Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 493 - What Is There To Hate About The Vietnamese Culture? - Kavi Vu

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493 - What Is There To Hate About The Vietnamese Culture? - Kavi Vu · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast today.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have KVVU here with me and I'm so excited to talk to you.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really excited.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, um, first of all, you know, I had to ask you a few times how do you pronounce your name?
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's KV and you said there is a, it was so.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a small history behind you coming over that name.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's why people have trouble pronouncing it because it's not a real name.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just made it up.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my name is Vau Kim Gun, but that's hard.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: When I came to South Georgia, you know, when I was a kid, no one could sing on.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I went by Kim, Kim Vue, but there were just so many Kim's.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I actually just took my initials KV of Kim Vue, and I made up KV, and then I spelled it out.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: K-A-V-I, and then that just became like my name, K-V.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then, like years later, I found out that it has a meaning.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It means poet in Hindi, and I'm a poet.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, it worked as well.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've seen, yeah, it's amazing.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: How old were you when you came to the States?
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was two years old.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mary and Macaurey.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: That statement is so far from the truth because you have not lost your roots and in fact I think quite the opposite and that's what we're here for.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, not just learning it on a normal, but you're like, really, like I hear, and what's talk about this later, but the ice poem that you did about the, and I was like, John, I was like, you need, you need some advanced level understanding of words to, to put something like this together.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, where did this come from?
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it came from, I mean, hearing so often that all you came to the States when you were two years old, you don't know anything about Vietnam, you don't know the language, you don't know the culture.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I took offense to that.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, no, my parents are Vietnamese, my grandparents are Vietnamese.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I grew up in a Vietnamese household, even though I grew up in the States.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel very Vietnamese, you know, living life and so when I came to Vietnam for the first time when I was 18 to volunteer to teach English, I was like, wow, it feels
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: a lot like, oh, home here in a way.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You don't feel it's foreign as you thought you would.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I came back again to visit years later, and I just thought, wow, I could live here.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really could feel it home here.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So then I started taking Vietnamese classes and then I moved to Vietnam
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: What year was that when you were sorry, I don't mean a bust out with your age, but like what year were you 18 going to Vietnam?
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was, oh man, okay, 2000.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had just one sec, one sec.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was 18, 1718, 2000.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, nine, eight, seven, yeah, something like that.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so that's pretty early, still.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think Vietnam was still developing and there was years of significant because it's significant.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: on both sides.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's significant to me in America and it's significant to Vietnam.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And here's my breakdown of this.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like to talk about these years because I think it's significant here in America is when your parents are thinking, oh my god, my daughter's going to Vietnam in those years, 2007, 2009, still very early for Vietnamese people to not in America.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: understand like the significance of like, okay, it's changing and our older generation is like, no, no, no, no, you can't go back.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: We did everything we can't to move here.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: The significance in Vietnam is it was changing 0709.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those were like really, really changing years.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think about the present Vietnam and it's like, we're slick now in Vietnam like District 2, District 1, you know,
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're in a different place now.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's why I always ask.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you look like you're 22.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, it's hard to get up.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not, I'm not, but thank you.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so that's why it's important to kind of like, clock these timelines for me sometimes, because it's like, so interesting.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: What did your mom and dad think when you made that decision to kind of go back and forth a lot?
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: The first time it was the first time I ever left the country, I went by myself when I was like 17, 18.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just like, I wanted to be a traveler, like I wanted to be like a world traveler.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I knew that I wanted to do something in, you know, maybe journalism or
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's at some sort of storytelling, traveler situation.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, well, why not Vietnam?
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because, well, that's the only other language I know.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it felt like a good half step for me.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Little did I know I only kept traveling to Vietnam every time.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like never traveled to any other country.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ever?
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, I don't even think that's funny.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Vietnam kept pulling me back.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting, I think they do have that sense of, that's not at home, like that's not home for you.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like home for you is here in the States, the place that we, we chose and fled to and have worked really hard to build this life.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like this is home, but you should go see, because my mom still has a bunch of family in Bulma Talk where I was born.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: um she's like yeah yeah go and my grandparents were still alive at that time so I got to meet them when I went my first time.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's trippy that we were ripped out of our motherland.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have to use those words like we were ripped out of the womb.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was born here and I feel you it's just like that
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: imagining like what life would have been had we not had to live outside and you know I'm like I can't my blessings.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel very lucky and fortunate to have this experience outside and and very privileged to be able to go back so often and watch it grow and be a part of that growth.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time there's like this nagging feeling like what would it have been had I you know a group in Vietnam.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: But maybe maybe we wouldn't have these questions too.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's very real.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I, you know, I'm like, oh, that's coming up or the digital tool, you know, and I'm like, okay, are we going to go?
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to jump when they can.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: My friends, you know, they're like, no.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: like that's so old, like that's what old people do.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, me, like I'm like, I'm so, I, I, you're an I crave for those moments of those cultural things that they're like, we've moved way past.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, I hope, I hope we have it, you know?
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's actually really funny, whenever I is like a 30, something year old, it's still one, these, these traditions and sometimes these very like kidlike things.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, and I think the adults in Vietnam actually really appreciate that because they're like a young person who wants to go even jim like weird.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So in many ways I think if I did grow up in Vietnam maybe I wouldn't be so excited about the culture.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like it's like air, you know?
