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456 - When Will Vietnam Export More Brands and Not Just Products? Chris Do · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Vietnamese podcast, Chris.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me again, guys.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I had you on before you left to Vietnam last year for the first time.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I want to get some of your thoughts about the first time arriving in Vietnam after so many years.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't remember if you were born yet.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think you were born in Vietnam and left and would back for the first time last year.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So can you tell me a little bit about that?
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it's it's kind of funny.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been to Vietnam twice in one year.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think when we spoke, it was near the end of the year and then I also was back there in December.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's pretty wild.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my experience is being back home for the first time was A, it was overwhelming in Ho Chi Minh City District one, the traffic, the congestion, the lack of street lights or just record like, who's supposed to go right now?
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's anybody's game.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: The heat was a little bit rough, but we got used to it.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just likes to E and hot call the time.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I guess if you wear shorts and loose fitting shirts, I think it's okay.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what was your initial thought to me to touch down?
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I had thoughts like that because I was media with a parents, they were there and I was traveling with my family.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: If anything, I was just thinking, I hope my kids get to see a little bit of where they're the heritage is from, like where I'm from and how they're connected to this country.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And were there any things that caught you off guard?
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, the thing that caught me off guard is a little bit like, um, I can understand the language.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's one of those places where you go to and you're like, okay, wait, these are my people.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can understand the language and I'm starting to pick up some of the Vietnamese and I'm not telling you my Vietnamese is very good, but I'm starting to get a feel for it.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, what would brought you back to Vietnam?
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a long plan trip, it had started years prior to us going because my wife has been meaning to go.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we've been waiting for the right time.
• 2:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So earlier, my kids were much younger and my parents that don't go, it's too hard.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's too hard for them.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to be able to deal with it.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think they were just being overly protective.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we had planned this trip.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we had all our flights and hotel booked.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then COVID happened.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: until we had to cancel a loss of a bit of money doing that, but stayed away for a couple of years, and then as soon as it was safe to travel again, I think we rebuked that trip.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And did you have a sort of like any professional engagement to start up, you know, brought you back?
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Initially, it was just a family vacation, and my wife told me, strictly, no work.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not allowed to work, there's no meetups, there's nothing.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, okay, so I book nothing.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then she said,
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you can hear the two free days that you have.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can do whatever you want.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes you think like Apple iPads.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a trip.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, is it?
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I said, are you sure?
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I can make some good happen.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's when I connected with Howtron from Ditsera.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he, he connected me with a podcast, and we did a workshop on brand strategy for designers.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: He organized both those things.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was working both those days.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I draw why I feel about that.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was fine.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was an episode, but it wasn't about her.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was an episode because everybody was kind of waiting for me for the podcast.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was for have a sip.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we were having our conversation on my parents, my cousin and my kids and the wife were outside, walking to street, and it was really cool neighborhood and everything, but they were just waiting for me.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And some funky family stuff happened outside, but we won't get into that right out.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was great.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were some local Vietnamese, but there were a lot of other Transplants from different parts of the world, some European, some American.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we did the workshop.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was fun to be able to do it with them.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what are the things that you kind of Saw or learn from the young crop of designers and professionals on the ground there?
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think we're all trying to do the same thing.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're trying to get clients to do good work for them and make a living doing what we love.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was interesting to see how many non-vitamese people had set up shop in Vietnam to probably take advantage of the low-cost labor, low-cost of living, and the lifestyle that they want, while being to do work for anyone anywhere in the world.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: and it was both kind of encouraging but also kind of disappointing is encouraging that if you have a good business and you're not a market and do business you can work from anywhere in the world that was cool.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's also cool to see these people can work from anywhere but they chose Vietnam.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that was neat but it was disappointing in that I wanted to see more Vietnamese people show up and do the same thing.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think there's this challenge that when you grow up in a country, you start to inherit its rules and limitations as to what you can do.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes language becomes a barrier, sometimes just you being you becomes a barrier to that.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to see more Vietnamese born people doing international level work and caliber with international clients.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's an interesting perspective.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't expecting that.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you think that Vietnam will, because it's not just limited to your field.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably nationwide in Vietnam.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think there's been a lot of economic and creative growth that's happened in the last couple of decades.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: My dad, when he was there, he's like, I was just here a couple of years ago.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't recognize anything.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The skylight has changed and so many things.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: This used to be Swampland.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: He would say, and now there's all these condominiums or these high-rise or mid-rise buildings coming up.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's incredible.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of opportunity.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: We played to the stage, or not let me say this differently.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's this thing, I don't know if you've ever raised fish, because I love having like tropical fish.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had an aquarium.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: The fish will only grow to certain size given its environment.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you want your fish to grow big, you have to put them into a bigger tank and then an ever increasing size tank.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, they kind of know the limitations and so they won't outgrow the container.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the container can be physical, but it could also be psychological or mental.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a container
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you do that for a country?
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think you do it with individuals first, and then you do it for the country.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm seeing this, like you see children of wealthy families, they send their kids study abroad.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a reason why.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not that the education in their countries in fear, I mean there may be more options, but I think it's because they want to children to see the world from a different perspective.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And those children who come back home have a distinct advantage of the embrace the opportunities.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: They meet people from all over the world.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They learn about different ideas, they're exposed to new concepts and cultures.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they just see that things don't have to be the way it is and that the canvas is much bigger than the one that you were shown when you were growing up.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a tremendous advantage.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think what's happened is, in especially a lot of countries in the Middle East and parts of Asia, they send their kids
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: They learn things and they bring those ideas back.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you keep doing that enough times, eventually, you get to have the best of both worlds.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You get to embrace tradition and culture and the things that are great about any culture of Vietnamese culture others.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you get to integrate ideas from the West or from the Far East.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So wherever it is that you're going, you get to learn from other cultures and you get to bring it back and create a synthesis that is stronger than the individual cultures.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: want to take it back to the viet, et cetera, event that you were at and you said it was both encouraging and discouraging.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that when you bring in non Vietnamese folks from around the world, the exposure to the way that they do business is enhanced.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm also thinking, what I was wanting to ask you, do you think that it takes opportunities away from the people on the ground, the Vietnamese that are trying to break in or struggling to acquire clients
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a real question, a real concern.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the alternative is because if you don't have these non-vitamese people in your country, you just kind of keep doing things the way you know how and you become stuck in dog mode.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I get it in developing countries, especially in the east and as far as I've been able to witness, there's a way of doing business.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of,
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nepotism, there's cronyism, and there's like, I have the money, I have the power you know nothing you do as I say, kind of very boss or top heavy in terms of its management style philosophy and everyone else couch house to that idea and in the West here it's like we do that a bit right but we start to say like we have ideas we can challenge certain
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Certain conventions in the status quo and those ones wind up disrupting things and I think it's one of these things where when you're in developing an in developing country you think
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me just emulate whatever one else is doing.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not really thinking, let me innovate because before you can even do that, you have to have basic infrastructure, you have to have ideas.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you could start to go to the next level.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's gonna take some time for that to happen.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think there's, I think the benefits outweigh the negatives because if you work for someone who's from the West or for some other place and they're successful, you can see how someone else runs a company.
