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442 - Are YOU Man Enough? Unpacking Toxic Masculinity with Chris Tran from Little Saigon Official · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today I have Chris Tran from Little Psycho official.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Back on the podcast, welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Chris, how are you?
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm great, man.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: How are you, man?
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm good.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a topic today that I have been wanting to talk with you and...
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Other men and women in our community because it's been brought up to my attention.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is really about the general idea of toxic male masculinity.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I recently had Kyla Yu.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's a writer and former import model.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: She talked about this idea of fetish and preference and it falls in line with all these things about the male gaze, the way we look at the world.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you're probably going to be one of many people that I talk to in this series of examining the role of Vietnamese men in the community, both in Vietnam and obviously in the United States.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm familiar with Kyla because I grew up in the import scene.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was there before there was import model.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can tell you how that kind of went about through the stages of how what you call a zip now and what a man was arguing at these girls, waiting in line to get something signed, taking photos, back then the photo thing was a whole different game.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: to talk about masculinity, there was a guy that went to the car shows that went for the cars and he gave two shit about those girls, right?
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's the guys that didn't keep a cup of cars, they only gave a shit about the girls.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, it's interesting dynamic.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're here for all of it today.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that I have a few questions that I have thought about, which is I think we need to open up with what do we, you and I think is toxic male masculinity as it exists within the framework of the Vietnamese culture in America.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we start from that point first.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to see what I grew up as being her tall, what it is, being that Neianathal, that barbaric dude, that just is like the you, you know, it's, you know, woman, cave man, you know, Tarzan, you, Jane, type deal.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: We grew up on the days of James Bond.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: We grew up in the days where, you know, the guy is the hero to go save the girl.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we grew up on a man should be a man, open the door, do this, take charge, make decisions, you know, be the household head, bread winner.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: The list goes on and on and what it was to be a man, right?
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you have to look at in the context of time frame and what period of time.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because over time, you know, people ask, you know, something is just, you know, that's just, it didn't become toxic because you, you, you, you hammer it, but yet again, culture is the top, you have to, you, address, Matizmo.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there, I mean, there was a lot going on with what you just said.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot, it was a lot going on.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it boils down to kind of one thing.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lack of awareness.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: that there's a woman, there's a human being on the receiving end of our machismo, our blindness, our lack of awareness.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think if, oh, everything you just said, machismo, I Tarzan, Eugene, all of these things, reap that oil down to the inability for a man
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: to actually hear and pay attention to what's going on with the woman's experience as it relates to being in relationships with Vietnamese men?
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, obviously, because nobody wanted to be objectified, right?
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Being a piece of meat, being a property, being any of that sort.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there's also the people that like, okay, they're not a piece of property, but you're my love, you're my, my person, you're my partner.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, you might not say a piece of property,
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: or you're just that well connected is my body, my property, but now you say we are one.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: If we are one, we make decisions as one, but what is the dominant heart?
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's the doubt, and there's a different psyche to it, but like I said, throughout the years growing up from a teenager to now and knowing the being, you know, trying to date, trying to do the right gentleman, trying to be not to be a man, all that comes into play, right?
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: you were taught like, what a woman wants.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And who put that out there?
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I, I did this interview with the family a few months ago for my, for my private service of interviewing families, right?
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the, the father was like, eighty five years old and brilliant man, you know, really smart was in like the upper levels of government and Vietnam in a sub-idemous government.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: We had like a two hour three hour interview and it was horrible.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was great, but horrible at the same time.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: He had admitted to like being very strict and everything.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then the kids would tell me that it was an actual horrible experience growing up with him.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I knew all the pieces and I said to them, oh man, like the older gentleman, I said to the dad, I said, looking back on those last fifty years since nineteen seventy five and moving and the kids are under sixty now he's in his eighties.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Would you have done it all over again?
