#129. Franklin Yao: A Nugget Of Good
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What's up, everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. If you've been enjoying the show, go ahead, rate, comment, and subscribe. All right.

Our guest is the founder of Xero, one of China's leading plant-based food alternatives to meat. He leads a team of chefs and scientists to produce healthy and sustainable food alternatives and collaborates with some of the top chefs to serve plant-based options to chicken, beef, pork, and more. And here I thought I was going to change my diet to plant-based alternatives after learning about the negatives of the meat industry. But you know what? After tasting those Xero chicken nuggets...

I realized they just taste really good. I'm convinced after about 50 of those. And one of the highlights for me was hearing his journey around the world, trying different Michelin-starred restaurants, and how he's leveraging his background as a foodie and brand expert to bring completely new food experiences to China. So, without further ado, please give it up for Franklin Yao. ♪

All right, Franklin, cheers. Cheers. Thank you. We have this whole setup here. So let's just kind of describe the setup we have. You brought an air fryer. We got an air fryer set up in the studio right here. We got a bunch of hot sauces.

Got some grapes. We have grapes. That's an interesting kind of combo. And we got some zero nuggets. Yeah, exactly. Is that what you call them? Zero nuggets? Yeah, we just call them zero nuggets, zero crispy nuggets. They're a chef recipe. So it's 11 original herbs and spices developed by our chefs. Oh. Yeah. Kind of playing, of course, off of the idea of a kernel. KFC. Kernel. Original recipe, but...

We actually produce the seasoning at a separate factory than we do the nuggets, just to make sure that we can take the seasoning...

Secret sauce, right? Secret sauce, exactly. And we can maybe even start to apply it into other products. Oh. So that's kind of part of what we're doing. So the reason why you keep it separate is to keep it secret? Yeah, exactly. Oh, wow. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. So why don't you just tell us all the ingredients right here, right now? Let's list them off for our listeners. And actual measurements, please. Cool.

Cool. I wouldn't even know. I just tried in our lab and, you know, and just do different variations and give our opinion. And then we actually, this is the first production batch, but we actually went and did several rounds of testing to our community, to chefs. And this is where we are right now. And also just very curious about your feedback.

We might be adjusting it a little bit. So Xero is plant-based protein? Yeah. That's kind of like the whole idea around what you do is just to offer different products that are plant-based? Yeah.

Yeah, I think when we first started, when I first started and then I got the kind of vision for it, my original vision is that Zero is going to represent Chinese cuisine and it's a ground pork product. And we're only going to do ground pork and I'm going to stick to that.

Three years later in the business, what you realize is it's not about what you want. It's really about what the customer wants and how you serve the customer better. So the beauty of these nuggets, if you're a restaurant, if you're a Nike canteen, or if you're Shanghai American School, you know, it's very easy for the kitchens to

portion of six, pair it with a sauce, and it's ready to go. And so this is developed out of a thinking of what the customer wants. For example, we've got a product that sells really well right now to canteens is our Beef Wellington. It's wrapped in a pastry. It's 13 minutes. You pair it with a vegetable and a gravy, and you serve that as

a main course that's that's lunch or that's that sounds super wellington that's like super ambitious yeah and the great thing and actually i should have brought that too but the great thing about that is that now we're going out of comparing burger to burger or steak to steak or chicken breast to plant-based chicken breast it's something that the kitchen can't make

And so now if you want Beef Wellington, you have a vegetarian zero version of it. So more and more products like that. We're coming out with a Singapore curry meatball. It's two kilogram bag. The meatballs are in it. The curry's there. You cut it open. You heat it up. You can pair it with a roti, put it on rice. But it actually had to take me, it actually had to, I actually had to come off of my diet

creative, idealistic, this is a piece of art, zero. And really like, it's not about me and it's not about us. It's really like, what does the market want? What does the customer want? And let me...

understand like one customer really well and just really, really serve that customer well. That's like the classic artist's dilemma, right? Like the artistic endeavor versus the commercial and business endeavor, right? And sometimes and oftentimes there are odds with each other and the compromises have to be made in between, right? I've seen a lot of zero alternatives on different menus here around town. How do you measure like what is a good product for you guys in terms of

Oh, how much does, if you're doing chicken, right? This chicken nuggets you have here in front of you. I think the usual assumption is like, oh, how much does this taste like the chicken nuggets I know and love? Is that like the goal for you guys is to kind of try to emulate the flavors as accurately as possible, realistically as possible? Or are you kind of just like saying the hell with that? It can be like a whole new thing, you know, like a whole new taste profile. And if it tastes good, it tastes good. Like how much, like what's the balance between that?

That's a great question. I don't have the full answer to that yet because our goal is satisfaction, is customer satisfaction. And satisfaction first derives from taste, and then it's the other attributes. And China Health is...

At least the customers say that it's very important in terms of what they aspire to, whether it's what customers actually practice is a different thing. And then you start to get into like, is this a good product? Animal welfare, sustainability, food safety, security. But number one driver is taste in terms of satisfaction.

A lot of the times when we think about satisfaction when it comes to food is not that this is something that's in the future. It's this is something that I have a nostalgic memory of. And so you can see right from the very beginning, we never talked about ourselves as future food. We always talked about this is something that you have a taste memory of. It could be something that your waipo cooked, right? It could be something that your nona cooked, right? So it could be, I was in...

Two years ago, we were at this kind of weightlifting conference in Beijing that had kind of a plant-based food section. And this kind of very young, buff guy.

A Beijing guy with a heavy kind of northern accent, you know, he just came up to me and he said, you know, you're Frank, you're the founder of Xero. I want to shake your hand. And I said, why? He said, thank you. I said, you know, shaking hands. I said, why? He said, I'm from Beijing. I was born in Beijing my whole life. I went vegan three years ago.

And I have not had Zhajiangmian until last week when I used Zero to create the Zhajiangmian. So I'm just overwhelmed emotionally just to be able to have a product that you have a taste memory of it. Now, that's his specific kind of satisfaction here. Now, go back to your question of

like where this goes. The North Star is not necessarily nostalgia, even though a lot of the index of it is highly indexed to nostalgia. But we have a lot of products, as you know, in China that people have created new taste memories for, like, you know, when, you know, Shi Cha and Lila Cha first became popular. I mean, nobody had done that.

done whatever it is that they're doing right if you think about it you're um you're basically drinking a cheesecake right because you have this kind of cheese topping it's like fruity and then there's some tea in it i guess right but you're really drinking sugar and you know uh

sugar and fat, right? And you're just getting it in a form that you can sip it through a straw. But right now, I'm sure if you've had shiitake before, you can taste it right now. You can imagine what it tastes like, that saltiness, that coolness, maybe that coldness, maybe that brain freeze. And Chinese people right now have that taste memory. So do we now then kind of create

in that direction, I almost think that would be the holy grail of what we're ultimately trying to do. But I don't have that right now. Right now, I got these great nuggets. Maybe we should have some of these. Yeah, let's get it going. Nuggets is super interesting. I think they've been fried, so they might be a little cold and I'll fry up some new ones. Yeah, let's do it. You know, my original idea with these nuggets, to be absolutely honest, was taste memory. And for me, it's that taste of KFC. Mmm.

and that kind of flavor profile. Like when you eat KFC, you know that original recipe. Now the thing is that people in China don't necessarily associate KFC with Colonel Sanders' original recipe here anymore because the KFC is- The menu has been so tailored to the domestic market. It has been so tailored, right?

And we actually, we were in our lab, you know, actually for months and multiple iterations trying to reverse engineer original recipe. Like we went through every version of it. And finally just realizing, yeah, actually, you know, KFC's done a pretty good job of

It's very hard to replicate. I mean, we have great chefs that work for us. We spend a lot of hours. And in the end, it's like, hey, does it have to be exactly like KFC? Or can we make our own flavor profile that makes sense in the context of these nuggets that we're creating? So that's what ended up happening here. I understand. Why do you think it's so hard to replicate KFC? Because there's so many ingredients? Or is it just like...

