What’s Love Got to Do With It? Everything!
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Welcome back to another episode of Cultural Coalition Beiqiang Nanbiao, where we deep dive into intersections of culture, identity, and human experience. I'm Victoria. And I'm EJ. In today's episode, we're exploring the timeless question, what's love got to do with it? Well, as it turns out, everything, from defining love to navigating heartbreak.

we are delving into complexities of the universal emotion. So, get ready to explore many, many facets of love with us. So, here we are, about a week away from Valentine's Day, and we are talking about L-O-V-E, love. So, I thought maybe a good way to start off this episode was just to see if we can define love. Like, what is love? So...

In your experiences in your life, in your own words, how would you define love? I think it depends on, like, when... What time we talk about it. Like, in...

early 20s or even younger in teenager we think love is just an attraction it's more like i like you and you are attracted to me i want to be with you and we don't know like what love really means and we only say like if i like you or i love you i will treat you well you should treat me well as well and i think for now love is more like inclusiveness

Because we all grow up in different backgrounds. It's more like tolerance. It's more sacrifice. Because we are so different and we kind of just like each other all the time. Sometimes there is a conflict between like a couple or like family members, right? And how you deal with the conflict, how you deal with the different differences is more...

complicated and you feel you can accept this person's weakness or flawless there is more like that's kind of love you're you want to do you want to sacrifice yourself but sometimes I don't want to say the sacrifice is a negative term but I still feel like how to

love is quite different from like when I was younger and when I was now what do you think I agree I definitely think that when I was younger I definitely also didn't have an understanding really of what love was it was just something that like my parents said to me before bed like I love you that I would just respond like I love you too and I think even as I got older I

I don't know. It was always really elusive. I think in the U.S. there isn't really a commonly accepted definition for what love is. It's often described as being intangible or indescribable or you just know when you know. And I think

when you're trying to understand what love is, just telling someone like, oh, you'll know when you feel it isn't really helpful. Because it's more than an emotion. Like you said, it's also self-sacrifice in a lot of ways, right? When you really love and care about someone, right? Attraction might be a part of that, but I think that like, that's only one small piece of it. Yeah.

I think also growing up in my household, like my household was pretty Christian. And so, you know, love was also taught that like, it's really patient. It's really kind. Like love keeps no records of wrongdoings and it never fails, which I think are all lofty values. But I think in practice, yeah,

you're never like taught necessarily how to love and practice or what to necessarily look out for at least in my own experiences so it's taking me a lot of time and like reading books and watching things and having my own life experiences to feel like i have my own definition of what love actually is and even now i think i'm still figuring out the older i get the more i feel like

it changes and hopefully gets closer to like a truer definition of what it is. When we talk about love, we always discuss about presence. Do you believe like in love at first sight or you believe you develop love during the relationship? I would definitely say I'm someone who...

I believe maybe in like really strong attraction at first sight, but I don't know if I believe in like true love at first sight. For me, I'm definitely someone where love takes time to develop. Like I have to know the person. I have to be able to build trust and, you know, open communication with them. And I have to be able to build commitment. And for me, like,

that's not something you can get just in the beginning. I don't know. What do you think? I am similar. I think attraction there, the chemistry there at the first sight is very important. Only then you have the eager, where you really want to talk to them after the first sight, right? Then you feel this person is attractive, then you want to know more about them. And then you get to develop like...

A relationship, even though like a friendship, like we need 200 hours to spend to each other. And then we become like really good friends. Relationship is like we need more than that. What about soulmates? Do you believe in the concept of like having a soulmate or like you're one and only kind of person?

what should I say? Like, I believe this term. I think there is a one person there, but like, it's not like they prepare for you. Like when you talk to them, you know, oh, this is my soulmate. It's not like that, but it's more developed. And then you realize you have a lot of

At the beginning, we realized we are so different. We have different view of the world. We have difference, like we view things differently. But then when we develop like the relationship and realize, I understand your point, even though we are so different. And I understand you without like even saying a word. But that's also like spend hours and hours together and with open communication with like friends.