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what he said surprised, he said, I would trade in a heartbeat.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why I'm doing this right now.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why I'm in this episode with you right now.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: The father said in a heartbeat because nobody wants to talk from they ball loss to trust, they don't believe them.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, and he doesn't owe me from, you know, for many, but it's just one on one.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he said, they don't trust me anymore.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're all afraid of me.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: They think that I'm a dictator, which I was, but I'm changed, but they'll never be able to see the new me.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: My god, that, that really hit a chord inside of me.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm started this conversation.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It really started with, you and me before I interviewed Kyla, but I'm getting to see now that
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: This idea of men not being aware of women's sort of thinking, I'm guilty of this, hundred percent.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like trying to deprogram and trying to be more aware and trying to be more alert.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: to because it's hard for me to even pay attention to my boys, what they feel and what they're thinking, right?
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or the only time I'm really wired in and tapped in is during podcasts when I, I am listening because I'm in a podcast, but outside of this, my natural tendency to listen to my mom, my daughter, my girlfriend partner, my ex, like all of it is like, I think I'm, we are conditioned as Vietnamese men to like,
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: not paid attention to this.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've been accused of all that and more, you know, me not paying attention, neglect is like hitting the clouds, you know, focus is like ignoring them, whatever the case might be, you know, that's all runs true and going back to your gentleman, you know, you know, he
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: He inflicted what he thought was right as a regimen to have to be a man, how to control your household, how to have rules, a structure.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then when the times when we evolve as people, and now living into a different culture and society where inclusion
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: and diversity is a big thing where equality comes into play, where the women is revered, especially our Asian women, where they held up a lot of stuff, do you, there was expected to do a certain thing, but then also men were expected to do a certain thing.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So as time progressed by, now the kids have grown up here, see, you know, now old versus new comes into play, right?
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: The old school way, you know, back in the day or in our country, you know, I mean, all that we used to hear a lot
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't care if you watch old godfather movie or just kind of once upon a time.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the thing I asked from anybody younger or asking us to is we need to unlearn a lot of years of what we learned.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to happen overnight.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: The conditioning was there, right?
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: We need to understand, but they also have to be patient to see our progress of other and changing things if they see a peak of us, you know, trying to break
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: They have it, trying to stop seeing those words, trying to have that side eyes.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like many times, I don't expect the young women that I interact with in the community to like, call me out, but I need to stop the responsibility to call me out.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: At the same time,
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Pulling the aside privately, like some of my really close friends do helps a lot.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I do ask the community that if they do experience toxic male figures,
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: the way that I've behaved in the past to come talk to me.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to really like, put it out there and say, you know what, I don't feel like I'm being heard.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I will do everything in my power to like sit and listen, no matter how difficult it is.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And listening and not saying but
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: listening, not having an answer in your head as a man to say, I'm gonna listen unconditionally right now.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna listen unconditionally.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what I'm feeling and vibing right now with the current.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at what point?
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I have to ask this at what point are old school selves as like now you're being a little bitch, right?
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And every point, if you can't conform to what they want, you are, okay, if you're going around your voice telling this right now in a little powwow, we're all going to call you a little bitch.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you wanted to you wear a skirt, you're going to wear a skirt, huh?
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so there's that too.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're trying to balance out the respect of the people.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: the people you hang out, maybe their dogs and you shouldn't hang out with them.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: That could be an argument.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or do you now soften up and now the people with little, you know, you have a little bit more, you know, compassion and just be a little bit more understanding, okay?
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yet, it's like anything, any kind of duality, you know, once you leave the house is different, once you go to work is different, okay?
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you go to work, this HR rules, how you say and do things, and then there's worldly rules, and then there's household rules.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but yet you have to wear and coach which are where different hats now, even to talking to the other
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm the other.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, let's call it that.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It'll be closed.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're being so complicated for young men and for men and old dogs and, you know, it's just getting super complicated.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why talking about this right now with you is, you know, I'm inviting other men and women into this conversation and we're starting here.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I am in this mode of learning and wanting to be a better man being a better Vietnamese man because I do want to hold to some cultural
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: beliefs.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like these cultural ideas, but I don't like it when it becomes a man and a woman like the division.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's some ideas and confusionism that really divides the men and women, their gender roles.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I like the, I like the un, and I like the am, right?