Is there something that they're using? Well, I was told from a kind of industry source that actually supplies part of the recipe to KFC that, for example, KFC breaks it up into three different –

even just on the flavoring, just to hide that. And what might be published or what might be misled. But maybe it's chicken fat. Maybe when you do all of that along with chicken fat or cooked in the context of a pressure cooker. So that alchemy, flavor profile, if you're taking some of those other elements out,

you can never really fully replicate. So it's like, why don't you just do your own thing that's inspired by this? A lot of this stuff, you just, you know, just like in business or in life, you just, you find your way, right? Yeah. So let's try it. Let's try it. Yeah. They might be getting a little cold, but let's just give it a try. Yeah. Yeah. So just, is there one particular, so should we just eat it without a sauce? I would just eat it without the sauce first. Okay. Yeah.

That's just a little soggy. It's not as... I might crisp it up a little longer. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass just because you're on the show. Yeah. And maybe it's just because I'm really hungry. That's delicious. Yeah. It's really good. It should be crispier. Yeah, it'll be better if it was crispier. It's a little soggy. But the flavor itself is delicious. Yeah. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah.

It has a little bit of that original recipe kick to it. A little bit. Yeah. No, I would honestly just eat this. I would eat this happily. And that's the point. Without any disappointment of it being zero. And for you, it doesn't have to be something that's plant-based. It might just be something that's convenient. Yeah.

easy to cook. It's just a great snack. We don't have to, you know, I don't have to try to convert you into plant-based diet or being a vegan or a vegetarian. I just need to convert you to liking these nuggets. And that means you're eating six less McDonald's nuggets or KFC nuggets. We're doing good for the world. We're doing good for the world.

- Oh, this is spicy as shit. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But it tastes really good, that hot sauce. - I wanted to make a comment though, and then, you know, as we go through this, like as we start exploring this little, some of your rationale behind things, but it's interesting, right?

Because if you're just trying to, you're not like a major food producer. Like, I mean, you can't compete with all those farms that make, you know, that like have cows and chicken and all that stuff. So you kind of have, it feels like you have to move up the food chain a little bit. And then you've got to like link this to something that's popular. That it's a big enough market, like chicken nuggets. It's like a no brainer. So you can create an alternative to,

in the chicken nugget space, that's kind of like your initial sort of attack into the industry. And then you convert some people and then they're like, okay, then you build your brand and then people know about it. So I know about your brand, not so much from like this just general notion of zero, but it's like, I actually associate it with like the chicken nuggets. Oh, okay. And then, so it's like a beachhead for you. Right. And then like you're moving up the value chain. So then you can like, so my question actually would be,

So like these guys that you have in there, you know, guys and girls that you have in the kitchen, I mean, that's part of your sort of intellectual property as well, because if you can develop...

different things based off your stuff then you can control the product you can control the taste and you're not leaving it up to the restaurant because that might fuck it up right exactly consistency yeah they might fuck it up they don't know how to do it and then people associate like that bad kind of replication that fakeness with your brand but if you can control it and you start with one or two very you know focused products and then you can iterate over it so you like

really worked hard in the kitchen and then you get something that's like no one can beat you on the chicken nuggets if it's not like a... Like, maybe there's not the other meat-based chicken nuggets can't even beat your chicken nuggets because they're not experts on it. I'll pull on a few threads there. One is there's a lot of chicken nuggets in China because we have been trained by McDonald's and KFC. So to say that chicken...

Chicken nuggets is a Western product. I'll bet you China eats more chicken nuggets than any other country in the world at this point, right? Just given the size of the population. Well, these three people here at this table, maybe including yourself, eats more chicken nuggets. We account for a lot of that. Over the years. We account for a lot of that consumption. We make a contribution to the GDP. Right. But definitely, you know, as a treat for kids going to McDonald's, like that's probably...

Right, the first thing. So I think chicken nuggets at this point is a Chinese product or it's a global product. Second is there's really a lot of bad chicken nuggets in China. So whether it's at your hotel buffet, at the breakfast, or at the lounge, or whether it's...

brands that are not, you know, McDonald's or KFC. And if you have the chicken nuggets at the, maybe the more local chains, like it's pretty low standards. So to kind of get to a high standard of chicken nuggets, it's, it's like, um, it's actually a nice poker table, meaning there's a lot of bad players on this poker table when it comes to chicken nuggets. The other thing I want to say is that there was a lot of hype about plant-based meat globally, um,

Three years ago. It was after Beyond went public. And there was a lot of players that started in China that I don't think were responsible for the category. Meaning, I just want, because this is hype, I want to get into the market quickly and I want to get my share. They just want to jump on the bandwagon. They just want to jump on the bandwagon. And unfortunately...

with China sealed off and not really seeing how this thing has emerged globally, and then the experiences that we've had for the first impression of the Chinese consumer year, it was not a great first impression. So it's not just about my responsibility as a brand for Xero, but it's also my responsibility as a brand for the industry or the movement.

And I think that is a level of responsibility. Unfortunately, I don't think we have been responsible as an industry. So I'm calling that out right now because I think the truth is the truth. We could have done better. And it just makes our job harder when you have this bad association with the category that is not even fair, but it is something that was a first impression. Okay. So I just want to stop for one second. So what is better? What was the issue?

Yeah, where did they fail?

- Well, yeah, we're starting to get into kind of like a little bit of niche of like industry, kind of inside baseball. But for example, there was a, the first time plant-based meat trended on Chinese social media was associated with a young actress who is well known for posting about loving meat.

And they had paid her to do a short clip to eat their dumplings. But it was quite obvious from the clip that she did not swallow the dumplings. Oh, shit. And she spat them out probably afterwards. And I think a lot of the Chinese netizens picked that up and kind of said, there's two levels here. First of all, plant-based meat is so terrible that she won't eat it.

And second is you think you can trick us by paying her to eat it? And what are you trying to do to the Chinese consumer? It's a double whammy. Because one, it's like the product probably sucks. And number two is you're being dishonest. So it's like both, like two worse things. Exactly. And for example, there was a period when you could go to a Lawson's or Family Mart and you could eat a plant-based sandwich.

Did that sandwich taste good? No, it was pretty awful, soggy sandwich. It was like some random, generic. Right. Or when Starbucks made a push in China with two other brands, and you tried the product. Like, for example, there was a Vietnamese rice noodle dish, and when you get served it,

it's inedible because if you think about rice noodle, when it's cold, it's just rock hard, right? And so they were serving this and they're saying, this is your first experience with plant-based meat from Starbucks, which it should be good. And you're getting this hard noodle. So not to dwell too much on this inside baseball, but you got to think about it. Like this was the first impression and that doesn't help everything else build up. And I can say for our own brand, Zero, like,

I love our ground pork, like we talked about. It's not maybe the, it's a product that chefs can work really great with and it's kind of this magical ingredient. But in terms of like scaling it,

the chicken nugget is much easier to use and to eat and to buy and conceptually, right? I have a question. So my wife is, every month she goes vegetarian, right? And we always go to vegetarian restaurants here. And there's a lot of vegetarian restaurants that basically serve up dishes that are basically like, you know, hong sao rou, but it's not rou, right? So it's all vegetarian, like gluten or, you know, whatever, soy.

And so in terms of that, like that market, I feel like it's, you know, it's pretty big. It just dinged and like Justin's eyes just lit up. Like I was like, I have not been listening to anything that we sang. I don't even know what how he sang. Because I want that next batch of nuggets right now. Yeah. No, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah, but in terms of like creating dishes that are palatable for the local market, is that something that you're looking to kind of maybe go towards at all or no? We do. I would say almost all the time, the, the, the,

The food that Xero is, the context that it's served in is generally Chinese dishes. So for example, when we serve at Nike, you look at the menu, we might have a roujiamo, right? So it's kind of like a Xero. Another dish that we just did that sold out like real fast was like a Henan zhen mian, you know? And it was just, so most of the time it is actually in that Chinese context and

where one of the products that we just did another iteration of in our lab yesterday that I just had was a ready-to-use Mapo tofu kit. So basically everything is in one bag. All you need is the tofu and maybe some spring onions for some color, right? And you just fry it together and that's ready to go. And the beauty of this is it's designed by a master chef in Sichuan.