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: and you're getting that kind of seed that's pointed without having to pay for it.
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a good thing.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: On the last episode, we talked about my fear of K-pop dominating V-pop and Vietnamese culture.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think this idea of you really need to know what
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: or how to do something really, really well from another country before you sort of get the itch to put your own flavor on it.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is what it sounds like to me, is that all the industries in Vietnam, they have to just really understand how the outside world is doing things and do that very well first and then slowly get out there and put our own spin on it.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, there are two ways.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if there's just, others more than two ways, obviously.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you look at Japan who, during its industrial revolution, kind of closed off the outside world, they kicked out all the missionaries and they started to develop very kind of the insular culture.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you have things that are very uniquely Japanese.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when they step onto the global stage, they're able to hold onto those ideas and traditions.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's what makes Japanese culture one of the most interesting and unique and preserved cultures in the world.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I was talking to somebody yesterday about this, that in Tokyo, you get to see people wearing traditional kimono outfits in a business attire or business situation, traveling on a speed train, talking to robot vending machines, and short of carrying a samurai sort of like, this is pretty awesome.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're pulling from culture hundreds of years deep and putting it into the 21st century and I think that's amazing.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't see it.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: happening in many other places.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're either stuck in the past or you're out full-forward, everything is about the future.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's need to be able to see the balance between the two and to be able to integrate and celebrate in a way that I think that I think that preserves culture.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: We get into globalism and the question you had about the West or other countries importing
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: ideas and businesses into Vietnam and makes it much harder for the local mom and pop to develop.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because there's a certain cache a preference for international brands that doesn't allow local brands to survive.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that that means that you just have to be a little bit sharper, more competitive, and you have to rise to the standard that's coming to your doorsteps.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, they do have some advantages, like massive buying power, leveraging resources from all of the world, but I think, like in the Philippines, Jolly B is better than McDonald's, and they celebrate that there with a lot of pride.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been to Jolly B, and sorry for the Pinos, not that good, but I love that you're so proud of it, and that it's doing better, and there's this pride that it's a Filipino brand,
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: When you mention Japan and, you know, this idea of they are preserving so many different things in their culture and bringing it to the modern times, what are some of the things that you think that the Vietnamese can bring to modern times, that keep tradition, that make things uniquely Vietnamese and sparkle and shine internationally.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think Vietnamese cuisine has done really well on the global stage.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are some countries in the world where you've never had their cuisine before, because maybe it's just not that tasty or they haven't done a great job exporting it.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we see world renowned chefs talking about how when it came to Vietnam and they tasted the real flavors of Vietnam, it changed their entire palate and the way they think.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they're able to incorporate that into Western European culture and cooking.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's pretty awesome.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Vietnamese cuisine has done really well in the global stage.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: As I'm thinking about it, but not much else.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can I can you think of things?
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm here to explore this question constantly.
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is sort of my life's purpose is to figure out what
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: kind of exports, Vietnamese can claim, you know, we don't, you know, we make so much garments, we make so many, there's so much shoes, we make these products for the world, cosmetics, and why can't we export a brand?
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is something I think we talked about before, but that is the biggest mystery.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why can we make these things at a high level, but why do we not own
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: the IP, the intellectual property, the titles, the branding that come with these things.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's two very separate things, making it and then actually owning the creativity, the creative engine behind it.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's really tough.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Going back to Japan, I think Japan is celebrating for a lot of different things.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a main manga,
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: fashion, automotive, engineering, entertainment, design, video games, food.
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of things that food for sure.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Japanese are able to export to the world that it's celebrated.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think, what is it about the culture?
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have you been to Japan before?
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I lived there in Okinawa for a year, but it's amazing.
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's stuff like that.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: OK, so you correct me if I'm wrong here.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just noticed that there's something it's still within Japanese people
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: to be able to do humble things well is a source of pride and they take great care of their personal space and their communal space.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm walking with my children early in the morning and before their shop is open, there's an old lady and I can see that her back is in in Great Condition, she probably has scoliosis but she's outside sweeping with some kind of bamboo
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: and then hosing down the pots, house plants and things like that, these planters.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, that's pretty cool.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You go to parts of Asia, China, Vietnam.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like you drink something you throw them for.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's not that same respect and conscientiousness.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is true in a lot of places in the world.
• 16:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is very unique to Japanese culture, I think.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when they use a hand loom and they mill denim or something like that, which Japan is famous for, sell which denim from Japan is considered to be a best in the world.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's slow, it's costly, the dies are all done by hand and it's just a very different process.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you have a period of prosperity, you can actually enjoy luxury which is to be able to do things slowly.
• 17:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it takes a while for a culture in a country to get to that place.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they never get to it because it's always about the hustle, the bustle, the rat race, the hamster, we all that kind of stuff.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'd like to see Vietnamese culture take pride in
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: doing things well, not doing things faster, cheap.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when American companies or European companies come to America to set up the factories, they teach them how to make things, but that's just a European or American way of making things.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I find this to be, this is an observation problem.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It means some trouble Kenneth, but I'm just going to say it.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think Vietnamese people are very smart.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: with smartness comes a certain problem in that you want to find the faster, more efficient and sometimes a shortcut to get there.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I see some of, you know, within the circle of people that I know, if it's always looking for an easy way out, instead of just doing the tedious labor, the hard work.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm talking about people of my family, cousins and cousins or cousins and friends,
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: like there's a loophole and you're gonna find it and you're gonna be able to print money.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not really creating value in the world and it's not about celebrating craft.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you have that mindset and it's culturally built into people, we have problems.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, in America there's a situation going on right now where they're talking about protecting our borders and throwing our foreigners.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And migrant workers like Latinos, Mexican workers.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: you and I both live in LA.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know who picks the crops?
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Mexicans.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know who works in the back of the restaurants?
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Mexicans.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know who makes sure your house is cleaning your landscape is like up to notch.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Mexicans.
