2024 Reflections & Resolutions: Out with 2023!
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I think because I have a lot of me time, my personal time, I can do whatever I want and need to learn how to spend time with myself. So I think for me is to embracing the solitude has become a valuable aspect of life. After I moved to Singapore where I left the substantial social circle and this experience has propelled me to appreciate and make the most of my own company. It's very significant personal revelation

Welcome to Cultural Coalition: Beiqiang Nandiao. I'm Victoria. I'm EJ. As the year draws to a close, join us on this special year-end reflection and New Year episode of Cultural Coalition. We are here to guide you through a thoughtful journey of introspection, celebrate,

in the highlights and navigating the lessons that sharing our personal goals in 2024. So starting with reflections in 2023, what culture discovery stood out to you the most this year? And how did it impact your perspective, EJ? So for me, I think probably the biggest thing is coming back

Like living in the Midwest for a whole year. I think since graduating from high school, this is the most amount of time that I've spent being back in the Midwest. Even though I grew up here, having spent so much time away coming back, there was definitely a lot of different culture shock.

I think especially the city that I'm in is it is a major city, but it's not as big as maybe like a New York or Boston or an LA. And so it has like,

this small, big city feel, but it's also a huge college town. And so that has been interesting for me being in a place where, you know, it's a small city with like this growing international sensibilities and there's rising immigrant and refugee populations, which means there's a lot more internationality. And so the way that I've really been able to explore that the most surprisingly is that

There's a lot of great food here. And so being able to go to different places and trying food from Somalia or from different parts of the Middle East or the Mediterranean, having access to

A lot of different cuisines has really made that exciting for me. Also, there's a lot of art that has been coming out. And so I've been able to explore a lot through art in that way. And I'm actually looking forward to going to an upcoming...

on African film. So for me, even though I'm in a place that I think a lot of people don't view as really being sort of a place where a lot of different cultures exist, it's actually been really surprising at how diverse and international coming home has been for me. What about you? For me, I think it's definitely the culture difference is I moved to Singapore in March, right?

And I realized I traveled to Singapore about like 10 years ago and I didn't have a lot of understanding of like Singapore as a country. And it's not a tourist place, nothing much you can do here. It's a very small island. But I feel there have been

harmonious cultural experience is very interesting because there are a lot of people from China from Malay like Chinese people Malay Indian uh you're Asian and different communities is very interesting and they also have

some culture with multi-ethnic diversity. So from food to culture and to religions. It's very interesting, like in Singapore, every year they have like around 11 days public holiday. And how they do this public holiday is actually they buy the different cultures. So for example, each culture, they have two days leave. For Chinese people, we have Chinese New Year for two days leave. For other ethnic groups,

We have, for example, Christmas, we have Haya Raya, have Deepavali. So it's very interesting to celebrate together and you're seeing a lot, especially the location of Singapore. People from the Southeast Asia, from Asia, and also there are people from Europe to travel to Singapore. Most people love it because it's all year summer. And...

For me, it definitely brings different cultures. Even though the majority of the population is Chinese, 70% of the population are Chinese. They're Malay Chinese or Chinese Chinese. So...

It's definitely something different, but not like sounds as interesting as yours. Cause you are talking about like refugee and Somalia, like food. I was like, wow, that's interesting. How do you find the food? Do you really enjoy? Like it's a new experience, right? Yes. The food is really good. It's really, really good. There's a couple of different markets that have, uh,

like a bunch of different vendors. So they all share one big space. It's like a big food hall. And so there's, it's literally like you walk around the building and you're traveling the world because each area, each corner has food from different places. It's yeah. It's really, really good. I was, yeah, I guess I can't say that I was surprised because I didn't know what to expect, but it, I mean, it's definitely something that I continue. I plan to continue eating. Yeah.

For sure. Yeah. Also, interestingly enough, you mentioned religions. It's Sunday. And so actually every Sunday, right behind my house where I live, there's an Ethiopian church. And so there's tons of Ethiopian families that come to my neighborhood to go to this church behind. And one time I was like in my yard, like,

you know, picking up trash and things like that. And I found this like long piece of paper and it had a bunch of writing on it. And I had no idea what it was. And so fortunately technology is pretty cool nowadays. You can like hold your camera up to it and Google can tell you what it is.

