Big Asian Energy

Today is the last day to vote for Big Asian Energy in the listener choice awards!

We recently was nominated for the Signal Awards — one of the largest awards in podcasting— and I’m so grateful to be listed alongside so many incredible voices, especially as one of the only AAPI-focused podcasts on the list this year. We’re fully independent. In four years we’ve never taken a sponsor or done a paid promotion, so we’re here because of you.

Being a finalist also puts us in the running for the Listener’s Choice Award, so if you want to support this show (or AAPI podcasters in general):

VOTE HERE by Oct 15:
https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/genre/culture-belonging-inclusion

Best Of: The Luminaries

In honor of our nomination, we went back through the past few years of interviews to pull our favorite moments for our “Best Of” series.

In this second compilation, we celebrate The Luminaries: storytellers who turned their own journeys into something the rest of us can learn from.

• Vicky Nguyen, Emmy Award-winning NBC News correspondent, co-anchor of NBC News Daily, and author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Boat Baby
• Jane Chen, co-founder of Embrace, Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year (World Economic Forum), and author of Like a Wave We Break
• Jackie Kai Ellis, designer turned pastry chef, founder of Vancouver’s Beaucoup Bakery, and author of The Measure of My Powers

Listen to their full episodes here:
Vicky Nguyen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUi1TxxX_yM
Jane Chen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHWIoXlyito
Jackie Kai Ellis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEEDgEjhT7M

When we rise, we rise together.

🥳🎉 Excited to announce that Big Asian Energy just got named as a 2026 Signal Awards Finalist in the Culture, Belonging & Inclusion category! 

Signal Awards is one of the largest awards in podcasting, and I’m so excited to be listed amongst so many incredible voices– especially since we’re one of the only AAPI-focused podcasts to make it to the list in 2026. 

Being chosen as a finalist also puts us in the Listener's Choice awards, so if you want to support this show (or just AAPI podcasters in general): 

VOTE HERE by October 15: 

Https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2026/shows/genre/culture-belonging-inclusion 

Best of: The Visionaries
In honor of our nomination, we combed through the past few years of interviews and picked the best and most memorable moments in the show in our first ever “Best Of” episodes.

In our first compilation, we celebrate The Visionaries: AAPI founders who took big risks that paid off, who share their wisdom with us on the show. 

• Vicky Tsai, founder of Tatcha, 
• Sheila Lirio Marcelo, founder of Care.com and Co-Founder of The Asian American Foundation, 
• Dave Lu, founder of Hyphen Capital

Listen to their full episodes here:

Vicky Tsai: https://www.youtube.com/watcq9mHkYh?v=XXSN9

Sheila Lirio Marcelo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4SqByCqWMo

Dave Lu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56JyqD1cZOg

"You can believe that life happens to you. Or you can use your agency to believe that life happens for you." — Vincent Rodriguez III

A few years ago, in the middle of a rough breakup, I started watching a show on The CW called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. For the first time in my life I was watching an Asian man written as the love interest on network television. Hunky, sweet, genuinely funny, chased after by everyone on the show. A character who quietly undid almost every stereotype I'd grown up absorbing. In the show his name was Josh Chan. The actor is Vincent Rodriguez III, and I've been a fan since long before I ever imagined I'd get to sit across from him.

This one was a joy to record. Vinnie was the first Filipino love interest on a network TV show, and we get into what that actually felt like: the pride of it, and the weight of being "the first anything." But the conversation went to so many different places I didn't expect. It becomes about agency, the difference between believing life happens to you and deciding it happens for you. About getting diagnosed as neurodivergent in your late thirties and choosing to treat it as a strength instead of a flaw. 

Vincent grew up in Daly City, trained at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, and spent a decade on New York stages before booking Josh Chan. Since then he's become a voice-over force across video games and animated films, and now runs his own production company while coaching other artists, especially neurodivergent creatives, through a methodology he's building. He's also, for the record, one of the most open-hearted people I've had on the show.

• Discovering Crazy Ex-Girlfriend during a hard season, and why seeing an Asian male love interest on network TV landed the way it did
• Getting cast as Josh Chan, and how Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna leaned into Vincent's Filipino heritage instead of writing around it
• The pride and the pressure of being "the first anything," and what it does to you to be put on a pedestal
• The path from the Pacific Conservatory to a decade on New York stages to a network lead
• Getting diagnosed as neurodivergent during the pandemic, and reframing it from a "disorder" into a strength
• The FIG framework: failing well, and why the letter after failure is growth
• The work of forgiving the earlier version of yourself you've outgrown
• Building a production company and a coaching practice, and honoring his family's story and Filipino roots

"F is not the end of the alphabet. It's just the end of the grading system."

"You have to forgive the past version of yourself who embarrassed you, or who didn't live up to who you are now. No one can do that work for you."