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think you're right.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think you're very right.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: you sound like you've had training, whether it's in voice or broadcasting or something.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody, my producer had just told me that.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was like, you know, when you think of wing up man, and when you think of KV,
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: You hear these iconic, yeah, he said that.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm said that.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now my producer, he said, Wow, that is the biggest one.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I agree.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do agree with him.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have a very trained voice.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I, you know, that leads me to like, what did you study in college and, you know, how did you get your, I'm changing my cadence and how I talk because of how, I'm just responding to the way I'm hearing you in my ears.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, yeah, it has a very different effect on on how I normally go, I'm slowing down, I'm thinking things through a little bit more, I'm allowing you to talk more because, you know, it's.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like because he just said it to me like an hour ago and so it's affecting me in a way that it's like real time So I bring all that up because I'm curious what your journey is
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, first of all, thank you.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know if it's literally my idol.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think he's one of my biggest inspirations for learning Vietnamese and being infatuated with poetry.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, I think he's a great artist.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, that's a deep cut, I think, because you know, some people, I think whenever I was into poetry back when I was in, you know, first and second grade, I don't think I understood that what I was missing is that I wasn't into, I wasn't
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: English poetry.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was just into England reading the poems and Paris by night the little moments where he introduces the next song But he he puts these little gems in there Anyway, sorry tangent.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I study journalism
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: pre-med because you know and then after college I couldn't get a job as a journalist so I went and added video to my skill sets and so my work is on my videographer in editor and then poetry on the side
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: it.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, sense.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when you look at your work, you think about like it's so polished, it's just so, you know, there's a specific vibe to it.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then on top of that, there's the poetry that you deliver, and the content is so soothing, and I am,
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: wanted to reach out many, many, you know, moons ago.
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I was just thinking that sometimes the timing of me reaching out to guests is tricky because there's a level of intimidation for me sometimes that I don't talk about.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a level of intimidation.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because it's like,
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: your your work is so crafted.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's all thought out and I'm the opposite, you know, and so sometimes I'm like, my life isn't like that.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just just a couple.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so hard to
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: to, like, comprehend how you deliver it, you know, the poetry and the thoughts and then the imagery, all of it is such a beautiful thing.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, oh, I'm not, I'm just not ready sometimes to, to reach out.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a take 50 of me cursing on the side.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can't imagine that.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's chaos behind the scenes.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So how did you get started?
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: It poetry.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so yeah, I mean, all of it.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: How did you begin to like put this out there?
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what was the impetus?
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, oh, yeah, thank you for asking about my poetry.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like most people are like, how did you know, why did you move to Vietnam?
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, I mean, good question too.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: like I said, I owe it all to me, not me at all.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's not just like, yeah, that's not just an anecdote, that's like for real.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: No for real.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like I remember specifically being very
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was like Christmas whenever a Paris by night came out because I wasn't super interested in the singing and, you know, the skits were really fun, but really I was there for a wing-up man in his little side stories about culture, about writers, he would introduce to the audience and he would read these small lines and I was just like, wow, like the way
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I probably didn't understand anything because my Vietnamese level, it's kind of like I would say like elementary.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe middle school high school now.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: But even back then I remember like the adults being really impressed by him and then there was me like just glued to the TV and I'm like 11 so yeah, I found I found it really soothing at a very young age and then I grew up in Atlanta.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, Atlanta's hip hop scene is also, I think, related to that, and I studied creative writing, and there were a lot of different prompts, you know, about poetry, about rhythm, spoken word, so I kind of joined this spoken word, a crew, and wrote a couple of spoken word pieces.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, yeah, it went from there, but I've been kind of writing and performing spoken word poetry for 15 years.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but then when I started my career, you know, like poetry is not going to pay or so I thought.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I went, you know,
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: videography, kind of commercial videography out.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was editing for a public relations company and we're doing work for a bunch of Atlanta companies, Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-A, all of them.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I kind
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was just a lowly intern behind the camera, pressing record, but I learned a lot from it.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, all the long time reporters and coaches coaching your CEOs on how to speak, what messages to deliver.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I was just, I think, taking it all in.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just had a lot more free time.
• 16:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I started writing more and sharing more.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that the poetry has always been there.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you write more in English or do you write more in Vietnamese or is it sort of whenever I cook, I'm hungry, or whatever you're inspired to write?
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, in English for sure.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I would say my video.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and when I came to Vietnam in 2023, I cannot stress enough that my Vietnamese level was like elementary.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't understand so many things and everything started like, wow, La La La, wow, you know.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in 23.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like recently.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, so recent.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you're the level of Vietnamese?
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I recognize it.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like really good and it's like so how did it increase within three years?
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, um, I app a lot, um, every grab drive is there's no grab drive left, uh, unyapt, um, when I first came, that was my means to learning about the, the language, the culture, the social interactions, um, and etiquette.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I took Vietnamese classes pretty aggressively at first and then less so, but yeah, at VLS in District 1 and I still do.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you still do.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I still do, yes, even, yeah, kind of in New York and it's like on time.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I watch your content, I think about like,
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: the cadence of what you picked right about, what you think about.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it, it seems random, but it's not, I'm sure.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: What inspires each episode, each clip?
