Speaker 1: By the way, when I was in Europe, I was like,
Speaker 1: when we got drunk off approall Spritzer's late at night
Speaker 1: with my mom watching us, I was just I automatically
Speaker 1: turned into an obnoxious American who tried to do a
Speaker 1: British ACCP.
Speaker 2: This is drunk Jenny in Europe. It's awful.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love it. Yeah, apaol Spirits is
Speaker 3: a leaders.
Speaker 4: Hello, I'm mini driver. I've always loved Preust's questionnaire. It
Speaker 4: was originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would
Speaker 4: ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing.
Speaker 3: The other player's true nature.
Speaker 4: In asking different people the same set of questions, you
Speaker 4: can make observations about which truths appear to be universal.
Speaker 4: And it made me wonder, what if these questions were
Speaker 4: just a jumping off point, What greater depths would be
Speaker 4: revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters. So
Speaker 4: I adapted Prus's questionnaire and I wrote my own seven
Speaker 4: questions that I person think are pertinent to a person's story.
Speaker 4: They are when and where were you happiest? What is
Speaker 4: the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship real
Speaker 4: or fictionalized? Defines love for you? What question would you
Speaker 4: most like answered? What person, place, or experience has shaped
Speaker 4: you the most? What would be your last meal? And
Speaker 4: can you tell me something in your life that's grown
Speaker 4: out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group
Speaker 4: of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
Speaker 4: humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
Speaker 4: may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
Speaker 4: We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
Speaker 4: their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most
Speaker 4: fertile ground to connect.
Speaker 3: My guest today is Jenny Yang. Jenny is a Taiwan
Speaker 3: born Los Angeles raised stand up comedian and TV writer
Speaker 3: who was named on a Variety's Top ten Comics to Watch.
Speaker 3: Jenny recently started opposite Michelle as an assassin in the
Speaker 3: Netflix action comedy series The Brother's Son. You can watch
Speaker 3: our monthly comedy show Self Help Me, a competitive self
Speaker 3: care comedy show, in Los Angeles, or stream online anywhere
Speaker 3: around the world. Find Jenny online at Jenny Yang dot
Speaker 3: tv and Jenny Yang tv on Instagram and TikTok. Where
Speaker 3: and when were you happiest.
Speaker 1: Oh man, so many answers to that. Fortunately, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: can you imagine if someone said I've never been happy?
Speaker 3: Oh, by the way, no one's ever actually said that,
Speaker 3: but they've really resisted the notion of happiness sort of
Speaker 3: being a question we shouldn't be aiming towards happiness, and
Speaker 3: I've had to resist going and what should we be
Speaker 3: aiming towards my hot dogs? I'm a vegetarian. Also, I
Speaker 3: don't even know why did I use that as the
Speaker 3: as the as my equivalent, seeing like, what the fuck
Speaker 3: is wrong with me? Raikey? No one I said I've
Speaker 3: never been happy? But that would actually be really funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like, am I that person? No? I'm
Speaker 2: not that person.
Speaker 1: Relatively recently, I took my mom, who is a kind
Speaker 1: of mom who's an immigrant who's lived all her life
Speaker 1: for other people, you know, doing factory jobs. Was a
Speaker 1: garment worker. My dad passed away a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and she had sort of taken care of him, and
Speaker 1: now she's like, what do I do? So I was like, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm going to take you to Europe. You've never been
Speaker 1: to Europe. We're going to go to Europe, And I
Speaker 1: don't know if I can describe the feeling of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a grown adult now I can afford to take
Speaker 1: my mom to Europe and to like treat her, especially
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't treat herself, has never been treated, who
Speaker 1: always still has this old school mentality of like comparing
Speaker 1: prices with like what things used to be in Taiwan,
Speaker 1: like many decades ago.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Like there's just something about the satisfaction of like, I
Speaker 1: am so happy to spend my heart earned money on you.
Speaker 3: Mom.
Speaker 2: We went to a formal British tea in London.
Speaker 3: Where did she go?
Speaker 1: Oh god, I forgot it was some hotel.
