#121: Chinese Philosophy, Traditional Festivals, 4 Character Idioms and Podcast Lessons with Jay Yow
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Kia ora, ni hao and hello, welcome to the Chee Wee Journal podcast. I'm your host, Camille Yang. My guest today is Jay Yao. Jay is a recording and mixing engineer and a gamer. He was born in Malaysia and immigrated to America in his idol's year. Jay is currently the producer of one of my favorite podcasts, James Altucher Show.

In today's episode, we talked about Chinese philosophy, famous festivals, four-character idioms, and podcast lessons Jay learned from James' 700 guests. I hope you enjoy today's episode.

I also forgot. Do we do this in Mandarin? Oh, we do English. Okay. Yeah, I changed my focus. I'll produce more English content now. Do you like English content more? Or do you like... I mean...

I still write a newsletter in Chinese, but since I live in English-speaking countries, so I think it's better for me to use my content to reach out to people. I'm curious, which one do better? Is your Mandarin newsletter do better or is your English one do better? Because I started writing Chinese 20 years ago, so...

I already have a follower base and a reader. So at the moment, Chinese content definitely doing better. So English one, I only start my newsletter May this year and podcast only one month ago. Oh, the English podcast? Two months ago. Yeah, English podcast. Yeah. Is a newsletter, are they same content in different language or two different content? Two different content. Oh, wow. Yeah, because I do find...

the differences between Chinese reader and English reader. What are the differences? For my Chinese readers, they're more interested in my life experience as a Chinese people living overseas. Like I live in New Zealand, I live in the UK, now moved to Lisbon, Portugal. So they're very interested

keen to know what I'm up to and what tips I can give them as a solo traveler. Right. Yeah, it's kind of a lifestyle thing. Right. But for my English content, I want to focus more on culture observations. Oh,

Between East and West and philosophy. That's very smart. I think you are right. I think if you do for the Chinese one, why it did so well is also like a lot of people can't really travel outside of China or they don't want to

travel out of where they were. So like they just wanted to read what other people are experiencing. Or maybe you are so outgoing because a lot of the, most of the Chinese people, including me, we like to keep to ourselves. We didn't really go out. I didn't really go out to social as much as other people to party and stuff. So I guess like reading your blog is sort of the way they experience your lifestyle. And then you're right in a sense that like, I think English speaking people are a little bit more

curious about the difference culture yeah different the difference culture between like chinese the western and eastern culture yeah i'll say how how i'm going i'm currently attending a writing course by david perreo oh yeah i think he's on twitter he's quite active on twitter the writing guy the ultimate guide to writing right yeah yeah yeah i think one of the podcast episodes

was with a rabbi. Yeah, Rabbi David Wolff. Oh, James Orchard. He's a Jewish, right? Yeah, he is Jewish. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you can tell with the hair and the nose. Ha ha ha.

we make these jokes all the time it's a brand key dr brand is here don't brand kidding it's he is jewish as well that's why like i enjoy recording both of them recording because they both talk about jewish culture and jewish wisdom all the time i love listen to those episodes they're just like a friends chatting yeah yeah i felt like i felt like the podcast now is sort of involved involved in a way that like maybe just

Maybe just enjoy Listen to other people Talking About nothing You know Just like Seinfeld You know Yeah It's like a company shape Yeah Companion shape It is You just play Where you're probably Doing other stuff Then you listen to some Interesting conversations Yeah Yeah Because like If like documentary and stuff Then you have to sit down

and listen to it or watch it. You can't really do either thing because you want to focus on what you want to learn, you know? Yeah. Congrats on your podcast. Thank you. Shall we start with how James adapted you on straight? Yeah. The story. Yeah, James adapted me, yeah. Wait, wait, you want the fake story first or you want the real story first? No, no, no. We don't tell the listener which one is true. You tell two stories.

Yeah. We'll let them decide. Okay. So I'm going to tell two stories and your listener, yeah, you let them decide. So...

You know, I'm Malaysian. I have to build a raft and swim across the ocean to New York. You know, sit on the street. And I'm lucky enough to be able to get some money, back some money in front of James' apartment. And James looked at me like, oh, this dude looks interesting. Maybe I can teach him English.

and teach him some audio engineering. And then, yeah, that way he adopted me and I became his engineer. He taught me all the English words. He taught me the Jewish culture. He also taught me how to...

How to, you know, record stuff. So there's one story. And then I work on it. Yeah, the other story is, so like I've been doing audio engineering for my, pretty much my whole life. I started doing it since I was 18. I started in Malaysia, interning as a student and stuff. And then I realized, you know, I kind of wanted to see what other country can offer. So I applied to a college in Florida called Fusail University.

Yeah, so I went there. I went for school because school is...

Probably one of the easiest and best way for you to get into other country and get work. Yeah, exactly. That's how I went to New Zealand as an exchange student first. Oh, really? Yeah, it's a one-year program. So after I finished that one-year program, then I applied for master degree. That's how I stayed. In New Zealand? Yeah, in New Zealand. That's how I stayed. So you didn't have to go back to China? No, I can apply...

There, yeah. Because I was already there. Then the student center from my university, they offer some guidelines so I can just fill some forms, submit my scores. What about the changing visa? You have to change visa. Yeah, I need to change visa. Once I got my acceptance letter from university for my master's degree, then...