The sacrifice we make for each other. And then reach to a point. Maybe this one is the true love. Or like so-called soulmate. What do you think? I definitely believe in the concept of soulmate. I don't know if I...

I think you can have more than one soulmate. Like, I think about some of my friends who I feel really, really close to. Like, we have really, really deep connections. And I would think of them as people that I love, someone I really care about, friends who I would sacrifice things for. I would consider them...

some of my close friendships as soulmates. They're not necessarily people I have romantic or like sexual feelings for, but they're definitely people who I feel like I can't imagine my life without them. And so, I don't know, I think it's definitely possible to have more than one soulmate or these, it's possible to have really deep, loving relationships with more than one person. I definitely think that's possible.

I think it's not everyone experiences that and not everyone thinks about it that way, but I do think it's possible. Where was you? Yeah. Cause like, if you don't only define this in a relationship, so if friendship, like you mentioned, right. If you find this person have like deep bound with you and have a lot of common topics and you can, you care them so much. And that can be your like soulmate as well. Speaking of soulmates, yeah.

Can you remember the first time you felt like you were in love with someone? I think, like I mentioned earlier, like what I think of love in my teenage year is different. So what I can remember the first time I got really attracted to someone is when I was in junior high school. The boyfriend I had by then, I was like, I feel like I like him a lot and we are so good friends.

For, like, only a short time. But, like, then I will feel, oh, that's, like, maybe that's love. Maybe that's the first time I hear, like, I love you. Because in Chinese culture, like, my parents don't really say I love you, like, when I was young. Right? That only changes when I...

actually maybe just a couple years ago I started to say that to them and they realized oh this is not like awkward to say to each other in a family background like in the family so I think for that is maybe like during my junior high is the first time I really I thought it was love and I had a boyfriend then and he treats me well and I like him a lot and that's the the first love I thought like I was experiencing yeah how about you

I think for me, it was a little different. In middle school, I was like really anti-love. I don't think I believed in love that much. I think part of it is that in middle school, my parents were going, like when I switched schools, my parents were going through their divorce. And so I think I had a really jaded perspective on what love meant. And it wasn't really until probably college that I started, uh,

uh seeing someone who I like felt really strongly about and interestingly enough because I think I had such a hard time really trusting people and really opening up and being vulnerable and telling them that I love them I actually told

The person like over the phone in a voice message, like I got we were out partying one night and I actually don't remember doing this, but I was drinking and I had a lot to drink and I picked up the phone and I said something like, this is probably the last thing you want to hear from me. But like, I love you. And it ended up being this whole dramatic thing. And it like scared him away.

Because he was like, oh, I thought we were just friends and now I'm confused. And so that was really hard for me because I was like, ah, here I am. I felt brave enough to tell someone and then they couldn't accept it. So that was my first experience, I think, really feeling strongly about someone. Probably not until college. Do you ever regret that? No. I don't think I regret saying it. I wish that...

I didn't do it while I was drunk. I think I wish it would have come out in another context or another situation because I think maybe we could have actually had a conversation about it. Funnily enough, many years later, like after I graduated from college and I was living in China, he reached out to me again and said, like, apologized and was like, at the time, like, I didn't treat you very well. And...

basically was like, "If we were in a different situation and circumstances and you moved back to the US, would you consider, like, trying again?" And it was a nice message, but I, you know, I had moved on. It was, like, so far removed from where I was in my life. And you know what's something I do regret? Is we don't really talk anymore. Like, we were real-- we were, like, the best of friends throughout college. And I think now we don't talk anymore. I don't know if it was because of that. I hope not.

But yeah, we definitely have grown apart over the years. So I regret not being able to maintain that friendship. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'm sorry for you to have the first time you say I love you and you hear that, like, get that message back. But I think it's nice he tried to message you back and tell you how he was bad to his reactions by it. And he feel like sorry for you. And he wants to try again. I think that's quite a nice message. And after all the years, yeah, and you mentioned about the friendship, I...

Sometimes it's about that, but sometimes it's just like we go into a different path, we're into a different life stage, and we no longer have a lot of common topic to talk about. I am interested in... Obviously, we've been trying to define love, and now I'm interested in knowing...

