ASIAN AMERICA: THE KEN FONG PODCAST

Newton Cheng is the Director of Health + Performance at Google. He's a husband, a dad, and a champion powerlifter. From all appearances, he was doing great. Even better than great! But he was privately struggling with depression and burnout. It took his decision one day to take off his mask and openly talk about his struggles to set him on a course of getting better, but also pave the way for many other Googlers to step out of the ...

In this latest episode of The Two Ken's podcast series, Ken Kemp's regular guest Betsey Newenhuyse from Chicago joins us to talk about the ongoing need for regular groups of reliable, religious people, despite the burgeoning exodus from all forms of religion in America. Although unprecedented numbers of us no longer belong to a religious group or have zero-interest in every joining one, most of us haven't found viable alternatives ...

Writer and director Lisa Sanaye Dring's new play Kairos opens East West Players new season on April 4th. Because her play explores what can happen to a couple when there's a possibility of them living forever, we delve headlong into a captivating discussion of the significance of time, special moments, mortality, immortality, and even success and failure! To see the schedule and buy tickets to performances, go to www.eastwestplayer...

Back when Joseph Tseng graduated from college, he focused on making a living as a singer/songwriter/storyteller. But he soon discovered that that dream wasn't ready to become a reality. He put his music behind him and worked conventionally for years. But questions began to float to the surface of his awareness. About his identity as an Asian American. About the importance of being part of a close-knit community. About whether there...

Danna Okuyama left her career in high finance to become the founder and CEO of Urban Sandbox, a new modern-day pen pal app and safe space for students to connect, share, and grow with other like-minded peers from around the world, while learning from qualified educators. Students have a place to engage like other platforms, without the concerns of unregulated content, as parents have access to easily supervise activity and ensure s...

In this latest installment of The Two Kens series, podcasters Fong and Kemp see the decision by Alabama's Supreme Court to outlaw invitro fertizilation (IVF) as the latest and most blatant example of Christian Nationalists and members of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) to colonize America. They adhere to the historical falsehood that God created this country to be a Christian theocracy, where conservative white Christians use t...

This is probably stating the obvious, but there is more than one type of personality. Eric Gee has spent countless hours and many years perfecting a system of personality typing that is less rigid than the Meyers-Briggs system (MBTI) and also much easier to remember and grasp. Defining sixteen different 'animal' types and arranging them into four logical 'packs,' Eric consistently captures people's imaginations as he takes them dee...

Ever since she learned to drink alcohol in college, Brynn Evans had been embarassed by how red her face would turn, "a consequence of being half Chinese," she'd lament. Taking an antacid when she drank seemed to do the trick, but that eventually made her really sick. Thus began her decade-long journey to come up with a safe and healthy dietary supplement that would reduce or eliminate this alcohol-induced flush, and even mitigate s...

In this latest installment of The Two Kens series, friends and podcasters Ken Fong and Ken Kemp roll up their sleeves to have difficult conversations about three issues that involve borders or boundaries, i.e., immigration at the U.S. southern border, the war in the Gaza Strip that to a growing number of people--especially Millennials--is looking like the genocide of the Palestinian people, and whether heaven and hell are real, and...

With more than 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, 45% of Americans reporting no savings at all, and of the 55% who have retirement saving, over half report that they have less than $250,000. Given the a person making $40K/year will need to have saved $1M to have a dignified and comfortable retirement, it's clear that America is heading for a retirement crisis.

Ali Khawar is the U.S. Department of Labor's Principal Deputy Assist...

Music Will runs the largest nonprofit music program in the U.S. public school system. For more than 20 years they have provided teacher training, curriculum, resources, musical instruments, and equipment to restore and expand music education to more than 1.6 million students (K-12) and in over 6,000 public schools. Janice Polizzotto is Music Will's Chief Relationship Officer, bringing more than 25 years of experience working in bot...

Headwriter Eric Vue and Director Shinshin Yuder Tsai co-founded the Orange County (CA)-based Asian American sketch comedy troupe No MSG Added. In this hilarious episode, Ken prods them to explain the differences between improv and sketch comedy, and the challenges of recruiting a representative group of AANHPI comedians and writers to entertain and educate rooms full of diverse people about life as Asian Americans. www.nomsgadded.c...

Growing up in a family of matchmakers, you could say that Cassindy Chao was destined to become one, too! She eventually left the sterile confines of finance to pursue her passion: helping Asian Americans find that perfect match and true love! You'll be enthralled with the energetic back-and-forth between Cassindy and Ken as they compare notes gleaned from their many years spent guiding individuals through the maze of issues that ar...

Psychologist Dr. Gordon Nagayama Hall retired from academia a few years ago, but he's continuing to work to increase the percentage of AANHPIs who will seek help from mental health professionals. To this end, he is part of a team that has developed the Mind Boba problem-solving intervention app that is culturally adapted and created for Asian Americans! (Check out trifoia.com/mindboba on the Web, mind.boba on Instagram, and the Min...

In this year's last installment of the collaborative The Two Kens podcast series, Fong first updates Kemp on how his relationship is going with Doreen, his high school girlfriend from half a century ago, then coaxes Kemp to read his latest Substack essay entitled The Baby and the Bathwater: What Is the Baby?. The focus of Kemp's mental exercise is what's left after growing numbers of conservative Christians "deconstruct" their beli...

In 2022 Korean American Christian actor, writer, producer, and director Kenneth Chang teamed up with David Chan Lee to create the short horror film Refuse, in which a down and out Korean American Christian young man is fighting the demon of meth addiction, while his mother's KA church views him as a demon. You'll learn about how great horror films are able to depict not just the battle between good and evil, but spiritual battles b...

My guest this episode is a proven leader who's a great example of the power of unconventional thinking. Jim Fong was an executive vice president and chief commercial officer for CTI Biopharma. This summer a Swedish pharmaceutical giant plunked down nearly $2 billion US dollars to acquire this startup, but as you're about to learn, almost no one in the industry predicted that this would happen. Jim and his team were given the near-i...

UC Santa Barbara English Professor Dr. Yunte Huang recently published the final book in his "Rendezvous With American History" trilogy. Following the ones about the real and fictional detective Charlie Chan and the unbelievable one about the Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker, Huang has now researched and written a thoroughgoing book about Hollywood's first Asian American movie star Anna May Wong. How did the daughter of a laundrym...