#11 Jake K. – Fortune 500 Marketing Manager Living in China, Tariff Tantrums, Travel, & Cultural Manhood, Seeking Adventure as a Married Introvert
Jake K. is a Chinese man in his early 30s. As a married man, he resides in China with his wife, and makes his living as a marketing manager. With a seemingly stable life, and a firm grasp of the marketing world, Jake seeks something more out of life. Jake unpacks life in China and the cultural differences and understandings of what it means to be a man in China as compared to the Unites States. Jake shares wonderful insight about the perceptions of manhood along with his aspirations to visit the United States and to start his own podcast.
---
STAG is a podcast for men. We interview everyday men just like you who share their journey and experience with failure, strength, and courage.
If you’d like to share your own experience, please visit our website at stagpod.com where you can sign up to be a guest on the show.
Guest content and links are not an endorsement.
If you or a man you know may benefit from mental health or addiction services, please visit this great resource to find help:
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/helplines/national-helpline
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to Stag, a show where weinterview everyday men just like
you who share their journey and experience with failure,
strength and courage. If you'd like to share your own
experience, please visit ourwebsite@stagpod.com where you
can sign up to be a guest on theshow.
Links are also available in the description.
And while you're at it, drop us a review.
(00:24):
Thanks for your support. Now here's the interview, Jake.
All right, since we were just talking about the origins of
stag and, and where this came from, I figured, you know what,
let's just get started and let's, let's get it going and I
can share with everybody. And Jake was the very first
person to actually ask me how I would like to be addressed.
(00:44):
And I told him that you guys cancall me Tyler.
And STAG is not an acronym for anything.
It's actually just a word that in context usually just means to
come alone. And it means for me it's it
started in, I pulled it from like the rooms of Alcoholics
(01:06):
Anonymous where you would have stag meetings or it was
addressing or created like meetings based on, on men's
groups only or women's groups only.
So you would have like men's stags and women's stags.
And one of the most powerful things that I gathered from that
was this, this men's stag that Iused to go to on Sundays with a
(01:29):
bunch of other gentlemen. We'd all just grab chairs and
hang out and, and, and take turns in on a Sunday morning,
just kind of sharing about, you know, our week and just kind of
checking in with each other. It wasn't really super formal.
You know, we kind of like prayedin and prayed out and, but like,
it wasn't, it wasn't super formal outside of that.
(01:49):
It had a little bit of order, but mostly it was, it was just
so we can check in with each other.
And I miss that because a lot ofdudes don't do that.
And that's kind of how stag emerged and, and why I I wanted
to start this podcast and why I enjoy doing it so much and why I
enjoy speaking with many other men who are out in the world.
(02:14):
And actually, Jake, I really am glad that you brought this up
because I'm actually trying to see if we can start a, a similar
thing with this show is podcast and start doing a regular Sunday
release with a couple of guests at the same time.
So it was really interesting that you brought that up and
(02:36):
that we we did all that. But if you have any more
questions about that, we can do that or we can just move on to
to you since you're here. Thank you.
Yeah, first of all, for sharing the knowledge.
That's pretty cool. I think I'm good to move on.
OK, so Jake, why don't you help us Orient ourselves towards why
(03:00):
we are here? How did you get here?
What is, you know, your background?
Who is Jake today and how did you get to this point in your
life? What was your journey like?
Oh, hello everyone, My name is Jake King.
I'm Chinese and I was born in China.
Born and raised. I've never been to the US, so I
(03:21):
worked for a Fortune, a global Fortune 500 company in here and
I'm a marketing manager. So why I want to be on the
podcast on Stack specifically isbecause I want to start my own
podcast, you know, just want to kind of network with people
(03:43):
because I'm very much introverted in some ways.
So I want to sort of, you know, step out of the comfort zone and
talk to men's and sharing, you know, stuff and everyday life,
maybe mentality, no stuff like that.
It's you know who I am right now.
(04:04):
That's pretty cool. Yeah.
I really appreciate the the honesty and the transparency.
And I know that a lot of a lot of men that I talked to all have
something going on and they're there, you know, they're,
they're working on a project that maybe will help them or
somebody else. And, and by helping them,
they're actually helping other people in what they're doing.
(04:25):
And it sounds like you're tryingto get something going too.
We just, I was just talking to somebody who is sharing a lot of
really awesome insight about, you know, podcasting and stuff.
I don't know if you listen to that episode.
I think that one was there was, I think that was the last one
actually. He gave a lot of really, really
(04:46):
awesome tips on on podcasting and that kind of thing.
Preferring the American militarythat absolutely from military to
homeless. I should listen.
To that. Did you?
Yeah, He's, he's pretty awesome,that gentleman.
I'm drawing blanks on his name right now.
(05:07):
And I feel so terrible about that because I, I can, I can
pretty much remember everybody'sname up until this point.
Great. Who was I?
Think he has his own podcast He.Does Right.
Yeah. Oh, that was Josh.
That was Josh. Yeah.
He does have his own podcast andit's actually, he's telling his
(05:30):
story of, of his progression from homelessness to mansion.
And it's actually super fascinating.
And he's a really, really awesome dude.
And he's, he's got an interesting background and, and
he's, he's, his podcast is pretty awesome.
And so, yeah, if anyone's looking for any tips or
(05:51):
anything, like he shared quite abit and hopefully that helps
somebody out there. So Jake, outside of the
podcasting world, you said you were working, you were working
for a Fortune 500 company in China.
You've never been to the US Whatwhat was the industry you were
(06:15):
working in? You said, you said it's
marketing, correct? Correct.
Correct. And what was what was that like?
How did you get into marketing? What was it about marketing that
drew you in as as a, as a personyou found appealing maybe how
how did that unfold? Did you always want to be a
marketer? Not really.
So my major in college was more about, you know, arts and, you
(06:42):
know, Photoshop, all these kind of, you know, learning tools
like that. But when I graduate from
college, I started to think, youknow what I actually, you know,
I am what I actual passionate about or what are the real
things I want to pursue for my career.
(07:05):
So I think I'm pretty into linguistics.
So when your languages and talking to different people with
different backgrounds. So I went to, you know, be a
teacher, an English teacher, actually to teach to teach the
kids. And later on, I think, you know,
(07:27):
I want to, you know, grow more and have more potential for my
career rather than just being a teacher.
So I later on I went to do the cross-border business like E com
and then I got into, you know, digital marketing and all that
(07:49):
stuff running ads. So the interesting thing about
marketing is it's more like it'snot just, you know, promoting
the products or merchandise for people to buy it.
I think ultimately is it helps people to recognize what they
want, what they need. And it's more like a
(08:10):
psychological thing. And you want to, you know, take
their gut, not in a bad way, butyou won't help them to explore
their needs. And you want to, you know, put
it just let the brand you help the brand to grow and in their
(08:34):
in their like mentality in the customers, like mental, you want
to help them to wear of your your brand visibility.
And from that they will considerbuying the products.
So it's like through the customer journey, you want to
(08:54):
take different actions. It's either brand awareness or
consideration or the like the the bottom funnel and you know,
you want to them to convert to purchase your products.
So this whole journey is quite interesting.
That's really attract me to thisindustry.
(09:15):
The entire, the entire industry of marketing is a fascinating 1.
And a lot of a lot of what is seems to be common knowledge or
quote common sense is actually just really awesome marketing
disguising itself as common sense or knowledge or
preferences. And all this and a lot of our
cultural understandings and constructions are actually just
(09:35):
marketing ploys that have just stuck especially in America.
And so I really want to get intoa lot of the marketing stuff.
But you, so you, you kind of didyou just kind of like started
doing the marketing stuff on theside like on your own or did you
do you formally like finished off your education and
(09:56):
marketing? I didn't finish my education and
marketing, so it's basically on my own, like from the scratch.
I kind of, you know, learned it through, you know, my everyday
job and through my work experience and all that.
That's cool. And so the, you're in your 30s
now and so like when did you really start the marketing
(10:19):
journey and, and realized maybe this is something I want to
pivot to. I think it's around 2020, like
5-5 years ago or something like.And you were working at at the
same company at that point? Not the same company by that
time that that company was more towards the traditional B2B
(10:42):
sales. You know, you go to exhibition
and you sells, you know, Chinesegoods to the US or other
international markets. Right, because.
China is a, it's a huge, you know, manufacturing country.
Yeah. But Trump put like 100 plus
tariffs on China right? Yeah, on the on the recent
(11:06):
stuff, yeah, things are a littlesquirrely at the moment.
Yeah. So, so then are you working in
marketing now like today is a profession?
I am you are. I'm working on like post
marketing and D2 CE com So it's basically our own website.
(11:27):
Oh, interesting. That's it's super fascinating.
And so on the marketing side, what do you, what do you think
is one of the, the biggest misconceptions about marketing?
What do you think that people miss or overcomplicate when it
comes to marketing anything? As I just mentioned, I think
people are seeing marketing is, you know, like in a very
(11:50):
negative way as there are too many miss marketed or like the
the ads or just, you know, over marketed.
When people realize it's it's you know what, what they
actually receive the products, it's mismatched the the the
(12:13):
advertising that they see online.
That's the the huge misconception about marketing.
It's not because of the you knowadvertiser who did it wrong that
you know affect the overall manage of people house, you know
how customer and people see marketing as today it is.
(12:38):
Can you give me, do you have an example where it's just like
there's a blatant version of this out in the world in the
moment or something that you've come across specifically?
I believe there it's around 2-2 years ago we were doing a
Kickstarter campaign, you know, back then the the concept of of
(13:01):
metaverse is query is pretty insane.
It's a buzzword by that time. So we are yeah, we're doing this
Kickstarter campaign. Our products was the AR glasses,
the AR goggles. So it's pretty a new products to
the market and people aren't aware of, you know, what they
(13:23):
actually can do and what the, you know, all the
specifications, you know all theparameters, what what what that
means. So I see a lot of competitors
just, you know, over market those numbers.
For example, you know, it's likea virtual screen in front of
(13:43):
your eyes, but OK market like it's 200 and 300 inch screen
that from a 6m away. But this actually is like a
little bit over marketing, you know, in my opinion.
Gotcha. So it's an exaggerating,
(14:04):
exaggerating what is being offered.
And so when the customer receives that their, their their
expectations are are are are basically shattered because it
doesn't add up, correct. Ultimately, we want to receive a
product that's, you know, beyondyour expectations.