And I was like, oh, it's Ethiopian script. And so, yeah, it's really cool. I would never expect that in my neighborhood there would be a whole church dedicated just to an Ethiopian community, especially here in Ohio. So, yeah, it's really, really fascinating. Definitely much more diverse than what I remember it being when I was growing up here. When you grew up here, when was that? 15 years ago?

Before you went to college, right? Yeah, yeah. 15 years ago was the last time I was here. Back then, the culture is more like just like American culture, like Chinese American, African American, like Caucasian culture, right? It doesn't have like people from all over the world, especially from different countries in Africa. Yeah, I mean, we didn't even have like, and at least in my school, I think we might have had like, I don't think there were any Chinese American students at my school.

We had like one Korean American student and we had like a few Indian American students, but everyone else was either white or black. And that's it. So now it's like,

you know, literally people from all over the world. So it's, in one way, I feel like it's a good thing, right? Like, it's great to have diversity. On the other hand, it also makes me think of, like, what has happened in the world to make, you know, that happen. Obviously, if it's a lot of refugees, then, like, I'm glad that they have found a safe place to live, but it's also because, right, they had to, like, flee or leave where they were before. So it's, like,

good and bad in a way. Yeah. Depending on how you look at it. Yeah, definitely. For refugees, like they left their home and they have no choice, right? And they move to the US looking for something new, starting something new. For the people live in the US, for you is something new culture, new food, new perspectives. For them is they have, they have to do that. Okay. So speaking of the conversations we had this year, we already have

have 13 episodes in 2023. Which guest conversation resonated with you and what insights did it bring to your understanding of diverse perspectives? I think for me, the conversation that I find myself going back to the most is the conversation that we had with Andrea. I just thought it was so interesting how

she was able to see that like stories show up in all aspects of life, right? Like whether it is in the stories that she was doing with her students, the stories that she's doing in her business and like, oh,

all of the hidden meanings behind it, how stories have shown up in her personal, like, relationships with people. I just, I find that perspective and that view on life really interesting, and it makes me think, you know, I don't know, I'm someone who, like, one day hopefully also wants to do, get into writing, and I would love to be able to write my own life story. And so it makes me think about, right, even in, like, the smallest moments of life, there are all of these cool, interesting connections that can come together.

come out of it if you take time and reflect it. And so, yeah, I've been thinking a lot about, I don't know, there's the moment where she spoke specifically about that sense of, like, wanting to be destroyed and be the destroyer. And that's also something that I've been coming back to. I think that's such a powerful...

uh image to come up with and i don't know if i've necessarily felt that way myself in terms of relationship but it's definitely something that i think is um i don't know worth considering and i'm and i'm definitely trying to see whether or not as someone who is trying to go out and maybe date a little bit more and put myself out there i'm definitely thinking about you know

what situation would I feel so strongly about someone to feel that way? So I really appreciated a lot of her reflections and what came out of that conversation. Yeah, after the conversation was, our conversation with Andrea, I also can feel like

you and her have some something in common like you both love reading and you and her know some common friends and you both love reading and maybe writing in the future yeah that's quite interesting how we connect with people like how we find out that people are so kind like are all connected to each other mm-hmm

I think for me, our conversations with each guest, I really appreciate the diverse perspective and lifestyle they bring.

and live one life. But our aim is to showcase the various ways people can lead theirs, expanding our understanding for different experiences. And the one conversation was Wei, really. I feel struck a chord with me, I think because we share a similar background. We both grew up in Beijing and then moved out to different places. We met in Hong Kong and she lives in Australia right now.

was fascinating to connect with someone who, like myself, and we don't adhere to a traditional ambitious life goals, but rather chooses to follow the heart's calling. And her insights reinforce the beauty in embracing a more intuitive, a purpose-driven approach to life, emphasizing the diverse paths individuals can take to find fulfillment and meaning. So I highly recommend people

living in your own country and you don't have a really strong life goal and to listen to that episode to that episode that is in chinese okay speaking of literature right can you share a book uh or piece of literature movie or maybe even a show that left

a lasting impression on you this year and why? I've been reading a lot. I've been watching a lot of things. One thing that I have watched that I think is such a great depiction of life's relationships and how they overlap and intersect and the tensions and challenges that come up in different types of relationships. I think particularly

when a relationship begins to evolve and it maybe starts as one type of relationship and then moves into a different type of relationship. There's this really great television show on Netflix called Easy. And I think that there are maybe two or three seasons in it.