"I've cast myself in the movie that is my life. I'm not auditioning for someone to give me a job. I can give myself a job."

Vincent's Work: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (The CW, 2015–2019) — streaming on Netflix Voice work in Mortal Kombat 1, Raya and the Last Dragon, Ne Zha II, and more

Follow Vincent: Instagram & TikTok — @vrodrigueziii Website — https://www.vrodrigueziii.com/

When we rise, we rise together.

"Travel builds the environment where your meaning finds you." — Dr. Calvin Sun

Dr. Calvin Sun is one of the youngest people who has traveled to every country on earth, an emergency medicine physician and clinical assistant professor in New York City, and the founder of The Monsoon Diaries, a blog-turned-travel-community that has brought everyday travelers to more than 190 countries and territories — including North Korea, Nauru, Greenland, and Antarctica. His memoir, The Monsoon Diaries, was published by HarperCollin. He was a front-line physician through the worst of COVID in New York City. 

Calvin Sun was nineteen the summer everything changed. His father died of a sudden heart attack, hours after they had an argument. Earlier that summer, his mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's. He walked out of the emergency room alone. The next morning he woke up with no idea what the next step was supposed to be, and in that fog he started asking the question that would shape the rest of his life: why am I doing any of this, and does it lead somewhere that matters?

If you grew up with the script of studying hard, picking something stable, becoming the doctor or the lawyer, you already know the quiet question underneath it: is there a version of my life that's actually mine? Calvin went back to medicine. But he came back having learned the difference between wanting something and, in his words, wanting the want, the convenient version you cling to because it's easy. 

• The summer everything changed: losing his father suddenly at nineteen and his mother's Parkinson's diagnosis in the same season
• Walking away from medical school, becoming a bartender, and the $650 plane ticket that sent him to Egypt
• "Is this a sign or a test?" — the question Calvin uses to read the moments that turn a life
• Why he says his purpose found him, not the other way around, and how travel built the conditions for it
• "You want the want": the difference between wanting something and wanting the convenience of it
• Coming back to medicine on his own terms, and why how he walked the path mattered more than the path itself
• Becoming, by his own count, one of the youngest people to reach nearly every country in the world while finishing med school and residency on time
• The kindness of strangers, and why he calls the United States the riskiest place he's ever traveled
• Working as a street medic during Black Lives Matter and the wave of anti-Asian hate, and what it costs to be the one who stays
• The COVID front lines: working 35 of his first 50 days, the moral injury that followed, and the excuses we make to run toward the fire

"Is this a sign or a test? And sometimes, if you're lucky, the answer is both."

"You want the want. That's a huge difference.”

"I dare you to be stronger than your excuses."

"I don't really see myself as saving lives. I just want to be there for someone on the worst day of their life. Saving lives is a bonus."

"It's not about what I signed up for, it's how I signed up for it."

Calvin's Work 

The Monsoon Diaries — monsoondiaries.com 

Calvin's site — calvindsun.com 

Instagram — @monsoondiaries 

The Monsoon Diaries (brand) — @themonsoondiaries

"Embrace your culture. You are not half — you are full. And even for my quarter babies: embrace your heritage. It's a beautiful thing." — Alex Chester-Iwata

In this episode, Alex Chester-Iwata, founder and CEO of Mixed Asian Media and founder of Mixed Asian Day, joins John to unpack the word that's been everywhere the last few weeks: "Wasian." The term has been around since the early 2000s, but it exploded all over again after Laufey, the Icelandic-Chinese, Grammy-winning musician, released her "Madwoman" music video and stacked the cast with mixed Asian stars like Heated Rivalry's Hudson Williams, Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu, and The Summer I Turned Pretty's Lola Tung. Suddenly everyone was talking about what it means to be mixed. Alex has been building the home for that conversation for nearly a decade.

What we cover:

• Why "Wasian" went viral again after Laufey's "Madwoman" video and why Alex, who is Japanese American and Jewish American, doesn't identify with the word.

• The problem with the term: it centers proximity to whiteness, plays into the model minority myth, and erases Blasian, Mexican-Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian mixed narratives.

• Her one-billboard message to the world: "Don't play into white media stereotypes. We don't have to make white Hollywood happy. We can tell our own stories."

• Losing a contracted lead-adjacent role on Even Stevens after being called "too exotic" — and the Mattel modeling shoots where she was told to open her eyes wider.

• Her time in Dream: the China doll styling, the body image pressure on a 13-year-old, and the first meal in 48 hours being at Diddy's restaurant.

• Why her Japanese American family never talked about internment — and how therapy, community, and The Artist's Way led her to found Hapa Mag.