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like that idea.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: in our words, we're already putting in as the older, more powerful position.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then to get, well, look at it in a romantic way.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like, oh my god, this is the most beautiful thing and the M, right?
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, these things are what rips me up inside culturally from linguistics to a cultural practice point of view.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so let me add something more to that.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that it creases me when I have to call somebody.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it creases me when they call me on, you know, me because I didn't come from that type of like, you know, upbringing, right?
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's a little cultured.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now taking back to that.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: That NM is very sweet.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's very endearing.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I get it.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: You cringe now by it.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe because it's a language barrier for me.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I never grew up calling anybody I'm wooing.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a good young child, good young young.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's soft.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it has a great softness to it.
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a good young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young young
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: for male female.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then again, when I address you and my group of friends, I am in detail today.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we're saying, let's go together as a group, as a family, as a tribe, right?
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, we include the female or whoever the M is into the tribe because it's now it's a gender neutral term.
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Correct?
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's just, it's inclusive.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's all it is.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: because I'm usually reserved for older, right?
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And M is younger.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Does it have a gender to it?
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: except for the aunt.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, not when you're using it in groups.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, it isn't really have the gender dimension.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm only addressing the dimension of being in a relationship with a Vietnamese woman and you use an M. And even when the woman's older, I did it older and use M very comfortably too because now I'd say, but that's the weird part about this whole language dynamic, right?
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then again, I've now been taught just recently that if somebody says, Jay,
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and they're younger than her, and she's a professor, a doctor, they still address her as Jane.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's even, okay, so the respect is different regardless of the age.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now I'm even more confused because what I thought it was age, and I didn't want to offend you by call YouTube, but now it's a respect deal.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so now if I didn't know her, she was a professor, a doctor, a scholar, or then, you know, some of it revered as a higher learning person, right?
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you would you would be for to the message, because they're I'm not in a word superior in that respect, right?
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: more confusing stuff.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that nobody really translates to stuff and brings light to the confusion that we have to experience.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because when you think about like other cultures, they have you and me, poor and more.
• 15:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's just that simple that everybody is the same.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you know, they're language and in Korean culture language, there's like hierarchy on a rifx that we have to like really deal with.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think when we start dealing with these things,
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is this natural embedded power structure in our language that creates a little bit of this hierarchical thing called toxic male masculinity.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it all goes back to one common thing, respect.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's an old old old old thing.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: All this we're talking about
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: the opposite of whatever it is, just wants the respect.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what if we don't deserve the respect as a man?
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if we are okay?
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if we are so far off our rocker that we shouldn't be respected and we should be called out?
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's, I think that's what we are in this day and age that, okay, then let me put it this way.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: What if the woman doesn't deserve the respect?
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: What if you know that you're this older gentleman, she's your arm candy,
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's an object to you and she knows this.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're paying all her bills.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, now that too is still part of our culture and still part of this whole scheme of society, correct?
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now you want the respect because you've come to me for what I have and what I've built and now you want to lay that respect to you.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And with I think that that what you're that framework is very binary.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that one hundred percent, but I'm just giving you like, but there's subtleties to all of that.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: If there is, let's bring it all on the table because it's very confusing.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even if there's that kind of arrangement, I still think that there's two human beings that deserve to be seen as human beings and not objectified in either direction like I'm a provider, one hundred percent.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: a piece of meat.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it has to there are two human beings here that have feelings and I think that reducing it to what an object and a provider of that object it's just I think we're losing humanity when we put it what look right now with the days of like social media this everybody should really shallow about how they look how they appear appear as
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: your physical attributes, you appear as your financial, you know, everything is appearance and optics, right?