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Mexicans have a really good work culture.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's why they're in the labor field.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like they do really great work.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I love all the people who we come in contact with who are Mexican who work really hard.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't see that many
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: You see a lot of people nail salon for some reason.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why, but they're there.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But why can't we celebrate hard work with the intelligence?
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's usually the problem.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going through that daily in my mind.
• 19:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think about the podcast and I think about the platform and I think about the slow grind and I sign up for that Japanese craftsmanship in this podcast, which is I just will just do this to the day I die and it's not about the money it's not about anything other than
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: really extracting the essence of the Vietnamese around the world.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That being said, I struggle with this other component, which is, do I make episodes that are like, quick hit dopamine, lists, do I do, proverbs, do I look into the camera and like, just rant?
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there's all these other side things that I think about all the time, and I wanted to talk to you about even what you brought it up.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: This idea of like the Japanese way of really sticking to the path of just sitting in my chair and having thousands of hours of interviews and not really caring where I land.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's really kind of like the mindset that I'm trying to really stay true to, but at the same time I struggle with this idea.
• 20:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps if I go to lists and give it my own spin that it can create this sort of extra tell when that will push the
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, we love to get your thoughts enough.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't, I want to be very clear about this so that we don't get misinterpreted here.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's Lexus, the tagline for Lexus used to be the relentless pursuit of perfection.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, what does that even mean?
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you understand Japanese culture, then you really understand why that must be the tagline for them, because it's this idea.
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Ryan Holiday writes about it in his book, the obstacles the way, and there's all a lot in expression.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to be able to say, but essentially means there's nobility in doing humble things well.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just let that sit for a second.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no ability in doing humble things well.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you have to take out the trash, do it to the best of your ability.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do it like, this is the highest profession you're calling and do it like that.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm watching this show, movie called, and it was Harold that is the world's best sushi chef.
• 21:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the film is called Gerald Dreams of Sushi, and you see this older man and he's talking about his,
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: extremely labor-intensive process preparing the perfect sushi.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: and he's been doing this for decades.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And his highest aim is to do it the same way first, long as he can do it.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it first about 50% of the way through the film, I'm like, how would I want to kill myself?
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, why would you want to do it this way, isn't there a better way?
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by the end of it, I fully embrace this idea that there's, it's not an easy thing to do something great, consistently, for long periods of time.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's park that there.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm not for the grind for the grind's sake.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you do something and it's not well and you just keep doing it, refusing to change, that's not really doing anybody new favors, right?
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I like that you're committed to the long tail being able to work on something and not worrying too much about whether or not an audience likes it or not or if you're growing and hitting the charts the way that you think.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you should endeavor to improve every single day.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: until you get to the level of greatness and then to be able to maintain that for long periods of time is the real challenge.
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So one is to achieve greatness first, do whatever you can, and once you achieve greatness, don't start to slack and phone it in and kind of have robots doing all the work for you.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the lesson here.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So should you do listicles?
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Should you grant?
• 23:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Should you add more philosophical, Kenneth, spin on things?
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's something horrific.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a crazy statistic that there aren't that many podcasts that are made relative to how many YouTube channels or Instagram accounts there are.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the amount of episodes that people listen to are the kinds of podcasts.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a visible.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's there's a few that get the vast majority of traffic and the rest are dying anonymity or obscurity.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think you owe it to yourself.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're going to do something, do it to the best of your ability, whatever that might mean.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for that advice.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've been really thinking about this for two years.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it takes away from improving what I do.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: But my close friends who are very successful say, yeah, do not grind for the sake of grinding.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It helps nobody, and it really doesn't, really doesn't move the needle.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think about the Japanese and going back to sort of the way they frame it.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: approach everything.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I worked with the Japanese chef for like a year in the kitchen.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: and I feel like the way they look at things and living in Japan for me is it's like a baseball swing.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the best way that the only way that I can really think about the way they think is when batters are up and their coaches talk about that swing, you just don't, or even track and field people when they're like running, you just don't swing and then you hear the crack of the ball and you stop.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: like you have to think about like that swing that goes all the way through and you keep that momentum going but I think with the Japanese it's almost like an eternal swing and they slow it down and they're just making sure that they just get it but it's an eternal swing that goes into 900 year companies or 300 year companies they don't slow that they don't speed up for anybody they just want to make sure that that process is perfected year after year and I think
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how Vietnam and Vietnamese culture, I mean, I'm sure it's war and I'm sure it's you know, all these things and I, you know, something that's very superficial when I think about it is the temperature, you know, it's hot, you know, I want to be inside and you don't want to, you know, it's, it's hard to focus when it's so damn hot in a country like that and, you know,
• 25:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: When you think about the colder climates here, you're inside and you've got a prep before it's nose and all this preparation, all this like these micro-actions, these proactive decisions you have to do before it's nose will prevent you from dying and I think once you're locked into the cabin and it's snowing then you have all this free time to like come up with these ideas for when things get warm and I think that's cycle in Japan, Korea, up in the
• 26:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: might have something to do with it, but you know, I don't want to rest my hat on that.
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's something there.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just, I may be speaking out of my pool of knowledge here, but let's assume that humanity started in Africa.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we started to move away.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And some of us, some of our cousins move north, some of them say they're on the equator.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's something amazing about the equator where food literally falls off the trees.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like when I was in Vietnam, yes, certain districts, coconuts were falling off everywhere, and they didn't sell to you for like 35 cents.
• 27:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Literally food is falling off the tree, so your ability or your need to play in ahead isn't really great.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I find that culture is around the equator, tend to enjoy life.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: have a lot of fun, rich culture of music and dance, and they're more romantic, because they can afford to because they're sitting around, it's like, okay, life is good.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: As you move more towards the polls and the extremes of climate, a lot of planning, and unfortunately, if you don't prepare, you die.
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of hard work, there's laboring, and there's planning, and so maybe there's something in this that northern European culture reminds me most of the world because they're really good planners, and they know how to build things because they have to, or if you're in the Nordic countries, you learn how to raid because your land isn't fertile.
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: in order to survive.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we all do what we need to do to survive.
• 28:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we are now thousands of years later inheriting certain cultural norms.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the beautiful thing is we can all change, we can live somewhere else, we can learn from somebody else, and we can act as if.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, it is hot for sure around the equator, and it's humid in some places.
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we have air conditioning and we can build architecture to help make it more temperate for us to work and to live and to think, but there's still a deep, rooted cultural things.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I know towards the north of Vietnam because in Vietnam, it's not just a tiny little park.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's the climate will change drastically.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You move away from the south.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as we did, it was like raining.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was cold.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was chilly at night, you know?