It's not like that. Meet your expectation that
(14:26):
doesn't work in that way. Since we're on and how do you
think that translates into to the podcasting world because
they podcasting has been over saturated obviously and you
you're about to enter your own podcast correct that's that's
your goal right now is to start up your podcast yeah and so how
(14:50):
do you see the world of marketing in the landscape of
marketing shifting in the podcasting space or in any space
that might be similar where the landscape is just overly
saturated I. Think maybe podcast is saturated
in the US, but not in China because because it's kind of
(15:11):
like a very a small of groups, asmall group of people are
listening to podcasting because in China a lot of people are
using tick, you know, the Chinese version of TikTok as it
yeah, as it is in the USI think because of the vertical, you
(15:31):
know, short videos or taking up people's time and right.
I think ultimately podcasting isyou know more about the content
and you know the real content and not like the the instant
excitement that short videos gave to you.
(15:53):
Right. Where everything else seems to
be kind of trend or SEO driven, we're podcasting, I mean cloud
casting too. But when you get into the
content, there's not a lot of like there's there's very niche
spaces in podcasting that I've noticed that really kind of have
this salesy formula and a lot ofsome of them do well, but a
(16:16):
majority of them, like for myself, I don't you it's an
instant turn off. It doesn't feel authentic.
You can feel the lack of authenticity in a podcast
immediately. It's kind of bizarre.
I see a lot of people doing this.
You know, the formula thing, as you just mentioned, you know,
you have to like for the YouTubevideos that you have to, you
(16:37):
know, embed a, a hook in the five, you know, the 1st 5
second, the first 10 seconds. And so people will watch it.
But nowadays, I believe authenticity is the most
important thing, especially whenit comes to podcasting.
Yeah. And I think this is a really
important point and I'm really, really glad that you brought
that up because it, and I think that's why SEO became such a big
(17:01):
like buzz thing that like no oneunderstood and all this stuff.
And you see, and it's, and that was, that was derived from
really good marketing on itself,which is really funny because
even like the SEO experts don't even understand how SEO works
because the people who control it don't actually release the
mechanisms of how it works. And so it's a guessing game
(17:25):
based on guessing. That is an educated guess based
on what's working and what's trackable, not what is actually
happening. And so when you're getting into
this world of the, what you're talking about with these
formulas that are constructed there, because they're getting
more views, they're getting morehits.
But then at some point it's likeif everyone is fishing in the
same hole, we're going to run out of fish.
(17:47):
And so somebody comes in and reiterates and, and just kind of
turns up the dial and some otheraspect and suddenly that starts
working. And then, you know, like a
bandwagon of people start doing that.
And, and what's the, I think themost fascinating part about
marketing is the way that it, itkind of backdoors the way that
(18:11):
culture is shaped. Because if you look at YouTube
now in the last five years versus YouTube in like, you
know, 2010 to 2015, it's vastly different.
And you can take a subset or a, a sample set of videos that were
dominating during that time versus now.
And you can you can probably understand how like cultural
(18:35):
trends kind of emerged out of that and how that had an impact
on culture or vice versa. Exactly.
Yeah. And and it just becomes, do you
think is that like it? To me, it seems like a chicken
or egg thing, right? Where is it?
Is it marketing, good marketing,getting people to do what we
(18:57):
good marketers do or is it like something else?
What it? What is that?
But to me it's think, you know, ultimately all these mechanism
and algorithm and SEO is, you know, the, the company, it won't
take up your time and they were the track users and they want
(19:21):
retention on their apps or, you know, on their website.
So it's basically that's the fundamental things, the the
mechanism behind that. Yeah, and there is you mentioned
(19:43):
that in China the the podcastingis not as big and you said the
TikTok is kind of dominating over there, the Chinese version
of TikTok as. So to my question to you is what
do you think? Do you think that the podcasting
might still have room to? To grow and expand or do you
(20:07):
think that it is just kind of dead and not really something
that anybody has an appetite for?
Think there's still room as longas you make good content and you
have your, you know, target costume, you know, audience who
will listen to your podcast ultimately.
So unlike the, the, the US or the international markets,
(20:30):
Chinese, you know, we have like our own platforms of
distributing your podcasts. You know, it's not like Spotify
or or YouTube or Apple podcast is we have our own, you know,
the Chinese versions of it. So basically there are, I think
there's still room, but you know, but you have to find your
(20:57):
way and find your niche and whatkind of content you want to
make. But it's not like, you know,
because many of the podcasts I listen to the they've been dead
over the two years. So I think the the
competitiveness is is kind of huge, but you got to find out
(21:20):
your way. You're saying that the the kind
of podcast that you listen to were what?
Dad, they're no longer, you know, updating content.
So interesting. Do you guys have like a like
really big podcasters that just kind of I.
(21:42):
Think there are some and yeah, Ithink that there are some
Chinese podcasts and they will also upload their content to
YouTube and Spotify. OK, yeah, I don't, I don't.
I don't really have my my I. Listen to the feed.
I listen to a few the mainly covering news.
(22:05):
Yeah. Yeah, I listen to Joe Rogan
Experience and. Yeah, I've never.
Who's that? Rogan Experience.
You don't know that. Joe Rogan Experience.
This is the biggest podcast in the US it.
Can't be. I'm just kidding, man.
(22:30):
I'm just joking. For real.
For real. Yeah, I know.
And you said NPR also. NPR Yeah, I'll build this.
It's more about entrepreneurship.
OK. OK.
Yeah. I mean, those are that sounds
solid. What was the the kind of podcast
that you were listening to in Chinese that that just kind of
(22:53):
don't exist anymore? What like what genre or what
themes did they cover? A few I listened to words about
intimacy and relationship. Perfect.
That's a, that's a solid segue because I, I really want to ask
you, I've been to China, by the way.
And, and I, you know, I, I know that you guys have the, the, the
(23:21):
great firewall and whatnot, but I also know that you guys really
enjoy your VPNs and you enjoy your Tinder and your, and, and
your Instagram and, and all of that.
And, and I've made some friends over there through those apps
while I was there. And, and so like, I, I didn't
(23:47):
get to meet a lot of dudes out there outside of the
professional world. And I'm curious what your
thoughts on manhood as it pertains to the Chinese culture
and, and maybe explore that a little bit.
You mentioned that you, you werelistening to maybe like
relationship podcasts and, and that kind of thing.
And so can we, can we address that a little bit, maybe unpack,
(24:11):
you know what, what is the idealimage of a man in the world in
the cultural of the Chinese? In the Chinese like cultural
context, so basically, you know,we are very conservative like in
terms of culture, like I think all the Asian people are kind of
(24:34):
like more, you know, reserved and they want to take a look at
the Japanese and they were very outgoing, especially when when
it comes to the, you know, theirprofessional career world, you
know, seem like it's the same inChina.
(24:57):
People expect you to, you know, be a family man and you know,
you got to provide the bread to the table for your family,
obviously. And and growing up, you know,
your parents always want you to work hard, study hard, and they
(25:18):
don't want you to cause trouble.I think it's basically the same
worldwide, but, but we are more,you know, also it's, it's about
the government, you know, we don't have.
That you got out, sorry. I think we're not allowed to do
a lot of things that you are allowed to do in the US, like.
(25:42):
Gotcha. If we are, you know, to the
firearm, like I want to, you know, play with the guns and
it's it's barely not possible inin China.
And right if you were into cruising or you know, on the sea
(26:06):
and to have a yard or something like maybe rent a yard with your
friend. But it's got you too kind of a
luxury life to have in in here. But I think right, considering
mostly we are more like down to the ground and we just diligent
people. Right, right.
(26:27):
And you were mentioning that some of that influence was
governmental. And so it's a governmental
structure. Because of the, the, the, the
VPN and the, the firewall that restrict you from access, you
know, international website and all that stuff.
(26:47):
You're now, you know, because they say it's about, you know,
local protect protection to protect the local business.
Like we have our own version of of Google or Facebook, right?
So these our business have grown.
So also they want to kind of like, I'm not want to get into
(27:14):
like politics that much, but I think they want to understand
that you that thing to, you know, either bring wash your
people. They don't allow you to access
the, you know, external information.
So you are like basically you see what they want you to see.
(27:35):
Right, right. As a mechanism of controlled
essentially and, and all that that comes with that.
And so you, so the image of the,the, the traditional family
structure, that which we call usually here is like the nuclear
family. And it's like where the, the,
(27:57):
the male's the head of the household.
You, you provide and protect your family and, and you honor
your family name. And that, that still stands.
That's still the image, right? That's just stands in here as
well. Yeah, OK.
Yeah, that's what I I figured. And so the and, and you guys do
(28:18):
still have like a pretty like pretty gnarly divide where where
it comes with like a stratification of, of wealth,
right. So you have like really rich
people and then like, and then like everyone else is kind of
like, you have exactly the middle class.
Yeah. I think that's the thing for
(28:40):
like most developing countries, especially if you are we
socialism also communism is likethat.
It's you need to get the, I don't know if you need to get
the rich people to be rich first, but the, the vibe between
(29:02):
the rich people and the poor people, it's kind of like huge.
That's a huge gap between, you know, the rich can be, you know,
very rich and the bottom people is just having a hard life.
Yeah, you guys have a pretty, pretty robust like poor
community in it. Like, and it's not even like, I
(29:25):
don't want to like say it like that because I know that you
guys have a middle class, but I've seen I've seen the like the
ghost cities and it's it's I've never seen something like that.
And it's kind of wild. And I've also seen while I was
there, the like you guys are really hard workers and like
(29:47):
some of you guys like like my friends there that they're
basically working like nonstop and, and it's like affordability
is kind of a problem, right? Is that am I too far off from
that? No, this guy, it's all right.
Affordability is OK. Affordability and what like.
(30:10):
Like, like it's, it's, it's pretty expensive to kind of.
Cost of the living. Yeah, like the cost of living is
to achieve a family and have a home and and do all of that.
Is is pretty. It's not ideal for most people,
correct? Correct.
(30:32):
But I think the inflation is nowlike a huge plump a problem in
in, in China because the government tried to push the,
you know, the purchasing power of like domestically.
Oh yeah, the the employment employment rate is declining.
I don't I'm not quite sure if it's declining, but it's not
(30:54):
like unstable and people get layoffs like over all the time.
And it's easier for the, you know, employers to find find the
workers rather than you find a job.
Yeah. So your wages are about to like
go down big time, right? If they haven't already, Yeah.
Yeah. So it's a it's a lot of
(31:15):
pressure. And so people don't want to have
kids and the birth rate is is it's not ideal at this.
Point right? Even though we have like a one
point billion, a 1.3 billion some, you know people, but but
it's not the structure of the demographics is not is not ideal
(31:37):
at this point. Yeah, and with the majority of
your population being met incorrect.