Speaker 2: It was everything was sort of cream. We sat down.
Speaker 1: It was me a British friend of mine who I
Speaker 1: acted in The Brother's Son with, who's like a stunt
Speaker 1: guy who speaks Mandarin, so my mom doesn't speak English,
Speaker 1: so she was so happy to be with him, and
Speaker 1: then my fiance Corey.
Speaker 2: We sat down.
Speaker 1: It was like full service afternoon tea, so many utensils,
Speaker 1: so many bowls and plates.
Speaker 2: You know, there was a pear.
Speaker 1: Juice that was topped with like a puff of cotton
Speaker 1: candy cloud, Like my mom was out of her mind.
Speaker 1: She's like this is too much opulence, and she like
Speaker 1: teared up and she's like, wow, like I wish your
Speaker 1: dad was here to enjoy this.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh my god, just get me
Speaker 2: right in the heart.
Speaker 3: Mom.
Speaker 2: We're just in the lobby of this hotel just crying.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Isn't that amazing to be able to
Speaker 3: do that? Like you got to do that for her.
Speaker 3: It's not like a distance memory. This just happened, Yes,
Speaker 3: Like I love the immediacy of happy memories, things that
Speaker 3: happen right now that you know. I was completely present
Speaker 3: for that. She was completely present for that. I will
Speaker 3: never forget this. That is a cool memory. I really
Speaker 3: understand that. Like, I know it sounds weird because you're
Speaker 3: talking about your mamma, but as a single mom, yeah,
Speaker 3: every single thing was for my kid. I never thought
Speaker 3: twice about, you know, the money that I spent on him,
Speaker 3: And it's very rare that you have that opportunity, Like
Speaker 3: how amazing is an adult to be able to give
Speaker 3: that to your mom.
Speaker 1: I feel like I talked to so many peers who
Speaker 1: have tough relationships with their parents, and I had a
Speaker 1: tough relationship with my dad and feel like there's too
Speaker 1: much of a generation or cultural gap to have real
Speaker 1: relationships with them.
Speaker 2: And I think if you're able to, I.
Speaker 1: Really do think it's worth the effort to like push
Speaker 1: forward your adult relationship with your parents so that you
Speaker 1: can heal. It's very healing to be able to treat
Speaker 1: my you know, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: That's a really good point. And I had this conversation
Speaker 3: the other day with someone. We were talking about forgiveness
Speaker 3: in general, and we were both kind of annoyed by
Speaker 3: the word and by forgiveness and you're not allowed to
Speaker 3: ever say that, And we were both like, do you
Speaker 3: want to like bitch about forgiveness a little? Yeah? I
Speaker 3: kind of, I kind of do. I kind of feel
Speaker 3: like forgiveness is, you know, a pain in my ass
Speaker 3: and I don't know why am I doing it and
Speaker 3: what's it for? And I don't know that I completely
Speaker 3: agree with that, but I do believe in healing and
Speaker 3: the idea that you can actively do something that looks
Speaker 3: like it's having tea with your mama. Yeah, and actually
Speaker 3: what you're doing is healing something for you with her,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure something for her with you, and something
Speaker 3: about the whole kind of gusht out and dynamic of
Speaker 3: parent child and who knows because you too busy eating
Speaker 3: scones and pair juice with cotton candy froth. But when
Speaker 3: you review it, it sure feels like healing. Like that's
Speaker 3: really cool. I'll take that end of day of the week.
Speaker 1: The point is is that you want to be able
Speaker 1: to push the relationship to the point where you can
Speaker 1: enjoy the other person. So like, my mom is terrible
Speaker 1: at receiving love, and so for me to have gotten
Speaker 1: to the place where I could treat her to this
Speaker 1: elaborate British tea, I had to teach her how to
Speaker 1: receive love. I literally had to teach her how to
Speaker 1: say I love you too. I had to teach her
Speaker 1: how to hug me back. This is all the process.
Speaker 3: My god, Jenny, what incredible patience really truly and also generosity.