And the key here is not that somebody eats this, it's somebody eats it the second time. That's the key. 'Cause I think there's a period when people were curious, unfortunately they had bad experiences with the category, but now when I'm getting repeat customers,

It's not like I have this customer and that's good. Let me move on to the next one. It's like, no, let me focus on this customer and go even deeper. You can't sell to everybody and you can't as an organization be good at everything. And maybe from day one, you're not going to have all the answers. So you do have to go through a period of hands-on exploration. But at a certain point, like, you know, I used to be a management consultant for a long time, I think 17 years.

But, you know, in consulting, we have this idea of core competency, right? And so any startup organization has to, in the end, get to a, you know, know thyself type of situation, right, where you know what you're good at. Is there, I mean, I'm not too familiar. I don't have the answer for this, but...

Has there anybody been doing any type of educational marketing in terms of alternative meat, maybe the benefits or anything like that? Dude, we just crushed that, by the way. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it. Go ahead. Frank, load it up. Load it up. How is it getting all intellectual and stuff? We're just trying to chow down. One thing I will say, Frank, as a positive, just as a consumer, I didn't feel the need to...

To dip, right? To dip. I mean, I like dips, but I actually was like, I like that pepper flavor. 100%. So I was like, I didn't want to dip. So if we compare it to what we, probably the nugget we, the three of us are most accustomed to is the McDonald's chicken nugget. Yeah. If we compare it to that, this is much more flavorful. 100%. We're huge chicken nugget fans, right? But we're like the McDonald's. So I guess that's a Pepsi Coke kind of thing.

And I'm like last week or the week before I brought a bunch of nuggets over and we actually bring them over kind of like as if it's like a cigarette. It's like just to build relationships. I bring over and like, like here, here, here. Justin, right? And then, and like,

The excitement of that taste memory and everything with chicken nuggets is so incredible. And then like, I am very demanding. I go in there. I'm like, I want it freshly made. And they're like, what do you mean? They're like, they're all freshly made. I'm like, no, I want it just out of the Kaohsiung, all this stuff. I'm like, you want to see it made. But I was disappointed last time. There's a new McDonald's that opened right around the corner. I mean, these are,

for us if there's a McDonald's that opens five minutes from your house like we're like it's like a celebratory moment like it really is a celebratory moment we've had we've had epic like anyways we can talk more about our epic ask us about the epic things that we've done with McDonald's like later irrelevant and so I'm tasting this nugget and I'm tasting there's a point there's a very specific point to the story I'm tasting the nugget the flavor generally tastes good it's crispy and

But then I noticed the meat itself just didn't even, like it just, it felt cheap. It felt yucky. It felt like it was just some crap. And I think that's the thing that maybe I'm starting to realize is that it's not just about whether it is a meat quote unquote thing.

or it is a non-meat. It's about the quality of the actual product. And over time, I've seen the quality of the product itself with chicken nuggets diminish to the point where it's like, I'm scared to eat that chicken nugget because I don't think it's like good chicken. I think it's actually bad for me, not just because it's fried. Yeah.

but because it's like, they're just trying to cut costs and make something real shitty. Well, to be fair, McDonald's chicken nuggets never really tasted like chicken to begin with. You're never like, ooh, this is chicken. It was its own kind of thing. It felt like a chemical, though, the last time I tasted it, and it was weird. And so I think that's something to, you know, I mean, everyone will have to try your stuff out. I can't speak for them. But I think that notion of quality is something that, because if you're just competing against meat, then meat's always going to win because it's meat.

But if you're talking about like, oh, well, it's not just about whether it's meat or not meat. There's a quality aspect and a flavor and an overall holistic aspect to it. Then it's a different ballgame. Yeah. Again, the question about are you trying to create something new?

I mean, I don't know if you guys remember, it was probably 40 years ago when the chicken nugget actually first came out, right? At McDonald's. I mean, it was because they wanted to use the scraps of the chicken that could not go into, you know, kind of whole cut chicken. And like, how can we create a new product that,

and market and sell it, and it took off when it was applied into McDonald's. So that's the origin of it, is to take the cheap cuts of chicken. So that's one point. Second point, and what we're trying to address and not be too preachy, is in order to feed us all of this meat, there are a lot of shortcuts in terms of the way animals are raised. And we're just not charged for that externalities, because we want a lot of meat and we want it cheap. Okay, now...

Don't want to get too much into that because I don't think that that's good for business. Good for business, again, is customer satisfaction. But I think that is a reality that we are trying to address here. And what we need to do as a business is really about market fit. For example, one of the feedbacks that we got when it was put into a children's buffet

is that it was too peppery. So now maybe I need to, is the answer now that I adjust the entire SKU or is it that I have a version? Like a kid's version? Like a kid's version, right? Well, I'm curious in terms of the feedback you got about the kids. I wonder if that feedback was more the parents thinking they're too spicy for the kids or maybe the kids really enjoyed them. Like did the kids themselves say, oh, this is too peppery for me?

Or was it the parents being like, oh, I don't want my kid to eat such peppery things? I have to go back and ask that question specifically, but that's exactly the point. Because maybe the kids really enjoyed them. And I find that in Chinese kids. Chinese kids have liked this kind of flavor profile, but I think we always see the parents are always concerned about spice level for their kids. I mean, in my own household, it's the same thing. My daughter loves...

love spice and my wife is always trying to not expose her to spice, right? I think it's a super good question. And there's one thing that's quite interesting about children. If you can kind of get them to buy into some of this stuff, then you don't ever have to

think about this meat versus veggie kind of thing because they've already bought in from the... We're bought into chicken... Exactly. I didn't even know the scrap... I kind of knew the scraps thing, but did you hear how I described it? I was like, oh, this should be high quality fucking chicken. I'm already so bought into this fucking thing. But let's be honest here. If you're really going to compare it to McDonald's, I think one of the biggest...

differences is for McDonald's you have to dunk it in a sauce right because you're used to it you're not going to eat poppin nuggets with no sauce it's a little bland if you don't dump it in sauce really you eat it without sauce so that's why I have them freshly freshly baked

And I usually order 15 to 20 at a time. That's why we don't trust you. Shut up. You can't trust someone that eats McDonald's nuggets without dipping them into a sauce. That's because if you don't get them freshly... That's some psycho ass shit right there. But what I'm trying to get at is Frank's Zero Nuggets...

Well, it's just delicious, period. Like, I didn't need to dunk it. We love, like, chicken nuggets is, like, iconic for us. It's, like, one of my top 10 favorite foods of all time. Wow. So if you could... We get it, Eric. We get it. Okay. Dude, I'm not even the top chicken nugget eater among this group. Okay? Like, if we had to really compare historical... Give a stab with that, Eric. Eric.

Eric is getting really hot about the chicken nuggets. Who do you think has the most chicken nuggets out of the three of us? This is the most Eric has spoken on any podcast. He's going off. This is passion. This is real passion. But yeah, so I think if you can get it right, then like you can move mountains. Well, yeah. Let me ask you because I know back in the States, there's a whole dialogue and debate about plant-based stuff.

people who are for it, people who are against it. It's a very heated debate going on. So I kind of want to just get more educated in terms of like, in your opinion, like why, what's the necessity here?

to go plant-based, you know, in general? Like what is the main impetus here? What are the things that maybe we're not aware of or we're oblivious to that's happening? Even when you mentioned like animal welfare, the meat industry, I'm sure like at the kind of scale that we're processing meat in this world is probably like pretty horrific. What's like the truth behind all this in terms of why go plant-based? First thing I want to say, yeah, I'm just going to say my truth instead of

lecturing about what I think everybody should do, because I actually think that my truth is really about not doing that and really about making more options in the world so that the more good choice is a, the more good choice in that direction of good is a more attractive choice and to kind of marry business and doing good.