Because, you know, the older generation, they more, you know,
leaning towards male than femalebecause they want the males
carries their family name the right line.
So that's, you know, a stereotypical thinking in the
(32:00):
older generation. So they insist they insisted on
having boys than girls. Maybe they will abandoned their
their girls, you know for the people that born in 1970s or
something like that, they have their old concepts.
(32:21):
Right. So, so basically right now
things are pretty like all the inflation and the tariffs and
and all all the nonsense going on in the global economic
playing field is, is really affecting life in China.
Is that what you're saying? I see.
Yeah, I think that's, that's kind of like both ways, not like
(32:44):
only infecting, affecting Chinese people, but also the US
people because ultimately we're the first like the the, the top
one exporter of, you know, you know, goods to the US you're we
are your first like importer, right?
(33:04):
Yeah, yeah. And I, I didn't mean to, to
position it like a one way thing.
Like I, I, I was trying to get to, I was trying to get to a
question about like as a dude, as a male, like in, in your,
you're in a situation, I'm trying to like shape the
situation. It's like if you're in the
situation, things are kind of crazy and there's a lot of
(33:28):
uncertainty, which causes insecurity, which causes
apprehension and apprehensiveness rather to, to
plan a future in this kind of thing.
And it's like as a dude in your 30s, right?
Like I my question is first, areyou, do you have a family now or
are you a dad? Not a dad but I have family.
(33:51):
I'm family now I'm married without kids.
I do have a dog. Oh, so you're married?
How long did you get married? Are you been married for a
while? Four years, actually.
Oh, OK. So do you, do you feel pressure?
And this was where I was gettingat.
It was like, do you feel pressure to or, or a pause to to
(34:14):
kind of consider like, is it a good time?
It's probably not a good time tohave a family, right?
Do you think about that? Probably by having family, do
you? Do you do you mean just having?
Like children? Sorry, kids not having children.
I don't. Yeah, yeah.
I don't think it's a, it's a good time for me or from, for me
(34:34):
to have a kid because the uncertainty of, of the world of
what's going on right now and financially, because I'm kind of
like the only source of, you know, of our family finance
(34:55):
where, where the money comes from, because my wife is not
very, she's more covering the home and the household.
She's not right. You're a traditional dynamic.
Yeah, the traditional dynamic men covers the the the milk and
bread. Right, right.
(35:17):
And so do you, did you want to have children?
Was that something that was in in your plans and.
I have to admit I do like children, but I have to like
think very, you know, reasonablywhy I need to have kids work.
(35:40):
What can I, you know, provide him or her when I do have kids,
You know, because the kind of wehave a rat race when, when it
comes to education. And especially, you know, we
Chinese people, we want to, you know, provide them with the best
(36:00):
thing and the best aspiration. And you send them to, you know,
different educational school, you know, to cultivate their
hobbies when you know, even though when they're off class,
when in their free time, you want them to learn this and
learn that. And it's very stressful for the
(36:22):
kids as well, right. Yeah.
So I keep asking me myself, you know, what's the why?
Why? Why do I want kids, Want to have
kids? I also discussed with my wife.
So we don't think, at least at this point, we want to have
kids. We're pretty good, you know, on
(36:43):
our own. And just having this, this cute
Shiba Inu dog will be perfect for us.
Yeah. As of now.
The Doge dog. The Doge dog.
Yeah, that's funny. That's awesome.
Those are cool dogs. They're very aggressive dogs,
actually. But yeah, that's cool.
(37:06):
What do you do you think that's a common a common way of
thinking? Is it in China for men?
Is it kind of like, hey, let's just like have a good time and
and if we can't? Yeah, I think most of the
younger generation, people amongmy age, my peers or younger than
(37:29):
me, they especially people who live in Shanghai, Beijing and
all these more developed cities in China, they tend to have this
no similar mindset as I am. Yeah, I mean, it's at least it's
considerate of another potentialhuman beings life being affected
(37:55):
in. Yeah.
And I think that's important because a lot of people don't
even think about that. And in America, I know the the
accident babies happen quite often.
I'm not sure how often that happens in China, but the the
planning of a child is not always not always a thing.
(38:18):
Right. But in China is always the thing
you need to plan ahead and you know, be considerate and think
about all the things you need toplan it out.
So what what do you sort of likeon the topic of like family and
proximity of family? How important do you think is
(38:38):
family in in a man's life and and what role does a man play in
the family? I mean, we've covered that, that
the main part, but does it, doesit help shape a man a certain
way or does it bring a certain value that maybe people don't
think about? Has it brought value to you in a
way that you didn't think about?I think family is always
(39:02):
depending on you know what kind of a man you are, if you are
more, you know, self focused or if you are actually a family
man. But I think family always plays
an important role in the man's life.
If at least they taught me a lot, you need to, you know, take
more responsibilities in your family and you need to provide
(39:28):
things even though there's a lotof pressures along the way.
But from the like a teen, a teenager to a man, to actually
who can help the family and to be the most dominant power in
(39:50):
the family, it's a big transition.
And yeah, along that way, I think it taught me a lot.
Oh, interesting you I mean there's there's aspects of of
servitude. So to be to serve the family and
then. And then you mentioned power,
(40:11):
which is something that I've never heard another man that
I've interviewed mentioned before and.
I'm not quite sure if it's like East and West culture thing,
because, you know, in, in from our perspective or the
traditional or the traditional perspective, you know, we tend
(40:32):
to think men's or the, you know,more powerful image in a family
that protects your your household.
And so that symbolized the. Or yeah, no, it's a good word to
bring up though, because I thinkthat a couple of men have really
(40:54):
distilled this, you know, the question of like what it what
does it mean to be a man? And it's like to be a protector
and a provider. And, and so, you know, you
mentioned protector and, and, and, and the subset of, of power
of assuming and coming into power.
And I think that's just a, a different way of looking at it.
(41:16):
And, and it's just something I've never thought about really,
that you, you assume this role of power and, and, and that is
how you become the protector. It could be powerful to protect
your family. So that's where the words from I
think. Yeah, I know that's good in in
(41:37):
in China and Chinese culture, just generally speaking, do you
see specific things that maybe young men are struggling with or
or you know, men in their 30s forties, like middle-aged men or
older? Like do you see a trend like the
West season and they're young men.
(41:58):
Are you guys struggling with anything particular?
I think the amount of pressure on us is how to balance your
work with your life because as you know, capitalism is very,
even though we're like accommodating part, you know,
(42:21):
country, We do have the, the, the, the entrepreneurs and the
business trying to take advantage of of these their
employees. They want to make you work
overtime without paying you extra money.
So, and also because of the, thepopulation that we have, there
(42:44):
are too many people, you know, too little jobs, vacancies.
So are the demands or especiallystressful in their 30s forties.
They are afraid of being, you know, laid off by the company.
So they do have their mortgage. They do have their children.
(43:06):
They're the elderlies need to betaken care of.
So these all these pressure wereprimarily on the man's shoulder
that instead of the wife's shoulder.
So that's the anything I think right now.
(43:28):
Yeah, I feel like that's something that I've seen a lot
of men struggle with and which has been that I've known just
generally speaking over the years.
And that's something that seems to be prevalent and, and some
fashion or another. And, and I think there's periods
in time where a lot of people, more people tend to experience
(43:53):
something similar then then, youknow, kind of going through it
alone. And then, I mean, the Great
Depression was a great example of a lot of people struggling
with the same economic circumstances and hardships.
And, and outside of that, it's like people do struggle with
those even when times are good. And I know that everyone is in
(44:16):
turbulent times right now. And I think about, you know, how
that might affect other other, other young men kind of
emerging, how that's going to, you know, because like the 2008
financial crisis shaped a lot ofpeople, you know, and who are in
(44:37):
their 30s now, right in the way that they make decisions.
And so it's important to think about that and get perspective
and, and kind of see how that unfolds and how we how we can
kind of band together and a terrible circumstance or shitty
circumstance a little bit betterand kind of lean on each other.
(45:01):
Are you spiritual at all? Spiritual.
Spiritual or do you have religious inclination?
Do you do you have religion? No, no, I don't think so.
Yeah, I do respect people who dohave religions and the the the
culture. Me myself, I don't believe in
(45:21):
gods and all that kind of stuff.Nothing.
So what? What do you think happens when
we die? That's it.
That's it. I don't feel anything.
Yeah. And and I, I don't either go to
heaven or go to hell or just whatever is none of my business.
(45:43):
That's a that's a good way to put it.
I like that when I'm dead, it's none of my business.
That's a that's a good, that's AT shirt.
That's awesome. I like that.
Really. Have you always been like that?
Just no. No spiritual, no spirituality,
nothing. Growing up, I was, I was
wondering was what would you know?
(46:05):
What would it be like if I die? It's, I don't, you know, I don't
have an answer to it till I'm inmy late 20s or something.
I think it's just all gone. You know, it's none of my
business. But I always wondering if I need
(46:29):
to believe something, if I need to have a religion, either is,
you know, the Western or the theBuddha and something like that.
But myself, my upbringing, and it's not like in my
surroundings, all these religious culture, I can't like
(46:51):
find it hard to me for me to, you know, really to be a die
hard believer. Just, you know, on my own I
can't do it. Yeah.
So you are you don't have anybody in your family who who
believed in anything like spiritually or religiously or
(47:12):
anything like that. I.
Think most of the Chinese peoplethey we believe in like
Buddhism. Yeah.
At least to some degree. But in my family, I think most
of my relatives, they believe inBuddhism as well.
But not like a very religious person, but we'd more like a
(47:39):
respect to their culture. But.
Right. Not very religious.
Yeah, I mean, I've heard that a number of times that if it's
going to be one thing, it's going to be Buddhism.
But like, it's it's not like super practiced and it's it's
not super culturally grounded. What do you think?
Why do you think that happened? Why do you think the culture
(48:01):
moved away from from religion sohard?
I think in the. Was it capitalism?
Was it the 80s? I think the in the West part of
China, in Tibet and all these people they believe in, they are
die hard like a religious people, right?
Very well practiced. But in the East Coast of China,
(48:22):
in Shanghai and all these East Coast, the cities, people are
very drawn into making money andthey don't care about religion
or you know. Money is their God.
Yeah, money is God. And you know, I feel a few like
a stand up, you know, shows, I don't know if you know, you
(48:44):
know, Ronnie Chan and he he hosts the everyday Daily Show.
And I think I think he talks about, you know, how Chinese
people worship money and we can,you know, like, Congrats, you
know, other people on New Year's, during New Year's.