And each season has different types of relationships that are featured in it. So some of them are romantic. Some of them are professional. Some of them are like within family. Some of them are between friends. But they all show the challenges that each of these relationships go through. And what's fascinating about the way that it's filmed is that it's filmed like it's sort of like a documentary film.

sort of. And the couples are all living in the same place and their lives interact, but they don't really know each other. So I thought it was a really great series. There's the

a family that is really religious. There's an episode about these neighbors that have a neighborhood watch. And there's also a couple that decides to open up their marriage and what happens when like one of them is really into it and one of them isn't. And so I just thought it was a really fascinating show. And so I think if you're really interested in seeing the nuances and the complexities of different types of relationships, I would highly recommend this.

this show. It's a drama. It's more like a drama comedy type of a show. Speaking of relationship, I read a book. It's very interesting because a friend of mine, like a colleague, recommended a book. She has a book list. So I went through her book list and there is a book called Attached.

So it calls a different type of attached to the in the relationship. But that was the book I make a big impression on me is the other book. It called The Perfect Marriage. And at the beginning, I thought this is also a psychology book and how to teach people to make a perfect marriage. And then is actually a fiction. It's quite interesting. Like from the beginning to the end is was so different. So I was like amazed by how I tell the story.

So the girl, the woman in the book, she is a criminal defense attorney.

She has a very successful career. She's a workaholic. And she and her husband seems like a perfect marriage. In a perfect marriage, her husband was cheating on her. And they have a house nearby a lake. Her husband was cheating on a young woman who's also married. And this woman, she actually knows that all the time. And

And she decided to do something. So one day after they cheated in the house and the next day, the girl was murdered. And then there was a whole investigation around who killed the girl. That was very interesting story. I can't stop reading. I think I finished the book like one or two days. So that was the last impression for me, even though I read a lot of books this year, but that book is really amazing.

That sounds like it could definitely be a TV show or a movie. Yeah, it is. It's quite interesting because they have different suspects and the police was doing investigation and even the ending is not something you can guess. I might have to read that next. I'm going to see if I can find it. I have the e-book so I can send it to you if you want to read. Okay, that would be great. Still a relationship-related question. So reflect on a cultural collision with relationships.

What challenges surfaced and how did you navigate them? I would say one challenge that I feel like has been surfaced with me, I actually had a friend message me or he didn't message me. We were talking, we haven't talked in a really long time. And he was like, oh, like,

everyone's been asking, like, how have I been since I moved back to the U.S.? And he's like, yeah, no one's really heard from you. And what I have found is that I think it's been really challenging moving back to the U.S. and trying to, like, build a new life for myself here while figuring out how to maintain the relationships from, like,

the previous life that I had before when I was, you know, not here. And it's been hard because it's not that I don't necessarily want to maintain those friendships or those relationships with different people. I think one of it is that I'm a little overwhelmed. There are so many people, you know, I had like a lot of

of different types of friends before in the community that I had. And so I think for me, the big challenge is that like, I think I've changed enough in terms of like what my goals are and sort of what my sort of day-to-day life is and sort of what my lifestyle is that I feel like

it's not really, it's not similar to who I was before. And sometimes I worry, will people get me? Will people understand me, right? Is the person I am now who they remember me to be? And so I think I have to work through that

The sort of anxiety around how do I show up as myself to people who know me and remember me differently? And I don't really have an answer to it yet. I think I just have to like start making some phone calls and reaching out to people. It's been colliding because I think that, or the collision rather is that

I'm finding that I'm like at a loss for words, which feels odd for people who I was once so close with. And so I have to figure out how do I get the language back to reach out. But yeah, that's definitely something that I have been struggling with. I don't have a good answer for how to fix it. I remember when I had a conversation

with our common friend Elaine. So for you and her, I think share the same similar experience. So moving out of the home country for about a decade. And then when you

go back to your home country or visit friends, then you are, you already become a different person. But you still have the same you in, in you, right? When they know you maybe 10 or 15 years ago. It's hard to maintain the relationship and also people are on different phase of their life. So,

That's a question I think is for me is also for relationship with the friend, especially in our last episode, Jimmy talked about, even though as friends, we have the situation ship, we especially for me. And also, I feel like I move after I moved to Singapore, I need to start to making new friends, all my friends back in China, I need to keep a long distance relationship friendship with them. I think that's quite challenging.

