This past week, I published an article addressing the cultural insensitivities of Queer Eye Japan. Lots of learnings and also four key lessons to share with you.   In this episode, we cover:

• Feedback from the show
• Following Western advice all of my life as a queer Asian man
• Why Western ideologies don’t work for Asians
• Embracing the edits
• Doubting myself before publishing the article
• Why all of our intersections and identities matter
• Why it’s important to focus on the good

  Resources: My Culture is Not Your Toy: A Gay Japanese Man’s Perspective on Queer Eye Japan Netflix’s ‘Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!’ highlights a big problem with mainstream LGBTQ advocacy   You can follow me at: Instagram (instagram.com/stevenwakabayashi) Weekly Newsletter (mindfulmoments.substack.com) Facebook (facebook.com/stevenwakabayashi) Twitter (twitter.com/wakuu) YouTube (youtube.com/stevenwakabayashi)   So much love for you and I’ll talk to you later. Bye! ♥️

Many of my Asian friends and I have experienced parenting in the form of helicopter parenting or Asian guilt to motivate us. After decades of conditioning, this becomes ingrained as a part of our psyche.   And to be honest, for me, I’m still navigating and figuring out whenever I make a decision if I am being true to my heart center or doing it out of Asian guilt. “I have to do this to be a good Asian son”.   In this episode, we cover:

• My story of how I defied being a doctor

• Being compassionate with my family and their expectations

• Finding a career that my family doesn’t understand

• Filial piety and impact on us

• Compensatory strategies of being gay

• Is it wrong to defy parental expectations

• Why not following our truth has health consequences

• Tips on how to manage parental expectations

• What are the top 5 regrets of dying patients


  Resources:

• Gabor Mate - When the Body Says No, The Cost of Hidden Stress
• Bronnie Ware - Regrets of the Dying

  You can follow me at: Instagram (instagram.com/stevenwakabayashi) Weekly Newsletter (mindfulmoments.substack.com) Facebook (facebook.com/stevenwakabayashi) Twitter (twitter.com/wakuu) YouTube (youtube.com/stevenwakabayashi)   So much love for you and I’ll talk to you later. Bye! ♥️

Yellow Fever!! Exoticism, objectification, and fetishizing of the yellow skin. I've dealt with this so much myself and wanted to share my perspective on this topic. It’s prevalent everywhere and every single Asian I’ve known has faced this in dating and especially interracial relationships.     This episode, we cover:

• The background of the word fetish
• Origins of yellow fever
• Whether or not fetishism is a problem or not
• My experience dating rice queens
• Racial fetishism on dating apps
• If it’s just a preference, is it okay?
• Prioritizing our values and what we’re looking for
• Advice on managing with rice queens and racial fetishism

  References:

• Grindr’s 2018 “0 Tolerance Policy"

  You can follow me at: Instagram (instagram.com/stevenwakabayashi) Weekly Newsletter (mindfulmoments.substack.com) Facebook (facebook.com/stevenwakabayashi) Twitter (twitter.com/wakuu) YouTube (youtube.com/stevenwakabayashi)   So much love for you and I’ll talk to you later. Bye! ♥️

This week, we had three major cases got up against the Supreme Court regarding discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity.   We go in detail about:

• The three cases and why they are so important for queer rights.
• My experiences with discrimination in job applications and in my previous workplace.
• What is the most impactful discrimination for minorities.
• Why gossip and venting are not useful for us.
• Why we want to recruit our aggressors as allies.
• The first key question to ask any aggression.
• External resources for legal employment support.

  Resources:

• NELA.org
• AVOO.org
• https://www.eeoc.gov/employees/charge.cfm

  If you have any topics you’d love to hear covered, you can email me at [email protected].   So much love for you and I’ll talk to you later. Bye! ♥️   You can follow me at: Instagram (instagram.com/stevenwakabayashi) YouTube (youtube.com/stevenwakabayashi) Weekly Newsletter (mindfulmoments.substack.com)

Last week, Jonathan Van Ness, star of Queer Eye, came out with his memoir and an interview with NY Times about life managing HIV, sexual abuse, and drug addiction. They are all pressing issues in the queer community and in this episode, we dive into drugs.   Whether we like to admit it or not, drugs are all around us. They are at parties, festivals, and even the bars we frequent. Both legal and illegal drugs are being used and abused and for us to build a more mature relationship with it - it is to talk about them openly.   In this episode, we cover:

• Why are drugs prevalent in gay and Asian culture?
• History of drug use in gay culture
• Prevalence of drugs on gay dating apps
• Chemsex culture
• Drawing the line between personal responsibility and encouragement
• The G epidemic in gay culture
• A look into drug consumption worldwide
• The opioid epidemic in the US
• Drug laws and regulations across Asia
• Impact of drug liberalization
• How to manage drug culture when it is around us

LGBTQIA Resources:

• LGBTQIA Youth Talkline (ages 23 and under)
• • 1-800-96-YOUTH
  • Mon–Sat, 9.30 pm–12 am EST
  • Tue, 7 pm–12 am EST
• Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Youth Hotline (ages 23 and under)
• • 1.800.773.5540
  • Mon–Fri, 12 pm–8 pm EST
• Gay and Lesbian National Hotline
• • 1-888-843-4564
  • Mon–Fri, 4 pm–12 am EST
• Trans Lifeline
• • https://www.translifeline.org/
  • 1-877-565-8860

National Hotlines:

• SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357), (also known as the Treatment Referral Routing Service) or TTY: 1-800-487-4889 is a confidential, free, 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year, information service, in English and Spanish, for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders. This service provides referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups, and community-based organizations. Callers can also order free publications and other information.