• Why she rebranded Hapa Mag to Mixed Asian Media: the indigenous Hawaiian history of "hapa haole" and making space for South Asian community members.

• The belonging trap: why so many mixed Asians don't feel safe at AAPI Heritage Month events, and why questioning someone's identity — "do you even speak the language?" — comes from the same box-checking instinct as white media.

• What's next for Mixed Asian Media: the June 13 Pride celebration at Sour Mouse on the Lower East Side, social clubs in NYC and DC, and Mixed Asian Day this September in San Diego.

Alex Chester-Iwata & Mixed Asian Media: 

Website:https://mixedasianmedia.com 

Mixed Asian Media Instagram: @mixedasianmedia on Instagram 

Alex Chester-Iwata Instagram — @alexfchester on Instagram 

IN THE MIX: A Pride Celebration for the Mixed AANHPI LGBTQ+ Community — June 13, 8PM–12AM, Sour Mouse, Lower East Side, NYC (with Naarak, LIKHA Labs & Blasian March) — tickets: https://sickening.events/e/in-the-mix-a-pride-celebration-for-the-mixed-aanhp

When we rise, we rise together.

"We're moving into the post-swipe era — more intentional dating, less endless scrolling." — Quincy Yang

In this episode, Quincy Yang, CEO of Coffee Meets Bagel, joins John to talk about what's actually driving dating and relationships for Asian Americans right now. Coffee Meets Bagel was started in 2012 by three Korean American sisters who thought swiping was broken, famously turned down a $30 million offer on Shark Tank, and within two years had become a platform where Asian American and Pacific Islander daters made up about half of all users. The first platform that was essentially built for us, by us.

Quincy and John get into the company's recent survey for Asian American Heritage Month, where nine in ten AAPI daters said culture matters in a relationship, and roughly 70% said food is part of how they express and receive love — about twice the rate of non-Asian daters. They talk about the OkCupid finding that haunted a generation of Asian men, and why Quincy says the numbers on his own platform are flipped. And they get honest about the harder stuff: more than half of API daters have felt culturally misunderstood by a partner, and one in three has ended a relationship because of it.

The throughline is something most of us already feel in our bodies after a long night of swiping: the swipe era trained us to keep one thumb on "next," and it's quietly burning everyone out. Quincy makes the case for slowing down.

What we cover:

The infamous OkCupid study on Asian men in dating apps, and why Quincy says Coffee Meets Bagel's numbers tell the opposite story.

How AI is reshaping dating apps today, and why it can be helpful–or detrimental– depending on how you use it.

What really makes a profile work — how many photos you really need, how to write prompts, and why women spend far longer reading a profile than most men think.

Why many people feel "culturally misunderstood" in dating, and how it shapes relationships. 

Why "swipe fatigue" is real, and what the post-swipe era of more intentional dating actually looks like.

"Your users are your product" — how friction-by-design quietly made the app a home for Asian American daters.

The duality of growing up Asian American — the self inside the house and the self outside it — and how it shows up in who we date.

The book that changed Quincy’s views about himself, and why it helped change his views about his own identity. 

The one piece of advice he'd give his younger self about mentors, networking, and being an Asian "on paper" in a sea of resumes.

Links:

https://www.coffeemeetsbagel.com/press/88-of-aapi-daters-say-culture-matters-in-love-new-coffee-meets-bagel-study-finds

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coffee-meets-bagel-dating-app/id6502307144

When we rise, we rise together.

In this episode, two-time Emmy Award–winning journalist Dion Lim joins John to talk about her new book Amplify!: My Fight for Asian America — the first mainstream book on anti-Asian hate in the COVID era. Dion is the first Asian American woman to anchor primary weekday newscasts in three major American markets, a Gold House A100 honoree, and the defining national voice on anti-Asian hate during the pandemic, with reporting that reached millions through Good Morning America, Nightline, and 20/20.

Dion walks John through the moments that built the book: the anonymous Instagram DM in February 2020 that showed an elderly man being beaten in Bayview while collecting cans — and her realizing on the seventh replay that he looked like her father. The 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee, knocked to the ground on his morning walk, and the verdict that gave his killer no jail time. The on-air breakdown she had covering a mother who pulled down her shirt to show a heart monitor and said my heart is broken, I wish it was me who was killed instead of my son. The moment Dion realized she had millions of viewers but no one at home who could relate. And the leap she took to step away from a 20-year broadcast career to write this book.

Dion and John also talk about the cultural conditioning that makes "don't be a burden" feel like love, why stats are the best ammunition in a one-on-one conversation about race, the comeback for the next person who says it's just a joke, and why courage doesn't require a megaphone — sometimes it's a conversation with your kids.

Content note: this episode discusses anti-Asian violence and the mental health toll of reporting on it.

