OFF THE WOK

How does one go from a 9 to 5 to tattooing full time? Al Chu (@alchutattoos) of Flipside Tattoos knows, and he gets into details of how he (with a little bit of luck) got into the business. Drawing has always been in him since he was young, it just never registered as a potential profession until much later in his life. Al chats about how his training started, the type of art he specializes in, what clients should do when getting their first tattoo, and more, and along the way he sprinkles in some awesome tattoo stories too. It's always great to see someone turn their hobby into a profession and for all those potential artists out there looking to become tattoo artists, Al's also got some advice as well!

CGI is everywhere in film nowadays, and it's something a lot of us take for granted when we watch movies. But there's a huge team responsible for making these amazing scenes/effects/creatures come to life and it's something we're having a chat about today with Cobol Yu, a VFX designer who works in Vancouver. He shares his knowledge and experience in the industry as he has worked on films like The Justice League, Terminator, Spiderman, and most recently, Godzilla vs. Kong. Next time you watch a movie, make sure to watch the end credits as there's a lot more than the actors that make it up!

To check out more of Cobol's artwork, check out http://www.artstation.com/cobolyu

We are always looking to share other people's experiences with us! If you'd like to be a guest on our show, email us at [email protected] and let us know! Give us a follow at offthewokpodcast on Instagram so you don't miss out on any new episodes! Thank you and we appreciate you wok'ing with us.

A random topic that came about while we were waiting for Ken to show up to a meeting (he was late again) got us thinking, is Asian lateness a thing? It's something that we've heard of and been guilty of before but is it actually a thing? To help us with that conversation is Cristabel Tan (@xtabelll on Insta), she's from Malaysia and over there, they have what's known as "running on Malaysian time" which I'm sure she will be able to dive deeper into. Get ready for some funny stories as we all try to figure out whether we running on "Malaysian time" or just "Asian time" in general!

We are always looking to share other people's experiences with us! If you'd like to be a guest on our show, email us at [email protected] and let us know! Give us a follow at offthewokpodcast on Instagram so you don't miss out on any new episodes! Thank you and we appreciate you wok'ing with us.

PS:  Check out our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/offthewok, being a patron gives you access to our "After Hours" bonus content!

Happy Pride Month! We have an especially great episode for you as we are joined by Ricky from his podcast The Gay Narratives (IG @gaynarratives). Ricky shares his story of growing up gay in an Asian family along with his internal feelings, emotions, and uncertainties associated with it. Ricky provides his narrative on when he found out he was gay, how and when he came out to his family, his reaction to the discovery of the larger gay community, how he met his partner, and much much more. For those of us who have never been in his shoes, this is a must-listen!

Picture yourself running with a tiny one-person sled just so you can jump on it and start sliding down a frozen track at speeds of up to 120km/h...head first, that's Skeleton. A sport that's particularly rare in terms of membership, Jon Chu (@chu_jonny on Instagram) is one of a handful of people who have participated and trained for it. He goes into how he got started and dives into the particulars of the sport. Coming from an Asian family, where culturally, academics is preferred over sports, he also talks about how he managed to balance out his parents' expectations versus what he wanted. Join us as we get a chance to learn more about this exciting and awesome niche sport! If you'd like to learn more about Skeleton and even give it a try, you can check out the following website:

Because it's a subject that's often taboo to talk about. Whether it be society's norms, the media, or just an old way of thinking, men are somehow led to believe that it's not okay to talk about their feelings or emotions, that it shows weakness and shouldn't be discussed, even among close friends. The problem is that it's not healthy and if left unchecked, it can lead to potentially serious consequences later. Luckily, for those who don't know where to turn to, there are organizations that can help, one example is Kings of Hearts, a non-profit co-founded by Andy Nguyen. Andy gives men a safe space to talk and be vulnerable with their feelings, to get stuff out of their minds and not be judged. Join us as we have a chat about men's mental health.

Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) is a non-profit organization that dedicates itself to providing one-to-one mentoring relationships between adult volunteers and youths. One of the oldest and largest youth mentoring organizations in the US, it operates in all states and 13 countries around the world. Today, we focus on one member within the Calgary chapter, Henry Luong, who has been with the organization for over 10 years. Henry tells us how he started with BBBS, and shares his knowledge on how the matching process works, the activities he does with his matches, the length of time it takes to mentor, the successes and difficulties, and why he has stayed with the organization for so long. He also gives insight to anybody interested in joining BBBS. For those who do want more information, you can check out bbbs.org. Individual cities may have their own dedicated websites as well.

So today we got ourselves our first joint episode with Jason and David, hosts of their podcast Behind the Business. We are going to be talking about the "behind the scenes" for our podcasts because there is a ton of stuff that goes on in the background before a final product gets pushed out. We get into editing, finding guests, platforms used to broadcast, mics, editing software, social media, costs, time, and a whole lot more. It's going to be especially helpful for some of our listeners out there who might want to start a podcast but also want to know what they're gonna get into. If you wanna see some of the hardware we use on our podcast, you can check them out at kit.co/offthewok.

Our conversation today takes us into how we were disciplined growing up versus how we discipline our kids today. Joining us in our chat are Giselle and Harlene, co-hosts of their Hard as a Mother podcast. Being mothers themselves, they share stories about the ways they were disciplined and the "tactics" that were used, and how ultimately it affected their relationship with their parents. Learning from their past, they relate it to how they discipline their kids now and show us that there really is no right formula. All kids respond differently and that the point of discipline is not to instill fear in the child.

We had such a fun time talking about our life hacks growing up (for those who don't know, it was episode 10) that we decided to do a second episode on it! This one's the web edition version where we chat about internet hacks we do to save ourselves a little money. Joining us again is Johnny, who's got a couple of tricks up his sleeve he's gonna share (if you haven't listened to him before, check out episode 19). Take a listen and share with us any hacks you might know!

If you'd like to check out Johnny's Twitch and the games he's currently playing, you can find him at www.twitch.tv/jonnie5.

We are always looking to share other people's experiences with us! If you'd like to be a guest on our show, email us at [email protected] and let us know! Give us a follow at offthewokpodcast on Instagram so you don't miss out on any new episodes! Thank you and we appreciate you wok'ing with us.

PS: If you enjoy our episodes, please consider supporting us at ko-fi.com/offthewok, every little bit counts to keep the lights on and to continue providing you with great and awesome material!