• Trevor Suicide Prevention Line
• • 1-800-850-8078
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• • HIV/AIDS/STD Line
  • 1-800-342-2437
• HIV/AIDS Treatment Info Services
• • 1-800-448-0440
  • TDD: 1-888-480-3739
  • Mon–Fri, 12 pm–5 pm EST
• Covenant House’s Nine Line (a crisis line for youth and their families)
• • 1-800-999-9999
• National Runaway Switchboard
• • 1-800-231-6946
• National Youth Crisis Hotline
• • 1-800-HIT-HOME
• Alcohol and Drug Abuse Hotline
• • 1-800-821-4357
• Alcohol Hotline
• • 1-800-252-6465
• Drug Abuse Hotline
• • 1-800-888-9383

Show References:

• Thesis on “Eggplant and Peaches: Understanding Emoji Use on Grindr”
• Grindr finally deletes capital T due to concern over promoting meth
• UN’s 2018 World Drug Report
• Department of Human and Health Service Opioid Statistics
• CDC’s opioid statistics
• CNN’s investigative journalism covering drug trafficking in Myanmar
• United Nation’s Office on Drugs & Crime 2017 survey
• VOA News - Myanmar largest producer of opium
• Human Right Watch on Philippine’s “War on Drugs"
• Kotaku - Japan’s strictness on drugs
• JapanTimes - drug abuse & long-term care
• Paper on Emerging Risks of New Types of Drug Addiction in Japan
• US Embassy - Drug laws of Japan
• Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research
• Paper on drug liberalization
• Institute on Behavior and Health on drug liberalization

If you have any topics you’d love to hear covered, you can email me at [email protected].   So much love for you and I’ll talk to you later. Ciao. ♥️   You can follow me at:

• Instagram (instagram.com/stevenwakabayashi)
• YouTube (youtube.com/stevenwakabayashi)
• Weekly Newsletter (mindfulmoments.substack.com)

Superficial: The narrow focus on surface-level attributes, like appearance, status, wealth, and career over things that are more internal like morals, values, and ethics.   This episode, we cover:

• 3 golden rules of Asian households
• Superficiality in Asian culture and potential causes
• Generational trauma
• Racism, colorism, and body-shaming in Asian and gay advertisements
• Plastic surgery in Korea
• Purikura machines in Japan
• Augmented reality apps in China
• Gay-dating apps
• Dangers of circuit parties (gay "raves")
• Performance enhancers
• And a whole lot more

  How to combat superficial culture

1. Understand it: ask yourself what are you ultimately looking for?
2. Reframe it: you are in control of how you perceive yourself
3. Change your environment: read books, watch videos, listen to podcasts to expand your thinking
4. Call it out: call out authority figures when permitted

  References:

• Racist Chinese detergent commercial
• 2017 ISAPS global survey on plastic surgery
• Meitu
• BeautyCam
• Camera360
• Sephora Virtual Artist
• Grindr May 2016 homepage
• Tara Brach - Radical Acceptance
• Dalai Lama - The Art of Happiness
• Robert Greene - Laws of Human Nature

  You can follow me at: Instagram (instagram.com/stevenwakabayashi) YouTube (youtube.com/stevenwakabayashi) Weekly Newsletter (mindfulmoments.substack.com)

We’re on the second episode!   This week, we dive INTO it with my stories of growing up Asian and gay in America, the feelings of not good enough perpetuated by people and society, and how to overcome it with some insights and compassion.   I go into detail about:

• Growing up as a 2nd generation immigrant child in the white suburbs of West Covina
• Being friends with other westernized Asians
• My traumatic experiences with my Asian heritage in school
• Navigating life knowing more English than my mom in elementary school
• Statistics of bilingual languages in America
• Why being bilingual is pretty amazing
• Examples of early integration of foreign languages in other countries
• Same-sex partnerships in Asia
• Getting caught looking at gay porn
• Trying to commit suicide during high school
• Distancing myself from my Asian heritage in college
• Coming out in college
• Dating rice queens
• How to work through the feelings of not enough-ness
• Overcoming blame

  I’d love to hear from you and you can send me your thoughts via email at [email protected].   So much love for you and I’ll talk to you later. Ciao. ♥️   References from the show:

• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend sings West Covina
• 2017 US Census of Bilingual Languages

  You can follow me at: Instagram (instagram.com/stevenwakabayashi) YouTube (youtube.com/stevenwakabayashi) Weekly Newsletter (mindfulmoments.substack.com)

Welcome to Yellow Glitter! Mindfulness through the eyes & soul of a queer Asian. Every episode, I share with you what’s on my mind, things I'm be struggling with and how I'm working through it to live a more mindful, fabulous life!   For my first episode, I share what inspired me to do this podcast. I talk about my health, the meditation journey around the world that set the premise, and thoughts on the current mindfulness movement and space as it pertains to Asian and queer experiences.   Hope you enjoy and hope your day can be a little bit more mindful! xo   Things talked about on this show: Jim Kwik Marie Kondo Darren Main (Inspire Within Podcast) Yoga at Grace Cathedral   You can follow me at: Instagram (instagram.com/stevenwakabayashi) YouTube (youtube.com/stevenwakabayashi) Weekly Newsletter (mindfulmoments.substack.com)