Notable Quotes:

"We are not silent like so many of us are conditioned to believe." — Dion Lim

"There's no playbook on how to cover anti-Asian hate. You don't learn about it in school." — Dion Lim

"Stats actually give you some ammunition. Even the most hard-nosed believers of one thing can't deny the numbers." — Dion Lim

"Courage does not have to be you grabbing a megaphone and starting a rally. Courage, for me, can be having a conversation with your child." — Dion Lim

Dion Lim Links: 

https://www.dionlim.com 

@DionLimTV on all platforms

In this episode, John takes the guest seat. From growing up as one of the only Asian kids in a predominantly white school to building a career around helping others reach inner mastery, John unpacks the journey that shaped the work he does today: the lonely teenager who read self-help books to learn how to make friends, the chameleon who built a popular persona to hide behind, and the Dark Night of the Soul moment in his sister's storage room that nearly ended his life. We also get into his first men's group breakthrough, the decade of inner work that followed across 19 different modalities, and why most of us are running our lives on pain avoidance without realizing it.

Notable Quotes:

"When you put on that mask and you get really good at putting on that mask, the longer you put it on, the more dangerous it becomes to take it off." — John Wang

"It is very easy for men to sacrifice themselves to help other men. It is very hard for men to accept help from other men. That's where the distrust comes from." — John Wang

"My confidence comes from the fact that I am really imperfect, and I'm really okay with it. You can walk into a room knowing who you are, knowing who you're not, knowing your flaws, and being okay with it." — John Wang

The Breakthrough Experience · June 26–28, 2026 · Vancouver

Want to explore your own deep dive and inner work in a transformational retreat designed specifically for Asian Americans? Breakthrough is three days of deep inner work co-led by John alongside Ami Park, Leo Xia, and Colin Pal — four facilitators who have spent years doing this work specifically with Asian Americans. A transformational weekend workshop for Asian Americans ready to break through in their relationships, in their identity, and in the patterns keeping them stuck. Find out more at breakthrough-experience.com.

Links:
Breakthrough Workshop: https://breakthrough-experience.com/

7 Patterns Quiz: https://www.bigasianenergy.com/7-patterns

Show notes: 

In this episode, John sits down with Dr. Sam Wang, Princeton neuroscience professor, founder of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, and Congressional candidate for New Jersey's 12th District. From growing up as the son of Chinese immigrants in the Midwest to eating a live cricket on CNN, Sam has never been the kind of scientist who stays in his lane. He took his research on gerrymandering all the way to the Supreme Court, helped dismantle New Jersey's corrupt County Line ballot system, and now he's running for Congress because he decided that wasn't enough.

In our conversation, Sam breaks down how gerrymandering actually works and why it's one of the biggest threats to fair elections in America right now. We get into the current attacks on scientific research funding and what that means for the next generation of Asian Americans trying to build careers in medicine and science. And we talk about why two thirds of Chinese Americans in his own district aren't affiliated with either major party, and what that tells us about where our community is headed politically.

Notable Quotes:

"Scientists discover things, but we also build things and we think of solutions. This is what scientists do." — Sam Wang

"In the last year and a half, there has been this strange thing that might have escaped some of your listeners, which is that there's this weird hostility to knowledge. And it makes it harder to develop drugs, harder to develop cures, and harder for young people to come up and be successful." — Sam Wang

"I want to make elections fairer for everyone. And that is a thing that's inside me that needs to get out." — Sam Wang

Sam Wang Links:

samfornj.org

samwang.substack.com

In this episode, John sits down with Katy Ho, author and founder of BAD ASIAN, a community and Substack dedicated to exploring what it means to push back against the expectations placed on Asian people in the diaspora. From growing up as a minority in a predominantly White city to building a platform around reclaiming identity on your own terms, Katy is a sharp, fearless voice on the intersections of race, gender, and cultural belonging.

In our conversation, Katy unpacks the three components of what it means to be a Bad Asian: from resisting the model minority myth, to challenging gender expectations placed on Asian men and women, to navigating parental and cultural expectations. We also get into the viral "I'm in a very Chinese time in my life" TikTok trend and what it reveals about how Asian culture is consumed and commodified in mainstream media.

Notable Quotes:

"There's such a long history of how colonialism and imperialism and white supremacy were created to put Asians in this place of being the model minority: of keeping our heads down, being quiet, and complying with the system. Being a Bad Asian is about rebelling against that." — Katy Ho

"Culture is about being part of a community and having a shared experience. You can't claim a culture for yourself. The culture has to claim you as its own." — Katy Ho

"I think the greatest thing we can do for our community right now is create spaces of deeper conversation: to be frank, to be direct, to be unpolished, to be raw." — Katy Ho

Katy Ho Links:

https://katyho.substack.com

https://www.instagram.com/katyho_