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, but in those areas, we're not planning and building in the north.
• 29:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it's purely climate-based.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: In the north?
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 29:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm going to have to push back, push, me, yeah.
• 29:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I got, I always get crucified for saying this.
• 29:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, and there's so many political reasons why that this is the case.
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: planning that goes on in a north because the vegetation's not there.
• 29:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they are squeezing water from rocks to survive.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that over the centuries you're having to deal with that sort of like frugality, you have to really understand that if you don't
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: behave a certain way.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're not going to eat.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: The vegetation is not as lush and it's colder.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It really is colder in the north.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it develops into a certain type of group of people that are really savage business people, more so than the south.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that my family, I can say it because my family is both north and south, my dad's from the south, my mom's from the north.
• 30:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: always talked about this at the dinner table and people from the central area is brings another sort of a bag of tricks that they can really do some really serious planning when they get down to the south and you know it's like you can even compare it to like the east coast and the west coast and I talk about this all the time you know somebody close
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: trained.
• 30:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you are kind of like calculating down to the minute or the second.
• 30:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: your path.
• 30:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so having that sort of like that, that mind of understanding like the trains are in a very tight schedule.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we on the West Coast, we don't really deal with that.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: We drive.
• 31:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And traffic is yucky and we have to sit in.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes we just know that a 20 minute ride could be an hour ride.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we kind of just kind of live with that.
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: um, indefinite kind of set up.
• 31:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that's a thing that um, Vietnam and in California may be perhaps share in the south of Vietnam and in, in, in, and so I go on.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 31:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I admittedly, I don't know that much about Vietnam, geography.
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just know the different places I've been to.
• 31:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when you speak of the North, what city are you talking about?
• 31:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, Hanoi?
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: in the north, right?
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is that what you asked me in the north?
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, in the north.
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so in the summer it gets blistering hot, but in the winter time it gets relatively cold and then when you move up north of Hanoi into some of these regions, it gets like people are wearing jackets and it gets cold.
• 32:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It really, yeah, it gets almost California cold, I think.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And those people, the vegetation's
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 32:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to argue that because I don't know anything about that, but if we say that because it's colder and people have to be more resourceful in their better planners, then the North should be running the things.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that should be the capital.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I don't see evidence like because I was in Hanoi and I'm like, okay.
• 32:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's cooler temperature wise, but I'm not seeing a giant fundamental shift.
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the language, the dialect's a little bit different, the way that food is prepared is different.
• 32:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I acknowledge that part, but it's not like France exists inside of North of Vietnam when it's like this capital where all this stuff is happening, or there's a distinct brand and culture that's being influential to the rest of Vietnam, and then hopefully part of Asia and the rest of the world.
• 32:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't see that, Candace, did you?
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, but the public bureau and the capital is in the north, but you're talking about the business epicenter in Saigon, right.
• 33:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what you're talking about.
• 33:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's mean really good discussion because I don't know much about it and I think that yeah, I have a very shallow understanding but again, I think that the sort of
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: The free nature of the South attracted so much development, I think, for all of the history of Saigon, you know, the ports and the...
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: sort of like the freedom of movement in transportation.
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's just different from the way Hanoi's constructed.
• 33:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hanoi has still the old quarters, it's the narrower streets.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the city planning in Saigon was very different when the when the French kind of set the city up.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think
• 33:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: that infrastructure allowed, uh, psychone to be the hub of, of more movement.
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that just me again, shallow, uh, understand, of really the, the history of, of Vietnam.
• 34:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, here's two Vietnamese American.
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: They don't know that much talking about all the history of Vietnam.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we probably should move away from this end of the poll.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, there's, I don't know.
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is the expression like, is it, is it side on as hard and how noise the soul of Vietnam or something?
• 34:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't know.
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've never heard that.
• 34:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like, oh, there's something like, people would say something like that to me.
• 34:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, I get that.
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I enjoyed being, I know it a lot more.
• 34:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, me too, for different reasons.
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what I'm talking about is when you get to the extremes of weather and climate, it affects the culture and how you plan to survive.
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it develops into unique ways of thinking and living.
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not seeing that range yet, and maybe I have an explore enough.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if we give it enough time, it then actually will happen.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's all I'm saying, okay, and in order for us to have this belief system of industry and kind of wanting to be the best in the world, I think other things have to happen.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because you go around places like Brazil or what is it?
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Polynesia kind of like the islands, you know?
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: People love life.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: They celebrate and everything happens when it happens.
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're so rushed to do anything.
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's hard and business people are like, God, I need to get this thing delivered today.
• 35:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, well, sometimes in the next couple of days, they can't work with that.
• 35:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's just like, you can't change that.
• 35:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: and there's a celebration of life and love and maybe somebody can push back and out, I'll bend the knee, is that maybe after all the hustle and the bustle, all you wanted to do was just chill and be by the ocean and with your family and not doing too much anyway.
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, maybe they got it right.
• 36:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe.
• 36:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I could go either way on that one.
• 36:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, do you ever think that you will or you could move to Vietnam and sort of start life and help institutionalize some of the things that we're talking about today?
• 36:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: the quality.
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I could see that.
• 36:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in this last trip that I did, I got to see more of it on that wasn't part of our travel itinerary.
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was just keeping my schedule open to meet up with entrepreneurial people, expats and people who've decided to move to Vietnam to live there from other places in the world.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I got to see a different side.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: The heat messes me up, the trash, the congestion, and perhaps it is a pro capitalism or not.
• 36:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And some of the
• 36:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Corruption that exists and that those are challenges for me and I don't love that So I hung out on this most recent trip for some time in Singapore It's tiny a little area.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can't produce anything everything has to be imported there because there's not enough land Yet they're like the miracle of Asia, right?
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like what has happened in Singapore?
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what did I think?
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: that happened there was they decided to pay politicians and bureaucrats like a good amount of money so there's no corruption and it's they get paid really well so they don't need to like sit there and find other ways of taking bribes and could pro quo things and once you start rooting that corruption then things can happen people invest money it's like money doesn't come in
• 37:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of businesses in that area will say, well, we'll finance your company, but you must establish yourself in Singapore, and then you can operate anywhere you want, because at least we know there are laws that are going to protect our assets.
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there are certain things that are barriers for me, and I'm not in a crusade to change any culture or any kind of people.
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know there's a lot of people flooding to Vietnam because of the opportunity, our patrage, that they can have, especially non-litamese people.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which kind of concerns me a little bit?
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to put that out there because the local people should be the ones who are able to leverage the resources in the culture more than foreigners coming in.
