Pei Pals with Pei

Jonathan is an unassuming guy, but hs is also impossible to not notice.

A 6’3 handsome MFer in Bangkok tends to turn heads. But also, I noticed his shirts and hats. I figured out that they were about his own brand - and I can usually tell because I also make my own shirts! 

But the thing you notice next besides Jonathan is the way he interacts, collects, and analyzes in conversation. It’s the type of stuff where you can just tell that someone is completely intent on engaging with the world. As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living.

I met Jonathan at Soho House in Bangkok and he’s a former Team USA Track and field athlete, competing in the high jump, a business coach, and new nomad. As it turns out, being recruited to be on a Netflix reality dating show (take a guess which one), which was the kickstart for him to step out of the world of sport, and explore the actual world using Soho House locations as a compass. This guy is going places - both literally and figuratively. 

We talk about sacrifice, the benefits of 'coachability' in life and relationships, the concept of luck and the absence of control, the US culture of respect (or lack thereof), and Gen Z dating dynamics. Thanks, Jonathan!

Juan is one of my pals from Taiwan, and I knew of him before I met him because I had been using his website for months beforehand! He's the founder of taiwannutrition.com, and in more recent years, the founder of trueterral.com with his wife Sylvia. He’s been in Taiwan since his university days and speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.

Like most of my pals, his work is certainly the least interesting part of him. How about his two year forbidden and secret relationship with his wife when they first met? Or the poster he saw when he was 8 that influenced his entire relationship schema for life? Or how he plans to give his daughter a cultural attachment to Panama and Spanish?

This is my favorite type of conversation because it is inspiring… in the sense that i am inspired to action in a few ways. Journaling, better gut health, new longevity thoughts… it’s like a mini Andrew Huberman episode here. And I guess that’s because above all things, Juan is a tinkerer, and never really settles. He is the growth mindset in hombre form.

In this episode, we talk about how to instill curiosity and increase input in a person, the defensive nature of Panamanian society, the upcoming role of pickleball in his marriage, and he puts me in my place about gut health and sleep habits. 

Mel is what I would call a boomerang. The way I define it is growing up somewhere, going somewhere else, and then ultimately returning to that first place for… reasons. Perhaps belonging, or a lack of belonging. 

Mel is also a twinkie, which also requires a definition. A twinkie is someone who is Asian on the outside, but white on the inside. But Mel is also originally from Singapore, so hes got another yellow layer inside there.

Like many of my friends, I first met Mel on the dance floor. We danced, felt each other’s bodies, connected physically, and left with only a nod and lingering eye contact. A true one dance stand. And then about half a year later, I ended up at his rooftop for other dance related reasons and we had our first conversation.

Mel is one of my friends that feels the most like home, because we have west coast origins and have gone through similar paths and struggles to get to where we are now.

In this episode, we have a very wide range discussion on our life paths, the inflection points that made us who we are, the role of self-loathing and spite in shaping our goals, and both of our criminal histories. Thanks, Mel!

The picture doesn't match the name, does it?

Reina is a pal that, when we first met, we didn’t talk at all. That's because she is a dance friend from Tokyo, and we met on the dance floor at a of the Latin dance festival in Tokyo.

Reina immediately stood out because of her a... rms. It sounds strange, but if I see someone that’s obviously into fitness, I can guess with a high degree of accuracy the things that we probably have in common. One of my theories about people is that they tend to come in packages, or sets of values that come together more often than not. And so, Reina is a dancer, learns languages, works for herself, is a future digital nomad in Europe - some similarities here for sure. 

In this episode, we talk about all of those things, in addition to: the adulterous nature of Japanese marriages, how she certainly doesn’t fit the checklist for a typical Japanese man, how to contextually know if a Japanese person is rejecting you, and we pick up a few interesting Japanese phrases along the way. Thanks, Reina!

In this episode, I interview my pal Lisa. I also occasionally just call her hair; just take a look at the picture.

I met Lisa at a dance festival in Chiang Mai, but it wasn’t until I moved to Bangkok that we became good friends, and even dance co-teachers. Her first words to me were “I’m not a bitch, I swear!” so it was obvious that this friendship was going to blossom. When I first moved to Thailand, I had a list of goals, for example find a social circle, find a Thai tutor, etc. One of the other goals was to organize bachata events and possibly teach in Bangkok, and we completely bonded over that similar ambition because we moved here around the same time.

Lisa teaches dance and is a personal trainer, which means she spends her entire life in yoga pants. Mark my words, she will probably be one of the most well known dancers in Asia in a couple of years.