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you thinking about?
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's such a cup out sometimes to say how beautiful the language is, and I just feel so grateful that, like,
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just so cool that we are connected to this language that's so meaningful, like, so thoughtful when you, when you start to break down the words.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe because I have no connection with English, even though it's the language that I,
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: speak on the daily and in proficient in like what is the word word even mean I don't even know you know but when um but when I use Vietnamese like the meaning the root just goes so deep that I'm like whoa cool you know um and maybe if I were white I don't know I could be like oh well that's actually Latin but but I'm not so yeah um
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like even, you know, breaking down like dumb so I'm like, whoa, dumb and hard, so, you know, I'm the...
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then when I came to Vietnam and started breaking down his words, just so I can understand them better.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I realized when I was talking to strangers and families and friends alike, everybody uses idioms in a way that it's not like it's not this big moment where they're
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, got go my side.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they just, it's just woven into daily life and it's so cool.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just so natural to them that I'm like, um, we talk about how you just did that and how cool that is.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you know, of course, no one's that impressed, but me.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think they're, they're just inspired by daily moments of genius.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is a Vietnamese person.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I see the wonderment of your thinking out loud, you know?
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: and I experienced that, I share that.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's worth relatable.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it's relatable to anybody's watching it because that's how you've built this thing that you've built is because it's touching so many of us, right?
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's making us feel a certain thing.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not the only one.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a lot of us are feeling, especially people who think that words matter, you know?
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: It makes you feel a certain thing when it's explained to you, too.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, they do have them, so we hear it all the time.
• 21:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: We hear it all the time, thumbs up.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: But to hear you break it down on a clip, it's like, oh, man, it is pretty cool to hear the roots of these things and the meanings and then throwing it into the context that you do.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating and yeah, it's like an unintended audience.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I didn't really think I have like no media strategy by the way, like no social media strategy.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't, I'm not very strategic.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: People are like, what's your first audience?
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's your secondary audience?
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Who are you writing for?
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, myself.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was going to ask you because the decision for me or any content creator when we're bilingual is kind of shy away from leaning into one because it'll confuse the algorithm, you know?
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, but here in you say that, I get it now.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh God, well, are you thinking about algorithms and strategy?
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, you just said no.
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, because a lot of people, once I started making more creator friends, they're like, KV, you kind of like straddle this line, like are you going to just write an English or are you going to write in Vietnamese if you're kind of doing both and
• 23:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is confusing to the algorithm.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I'm like my life is confusing.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just kind of speak both languages have way and If there are people out there like that and maybe we're a smaller diaspora Like how beautiful it is to be seen
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: so directly in that way.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's not just general thing.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it scratches an itch that we've never had before.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Trevo is being, has been doing that.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: She goes hard.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I never mind.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Her mind works like, you know, like, I just had her on and that English Vietnamese switch is, you know, it's something else.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so good.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so good.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she allows herself to go anywhere with, you know, potty talk or, you know, just trauma from her mom or whatever.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like it goes everywhere and yeah, it really is, you know, and that leads me to the other thing about like this idea of like AI in the future.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would be very difficult when I think about you or treat
• 24:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: to have AI duplicate this style.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not even just hard to duplicate, but it's like the heart and soul of the experience of somebody like you or a tree capturing this sort of like this moment when you feel that you gotta explain them soon, right?
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not gonna pop up out of nowhere in AI unless you prompt it.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then even still, it doesn't have the correct,
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: the correct foundational glue to kind of project this sort of like thought.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think everybody's worried about AI, but, but I do like to think that, I mean, yeah, I can't generate a big list of Vietnamese idioms and explain it in a poem, but like, yeah, there are these moments that I live and then, you know, I'm yapping with someone or thumbs up with
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: about how tough love is, you know, to be in love, to fall in love and my relationships.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, they'll say like, yeah, you know, but to Nyaolam, he can Nyaodal, and I'm like, whoa.
• 26:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: One sec, you know, and
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, you have to live a life, you have to, you have to them with a friend for her to say that to you.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have to fall in love and be hurt for her to say that.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so,
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think and I hope that the audience is there for all of that, all of that journey of like, oh, Katie's like in a relationship, oh, and then she got hurt and then, oh, there's this area.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so I hope that it's just beyond idioms that I'm teaching folks, but they're on the journey with me.
• 26:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can we talk about love?
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: No.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 26:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we can talk about love.
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I do want to talk about love because I think I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about people like you and me, where we have crossed this weird line about
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: who we are, right, because, okay, so we know that we are fully American, but we also know that we are fully Vietnamese.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And being in America is tough.
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a really tough thing for my love life, because
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, that balance, that, that real sort of like that real, um, connection almost has to happen with somebody who speaks really good English and somebody who speaks really good Vietnamese.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: That dynamic, that problem that I have now, um, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a,
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: When people say you have first world problems, it doesn't even begin to describe the problems that I have.
• 27:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is beyond first world.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is, you're at first and third world problems altogether because I want,
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: to know what, I want to community and I'm greedy when it comes to this.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk to somebody who understands what it was like to grow up in their small hometown and read, yeah,
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: My mom that spent many years in Lithia, my brother was born in Lithia, but I was born in the U.S. in 1975, but I have this deep longing for a soulful connection to somebody in Vietnam, but then I need that Western side too, right?