So I'm starting first from, first of all, as somebody who loves food, all right? Whether it's plant-based food or whether it's, you know, I think we can do better than McDonald's chicken nuggets or meat, right? I don't eat steak much, you know, maybe once a year, but I'll, of course, when I'm having steak, really appreciate it. So first of all, I'm a foodie. I've

You guys have eaten a lot of chicken nuggets. I've eaten some, but I've probably eaten a lot of Michelin stars, you know, kind of across the world. So that's kind of part of, you know, my hobby before starting this business is just let me know whether it was going to Noma, you know, 12 years ago when it was the number one restaurant in the world and making a trek to Copenhagen or, you know, going to Barcelona specifically to see what's happening with Spanish fine dining. Like I'm a super foodie. Yeah. That's one.

And the funny thing is then, so I get to, I was a, I am a Buddhist and Chinese Buddhism is a little bit something else. And we can maybe pull on that a little bit because it is, but I would call myself a practicing Buddhist in what I mean is I read Buddha. I read what his words are. If I'm trying to understand the world, might as well learn from the best. Okay. And 2,500 years ago,

This guy put a lot of work into trying to understand things and he was willing to teach and share, right? From meditation point of view, I think meditation does rewire your brain and it does change you, including from an empathy side or from a what is important and what is real side. So I started with that. And of course, one of the precepts is do no harm.

I'm not going to, because I don't, I'm not coming from a background of global policy or, I just, you know, for me, it's like, how do we do more good? Like, how do we move things in the direction of good? Whether it is from animal welfare or food safety security. I mean, if you think about China is the largest consumer and importer of soy protein, of soybean crop in the world. And,

The vast, vast majority of that is used to feed pigs, and that is a very inefficient way to get protein. So from a food security point of view, that is not efficient. We talk about animal welfare, health, a lot of these issues. I can't tell you, hey, when you eat zero, of course we educate, but I can't tell you, it's not my authority to say,

This is absolutely good. I know in my heart that we're moving this in the direction. Am I saying that everybody adopts plant-based diet, that this is gonna solve all the world's problems? I'm not actually saying that. I'm actually saying is like for me and my work, if I create a business that I know is moving things in that direction, even if it is one step out of millions of steps that need to take place, maybe now we're influencing other people

whether it's from the way that they eat or the businesses that they build or wakening up consumers' thinking. We're moving things in a direction that I think is a meaningful life. So part of where I have gotten to philosophically is that I think that this thing called

Whether it's, people have beliefs, right? So Buddhism is part of this. So what we talked about Chinese food, Buddhism is, can be a philosophy, it could be a practice, and it can be a belief. Veganism can be a belief too, right? Christianity, you know, Islam. There's different beliefs, but I think that there is one belief that is the most universal right now, and I think it is of not a great belief, which is, it is a type of religion, which I think is,

the purest form of capitalism, which is just chasing money. And the reason why I say it's a type of religion is because we actually practice it. It actually justifies so many things that everybody is doing. If you actually break down, like, what is my driving force in terms of making decisions? A lot of it is if it makes money,

then this is something that is good, and that justifies everything else. And I don't think, maybe this is Buddhist influence, I don't think that is as real as other things in this world in terms of creating a meaningful life.

And so that is a little bit of my rebellion when I'm creating a brand like Xero or in terms of the work that I'm doing is to actually say, hey, look, this is not everything. Of course, I can't be in denial and say, hey, we have to make money in business too. I fully understand that. But are there other systems that allow us to produce and be productive and also move things in a good direction? I don't know. It's not my authority to do that. I can only hear practice what I think is good.

So, so I don't know if that answers your question, but it's really, I get it. I don't like, like, um, you know how we approach this. Yeah. Well, but I, I even think like, to be honest, I think you're even being too modest in the sense that, you know, like, you know, you keep saying like, it's not my authority. Like whose authority is it then really? Right. Like, I'm not saying you have to be an activist and you know, God knows there's probably too many want to be activists these days. I, I, I, I get it. You know, I get the whole kind of consumerism aspect of it. Um,

I mean, I just, what I'm most, I guess, unclear about, and I guess maybe I have some idea, but like, what is wrong with the current paradigm, right? Because like, basically what you're saying is like, we don't have to, or at least you as an individual, you don't have to buy into the current paradigm of how the world is run and what are the kind of driving forces behind things and

how the structure of the rules around us work, right? And I'm a big believer in that. I definitely believe we don't have to buy into a lot of big paradigms around us. What I would like to be educated on most is like, in terms of in your context, what are the main things that you feel are wrong with the current paradigm?

Besides the whole consumerism thing. Again, I caveat this by saying I want to introduce more good choice and let everybody make their choice. And generally, the choice needs to be an attractive choice. I just say that. If you do go to a slaughterhouse where they're slaughtering pigs, it's pretty obvious that something not good is happening. And if you talk to people that work in that industry,

I think they also feel uncomfortable with it. And I think that there is a lot of disattachment in a different way from what you're doing, right? So I think that we morally know that there is something not right here, at least in the way that pigs are raised or animals are raised in not great conditions and then killed. And when you're dealing with mammals, right?

And the definition of a mammal, by the way, is from...

mothers taking care of their children, right? That's the definition of mammal, that you're kind of feeding milk to your children. So I think that there is, that is, when you're separating that out, that's not, and again, I'm not trying to get into electric, but I think we know that there's something wrong with it. It's just that it's conveniently out of sight when you're eating. You're actually disassociated from that when you're,

enjoying that pork chop, right? Again, it's, so that's one thing. Second thing, as I talked about, it's not efficient. So if you're using 10 pounds of soy protein in order to produce one pound of pork, that's not a good balance. Could we eat less pork and eat more soy protein in order to balance out

you know, China's got to import a lot of food, right? China's not food independent. It relies on the, even if we say, hey, the pigs are, the soy is imported, right? So there's a lot of things that are inefficient with that system. I think we can talk about, you know, climate change and how food is actually the large contributor to that. So, and then I think when it comes to health, something like gout is, you know,

an increasing problem in China, right? And so if you look at, you know, gout from, you know, red meat and seafood versus soy protein that does not contribute to gout, right, from a health perspective. So I think that everybody has different reasons and everything for what they're doing. And I'm not coming here to talk about these things because, again, they're not, these are not things that help you sell. Lecturing and, you know,

It's not good business to think, you know, and also I'm not trying to say we need more vegans and vegetarians, right? I'm not trying to convert anybody. And I think that's a little bit of, you know, maybe separating out kind of maybe the vegan movement, which I think is absolutely well-intentioned and good, and people are really acting out their beliefs, and we are absolutely aligned with that mission.

But they are around trying to get more people as part of their tribe to follow the same belief, right? I think our philosophical approach is different, is I want to target meat eaters. I want to target you, Justin, so that you're eating more of my nuggets. Because what? You're getting your protein here.

Right. You're getting it in a I'm not going to say a nugget is a healthy thing no matter what, but this is healthier than a chicken nugget. And so you're getting it in a better way. Maybe, you know, you contributed to to one less chicken slaughter. Right. And maybe that makes a difference. So I'm really targeting you and I'm not I don't want you to be vegan. Right.

Yeah, you're not trying to stand on a moral high ground. No, I'm not. I just want you to enjoy an option that is also aligned with some of these other alignments towards good. So that's all we're trying to do. It's very much about choice. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I appreciate your position on this one because I think it feels like it's more gradual now.