And we we say Kunshi Fatai means, you know, wish you to be
(49:08):
rich. So that's the thing that, you
know, we think money is more important than basically
anything else, I believe. Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of
people out here who who think the same.
That's interesting. Yeah.
(49:30):
So what is just a fascinating dynamic because like here, you
still have a lot of a lot of themoney chasing and except it's in
it's in the name of God. And it's in disguise.
(49:53):
Like, yeah, yeah. And and, you know, more power to
them. That's cool.
So let's I want to talk about your, I want to bring it back to
your butt. What time is it for you right
now? By the way, you're like 18 hours
up, right? May the 4th I'm from the future.
May the Force be with you. May the fourth be with you, Sir?
(50:16):
Yeah, that's awesome. Good morning over there right
now. It's morning, night, morning
time. It's 9:54 AM.
Oh, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah. And that's awesome.
Maybe one day I'll go back and, and hang out.
Maybe, I don't know, I had a good time.
It was a good time. So what?
(50:39):
But I do want to get back to theyour podcast and what you're
trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish and what
you're trying to head. And so do do you want to kind of
share a little bit about that and and what you're hoping to
get out of it and maybe what you're hoping to share?
So the initial thought was, you know, I actually came across
(51:03):
similar podcast of of a man at my age.
He is trying to do this the samepodcast that you know, to talk
with some professionals from different world and like from
different countries and try to exchange their views and all
(51:24):
that kind of stuff. I think.
So that's when I think I can do it as well.
I don't actually want to make money or make profit off it.
More like it's more like a channel where I can experience
express myself because actually consider myself very introverted
(51:47):
in real life. I don't talk to people that
much. So I need, I need to have a
platform or have a channel to like exchange to have dialogue
with other people. And where we can, I can also
document some, you know, audio from my, you know, if in the
(52:07):
future I want to listen to them,I can do it or right.
Yeah, I can exchange some perspective and I can network
with people. That's basically the thoughts.
And ultimately, it doesn't have to be very commercial or or to
be my it can be my site a gig, but it doesn't have to be very
(52:35):
much, you know, money oriented. I do have a lot of hot like
hobbies, but mostly in sports. I recently got into climbing
and, you know, hiking, all that kind of stuff.
But I need to think, I think, you know, what if one day I got
laid off by by the company, Do Ihave another like a career or I
(53:02):
think start doing podcasting is it's kind of like a first
starting point for me to have a my own thing other than just,
you know, doing sport sports. Right, Yeah.
So it's, it's a it's start. It's a personal thing for you
(53:22):
first and foremost, right? Like a hobby?
Kind of like a personal hobby for me, but not like this.
No sporty hobbies. Yeah.
So you don't do any marketing and anything like that on the
side also or if that's just youryour day-to-day job?
OK is my day-to-day job, but I don't do it like as a
(53:46):
freelancer. Yeah, well, I'm sure with the
podcasting stuff, you'd probablyrun into a lot of awesome areas
where you can apply a lot of themarketing stuff too.
Where do you, where do you hope to be in five years from now?
What is your your, your main goal or maybe your calling or
(54:08):
where? Where is life kind of pulling
you to? There's a saying here, you know,
you need to, you need to look atwhat you want, where you want to
be from five years, five years from now.
But you need to think really hard like from the next three
(54:31):
years from now and to actually do it well, like to the recent
one to two years for me, 5 yearsfrom now, I want, I don't really
actually think a lot about it. I think I want to work in
(54:51):
management as my daily day-to-day job accomplish more
in that and other things. I'm not, I'm not like 100%.
I think your career or your lifeis always fluid.
(55:12):
A lot of like uncertainty, uncertainty.
And so maybe I want to relocate in another city, like wrong.
One years or two, one year or two years from now, maybe I want
to reside in different cities inChina and go to go to the US.
(55:38):
Maybe not work in the US, but I need to visit to the US at least
a few times. Yeah, yeah, the US is amazing.
Absolutely. I think so.
I'm all for that. I love this country so much.
And you have no idea how many times I hear people say certain
(56:02):
things and, and Americans who will say things about this
country. And and then I'll talk to people
who are not from America and they're, they're doing, you
know, their own business and stuff.
And, and they tell me like the same thing.
Like this is the greatest country in the world.
And it's like, I mean, we can all disagree about that.
(56:24):
Sure, I am of the mind that thisis the greatest country in the
world and to me this country hasbeen good and they has the only
limitation here is I mean obviously the law, but like the
limitations you put on your mindlike and on yourself, that's it.
If you work really, really hard and aim and towards something
(56:46):
really awesome like you can, youcan you can accomplish it and no
one's going to stop you. They might want a piece of it,
but no one's going to stop you. And there's just a general
spirit about, about it that likeI, if you've never been here, I
really, you know, I, I've been to China and like, I, I enjoyed
(57:06):
my state, like my stay there andI met some really nice people.
And, you know, despite the disagreements, the global on the
international global front, likeit's, it is what it is.
But like, people are people and they're still human beings.
And I really hope that you have an opportunity to come out here.
(57:29):
You come across some like culture shock things when you on
your stays here. When I was there, the bathrooms,
because I, yeah, I went to mainland.
So I went to Hong Kong and then I went to Macau and then I went
to Shenzhen and, and then I wentin and I was checking out a lot
(57:58):
of the main line there. And some of the the poor areas,
it was still more traditional. And that's where I saw a lot of
the, the rich poor dynamic happening.
And yeah, the bathrooms I think was probably one of the things
that I was like, oh, that's different.
It didn't, it didn't turn me offor anything.
(58:19):
It was just the hole on the ground is a little bit
different. And here, I bet if you came
here, you'd be like, there's a thing that you sit on.
That's weird. You guys have them everywhere.
I know that you guys have toilets.
What is it like sporting? Yeah, yeah, I know that you guys
have the toilets, the normal ones too, but not normal ones,
(58:39):
but the American style ones. American style, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, the squatting thing was new for me.
Yeah, I've, I've never seen that.
I've, I've done the outhouses like, you know, out, you know,
the ones that are outside and, and those are, those are kind of
weird too, but the weird for me,right, Because I've, I don't, I
(59:02):
didn't grow up in that environment.
It's not, it's not wrong or or actually, it's not bizarre or
weird if you're in it, but as a cultural shock, that was one of
them people. Argue with that squatting
toilets are more like sanitary hygiene.
(59:22):
Yeah, and it's also there's, there's evidence that the, the
squatting is, is the preferable method of, of going to the
bathroom. Like if for a lot of reasons.
Do you remember that marketing thing that the, that the Squatty
Potty thing that that was going on for a while?
(59:42):
Did you guys ever see that? Maybe it's just nothing.
It was, it was basically this little stool that when you sat
on the toilet, it pushed your feet up.
So you were squatting on the toilet.
All. Right.
So that Yeah. So instead of just squatting,
you just had this little. It was ridiculous.
The commercials were were were pretty funny, though.
(01:00:06):
That's a good question. I appreciate that.
Yeah, man, I, I hope you, you have an opportunity to to make
it to America one day. And.
I do have the US visa but never got the chance to actually do
it. Oh, really?
Oh, man. Yeah, you should definitely do
it. You should go.
People are going to hate me for saying this.
(01:00:27):
You should go to Los Angeles. You should go to Los Angeles and
you should go to New York. I see a few like interview
videos on YouTube, but how do you view like people from the,
you know, asking, you know, people in in Los Angeles, how do
you view the New Yorkers? Yeah, I think it's, it's all,
(01:00:49):
it's all hyped it. I mean, I'm going to say it,
dude. New York kind of sucks a little
bit. It's not, it's not as cool as
people say it is. That's just me though.
But I, I think Los Angeles is, is fantastic.
Politics aside, our domestic politics aside, Los Angeles has
(01:01:11):
a spirit about it that makes youwant to dream big dreams and
chase big, big dreams. And, and I don't know, it's
invigorating that, that, that cultural zeitgeist of the
calling to the West and, and whatnot.
It's exciting. I don't know, New York doesn't
give me that vibe. But I'm not from New York, and
(01:01:34):
people from New York will tell me the opposite.
And people from New York were telling me that I'm crazy.
Is it because like Hollywood andis in the Los Angeles, so Los
Angeles very, you know, have that chill vibe and the sun's
beaches, all that stuff? Yeah.
More laid back. Yeah, it's definitely a
(01:01:57):
different type of person. It's definitely a different type
of environment. It's definitely a different type
of experience overall. I yeah, I think that man, I'm
going to the West, to the east. I like the East Coast, too.
I just, I felt that Los Angeles and the West, California was way
(01:02:23):
more welcoming and vibrant. And I don't know how to explain
it. It's just way more laid back.
Way more laid back. It feels it's different.
You should visit both though if you ever make it.
I think the first stop, make up your own experience.
Yeah, the first stop, it got to be Los Angeles because I'm, I'm
(01:02:47):
rooting for the Lakers. There you go.
There you go. Jake, is there anything during
this interview that I didn't askyou, that you wish I did ask
you? Oh, I think I don't actually
have, you know, the topics I want to the, you know, the ones
(01:03:10):
that must talk in this absolute.So I'm all good.
So I think it's mostly we get our, you know, real time answers
to the questions and we don't get a big script out or so.
Yeah, I'm all good. Cool.
(01:03:33):
In your opinion, what is the most important contribution a
man can make to the world beforehe dies?
All right, that's a big question.
Yeah. I mean, ultimately we all need
(01:03:56):
to produce something or for value to the society so you
know, it got the economics, you know it goes and but different
levels and can contribute in like a different ways.
(01:04:17):
But to me, I think the biggest contribution to focus on myself
and I don't break the law. I don't add harm to the society,
but to average, to the average man, I think to have a family
(01:04:43):
and to have children. So that's the the birth rate.
It's a it's a huge problem. That's that's one thing that you
can contribute to the society, but not to me.
I mean, that's I mean, that's solid.
I think that what I heard was bea good human and contribute to
(01:05:04):
society. I mean, it's solid.
Is your podcast are you, are youhave everything up and going yet
or you're just starting? I'm just starting kind of.
You can see my profile picture. I just replaced it with.
Yeah, it looks good. I like the.
Podcasting one, yeah, and it wasgenerated by ChatGPT actually,
(01:05:25):
so I'm. Shout out to ChatGPT nonprofit
kind of not really Yeah to. Almost just starting out.
OK, Yeah. Do you have any?
If you have any other like linksor anything you want to share,
I'll throw those in the show notes.