I'll apply for my student visa again. So it's different student visa. But do you have to leave the country and come back or? No. No. It's very easy. Yeah. That's so easy in New Zealand. Not in the States. I think in US, you have to leave and come back.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I think... That doesn't make sense. I don't know. Yeah, because I think you have to... Because you have to get the visa stamp. Oh, okay. Yeah. So you do have to go back to where you are. You just have to leave the country. Oh, I see. And then come back in. So you can go to like somewhere close, like maybe Canada and come back or something like that. But...

But yeah, so like being a student is the easiest way to open up the door for you in other countries. Yeah, so I came to Florida. I went there for school for a year and then...

I had a friend in New York, so I moved to New York. And I started working in this studio called Sweet Sound Studio. How I met James is purely coincidence and some sort of luck. I was working in a studio. James, producer, booked a studio for the show with Stephen Dabner. It's called Question of the Day. I don't know if you remember that. I don't know if you know about that. It's like a

Three or four years ago Yeah Yeah three or four years ago Yeah Maybe even longer Now it's 2021 So yeah They book a session there And then I'm like This is interesting And then James Somehow left

a block away from my studio. So he started booking the, booking my studio for, you know, his personal podcast for the James Hardwich Show. The first guest was Jesse Itzler. I don't know if you know Jesse Itzler. He came on like twice now. Cool. I told my studio manager, hey, I like these sessions. Can you keep booking me on them? So every time James,

contact us to book a sessions. I will be there to engineer his sessions. We started just a simple like recording sessions and then it became like, Hey, you know, like I can take picture for you. I can just do whatever you guys need to, because it will help with your social media. So I started taking picture for James for every, every guest. So we will record, we will come in with chat a little bit, we will record. And then I will start,

take a picture for James like hey this is yours do everything like so like sort of like over deliver a little bit and then after that my studio is closing because the boss doesn't want to do it anymore because it's really expensive to maintain a studio in New York because especially in New York yeah I the rent is about $35,000 that's right yeah $35,000

$35,000 a month. Oh, wow. And you can only, yeah, and you can only charge maximum $120 an hour. Yeah, so that's, unless your studio is fully booked 24-7, you can't really pay back the money. Yeah, it's too much money. So like, they're just like, yeah, quote, unquote, you know, and he found another passion. He wanted to be a photographer. So he became

He moved on and became a phone number. And then I'm like, oh shit, I'm going to be out of a job. But I like working for James, you know, like it's very interesting. And then by the time I already record like up to 10 or 20 episodes with AJ Jacobs, a lot of different people with Jonah Harbinger and Jarex Robbins, Tony Robinson. And then I learned that, you know, well, you can just ask, especially with AJ Jacobs, all his, all the things.

He talked about it, you know, just do X, Y, and R. So I'm like, okay, I have to, yeah, I have to start to keep my clients so that I can have work.

And then I just asked James and his producer then I'm like, well, you know what? I like with thing if you guys, you know, I don't know if you guys like me. I can help you guys book studios. I know studios around the, around New York City. I can help you guys book the studio, help you guys plan the studio and schedule the studio. And then I would just take everything from there. You know, like you pay the studio, you still play the studio. Yeah.

You don't pay me. And then you just pay me differently. I don't make extra money off that. So I just make whatever I'm making then. And they're like, yeah, sure. I like Wolfgang view. We know, you know, we have, we have the poor, we'll work together before. So I, you know, I started booking studio for him. It's, and then one day I think that's when James, James and my relationship with James got to another level is one day.

I think someone messed up the session. That's not me. I think it's all the other. Yeah, I think it's the guests that mess up the sessions. And then James sent me a weird email like, oh, Jay, what have you done? Blah, blah, blah. I'm like, what? What did I do? And then the producer reached out to me and James reached out to me at the same time. Like, yeah, I'm just joking. I'm like, yeah, I know you're joking. So I replied joking as well. And then I think from that point on,

James realized I can be around and joking around and I'm totally fine. So that's when our relationship went to the next step. And then we worked together more and more and I gave him more and more ideas in terms of like, rather than just, uh,

normal engineering. I'm like, hey, I can take a picture. I can record the session, a part of the session for you for free, blah, blah, blah. So I do more and more things. And at some point, I'm like, well, you seem like a busy guy. If you need help scheduling, you know, I'm doing nothing at home anyway. And then he and Steve Cohen, our old producer, recommended me to his other company to hire me as a personal assistant. Ah, I see.

Yeah, so their point on I'm like, so I'm also his personal assistant and producer and engineer at the same time. You're a one-man band with multiple tasks. Yeah, yeah, I try to because like, you know, like if you really like your job, if you really like that person that you work with, you want to go above and beyond. And also, one of the reasons I do this, also James helped me tremendously. You know, he gave me a job or a work when my studio is closed down.

And one of the things that I'm really grateful for him is that I remember I used to date this girl on the other side of the country. It's like eight hours away. And I'm like, he asked me, oh, what am I? He asked me what I do for Christmas. I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing anything for Christmas. My girlfriend's all the way there. It's far for me to go there. It's expensive anyway. And then he's like, you know what?