Where did we learn about love growing up and what were some of those experiences? And so it's often said that we learn love from mirroring the love we observed and received in childhood. So I'm wondering what were some of the examples of love that you grew up with? Like I mentioned earlier, in the Chinese culture, all the things are very subtle. So people don't say, I love you. And they...

I think what I experienced from my family is how my mom and my dad take care of me. But I also feel like in this family structure, the women always do a lot. I feel like they sacrifice a lot. The men also, of course, have their own side of sacrifice, but I feel like it always be the women who give more effort to the love, to maintain the family, to take care of the family. And

For learning love, I think also it comes from my relationship with the boyfriend I had before and how they take care of me. But which is very interesting because I don't think act of service is my first love language. But I think that's how I learn love.

It's quite interesting. Yeah, how about you? That's really interesting. I think similarly in my family,

I feel like it was divided by gender. I feel like the way that the men or my dad showed love was very much about providing for people, showing that they cared with their acts of service or providing for you materially. Whereas I think on my mom and her side of the family, which are mostly women, all sisters, my grandmother has all sisters, it was more emotional.

It was more like emotional support and like showing up in that ways. And so I think I had a very like split perspective on what it was. I think, as I mentioned earlier, because of my parents' divorce in the U.S., it's so common to say, I love you or I love this. I love that. And like, I feel like we say love all the time, but we don't necessarily really mean it. And so I think for me, I struggled to say,

at least what love meant. I couldn't, I didn't get it, speaking of love languages, from words of affirmation, even which is ironic because words of affirmation is so important to me now. Like it's really important for people to express ingenuously in their words that they mean it. But I feel like for me, most of what I learned about love was through heartbreak. And so I think I've spent a lot of my adult life

seeking the opposite of heartbreak because I don't think I really knew what real love was growing up. I think that came a lot later in life. That's interesting. Like how, how I learned different kind, like how I learned love is from different background. You're talking about like words of affirmation is important to you. So was other love languages important to you and how you find love

How do you find out, oh, this is my love language and this is very important? I think my number one love language is quality time. I think part of this is I really enjoy being in community with people. I think part of this is that I grew up

with a lot of brothers and sisters, and so we always spent so much time together. I have five brothers and sisters, and so we spent a lot of time together. My parents, both of my parents worked growing up as well, and they were always really busy, and they were always tired after work. And so I always appreciated when they made the time to spend with us, also because there were so many of us, and so we didn't get as much individualized time.

I think I also came to understand that, like, I really enjoy quality time over other things is because I really enjoy connecting deeply with people and having deep conversations. And I think the best way in order to do that is in order, you have to spend, like you said, 200 hours of friendship, right? You have to spend those hours together and that time together in order to build those connections. I think it takes me...

quality time in order for me to feel comfortable really opening up with people. And I think once that connection has been established, I love quality time so much that like I can be sitting in the same room with someone I really care about and we don't even have to be doing anything together. I just appreciate that we get to be in the same space at the same time together. And then next would be for me words of affirmation. I think that's because growing up,

I was told a lot, I love you, but I didn't believe people. And so now I'm an adult and I'm at an older place where like, I want to hear people tell me that they love me or they care about you or they can affirm me. And I'm open to believing it now. And then my third is acts of service, which I don't know, I guess it's just nice when people do things for you.

You know, I feel like we live such busy lives. And I think that's how my mom really shows her care. Like my mom is always doing really nice small things. She's like, oh, remember you said in a conversation, you know, a month ago that you needed this thing. So I picked it up for you or you're really tired and you don't want to cook. So I cooked a meal for you. So I think I learned that from my mom acts of service. Yeah.

Yeah. What about you? What are your love languages? I used to only think like the first two of my love language is very important. So like my first one is this physical touch. So I feel like the feeling of you were needed by someone and how it can really just show love when you be with someone, when you're just handholding or like hug with someone. I feel like that's surrounded by

you are surrounded by love so that's like that's why I feel like physical touch is important and also the quality time I find it's very hard to have quality time because sometimes we spend a lot of time together but we really don't talk to each other and we can't always have deep conversation right but like how we make the time is really focus on each other it doesn't have it doesn't have to be a lot of time and how we spend that time is very important but I feel like

That's quite difficult. It's not only just like feel comfortable with each other because you can have that time with friend and you can have the, I feel like when I meet my friends, the time always be on quality time. We all have like fine conversations. We always discuss things like that. But if you meet someone so often and that can be like challenging to have quality time.