• 28:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 28:46
  [UNKNOWN]: Right.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's how I'm like, can we talk about love because that is a huge problem for I can tell probably for somebody like you.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, do or is it a problem?
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'm the only one with the problem.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I was just like wanting to hear your side of this issue.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's so real.
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've never, okay, so before I came to Vietnam in 2023, I'd never dated a Vietnamese man.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, it was just too close.
• 29:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the trauma, you know, and I have brothers who I love, but I see the trauma.
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I see it in myself, and I'm like, oh, so I think I was yearning for someone who understood my family, but I was afraid
• 29:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: of being maybe too understood.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because there are a lot of aspects of Vietnamese culture that I do not like.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be a Gong Yau.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: My mom.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: as much as she wanted me to get married, and I'm 34, so I'm not, you know, young, she was like, get married, but do not be a con yo.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's break it down for everybody.
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Kung yo is to be a daughter-in-law.
• 30:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that implication is heavy, especially in the north.
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you are a kung yo of somebody of a family in the north, and traditionally, it's like you are on borderline slave to that family.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, sir.
• 30:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is real.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is some real.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is some real garbage.
• 30:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think they're heavy.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's strong.
• 31:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's strong everywhere, but it's really strong.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, Northern Vietnam.
• 31:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And nobody talks about this.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you're bringing it up.
• 31:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody talks about how how treacherous this life of a servant as a con yo is.
• 31:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: No matter how educated you are, you are still relegated to this position of a con yo.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's dirty.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just all these younger sisters, older sisters of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the sun is treating you like you are, you are a property, it's real.
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for a while, until maybe at some other congeau, you know, a doctor, you're going to see Junior comes in.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's her around, and it's like, you know, you get to hot potato, the trauma, and it's still happening in your 60s or 70s.
• 31:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I witnessed it in my mom's family.
• 31:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really bad.
• 31:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's horrible.
• 31:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah and I think my mom just didn't want that for me and so I dated Asian men but I never dated a Vietnamese man and then I go to Vietnam and of course there's a wider pool and it was really beautiful to date somebody and they just know, you know, they know all your stuff that you
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: But dating Vietnamese local Vietnamese men, okay?
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: They don't know all my stuff because I grew up in Atlanta.
• 32:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I listen to outcasts and childish can be, no, that's different.
• 32:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's like this one side of you that is full and one side of you that is like desperately unseen.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's also like interesting things there that a Vietnamese man is like, wow, you're a really Western, you know, because I was like, I'm offered to pay and and I don't mind.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: it's splitting the bill or at least getting dessert or something like that and they're like whoa like I would feel like less of a man you know and I'm like oh well you can't really pay for a girl's dinner every time in the states so I don't expect that if you yeah or
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: or I was on this one day and I was like, I don't really cook.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have a whole ass career.
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I make a bunch of content.
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I got a lot of stuff going on.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, you don't cook?
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe our second day should be a cooking class.
• 33:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: He wasn't even joking.
• 33:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was really, really serious.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the real thing, right?
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a real reality for men in Vietnam.
• 34:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The patriarchy is real.
• 34:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not, it's not some like, construct that's like abstract.
• 34:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's, you could feel it.
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's poppable in the air, like, go get a cooking class.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, sign up for it.
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, no.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was not a suggestion.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was like, there's no second date unless you know how to cook them.
• 34:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh, okay.
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then we live in this middle, we straddle this like weird and compromising, you know, it's it's hard because it's beautiful on it's beautiful on both sides and sometimes you just can't take the, just the good stuff only, you know, sometimes you have to like really inherit some of this bad stuff and you gotta really take it, take it,
• 34:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's hard.
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so difficult for people like us.
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you meet people like us.
• 34:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then you are wondering if it's somebody's too much one way or too much the other way.
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's so hard to find.
• 35:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So on top of just life being complicated, you have this other stuff that you have to negotiate with too.
• 35:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I find a lot of people in our space are still single
• 35:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: that future with people who are, you know, the overlap is crazy and you have to kind of like understand like what you like.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I spent, um,
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, two and a half years, really struggling with that, and I thought I lived a really beautiful life in Vietnam, you know, just...
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Making USD, living in Vietnam, like I know it's the dream.
• 35:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a privilege to do it.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was making wonderful friends in both languages, which is a privilege as well.
• 36:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was just like, wow, dating is next to impossible.
• 36:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 36:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because actually for Viet Giu women,
• 36:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: We face this interesting thing where you or foreign men who, okay, so dating locals is harder, because there's a smaller pool of men who are open-minded and have similar lifestyles.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: want to date someone who speaks, you know, proficient to like, amazing English, then you're looking for a Vietnamese or a foreigner.
• 36:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was tiny, ain't it?
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that pool is tiny and a Vietnamese who comes who is living in Vietnam.
• 37:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Looking for Vietnamese in Vietnam.
• 37:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
• 37:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he's not looking for like a Western mindset.
• 37:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's done with that.
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: He.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I did it like two people.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 37:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's thinking I'm not dealing with that.
• 37:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I have my male friends who are vitties and vitties and vitties and they're like, can, what do you like?