And it's not like dogmatic and you're not trying to like change people, but you are providing them like a, what you think is a positive option. You believe in it yourself. I'm curious about like this. Well, let's just talk about like more practical side. Like how much science does your, do you and your company actually research? How far are you going on this thing when you're balancing taste versus taste?

the health aspects of this. - Yeah, in terms of technology, first of all, I don't think you make anybody eat anything because of technology. So I think a lot of the early marketing was like, oh, this is future food and oh, there's this technology here.

technology is actually a turnoff, I think, for consumers. Especially when it comes to food. It doesn't translate. Exactly. It doesn't translate. So I think a lot of the messaging is like, hey, let me get investors into this thing and let me talk about it as a technology. And oh, I forgot to change the message when I'm talking to consumers. It's like trying to eat astronaut food, right? Exactly. It's a gimmick at first, but then it's like no one wants it. Nobody wants to eat astronaut food except as a novelty one time, right? So that's not helpful. Now,

Where we're getting to as an industry is more speciality is the secret ingredient for Impossible is this thing called heme. If you follow the industry, it replicates some kind of blood or that kind of irony taste. And that's what Impossible hangs its head on. There are now startups that are producing heme.

And they want to commercialize it. And they're not trying to build companies that compete with Impossible there. They're not trying to create their own brands. They're trying to provide that heme to other brands to make their plant-based meat products better.

The industry is like super, I can imagine that it's just so complicated. Are there, is there like an equivalent company or something similar that's been successful that what you're trying to do, but not plant-based because you're trying, you're basically creating solutions, essentially food solutions and you're basing it on a slightly newer model because there's compelling benefits behind that.

But what's the existing sort of zero, but on the real meat side and providing solutions? Like, are there models there that you're looking at as well? - I think this is unexplored territory as well. And I think this is also new, the idea of food solutions. And it's coming, there's several factors that are moving towards this. Let's talk about it in the China context.

China is going to end up being a mass catering environment. There's several reasons for this. First of all, we essentially are reliant on, we're not food self-sufficient right now. People are working and not cooking themselves. Kitchen staff are,

And people willing to become cooks and chefs, young people right now willing to put in that work in the kitchen. There are different options. The development of delivery service and Ulema and that convenience. Then the development of scaled food service brands and restaurants. And therefore the movement towards ghost kitchens.

So all of these things are starting to move towards semi-finished foods. So for example, if you're ordering from a Chinese noodle brand on Ulema, don't think that all of the products is actually being created from scratch in each of those 10,000 location kitchens.

It's something, you know, we can call it yu zi cai or ban chen ping, like semi-finished products. So we're all moving towards solutions because, and McDonald's, again, go back to McDonald's, the perfect example, right? How do they get consistency all around the world, but even just within China, whether it's on the chicken nuggets or the Big Mac and the sauces, right? You know, McDonald's is not...

you know, making bread and baking bread from scratch. That is coming as a kit. And even something like Cheesecake Factory, right? Cheesecake Factory, the reason why it tastes like the U.S., because it's shipped from the U.S. Just as a kit, kitchen assembles it, and we're going there. So we're moving towards efficiency because of a lot of these factors, but essentially, we're not

In our homes, in the traditional way where it might have been 150 years ago and creating everything. We're not at the farm producing food.

all of our food and then preparing everything from scratch, right? And moving from, again, refrigeration is an innovation. I mean, if you think about China 20 years ago and cold chain in China versus cold chain now with that, you know, having, being able to deliver things frozen is actually an enabler of this movement. So to answer your question is like, is there a good model here? Well, I think that model is actually being built right now.

And that is where food is going in China. And then we'll have a few special places, specialty places where they're

creating everything from scratch and maybe you're paying 1000 rmb per uh you know it's just not practical per per meal as a specialty experience but for the most part we're eating in a scaled way and now food solutions are being created to that scale so there's not necessarily a final solution just yet like but my my then question is like is that is that good like like

Do you want to be part of that movement where then we're just creating layers and layers and layers and layers, and then ultimately we're detached from everything? Well, how do you inject some good into that movement? Because that movement is happening. Even if I could break down for you the five things that are bad about it, it's kind of useless because that's where it's going, right? If you say, hey, what do you think about food that's going to be cooked by robots?

If that is what's going to end up happening, and I think that there's evidence that that is going to end up where we're going here, there's no point of me kind of building a revolution to overthrow the robots because, you know, that's where things are going here. So it's like within that, how do we inject more good into that? And again, when I...

rallied against late stage capitalism earlier. It's not that I'm saying, hey man, it's not like I'm saying, let's start a revolution against capitalism. That's not what, there are better people than me at doing that in history. But it's like, well, given the fact that we are in a commercial world, how do I inject more good into that?

how do I do it? How do I do as much as I can, you know, you know, within that context, rather than to fulminate against reality. And in some ways like shout at the skies and say, this is wrong. One, two, three, four, five, and not get anywhere with that versus let me try to do something in my small part, because I think if we spend too much time, um,

rallying against things that we thought about in our point of view, which is always subjective, and then share that, then you start to become an advocate. And not that an advocate is a bad thing. It's just, that's not what I am. I am a,

I come from a business background. So, you know, that's kind of what I can do. But are you injecting any of that ideology into that brand messaging when you introduce that product? No, I don't. I don't. I really, I think that's where we're different from everybody else because I just don't think that's useful. I don't think people want to, people want to eat for several reasons. But two of the big reasons are, one is when you're really conscious about it,

that enjoyable experience and that's one part of it another part of that is um you know as a communal experience right as a second part and sometimes it is mindless and therefore you know it's really just about convenience and let me just get this food in and let me just move on with the rest of the world or let me watch a tv show or you know something on my phone or go scroll through doing while i'm you know you know munching away and again i don't think that's

I don't think that's our target customer. We want conscious consumers that are thinking really about what they're eating. But even for those consumers, it does start with taste first. I think the message, the thing is, I think it's a bias where we think that if you're trying to start this type of brand and do this kind of thing, that you need to have some political message. I mean, why? Just to begin with, it's like,

if we just go step back from any kind of ideology, it's like you have a business idea, you like food, like anything else. Like if we didn't say it was like vegan versus meat or whatever, right? So it doesn't have to be like this religious thing. Like we don't have to make it into something, but it does seem like in your industry that there are a lot of people maybe

that do that, which leads us to kind of have that preconception, you know? But I don't even think like, why do we even start the conversation that way? It's because the people in the industry kind of created that narrative. But I reject it. In fact, I kind of consciously reject it. Because when I see how others act in the industry,

You know, let's say you go on LinkedIn and you look at my LinkedIn scroll. It's very plant-based. A lot of my scrolls are plant-based. But a lot of it is like, can't everybody see that the way that we are eating is causing this and this and this? And, you know, you're kind of just shaking your fist at God, right? Or what?

However, if we define God as the order of things, right? And you're saying this is wrong. Well, that I think is a convenient excuse.

To get away from how do I make the customer experience as good as possible. Well, actually trying to find solutions, right? Right. Actually trying to like action it. Yeah. Because it's very convenient to say, hey, you know, because you don't know how to do this, eat properly, this is not working versus taking responsibility over it. It's like, hey, maybe what you're serving is,

is not attractive enough for the market. And maybe you got to do more work. So that's where I say, it's like, it's not about me lecturing you. It's about me trying to put more responsibility on myself. And that's why I start with this with responsibility is like, I just have responsibility to do the best I can do. I'm not here to,

If you're not going to buy the nugget because it's tasty, then that's on me. That's not on you. Totally. And not killing pigs is already a good start. It's not about why you should jump ship and come to the alternative side. It's like, no, you come to... You eat our product because the product's delicious, period. You're battling this passionate demographic of meat lovers. How are you going to win that? Yeah. That's why these marketing agencies get so much money and they're so big and people pay so much money for them is because...

to get people to try something new. It's extremely, extremely hard at scale. Totally. Reminds me of Tesla. So in 2010, I got a chance to visit Tesla, the company, and also drive a Tesla, like the Roadster or whatever. It was based on a... The new Roadster or the old Roadster? No, no, Lotus Elise. So this was a... The original. Yeah, yeah. So it was like a prototype...

