Hi there, you are listening to pei pals and today I am interviewing someone I’ve known for 39 years, quite literally my longest lasting pal, my mom. 

So welcome to a special episode of the podcast—one that’s a little different and a lot more personal. Today, I’m sitting down with my mom for our first-ever recorded conversation.

We’ve never really done this before—just the two of us, talking about her life, our family, and things we’ve never said out loud. It’s truly astonishing the things we never discuss with our parents because we just take it for granted. 

In this conversation, I get to learn more about who she was before she became “Mom”—her upbringing, the challenges she faced, the things she felt but didn’t always show.

There are stories I’ve never heard, emotions we’ve tiptoed around, and some real moments of reflection. It’s been eye-opening and surprisingly grounding to hear her perspective, especially on things I thought I already understood.

This episode is a chance to slow down and connect—to look past the everyday roles we play and just see each other as people. I hope it sparks something for you too—maybe a conversation you’ve been meaning to have with someone important in your life.

So here it is—me, learning more about my mom than I ever expected, and appreciating her in a whole new way. Thanks Mom.

Hi there, you’re listening to Pei Pals, and today I’m interviewing my friend Davis.

Davis, for lack of a better word, is an alien. And I mean that with affection—truly, in the most positive way possible. I later discovered that whatever I I was feeling is the feeling of being in the presence of a future billionaire. They're just built different.

I met Davis over Korean BBQ a few years ago when I was based in Taipei, and as I mentioned—it was instant confusion. Is this guy for real? Is his brain composed of TSMC processors, and his heart a humming motherboard?

But I quickly learned he’s one of the most caring, considerate, and generous people I’ve ever met. And the more you learn about him, the more it all makes sense. He’s a true onion in that respect—layer after layer, but at the center, a chewy, gooey, golden nugget.

Who else do you know who set going to Harvard as a goal when he was six—while basically living in poverty, with occasional blackouts from unpaid electric bills? Or who gave to charity and supported his entire family with his very first paychecks out of university?

Actually, Davis is the person who inspired me to start giving more to charity, which eventually led to the creation of my nonprofit Baan Books (Thai for House of Books) and everything that followed.

We don’t talk about work much, because if you know me, you know I usually find that the least interesting part of most people. Let’s just say this: Davis is determined to make an impact, change lives, and inspire—and he’s already doing all of that, very successfully.

Thanks, Davis!

Kanae, or Kanae-chan as I usually refer to her, just happens to be one of Japan’s most well-known Latin dancers. But to me what stands out more is how that happened, and that's all about her mindset and approach to dance.

We met at a dance festival in Tokyo - actually she had a solo performance, and I managed to work up the nuts to ask her for a dance. It turned out that we have a lot in common, which is something you’ll occasionally find in dance.

People have hobbies such as dance for many reasons - some to just have fun, some to socialize, some to be active and get out of the house. For me, one of the primary reasons is to challenge myself and create a feeling of self-growth, since it comes with a pretty large learning curve. In other words, you'll get people with ambitious and somewhat obsessive personalities (guilty) and Kanae-chan is similar here.

Her other big passion is self-growth and self-love. Again, not surprising since they are all related to ambition and drive in some way.

We’ve got a short episode here with Ms. Sunshine. We talk about green and red flags in people, the specific affirmations she’s used to feel happier in her life, the somewhat enclosed box that is Japanese culture, and what the future holds for her in terms of life coaching.

Sugoi ne, Kanae-chan

Take one listen to this guy’s voice. He just sounds like a singer, doesn’t he?

Bondipity, or Bond as I call him, is a singer based in Bangkok. He'ss what you’d call a gigging musician, in that he performs everywhere around town, from hotels, to lounges, to clubs, to bars.

But like all performers, the onstage persona and the real him have some real differences. What you see is not necessarily what you get.

Bond grew up in Bangkok, but plot twist - went to study music at a bible school in the midwest of the US of all places. There he picked up one version of his English accent, made friends, made enemies, and had his first brush with the law. Upon moving back to Bangkok, he decided to embark on his lifelong dream of becoming a musician. 

I met Bond through mutual friends. Though Bangok has 12-15 million people depending on who you ask, there are small bubbles of expats and people who have lived abroad that share similar more western values and culture contexts. To illustrate, we met, and then the next week, I went to a cafe, and it just happened to be the cafe where Bond worked in his corporate-ish day job.

I loved this deep dive into the artist's mind. Of course we talk about his musical process, the plans for his upcoming album, and who his musical influences are. Then we go a layer deeper into the mind of Bondipity, chatting about his family background, the normal human thirst for validation, his life coach, and the big moments that made him really, really, really want to become a father in the future. Thanks, Bond!

This is a different type of episode, because even though Arie and I are friends, we wanted this conversation to be more educational. That’s because Arie just so happens to be one of the world’s best known experts on something called BDD, which stands for body dysmorphic disorder. It’s quite different from body dysmorphia, and just because you are obsessed with going to the gym or social media, doesn’t mean you have it. 

He’s been leading his field for over 20 years, and I can confirm this because I found interviews of him on Youtube from when he still had a full head of hair. He’s been on Doctor Phil, he’s published a few books, he has patients worldwide, and he is sought out by media constantly. So instead of my being the armchair psychologist, why not leave it to the professionals!