The third one is act of service. I didn't realize that is important, but just like you said, when people really do things for you and they see you are very tired or they think you need this and they were doing this for you, it's also like you feel, oh, I'm loved by this gesture. So that is quite like,

quite nice to have that feeling. Yeah, some of the nicest things I can remember that people have done for me have been acts of service. It's so touching. It's so touching. Yeah, it's really touching. I'm wondering, what do you think of, speaking of gestures and, you know, love languages, we have Valentine's Day coming up, and Valentine's Day is such a big way that people show their love languages. What do you think about

like Valentine's Day or, you know, Sweetest Day or Galentine's? Are these things that get you excited? I used to think, like, all the festivals is important and we need to celebrate. And this is for just for lovers, right? Like, for the couples who celebrate this day.

I think what is important about this part is the 仪式感, how people see about festival, right? But now I'm thinking it's no longer I don't think this is important. I think this is still important. But that day itself is more like commercial term. So like the restaurants, the shopping mall can do something for people just to make money.

I also feel like we can do kind of Valentine's Day or like Lover's Day, any time when you want to celebrate something. You don't have to wait for like once a year or twice a year and to celebrate, right? Whenever you want to do this, we can have this as a celebration between just you two in the couples. This is a reminder of us as how we need to celebrate sometimes and like

When we in our normal lives. Because every single day seems like very similar. But like we need this special thing in our life. That doesn't have to be it that day. Yeah. Do you celebrate Valentine's Day? I do.

try, I totally agree with your point that Valentine's Day doesn't have to be the only time in the year that you take time out of your life or your busy schedules to tell people that you love them. Um,

This year, I'm planning on celebrating by just messaging all the people in my life that I love and telling them that I love them and why I love them. Because I think it's really important. Obviously, I'm single, so I don't have someone who I'm going to be necessarily going out on a date with. But yeah.

I think that that's okay. Like, I don't think that the holiday is cheapened as a result. Now, obviously, I'm not going out and spending money. I'm probably not going to buy myself chocolates or anything like that. But I think there's still nice things that you can do for yourself, even as a single person on Valentine's Day, right? Self-care, self-love, right? That same love that you would show to a significant other, you can do that same thing to yourself.

So that's what I plan on doing this year. Love your plan. I think, yeah, something like Valentine's Day where a festival can be a reminder for us to say, to express our gratitude, right? To appreciate the people who are around us, to support us for this so long time. And that's going to be, well, that's a great gesture. That's a very good, like,

I probably could do that the same. I recommend like the people who listen to our podcast also like thinking about, I think also for Chinese New Year, right? People do a lot like messaging in the Chinese New Year. And they say like something like long nian da ji, like shen ti jian kang, wish you a happy year, like healthy body, right? That's also a gesture of showing love to people who we care about.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a great time to do it. It's a great time to do it. I feel like people really appreciate it. I think especially if you come from a place where like, if you don't tell your friends or your family or your neighbors or right, even your coworkers, right. I feel like a lot of times in culture we're taught that like,

love doesn't have a place at work or in the office. And I was like, well, if there are people who you really care about, you can, like you said, show them appreciation and gratitude and be thankful for the relationships that you have. So I think that's

Yeah, there's so many different ways to do it. And so I hope definitely listeners that you all take an opportunity to, yeah, tell the people in your life that you love them. It's important. And I'm sure people will appreciate it. Speaking of love and telling people that we love them, as I had mentioned earlier, sometimes you tell people that you love them and they don't feel the same way. And so I'm...

We want to switch topics a little bit and talk a bit about unrequited love and heartbreak and what happens when maybe there's a little...

a lack of love in relationships. So I'm wondering, do you think, right, we talk a lot about like love-hate relationships, things that we love but we also hate. Do you believe that it's possible to love and hate something or someone at the same time? Love and hate at the same time? I don't know, probably. But what I do is actually I don't keep the people or things I hate nearby.