Let me get you a Christmas gift. And then he just went online and bought me a plane ticket to fly and see my dad and girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, yeah. I'm like, wait, you're sure you don't have to do that? He's like, nah, it's fine. Yeah. Go have fun. It's Christmas time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jin is very...

generous uh like that like he always during those like if you need something he'd realize you need something he'll like yeah yeah just do it you know i'll cover you for it yeah so so he helped me a lot you know in terms of like it's just a it's a gesture you know like when someone do something nice to you like it doesn't matter what it is it could be as small as like yeah here here's five bucks go buy a coffee and then you will want to like work for them for life you know

And it's also James is not one of those employees like, yeah, only work for me. You can't work for anyone. James will like, sometimes, you know, when like Brian Keating, Brian needs something, James will be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ask James to do it. You know, like he will want me to do multiple things and not just for him.

Yeah, that's why I like working for James. That's great. You must learn a lot from his guests because he got so many brilliant people. Is there any top three lessons you can remember and share with my listeners? Okay, so my top three always change based on what's happening. So when I first started working in 2016 with James,

I don't know anything. I don't know anything about self-improvement. I don't know anything about... I'm an introvert. I don't know anything about making friends and stuff. So...

This is 2016 when I was like shy and just alone. I think my top three guests then, I don't think I have top three. I probably have top one then or top two. One of the one that I remember the most is with AJ Jacobs. He came on and they talk about doing experiment. So rather than, oh, I don't want to do this. You just give it a try, you know, start doing this. So that one is great because

I always afraid of doing stuff, doing things. I afraid of rejection. I'm sure everyone afraid of rejection. So that one ring true to me then because that episode led me to asking James like, Hey,

I can be this person for you. It's okay if you say no, I'll figure something out. And then I just asked and he's like, yeah, sure. And then it sort of kicked off my career with James since then. Yeah. So impact your life. It does impact my life. And then, so, so that go from 2016 to 2017. And then, um,

Even to 2019, because I use it all the time, you always ask, you know, always ask, they might say no, and then you move on. And then recently, because of all the political issues out there and how the world is right now, I'm more into how to talk to people and how to think differently.

For yourself. So rather than just go and reading headlines, I think... I don't know if you listen to the episode. It's with Peter Boghossian. Maybe, yeah. So the one with Peter Boghossian is How to Have Impossible Conversations. Yeah, okay. It's a recent one. Yeah, it's very recent. It's maybe like two, three months ago. They talk about...

no one's want the fact that just want to be right right yeah so like now i have to like have that in my brain every time i talk to in my mind sorry in my mind every time i talk to like people that i just met or people that really really uh strongly believe in only one thing and not the other so i can argue with them just stating the facts i have to like

I have to ask them to educate me why do they think that way and then I have to learn the way they think and then sort of just debate with them using their logic and then the other episodes that I really like it's the one with

Yeah, Joe Cohen, How to Talk to Strangers. Okay, yeah. Yeah, because we've been locked down for almost a year and a half, almost two years. We lost the ability. I know, I've lost the ability to talk to anyone. I remember last year during the lockdown, I met someone in the park. We were walking, you know, we walk our dog together at the same time. And he invited me over to his family.

to have a dinner i went there you know i knew i know it's a husband and wife i know the wife as well i went there and then the first thing i before i went there i'm like

do I need to bring anything? Do I have to prepare like five topics? Or when I'm there, like, do I have to take off my shoe? Do I have to, do I have to do small talks? Do I have to talk about the weather? Do I have to talk about the politics? That episode rang true to me because I sort of just lost all the muscle on like how to talk to strangers, how to ask questions.

even how to ask a girl for number like hey you know give me your number that's gonna be really creepy you have to you know sort of like bond it before bond you have to sort of bond before you get the numbers or social even social media because for the past for the past year we've been locked down

The way we socialize, it's on social media. And everyone on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram are so angry. They're angry about everything all the time. So yeah, so that two episodes, how to talk to strangers and how to have impossible conversations, a couple of things that I learned from the guests.

The reason why I didn't talk about entrepreneurs so much because every entrepreneur came on, they always have the same message. It's like, oh, just keep doing it. Just keep doing it. Believe in yourself. Just keep doing it. You have to let go of all this thing and keep doing it. So those are not as interesting to me anymore. Because I remember from last lockdown, March 2020, because

Because before, James probably won't mention your name quite often. But ever since the lockdown, he always cue you in his episode or bring you to the conversation. Yeah, because I'm probably one of the few person that he socialized anyway.

So he bring me into it. Yeah, because who else can he bring in? I mean, he did bring him Robin, his wife. Oh, yeah, his wife. Yeah, his wife is great. They always have such interesting conversations with his wife. And used to be Steve Cohen, our former producer. But, you know, lockdown happened. We didn't do as much in person anymore. So, yeah, the show should change directions.

and format. Like, that's why like we don't have as much entrepreneur on anymore because we realize all the entrepreneur come on only have one message. Keep doing it. You can do this. Let's keep doing it and you can do this. So now we are more interested in stories and conversations. Yeah. I also noticed that you took James on your Twitch session. Is it right? Oh yeah. Yeah. That one was fun because like, I mean, even though he,

was an hour and a half late okay I had to be on my Twitch I had to like do things and entertain people but he still came on the last minute not last minute after an hour and a half yeah that was fun because I always think that live stream is a thing now people would love to watch live stream or some people love to yeah because

it's different when let's say if someone's watching us and in this conversation it felt different like it's more interactive that way because they can say whatever they want yeah immersive yeah they're part of it yeah and more immersive exactly they're part of it so i'm trying to convince james to do uh do uh twitch or live stream um but james isn't i

I mean, it's not as technology inclined because you have to learn. You have to learn all the live stream technology before you actually have the live stream. So yeah, I normally will spend an hour

beforehand to make sure everything is set up. Like when I set up my scene and stuff, it took me two or three hours just to find to it. Yeah, that's why like if you go to not the gaming stream, the gaming stream is easy, but for all the podcast stream, I have a banner running, I have things going on in the back. Yeah, those take some time to design and to make it where I want it to be.