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why would you date a vittie woman if you live in vitties?
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, he's got his, you know, and like the local girls, they're so sweet.
• 37:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are willing to do things that I would never, never.
• 37:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, clean your own day, I'm going to go.
• 37:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: all the lines you're looking and cleaning, they're doing all kinds of, if you want to go out and you know, there's nobody stopping you to do that.
• 38:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's the craziest thing.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like why would men, you know, why would the cumin pick a Western Vietnamese, Vicky over a local Vietnamese woman?
• 38:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's impossible.
• 38:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And even the Vietnamese women who are
• 38:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: living in Vietnam growing up in Vietnam will never have an adapt that Western mentality.
• 38:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just not in there.
• 38:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not encoded.
• 38:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a tough place.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's very crazy to think about.
• 38:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: love for for people who are you know I think it's one thing like if I grew up in the south and I grew up around all white people all white women you know and I just didn't have a clue of like this whole Vietnamese world things we find have cousins who who who live like that and it's great because you know it's oblivious you know who cares
• 38:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But when you live in this weird, cultural kind of like overlap, venn diagram, like you are living a very, you're asking the live a very complicated life.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, you're in California.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in California.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I mean, you have a bit of a bigger pool, but then you also have this interesting thing where you're like extremely connected to Vietnam.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, when that probably a lot of Vietnamese Americans in California are not.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you're even a smaller president.
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yep.
• 39:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he gets weird because it gets to be like, um, I crave Vietnamese, um, Vietnamese, Vietnamese.
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I crave being in that world.
• 39:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I crave being around just pure Vietnamese speaking people.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then I need my Western anchor.
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need my English anchor.
• 39:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need
• 39:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: the ability to play catch with these complicated thoughts that only I can say in English because it's, you know, I can probably do it in Vietnamese too, but it's quite a stretch to do it.
• 39:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then I welcome that too.
• 40:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's funny that we're like both complaining about this stuff.
• 40:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, yeah, no, it's big and that's why that's why I'm kind of straddling this in between life and it's very confusing and sometimes people are like, you're in New York now, like, what are you doing?
• 40:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm like, you know, that's a really good question.
• 40:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have no idea.
• 40:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I met my partner, he's Vietnamese American, but like, you know, understands
• 40:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Vietnamese deeply and, you know, like, watches the Celtics.
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm like, whoa, someone who really gets both, um, that is amazing.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: who gets the trauma of having Vietnamese Catholic parents from the North, you say no more.
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Talk to the parents differently, you know?
• 40:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's not like a hey, how's it going, Martha?
• 40:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like no.
• 40:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he gets all that, and so I'm like, yeah, I guess we're doing a little back and forth here, you know?
• 41:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 41:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, if it works, you know, because that person is very difficult to find.
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so going to two different places, I have complete understanding for that.
• 41:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I would, I'm, I used to not be open to that, but I am open to that today.
• 41:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: If there's somebody in Vietnam who is at that, you know, I'm completely open to, to spending time in both places.
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've learned that.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, gem to gem to find that connection.
• 41:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like one in a million.
• 41:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: One million.
• 41:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Our window is tiny.
• 41:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's tiny.
• 41:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that connection.
• 41:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's very difficult.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna make a quick left turn here real quick.
• 41:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I see that the clothes that you wear, every time I tune into one of the clips, it's like, there's a Wilson or an Adidas or a Puma with an eight Asian sort of like outfit.
• 42:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you've ever talked about that before, but like I've noticed that.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, wait, where are you getting these outfits?
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are you getting them custom made?
• 42:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are they actually sanctioned by the brands?
• 42:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, where is this happening?
• 42:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are you designing this stuff?
• 42:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cause it's so funny and it's very intentional.
• 42:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, wow, no, it is, I probably not a brand thing.
• 42:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're custom pieces, they're reworked pieces, but it's by a brand called Moomee in Vietnam.
• 42:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this isn't one of the most fascinating things.
• 42:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: that I got to be a part of in Vietnam and it's live shopping and it's on TikTok and Instagram.
• 42:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the girlies on there, I mean they talk so fast and then you kind of become part of like their community but when I first joined because you're like you have to type in like the code when they when they show the clothes.
• 43:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was so confused, I mean, I love fashion and I love shopping.
• 43:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then this is like a brand new shopping experience.
• 43:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had never experienced before.
• 43:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where it's like, she's like, see you at 7 p.m. And then there's like thousands of people tuning in.
• 43:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she shows these pieces, like one of the kind pieces.
• 43:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: She talks like mad-fast in the audience.
• 43:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's there.
• 43:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's an auction.
• 43:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I'm trying to like catch up, you know, and the girlies are all typing in Vietnamese shorthand like everything like they don't spell anything out.
• 43:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's when I learned like so much Vietnamese that I would never learn in class.
• 44:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like, I mean, I learned what people actually say in, like, as a Gen Z, you know, it just youth or are saying.
• 44:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, when I started to show up a lot, they'd be like, oh, Katie's back.