I think hate is a very strong word. Love is a strong word as well. I don't remember I say I hate something. Like so specifically, I hate someone in the past maybe five years. I don't remember I saying that. So I'm thinking like I'm in a situation where I know if I hate this thing. More like a people. Because things are difficult to...

It's like saying it's more like work life. We kind of just, just abandon that. But for people is it's not like we're abandoned. We just keep that away from us. If I really don't like this person, it's not even hate. I don't like this person. I try to keep my distance. If I really hate this person, I think it also connects as love. If we hate this person so much and we can't leave them, it's more like family situation. If we have in that lake,

they are part of like our family member and we can't just just abandon them it's kind of hate love existing in the both in the old situation but i try to not think about like hate perspective i hate this person i hate these things so i don't feel a strong like feeling about hate in a love situation

What about you? I think that it is... Like, if there's true love or even true hate, I think it's hard for those things to coexist, right? Like, I think if I genuinely love someone...

then I won't hate them, right? There's probably no neglect or abuse or things like that. And I don't know, I think about sometimes where like, I don't know, when you're in relations with people and they do wrong things against you, but you're like, you forgive them. You say, well, but I know they love me. So you discount the fact that they're harming you. So I think that it's

not possible to both love and hate something at the same time. And I think it's, to your point, it's really good that if it gets to a place where you do find yourself hating someone or resenting someone, then you probably have to reevaluate that situation and say, like, is this really love? Right? It might be affection. It might be attraction. Right? But it's probably not love if...

you have feelings of hate or other things around that that are involved in it. I just feel like hate is very strong word. Like, it's a very strong feeling. And if we really have that, like, resentful in our heart, and we constantly thinking about something or someone, and we come up with the word hate,

Is really we need to take time. To talk to ourselves. And find out the reason why. We hate this thing so much. And try to solve the problem. Or like try to look into it. And see why this is happening. And how can we stay away. Or like. Move our emotion from hate. To other. Like not that strong feeling. It's also very important. I just want to say that. Speaking of.

strong feelings or lack thereof. I recently had to go through a situation where I was dating someone and I felt like there wasn't as strong of a connection and I had to tell them that. And it was really hard for me because

Well, one, they were really nice and I felt like they hadn't done anything wrong. But similar to my previous story about me telling someone that I really love them and care for them and they're not receiving it, I felt like I was in a situation where I was on the other end of that. And I was in a position now where that person was telling me that they really liked me and I had to go, no.

I don't feel the same way. And that was really hard for me. And I was so surprised by how hard it was for me to do that, to tell someone, no, like, I don't feel the same way. I don't know if it was because I was scared of like hurting their feelings or like my own sense of like fear of rejection and abandonment were coming up.

But I was really, really anxious about that. And so I'm wondering, have you had situations where you've had someone who has had feelings for you and maybe you didn't feel the same way? And if so, how did you deal with that situation?

I don't understand why you feel like the fear of rejection, even though we are the one to reject people. I think what I can think of is I also try to avoid that situation. If I don't have the same feeling for you, what I did is just like ignore their message. So I don't respond. Yeah, because I don't think if we don't have the, if I don't have the attraction,

I don't like you. There's not going to end anywhere. It's not going to end between like we become friends. It's really difficult. Only like if we are, the goal is to become friends, that's easy. But like if we want to be in a relationship, but I don't have this feeling for you, then I don't know how to talk about it. But I think people receive this message as a rejection. They are like, oh, you're no longer respond to me.

to my message and I realized, oh, this is how you say no. But sometimes I also feel like this is not the right way to do it because it feels like it just goes on people and they don't know why. That's why I understand you saying like we are saying no, I don't have the same feeling. I don't want to be in a relationship with you. It's hard. And but there's also like a good way of communicate to people, right?

Yeah. How do you talk to people? And then after they received information, what was their reaction? Yeah, it took me probably a whole week.

to, like, figure out what I was going to say, how I was going to say it. Was I going to say it in person? Was I going to call them? Was I going to leave a voice note? Was I going to send a text message? Like, I was so stressed about it. I think part of the reason why it was so hard for me is because I think I've experienced being on the other end of someone telling me no and how hard it was for me to, like, receive that message. And so...