And to me, like at that time, like this notion of electric cars was just not proven. It was like zero, right? It was very, very similar. But I remember their mindset and talking to the people that are the battery engineers, like, and they're like, no, we're going to make a car that's better than like any other car. Like regardless if it's like electric or not electric, because if my bar is always like meat or like, you know, if I'm always going to be playing from behind, like,

I'm never going to win. So like with Tesla, they were like, no, we're going to make a car that's better than a fucking normal car. Like, we're not going to be like, we just want to get close to them. If Tesla right from the very beginning was like, you got to, you all are idiots for driving Gascals in cars and you're, you're bad people. You're, you're bad people. And the only way to be a good person is to switch to Tesla. And let me tell you all the good that Tesla is. Right. Yeah.

everybody would be like, they say, hey, fuck you. Who do you think you are on your high horse? I think the beauty is like, this is sexy, man. This is a sexy car. Special people drive Teslas, right? And look at the 0 to 100. It performs better. And look, there's a lot of misconceptions at the beginning. Like if it rains, am I going to get electrocuted? It's an electric vehicle, right? There's just all sorts of things that's hard for adoption. So how do you get past that?

And the thing I'll say about Tesla is it really actually in the end required the Chinese government to support electric vehicles in order to build enough scale globally so that electric vehicles are viable and then in the end the default choice. So that happened and that is because of China. I think in the history of Tesla and electric vehicles. And we used to think electric vehicles in China was a ridiculous idea until...

China's the leader there. Until it wasn't. Until it wasn't, right? We used to think in 2005 when I moved here, China will never drink coffee. It's a tea drinking culture, right? I remember the Lululemon people. I mean, it was two people. They built, they had a list of the thousand yoga studios in China and they were going door to door and trying to sell some clothes out of yoga studios, right?

um about 200 million people close to 200 million people in china have tattoos right i mean you would have thought about that that being a niche so um you know it takes time it takes patience it takes persistence it does take some capital because you know something like tesla it it takes a lot right the last you have to last right and you have to you have to be able to create these world-changing vehicles that perform better than vehicles so it's going to take time

What I'll say about being an entrepreneur is this, is if you, if I told you that you got to climb this mountain, that you got to climb Mount Everest, okay? And at the top of Mount Everest, there's this huge prize waiting for you there, okay? A lot of people wouldn't climb it. They wouldn't bother. They'd be like, it's too hard. I'm not capable of doing it. I'll never do it. You know, so on and so forth.

And some people will do it. All right. And you'll, and you'll go through, do it and maybe you'll succeed. Maybe you're not, but you know, you'll go through it because you know that there's a prize at the top of it. The thing about being an entrepreneur is you're not guaranteed a prize. You go through a lot of sacrifice and a lot of preparation and a lot of work and everything. And you climb the mountain and you don't know what's at the top of it. And yeah,

Are you willing to do it anyways? Are you willing to do it anyways? If there was a prize at the end and it was guaranteed a lot more people would be entrepreneurs. Because if all it took was hard work, right? Yeah. And preparation, then... Yeah. But you can do all of that and...

You know, there's no guarantee. Not even because of you, right? It just... So many things out of your control. Out of your control, exactly. So you just, you do it anyways. It's the not knowing of it all, right? Well, you're doing something completely new. And the only thing that motivates you in the end, like I said, you know, with what I like, I love food. I love solving this thing. You got to enjoy the climb.

By the way, for the listeners, we've just eaten like 50 chickens. I know. We've been constantly eating. We haven't been listening, but we've been constantly eating. Frank, where are you from again? I know we started off, before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about this. Where are you from again? Yeah, maybe we'll get... You sound like an ABC. Maybe we can get a little bit off of the serious business topic and then maybe get into race relations in the United States. Yeah, the very fun topic of race relations. Great.

Yeah, so I was born in Toronto in 1977, but I moved away in 88 when I was 11 years old. That's the American, or the North American. Yeah, that's the Canadian. I'm sorry, North American. I didn't say American. Yeah, but I moved to Hong Kong in 88. I went to British school. I was the...

I was the kid that my parents had no hopes for and were not very kind of

proud of until I got into Yale and that's when I became you know the pride of my parents eyes why weren't they proud of you you must have been doing good in school did you have to ask that question no it's just like oh look at your cousin he's so good at school or look at whoever whoever is applying to but if you got into Yale you must have been good at school this is the exact conversation with my dad I mean not to get you know okay look you know what I said to my dad is like look at your your cousin

Okay, his dad promised him a Porsche if he gets into an Ivy League school. - Wow. - And I said, "Dad, what if I get into an Ivy League school?" - That's the prize at top of Everest. - "Will you buy me a Porsche? Will you buy me a Porsche?" He said,

That's impossible. Of course I'll buy you a Porsche if you get it. - That's impossible. - Impossible for you. - So he had so little faith that you would get into an Ivy League. - Yeah, so of course you get a Porsche, right? I'm not into cars so much, you know, that's not my thing. But years later I said, "Hey dad, where's my Porsche?" He said, "Your tuition is the cost of a Porsche." So that was kind of his out of it. Yeah, so I went to Yale. I studied economics and East Asian studies. I worked in New York as a consultant for six years.

I moved back to China in, I moved to Shanghai in 2005, you know, where it was a very different Shanghai. And it was still a lot of things, a lot of things were unformed back then. 2005. Yeah. Yeah. So even though I speak with an American accent and, you know, for me, going, living in America for the first time at the age of 18, coming from an international school background and, yeah,

and kind of experiencing America in that way, I think, I think as kind of an outsider in some ways, an outsider insider to the American experience. Yeah. It was an interesting, interesting. Why? Cause like when you were going to school, there were no really other races. Everyone was. Well, when I went to school, it's like, if you say, Hey, you know, what race is Sunil? I'd have to think about it for a few seconds. And I'd say, you know, he's Indian, but like first day of Yale, like,

All the black people had found each other and were hanging out with each other. All the...

All the Koreans. Somehow they had magically found each other. Right? And it was like everybody segregated really quickly. And it was such a new experience for me that after a while I was like, I got to pick a side. Yeah. It's like bringing in a prison gang. Did you find all the vegans or no? No, I wasn't vegan. I'm just kidding. Sorry, the meat eaters. Yeah, no. Michelin guys. Yeah, no, it's...

Yeah, you know, it was just a very different, I didn't really understand that. I didn't really understand why it had to be. But again, that is the reality. But I think for an outsider to come to that, it's really a new experience for me. And I'm still, I think, trying to reckon with that. 18 years later, I ended up, you know, my wife is born in America, grew up in Chinatown, New York.

So now I have much more understanding of that Asian American experience. But when I grew up, you know, when you're growing up in Hong Kong, even though you're a British girl, nobody calls you a...

C-word. Yeah, C-word, right? Nobody ever calls you a C-word. Nobody, you know, you're largely surrounded by people that look like you. And so you just don't have that. Yeah, I feel like the picking on the bullying would be more like the typical, maybe like whether it's like physical appearance or maybe the size, stature, right? It'd be like other things. Yeah, like the non-racial. My roommate, he had transferred from the U.S. Naval Academy. This is Yale.

And he said, hey, welcome to America. But I just want to say, I don't appreciate what you did to us at Pearl Harbor. He was not even being sarcastic because I still know I just went for my 20 year reunion. He's very, you know. So this is 100% true. He said this to you, looked you in your eye and said that to you. And he was dead serious. Yeah.

Did he ever apologize for that? No, he doesn't understand. He thinks all Asians are the same. But after now... And I was like, hey, you know, we're on the same... We were on the same side. It's like so wrong on so many different levels. It's historically wrong, right? It's just... No, no, no, no. But I actually... Look. So at the beginning, I had found... I hung out with the international students...

And so I made a Korean friend. And, you know, and he invited me to a kind of Korean American party. So it was off campus. It was at somebody's apartment. And

In college, you have a keg. Oh, yeah. I think I was 18. A keg? Yeah, you have a keg. Justin knows about kegs. I'm 18, drinking age is 21. But at these off-campus parties, you have your red Dixie cup and you have beer in your hand. The host of the party, he started speaking Korean to me.

