If you're Asian and you go to a Thai restaurant and you only get Pad Thai, shame on you, right?  Yes. And you're not even doing the work to understand other groups that are not your own. All right, everybody, what you're about to watch is a full length podcast with the worst Asian podcast, Ling Jie and Ben. And we talk about a lot of things, everything from our food opinions, doing comedy, moving to New York City. So definitely watch it. If you wanna get to know us better, hit that like button and also subscribe to their podcast because it's really, really funny. Shout out to all the Queens Asians. Welcome to the worst Asian podcast where a couple Asian-American millennials give you our opinions on all things Asian. My name's Ling Jie. I'm here with my co-host as per usual, Ben. Hey, Ben, what's up, dude? For the one time, the one time that we went outdoors to do an interview, I didn't have to chug around the giant light that we normally bring around. Yeah, it's also weird, like, we're not using headphones this time. We're not using headphones. Only I'm using headphones. And there's actually a great view behind us. But much better than my usual living room. You look like you're working for CNN right now. Do I? Yeah. No, why are you looking over there? I'm looking at your earpiece, man. Oh, my earpiece? I'll have to look out the window and everything. No, no, no, no. Okay, let's get right into it. Our guests today, guests plural. You guys know them. If you're in the Asian-American community, if you've watched YouTube for a while, like I did back when I was a kid in high school and like college and everything, these guests right now, you guys know them for sure.   Yes, I almost said very carefully, very carefully. They're like, from the OGs of YouTube, let's bring them onto the podcast, the Fung Bros, AKA David and Andrew Fung. Thank you for having us, man. I appreciate it. I'm so happy to be on the worst Asian podcast. And I love the name because it shows so much of that Asian humility, because you guys didn't want to call it the best Asian podcast. I'm calling it show humility and be humble. It's very confusion.  You got to set the bar very low. You set the expectations really low.  It's not as bad as you would normally think it is. No expectations whatsoever. If this fails, it's like, okay. And I love that it's like all the New York based podcast collabing, you know what I mean? Because right now in LA, all the LA podcasts are collabing and stuff like that. So it's cool to see, you know, not that it's, you know, a competition or anything like that. But it kind of is. We used to live out in LA. Kind of is. You guys have only been here for a couple of years, but I like to say you guys are honorary New Yorkers by now. Do you guys feel are you are you able to hand that pass out to us? The rest of the card be like, yeah, I'm from China.  You know what? Thank you. It's been five years, five years or so. Five years is probably not enough, I would say. Feels longer than that, actually. Feel like I'm moving in and out of New York. You know what I'd like to say is that I feel like we've been impactful or effective in New York for several years. But yeah, I mean, we we we still travel a lot. We still go back and forth. Seattle, everything. I love New York. Well, you guys based out of like, where were you guys originally when you were kids? West Coast, right? Yeah, we grew up in South Seattle, Kent, Washington. And then we moved to LA after college after going to UW. And then we lived in LA in 626, San Gabriel Valley. Spent a year in K-town, though. Yeah, we did. Spent a year in K-town. That was our first year in LA. You're in downtown LA. We got mistaken for Korean so much. Actually, yeah, Andrew, you look very Korean. Who's going to say the same shit? I am. Andrew looks much more Korean. I am a Korean passing. Yeah, so I was I was I felt safe. Yeah, I got turned down by a lot of Korean girls, though. Really? Being like, are you Korean? I'll be like, no, I'm Chinese.  And then they walk away.   It's OK. This is before Korean girls started dating Chinese guys. I feel like the last five years, I noticed a lot more Korean girls dating Chinese guys. Is this a personal experience? Just, yeah. Got them. I'd say, but five years prior. It was like, I plead the fifth. It was only the other way around. So don't it's not unfair now. You guys you guys been been getting Chinese girls for like for a while now. You're going to keep your score. But I'm saying let's not keep score. I'm saying Korean girls are open. Korean girls are open to getting with Chinese guys the last five years.  Chinese boys are nice. I don't know how you guys have treated them over on that side. Come on. I'm not at liberty to speak on the stories that I heard. But I just heard some things, man. Oh, damn. Well, it was nice. Also, like just like chilling in K-Town. Yeah.    Yeah, I was. No, we would always be at Buddha. Yeah, Buddha will be a lot. Shout out to Buddha. I remember Ben had some baddies at Buddha, man. Yo, Ben used to pull up to Buddha with some baddies, man. Guys, chill, chill, chill. I was going to focus. That's on the record.  Oh, man. Big Benny. Damn. So do you guys feel New Yorkers? Do you feel like a real New Yorker yet? Personally speaking, besides me giving you the card. Oh, right. We could do personal. I don't know if we feel different about it. We're different people, by the way. I never really looked at it that way, but I always felt like, you know, growing up in Seattle, it snows. It is a little bit different from the rest of the West Coast. Everybody's favorite rapper in South Seattle was Nas. Oh, really? That's not a common West Coast dancer for everybody to love Nas. Yeah, I'm actually surprised by that. Everybody knows Nas is good, but like. Yeah, but that area. Because you got to think Seattle's very rainy and rainy. Like people listen to Primo Beats and stuff. It's kind of very, at least in the urban scene in Seattle, it is very. Boom Bappy. It is. It's very boom Bappy. It could be very Bayer influenced too, depending on if you're more from Tacoma, but like. Well, it just is very boom Bappy. So I think that when you have that boom Bap background. Yeah. It's a pretty easy transition. Long story short, I feel like I'm not going to say I'm a New Yorker and give myself that title. I don't think I'm who care. I'm not in charge of that. But I don't feel out of place here when I walk around and I look at things about the neighborhood and the different cultures and the different enclaves and different things going around. That's stuff I've been exposed to for a very long time and whether it was through media or being physically here. So I feel like, I feel like I can move.  