(01:05:46):
You can put those into the lobbyand I'll make sure that those go
in there. Any final thoughts?
Thank you for having me here andI hope everything dwelt to your
podcast and the best wishes to Tyler.
Shout out to Tyler. Thanks so much.
(01:06:08):
Thanks so much for your time Jake.
I appreciate everything and for you sharing your experience.
I've had a wonderful time here and I wish you all the best on
your journey ahead. Tyler, have a great night.
Appreciate everything.
Welcome to Stag, a show where weinterview everyday men just like
you who share their journey and experience with failure,
strength and courage. If you'd like to share your own
experience, please visit ourwebsite@stagpod.com where you
can sign up to be a guest on theshow.
Links are also available in the description.
And while you're at it, drop us a review.
(00:24):
Thanks for your support. Now here's the interview, Jake.
All right, since we were just talking about the origins of
stag and, and where this came from, I figured, you know what,
let's just get started and let's, let's get it going and I
can share with everybody. And Jake was the very first
person to actually ask me how I would like to be addressed.
(00:44):
And I told him that you guys cancall me Tyler.
And STAG is not an acronym for anything.
It's actually just a word that in context usually just means to
come alone. And it means for me it's it
started in, I pulled it from like the rooms of Alcoholics
(01:06):
Anonymous where you would have stag meetings or it was
addressing or created like meetings based on, on men's
groups only or women's groups only.
So you would have like men's stags and women's stags.
And one of the most powerful things that I gathered from that
was this, this men's stag that Iused to go to on Sundays with a
(01:29):
bunch of other gentlemen. We'd all just grab chairs and
hang out and, and, and take turns in on a Sunday morning,
just kind of sharing about, you know, our week and just kind of
checking in with each other. It wasn't really super formal.
You know, we kind of like prayedin and prayed out and, but like,
it wasn't, it wasn't super formal outside of that.
(01:49):
It had a little bit of order, but mostly it was, it was just
so we can check in with each other.
And I miss that because a lot ofdudes don't do that.
And that's kind of how stag emerged and, and why I I wanted
to start this podcast and why I enjoy doing it so much and why I
enjoy speaking with many other men who are out in the world.
(02:14):
And actually, Jake, I really am glad that you brought this up
because I'm actually trying to see if we can start a, a similar
thing with this show is podcast and start doing a regular Sunday
release with a couple of guests at the same time.
So it was really interesting that you brought that up and
(02:36):
that we we did all that. But if you have any more
questions about that, we can do that or we can just move on to
to you since you're here. Thank you.
Yeah, first of all, for sharing the knowledge.
That's pretty cool. I think I'm good to move on.
OK, so Jake, why don't you help us Orient ourselves towards why
(03:00):
we are here? How did you get here?
What is, you know, your background?
Who is Jake today and how did you get to this point in your
life? What was your journey like?
Oh, hello everyone, My name is Jake King.
I'm Chinese and I was born in China.
Born and raised. I've never been to the US, so I
(03:21):
worked for a Fortune, a global Fortune 500 company in here and
I'm a marketing manager. So why I want to be on the
podcast on Stack specifically isbecause I want to start my own
podcast, you know, just want to kind of network with people
(03:43):
because I'm very much introverted in some ways.
So I want to sort of, you know, step out of the comfort zone and
talk to men's and sharing, you know, stuff and everyday life,
maybe mentality, no stuff like that.
It's you know who I am right now.
(04:04):
That's pretty cool. Yeah.
I really appreciate the the honesty and the transparency.
And I know that a lot of a lot of men that I talked to all have
something going on and they're there, you know, they're,
they're working on a project that maybe will help them or
somebody else. And, and by helping them,
they're actually helping other people in what they're doing.
(04:25):
And it sounds like you're tryingto get something going too.
We just, I was just talking to somebody who is sharing a lot of
really awesome insight about, you know, podcasting and stuff.
I don't know if you listen to that episode.
I think that one was there was, I think that was the last one
actually. He gave a lot of really, really
(04:46):
awesome tips on on podcasting and that kind of thing.
Preferring the American militarythat absolutely from military to
homeless. I should listen.
To that. Did you?
Yeah, He's, he's pretty awesome,that gentleman.
I'm drawing blanks on his name right now.
(05:07):
And I feel so terrible about that because I, I can, I can
pretty much remember everybody'sname up until this point.
Great. Who was I?
Think he has his own podcast He.Does Right.
Yeah. Oh, that was Josh.
That was Josh. Yeah.
He does have his own podcast andit's actually, he's telling his
(05:30):
story of, of his progression from homelessness to mansion.
And it's actually super fascinating.
And he's a really, really awesome dude.
And he's, he's got an interesting background and, and
he's, he's, his podcast is pretty awesome.
And so, yeah, if anyone's looking for any tips or
(05:51):
anything, like he shared quite abit and hopefully that helps
somebody out there. So Jake, outside of the
podcasting world, you said you were working, you were working
for a Fortune 500 company in China.
You've never been to the US Whatwhat was the industry you were
(06:15):
working in? You said, you said it's
marketing, correct? Correct.
Correct. And what was what was that like?
How did you get into marketing? What was it about marketing that
drew you in as as a, as a personyou found appealing maybe how
how did that unfold? Did you always want to be a
marketer? Not really.
So my major in college was more about, you know, arts and, you
(06:42):
know, Photoshop, all these kind of, you know, learning tools
like that. But when I graduate from
college, I started to think, youknow what I actually, you know,
I am what I actual passionate about or what are the real
things I want to pursue for my career.
(07:05):
So I think I'm pretty into linguistics.
So when your languages and talking to different people with
different backgrounds. So I went to, you know, be a
teacher, an English teacher, actually to teach to teach the
kids. And later on, I think, you know,
(07:27):
I want to, you know, grow more and have more potential for my
career rather than just being a teacher.
So I later on I went to do the cross-border business like E com
and then I got into, you know, digital marketing and all that
(07:49):
stuff running ads. So the interesting thing about
marketing is it's more like it'snot just, you know, promoting
the products or merchandise for people to buy it.
I think ultimately is it helps people to recognize what they
want, what they need. And it's more like a
(08:10):
psychological thing. And you want to, you know, take
their gut, not in a bad way, butyou won't help them to explore
their needs. And you want to, you know, put
it just let the brand you help the brand to grow and in their
(08:34):
in their like mentality in the customers, like mental, you want
to help them to wear of your your brand visibility.
And from that they will considerbuying the products.
So it's like through the customer journey, you want to
(08:54):
take different actions. It's either brand awareness or
consideration or the like the the bottom funnel and you know,
you want to them to convert to purchase your products.
So this whole journey is quite interesting.
That's really attract me to thisindustry.
(09:15):
The entire, the entire industry of marketing is a fascinating 1.
And a lot of a lot of what is seems to be common knowledge or
quote common sense is actually just really awesome marketing
disguising itself as common sense or knowledge or
preferences. And all this and a lot of our
cultural understandings and constructions are actually just
(09:35):
marketing ploys that have just stuck especially in America.
And so I really want to get intoa lot of the marketing stuff.
But you, so you, you kind of didyou just kind of like started
doing the marketing stuff on theside like on your own or did you
do you formally like finished off your education and
(09:56):
marketing? I didn't finish my education and
marketing, so it's basically on my own, like from the scratch.
I kind of, you know, learned it through, you know, my everyday
job and through my work experience and all that.
That's cool. And so the, you're in your 30s
now and so like when did you really start the marketing
(10:19):
journey and, and realized maybe this is something I want to
pivot to. I think it's around 2020, like
5-5 years ago or something like.And you were working at at the
same company at that point? Not the same company by that
time that that company was more towards the traditional B2B
(10:42):
sales. You know, you go to exhibition
and you sells, you know, Chinesegoods to the US or other
international markets. Right, because.
China is a, it's a huge, you know, manufacturing country.
Yeah. But Trump put like 100 plus
tariffs on China right? Yeah, on the on the recent
(11:06):
stuff, yeah, things are a littlesquirrely at the moment.
Yeah. So, so then are you working in
marketing now like today is a profession?
I am you are. I'm working on like post
marketing and D2 CE com So it's basically our own website.
(11:27):
Oh, interesting. That's it's super fascinating.
And so on the marketing side, what do you, what do you think
is one of the, the biggest misconceptions about marketing?
What do you think that people miss or overcomplicate when it
comes to marketing anything? As I just mentioned, I think
people are seeing marketing is, you know, like in a very
(11:50):
negative way as there are too many miss marketed or like the
the ads or just, you know, over marketed.
When people realize it's it's you know what, what they
actually receive the products, it's mismatched the the the
(12:13):
advertising that they see online.
That's the the huge misconception about marketing.
It's not because of the you knowadvertiser who did it wrong that
you know affect the overall manage of people house, you know
how customer and people see marketing as today it is.
(12:38):
Can you give me, do you have an example where it's just like
there's a blatant version of this out in the world in the
moment or something that you've come across specifically?
I believe there it's around 2-2 years ago we were doing a
Kickstarter campaign, you know, back then the the concept of of
(13:01):
metaverse is query is pretty insane.
It's a buzzword by that time. So we are yeah, we're doing this
Kickstarter campaign. Our products was the AR glasses,
the AR goggles. So it's pretty a new products to
the market and people aren't aware of, you know, what they
(13:23):
actually can do and what the, you know, all the
specifications, you know all theparameters, what what what that
means. So I see a lot of competitors
just, you know, over market those numbers.
For example, you know, it's likea virtual screen in front of
(13:43):
your eyes, but OK market like it's 200 and 300 inch screen
that from a 6m away. But this actually is like a
little bit over marketing, you know, in my opinion.
Gotcha. So it's an exaggerating,
(14:04):
exaggerating what is being offered.
And so when the customer receives that their, their their
expectations are are are are basically shattered because it
doesn't add up, correct. Ultimately, we want to receive a
product that's, you know, beyondyour expectations.
It's not like that. Meet your expectation that
(14:26):
doesn't work in that way. Since we're on and how do you
think that translates into to the podcasting world because
they podcasting has been over saturated obviously and you
you're about to enter your own podcast correct that's that's
your goal right now is to start up your podcast yeah and so how
(14:50):
do you see the world of marketing in the landscape of
marketing shifting in the podcasting space or in any space
that might be similar where the landscape is just overly
saturated I. Think maybe podcast is saturated
in the US, but not in China because because it's kind of
(15:11):
like a very a small of groups, asmall group of people are
listening to podcasting because in China a lot of people are
using tick, you know, the Chinese version of TikTok as it
yeah, as it is in the USI think because of the vertical, you
(15:31):
know, short videos or taking up people's time and right.