• 38:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it feels like, and just very small data points here, kind of.
• 38:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It feels like they're going to be the second class of this new economic boom.
• 38:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: it's unfortunate.
• 38:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: You could see it.
• 38:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not maybe a small data point, but visually you could see it when you're in these worlds of a business.
• 38:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: But that brings me to another thing, which is there is an crazy amount of international students from Vietnam all over the world, and especially in the United States, you see them everywhere.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's a hope in my heart that they do return to Vietnam to enter into politics, academia, business, obviously.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: to lift and uplift the people of Vietnam and to do some really to do some good work.
• 39:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I have friends who have, you know, been here for a decade or two and then go back to Vietnam and they grew up in Vietnam and they're doing really good work.
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I hope that they are the future of Vietnam that's changing the face of Vietnam.
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope so too, I don't know how to say this, but I have some concerns and I might be the problem of the same concern that I have.
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I see is when you study abroad, like say your Vietnamese born and you study abroad and you come back, I think you come back with a little bit of arrogance.
• 40:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, like my parents can afford this.
• 40:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen the world, you haven't seen anything.
• 40:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to shift into cruise control and already know more than you.
• 40:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You also see expats, American-born Vietnamese who travel back, who are given opportunities for whatever reason that are outside relative to their talent in the global stage.
• 40:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just wanted to just park that there and just let that seep in.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's when the local culture celebrates that.
• 40:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you studied at Harvard or Princeton or Yale or wherever you studied World College or Fart, wherever you studied.
• 40:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, here.
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: you're given status immediately.
• 40:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is mostly an Asian culture thing, like the over-aligned some shorthand.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 40:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do we call that's here at a six?
• 40:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, pedolizing shorthand for, yeah, I worship you because you went to an Ivy.
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's definitely an award.
• 41:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your English is so good.
• 41:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're so Americanized because you were born in America.
• 41:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: You should probably be the chief marketing officer.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, wait a minute.
• 41:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: In America, you're the Duns.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you get this up?
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is now we're giving greater responsibility to people who don't have an earned it and aren't bringing love of excellence to that position.
• 41:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Man, I don't think I'm starting rumors here.
• 41:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I think there's this exists.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, added, there's this added, that's 25 years since I've been going back
• 41:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you couldn't cut it in America, you know, you went back.
• 41:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and then look, there's exceptions, like, how is an exception to the rule?
• 41:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, yes, he worked at the big companies and he would back and he found opportunity.
• 42:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: My brother was the same way.
• 42:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was working in Hollywood as a visual effects supervisor for some some big projects.
• 42:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he would back and he created a good life from himself.
• 42:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, you hear this, like, you know, couldn't cut it in America and now they're back here.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you see it.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, after a few years, they can't hack it and they come back to the United States.
• 42:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that is a reality, I think.
• 42:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's some multiple versions of this, right?
• 42:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like you can't hack an U.S. so you go back and you get a better position.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let's just look at it on all different things.
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're probably going to be considered for better positions for higher salary, just because you can speak English and you understand American culture or Western culture.
• 42:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you're probably, I'm imagining you're dating opportunities are much better.
• 42:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, local girls like, hey, you bring something a little different.
• 42:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're a little bit more exotic.
• 42:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: and you look different, you sound different, and so you stand out in ways that are celebrated, and you probably have opportunity there.
• 43:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's one path, and some come back, and then, yeah, as we have your total loser, even if it, you're still a loser, so you have nothing.
• 43:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you don't have a lot of money, it's better to live somewhere where it's cheaper than it is to live in the States where a million dollars buys you a dump in premium neighborhoods, right?
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, that doesn't even get you a good house here, and yeah, Southern California.
• 43:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So those are the challenges.
• 43:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know.
• 43:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I say that I'm critical of this, but maybe I'm part of the problem too, because I do come back.
• 43:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, I am better.
• 43:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about, so you can criticize me there too.
• 43:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm fully aware of that.
• 43:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: My business philosophy has always been, I want to be a small fish in a really big pond so that I grow to the size of the pond back to the aquarium.
• 43:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: rather than to be a big fish and a small pond.
• 43:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for the 24 or five years in which I've been competing in the motion design space making commercials for Madison Avenue at agencies, we compete with the best in the world.
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not in the United States in the world.
• 44:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: British, Italian, French, which doesn't matter.
• 44:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to commit against them.
• 44:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for a period of time, I think we're in the top 20, top 10.
• 44:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's very hard to stay there.
• 44:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for a moment in time, I think we were.
• 44:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if I carry that with me, then it's because I've proved myself in the most competitive market.
• 44:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like I made it in whatever
• 44:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: vertical and most competitive market.
• 44:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're a musician, you need to be a certain place.
• 44:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're an actor, you need to be a certain place.
• 44:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're a designer, there's some place in the world that's the most competitive.
• 44:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you could make it there, there's a reason why a lot of people set up their shop somewhere in Paris if they want to be in the fashion business.
• 44:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: because that's seen as the fashion capital of the world.
• 44:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we're also now talking back into short-hand here, right?
• 44:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is also, you know, once you're on the map and you're industry, you can go to Vietnam and it's sort of a peer and show up.
• 45:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that there's, there's room for people who have vision to go to Vietnam and
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they're not really anchored into any industry and then they get there and then they're like, whoa, you know, they could really be their best selves in Vietnam because, you know, they work hard, they're smart and they find their footing in Vietnam and I think that there's a lot of beauty to that too.
• 45:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think so, well, you know, we were talking about a bunch of challenges.
• 45:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about some of the positive things.
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I find it really unique and interesting that there are a bunch of young, I want to say young, I mean 30 or 50 year old, who are part of this new generation of uslers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investment bankers, who are doing big things.
• 45:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the community is so small.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: that they want to meet and hang out and talk to you.
• 46:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 46:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's amazing.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: The doors are open.
• 46:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I'm spacing the person's thing, but they have quite literally weekly lunches.
• 46:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a curated list of people and you get together and you meet and you talk.
• 46:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't happen in LA.
• 46:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I won't even drive across town to meet up with a friend.
• 46:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So forget about a bunch of entrepreneurs are getting together.
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think that's really cool.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes those challenges create an environment where we need to come together to overcome these obstacles and it builds unity and community and I think that's really amazing.
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: let's talk about this it's you know uh we we some of my friends coin at the psychon magic where you you know you um you have the ability to to every night you can go out and it won't tax you it won't make you tired like like it doesn't LA I don't know why in LA we cannot do what we do in psychon I don't get it but we should and I think there are so many Vietnamese creatives in LA
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we don't get together, we don't hang out and, and, and, and that's the reason why I say it again, this is the reason why I but keep going.