I was nervous that even though I knew it was the right thing to do, it was the right thing for me to tell him no. Because he would say like, oh, I'm so excited to see you. I can't wait to do X, Y, and Z. And he was always making plans for the future. Is that like, if I didn't tell him directly, then I felt like, yeah, I don't know. It felt like...

the right thing to do was to tell him because he was so excited. And also because he was nice. Like, I think it would be different if I felt like he was a jerk or he was a bad person or he was really rude. Like, that why we weren't incompatible. But...

I just wasn't attracted. Like I, and I couldn't, and I didn't want to say that. I feel like that would be like the meaner thing to do is that like, I'm not attracted to you. Like stop messaging me. And so, yeah, I think that was the challenge for me because I wanted him to feel like,

I wanted him to come out of it with dignity. I think also I was trying to figure out, like, was there a potential for us to just be friends? And I think that if I wanted us to just be friends, I wanted to end it on a cordial note. Like, I still wanted it to be, like, somewhat friendly, right?

If that makes sense. I think the different situation is when you actually like hang out with them for a couple of times and you realize this is really a nice person and just don't have this attraction to you. Right. Then you will feel bad if you don't say anything and you just ignore their message. You just go on them.

yeah depends on this person like how you interact with them and how you feel about this person maybe like this is really a nice person but just the chemistry is not there and yeah it's nice to talk to them about it i think they would understand because it's hard to ask for love right i will also mention about like you mentioned earlier you learn how to love from the heartbreak right like

How do you get, like, recover after the heartbreak? What's your support system? To be perfectly honest, I'm someone who, I need a few days to sulk. Like, I have to be sad for a few days about it. So I think initially my response is to, like...

be in my feelings, probably cry about it. You know, I spend some time replaying, like, ah, what went wrong? What could I have gone and done differently? Like, I have to process it myself first and spend some time, like, really sitting with my feelings. And then after that, I'm very fortunate that, like,

I can rely on my friends. I can rely on my siblings to give me advice. I mean, I can honestly even call my mom now, which I couldn't do, you know, probably 10 years ago. But now I can call my mom and say, like, hey, this is what I'm going through. Like, what can we do? And, like, sometimes it's just a conversation, right? Sometimes just saying it out loud helps. But, like, sometimes I need a distraction. We, like, maybe go out to dinner or we do an activity together or, you know,

Something like that. But for me, it's definitely relying on my community. But I definitely have to have that like me time, that solo time to like process it and be sad about it. Cry about it first. Yeah. How about you? Yeah, I think we're quite similar, especially about the community part. And I have a very strong and helpful support system, right?

other than like I need sometimes to me to process how I do need but I don't need that much time so I love to talking to my friends and how like sometimes it's not like it's not we need suggestion we need advice I just want to I talk to you my situation and feels better and also they will share some of their personal situation you realize well like we all been through something similar like this and they all survive they all like

evolved and they become better person. And I think the end goal is to, we don't really know how to love someone at the beginning. And we learn from each heartbreak and we learn from each relationship and we want to become a better person. And

During that process, talking to friends, talking to families, and how you recover or get healed from the breakup is important. You need to build a support system. You need to build something. You can get recovered. Yeah, I think that, like, that was very important to me. Yeah, so, like, when I go through, when I went through the breakup, and each day, you know, I talk to friends around me, and it's so helpful, and people, like, show me so much love. And I know, like,

relationship is part of the love system and if I don't have that it's fine because I have other part to fulfill me as a whole person where they feel so much love yeah that's that was like really you know like it's it's out it's strange to say that's a quite unique feeling like going through heartbreak but you know there are so much people around you love you so much