Speaker 3: These are much better words than forgiveness than me. I
Speaker 3: really like patience and generosity. Like that you would take
Speaker 3: the time to not just be annoyed by that or
Speaker 3: hurt by that. She didn't argue, but to say, and
Speaker 3: maybe I'm sure you did spend time being hurt and
Speaker 3: said by that, But to actually just teach her to
Speaker 3: do it, and now maybe she does it and it
Speaker 3: must be incredibly satisfying when she does because you taught her.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: So It's just this is one of those things I
Speaker 1: like to talk to my friends about, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of like what did it take to get there?
Speaker 2: How do we feel better about our little stories?
Speaker 3: Oh, that's so interesting. How do we feel better about
Speaker 3: our stories?
Speaker 1: You know, like the life stories that you tell yourself about,
Speaker 1: like how we've struggled or you know, why we're here
Speaker 1: on earth and all of that. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: just like one example.
Speaker 3: What is the quality you like least about yourself? Oh?
Speaker 2: My goodness, it changes.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, I think the thing that
Speaker 1: I beat myself up about the most is feeling like
Speaker 1: I'm not doing well enough or doing enough. I think
Speaker 1: as a little immigrant girl, I was the youngest of three.
Speaker 1: I was five when I came to America. My brothers
Speaker 1: were like fifteen and fourteen. They did not acclimate well,
Speaker 1: and I was the first one to acclimate. And I
Speaker 1: was getting a's out of the womb, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I was very rewarded for like performing for like delivering a's,
Speaker 1: you know, going to good schools, giving my parents the
Speaker 1: checklist to make them feel like their immigrant story was
Speaker 1: worth it, you know, all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and deciding to do creative work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that must have been a big deal.
Speaker 1: Literally it's not school. Yeah, creative work is not like
Speaker 1: structured for you. No one's going to give you an
Speaker 1: assignment necessarily to define your worth.
Speaker 2: It's all very open. You have to structure it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: And I think that was what I knew.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is a way for me
Speaker 1: to undo so much of the stuff. Now I've been
Speaker 1: able to achieve a measure of success as a comedian
Speaker 1: and a writer, but still it's like it's still a struggle,
Speaker 1: you know, every day because, as you know, nothing's guaranteed.
Speaker 1: You have to create your own work sometimes all the time. God,
Speaker 1: you've been at this business longer than me, and it's.
Speaker 3: Try not to diss the hustle, but oh my god,
Speaker 3: the hustle. Yeah, Christ like a bit of a day off,
Speaker 3: Like I like a bit of a day off from
Speaker 3: the hustle, thanks, just like maybe count some money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, listen, we're all just out here trying to
Speaker 1: figure out passive income.
Speaker 2: I know the way passive income.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a T shirt, Jenny, I want to get
Speaker 3: passive income on a T shirt because that is actually
Speaker 3: can we can we make that stand passive income.
Speaker 1: I do a monthly show called self help Me where
Speaker 1: I make fun of wellness influencers, and I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: the sort of wellness influencer grift, especially that the financial influencers.
Speaker 2: The joke we like to.
Speaker 1: Say is like, if you're not making one thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a week in passive income, kill yourself, Like why do
Speaker 1: you even live?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Like why do you even exist?
Speaker 1: Okay, what is your worth if not measured according to
Speaker 1: the passive income you're getting? So yeah, maybe we should
Speaker 1: make money off of a shared passive income T shirt.
Speaker 3: First of all, I think it's a really really good idea.
Speaker 3: I made a T shirt the other day because I
Speaker 3: read this glorious Steinem quote and it made me so happy.
Speaker 3: And then I found the perfect navy blue and white
Speaker 3: baseball tea. And then I found a website where I
Speaker 3: could make just one T shirt where I should have
Speaker 3: made more, and on the front and very small letters,
Speaker 3: the truth will set You free. But first it will
Speaker 3: piss you off. And then it just said glorious steinem
Speaker 3: on the back, and I cannot tell you how many
Speaker 3: people have gotten in touch. I could have made some
Speaker 3: passive fucking incoming do it. I could still do it.