Other than BDD, we talk about a huge range of psychological topics, starting with him diagnosing me with something called “insecure overachievement” and I must say… guilty as charged. 

We also discuss his concept of vitamin Nurture and the influence on childhood attachments and security, what emotional validation looks like, the frustration of dealing with narcissists, and how we use mirror neurons in everyday life. Basically, the underpinnings of why people do what they do. Thanks Arie!

I met Giang when I was in Vietnam for a friend's wedding. In fact, I ended up being this friend’s best man at his wedding, which I discovered only 1-2 days beforehand. Thank you my Finnish brother.

I remember the first time I met her, she would continually ask me "why" and "tell me more" and "and then"? It made me slightly defensive. After getting to know her better, I realized that its just her insatiable curiosity taking over. When she first met me, I do believe I offended her because she thought I was being critical. After getting to know me better, she realized that it’s just my habit of observing the world out loud without attaching a judgment to it. And now we're friends.

Gaing has been around the world more than me, speaks more languages than me, has started more businesses than me, has danced longer than me, and owns a cat named cat. She’s hard to put in a nutshell, because if you told her that, she would probably say “Hey, it’s really cramped in this nutshell, can i be somewhere else?” 

Another thing she’s better than me at is meditation, and i actually catch her right after she does a 10-day meditation retreat in the middle of Thailand.

This conversation goes deep – on family of origin and complex Asian family dynamics, using tragedy as the most powerful motivator ever, the consequences/benefits of attending 12-ish schools in her life, and her relationship with God as a 5-year old. Thanks Giang!

Darren was my Chinese tutor when I was living in Taipei. But that means that it was a bit one-sided, in that he would ask me questions, and I would do the bulk of the talking because it was about me practicing. Here I even the scales and interview him.

Darren is what I would call a blue-collar auteur. Translation: he actually produces films and documentaries in Taiwan, but intentionally takes on so-called blue collar jobs in order to have a different range of experiences to draw upon for his films. Last I recall is that he was just living with a tribe of aboriginals in the mountains, doing who knows what. Prior to that, he was working as a cook in a noodle restaurant.

This conversation is actually nothing special, in the sense that we have these types of conversations each time we connect. It’s no surprise that for both of us, before sunrise is one of our favorite films. It’s one of the quintessential “talking films” which just means that it’s a two hour long conversation. And if you think about this podcast that I really love making, well you know that’s right up my alley.

In this episode, Darren has a therapeutic breakthrough and discovers how watching two divorces has impacted his relationships, we contrast life in different Asian mega cities, of course we talk about the emotional constipation of Asia, and why it’s so important to remain a romantic. Thanks Darren!

Jesse is not only my neighbor in bangkok, whenever he actually decides to live here, but he was one of the most influential people in my life last year. 

The way I met him is quite unique: I got sent a youtube link to a CNBC interview he did on being an expat in Bangkok. Basically I had a weird amount of information about him, from him, but not really from him personally. It made me feel a bit like stalker. 

Jesse originally hails from near Chicago, and like me, he ended up in Bangkok after a life nomadic punctuated by many other pitstops. It’s rare that I meet someone even higher on the non-normie scale than me, so this turns into a bit of a Q&A.

In this episode, we talk about: what this normie and non-normie scale is exactly, the benefits of shrug emoji parents, how to inject novelty into your everyday life, his ratio of internet friends, his Panama chapter, and the nomad versus expat life (and we clown my former guest and our mutual friend Mark Zhang a bit). Thanks Jesse!

My pal Mark returns, this time with a baby in tow!

It’s pretty great to be able to have a snapshot in time of someone’s life, before and after having a baby. You're welcome, Mark.

I’m realizing that is part of the appeal for recording these conversations for myself as well. They are moments and places in time that represent different phases in life, and the same exact type of intersections and relationships will never occur again. Damn, time is tough.

Let's consider this the fatherhood episode for the time being. As a reminder, Mark is the CEO of Manta Sleep, which produces the world’s greatest eye mask.

Among other things, we talk about: witnessing a childbirth, the life changing magic of the scheduled c-section, how to encourage out of the box thinking in kids, the fear-based nature of Asian families, his strange obsession with primal man and living like a caveman, being well rested because of his wife’s sacrifice, and the most religious moment of his life.

Thanks, Mark!

Once upon a time, I went to a co-working space in Taipei called the Hive, and that's where I met Jeff. It became immediately apparent that we had a lot in common, and we quickly built a ritual of talking about our shared perspectives over cheap sushi.

We talked about identity things, expat things, Taiwan things, exercise things… but in the end, we talked the most about two things: money, and life fulfillment. And this episode contains a lot of that.

Jeff is a BBC and has been living in Taipei for about a decade. Aside from people who have paid me money as an employee, he might be the person who has made me the most money in my life.

In this episode, we talk about the pursuit of ego in various phases of life, wanting to decapitate himself and replace his head with a white kid’s head, his adventures in therapy and self-identity, and why he thinks rock climbing is the perfect and most challenging sport.

Thanks, Jeff!