• 44:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's the like,
• 44:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: The cute girl who kind of is interested in the culture doesn't understand too much of the language and so sometimes they'll say something and then you know kind of remember that I'm not as fast or and they'll translate it for me or say it slower in Vietnamese or say it fully out and I was like
• 44:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: oh you guys are so kind so yeah because it was a live situation i could say like sorry i didn't really understand that what does that mean um and and you can just respond to me so you're buying the pieces okay say the pin
• 45:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, this is a whole IP.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is a whole last episode in itself because like this is I had no idea.
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I've seen the model in China, right?
• 45:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: You see like the TikToks from China.
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know it was going on in Vietnam and I didn't know that like you are like participating on that level.
• 45:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I loved it.
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I loved every moment of it.
• 45:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So okay.
• 45:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what you wear on your clips are one of
• 45:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so where does it start, what's the amount that it's like 20 bucks and then where does it go, well, how does it drive, where does it go to?
• 45:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, okay, okay, these pieces in the states are like, I mean, you're talking 200, 300, 400 dollars for one, but in Vietnam, I mean, yeah, it's like $20 to maybe like 50.
• 45:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I paid $100 for it, and I think that's why they respond to me because I'm the Vietkiu, who can just come in and spend.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also, like, it's just so,
• 46:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: cheap to me like the the labor that you have to go through to find a piece and then ideate and execute.
• 46:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it's anywhere from $20 to sum you out with that.
• 46:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you're just driving the price up, like okay, that was all confused right now.
• 46:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, because what you just said could be highly offensive.
• 46:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like, I'm gonna take over the pain.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm gonna pay for the money.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so it's not auctioning.
• 46:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: She, she gives a price and then you just pay that price.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: But so nobody's driving up the price.
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: No.
• 46:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So but there's only one piece, right?
• 46:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but it's like a first come for a serve.
• 46:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she says a code, oh, which is fascinating too, because she'll say the code in Vietnamese.
• 46:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she'll say like three numbers.
• 46:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like the one is the measurement of like the chest, the waist and the whatever, but like she talks so fast that I'm like, she'll be like,
• 47:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm old, right?
• 47:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then I would hear L, I'm a bull.
• 47:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's the code.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, L24 and they're like, KV, no, that's the waste measurement.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's not the code.
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like, it's really funny because like,
• 47:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: you recognize those cultural differences where I'm like, okay, I'm trying my best.
• 47:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then she'll say, the code will be like, say, I meet bad or they're me more.
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: But my, you know, my Vietnamese, like,
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what is there, right?
• 47:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, okay, so T 11.
• 47:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the second she says it, you have to type it in.
• 47:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so the girlies are so much faster than me at typing, because I still have to compute and translate it right and then type it in.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think they started recognizing later that I have a disadvantage.
• 48:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I can't type this fast in Vietnamese.
• 48:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so somebody would like message me and be like,
• 48:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if, yeah, there's girlhood, there's culture, there's language, it's really beautiful.
• 48:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is.
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is.
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.
• 48:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 48:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: You should do some clips on this because this is wild.
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea this is going on.
• 48:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then what about the licensing?
• 48:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like Adidas?
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's all up in the air.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's why I don't do an episode about this.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's when it comes to my mind.
• 48:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, ah, this thing was like all one of a kind of never seen in these stuff anywhere.
• 48:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's cool.
• 48:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look, you have some chungley, right?
• 48:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like stuff that's like with an adidas thing on the shoulder and I'm like paying attention.
• 48:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, where is this being made and sold?
• 49:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you don't see any of this here in America?
• 49:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they're cool.
• 49:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: They look really cool.
• 49:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 49:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, sometimes when people comment they're like, I like your outfit and I'm like, damn, I just spent four hours on that poem, but I'm glad you're like my shirt.
• 49:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
• 49:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, engagement is engagement, engagement is engagement.
• 49:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you got them, you know, you come for the poem, but stay for the clothes, right?
• 49:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, right, yeah, it would be come for the clothes and stay for the poem.
• 49:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I think when you rework things, it's okay as long as you're not selling them as like a deed is closed.
• 49:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I got a sent you a clip though.
• 49:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the most fascinating things that I experienced.
• 49:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that'd be cool, that'd be, be cool to see that.
• 49:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, what does the future of your content look like?
• 50:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, do you ever think about the, what it's evolving into?
• 50:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: The evolution of where you're going with all of it?
• 50:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: This strategy.
• 50:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't find it.
• 50:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, um,
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just know I want to keep doing it.
• 50:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure if I have a huge master plan.
• 50:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I eventually want to have a book.
• 50:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that myself, my family, like we're losing it.
• 50:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're losing a lot of our language.
• 50:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like, these idioms specifically, I've noticed people really relate to and folks who are my age.
• 50:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes first time hearing these idioms, but like older than me, like my sister's generation, like she knows all of these idioms.
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: But whenever she watches a video, she's like, whoa, I haven't heard that in like,
• 51:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: 15, 20 years, like I would never think to teach that to my kid because I'm losing it myself.
• 51:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I just want to be a small part of something that keeps it alive and keeps saying these idioms in these words.
• 51:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, what's next for me is a book of poetry dedicated to these beautiful
• 51:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I share those two things with you deeply.
• 51:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: The first thing is, I don't know where I'm going, but I know that I will be doing this to the my last breath.
• 51:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hold on.
• 51:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the first thing I share with you.
• 51:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: D, please, D, please share that.