Speaker 3: You can still do it in a wholesaler. I feel like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm going to have to give someone that
Speaker 3: money to like Gloria Steinem Inc. I feel like Gloria
Speaker 3: Steinem inc is actually called planned parenthood. So that's what
Speaker 3: I'll do. But we should make if we made a
Speaker 3: passive income shirt. Yeah. By the way, I think this
Speaker 3: is actually a really good idea because people are very
Speaker 3: much into making statements that are kind of conversation starters
Speaker 3: and also declarative. Like my friend gave me a hat
Speaker 3: that just says back in five.
Speaker 2: That's really cute.
Speaker 3: It's my favorite hat.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: I think don't be surprised if you get an email
Speaker 1: from me at some point or a DM that's massive
Speaker 1: income T shirt.
Speaker 3: You're not kidding. And by the way, let's workshop some
Speaker 3: other T shirts, because I feel like four is a
Speaker 3: really good number, and people having a choice of four,
Speaker 3: they're more likely to buy two. This is my own
Speaker 3: economic theory. Oh my god, that if you give people
Speaker 3: four then they will buy two of the four because
Speaker 3: they'll be like, oh my god, I got almost all
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 1: I am dying right now that on this podcast we
Speaker 1: are birthing a T shirt collab.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent and also, by the end of the podcast,
Speaker 3: I want us both to try and figure out a
Speaker 3: name for our T shirt company. Okay, it should just
Speaker 3: be by the way. I want by one us to
Speaker 3: make passive income. I want plan a parent who to
Speaker 3: get a bit of it. Yeah, I want us to
Speaker 3: get a bit of it. Oh, this is going to
Speaker 3: be great.
Speaker 2: We're figuring this out.
Speaker 3: What relationship, real or fictional, defines love for you?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a boring answer, but you know
Speaker 1: my partner and I his name is Corey. He's a
Speaker 1: midwestern guy from Wisconsin who's not a regular white guy
Speaker 1: because for a long time I didn't date white guys.
Speaker 1: But I found this one who's a cozy midwestern man.
Speaker 3: What's different about him from the other people that you've dated.
Speaker 2: I just had a better picker.
Speaker 3: Do you think that that that you change?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's good.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, this is what's messed up.
Speaker 1: It's like all of the like aphorisms and cliches that
Speaker 1: you see maybe like on an inspirational Instagram quote or something.
Speaker 1: It's all true, but it's so hard to live it,
Speaker 1: like to figure it out in your bones. You know
Speaker 1: it is. It's like, you know, be be with someone
Speaker 1: who you feel safe with.
Speaker 2: Bitch, I don't know how that feels.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't know that if it jumped out the toilet and
Speaker 3: bit me on the ass, and if it bit.
Speaker 2: Me in the ass, I would be like, Oh, that's exciting.
Speaker 3: I love the Ooh, maybe I need a tennis shot.
Speaker 3: Maybe I just need to jump into bed with you exactly.
Speaker 1: That is not It's not even an exaggeration of the
Speaker 1: kind of like reptilian brain process that probably happened when
Speaker 1: I just like chose men in I'm just like, do
Speaker 1: I want to climb you like a jungle gym.
Speaker 2: I'll make this work. You'll love me.
Speaker 3: That is so wild. I feel like it was like
Speaker 3: Trauma Tetris. With most men, it was like, oh, which
Speaker 3: bit by insecurity and fucked upness? Are you?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yep, it doesn't fit, but I'm gonna make it fit.
Speaker 1: I love Trauma Tetris have you have you coined that
Speaker 1: came with that?
Speaker 3: By the way, that's another T shirt. That's a T
Speaker 3: shirt right that trauma Tetris. Listen, I'm telling you this
Speaker 3: real magic happening. I'm trying to think of a T
Speaker 3: shirt company. I don't know what it's called. I'm like
Speaker 3: going Yang Mini j Yang Driver minij Mini j Yang's
Speaker 3: gonna be something funny.
Speaker 1: Driver Yang makes it sound like an Asian driving joke,
Speaker 1: which we don't want on stereotypes.
Speaker 3: We're gonna come up with that.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, so, my guy, he's a cozy banestering guy.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that love can be cozy and safe.