I like this phrase, this word is called frictionless. Frictionless, yes. So if you want to, yeah, yeah. If you want someone to do something or use something that you produce,

make it as frictionless as possible yeah for sure it would be great if something that people can just click one button and come in and join so that's why i'm like well i'm gonna make it as frictionless for you as possible you just join our account you just join zoom and squadcast or squadcast i will record it that way and then i will handle all the other better so yeah so that's why he came onto my my my my twitch because i already have everything set up yeah

yeah yeah and that was a fun one and both of us think that it's really fun to do it that way we will do we will do more hopefully we will do more yeah i know you also bought a dr brian kating to your twitch i know i didn't bring him to my twitch yet uh he's busy right now but i i just want dr brian kating to have a twitch to have a twitch channel if brian kating is listening to this please get your twitch setup it's easy you just download the thing you just

click on go live and you're live. Yeah, because it would be so much fun if you see Brian Keating. He's very good at interacting with the audience, right? You heard his Clubhouse, you heard his... Yeah, and YouTube, yeah. Yeah, every five minutes, he'll like, if you just join, you know, this is Dr. Brian Keating, we're talking about this, this, this, this, this, and then he'll go back to the podcast. Like he's good at promoting and marketing and make sure people...

He's good at call to action. Yeah, I see. Yeah, let's put it that way. Yeah. So yeah, there's a ton of fun. So I'm trying to get Brian Keating, Dr. Brian Keating, to listen to this.

down it's not that hard and then you can just start it's easy yeah because I noticed that in China the live streaming e-commerce is such a thing it's huge right yeah where you are watching live stream you can just buy them right I'm thinking if Dr. Brian is doing a live stream he can sell his book

yeah okay listen and watch and buy my one click buy my new book yeah yeah frictionless it's buy this book click here buy this book you should have your you should have a twitch too you know what other people do on twitch is that like because you can live stream on your phone so there's there are a lot of people do the travel travel live stream yeah so they they have yeah they have the selfie stick yeah and then they just they just

Grab the phone, walk around, and then they have chat, and you talk to the chat that way. You should do it. Yeah, I used to be a gamer. Oh, really? So I remember back to probably high school. Yeah, I do a lot of, because we got the clubhouse technology 20 years ago in China. So we do, it's a voice, like Twitch thing. Right.

we all play in games so we can interact with others. What game do you play? It's called Meng Huan Xi You. So it's like Journey to the West. I don't know if you heard about it. It's very popular. I heard about that. Yeah. I used to play Jing Yong Qun Xia Zhuan.

yeah it's my childhood favorite game yeah yeah yeah the the very very very old one is like pixelated one yeah that one so i used to play that and then i used to play um feng yun i don't know if you you guys have it yeah yeah the first one it's such a popular yeah and then yeah they even made the tv show is so yeah it is very popular and then uh yeah so that and then uh

and so I played Jing Yong Chun Xia Zuan and they also have an online game called Jing Yong Chun Xia Zuan online yeah true yeah yeah I got it they have a different series yeah I played when I was in university and high school but ever since I I

I start to work. I don't have time to play. But now I only play fantasy primarily, which is a soccer game. We'll call it a football game. You make money though. You make money. You have the bet. You make money off that.

Yeah, I joined a couple of leagues with friends and we bet money on. I can never get to the fantasy leagues, man. I can't because it's like you have to look at the status. You have to look at the chart. You have to look at the numbers. You have to look at this and that. And a lot of people that didn't do well is because they just pick who they like.

Yeah. They didn't look at the number. Yeah. They didn't do well. And then they're like, oh, why am I losing? It's like a stock market. You need to look at the chart. The worst part is if your player is injured, you're done. It's very annoying. Your team is done. You just want one player injured. Your team is done.

You can't get any points anymore Yeah Yeah I feel like Yeah, playing game I learn a lot from playing game Yeah Like communication skills And also strategy Right Yeah Well, so that's how I Actually, that's how I learned my English Mainly Oh, wow From games Yeah, from games Which one did you play? I play I mean, I play a lot of English I play like Final Fantasy Oh, yeah I used to Dragon Age So, stuff that you have to read a lot Okay

Yeah, it's not that I learned all my English after that. It's more like some word or some vocabulary I learned from that and the way something I phrase, I learned from the game as well. And also because I didn't read book as often, so usually a lot of time game would be the way of me. One is reading and two is...

the stories. I get the story from games because I like something that's a little bit more interactive. That's a good way because you follow your curiosity. That's also how I learned for school as well. So, a lot, back then when computer first getting popular, there's a lot of educational games out there. So, like, my mom would buy me, uh,

buy me these like CDs that play play game like play mathematic games and um and I remember when I was younger this is not just this is not game I was younger my mom used to buy me this uh Chinese uh all Mandarin uh speaking science series called um

Shi Wan Ge Wei Shou Ma. I don't know if you remember that. I think every children in China, they have that. Yeah, my mom taught it to me and it's a cartoon and then I loved it. That's how I learned most of my science and that's also why I'm so into science because of the series. And plus my mom is a science teacher. Yes.