You only experience that by talking to them and like showing how vulnerable you are and showing like you need their support. You need their like love. Oh, you said so many things that resonate that are so important. One being that like when you're going through heartbreak, it's important, especially if you are a friend who's listening, that sometimes like

the person who's going through heartbreak doesn't want advice. They don't want suggestions. They don't want recommendations. They don't want shoulda, coulda, woulda. They just want you to listen and be there. And so I think that's so, so, so important. The second thing that you said was that it's so important that friends and your community is there to remind you that like,

they've been through situations like this in the past and they survived. They made it through. Or even to remind you that you've been through situations like this in the past and that you've survived and you've grown and evolved from it. So yeah, thank you for saying that. Those are like two such key things to keep in mind. And like you said, because when you're going through heartbreak, it really can feel like

The end of the world. It can be so devastating and crushing. And to remember that, like you said, be vulnerable. Let those people in because that shows you just how much you're loved. That's so true. It's so true. So...

I feel like as we've been talking about how we learn about love, how we've experienced love, you know, we're big fans of media. We're big fans of books and music here. And so I'd like us to talk a little bit about what are some of our favorite examples of love in pop culture and literature or in media? Do you have any particular standout examples?

examples of love i i think the real example of love should come out from the reality from the life but you asked me to talk to like example i can't really think of any but like when you say about like the we are so influenced by the media but the the culture people trying to feed us on like tv on

videos on internet i can think of something like there's a video i remember there used to be a hollywood like very famous an actress and she was talking to a host she was like

I literally banned for my children, especially girls, to watch Disney movies. So it's like Snow White, like the Cinderella. Because that's not the real story in life. That's fairy tale. If you believe that, you're going to fall hard in love in the real situation, in the real world.

I think, but I also remember, like, I don't really love, like, I don't really, I never enjoy watching Disney movies, like, this kind of, like, fairytale movies. But I do, there's a, there was a point I really enjoyed watching, like, the career shows, career love shows. That's what it's like. But all, I didn't realize, I watched a couple, like, maybe dozen movies

shows I realized, oh, they're very similar story. And the ending normally is either very good or is very bad. Right. And the both situations are not like what you can experience fully in real life. That's quite interesting. What about you? How's the pop culture or how's the culture influence your view of love? I think

Yeah, growing up, speaking, it's funny that you mentioned the actor who didn't want their kids watching Disney because Disney was such a big part of my childhood. I mean, I've probably, all of the classic Disney movies, I've probably seen all of them. I've seen a lot of the newer movies as well. Even as an adult, I've seen a lot of them. And it's interesting because

You mentioned like Disney created all of these fairy tales of love stories. And it's so interesting because now Disney is working really hard to like change their brand and image. And they're going back and they're retelling stories and they're creating newer films and TV shows that actually go against the messaging that they used to tell us when we were kids.

And so for me, I felt like I grew up watching things like these famous dating shows, like The Bachelor and Bachelorette, or A Wedding Story, which always focus on people finding their one and their one and only. And like those shows started, funny enough, when I was in middle school, as my parents were going through divorce. And now all of a sudden, one of the most popular TV shows is

on America is all about finding a wife or finding a husband. And so I think I've been conditioned and programmed for media from a very young age to want to be married and to want to have a family and to see that type of love as like the ultimate ideal, as like the ultimate pursuit in life. And

And so it's challenging then when you get older and you become disillusioned from that, because as you said, you go through life and you learn that reality is not what you see necessarily in media. For some people it is, right? Some people have their fairytale weddings and they have their Prince Charming or their princess or whatever. But I have found that like,

my life isn't going to necessarily lead me to those things. And it's really challenging because I don't think I started realizing that my reality was different from all the things that media taught me growing up until my 20s, right? Or even like my early 30s. And so now here I am, old enough, mature enough, and I feel like I'm ready for love, but I

I don't even know how to necessarily go about getting it, how to pursue it, how to, once you have it, how do you maintain it, right? Because all of my examples have been based in heteronormative, like compulsory, monogamous sort of context, which is not sort of the reality of the life that I live right now. So it's interesting because I think I hold on to some of those stories really fondly, even though I know that

In some ways, they're like problematic. They're not like helping me reach the goal that I want in terms of my own love journey. So it's complicated. Yeah, I think the show doesn't tell too much about reality. It's more like dramatic. Sometimes it can be very dramatic and we don't really experience that in our life. But also sometimes it's like too dramatic. It can help us with our real relationship in life, right?