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everything.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's all about that, no matter how you want to feel, frame it, everybody wants to appear a certain way.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, and now we gather all this, the respect.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: the etiquette, the how you address people.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now we're going back to toxic masculinity and it's so easy to accuse us of being toxic.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in what reference are you doing it?
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, oh, okay.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me answer that real quick.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a really big catch all to me.
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is the woman being heard or is the man using his position and power to trample over her voice?
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, it gets complicated because in the workplace, it's clear like there has to be a boss.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: In the military, there has to be a boss.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: If the woman is your boss, then the woman is your boss.
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Simple.
• 19:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And at home, the lines are blurred, right?
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the hard part.
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is simple.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are we listening to each other?
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or are we saying no, I'm the dad, I'm the father, and you're listening to because I'm the man.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or is it implied or is it inferred that
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I make the money, you need to listen to where I make more money, and you need to listen to where I, or a woman could do that, too.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: A woman could be like, you know what?
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I make more money, so I get to call the shots.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: That I think is also toxic female.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a toxic female way to look at things, too.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And see, again, it goes back to all of it, but that's why sometimes I like the word partner.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: better than the framework of husband and wife.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Matt, you're bounded by something.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you find a partner that, let's say in any kind of partner, a business deal, this, where equal weight holds, you know, you balance it out.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: She makes more money.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: You do more work.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: At times, it flips roles.
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have roles switching, right?
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's not looking down.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me hold it up, babe.
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Take care of your business.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Get right.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it could go either way at any time in life.
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: When the man gets hurt, we'll be in a house to step out of the household and work.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: She still has a skillset or vice versa.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm better at, you know, your career's better.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You make X. I'll take care of the kid.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean, however you want to look at it, when I, that's why when I see the word partner, I found that more of an equal.
• 20:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then it doesn't sound romantic.
• 20:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't sound anything.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't sound like it's traditional.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in the context of two reunions,
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: that want to see either I and share common goal in life to further this and scale this life.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll look at as business.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you start out small business.
• 21:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: You grow to a sustainable business.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: You go to a thriving business.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if I look at a relationship the same way where it's a small business when you meet and have all these grand ideas of like, you know, things.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in the middle of it, you're struggling to get it there.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: You sustain it.
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: where everything's now hunky dory, okay?
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you guys have all put in hard work to build this thing.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then now you're building a future where you can now share the fruits of this labor together and stay together.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's always business breakups because ideology changes.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Once you get to that peak level of making that success, there's always going to be a fracture.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the partnership in the union was there.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in the context of marriage, a couple, that's have a union where it's is implied what
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: culturally what a man and a woman should be versus a partnership, right?
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I view it.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have to view in all kinds of different angles to get to the grass.
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because like me, we're talking about this because we want to learn.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about this because we've been accused of one time or another of this.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: We talk about this because we don't want it alienate and offend.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's why we're having this conversation for us to learn.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, if people in the comments and other stuff want to add to this, so we can discuss it.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if a female wants to add why certain things are toxic to you and not to other, if you're a very independent woman, you don't want nothing to do anything for you.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cool.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: If I understand that, you don't want me to open your door, don't want me to buy you anything.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got my own shit.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just stay in your lane, right?
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: The promised kid, I don't know where that lane is.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what we're trying to figure out.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that at the end of the day, somebody is not being heard.
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they get mostly the woman, mostly the daughters, not being heard by their parents.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because it goes in, you know, the weight of this goes on to the man.
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the question is why, why is it going on to the men?
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because that's how confusion society set up, man.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: They value boys.
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, why is China in shortage of women?
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because in that one child policy bullshit, they drown literally drown baby girls because they don't value lives of women.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It all goes back to that root of a valuing men more than women.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's embedded within our culture.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's ingrained in the culture from Asia.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we need to in the West as a result of like having to face
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: This paradigm of men being more valued in the culture, we need to do better.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm saying.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: We need to start now.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: We need to start this conversation now and we need to do better.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: We need to start bringing professionals into our environment and saying, OK, we understand that there's this dynamic.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Men are like put out a pedestal in the Asian culture.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Men are the quote unquote the head of the house.