• 51:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't really, you know, if you're thinking about numbers and you think about money and you think about the fame, you think about, this is not the path for you.
• 52:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I would write, put that to all the audience who are thinking about doing what, what, what you and I do.
• 52:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's that you have to have this like, D, love for this kind of work.
• 52:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my work is to sit and talk to people like you who are creating,
• 52:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: things that we consume for Vietnamese culture.
• 52:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that love to get to know the perspective of that human who's creating is my first passion to be able to do this globally and talk to everybody who's creating these pockets of like,
• 52:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: wonderfulness, you know, to me it's like it's evident to be in this space and I don't care what kind of like benefits it it it brings in the future or because you know you don't you cannot do this thinking about the money in the outcome.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a thing I share with you and I I really hope that more people in the audience pursue these things um, clear and free of the money.
• 53:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully you guys have day jobs and
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: to make the money to do this and we need more application so that's the first part.
• 53:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: The second part is the book.
• 53:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: as well for me.
• 53:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, I'm not writing a book of poetry.
• 53:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: For me, it's a memoir on the trajectory of love because the trajectory of love, I think for somebody who has grown up with the imagery of white people being the standard of beauty for the entire world, and then
• 53:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Vietnamese people are like probably the best looking people who walk the face of the earth, right?
• 53:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: But catch, yes, yes.
• 53:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that comes, I think, as a byproduct of loving yourself, right?
• 53:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like obviously Ethiopians and Savadorians and people all around the world are beautiful as well.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But to me, because that gradual progression of loving myself more and my culture more,
• 54:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: just celebrate the hell out of it.
• 54:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the book.
• 54:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 54:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 54:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 54:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So these things are but us two are not the only ones who have been thinking like this in the last five years or six years of my journey, I keep running into people who do what we do, which is creating that content and then they're like writing a book to kind of like sum it all up and go,
• 54:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is sort of like where I'm clocking the status of my brain and the activity that's been going on the last few years.
• 54:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I cannot wait to see your book of poetry and continue this journey in the world together because it's a pretty amazing place and I don't follow the Taiwanese or Singaporean or Filipinos, but I just know that in our world of Vietnamese content creators,
• 54:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is dazzling.
• 54:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is amazing to to witness it and see it.
• 55:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the outpouring of love from like all the other influencers, both in Vietnam and in the US and you know France and Germany, Britain, it is a beautiful sight to see.
• 55:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate like your
• 55:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: your curiosity, it really comes through like as a listener and as a storyteller, you balance that really well and like we do this because we love it and I can tell you love it because I mean you had you you had a like a bit of an agenda and a timeline for today and then you're
• 55:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're the love.
• 55:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't think that we're going to talk about love, but when you started ringing up, I was like, I got to go in and I got it.
• 55:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's just definitely something else.
• 55:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You ask amazing questions.
• 55:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: You follow.
• 55:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have a great instinct and to follow that curiosity, and I really just love that.
• 56:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I mean, it can't pay, but we do not do this for the money.
• 56:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: know, but it will pay because I'm getting paid and you're getting paid.
• 56:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are all getting paid.
• 56:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we get paid and it's not like it's something to write home about now, you know, it's these amounts are not, you know, yeah, it's they're becoming bigger and the bigger the following, the more the money.
• 56:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, but again, you don't start out thinking about that.
• 56:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You
• 56:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's the thing that I think the Vietnamese and Asian cultures ignored.
• 56:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think all these centuries, they're like, you know, Vietnamese have this about singer, Syncavolite, right?
• 56:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, there's no place for singers.
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just like, you're you're garbage to the to the to the main stream Vietnamese 50 years ago.
• 57:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can't.
• 57:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: dream of being an artist because it doesn't pay.
• 57:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think we got it wrong.
• 57:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: We got it way wrong, which is the worst things about you got to put your footprint down in the world.
• 57:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't matter what the money is.
• 57:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You just have to do what you really, really love.
• 57:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then it will pay a lot because the more you do it and the more you love it, the more it shows and the more people want more of that.
• 57:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I've learned.
• 57:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, it truly, yeah, like you said, the more it shows, the more you put it out there, and especially in this world of like content creation, like sometimes I find myself doing the thing less, but talking about it is the thing that really like amplifies, you know?
• 57:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like showing the whole process, you know, sometimes I think like an hour or two to write the poem, but then I have to show the whole process of like doing the writing and the editing and the filming, and that's what gets the audience to is maybe not the poem, but the whole behind the scenes of being invited on this journey.
• 58:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, we got to show it all.
• 58:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I follow these musician producer, content creators, and one is like Jane Lee.
• 58:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's a Korean music producer, and she can play the piano, she can sing, she can do all the, you know, she produces, she does all this, and she talks about the business of music and creation, and she says,
• 58:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: If somebody asks her, is it 50% content creation and 50% music that you do and she's like, no, no, no, you got to wrong.
• 58:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can't, it's not 70, 30 is not 60, 40.
• 58:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have to do 100% music.
• 58:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you think eight hours a day creating your music is full time, now you've got to remember, you've got to do eight hours of content creation about what you just did.
• 59:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's from reality.
• 59:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about living this weird double life as so podcasting is not what brings that hype all of a sudden I I've known that from day one People the numbers on the podcast it's like that's that's for me.