I think ultimately podcasting isyou know more about the content
and you know the real content and not like the the instant
excitement that short videos gave to you.
(15:53):
Right. Where everything else seems to
be kind of trend or SEO driven, we're podcasting, I mean cloud
casting too. But when you get into the
content, there's not a lot of like there's there's very niche
spaces in podcasting that I've noticed that really kind of have
this salesy formula and a lot ofsome of them do well, but a
(16:16):
majority of them, like for myself, I don't you it's an
instant turn off. It doesn't feel authentic.
You can feel the lack of authenticity in a podcast
immediately. It's kind of bizarre.
I see a lot of people doing this.
You know, the formula thing, as you just mentioned, you know,
you have to like for the YouTubevideos that you have to, you
(16:37):
know, embed a, a hook in the five, you know, the 1st 5
second, the first 10 seconds. And so people will watch it.
But nowadays, I believe authenticity is the most
important thing, especially whenit comes to podcasting.
Yeah. And I think this is a really
important point and I'm really, really glad that you brought
that up because it, and I think that's why SEO became such a big
(17:01):
like buzz thing that like no oneunderstood and all this stuff.
And you see, and it's, and that was, that was derived from
really good marketing on itself,which is really funny because
even like the SEO experts don't even understand how SEO works
because the people who control it don't actually release the
mechanisms of how it works. And so it's a guessing game
(17:25):
based on guessing. That is an educated guess based
on what's working and what's trackable, not what is actually
happening. And so when you're getting into
this world of the, what you're talking about with these
formulas that are constructed there, because they're getting
more views, they're getting morehits.
But then at some point it's likeif everyone is fishing in the
same hole, we're going to run out of fish.
(17:47):
And so somebody comes in and reiterates and, and just kind of
turns up the dial and some otheraspect and suddenly that starts
working. And then, you know, like a
bandwagon of people start doing that.
And, and what's the, I think themost fascinating part about
marketing is the way that it, itkind of backdoors the way that
(18:11):
culture is shaped. Because if you look at YouTube
now in the last five years versus YouTube in like, you
know, 2010 to 2015, it's vastly different.
And you can take a subset or a, a sample set of videos that were
dominating during that time versus now.
And you can you can probably understand how like cultural
(18:35):
trends kind of emerged out of that and how that had an impact
on culture or vice versa. Exactly.
Yeah. And and it just becomes, do you
think is that like it? To me, it seems like a chicken
or egg thing, right? Where is it?
Is it marketing, good marketing,getting people to do what we
(18:57):
good marketers do or is it like something else?
What it? What is that?
But to me it's think, you know, ultimately all these mechanism
and algorithm and SEO is, you know, the, the company, it won't
take up your time and they were the track users and they want
(19:21):
retention on their apps or, you know, on their website.
So it's basically that's the fundamental things, the the
mechanism behind that. Yeah, and there is you mentioned
(19:43):
that in China the the podcastingis not as big and you said the
TikTok is kind of dominating over there, the Chinese version
of TikTok as. So to my question to you is what
do you think? Do you think that the podcasting
might still have room to? To grow and expand or do you
(20:07):
think that it is just kind of dead and not really something
that anybody has an appetite for?
Think there's still room as longas you make good content and you
have your, you know, target costume, you know, audience who
will listen to your podcast ultimately.
So unlike the, the, the US or the international markets,
(20:30):
Chinese, you know, we have like our own platforms of
distributing your podcasts. You know, it's not like Spotify
or or YouTube or Apple podcast is we have our own, you know,
the Chinese versions of it. So basically there are, I think
there's still room, but you know, but you have to find your
(20:57):
way and find your niche and whatkind of content you want to
make. But it's not like, you know,
because many of the podcasts I listen to the they've been dead
over the two years. So I think the the
competitiveness is is kind of huge, but you got to find out
(21:20):
your way. You're saying that the the kind
of podcast that you listen to were what?
Dad, they're no longer, you know, updating content.
So interesting. Do you guys have like a like
really big podcasters that just kind of I.
(21:42):
Think there are some and yeah, Ithink that there are some
Chinese podcasts and they will also upload their content to
YouTube and Spotify. OK, yeah, I don't, I don't.
I don't really have my my I. Listen to the feed.
I listen to a few the mainly covering news.
(22:05):
Yeah. Yeah, I listen to Joe Rogan
Experience and. Yeah, I've never.
Who's that? Rogan Experience.
You don't know that. Joe Rogan Experience.
This is the biggest podcast in the US it.
Can't be. I'm just kidding, man.
(22:30):
I'm just joking. For real.
For real. Yeah, I know.
And you said NPR also. NPR Yeah, I'll build this.
It's more about entrepreneurship.
OK. OK.
Yeah. I mean, those are that sounds
solid. What was the the kind of podcast
that you were listening to in Chinese that that just kind of
(22:53):
don't exist anymore? What like what genre or what
themes did they cover? A few I listened to words about
intimacy and relationship. Perfect.
That's a, that's a solid segue because I, I really want to ask
you, I've been to China, by the way.
And, and I, you know, I, I know that you guys have the, the, the
(23:21):
great firewall and whatnot, but I also know that you guys really
enjoy your VPNs and you enjoy your Tinder and your, and, and
your Instagram and, and all of that.
And, and I've made some friends over there through those apps
while I was there. And, and so like, I, I didn't
(23:47):
get to meet a lot of dudes out there outside of the
professional world. And I'm curious what your
thoughts on manhood as it pertains to the Chinese culture
and, and maybe explore that a little bit.
You mentioned that you, you werelistening to maybe like
relationship podcasts and, and that kind of thing.
And so can we, can we address that a little bit, maybe unpack,
(24:11):
you know what, what is the idealimage of a man in the world in
the cultural of the Chinese? In the Chinese like cultural
context, so basically, you know,we are very conservative like in
terms of culture, like I think all the Asian people are kind of
(24:34):
like more, you know, reserved and they want to take a look at
the Japanese and they were very outgoing, especially when when
it comes to the, you know, theirprofessional career world, you
know, seem like it's the same inChina.
(24:57):
People expect you to, you know, be a family man and you know,
you got to provide the bread to the table for your family,
obviously. And and growing up, you know,
your parents always want you to work hard, study hard, and they
(25:18):
don't want you to cause trouble.I think it's basically the same
worldwide, but, but we are more,you know, also it's, it's about
the government, you know, we don't have.
That you got out, sorry. I think we're not allowed to do
a lot of things that you are allowed to do in the US, like.
(25:42):
Gotcha. If we are, you know, to the
firearm, like I want to, you know, play with the guns and
it's it's barely not possible inin China.
And right if you were into cruising or you know, on the sea
(26:06):
and to have a yard or something like maybe rent a yard with your
friend. But it's got you too kind of a
luxury life to have in in here. But I think right, considering
mostly we are more like down to the ground and we just diligent
people. Right, right.
(26:27):
And you were mentioning that some of that influence was
governmental. And so it's a governmental
structure. Because of the, the, the, the
VPN and the, the firewall that restrict you from access, you
know, international website and all that stuff.
(26:47):
You're now, you know, because they say it's about, you know,
local protect protection to protect the local business.
Like we have our own version of of Google or Facebook, right?
So these our business have grown.
So also they want to kind of like, I'm not want to get into
(27:14):
like politics that much, but I think they want to understand
that you that thing to, you know, either bring wash your
people. They don't allow you to access
the, you know, external information.
So you are like basically you see what they want you to see.
(27:35):
Right, right. As a mechanism of controlled
essentially and, and all that that comes with that.
And so you, so the image of the,the, the traditional family
structure, that which we call usually here is like the nuclear
family. And it's like where the, the,
(27:57):
the male's the head of the household.
You, you provide and protect your family and, and you honor
your family name. And that, that still stands.
That's still the image, right? That's just stands in here as
well. Yeah, OK.
Yeah, that's what I I figured. And so the and, and you guys do
(28:18):
still have like a pretty like pretty gnarly divide where where
it comes with like a stratification of, of wealth,
right. So you have like really rich
people and then like, and then like everyone else is kind of
like, you have exactly the middle class.
Yeah. I think that's the thing for
(28:40):
like most developing countries, especially if you are we
socialism also communism is likethat.
It's you need to get the, I don't know if you need to get
the rich people to be rich first, but the, the vibe between
(29:02):
the rich people and the poor people, it's kind of like huge.
That's a huge gap between, you know, the rich can be, you know,
very rich and the bottom people is just having a hard life.
Yeah, you guys have a pretty, pretty robust like poor
community in it. Like, and it's not even like, I
(29:25):
don't want to like say it like that because I know that you
guys have a middle class, but I've seen I've seen the like the
ghost cities and it's it's I've never seen something like that.
And it's kind of wild. And I've also seen while I was
there, the like you guys are really hard workers and like
(29:47):
some of you guys like like my friends there that they're
basically working like nonstop and, and it's like affordability
is kind of a problem, right? Is that am I too far off from
that? No, this guy, it's all right.
Affordability is OK. Affordability and what like.
(30:10):
Like, like it's, it's, it's pretty expensive to kind of.
Cost of the living. Yeah, like the cost of living is
to achieve a family and have a home and and do all of that.
Is is pretty. It's not ideal for most people,
correct? Correct.
(30:32):
But I think the inflation is nowlike a huge plump a problem in
in, in China because the government tried to push the,
you know, the purchasing power of like domestically.
Oh yeah, the the employment employment rate is declining.
I don't I'm not quite sure if it's declining, but it's not
(30:54):
like unstable and people get layoffs like over all the time.
And it's easier for the, you know, employers to find find the
workers rather than you find a job.
Yeah. So your wages are about to like
go down big time, right? If they haven't already, Yeah.
Yeah. So it's a it's a lot of
(31:15):
pressure. And so people don't want to have
kids and the birth rate is is it's not ideal at this.
Point right? Even though we have like a one
point billion, a 1.3 billion some, you know people, but but
it's not the structure of the demographics is not is not ideal
(31:37):
at this point. Yeah, and with the majority of
your population being met incorrect.
Because, you know, the older generation, they more, you know,
leaning towards male than femalebecause they want the males
carries their family name the right line.
So that's, you know, a stereotypical thinking in the
(32:00):
older generation. So they insist they insisted on
having boys than girls. Maybe they will abandoned their
their girls, you know for the people that born in 1970s or
something like that, they have their old concepts.