And I said, oh, I'm sorry. I'm not Korean. You know, I'm from Hong Kong. And he, I'll never forget this moment. I had a Dixie cup in my left hand. He took the red Dixie cup away from my hand. And he said, you are not welcome here. What?

And I said, "This is like the elite of America. Like this is Yale. It's like, I'm going to be like potentially doing classes with you, right? But on a Friday night, like we're not allowed to hang out?" Like that for me was just weird. - Before I went to SC, I went to school in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And if you know anything about the history of the Civil War, you know, Gettysburg is one of the sites of the major battles of the Civil War.

the biggest rally site of the Ku Klux Klan was three miles down from my school. And so I went there for one year before I transferred out. And there, you know, right next to me, right down my dorm room, I had another friend and his roommate, you know, they hung Confederate flags in their room and stuff like that. But my experience with them, even, you know, this like white kid with Confederate flags and all about it,

Like the experience was mostly positive. Like they were actually really nice. Even to me, they were really nice. Obviously they had their views, but like there was a discussion there and there was a patience there that we could communicate and discuss. And I'm just like almost, almost relieved in a way that I didn't get to experience like the full brunt of like,

What you're sharing is that like, you know, whether it's a Korean person or whether it was your roommate, kind of just like right to your face, like really confrontational being like, you're not welcome here. One of the experiences, again, I have multiple of these experiences. I remember going to, and again, it's very hard to separate the politics from race, I think.

But I remember going to the Chinese Students Association and the guy who was just elected president of the Chinese Students Association said, we're changing the name of this organization from CSA to CASA, Chinese American Students Association, because there is a difference between ABCs and FOBs. Oh.

And for me as an FOB or as a semi-FOB or whatever it is, it's like, wow, okay. So that means I'm not welcome here. You're the outsider. I'm the outsider here. So you kind of very early on creating that outsider thing. Well, just for our listeners, FOB means fresh off the boat. It's an acronym, FOB.

And it's how a lot of people would use to determine people coming over from China or Asia in general, because they didn't differentiate. If you were just Asian and you didn't grow up in the States, you were a FAB, right? Or if you have an accent. Yes. So that was one thing. And I remember there was one year where this magazine called The Weekly Standard published

There was like Al Gore and Bill Clinton and they had portrayed as in a cartoon, Al Gore and Bill Clinton, I think in like Chinese, like slanty eyed cartoon, you know, with Chinese clothing. And the editor, that magazine cover came out and the editor happened to be speaking at Yale.

And it ended up being all the Asian Americans, you know, ended up going there and kind of protesting. Somebody had punched the speaker and gotten arrested. So it actually turned into he tried to speak and, you know, there's activism. And for me as an Asian, like we don't get so offended.

offended by, you know, these stereotypes, right? It's like, we're used to it. It's not a big deal. Like if you like grew up in Hong Kong and you see some of the cartoons, there was used to be this cartoon called the world of Susie Wong or something or Lily Wong or whatever. And it was all, you know, like slanty eye Chinese. But in Hong Kong, it's like for us, Hong Kong people growing up, it's like, this is really not a big deal back then. You know, it's,

But it was offensive and I can understand now in hindsight why it was offensive. And I just remember because I did not go to the rally. And I remember one of my friends saying, "Hey Frank, I did not see you at the rally. I'm disappointed and it's pathetic."

So it's almost like you have to be part of that. - You're getting it on both sides. - Yeah, you're getting it. And then, because you're supposed to be part of us and part of this tribe. But it's just, I didn't grow up with some of these things. So I don't really have the context for why this is offensive or why we as a group need to stand up for ourselves as Asian Americans.

And then the last one, I'll say is like when I first started dating my wife, who's Cantonese growing up in Chinatown, New York, and understanding that I'm one quarter Fujian because my grandfather on my father's side is Hokkien, right? I don't speak Hokkien.

- How can you just like, - - Yeah, or yeah, yeah. - Great food there, by the way. That's probably where your food gene comes from. We were in that area a few months ago. - Yeah, it's fantastic. - Oh my God. - It's both like light enough, but tasty enough and fresh. It's great food. Yeah, absolutely.

But apparently around that time, 20 years ago or 15 years, yeah, 20 years ago in Chinatown, there was a lot of issue between the Cantonese that were in Chinatown, New York, and then the people from Fuzhou kind of going over. But my father-in-law was like very opposed to me dating his daughter. Right.

because I'm Fuxo Lao, he calls it Fuxo Lao. You're one of those instant, you know, those immigrants from Fuxo and there was this whole rivalry. It was almost like a gangs of New York thing, you know, between two groups of fobs, if you want to say. It's not even a fob thing. It's like one wave of Cantonese, you know, thing. And then another wave of people from Fujian and,

I think that's almost the American experience of layering on different ethnic groups over and over and kind of forcing you to assimilate. So I totally understand that because that's almost part of that layering of the American experience. But I think for outsiders, it's quite a unique experience. And I think maybe for you guys growing up in America, it's kind of more like, oh, okay, that is the reality. I don't know about you guys. That's so insightful, I think.

there are a lot of lessons to, I think to, to kind of pull from that a little bit because we talk about this race thing all the time because like we can't escape from this kind of stuff. And, um, I think one thing is that you can react in so many, people can react in so many different ways. Like one experience can completely change your perception. And then everything you think about some perceived group of people and, um,

Like Justin, you met some people maybe on the surface that like you didn't have a whole lot in common with or that we would judge in a certain way. So you just had an honest conversation and then they didn't turn out to be terrible people, although they held some views. And then maybe like that experience with you changed their perception in the future. Who knows? You know, it certainly didn't hurt. And it's like this thing that you're talking about, just like, you know, just try to do things in a good direction. You might not be able to change them completely, but

So I think that's really interesting that like, if we keep in kind of an open mind, we might be able to influence people. And then I think the other thing is like, when you had all these experiences, it didn't make you think that much more negatively about this people to your credit, because you grew up in an environment where it's like, why would you, like, why did you get so offended by all that stuff? You weren't exposed to that kind of stuff. So you're just kind of like, I didn't, you didn't really see it. So you didn't really understand. So when someone took away your cup or whatever it is, maybe you were kind of offended at the moment. I don't sense that you like,

held a grudge. No, no, no, no. This is 20 years later. This is dating and marrying and really marrying into the experience and having more empathy and being Buddhist and meditation. Like, no, no, no, no. It took work. So I think at the time I would say it was shocking to me at the time, but it was also part of my experience of,

you know, being American, right? Because even though we say, hey, you know, I'm not technically American, I've spent more time in America than I have in Canada. In the end, like the way my way out of that whole thing was like,

I came to America and I have more white friends in Hong Kong than I do in America. So I better meet some white people here. So I ended up joining a fraternity and rushing a fraternity and, you know, really just to meet white people. Get the white experience. Yeah. So that's kind of in the end how I kind of saw it because I got to get the full experience, right? Whether Asian American or Jewish American or...

Anglo-Saxon or black American, you know, best way to join a fraternity. Isn't that a lot? Like maybe that's the lesson here. It's like, you got to get the full experience and, and we just don't, we, you know, we get that one snapshot, we meet one person and then we leave it all to luck because if that person's an asshole, then forever their entire race or group or whatever and mistaken associations. It's like, it's not even that race. It's like we, we assign people that aren't even from that race and be like, yeah, yeah. Welcome to America.

you know, but we don't appreciate what you did. But it's like, it's because of that one snapshot that we base our entire life's assumption on that one thing. And like this, whether it's veganism or like eating meat or, you know, all this stuff, it's like, just get the full experience because if you get the full experience and you still feel that way, okay, fine.