So yeah, so like I learned all this from like, you know, all this media. I didn't read as much. That's so cool. So how many languages do you speak in Malaysia? In Malaysia, I usually speak three because Cantonese is dialect, right? So we are not counting dialect as a language. So I speak English, Malay and Chinese.

And then Chinese itself, we have, you know, you have Mandarin, you have Cantonese, you have Hokkien, you have Hakkas, all these different dialects. Oh, wow. You guys have such an advantage in international stage because you can speak so many. Well, it is in a sense that, you know, I think because where I grew up is in Malaysia and Singapore as well. I didn't grow up in Singapore, but I usually include Singapore in the same umbrella. It's because

we are good at adapting mainly because we have so many different language that we speak day-to-day basis. Like, yeah. So, so if I go to London, all of a sudden I will have London accent. If I'm in the US, I have American accent. Yeah. Because it's like, it's like, it's like British and America, right? So like the, the, the,

The words they use are different Yeah, true Yeah, because For example, trash, right? In China, it's called 垃圾 And then in Taiwan, they say 垃圾

Right, yeah. It's like a football and a soccer in the UK and the US. Yeah, it's like food and chips, you know, like fries. And here is fries, in the UK it's chips. It is a little bit different there, but because Malaysia and Singapore, we consume so many different media from different countries, so we are able to

adapt to many different accents, let's call it. So how is the traditional Chinese education in Malaysia? When you grew up, do you learn a lot of Confucianism or Laozi, Daodeji, this kind of thing? I wish I learned those more. So in Malaysia, our education system is a little bit more straightforward. It's very different than Western education. In Malaysia, we just learn

Whatever on surface So like We went mathematic We learn When we learn Mandarin or Chinese We just learn Like the grammar And the vocabulary And then sometimes Poem Sometimes we do learn Confucius And uh

Confucius is 孔子, right? 孔子 孔子 Yeah, yeah His English name is Johnny What? Why? Oh Yeah, because 孔宗尼, right? Yeah, that's his real name, right? Yeah, 孔宗尼 Yeah, Johnny is his real name 孔宗尼 Yes, Johnny Kong You know

That's like a rapper now. Yeah, it's like, yo, I'm Johnny Kong. You know, you have to treat other people as nice as how other people treat you. Yeah, so we learned a little bit of Confucius. We typically learned the stories that you would learn when you were younger. One of the stories I remember when I was younger is I think someone fell into a...

Into a bucket The way That they're full of water And then And then the Confucius When he was like Really young He used a stone And break the bucket And then the Ah Sima Guang Zha Gang Right Yeah Yeah Yeah Then when Then when you People You guys probably learn When you guys were like

I would say six, seven years old. Yeah. Yeah. I think I learned in kindergarten. Yeah. Right. Right. So we learned in primary school, which is like seven or eight or nine, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. So we, our Mandarin or Chinese, we learn a little bit more fundamental stuff like,

grammar vocabulary or some story or like the the the san zi jing right yeah those three phrases yeah oh it's called three character classic oh okay three character classics it is three character yeah it is

Yeah, well, see, I don't think that's true anymore. I mean, it's sort of true, I think. The first sentence is 人之初性本善, right? It means when people are born with kindness. Yeah, so people were born in kindness, which I think is true. But I don't remember what the... Do you remember the whole phrase?

Do you remember the whole? I can't remember. I think it's required to recite the whole passage. Oh, really? Yeah. In China, we recite a lot of poetry and yeah, the articles. Yeah. But I can't remember. Oh, yeah. Do you...

What is the famous poem? Is it Li Bai? Li Bai, yeah, Li Bai Du Fu. BBC did a documentary about Du Fu, which is highly recommended. I'll include the link to the show notes. Yeah, because I don't remember I have to read Du Fu. I definitely remember Li Bai.

He's the one that did 窗前明月光. Is that by Levi? Yeah, that's the one. The classic one, the most classic one. That's why it's easy to remember. But you know, a lot of long passengers like Qu Yuan. I don't know if you've heard about him. He's the one for the Chinese Dragon Boating Festival. Right, right. And yeah, he's the guy that

kill himself so that he can feed the river, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's suicide. Yeah. So people use the traditional Chinese food called zongzi, which is like a rice ball. Then they throw it in the river so the fishes won't eat Qu Yuan's body. Okay, okay. Now I'm very curious. Do you remember the origin story? Was it... Was Qu Yuan an emperor or...

Yeah, he's a politician. But yeah, the emperor, I think there was two guys. One is Qu Yuan and the other one, they just say told the emperor Qu Yuan is a bad character. So Qu Yuan was very upset that he killed himself. Yeah.

That's an original story, I think. Yeah, so this... And then the festival... What festival was that? Duanwu Jie. Yeah, Duanwu Jie. Yeah. They translate it like Dragon Boat Festival because people do a race, Dragon Boat Race. The reason why there was Dragon Boat Race is because...