• 47:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like talking about the alley apart.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, inside gone, you, uh, text some some friend and, you know, you're in two seconds, you're, you're, you're hanging out together and then all of a sudden,
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Two, three of your acquaintances or friends walk by in the same restaurant and then all of a sudden there's six seven people sitting together having drinks for like five hours, you know, it's just that side gone magic is a real thing, I think, and in LA it's a it's unfortunate.
• 47:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a couple of things happening like I stayed in district one and I'll tell I think we've seen in the same hotel that entire time.
• 47:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And everywhere that was there was a meeting, is either walking distance or I can grab a grab for like $1.50 and just go.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the cost of transportation is so cheap there.
• 48:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got picked up from the airport and taken in for like 45 minutes and I think the ride was like $10.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was trying to do the back and personally I'm like, there's something wrong, I say, I don't believe this, but no is correct.
• 48:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And to give somebody a tip of a dollar is like, kind of like saving them an hours worth of work is like, I don't even understand this.
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so first of all, there's a concentration within close proximity.
• 48:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the magic of New York versus Los Angeles, which is very spread out because there's geographically mutations to what you can do when Manhattan.
• 48:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why public transportation at land is such a premium because it's so dense.
• 48:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you can have that magic in New York.
• 48:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: This icon magic, if you will.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So geography, concentration,
• 48:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's one thing.
• 48:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'll tell you, please feel free.
• 48:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I give you full license to be critical with me.
• 48:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I get together with a bunch of Asian entrepreneurs, I ask myself, just the best of the best or just because we're all Asian-waring now.
• 49:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I have some challenges around that.
• 49:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe it's my own naughty kind of snobbery that I'm like, man, you guys haven't done it.
• 49:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like why am I meeting with you?
• 49:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: You haven't reached the pinnacle of what it is that you're doing.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So where had you get together?
• 49:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I will tell you who it was by chatting with one of my friends who was very influential in the Asian American community because
• 49:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I think we're gonna go poor serving the Asian community.
• 49:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, let what do you mean?
• 49:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're pretty thrifty, aren't we?
• 49:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah.
• 49:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're looking for deals, aren't we?
• 49:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, meh, and so there's this expression that you can't be a profit in your own land.
• 49:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, if I host a workshop, then this goes to the beginning of our conversation prior to us recording,
• 49:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm more likely to sell this workshop anywhere, but home, well, especially when I talk about home LA or home of Vietnam, which is a challenge, annoying challenge, but it's like if I go to Germany, it'll sell out, if I go to Canada, it'll sell out.
• 50:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: In LA, it's like I got a pull teeth.
• 50:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot to think about and I think in LA, there's just so many, there's just so many people doing a lot and I think it's very noisy, but when you think about a far off land like
• 50:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Germany or some other spot that L.A. sort of pedigree travels with you.
• 50:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that it's a normal part of an ecosystem that, I mean, L.A. has so many events going on.
• 50:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many things that are happening.
• 51:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's almost impossible to go to
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: to track this stuff, but I think when you're moving into smaller cities in Canada or in Europe, I think the cashier that you bring with you is an enormous leverage.
• 51:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's that.
• 51:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I also think that I learned this in college where LA used to have a public transportation system.
• 51:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then automotive industries bottom all out and destroyed them all.
• 51:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just paved right over the train tracks because they wanted people to buy cars.
• 51:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is one of those instances where industry destroys community and all kinds of things.
• 51:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now we're going back to rebuild, but it's very expensive now to go do it after the fact, where the times in which I've traveled, where countries or cities where they have really good public transportation,
• 51:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: the billy and the desire to go meet and hang out.
• 51:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, way higher.
• 52:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: No.
• 52:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
• 52:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because if I have to sit and travel for an hour and just be miserable, I'm trying to run around and like I'm not going to do it.
• 52:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I try to make these episodes as ever green as possible, but I think we're in a really strange place in the United States right now in terms of work and branding and whatnot.
• 52:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you, are you comfortable?
• 52:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: We don't have to get political.
• 52:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just want to get a snap show wherever you want.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's go.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to get a snapshot of your mind.
• 52:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to see where you at.
• 52:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you feel about the way things are happening in the United States on a business level, on a personal level, emotional level, all of it.
• 52:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think we've been under this two-party system for a really long time and needs a massive reset.
• 52:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the vote for Trump was less about Trump and more like, let's see what chaos looks like.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see if somebody who didn't hear it on the entire system, but I don't think the system is being torn down.
• 52:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just think it's just more the same.
• 52:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think we've become so divisive that we can no longer listen to new ideas even though they're reasonable, just because it came from the other side.
• 53:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am concerned about the direction in which the country has added in.
• 53:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think living in California and having travel other places, you pay a premium to be here and you don't get a lot of service for what it is you pay for.
• 53:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I agree.
• 53:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We mentioned public transportation, housing for the homeless, just like public work streets or clean, those kinds of basic things that other countries, where you pay a lot of taxes
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: you get the benefit of those public services health care education.
• 53:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm really concerned.
• 53:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm not sitting or telling you I'm moving because I've been to a lot of places the world.
• 53:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to beat the weather, the culture, the kinds of diversity you can get here.
• 53:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And with the kinds of opportunities that exist.
• 53:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just wish California in particular would get off its high horse and you know what we're pro business, we support people, we want to support entrepreneurs, we will protect people but not at the cost of business and we need to develop programs to stimulate the economy.
• 54:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I heard that in Singapore the first two years in which you started business, you pay zero taxes.
• 54:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: How about that?
• 54:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why is that?
• 54:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 54:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: because it's like to get people started, it takes a lot of capital, it takes a lot of risk and they're trying to bear some of that with you.
• 54:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm in Dubai, Dubai is actively recruiting and making it easier for people to live and work there.
• 54:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm in the process of getting the goal that Visa, they're setting me up with work space, and they're giving me opportunities to fly me out.
• 54:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wish I wish.
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: The United States and then by extension in California would start to like, let's make some changes here, people.
• 54:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: We also see that we've at least in the liberal parts.
• 54:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've swung too far to the left in identity politics.
• 54:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And signaling, virtual signaling, that once thriving cities had just fallen into decay.
• 54:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: My friends and family in Northern California said San Francisco is a scary place now.
• 54:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Businesses have shut down their empty streets and there's rampant shoplifting and crime and you could park your car and it'll be vandalized that we've broken into in minutes.
• 55:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is going on?