(32:21):
Right. So, so basically right now
things are pretty like all the inflation and the tariffs and
and all all the nonsense going on in the global economic
playing field is, is really affecting life in China.
Is that what you're saying? I see.
Yeah, I think that's, that's kind of like both ways, not like
(32:44):
only infecting, affecting Chinese people, but also the US
people because ultimately we're the first like the the, the top
one exporter of, you know, you know, goods to the US you're we
are your first like importer, right?
(33:04):
Yeah, yeah. And I, I didn't mean to, to
position it like a one way thing.
Like I, I, I was trying to get to, I was trying to get to a
question about like as a dude, as a male, like in, in your,
you're in a situation, I'm trying to like shape the
situation. It's like if you're in the
situation, things are kind of crazy and there's a lot of
(33:28):
uncertainty, which causes insecurity, which causes
apprehension and apprehensiveness rather to, to
plan a future in this kind of thing.
And it's like as a dude in your 30s, right?
Like I my question is first, areyou, do you have a family now or
are you a dad? Not a dad but I have family.
(33:51):
I'm family now I'm married without kids.
I do have a dog. Oh, so you're married?
How long did you get married? Are you been married for a
while? Four years, actually.
Oh, OK. So do you, do you feel pressure?
And this was where I was gettingat.
It was like, do you feel pressure to or, or a pause to to
(34:14):
kind of consider like, is it a good time?
It's probably not a good time tohave a family, right?
Do you think about that? Probably by having family, do
you? Do you do you mean just having?
Like children? Sorry, kids not having children.
I don't. Yeah, yeah.
I don't think it's a, it's a good time for me or from, for me
(34:34):
to have a kid because the uncertainty of, of the world of
what's going on right now and financially, because I'm kind of
like the only source of, you know, of our family finance
(34:55):
where, where the money comes from, because my wife is not
very, she's more covering the home and the household.
She's not right. You're a traditional dynamic.
Yeah, the traditional dynamic men covers the the the milk and
bread. Right, right.
(35:17):
And so do you, did you want to have children?
Was that something that was in in your plans and.
I have to admit I do like children, but I have to like
think very, you know, reasonablywhy I need to have kids work.
(35:40):
What can I, you know, provide him or her when I do have kids,
You know, because the kind of wehave a rat race when, when it
comes to education. And especially, you know, we
Chinese people, we want to, you know, provide them with the best
(36:00):
thing and the best aspiration. And you send them to, you know,
different educational school, you know, to cultivate their
hobbies when you know, even though when they're off class,
when in their free time, you want them to learn this and
learn that. And it's very stressful for the
(36:22):
kids as well, right. Yeah.
So I keep asking me myself, you know, what's the why?
Why? Why do I want kids, Want to have
kids? I also discussed with my wife.
So we don't think, at least at this point, we want to have
kids. We're pretty good, you know, on
(36:43):
our own. And just having this, this cute
Shiba Inu dog will be perfect for us.
Yeah. As of now.
The Doge dog. The Doge dog.
Yeah, that's funny. That's awesome.
Those are cool dogs. They're very aggressive dogs,
actually. But yeah, that's cool.
(37:06):
What do you do you think that's a common a common way of
thinking? Is it in China for men?
Is it kind of like, hey, let's just like have a good time and
and if we can't? Yeah, I think most of the
younger generation, people amongmy age, my peers or younger than
(37:29):
me, they especially people who live in Shanghai, Beijing and
all these more developed cities in China, they tend to have this
no similar mindset as I am. Yeah, I mean, it's at least it's
considerate of another potentialhuman beings life being affected
(37:55):
in. Yeah.
And I think that's important because a lot of people don't
even think about that. And in America, I know the the
accident babies happen quite often.
I'm not sure how often that happens in China, but the the
planning of a child is not always not always a thing.
(38:18):
Right. But in China is always the thing
you need to plan ahead and you know, be considerate and think
about all the things you need toplan it out.
So what what do you sort of likeon the topic of like family and
proximity of family? How important do you think is
(38:38):
family in in a man's life and and what role does a man play in
the family? I mean, we've covered that, that
the main part, but does it, doesit help shape a man a certain
way or does it bring a certain value that maybe people don't
think about? Has it brought value to you in a
way that you didn't think about?I think family is always
(39:02):
depending on you know what kind of a man you are, if you are
more, you know, self focused or if you are actually a family
man. But I think family always plays
an important role in the man's life.
If at least they taught me a lot, you need to, you know, take
more responsibilities in your family and you need to provide
(39:28):
things even though there's a lotof pressures along the way.
But from the like a teen, a teenager to a man, to actually
who can help the family and to be the most dominant power in
(39:50):
the family, it's a big transition.
And yeah, along that way, I think it taught me a lot.
Oh, interesting you I mean there's there's aspects of of
servitude. So to be to serve the family and
then. And then you mentioned power,
(40:11):
which is something that I've never heard another man that
I've interviewed mentioned before and.
I'm not quite sure if it's like East and West culture thing,
because, you know, in, in from our perspective or the
traditional or the traditional perspective, you know, we tend
(40:32):
to think men's or the, you know,more powerful image in a family
that protects your your household.
And so that symbolized the. Or yeah, no, it's a good word to
bring up though, because I thinkthat a couple of men have really
(40:54):
distilled this, you know, the question of like what it what
does it mean to be a man? And it's like to be a protector
and a provider. And, and so, you know, you
mentioned protector and, and, and, and the subset of, of power
of assuming and coming into power.
And I think that's just a, a different way of looking at it.
(41:16):
And, and it's just something I've never thought about really,
that you, you assume this role of power and, and, and that is
how you become the protector. It could be powerful to protect
your family. So that's where the words from I
think. Yeah, I know that's good in in
(41:37):
in China and Chinese culture, just generally speaking, do you
see specific things that maybe young men are struggling with or
or you know, men in their 30s forties, like middle-aged men or
older? Like do you see a trend like the
West season and they're young men.
(41:58):
Are you guys struggling with anything particular?
I think the amount of pressure on us is how to balance your
work with your life because as you know, capitalism is very,
even though we're like accommodating part, you know,
(42:21):
country, We do have the, the, the, the entrepreneurs and the
business trying to take advantage of of these their
employees. They want to make you work
overtime without paying you extra money.
So, and also because of the, thepopulation that we have, there
(42:44):
are too many people, you know, too little jobs, vacancies.
So are the demands or especiallystressful in their 30s forties.
They are afraid of being, you know, laid off by the company.
So they do have their mortgage. They do have their children.
(43:06):
They're the elderlies need to betaken care of.
So these all these pressure wereprimarily on the man's shoulder
that instead of the wife's shoulder.
So that's the anything I think right now.
(43:28):
Yeah, I feel like that's something that I've seen a lot
of men struggle with and which has been that I've known just
generally speaking over the years.
And that's something that seems to be prevalent and, and some
fashion or another. And, and I think there's periods
in time where a lot of people, more people tend to experience
(43:53):
something similar then then, youknow, kind of going through it
alone. And then, I mean, the Great
Depression was a great example of a lot of people struggling
with the same economic circumstances and hardships.
And, and outside of that, it's like people do struggle with
those even when times are good. And I know that everyone is in
(44:16):
turbulent times right now. And I think about, you know, how
that might affect other other, other young men kind of
emerging, how that's going to, you know, because like the 2008
financial crisis shaped a lot ofpeople, you know, and who are in
(44:37):
their 30s now, right in the way that they make decisions.
And so it's important to think about that and get perspective
and, and kind of see how that unfolds and how we how we can
kind of band together and a terrible circumstance or shitty
circumstance a little bit betterand kind of lean on each other.
(45:01):
Are you spiritual at all? Spiritual.
Spiritual or do you have religious inclination?
Do you do you have religion? No, no, I don't think so.
Yeah, I do respect people who dohave religions and the the the
culture. Me myself, I don't believe in
(45:21):
gods and all that kind of stuff.Nothing.
So what? What do you think happens when
we die? That's it.
That's it. I don't feel anything.
Yeah. And and I, I don't either go to
heaven or go to hell or just whatever is none of my business.
(45:43):
That's a that's a good way to put it.
I like that when I'm dead, it's none of my business.
That's a that's a good, that's AT shirt.
That's awesome. I like that.
Really. Have you always been like that?
Just no. No spiritual, no spirituality,
nothing. Growing up, I was, I was
wondering was what would you know?
(46:05):
What would it be like if I die? It's, I don't, you know, I don't
have an answer to it till I'm inmy late 20s or something.
I think it's just all gone. You know, it's none of my
business. But I always wondering if I need
(46:29):
to believe something, if I need to have a religion, either is,
you know, the Western or the theBuddha and something like that.
But myself, my upbringing, and it's not like in my
surroundings, all these religious culture, I can't like
(46:51):
find it hard to me for me to, you know, really to be a die
hard believer. Just, you know, on my own I
can't do it. Yeah.
So you are you don't have anybody in your family who who
believed in anything like spiritually or religiously or
(47:12):
anything like that. I.
Think most of the Chinese peoplethey we believe in like
Buddhism. Yeah.
At least to some degree. But in my family, I think most
of my relatives, they believe inBuddhism as well.
But not like a very religious person, but we'd more like a
(47:39):
respect to their culture. But.
Right. Not very religious.
Yeah, I mean, I've heard that a number of times that if it's
going to be one thing, it's going to be Buddhism.
But like, it's it's not like super practiced and it's it's
not super culturally grounded. What do you think?
Why do you think that happened? Why do you think the culture
(48:01):
moved away from from religion sohard?
I think in the. Was it capitalism?
Was it the 80s? I think the in the West part of
China, in Tibet and all these people they believe in, they are
die hard like a religious people, right?
Very well practiced. But in the East Coast of China,
(48:22):
in Shanghai and all these East Coast, the cities, people are
very drawn into making money andthey don't care about religion
or you know. Money is their God.
Yeah, money is God. And you know, I feel a few like
a stand up, you know, shows, I don't know if you know, you
(48:44):
know, Ronnie Chan and he he hosts the everyday Daily Show.
And I think I think he talks about, you know, how Chinese
people worship money and we can,you know, like, Congrats, you
know, other people on New Year's, during New Year's.
And we we say Kunshi Fatai means, you know, wish you to be
(49:08):
rich. So that's the thing that, you
know, we think money is more important than basically
anything else, I believe. Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of
people out here who who think the same.
That's interesting. Yeah.
(49:30):
So what is just a fascinating dynamic because like here, you
still have a lot of a lot of themoney chasing and except it's in
it's in the name of God. And it's in disguise.