Lisa is a golden retriever. That means she is relentlessly positive, cheerful, and sweet to everyone she meets, and we discuss why that’s a double-edged sword sometimes in her life. We also talk about red flags in dating, the fancy new words she learned from her past relationship, beauty standards in asia, and the unique dance scene in Thailand. Thanks, Lisa! 

In this episode, I interview my pal Henry. 

Henry is actually a childhood friend. There’s something about people who you have known for 30 years, give or take. I guess they become a sort of family as well. We grew up together, went to school together, became Boy Scouts and then Eagle Scouts together, and tried to figure out how to look and dress cool as as teenager together. Spoiler alert: long bangs were NOT the answer.

Henry is one of the most superlative people I know, because no matter what you can think of, he lives by extremes and contrarian views. For instance, refusing to eat broccoli for years, staying awake for 96 hours just to prove a point, and not wearing more than a t-shirt and shorts in 40-degree (f) weather. We discuss why.

Henry is in the middle of an "Eat Pray Love" phase of his life, I finally convinced him to visit Bangkok, and experience a bit of life outside of the US. in a former life, he was one of the founders of a gaming startup that got acqui-hired and software engineer.

In this episode, we talk about why he thinks he is a combination of Ewan McGregor and Kevin Costner, how his avoidance of expectation has shaped his life, why his favorite word right now is ABIDE, and his ongoing exploration of disposable friendships and conversations.

In this episode, I interview my pal Daniel. Our friendship actually spans a few years and a few countries. I believe we were based in Budapest around the same time years ago, and then we met and became close when we were both in Taipei for the entirety of Covid. He moved to Bangkok around the same time as I did, and it was quite comforting to have a good friend already here, like a Jewish security blanket. 

Daniel is one of the most authentic, fearless, and earnest people I know. He is 100% himself at every moment, and doesn’t seem to care how it will come off or what you will think. He has the ability to be a combination of honest, insightful, and vulnerable pretty much on any topic. 

Daniel runs an email marketing agency, and originally hails from Israel where he claims to have been a Mossad agent. He also used to be a photography teacher, and besides me, is the person i know that is most focused on optimizing their life.

In this episode, we of course talk about life optimization and biohacking for peak performance, our therapy experiences, the benefits we both get from being neurotic, and the importance of emotional and sensual intelligence in a partner.

In this episode, I talked with my pal Aaron. He's not only a cool guy, but he's also my Bangkok shepherd because. I'll often have the experience of telling him “so this weird thing just happened…” and he will confirm that it is indeed a thing here.

We actually have quite a lot in common, starting from our corporate backgrounds, ending up in Asia to focus on lifestyle, and cutting weight while battling the seductive allure of donuts and cake.

Aaron is a productivity and systems expert that helps companies and executives improve their performance. There’s another parallel here because I hired someone almost exactly like him a few years ago and it completely changed my life. 

In this episode, we have a pretty wide ranging talk about Thai politics and staying out of the international spotlight, the prominence of mommy and daddy issues in Asia, how to make effective snap judgments on people, and the major benefits of living in a place where you look like the majority.

In this episode, I interviewed my pal Jaszmine. She's a new friend, but you wouldn't know it from the deep and private things that we talk about for everyone to hear.

And that's because with most people, conversation is just an exchange of information. But other times, it is a sharing and discussion of beliefs, thoughts, and emotions.

She’s a yoga teacher, cafe owner, meditation expert, crossfitter, and she possesses some of the most amazing shoulders you’ll ever see. She’s about to open her own yoga studio in Bangkok, and like another guest on this podcast, she also has a discount animal named Kuma…. This time a cat, and this cat is also an influencer.

In this episode, we talk about the failings of education in Asia, how we learned to feel emotions, our relational traumas, and our biggest lessons from the mistakes we’ve made.

In this episode, I interview my pal Yu-Jiang. I've known him for about 10 years, back from when we were both living in SF. We've both since moved on - him to Seattle, and me abroad since 2016.

What fascinates me about him is that he is the consummate tech guy, with UCLA, Apple, and Snapchat. You'd expect his life to be essentially a straight line to the purgatory of tech middle management and unrealized stock options, but somehow he's veered from that path.

He took a job selling study guides door-to-door in Maryland the summer after his freshman year of college. He quit his cushy job at Apple to travel the world for 8 months. He's a tinkerer and life optimizer. He recently bought 16 of the same t-shirt. He bought a pomeranian on discount. He manually tracks every single dollar he spends.

Most of those things I can highly relate to.

In this episode, we talk about his absolute unit of a pomeranian and how it has brought his family together, the wealth disparity in Asia, what he does from 7-9am every single day, and why Khao San Road represents failure for both of us.