People were on the boat Looking for his body Yeah Or just throw the rice bowl To the fishes So his body will be Yeah So the fish wouldn't eat the body Will eat the rice bowl Yeah But is that Was it based on true story Do you remember No I don't think so I think it's like a fairy tale Because there are so many mysteries Right Yeah

Yeah, and old stories that don't make sense. It's just from people's word of mouth from generation to generation because it sounds like interesting. Yeah, it's just like the Mid-Autumn Festival, right? The Mid-Autumn Festival. Yeah, Mid-Autumn Festival. Yeah, and what's called the Mooncake, right? Yeah, we need to eat Mooncake. Yeah, the Mooncake. The reason why there was Mooncake was

is because they were trying to rebel something and then they put like the secret message in the mooncake so the people would know. Do you know about this? No, I never heard about it. Wait, do you know? Come on, you're Chinese, you should know about this. Yeah, because, well, I mean, okay, so the fairy tale story of the Mooncake Festival was Chang'e Benyue, right? Yeah, Chang'e Benyue. Yeah, that's why. All right, so Chang'e Benyue is a story pretty much like Chang'e,

Chang'e is this goddess became she didn't became the moon but she she went to the moon for some reason do you remember why she went to the moon she married to someone and she it's like Adam and Eve like Eve eat the apple then right everything happened and Chang'e eat some pill and

So she can become a goodness. So she eats that. Right. I remember this now. I remember this now. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. There's so many different versions. There's no one truth. Yeah, I remember. I think she was married to, was it M. Ching? Ching Si Wong. They were looking for the immortal pill. And then they found it.

and then Chang'e ate it because she didn't like the emperor and then she became lighter and lighter and eventually she float to the moon that's how that's how Chang'e Baguette came to and then and then somehow there's like mooncake involved and there's lantern involved but I think the well there's Google right now so I'm gonna

I'm so curious about all these old stories because I hardly remember anything. I need to revisit. Yeah, so I think the origin story for Mooncake was, so according to this blog, blog.tudormin.com, according to her, the Mooncake, so the rebel leader,

Zhu Yuanzhang, do you know? Zhu Yuanzhang is the first emperor of Ming Dynasty. Yeah, so what happened is they will make all the mooncake and then each mooncake will contain a piece of paper saying kill the Mongols on the 15th of the 8th of the month. Yeah, I'm just amazed by the 5,000 years history in China. Yeah.

So many stories, so many fascinating stories. That's why I want to write in English to tell some interesting stories to English-speaking countries. Yeah, because with 5,000...

including whatever before Emperor Qing does? Yeah, it's... Yeah, because Qing Siu Wang is the first emperor that burns all the books and unites the whole China. Yeah, and before him, there's three dynasties, I think. Okay. Xia, Shang, Zhou, and then Qing. So the first one is like, use dragon as the symbol of the...

Emperor That's why Chinese people love dragons And then before Emperor Qin There was Was it It was divided into seven countries, right? Qi Guo Yeah, Qi Guo Yeah, exactly Right Yeah, so Before Emperor Qin It was seven countries Even though they have all this They still have three different dynasties And then Emperor Qin sort of burned all the book When he When he wanted to unite China He burned all the book And sort of united

China in a way to bring all the culture together. Yeah, it's called Fen Shu Ken Lu, which he burned all the Confucius books because he doesn't believe. Yeah, and also he kills a bunch of Confucius. Yeah, exactly. Because he doesn't believe in Confucianism. He likes the...

another school of philosophy called Fa Jia. Oh, really? Oh, that I didn't know. Wait, so that's the reason why he burned the books? Yeah, according to history, that's the reason why. But you never know what's real happening in history. Look at all the fake news we are now having. We don't even know what's going on. I feel like the history classes

for two, I wouldn't say next generation, but I would say two generations from now, it's going to be real confusing for them. Like what's really going on? If I go to this republic school, is there going to be a misinformation? If I go to this democracy, is that going to be all true? So who knows? Maybe down the line,

Each school has their own symbol. Like, oh, I'm a republic school. I'm a democrat school. Exactly. I don't know. You don't know, you know? It'll be something... Even in China, since the People's Republic of China built...

established in 1949. There are so many different stories. Oh, that I didn't know. Do China has different school? As in like different school of thought for school, for education system? Or is it just... Yeah, we have the... Because we have a nine years complementary school for every children in China. So we needed to learn all the textbooks from the government.

but you don't know. Right. Are these books true? Yeah. Yeah. Like, you don't know it's a propaganda. Well, I mean, that's how, you know, that's how, you know, that's how you build patriotism, right? Yeah, exactly. Like a brand watch. Patriotism is like, you know, you started from the young, you know, just let them rip whatever...

We tell them to read. Not in China alone, but I assume a lot of countries does that too. I think even in the UK, when I tell my English friends, have you heard about the Opium War? Oh, right, right. They never heard about it. It's such a big thing.

Yeah, in China. They started it. Yeah, so it's the war between British government and Chinese government, but we never heard about it. It lasted for 20 years. Yeah, the whole reason why China... Why Qing Dynasty is gone. Yeah, the whole reason why Qing Dynasty was gone is all because of the opium provided by British government. Yeah.

We're going to get cancelled We're going to get cancelled tomorrow Cancel the British government So you can say that Each country has their own history To tell And also history is You know history is told by the victor It would be interesting to go to Germany And ask hey have you heard about The Jewish encampment You know the Holocaust Holocaust

I wonder what they would say I'm pretty sure I think they probably teach them in school because all my German friends they know the history and they respect the facts but I don't know how detailed yeah yeah yeah or maybe it's just like a one page thing oh holocaust happened this day bye you know

It's like the culture revolution when I learned in school. It's only like two sentences. There's a culture revolution, but they didn't say how many people died. How do they kill the intellectuals? Yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, like because...