Right. Yeah. Well, for that example, in terms of like your roommate that said that to you, I don't even know how much there is in helping him because I don't even think it has to do with experience when it comes to him because he's like the Pearl Harbor didn't even happen when he was alive. So he's, it's not even something he experienced himself. We don't know like what, there's so many things wrong with what he said. But, but,

But I would challenge that and say, first, if we look at the bigger picture, those are outliers. So don't base your judgment on outliers. No, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And then number two is we want to feel outraged. Human beings just want to be like, you know, I'm checking my WeChat moments. Like, you want this person to be a fucking...

idiot and criminal. You want them to be like that. You want them to have no excuse and be like, you're messed up. But the reality is that most people aren't messed up and then we just have this, like, outrage. But if we just spend a little bit of time, like, uncovering what happened behind the scenes, then you're like, oh, there was a real reason for that. Well, what did you say to him when he said that to you? Like, you're in a room with him, right? He was your roommate. Like, how did you react to that? Were you like, uh, let me get out of here? Or were you, you're my bad. I'm gonna make a Pearl Harbor every night for you. Yeah.

I don't know if I kept it in my mind or I actually said it out loud, but my first experience is like, we were on the same side. We fought on the same... Even if you peg me as a Chinese person, we were on the same side. I don't know if I said that. I can't really remember. I just more remember like, man, you're really...

don't know like you're actually really genuinely you know ignorant and you know and and so but but i i think i think it's part of the human condition to be tribal i i just think that that is part of what we're built in and i think that is a lot of what we're um there's good things about being in a tribe right community support all these things and i think in different societies we have different levels of tribalism right i mean when i first moved to china 18 years ago it's like

man, Chinese people are kind of semi-tribal between the provinces too. They'll say, oh, person, whatever, those people from that province are all like that, right? But not so much because in general, we are kind of vast majority Han here. So I think that in some ways, kind of that racial thing. And then, you know, when I go to international school, it's like anti-tribe. It's like very much like we are part of this third culture of kind of truly global people. And I think anybody...

who has kids going to international school here, you know, probably have that experience. So I think that's just, we just recognize that's part of what is kind of the human condition. And that is what we navigate. And we just don't need to buy into that narrative if we choose to opt out of that, but understand that there's reasons why this narrative exists. The one thing I'll say here, kind of top it off is that I have kids that were born in

Kind of born in New York, raised in Brooklyn, but have been back here now in China. So they're kind of American-born Chinese, but they're going to a school here that is very, the school is very patriotic. So, you know, she sings the national anthem, raises the flag.

And her whole experience, also because of COVID, since they moved here, they haven't been back to... In the last seven years, they've been back to the US once, quite briefly. So for her, her whole world is China. And she doesn't ever want to leave China. She generally... Why? She said that? Yeah. She says, you know, for college, you know, I want to be here for college. How old is she again? Right now, she's 12. Yeah, she's 12. But...

When I mention America to her, it's scary for her. - It's like a negative. - It's a negative, right? Because you see on social media. - We all know why. - Yeah, we all know why, right? There's a lot of things on Douyin that doesn't portray the US in a negative light. It probably generally is producing, showing the US in a declining light, all right? I think that is a general narrative. And you especially get that narrative when you have young kids.

I think it's underestimating America, right? America, no matter its problems, has a lot of fundamental strengths. How that works, again, I'm not a predictor of the future, but America's a great country too. So I try to remind her, you're American too, right? And this misunderstanding that we have between these two countries, like for both of you,

The good that you can do in this world later is to try to bring these two countries together. And you guys are the only ones that can truly do that because you are Chinese and you're also American. And I think it's going to take that tribe or type of next generation to try to reverse what

Our generation or the generation above us is kind of fucking up right now. Well, that's really interesting that you're actually having that kind of conversation with your kids right now because, you know, Howie and I, we're new fathers ourselves, right? The challenges they might face, you know, growing up, you know, and for them, especially not to get...

so suckered into one side versus the other, right? You know, because if you live in America, you can be sucked into that informational bubble. If you live in China, you're going to be sucked into this informational bubble. Yeah, the flip side is happening in America for the young generation listening about China. Yeah, they go on TikTok or whatever. So the same thing is happening on both sides. And so it's like, it's really scary because it seems really tough to,

for kids to avoid being so sucked in because it is so polarized. So like, where is this like little ledge you can stand on in terms of like this middle ground and seeing the world? And that probably comes from more interactions, more experiences, traveling, living on both sides of that fence and really seeing for yourself. I think that's what it's done for me personally. I'll speak for myself, right?

And so no amount of someone talking on a podcast or a video I could watch could really override my firsthand experience of having been raised in America, living here for so long and kind of having some sort of understanding of both sides. And, you know, how do you how do you kind of pass that along in an even better way to your kids in the future? That's that's a very scary thing to think about.

And I think it ties back to some of the things that you're trying to do with getting people to challenge some of their assumptions. And it's like, how do you allow them to discover the world in as many ways as possible so they can get that full experience? And then they can make the decision after that, because you can't tell them that this chicken nugget is better or that chicken nugget is better. But the rest of the world is telling them that there is a

- Better chicken again. - Yeah, this is like the best chicken, I mean, I'm taking this too far. But this is like the best one. And like Justin talks about the firsthand experience and like I think we developed some more nuances and shades to that thought. - I think from, well, from the Buddhist perspective, it's actually about not thinking. So when you're deep in the meditation, you're actually just not even there anymore.

You don't have any narratives or any thoughts. So when you're in a flow of meditation, you start from a point where all that is real is my breathing. And that is the only thing that actually doesn't... All of these other things, whether it's my stress from work or my son should be doing better at math or...

you know how do i talk to this investor or um i made a bet on you know the denver nuggets and that's going well you know whatever it is right i see what you did there no no no i bet against lebron too for three rounds so that that was not very good um you know all of those things aren't there anymore because those things are not actually what's real at the moment in terms of the breathing

In real practical terms, what I'm trying to do in my life and maybe impart a little bit upon my children is since we're all gonna die and since this thing about happiness and chasing success that other people want is not truly real, then how do you live a meaningful life? Like how do you feel that I'm doing something meaningful? And meaningful and happiness is not necessarily, it's not the same thing, right?

to do things that are meaningful maybe does require sacrifice versus in the other things where you're trying to chase happiness or ego or things. I just don't think that you're ever going to get satisfaction from those things. I don't think so. So I just wake up every day and try to do things that are meaningful, whether that's as a father or as a business person or whatever.

as somebody who thinks about society or just living in China in these very special times, right? It's not so fun as it was in 2005, right? But we're still here. - Well, I think that's really beautiful, Frank. Yeah, I think there's so much to kind of think about and take in in terms of even how we kind of process our own lives.

And how we frame it, how we filter it, and kind of our principles to go by. And I think what you're saying is really inspiring. And it couldn't have come at a better time because I feel like, for me, at least personally, it's like I'm entering this time in my life through, you know, a bunch of different kind of changes that have happened recently and just trying to rewire myself and

how do I deal with my own existence? How do I measure that? How do I frame that? How do I accept that? And I mean, we're not going to get into unpack all that here, but it's like, but what I'm trying to say is what you're saying just now really hits home to me. So anyway, that's a long way of saying thank you for being on this show. Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing.

And you're welcome back anytime, man. I appreciate this. I appreciate you guys. Awesome. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you? We just set up a YouTube page, World of Zero. You search Zero, Z-R-O-U in WeChat. You'll find our channel there.

We do some pretty cool content. We filmed a documentary in Sichuan, just going through Sichuan food and foraging in the mountains and going to the markets in Sichuan and combining it with

Zero food. Search on Damping, Ulema. Support the restaurants that carry zero. If you work at a place that has a canteen...

You work at it. Your kids are at schools here. Ask them to put zero on the menus. Try our nuggets if you see them available. I'm probably going to start selling them and make them available to the consumer because I think more people should eat these nuggets. So you can buy that on our WeChat store. So even though it might not be something that you – you might have some –

perceptions or misconceptions about what it is just you know try it and you know if you like it you know that's great and you know keep buying us and supporting us and you know don't do it because you think you're building a better world do it because it's delicious and you're gonna go from there hell yeah that's all nice hell yeah thank you once again thanks Franklin great I'm Justin I'm Howie I'm Eric cheers cheers

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