• 55:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not sitting here pointing fingers at the left for the riot.
• 55:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying, guys, govern.
• 55:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what you're supposed to do.
• 55:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take care of your citizens, all of them.
• 55:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: The rich ones and the poor ones.
• 55:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think things would work better if we had a more transparent tax system where people weren't able to hide their money elsewhere.
• 55:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do know this because once you start to achieve a certain amount of wealth, you're given a set of tax strategies that you didn't even know existed.
• 55:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their cost prohibitive if you're at a certain income level.
• 55:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But once you get to a certain level, it's like, wow, this is how you cannot pay taxes.
• 55:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just, it's a messed up system.
• 55:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I have to tell you, I guess in the last couple of years, I am looking actively now, where would I like to live?
• 56:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where do I want my children to be in my family, to be where I feel like I have the right mix of life, culture, opportunity, public transportation, and system, social systems that are in place?
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't found that answer yet, because every place I go to, they offer lots of things, but it never just exact amount of things
• 56:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I almost feel like sometimes when we think about California we're looking at the beginning of the end.
• 56:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: It could be decay, the decay is setting in.
• 56:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Every year it has been getting worse with the commercial lease signs in front of buildings and boarded up windows.
• 56:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is a dire situation and I can't understand why we can't turn this around.
• 56:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've choked out the film industry
• 56:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't understand why Canada gets our film business, why Atlanta gets our film business, other states are getting our film business.
• 57:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are Hollywood here, and it's dying.
• 57:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's arrogance, it's arrogance, 100%.
• 57:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You get the pleasure of living and working here, so we will make it as difficult as possible because you have no other choice.
• 57:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what they do is they force industrialists people to find alternatives.
• 57:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, many, many years ago, there was this sag strike and it was this thing where you couldn't produce commercials.
• 57:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what they did was they created a new industry to help you do productions overseas.
• 57:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: in Prague, in other places where it could stand in for parts of the world, and they built other businesses and when they realized the cost savings, not in terms of production, but in talent, they don't have to pay residuals the way they used to.
• 57:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You train clients and customers basically to love an alternative, and that's a big problem.
• 57:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The boarded up science, I think,
• 57:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: in that we haven't had a real reimagining of public spaces in a really long time.
• 58:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think these businesses were doomed to begin with.
• 58:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just got accelerated because of COVID and it's never recovered.
• 58:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number two is that there's been a lot of speculation from developers to build spaces without an idea as to what we're gonna do in those spaces.
• 58:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you have a glut of inventory.
• 58:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I use to live on the west side.
• 58:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I use to live in the policy, it's in my office still is in Santa Monica.
• 58:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: A place that we use to love to go to is the third street.
• 58:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, and it's a heartbreaking God.
• 58:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's shit.
• 58:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know where I'm going with this.
• 58:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my God.
• 58:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it really makes me to press the game out.
• 58:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we used to go there and depending on when you're going what season it would be packed with people and the shops there weren't great and it wasn't like great urban planning but because it's close to the beach and beautiful weather and everything was great and beautiful people it was a tourist attraction you would sit in Starbucks or Barnes and Noble and you hear like accents from the UK from Germany from the Netherlands just.
• 59:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, here.
• 59:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, great.
• 59:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I've been on the east side now in Pasadena for a couple of years.
• 59:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I go back.
• 59:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was just like media with friends.
• 59:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, well, I didn't recognize this place barely anybody there tons of vacant shops, no innovations like what has happened to this place.
• 59:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is where urban planning or lack of it or arrogance or the authority or whatever it is has settled in and is showing its ugly face.
• 59:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have the the boardwalk.
• 59:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have this prime real estate literally one block or two block from the ocean.
• 59:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have this beautiful weather.
• 59:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you still can't make it work?
• 59:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: what has happened.
• 59:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I'll tell you the decay of society and we have to talk about this because we have to find ways, I think our generation has to find ways to include this into dialogue and conversation.
• 1:00:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we are experiencing the decay physically of a third-street promenade, which at one point was like,
• 1:00:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I lived on that side for many years, too, in Santa Monica 19th, and we'll sure that was one of my favorite places to go in LA.
• 1:00:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: But now we're dealing with another problem.
• 1:00:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think on top of this decay, which is video games, porn, social media, I think the inability
• 1:00:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was listening to a podcast with Scott Galloway and Trevor Noah, and he's Scott Galloway's open and he goes, we need to get more drunk, we need to consume more alcohol, we need to make more mistakes, we need to get more nose and men, young men need to get more door slam in their face, otherwise how is society getting stronger, where becoming weaker,
• 1:01:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: young men who are trapped indoors, I think he said something like 16 to 30 that age demographic with men.
• 1:01:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think he said something like a high percentage, like 40, 50% has never approached a girl in real life or online,
• 1:01:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think Japanese culture, or Japan, it's going through that too.
• 1:01:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a worldwide problem with social media porn and all these digital, anything digital that is taking our attention away from like being bars.
• 1:01:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, clubs have closed down.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's not that many clubs in L.A. like they're used to be when we were growing up.
• 1:02:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was out six months a week.
• 1:02:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: and it's scary to think about and ponder where the world is going, it's not just California, Japan.
• 1:02:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to respond to.
• 1:02:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've never been to bar club in my life.
• 1:02:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, it's like, what?
• 1:02:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't drink.
• 1:02:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm straight edge.
• 1:02:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, it's not my scene.
• 1:02:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know how to comment on that.
• 1:02:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But there is a problem.
• 1:02:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been in Japan.
• 1:02:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I ask people like what's going on.
• 1:02:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are populations in decline.
• 1:02:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's because guys are too shy to ask girls out.
• 1:02:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that creates tremendous opportunity.
• 1:02:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you have any guts to go to Japan, you can ask all the girls.
• 1:02:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, I need to revisit this, she just said straight edge.
• 1:02:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, wait, wait, so this is something that has always been a part of you.
• 1:02:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like, I literally learned about straight edge a few months ago.
• 1:03:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was working on a set.
• 1:03:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: These producers were like, hey, we're straight edge guys.
• 1:03:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, what do you mean by that?
• 1:03:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea.
• 1:03:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously I know what it, it pertains to, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is like a thing.
• 1:03:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: and then they broke it down and they're like, well, they were punk rockers, and then so when you say straight edge to somebody like a lay person like me who has no idea, can you explain how you became straight edge and what is straight edge?
• 1:03:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not telling you I'm a professor of straight edge punk rocker or whatever, but no, for your life, it's a basic thing, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't do any drugs,
• 1:03:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: you don't even swear.