Yeah, because it's, like I said, it's wrote by the Victor, you know, Victor, you know, every time you read something, you find it weird, just go online and Google. So have you found any major differences between the Chinese philosophy and the Western philosophy? Well, I mean...

I have to say like, so like this from what I find, and I'm not an expert in either of those. You know, I just like to go with what I know. I can't say for everyone else. Okay. So Western philosophy is more towards finding the truth and finding human behavior. Whereas Chinese philosophy, it's more like,

self-improvement. You know, like Confucius, one of the things that he said, you know, a lot of people say like, do those what they do onto you. So like you treat other people like how they treat you. But Confucius, I remember a story he told to his disciple, like you should treat people kind no matter how they treat you.

I don't know if you remember the story. I also sort of do remember the story already. I think it was like three disciples, like, you know, one disciple is like, oh, I would treat people however I want to treat them. Second disciple is like, yeah, they only treat, I will only treat them kind if they treat me kind. And then the third disciple is like, yeah, I would treat them kind no matter what. And then he's like, yeah, the disciple is right. So,

I felt like Eastern philosophy, it's more of self-improvement and Western improvement is more like

huh why do people act this way that's why they have all this you know minimalism and all this ism existentialism yeah yeah existentialism and all this ism it's all about how they became how can they be happy whereas the one that i know of uh the western philosophy is how what should i do

to treat other people better. So, and also I was reading earlier this morning, it seems like Western philosophy is more of an individualism and Eastern philosophy

philosophy is more as a group yeah collective that's why yeah collective that's why Confucius is more it's all about like you know treat other people kind no matter what you do yeah whereas whereas Western is like hmm how do how how can I be happy right now I see I remember you and James did one episode about the

Absurd Yeah Yeah I can't pronounce it Right Yeah I still can't One I can't I can't pronounce it Two Is that I still can't I still can't grasp What does it mean You know It's so absurd That I can't I don't even know What that means I quite like Albert Camus Yeah His work He bring up This idea Yeah For the big force Philosophy in Westerners Stoicism As is

existentialism existentialism yeah nihilism and and it's all about how to make them happy yeah so that's I think that's a different that I find at least I find in my experience with other people between the

Chinese philosophy or Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy. So have you found any conflict? Because you grew up in a Chinese culture. Now you live in a Western culture. Have you found any conflict and...

Or you are happy Yeah The biggest conflict That I find Is people here Doesn't really respect authority Which is a good thing In Asian countries I don't know I don't know if it's good I think It depends on scenario It depends on On the situation I think personally I think Uh

you know, like we grew up in Asia, we address our parents, mom and dad. Yeah, people here, they address... Call their name? Yeah, they call their names. I'm like, it's your mom. Just call it mom. They're like, no, that's their name. But like you have to respect them. You have to give them authority. So yeah, I think that's more... In that sense, I still hold...

towards our teaching, like the Asian teaching, is to respect authority. You know, yeah, if you have something to debate, yeah, you can debate, but you don't yell at them as if they are like your kid or someone younger than you. You reason with them, you know. You reason with them, you respect the authority, and if they ask you to do something, you try to do it. If you can, you just give them a reason why you can't do it. I think that's the biggest shock

that I have with yeah western western culture that's interesting so what what's your plan for this year for James Altucher show and for yourself well to create more show to to to sort of uh self-inject myself into uh the James Altucher show

J-show now. Well, I already have the companion podcast with just me and Nathan. Yeah, don't say that. So who is Nathan? So Nathan is our post-production manager. Oh, yeah, yeah. So like every time once we record everything. So my schedule is a little crazy. So sometimes we do three recordings at the same time and I can't record and edit at the same time.

So I will record. We always send it to Nathan and Nathan will edit them down and do some mixing and launch it on the platform. And then I will bring it back and I will do all the descriptions and all the artwork and all the title. Yeah. So looking forward to listen to that. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you listen to the latest episode with Jins and I.

talking about the US citizenship. I don't know if you have. Oh yeah, yeah. James asked you a lot of questions. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I didn't grow up here. So like a lot of time, I didn't really know the history. I mean, I guess it's good to know some history.

A lot of time I'm just bad With history And also I don't think US history is as Interesting as Chinese history I think United States Take 200 years history And also Chinese history Not the recent one Like the old one Like back in dynasty And whatever Because there's a lot of stuff

That people integrate some mythical Either creatures or mythical thinking Or mythical thing in there, you know So many gods and goodness Like Yu Huang Yeah, yeah, yeah Those Yeah, and other gods Even Monkey King Yeah, even Monkey King Well, like even the Dynasty Qing The Qing Shi Huang Like the Moon King Festival Has him in there Like somehow like he's responsible for Chang'e To go to the moon Yeah

And then, yeah, I just like those. And also Chinese mythology is a little bit different too. It's more interesting, I felt, like Chinese mythology. Like everything can sort of come together and...

fit into this little literature called Journey to the West. Yeah. They call it 81 different monsters or devils. Is it 81? Because they need to go through the 81 difficulties. Is it 81? I thought it's 88. It's because it's like 9981. Oh, right, right, right. I think you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember.