Speaker 3: That's so nice. Cozy doesn't get enough play as a
Speaker 3: real proper descriptive of like what you want in a
Speaker 3: love life. Yeah, cozy and safe is really cool. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And actually, because I really got exactly the same thing
Speaker 3: with my guy much older than you, finally found him.
Speaker 3: And it's incredible how those cozy words cozy and safe
Speaker 3: can actually become super hot. And that's an amazing revelation.
Speaker 3: Is like the hotness in what I before would have
Speaker 3: just like rolled my eyes out, like if there's not
Speaker 3: blood driven down my arm. It's not love so dramatic,
Speaker 3: such a total nightmarish drama, Creed. I mean, basically, the
Speaker 3: poor guys who were with me, like I do feel
Speaker 3: some modicum I'm sorry for them, but also crist on
Speaker 3: a bike.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's totally true.
Speaker 1: You have to learn how to give yourself comfort and safety,
Speaker 1: to know how it feels in order to know when
Speaker 1: someone else can be that for.
Speaker 2: You too, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like, I didn't realize that becoming more mature meant being
Speaker 1: more aware of my body and how I respond to things,
Speaker 1: cause I feel like a lot of us just live
Speaker 1: in constant fight or flight, and then to actually know
Speaker 1: what relaxation is is like, oh, that's well, that's kind
Speaker 1: of good.
Speaker 3: That's so funny. I haven't been making any movies or
Speaker 3: TV shows recently. And I was lying on my bed
Speaker 3: reading my book this afternoon, and I'm nuts in love
Speaker 3: with this book, and I was having such a great time,
Speaker 3: and my dog was there and I'd just given him
Speaker 3: a bath, and there were clean sheets in the bed,
Speaker 3: and there was a breeze coming through the window, and
Speaker 3: like it was all so good, and I suddenly got
Speaker 3: this terrible, like adrenal rush of I'm not fucking doing anything.
Speaker 3: I'm not making passive income. I'm not making any income.
Speaker 3: I'm just lying here reading this book. What the fuck?
Speaker 3: And I learning to in those moments to just go.
Speaker 3: Could you just take your foot off the gas? Yes,
Speaker 3: let's just call it half an hour? Just you spent many, many,
Speaker 3: many many years and many many many hours exhausted and
Speaker 3: working so hard like there was a wolf chasing you.
Speaker 3: Could you not just lie here for twenty minutes and
Speaker 3: read your lovely book with your dog and feel the breeze.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a I feel like that's a perfect example
Speaker 1: of how I'm trying to heal. I definitely took a
Speaker 1: break during the pandemic. I was like, the world was
Speaker 1: too depressing. I have too much to process. I'm falling
Speaker 1: in love, my dad's dying. There's so much happening. We
Speaker 1: need to just, you know, chill out during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: The other story I like to tell my friends too,
Speaker 1: of like, there is a female comedian a friend of mine, who,
Speaker 1: at one point a couple of years ago, was just
Speaker 1: driving down I don't know, Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: or something, and all of a sudden, she started getting
Speaker 1: blinded from the outside to the middle while driving, somehow
Speaker 1: managed to pull over, went blind, goes to the doctor.
Speaker 1: The doctor like, the only thing we could figure out
Speaker 1: is that your adrenal glens are busted.
Speaker 2: This is a stress response.
Speaker 1: Holy cow, Minnie, I'm telling you. While I'm listening to
Speaker 1: her tell me the story, my mouth was just so
Speaker 1: wide open. I was catching flies. I was like, how
Speaker 1: how do you run yourself as a stand up comedian?
Speaker 1: And then she goes, yeah, I probably was just not
Speaker 1: resting and ignoring everything. And there's also the adrenaline of performance, right,
Speaker 1: like a lot of us are. You're chasing that an
Speaker 1: adrenaline high, you know, all.