• 1:03:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's no smoke, no drugs, no alcohol, no swearing.
• 1:03:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just lived this way my entire life.
• 1:03:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Never had a drink of alcohol in my life.
• 1:03:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Never touch a cigarette.
• 1:03:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did never once touch a thing of drugs?
• 1:03:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: How did you fall into this, um, not fall?
• 1:04:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: How did you rise into this, uh, lifestyle?
• 1:04:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think somewhere along the way like when I was much younger, I'm like,
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't like the way people behave on their drunk and I would see these wedding parties or celebrations and people get either really affectionate or really angry and just weird.
• 1:04:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was just thinking about, like, I want to have clarity of mind and the things that take away from that, I don't want to partake in.
• 1:04:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's say I have a finite amount of brain cells.
• 1:04:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to help the destruction of any of those brain cells.
• 1:04:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there were periods of time when I was at art school.
• 1:04:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: and some of them did some pretty amazing work and I contemplated like am I hurting myself by not allowing my perspective to change quite literally with a who's a genetic or something like that.
• 1:04:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought about it for a while, and I never did anything.
• 1:04:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I had business coach once I started my business, and I chatted with them and said, you know, think about LSD or something like that, or sell aside, and there's something that allows me to see more and experience and be connected to more of the universe.
• 1:05:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I'd caution you against that.
• 1:05:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like the way your brain works right now, and I have friends who've dropped acid.
• 1:05:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: they've never been the same and I don't know that's like an older man saying don't do drugs just they know kind of thing but you know I do know people who have never come back
• 1:05:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: super talented artist friends of mine who are like literally living on the street right now.
• 1:05:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh shit, well yeah and this is my friend like we travel together.
• 1:05:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: He worked on transformers and the matrix.
• 1:05:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So a high caliber artist creative person and I sometimes see him living under bridges and things like that.
• 1:05:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Never came back.
• 1:05:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: never came back.
• 1:05:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know exactly what had happened in his life, but he slipped into states of like paranoia.
• 1:06:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know the movie a beautiful mind and Russell Crowe, he was like a beautiful mind like he was sit there and I would try to help him get back in his feet but then it realized it's a mental disorder or mental illnesses happen.
• 1:06:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had whiteboards, like basically the walls you could all write on in the warm room.
• 1:06:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: He'd go in there and you'd write the craziest, most detailed formulas and observations of life.
• 1:06:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, his mind is snapped.
• 1:06:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what straight edge is and I think in the punk space, they would put excess on their hands.
• 1:06:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:06:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when you would offer something, they would show you this.
• 1:06:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it would just be like, it would explain everything.
• 1:06:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So did you encounter straight edge before you were straight edge or did you encounter it?
• 1:06:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you became that and you embraced it?
• 1:06:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just said when I was younger, I don't, I don't want to drink.
• 1:07:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my dad smoked a lot when I was younger, and I'm like, I don't want to smoke either.
• 1:07:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: because I would send his car, his truck, his pickup truck, and I would drive it, and it was a film of cigarette tar.
• 1:07:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think when you could just run your finger on it, and it's like, man, that's what's inside of you.
• 1:07:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't like it.
• 1:07:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't even know what straight edge is until a couple of years ago, actually.
• 1:07:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But now 53, everybody.
• 1:07:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just like, I don't want to swear.
• 1:07:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's crashed.
• 1:07:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's ways to express myself.
• 1:07:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like the way my mind works.
• 1:07:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to destroy my body or my brain cells, so until I feel like there's a leveling up that has to happen, I'm good the way it is right now.
• 1:07:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's crazy that you only really discovered the word straight edge or the term, just a few years ago, but you were living straight edge your entire life.
• 1:07:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I didn't know anybody else that was straight edge.
• 1:07:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like I'm just doing this thing.
• 1:07:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, here's the thing, culturally,
• 1:07:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: especially in parts of Asia, drinking is a big part of masculinity, about celebration in business.
• 1:08:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when I was touring China, we were hanging out with all the professors because I was lecturing and things like that.
• 1:08:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they had some kind of Chinese vodka wine or something like that.
• 1:08:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was powerful.
• 1:08:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: It smelled like gasoline.
• 1:08:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we lost drink.
• 1:08:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said,
• 1:08:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I don't drink, I've never drank that.
• 1:08:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'd never, I'm like, never, ever.
• 1:08:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, we respect that.
• 1:08:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then they got my executive producer to get S-face and he didn't want to drink either, but he couldn't use I've never drank.
• 1:08:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So he would drink and then the next day he was like messed up because this is high alcohol proof.
• 1:08:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, never again.
• 1:08:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: He deemed it taste good.
• 1:08:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just made your brain go belitts.
• 1:08:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's, it's gotten me out a lot of social situations
• 1:08:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: they would look down upon you not drinking.
• 1:08:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know in Vietnamese culture, we would go hang out at somebody's birthday or barbecue up north in San Jose, where I have dozens and dozens of cousins hanging out.
• 1:09:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they're all bragging about how much they can drink or you can't hold your liquor at site.
• 1:09:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I wonder how that's going to work out for you?
• 1:09:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, not sure if I want to be bragging about that.
• 1:09:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that's what, you know, you don't know Vietnamese culture.
• 1:09:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's how it is.
• 1:09:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, you can, she can now drink you.
• 1:09:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, okay, yeah, I've recently stopped drinking for for health reasons in the last year.
• 1:09:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've cut back 90%.
• 1:09:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I think,
• 1:09:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, meeting these straight-edge producers on set.
• 1:09:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we had so much conversation about living the straight-edge life.
• 1:09:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I like it.
• 1:09:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like the philosophy behind it.
• 1:09:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I've been drinking a few months.
• 1:09:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it's, it's a, there's an incredible lightness of being when you don't have to deal with the after effects of cloudiness.
• 1:10:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but it's hard.
• 1:10:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard.
• 1:10:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think culturally for Vietnamese, especially, you know, when you go back to Vietnam, there's so much.
• 1:10:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a culture of drinking.
• 1:10:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't find it hard.
• 1:10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every drink, all you want, I won't drink, I would just have sparkling water.
• 1:10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a cheap date too.
• 1:10:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, you know, you have to buy my drink.
• 1:10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just the way it is.
• 1:10:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Chris, thank you so much.
• 1:10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, we always have these questions laid out, but it's the best when we can just veer off and talk about things that are really important to us.
• 1:10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So thank you for opening up and and being on today.
• 1:10:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's my pleasure, Kenneth.
• 1:10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
• 1:10:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
• 1:10:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.