But do you think, can you think of any like positive impact from what you watched, from what you read, from your experience to that interior, like how you view relationship? I think there are newer shows that I think have learned and evolved that

For example, there's a show that's pretty popular on Netflix called Love is Blind. I don't know if you've heard about it. And if you haven't, if you're a listener, you haven't. The idea behind the show is that people are in pods and they go on dates with people that they can't see. And the idea is that building a relationship and building deep connections with people is more than just appearances and looks.

Because obviously when we see people, we make judgments based off of how they look. And the idea is that by the end of the experiment, you're able to propose to someone and agree to get married before ever seeing them. And obviously this is a social experiment and socializing.

not all of the relationships work out. But I think the purpose of the show is really thought-provoking. And it does make you think about, well, what would my love life look like if I let go of some of the more superficial things, like appearances or what people's jobs are, how much money they make or where they live? And I thought about some of the more core values and ethics that actually really matter. You know, do we have the same vision in life? Do we have the same morals? Like,

For some people, do you have the same religion or spiritual beliefs or what have you? Some of those things are much more important. And so I think from shows like that, I've been able to draw some important lessons that I can apply to my own life. So I think things like that can be helpful. Yeah.

I think the biggest takeaway from all of it, whether it's Disney or The Bachelor or these reality shows, I think the biggest thing that I've taken away from it is that when it is successful, right, like, I do think that those are actual true examples of true love.

the love that doesn't have hate, that's all-encompassing, that has the care and the affection and the attraction. Like, when it does work, you really want to root for those people, whether it's real or imagined. And so I think there is part of me that, like,

wants to be able to continue experiencing that euphoric, like the positive sides of love that I think ultimately those shows are trying to show people. That's nice. I did watch a season of Love is Blind. I have different takeaways, actually, but I agree with you. Like, the purpose of this show is to have people...

ignore the appearances stuff right like how you look and you try to develop this relationship before even you know how the other person looks like but I feel is also when you look at the show when you're 30s you realize oh it's so difficult to find love

Even though love is blind, but you realize maybe there are like 30 people. I remember 30 couples were 30 people at the beginning. And eventually, if one really come out of successful couple, they go into the marriage and that's quite successful. But you also realize in this kind of reality show, you know...

the difficulties, the challenges they went through during the process. It's also like, that's real. That's something like you can experience in the show. That's very nice. I think what I learned from like social media, it's not only like shows, but like all the social media, internet. I think I'm more like, I can know different kind of love and I become more tolerant, acceptable of different format of love. I like all the things

the LGBTQ, the open relationships, the friends with benefits, right? They're all different format existing because we have different needs. We need different situation. So in that situation, we probably need this kind of relationship. And what we experienced before, like you mentioned, it's just like monography, right? It's just one...

I love you, you love me, we're in a relationship, exclusive relationship. But that's not the reality. It's not like always relationship can be exclusive. So I think that's like, you need to be open-minded to see different things and then you try to accept, oh, there's all different forms of love and all people are different and they are looking for different things. And that's also very important from like the social media have influence on us.

100% agree. I think social media and various forms of media have shown me, yeah, various forms of love and relationships can exist. And it's really broadened my horizon. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of those things are good fit for me, but it's opened me and exposed me. And like you said, it's made me more tolerant and more acceptable with other ways of living. Because love isn't a one size fits all.

fits all, right? There's so many different configurations for people. And one thing that'll work for you won't necessarily work for me. And what works for me won't necessarily work for you or for someone else. So I think that's so important. That's such a good takeaway. And that's a wrap for today's episode of Cultural Collision.

We hope you enjoyed our exploration of love in all its forms. Tell us in the comments about your favorite stories of love or heartbreak. What did you do to come out of the shadows of a past relationship? How do you celebrate love in your life now? What examples of love and pop culture and media do you hold on to dearly and why? We want to know.

Remember, whether you're basking in the warmth of love or healing from heartbreak, you're not alone in this journey. Be sure to turn in next time for another insightful conversation. Until then, keep embracing the beauty of cultural collisions in your own life. Take care and much love. Bye. Bye.