to aim a ...…

Muyi Xiao first caught my eye with her urgently captivating photo collection titled “Married Young.” It’s a story about teenage parents in China. One photo shows a 16 year-old mother, gazing adoringly at the sleeping infant in her arms. Another photo caption says Jian and Mei are expecting a baby in a few months. They were 15 and 16 when they g ...…

I saw Mojia Shen for the first time in a YouTube video G(irls) 2015 summit after a friend told me she would make a great interview for my new podcast, One in a Billion. The minute she started talking, I was intrigued. Her voice is strong, earnest and engaging. How did she develop such a passionate persona, speaking directly to camera in English ...…

A 16 year-old girl from Hebei province decides to come to America after spending nine years at a Chinese army youth school. She is 21 years old now. A rising junior at Wellesley College and a budding social entrepreneur, Mojia Shen calls herself a “Made in China robot turned creative human.” One In A Billion is a platform about this rising gene ...…