Speaker 3: The time, and it's missing. You don't feel normal, so
Speaker 3: exactly resting feels actually unsafe, like you're gonna be punished
Speaker 3: for it. Yeah, and like you're going to fall off
Speaker 3: the edge of a cliff. I've really examined that. This afternoon,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, I literally feel like
Speaker 3: something terrible is happening and I'm just lying on my
Speaker 3: bed with the breeze coming through the window. This is
Speaker 3: something that needs to be examined.
Speaker 1: But that's also why people become performers, exactly, And this
Speaker 1: is why people become actors and in front of the camera.
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like that's just you.
Speaker 3: Just like it. I just like it.
Speaker 2: Your trauma response skills can be rewarded.
Speaker 3: That's exactly correct. It is the evolution of my father's
Speaker 3: advice find what you love and get someone to pay
Speaker 3: to do it. It's like, find what's most traumatic and
Speaker 3: get someone to pay to do it.
Speaker 2: I'm really good at this. I'm really good at being
Speaker 2: in fight or flight.
Speaker 3: I'm really good at making cortisol. I don't want to
Speaker 3: do my own adrenal glans, but I literally make.
Speaker 1: You feel like you have a superpower when you live
Speaker 1: off of your adrenaline.
Speaker 3: By the way, cortisol might be another T shirt, Yes,
Speaker 3: just oh my god.
Speaker 1: The wellness girlies love talking about reducing your cortisol.
Speaker 3: I'm wearing that T shirt. I'm wearing that shan.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we have cortisol, we have trauma, traumas tetris.
Speaker 2: Okay, we just need one more.
Speaker 3: By the end of the podcast, yeah, what person, place,
Speaker 3: or experience most altered your life?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, there's so many things.
Speaker 1: The one constant is figuring out my relationship with my dad.
Speaker 1: A cocktail party question I sometimes like to ask, is
Speaker 1: are you a daddy issues or a mommy issues?
Speaker 2: You know, like which one?
Speaker 1: God, don't make me pity, you know, really mine is
Speaker 1: definitely more daddy issues, and it's you know.
Speaker 2: Daddy than he is a survivor. He is a refugee,
Speaker 2: a war refugee, he is.
Speaker 1: He brought us, He plucked us and brought us to
Speaker 1: America working for China Airlines, you know, created this new
Speaker 1: life for us. He is very extroverted but also kind
Speaker 1: of controlling. He's this patriarchal figure, very old school, and
Speaker 1: he was the first example of what a gender norm
Speaker 1: or what love looked like. And so I knew from
Speaker 1: very early on the my life's journey is to unlearn
Speaker 1: that and to relearn how to daddy myself.
Speaker 2: I like to joke about that, just be like, how
Speaker 2: do I daddy myself?
Speaker 3: Oh? That's so good. I like that. I like that
Speaker 3: how to daddy myself? No, just we always make that
Speaker 3: so exo, we make it so outside of us. So
Speaker 3: actually reclaiming that that is so good.
Speaker 2: It's all an inside job.
Speaker 1: And so you know, if you can garner the resources
Speaker 1: internally to daddy yourself feel free too.
Speaker 3: You know, it's weird because I've heard that phrase before,
Speaker 3: like it's an inside job, but I have not extended that.
Speaker 3: Perhaps the things that need to be included like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because you go, oh, the male stuff. Surely that's not
Speaker 3: within me, that's not my gender. But it's just not
Speaker 3: true because it's energetic representation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like as a young girl, growing up
Speaker 1: with very strong father figure, two older brothers who were
Speaker 1: my first you know, Heckler's and bullies, I learned to
Speaker 1: be a little tomboy. I've had to be very independent
Speaker 1: as an immigrant kid, you know, translating English since I
Speaker 1: was in elementary school for the family.
Speaker 2: Being that kind of.
Speaker 1: Over producer, overachiever, overdue or independent person meant that I
Speaker 1: can reassure myself that I'm okay, I am strong, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying. I don't have to overly prove myself, and
Speaker 1: then therefore I can be more vulnerable and softer, do
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, and more receiving rather than
Speaker 1: producing and giving, you know, or affecting the world. I
Speaker 1: felt like I needed to be the one controlling or
Speaker 1: affecting the world even as a child, because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm translating the doctor's questions for my mom, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do I say in Chinese as a seven year
Speaker 1: year old to my mom, when was the last time
Speaker 1: you had sex? Like how do you ask about returning
Speaker 1: this item at the Ralph's grocery store?