(49:53):
Like, yeah, yeah. And and, you know, more power to
them. That's cool.
So let's I want to talk about your, I want to bring it back to
your butt. What time is it for you right
now? By the way, you're like 18 hours
up, right? May the 4th I'm from the future.
May the Force be with you. May the fourth be with you, Sir?
(50:16):
Yeah, that's awesome. Good morning over there right
now. It's morning, night, morning
time. It's 9:54 AM.
Oh, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah. And that's awesome.
Maybe one day I'll go back and, and hang out.
Maybe, I don't know, I had a good time.
It was a good time. So what?
(50:39):
But I do want to get back to theyour podcast and what you're
trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish and what
you're trying to head. And so do do you want to kind of
share a little bit about that and and what you're hoping to
get out of it and maybe what you're hoping to share?
So the initial thought was, you know, I actually came across
(51:03):
similar podcast of of a man at my age.
He is trying to do this the samepodcast that you know, to talk
with some professionals from different world and like from
different countries and try to exchange their views and all
(51:24):
that kind of stuff. I think.
So that's when I think I can do it as well.
I don't actually want to make money or make profit off it.
More like it's more like a channel where I can experience
express myself because actually consider myself very introverted
(51:47):
in real life. I don't talk to people that
much. So I need, I need to have a
platform or have a channel to like exchange to have dialogue
with other people. And where we can, I can also
document some, you know, audio from my, you know, if in the
(52:07):
future I want to listen to them,I can do it or right.
Yeah, I can exchange some perspective and I can network
with people. That's basically the thoughts.
And ultimately, it doesn't have to be very commercial or or to
be my it can be my site a gig, but it doesn't have to be very
(52:35):
much, you know, money oriented. I do have a lot of hot like
hobbies, but mostly in sports. I recently got into climbing
and, you know, hiking, all that kind of stuff.
But I need to think, I think, you know, what if one day I got
laid off by by the company, Do Ihave another like a career or I
(53:02):
think start doing podcasting is it's kind of like a first
starting point for me to have a my own thing other than just,
you know, doing sport sports. Right, Yeah.
So it's, it's a it's start. It's a personal thing for you
(53:22):
first and foremost, right? Like a hobby?
Kind of like a personal hobby for me, but not like this.
No sporty hobbies. Yeah.
So you don't do any marketing and anything like that on the
side also or if that's just youryour day-to-day job?
OK is my day-to-day job, but I don't do it like as a
(53:46):
freelancer. Yeah, well, I'm sure with the
podcasting stuff, you'd probablyrun into a lot of awesome areas
where you can apply a lot of themarketing stuff too.
Where do you, where do you hope to be in five years from now?
What is your your, your main goal or maybe your calling or
(54:08):
where? Where is life kind of pulling
you to? There's a saying here, you know,
you need to, you need to look atwhat you want, where you want to
be from five years, five years from now.
But you need to think really hard like from the next three
(54:31):
years from now and to actually do it well, like to the recent
one to two years for me, 5 yearsfrom now, I want, I don't really
actually think a lot about it. I think I want to work in
(54:51):
management as my daily day-to-day job accomplish more
in that and other things. I'm not, I'm not like 100%.
I think your career or your lifeis always fluid.
(55:12):
A lot of like uncertainty, uncertainty.
And so maybe I want to relocate in another city, like wrong.
One years or two, one year or two years from now, maybe I want
to reside in different cities inChina and go to go to the US.
(55:38):
Maybe not work in the US, but I need to visit to the US at least
a few times. Yeah, yeah, the US is amazing.
Absolutely. I think so.
I'm all for that. I love this country so much.
And you have no idea how many times I hear people say certain
(56:02):
things and, and Americans who will say things about this
country. And and then I'll talk to people
who are not from America and they're, they're doing, you
know, their own business and stuff.
And, and they tell me like the same thing.
Like this is the greatest country in the world.
And it's like, I mean, we can all disagree about that.
(56:24):
Sure, I am of the mind that thisis the greatest country in the
world and to me this country hasbeen good and they has the only
limitation here is I mean obviously the law, but like the
limitations you put on your mindlike and on yourself, that's it.
If you work really, really hard and aim and towards something
(56:46):
really awesome like you can, youcan you can accomplish it and no
one's going to stop you. They might want a piece of it,
but no one's going to stop you. And there's just a general
spirit about, about it that likeI, if you've never been here, I
really, you know, I, I've been to China and like, I, I enjoyed
(57:06):
my state, like my stay there andI met some really nice people.
And, you know, despite the disagreements, the global on the
international global front, likeit's, it is what it is.
But like, people are people and they're still human beings.
And I really hope that you have an opportunity to come out here.
(57:29):
You come across some like culture shock things when you on
your stays here. When I was there, the bathrooms,
because I, yeah, I went to mainland.
So I went to Hong Kong and then I went to Macau and then I went
to Shenzhen and, and then I wentin and I was checking out a lot
(57:58):
of the main line there. And some of the the poor areas,
it was still more traditional. And that's where I saw a lot of
the, the rich poor dynamic happening.
And yeah, the bathrooms I think was probably one of the things
that I was like, oh, that's different.
It didn't, it didn't turn me offor anything.
(58:19):
It was just the hole on the ground is a little bit
different. And here, I bet if you came
here, you'd be like, there's a thing that you sit on.
That's weird. You guys have them everywhere.
I know that you guys have toilets.
What is it like sporting? Yeah, yeah, I know that you guys
have the toilets, the normal ones too, but not normal ones,
(58:39):
but the American style ones. American style, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, the squatting thing was new for me.
Yeah, I've, I've never seen that.
I've, I've done the outhouses like, you know, out, you know,
the ones that are outside and, and those are, those are kind of
weird too, but the weird for me,right, Because I've, I don't, I
(59:02):
didn't grow up in that environment.
It's not, it's not wrong or or actually, it's not bizarre or
weird if you're in it, but as a cultural shock, that was one of
them people. Argue with that squatting
toilets are more like sanitary hygiene.
(59:22):
Yeah, and it's also there's, there's evidence that the, the
squatting is, is the preferable method of, of going to the
bathroom. Like if for a lot of reasons.
Do you remember that marketing thing that the, that the Squatty
Potty thing that that was going on for a while?
(59:42):
Did you guys ever see that? Maybe it's just nothing.
It was, it was basically this little stool that when you sat
on the toilet, it pushed your feet up.
So you were squatting on the toilet.
All. Right.
So that Yeah. So instead of just squatting,
you just had this little. It was ridiculous.
The commercials were were were pretty funny, though.
(01:00:06):
That's a good question. I appreciate that.
Yeah, man, I, I hope you, you have an opportunity to to make
it to America one day. And.
I do have the US visa but never got the chance to actually do
it. Oh, really?
Oh, man. Yeah, you should definitely do
it. You should go.
People are going to hate me for saying this.
(01:00:27):
You should go to Los Angeles. You should go to Los Angeles and
you should go to New York. I see a few like interview
videos on YouTube, but how do you view like people from the,
you know, asking, you know, people in in Los Angeles, how do
you view the New Yorkers? Yeah, I think it's, it's all,
(01:00:49):
it's all hyped it. I mean, I'm going to say it,
dude. New York kind of sucks a little
bit. It's not, it's not as cool as
people say it is. That's just me though.
But I, I think Los Angeles is, is fantastic.
Politics aside, our domestic politics aside, Los Angeles has
(01:01:11):
a spirit about it that makes youwant to dream big dreams and
chase big, big dreams. And, and I don't know, it's
invigorating that, that, that cultural zeitgeist of the
calling to the West and, and whatnot.
It's exciting. I don't know, New York doesn't
give me that vibe. But I'm not from New York, and
(01:01:34):
people from New York will tell me the opposite.
And people from New York were telling me that I'm crazy.
Is it because like Hollywood andis in the Los Angeles, so Los
Angeles very, you know, have that chill vibe and the sun's
beaches, all that stuff? Yeah.
More laid back. Yeah, it's definitely a
(01:01:57):
different type of person. It's definitely a different type
of environment. It's definitely a different type
of experience overall. I yeah, I think that man, I'm
going to the West, to the east. I like the East Coast, too.
I just, I felt that Los Angeles and the West, California was way
(01:02:23):
more welcoming and vibrant. And I don't know how to explain
it. It's just way more laid back.
Way more laid back. It feels it's different.
You should visit both though if you ever make it.
I think the first stop, make up your own experience.
Yeah, the first stop, it got to be Los Angeles because I'm, I'm
(01:02:47):
rooting for the Lakers. There you go.
There you go. Jake, is there anything during
this interview that I didn't askyou, that you wish I did ask
you? Oh, I think I don't actually
have, you know, the topics I want to the, you know, the ones
(01:03:10):
that must talk in this absolute.So I'm all good.
So I think it's mostly we get our, you know, real time answers
to the questions and we don't get a big script out or so.
Yeah, I'm all good. Cool.
(01:03:33):
In your opinion, what is the most important contribution a
man can make to the world beforehe dies?
All right, that's a big question.
Yeah. I mean, ultimately we all need
(01:03:56):
to produce something or for value to the society so you
know, it got the economics, you know it goes and but different
levels and can contribute in like a different ways.
(01:04:17):
But to me, I think the biggest contribution to focus on myself
and I don't break the law. I don't add harm to the society,
but to average, to the average man, I think to have a family
(01:04:43):
and to have children. So that's the the birth rate.
It's a it's a huge problem. That's that's one thing that you
can contribute to the society, but not to me.
I mean, that's I mean, that's solid.
I think that what I heard was bea good human and contribute to
(01:05:04):
society. I mean, it's solid.
Is your podcast are you, are youhave everything up and going yet
or you're just starting? I'm just starting kind of.
You can see my profile picture. I just replaced it with.
Yeah, it looks good. I like the.
Podcasting one, yeah, and it wasgenerated by ChatGPT actually,
(01:05:25):
so I'm. Shout out to ChatGPT nonprofit
kind of not really Yeah to. Almost just starting out.
OK, Yeah. Do you have any?
If you have any other like linksor anything you want to share,
I'll throw those in the show notes.
(01:05:46):
You can put those into the lobbyand I'll make sure that those go
in there. Any final thoughts?
Thank you for having me here andI hope everything dwelt to your
podcast and the best wishes to Tyler.
Shout out to Tyler. Thanks so much.
(01:06:08):
Thanks so much for your time Jake.
I appreciate everything and for you sharing your experience.
I've had a wonderful time here and I wish you all the best on
your journey ahead. Tyler, have a great night.
Appreciate everything.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.