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think in this Trump administration, a return to this stuff is actually happening.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's one of the things, like the optics of what it is to be a man, right?
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what we're really crushing the like, how do you present yourself as a man?
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, even in this political climate, in the social climate,
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: where let's talk about political and like you do brought up the Trump mission with the mill mask on the need of all the guys like, you know, the annotates of this, the Joe Rogos, how to be a man, the MMA.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so, and to me, sometimes I listen to this shit and that's super toxic within, if everybody's subscribing to it is now who's wrong with the majority wants it this way.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what I say majority, I'm not telling everybody is just, I'm confused now.
• 25:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: All done that one the day.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so for us to soften up, all of a sudden we're now more, you know, it honed it in with our emotions and this and that, but yet you look at TV and social media and everything else and it's like, oh man, he's soft little simp.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, he's like, you know, Jordan Peterson, Sean Whalen, uh, Rogan, all these guys pushing this male agenda, which look,
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm all for the man being the provider, the shield against the outside craziness and the protector.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, I think that we need to really be open.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our ears need to be open to
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our partners are wives are daughters, the females that are around.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: But look, it even extends beyond that because what we think is like alpha males and beta males.
• 26:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think men who are
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: observe to be alpha and to be strong men should be listening to everyone.
• 26:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's I think that's it.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Listen intently, listen with intention and listen with an understanding that there is literally another human being on the other side.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: really wishing that they can connect our thinking and our thoughts together.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm, I'm, look, I'm guilty of this and I'm working on this and I don't want to swing the pendulum to where I'm completely like listening in no action and just like, you know, listen, yeah, but I want, but he, but we're also balancing out being immaculate.
• 27:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's, that's the second half of this, right?
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, because where do you balance that?
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where, you know, they're asking for this, but didn't know you become this nice, you know, guy that does everything does that.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, they actually lose a little bit of respect for you because, you know, that term man won't you fucking man up.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Stop pouting.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, but I'm not pouting.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just telling you my emotions, man.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it sounds like, you know, stop being a little bitch, you know, you know, get over it, right?
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a balance of understanding on both sides of this because I've seen
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, women attack dues for, you know, being just a simp.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they're calling them simps, you know, and that's the attack on the mail.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if, till, you know, toxic mail masculinity, what's the, what's the opposite end of that to the other side?
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: somebody with no backbone, somebody with no ability to speak up, somebody with no ability to have dialogue with your partner, the woman in your life, with your daughter, no ability to connect because you are a punching bag, and you don't happen.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then you don't happen.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: They need you to really form thoughts.
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the other extreme.
• 28:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: One has to, I did, I did duck this, did.
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So far, it's always been a communication issue.
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's the funny thing you say that.
• 28:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was listening to some Tony Robbins this morning, and I was opening one of the books, and he said, communication, I'm, he probably pulled his out of his ass, but seven, only seven percent of communication involved words.
• 28:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know where you got that construct from, but that's interesting, right?
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you think about it, okay, the fact that the way we look, the way we fold our arms, the way we're,
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: calling our daughter's name, the way we are looking without moving our facial features, all of these things can instill the fear of God in our children and our wives.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that is part of male masculinity that goes unchecked when a guy's like two hundred pounds like me full of muscle and like looking at my daughter and making her feel a certain way, all I have to do is call her name.
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: in the way that I know will physically intimidate.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm replying like the way that I have behaved and trying to be very aware that that exists.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the other side of what you're saying also exists is that the father who has lost all control over his twelve-year-old daughter because she doesn't respect him.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, look, so let's go back to communication.
• 29:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if our body can speak, we'll say, say, body language, and the words that come over our mouths says expressing it, most of the time more true to it is our body language, right?