Speaker 3: You know, oh my god, the gamut that you had
Speaker 3: to run?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, I feel like that's a version
Speaker 1: of daddying yourself is like how do you give yourself
Speaker 1: the reassurance you probably wanted from your dad so that
Speaker 1: you can be a more whole person and not just
Speaker 1: be this sort of like survival skill human.
Speaker 3: Right, what would be your last mail?
Speaker 2: It would be my mom's.
Speaker 1: We call them kind of like Chinese tamalies or zones,
Speaker 1: which are like kind of palm leaf wrapped rice dumplings
Speaker 1: that are savory. It's sticky rice, it's you know, perfume
Speaker 1: with soy sauce and fried shallots and baby shrimps and
Speaker 1: like sort of tender pork. I would eat that with
Speaker 1: some they call it morning glory, or like water spinach,
Speaker 1: but like Malaysian style, which is with like shrimp paste
Speaker 1: it's stir fried. It's like hollow stem vegetables. I would
Speaker 1: eat that with also a side of just plain white,
Speaker 1: fluffy rice and also redbraised pork just outside of its
Speaker 1: own Yeah, those are probably my.
Speaker 3: You'd have steamed rice with your sticky rice.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh that's cool, double car.
Speaker 3: Now, cob on cob. I've never heard a fluffy white
Speaker 3: rice as an accompaniment to.
Speaker 1: Sticky yeah, yeah, no, why not? This was my last meal, right,
Speaker 1: let me let me ask for all the.
Speaker 3: No, but I mean, just anyway, trust me, these are
Speaker 3: all like ideas. My next like that. It is really delicious.
Speaker 3: Is your mom great cook?
Speaker 2: Are you a great My mom is a fantastic cook.
Speaker 1: I grew up watching her make everything cook for our
Speaker 1: family every day, Chinese food, Taiwanese food, and so I've
Speaker 1: developed a palette and cooking skills because of it.
Speaker 2: And I love food and cooking. And it was the.
Speaker 1: Only way in a family that never talked to each other.
Speaker 1: Food was the way we bought, you know. And I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people share that experience. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: if we could bond over the food, that's something.
Speaker 3: It's Taiwanese food, is it seafood and pork like centric.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it depends on where in Taiwan you are, but
Speaker 1: it's very seafood centric. It's a lot of vegetables chinesey definitely,
Speaker 1: but there's also the regional kind of like specificity.
Speaker 2: Lots of seafood though.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, in your life, can you tell me about
Speaker 3: something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh.
Speaker 1: Personal disaster is quite a definition of something.
Speaker 3: Well, remember I'm quite dramatic, so something that really didn't
Speaker 3: work out, something else that grew out of it.
Speaker 1: For me, sort of dealing with my dad who had
Speaker 1: dementia during the first couple of years of the pandemic
Speaker 1: and then him passing away was definitely a recent personal
Speaker 1: disaster that I feel like I'm still trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how it is going to recalibrate the rest of
Speaker 1: my life or at least the next five to ten years.
Speaker 1: Because the pandemic itself, which number one, I don't think
Speaker 1: we're really over because we have not processed all of
Speaker 1: the grief and the loss that everyone has experienced, whether
Speaker 1: that's actual lives lost or it's just opportunities changed. So
Speaker 1: for the world to stop helps an workaholic to be like,
Speaker 1: maybe I need to feel that warm breeze on my face.
Speaker 1: And I think it did force some of that for me,
Speaker 1: and out of that grew rest and not being online
Speaker 1: as much and finding love, which is beautiful, but also
Speaker 1: the stress of dealing with the dad, who you know,
Speaker 1: did not go out quietly in his dementia, very stressful
Speaker 1: last couple of years of his life on the family,
Speaker 1: and so out of that it brought my family a
Speaker 1: little closer together, even though you know, my dad, his
Speaker 1: sort of household fascism was what drove a lot of
Speaker 1: my siblings and I apart, but you know, in the
Speaker 1: last years of his life, we had to come together
Speaker 1: to take care of him. And so yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the silver lining is that I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to continue to enjoy life, be in the moment,
Speaker 1: and also to build community and to remember that while
Speaker 1: I still try to you know, get passive income in
Speaker 1: pay the bills.