• 59:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do this for me
• 59:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then these little clips now that I've started to do at the beginning of 2026, that's to get the eyeballs onto the podcast, knowing that the numbers on the podcast will never match the content creation side, right?
• 59:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, it's to really point back to the to the podcast, but ironically, the concentration is what really drives the numbers.
• 59:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not the podcast that it's not your music or it's not your art that's going to drive, not your poetry that are drive the numbers.
• 59:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's what we are building in like science and creation space, which is so ironic.
• 1:00:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I ain't, oh my gosh, I,
• 1:00:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I cannot tell you how relatable that is.
• 1:00:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because, yeah, I mean, I just had to keep writing, even though, yeah, my poems were getting like whatever, like three people watching it.
• 1:00:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I would post like a random clip being in Vietnam and they died my hair white instead of blonde and it was like six million views.
• 1:00:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, dammit, get you guys watched my poems.
• 1:00:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's crazy.
• 1:00:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it, it, like, all the clips that I was creating as like a content creator.
• 1:00:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, the substance was me.
• 1:00:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And everything, but it brought people to the thing that I love, which is my poetry.
• 1:00:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, you kind of have two jobs.
• 1:00:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: You do?
• 1:00:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Jobs.
• 1:00:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: You do the content.
• 1:00:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're beginning to be beginning.
• 1:00:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whatever.
• 1:00:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you would like be the poet.
• 1:01:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nobody tells you that in the beginning.
• 1:01:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then you have to like grow into being okay with it because I look down on like myself, right?
• 1:01:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I look down on what's going on.
• 1:01:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, God, like that's so gross to like be talking.
• 1:01:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Food is is something I actually is like in my real life, food and the business of food
• 1:01:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, everything from like running restaurants to like selling a equipment for food is like the space I live in, but I don't want to talk about it because it's like low-hanging fruit to me.
• 1:01:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, ah, but then now I'm like, okay, that's what brings in the eyeballs and the views.
• 1:01:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I have now been okay, you have to be okay now with saying, I'm going to do that and not judge that because it's all part of it.
• 1:01:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Round of applause for that because I judge myself every day.
• 1:01:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't I I post something and I'm like Because you know that you're doing it for the eyeballs.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just so gently So the eyeballs can look at the thing that you want it to look
• 1:02:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's incredible how this works.
• 1:02:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I wish somebody would talk about this more.
• 1:02:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like 100% concrete.
• 1:02:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you do eight hours on one side, you better be doing eight hours on the other side.
• 1:02:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It has to be that way.
• 1:02:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You cannot do this and then think that you're gonna get away with 50, 50, like, oh, do four hours here and then I'll do two hours on the other.
• 1:02:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not, that's not how it's gonna work.
• 1:02:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:02:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: You don't talk about it.
• 1:02:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a football, you know, I've recently had football on.
• 1:02:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:02:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he said, because it was like just recently and he goes, yeah, I was walking around like 40 ball.
• 1:02:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't remember his in Wingway, right?
• 1:02:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that the street?
• 1:02:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he was like, I was walking in a wingway.
• 1:02:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or one of those streets and then I saw a cat somebody was holding a cat and then like my videographer my camera guy caught it or I caught it And then I was like talking to the cat and Vietnamese or whatever and then that thing got like ten million views and it just blew up his channel like in the early days Yeah, but that's not what that's not what we're you can't plan that
• 1:03:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you just have to live a life.
• 1:03:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you have to live a life, you have to shoot that, you have to post that.
• 1:03:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you have to do the thing that you love and also post that.
• 1:03:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's fascinating.
• 1:03:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so fascinating.
• 1:03:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: KV, I appreciate you so much coming on.
• 1:03:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one last thing, the bitter melon post, the cola, that was so touching to me.
• 1:03:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was like a perfect piece for me, thank you.
• 1:03:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I felt that one so much.
• 1:03:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, because
• 1:03:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is the pinnacle of storytelling.
• 1:03:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to point that out.
• 1:03:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: It wraps up every, you touch points that it's just like, so you break down the meaning of the word, you tell us the story.
• 1:03:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You mean, if that's a master class and how to put one in this thing together, that is for me, it's a guiding light of how to put one of those things together.
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So,
• 1:04:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: cultural it's so illuminating like that word means something the experience means something there's a carrot that you dangle and we're like I was like what did you get the did you get the soup at the end right like thinking about though it's just classic textbook like how to make an episode for me I resonated so much because that's my favorite soup in the world so it just everything about that that post is really shook me
• 1:04:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so thank you for being you and, you know, your voice is such a beautiful part of our mosaic of the Vietnamese community.
• 1:04:50
  [UNKNOWN]: Wow.
• 1:04:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: This was an incredible conversation.
• 1:04:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I think you
• 1:05:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I have these conversations about Vietnam and our culture and our sense of confusion, and joy and all the things so thank you.
• 1:05:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you and hopefully we can work one day in Vietnam and then cross paths in Vietnam and to a podcast in Vietnam and yeah, that would be cool, that'd be very cool.
• 1:05:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, KV, thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of the week.
• 1:05:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, you as well.
• 1:05:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 1:05:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Win.
• 1:05:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Win, Catherine Win, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
• 1:05:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese Podcast.