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: The fire in your eye, the veins in your neck, the fucking tensing up, the like the the just be resided to like
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I give up.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: You don't mean, okay, it speaks volumes.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: No matter what I say, the body language speaks louder.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not what I see in your face.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can say, yes, all you want, but like your body tells you, it says no, right?
• 30:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and you can now agree, but then you can all see in their eyes, they're, they're just tapping out.
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right?
• 30:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that there, too, the communication has to be confronted and addressed on both sides.
• 30:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, how many times have you, like even as simple as what do you want to eat and you just look at their body language?
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they're just the whatever, right?
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or would you ask them a question, they're dismissive?
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you can tell or, you know, they're just answering, asking answered.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: But now you're trying to read the body composition.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're trying to feel the vibe in the room, per se, right?
• 31:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So all this comes down to that connection of really communicating with your partner.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your expression is like, it says one thing, but your words say another, they don't believe you.
• 31:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So why even have that conversation?
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's take it back and you're tempered up.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now you're speaking through just being a hot head.
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's all this adrenaline, this hate, this rage.
• 31:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you actually actively communicating properly?
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, words are coming out.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Things are being expressed.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Some truths and some hate might come out, right?
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And some people will, you know, translate that as, oh, whenever you're mad, you tell the truth, you know what I mean?
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's some truth to everything, right?
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 31:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why that's so quick.
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Passive look that every tries to have as a, what they call poker face, okay?
• 31:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: The call harder it is for us to study this, to communicate with our partners because why, you know, even just not relax, even like eye rolling, you know, eyebrows, everything, your lips fucking tense up and they're like, and you already know they just agreeing just to agree.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the opposite of to milk being milk toxic now, they know how to trigger that from us, correct?
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: They understand how to push buttons.
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: They know how to run this game.
• 32:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think people are, you know, men and women are doing this intentionally knowing how to push buttons.
• 32:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they may know how, but I don't think anybody is
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have, we have too many defense mechanisms that overall, like, everybody's so quick to say when something's not their ways, like, they do this, I mean, Mel Fimo, oh, that's so toxic of you, you know, or that's so barbaric of you, or this is kind of fucking man, are you?
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: You don't mean anything you want to address in every context, okay, it's been applied.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why we're here having this conversation of like different variables of things said and done.
• 32:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what our body language says and what our communication level is.
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And listen, listen, listen, listen, let's be real.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: How many of our friends that are men know how to communicate their emotions to their female friends or their loved ones, male or world, where I live in a world where I think that
• 33:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: exists a lot.
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think there's a lot of my male friends that I look up to know how to do that.
• 33:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Many of them, but many of them also knowing how to do that also are embedded with Vietnamese culture, cultural values that they have this trigger that they blow up quickly on their female companions and partners too.
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, yeah, it's, we are at the cusp of a new way of being in the Vietnamese culture.
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, if young people are listening to this, and the ones that are like dealing with this and trying to undo certain things that are toxic traits, I get it.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it must be said, maybe certain I haven't identified it in themselves being accused of this, but now hearing it, even me, I hear from other people like yourself and other people I've had this conversation and watching stuff, I go damn, is that me?
• 34:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did I do that?
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Am I guilty of this?
• 34:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you, I mean, then now the process of undoing that
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: that muscle memory of the knowledge at trigger, that thing that you react to.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't happen overnight.
• 34:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least, you know, I'm aware of it now.
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And how do what do I take from here and who would have the patience to wait for me?
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: We can pick up this conversation in the next episode.
• 34:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need to run, but this is a perfect start.
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll err this because I think it's a wonderful start to this dialogue.
• 34:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you have any comments and questions, we'd love to hear it.
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'd love to hear what we can address because we want to be better.
• 34:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: We want to hear the different modules and a different points of addressing this very issue.
• 35:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynn.
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynn, Catherine Wynn, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
• 35:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese Podcast.