Speaker 3: Quite you're so focused, Jenny, it's so amazing. You're so
Speaker 3: smart and funny and articulate, like you're brilliant many. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm saying that like it's a real revelation, because I mean,
Speaker 3: I kind of knew that before, but like you really
Speaker 3: are that. You're very You're very clear about your goals,
Speaker 3: and you're very generous in the way in which you
Speaker 3: speak about it that you don't It's it's really cool because,
Speaker 3: like for me, generosity is not only sharing experience, but
Speaker 3: sharing it in a way that it can actually land
Speaker 3: with a person. Because God knows what all had information
Speaker 3: that may be correct looking at us, but you can't
Speaker 3: really receive it. And I wonder if that's you know,
Speaker 3: you taught your mom how to receive, and perhaps you've
Speaker 3: really learned how to communicate your good news.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. That is such a tremendous compliment. I
Speaker 1: try to feel like I can connect with others and
Speaker 1: that I can offer something to others, and so I
Speaker 1: hope that how I communicate my life answers can help people.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, I mean, we're all just shoving each
Speaker 3: other home.
Speaker 1: Is that your modification on the Ramdas quote. We're not
Speaker 1: just walking each other home, We're just shoving each other home.
Speaker 3: We're just shoving each other home.
Speaker 2: Get on with it, christ I know, come.
Speaker 1: On, I can be so empatient, truly, that is that
Speaker 1: is the heart of that.
Speaker 3: It's my worst. We'll see, but I do think that
Speaker 3: our for tsha I'm gonna suggest that it says good news.
Speaker 3: Oh quite like that. I quite like somebody reading with
Speaker 3: your T shirt and go, oh goodness. It would make
Speaker 3: them happy in the same way the cortisol would make
Speaker 3: them go, oh yeah, I'm passive income and be like right.
Speaker 2: I love that because it's almost like a shot test.
Speaker 1: You just put a word and then people can just
Speaker 1: feel that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I made the print deliberately. It's
Speaker 3: not tiny, but it's not huge. It's not emblazoned. I
Speaker 3: made it small for a reason, even not that I
Speaker 3: want people leaning and looking at my breasts. But I
Speaker 3: don't mind if it's in the service of them reading
Speaker 3: a pithy comment.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's not not that many. Okay, listen.
Speaker 3: Also, it's not not that.
Speaker 2: You want people to lean.
Speaker 3: I get.
Speaker 2: Lean in and look at my breast.
Speaker 1: You'll get a message these are wise breasts.
Speaker 2: That's another T shirt.
Speaker 1: We can do that as a T shirt breasts.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: There's so many T shirts we can make.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be good. Veela, you're an angel. I can't
Speaker 3: think really, really, really is so wonderful talking to you.
Speaker 1: Likewise, and by the way, thank you for allowing me
Speaker 1: to workshop my horrible British accent for purposes of the
Speaker 1: Loved Relieve podcast that we were both on.
Speaker 3: It was great.
Speaker 2: Don't just say that, man.
Speaker 3: I loved it did It was great? And the fifth
Speaker 3: film that was so colonial and weird like it was
Speaker 3: all really it was really met at the whole thing.
Speaker 3: I loved it. I loved it. Mini Questions is hosted
Speaker 3: and written by me Mini Driver, executive produced by me
Speaker 3: and Aaron Kaufman, with production support from Jennifer Bassett, Zoey
Speaker 3: Denkler and Ali Perry. The theme music is also by
Speaker 3: me An additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks to
Speaker 3: Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella, a, Nick Oppenheim, A,
Speaker 3: Nick Muller and Annette wolf A, WKP, Will Pearson, Nikki Ito, Morgan,
Speaker 3: Lavoie and Mangesh had Ticket Doll