And also making new friends is challenging as well. So for me last year, I was in a very supportive mood. So I broke up with my ex and my friends all over around is so supportive and I can talk to them wherever I want. And I hang out with them a lot. Then after a while, I moved to a new country. Also, I have a lot of me time.

So how I use this me time, how I maintain the relationship with my friends back home and how I make new friends, I think it's very challenging. I like the word that you use, like long distance friendships. You know, I feel like we normally talk about like long distance boyfriend or girlfriend, but long distance friendships are hard. Like sometimes I feel like most of my friendships are long distance now, you know, and like it's really exhausting to maintain friendships.

So many in different places. Yeah. I'm resonating with a lot of what you said. It's hard. And especially if something happened to them, right? We are... It's similar with long-distance relationship because we are in different place. I cannot...

give you a hug. I cannot go out with you, but only we can do is to listen to you. So what I did is I offer once in a while, I check in with them and to ask them if you have time to do a video call. So I think that's the best thing I can do for the friends like in China or in the US. So I try to keep this relationship. I think every relationship

takes efforts. Otherwise, it's really hard to maintain. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, it's interesting that you said that, you know, part of it we were just talking about is that

you know, we've grown as people. And I would imagine that, you know, our friends too, you know, they're also growing and they're also in different stages of your life. So how have you seen personal growth in your life this year? And what strategies do you plan to implement for continued development in the upcoming year? It also connect with my answer for last questions. I think because I have a lot of me time or personal time, I can do whatever I want and need to learn how to

spend time with myself. So I think for me is to embracing the solitude has become a valuable aspect of my life. After I moved to Singapore, where I lacked the substantial social circle, and this experience has propelled me to appreciate and make the most of my own company. It's very significant personal renovation

I think for next year, I might want to make some changes, whether in my living situation where I live or my lifestyle. I want to, with a steadfast commitment to preserving, also enhance the quality of me time. So for this year, the me time is I trying to figure out things I think a lot and I read a lot.

So for next year, I want to maybe go out there, talk to friends, at the same time to try to improve the me time, the quality of me time. And that's something we should, especially when we're at the, maybe in the 30s, I think we're going to have a lot of me time and we need to know how to maximize the me time and to improve ourselves. How about you? Yeah, I definitely think there's some overlap.

I, you know, since moving back have been in my house, I've been spending a lot of time like nesting and being a homebody and like making my house a home, which has been really exciting. But the trade off has meant that I spend a lot of time in my house and with my dogs and I don't go out as much.

So I've had a lot of me time and I've really appreciated a lot of me time, as you said. I think for me, the challenge in having so much me time is that I am used to being so busy. And so it always felt uncomfortable for me to have so much rest time.

I had so much downtime and I would have to say like, well, shouldn't I be doing something? Shouldn't I be working out or shouldn't I be working on a project or shouldn't I be doing X, Y, and Z things? And so I really learned to appreciate having that rest. And so I think that's growth in me and not freaking out when I don't have as many things to do. I think though, moving forward, I think a big thing for me is sort of really meditating on this idea that like,

I don't know, sometimes for me, doing difficult or challenging things that are really effortful, I don't want to do them. And sometimes there are things that, like, I need to do that are, like, I don't know, maybe having a better eating or exercise routine, right? Starting new routines like that can be really challenging, but I need to do those things. Where there are other things that are maybe really difficult or challenging, like, I don't know, maintaining balance.

you know, the job that I have. It's a lot of work and it's really tiring. And that's something that I don't know. I don't necessarily have to do, but maybe I want to do because it allows me to maintain a certain way of living. And so I think next year, I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking about, okay, yes, I can do hard things, but I don't have to. So what are the things that I like I need to do versus the things that I don't

need to do so I have energy and space to do the hard things that I want to do. So since we're talking about like our personal growth in 2023, I also wonder if there's something you regret or want to redo in 2023. Okay, I have two answers to this. I would say, I don't know if there are things that I...

like, regret regret that I, like, really think badly about. But I would say that there are a couple of things that I would redo if I could. One thing is that