Yeah and also Like it's a It's such a great literature I think I think Monkey King Monkey King or Journey to the West Is such a great literature There's a game Yeah I know I saw that Yeah But that game is sort of Set in the middle Of the journey already So you know how There's two different Monkey In the Journey to the West Oh yeah Yeah there's a fake one Yeah so there's that Yeah there's a There's a real one That's Sun Wukong And then

And then there's... What's the name of the fake one? It's Liu Yan. Oh, Liu Er Mi Hou. Yeah, yeah, Liu Er Mi Hou. Yeah, because apparently he has six ears. And then, yeah, he sort of became Monkey King for a little bit because he was the imposter for a little bit. And then they found out. Yeah. Okay. That's so cool. Yeah, so it was set during that time, I think. Ah.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite literature. For whoever out there, people should go out and read the literature. I don't know if they have the... Do they have the English version of Journey to the West? They do have a lot of different translation version of Journey to the West. Yeah. Right. They have to read the original version though. That's the best one. Yeah. Or do make a cartoon or TV show. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to be a great story. It's very interesting. Yeah.

It is. And the coolest thing is it combines all the mythical, all the goddess and god. Yeah, so many gods there. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. So last question. What gets you most excited about the future? Ah,

Let me see. I can pull up the schedule right now and see who we have recorded. One guest I'm kind of interested about is Michael Dell. Michael Dell is the founder of Dell Computer. He came on. The episode is interesting. Talk about his origin story and also talk about

What he predicts in the future. Oh, wow. Yeah. What he predicts the technology would be in the future that he's really excited about. Let me see. Who else? I think we have a lot. Oh, we're going to have Robert Greene on again. Oh, wow. He's one of my favorite writers. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to have him on again. And Chuck Palahniuk is coming on again. Who is Chuck? Chuck Palahniuk. He wrote The Fight Club. Oh.

Oh my god Yeah he did One episode with James Before With James yep He's gonna come on again And last year Because James Want to invite him For the AJ Lab But there's some Technical issue Yeah there's Technical issue That's your fault Yeah

That's not my fault I always say That's not my fault It's easy He can just join Yeah But Yeah So I Yeah That one's really interesting And you know We have Stephen Coller Coming on again Soon too Oh wow Yeah Definitely So we have some Yeah So we have some Big interesting guests Coming on

It's such a pleasure to talk to you again. And I didn't need to re-read a lot of Chinese books. Yeah, I was thinking about reading them. I'm like, nah, it's fine. We'll do fine. Yeah. But I have to say like two big, not philosophy, but two big Chinese verb or Chinese phrase that I live by the whole time I'm here is one is, it's called 福经长等, right?

Did I say it right? 卧薪长胆. 卧薪长胆. Yeah, yeah. Holy shit. It's been too long since I said that word. And the other one is...

赛翁施马 燕之肥腹 Can you explain that in English? Can you tell the story? Alright, the first one 父亲 卧行长坛 I think the story is the emperor 月 lost his

his kingdom during a war or whatever, and they fought it back. You know, they retrieved the emperor and then they built the whole kingdom and all that stuff. They were prosperous for the longest time. But somehow he still lived on this. He still, every night he would sleep on this bed that's made out of a bunch of like twigs and branches. And that every time he woke up, he would taste the,

he would taste what's done in English yes it tastes very bitter some sort of organ inside of organ inside it tastes bitter so the moral of the story is no matter how well off you are you always have to make yourself a little bit uncomfortable so you can remember what you've been through and you can keep improving

And that's one of the ones that I always live by. And the other one is 塞翁之貓,燕之飛浮. The stories go... 塞翁, is that his name? Yeah, it's an old man called 塞. 翁 means like old man. Old man, okay. So this old man, 塞, has this philosophy. This story is every time... So the story practically talks about when he lost...

his horse so when he lost his horse he was happy but i can't remember why he's happy do you remember why he was happy people all think oh you lost a horse you're such a pity guy but something happened because of his losing his house he doesn't need to go to war or something like that right oh yeah yeah because it doesn't go to war yeah so so what happened is the the moral of the story is if you lost something if you

Miss some opportunity or something. You can be upset, but you shouldn't be. You can be grieving, but you shouldn't be upset for too long because usually something good will happen after that. Yeah, that's what I always live by. So like when I got let go in a studio, I'm like, ah, shit, blah, blah, blah. And I found another studio, which is Shuzang Studio. And I found James. And then, you know, I sort of kick off my career part. Yeah, so...

三文治 by Yen Si Fei Fu is probably one of the ones that I always look by. You never know what's going to happen in the future. Maybe something great will happen. Yeah, so like, didn't always look down when something is broken or whatever, didn't always be sad. You know, maybe something

even better will come along true yeah that's great great ending thank you Jay always pleasure talking to you yeah it's always always fun to talk to talk to someone with the same culture I haven't speak Mandarin for the longest time I always the last time I spoke Mandarin is when I was speaking with you that's it that was last year I

That was last year Oh my god You don't have Chinese friends Around in New York It's locked down We can't go out Oh Okay And also like Most of my Chinese friends They either move back to To Malaysia Or they live Pretty far from me Ah yes

So yeah, I haven't speak Mandarin for a long time. Yeah. Let's do another Mandarin podcast in the near future. Yeah. Let you practice. Yeah. I will make sure I watch a lot of the TVB show or I watch a lot of the CCTV show. Yeah. Especially those about like Monkey King, you know. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah. We'll catch up soon. Bye.