My siblings and I had originally planned on celebrating the holidays together this year because last year we didn't get a chance to. And I've mentioned on the podcast earlier that one of my siblings is pretty sick. So part of the idea was that all of us could get together and like celebrate because we haven't been able to celebrate the holidays altogether anymore.

well, 10 years. So I was a little disappointed and bummed because I went home for Thanksgiving this year, but my other brother didn't show up. So if I could redo that, I think I would maybe take more initiative to plan and organize something for all of us. We're going to try to do something in January, but

We'll see what happens. Maybe January, the new year will be a good time for me to like take ownership over that and like organize something for all of us together. The other small, smaller thing that I wish, you know, there's that phrase or that saying, like, you miss every shot you don't take or something like that. I don't know if you know that one.

basically means like you need to shoot your shot. And I feel like when it comes to romance, I constantly cock block myself. Like I get too nervous and anxious and I don't shoot my shot. And I think that in this past year, I probably have had a lot of opportunities to make a lot of great connections with people, but I didn't shoot my shot. So I think moving forward, I definitely want to shoot my shot a lot more. What about you? That was great.

great things like it's not something you regret it's something you want redo or like in the next year you can you already know if you're in the same situation you want to do differently for me i really cannot think something i regret or i want to redo it's not it's not because of like i did everything right it's just i the things i want to do i really tried and whether the results are like were bad or good i think i tried different things i really

I travel a lot this year and I follow my heart and I moved to Singapore. And I cannot say I enjoy my job very much, but I also don't want to be a workaholic. So I enjoy the balance this work has been brought to me.

So it's I want to say is I really appreciate like when I think about this what things I regret in this year. So when I think about this I really appreciate like the things I did this year and I hope like I can be the same in next year is nothing I will regret or I want to redo for 2024. That's a hope. Yeah. Okay. Since we have our regrets so what's our goal in 2024? My goal I think my

My big goal is to, yeah, go out there. I think I've been really fortunate that

And, like, coming home and having this homecoming that I've really been able to nest and really reground myself and really think about my values and who the... Like, who I want to be as a person moving forward. I think now I have a pretty good idea. I feel pretty secure in myself and what I want to do, whether that's professionally or personally or romantically. And so I think my goal or...

My goal for next year really is to explore.

I think that I've spent this last year sort of in repair, in rehabilitation, and working on myself. And I think now I want to go out and explore. So I'm going to say maybe explore will be my guiding word for 2024. Yeah, what about you? I like yours. I think I have a similar one for 2024. So I spent the whole year to try to know myself, to understand me individually.

as a from different perspective because we don't really know ourselves because we are the people who see us who we are right so i i don't see i i can't say i understand 100 of myself but i think my goal next year is also to explore the things i really want to do by doing things different different things by minimize the things we don't like

Because I think people are like so difficult, so difficult to know what we like, what we want in our life. So you have to try different things, right? So it's similar, very similar to your word explore. So just try different things and to really know what you don't like. You have very strong, we have very strong opinion for things we don't like, for people we don't like. But we don't have very strong opinion

prospect on things we like. Like in a job perspective, in the people relationship, friendship perspective, we endure a lot. I remember the conversation we had with Jackie. Remember, we're talking about our endurance for a job, right? For people. We have both very tall, like high tolerance. So that's the things we can differentiate with other people. So like we need to use the things we hate, we don't like to do to

do to explore and to know ourselves better. Yeah, I really appreciate that idea of like minimizing the things that we dislike because obviously you can't, right? We can't get rid of those things that we hate or dislike completely, but we can definitely try to minimize the space that they take up in our life so we have room for the things that we do want. I really like that. Okay, so our final question goes out to our listeners. Your input is invaluable to us. We genuinely care about your opinions.

How can cultural collision enhance your experience in this upcoming year? Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas for future episodes. Leave your comments with us, and we read and appreciate every single one. As we bid farewell to this year, let's carry the wisdom gained and the cultural insights discovered into the new one.

Thank you for being a part of our Cultural Collision community. We can't wait to embark on another year of exploration, understanding, and connection with you. Wish you a happy new year to our incredible podcast community. As the clock strikes midnight, may the coming year be fulfilled.

with new adventures, fresh insights, and boundless joy. Thank you for being a vital part of our journey. Here's to another year of exploration, learning, and shared culture collisions. Cheers to 2023 and welcome 2024. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.