No, no. Like I still know everything that they say. There's nothing that's like, oh, what does that word mean? I feel like I can have a conversation with locals of every group here. I was gonna say, you guys sound like you're from New York, like born and raised in New Yorkers, to be honest. Can I tell you one thing though? There's a funny story. We're in Brooklyn several years ago getting to grab a slice of pizza, this big Italian guy. And this is the first time I had heard this phrase. Yeah, Vinny said it. So we go, oh, can we get a pepperoni slice? And this was like seven, eight years ago. And he goes, stay and go. And I'm like, what? Stay and go. Yeah. And I'm like, and at that moment I felt like a Chinese immigrant. Cause I was like, are you speaking? Is that Italian? What do you think? Can you write it? Can you write it down? He's like, let me slow it down. Those are the moments that remind me I'm not from here cause I'll still get tripped up. Two questions. Which PS did you go to? I can't, 142? I just make it up. And then that's the one question I get tripped up on. This is just an area code. And then the other one is stay or go. If I get tripped up by that, sometimes I'll be like, I lost my card for the day. I'm not, cause I got tripped up by something that a native New Yorker would never get tripped up by. PS is a native New Yorker thing. I think we just think it's like a regular site. But I didn't know that. We would never say PS- Bro, you know the first time I heard a PS because this is- I think a PlayStation too. But they didn't rap about it in like, Jay-Z doesn't talk about PS, right? Yeah, he doesn't. But the first time I heard about it was Hey Arnold. Really? Yeah. They went to a PS public school? Yeah.  And then I was like PS, what is PS? I'm gonna start using that. That's my new public school. No, if you guys have a PS, that's like super legit. Like, you know. By the way, what Andrew was saying before, don't explain it. Listeners, if you can guess what the person was trying to say to him when he was ordering a pizza, stay and go. Okay, we're not gonna explain this. I mean, to you and me- Most people will get it. To our ears, we can hear it right away, right? I guess the first time that you heard it, that must have been like a bit confusing or whatnot. Like please write it down. One other thing I have to say, we used to break dance. And no way. Like for real break dance. And so it's like- Did you just babble? Not officially. Not an official battle. I wasn't that good. Performed. I could do flares and windmills. Talent show. I probably could still do it.  The one where you just stand up with your legs? Turtle? Freezes and stuff like that. Poses, yeah. We used to do the tabletop. We used to do it. So when you are just doing a- And you know, Jay Park is from Seattle. There's a huge B-Boy scene in Seattle. And they keep it super true school in Seattle. Like, it's almost like just the up rock and the down rock, anything. Anyway, basically it's very elemental hip hop. People are still in a turntablism. So it's almost like it maintains this like 1993- The old school kind of vibe. Old school New York vibe. And that's still the type of hip hop we have in Seattle. Like to this day. Like a lot of hip Seattle rappers are still kind of boom bap-y. Like there's the modern style that is doing like trap- But it's not popular. The boom bap is definitive of the classic Seattle rapper. I guess is what I'd say from my era. I think so, but the only way that you guys said Nas was like a lot of rappers from Seattle's inspiration. So I wouldn't- Yeah, cause I think it's just rainy and it's introspective and it's intellectual. Last thing about the Seattle area, in my opinion, there's not- There's a lot of different accents around. So you don't have one single accent. So some people kind of talk like they're from the East Coast, like New York. Some people talk like they're more from the Bay or LA. And then there's the people who kind of have like the neutral accent. But there's a little bit of everything.  Because Seattle's basically the last major American city to be developed. Because so far, West and up. Yeah, and if you look at the way things develop in America, it's the last major economy in America to be developed.  That's why they say Seattle like Mariners or Seahawks fans are fair weather fans. Because like, when it's like established like Philly, one of the 13 original colonies, people like, they'll ride or die for the team. As you grew up with that team, yeah. For like your 10 generations back, Seattle's like nobody really been to Seahawks. Like even your dad, you probably not even from Seattle. You know what I mean? Like you came from an industry or whatever. Yeah, we love sports so much. We let the Sonics go. That's how much we... Oh, damn. I'm just kidding. People forget about that. I know some of my Seattle friends will be like... Do you still heard about that? All this discussion... I actually still heard. I can see on the streets like, damn. All this discussion to say that I feel like, I feel like New York really shows us a lot of love and we try to contribute to that too. And not just like consume it, but like actually add something to the pot. Do you add more than you take away from the city? I think that is a question and I think about it all the time actually. And I think that not only do I like New York because New York embraces me, but I feel like I'm effective here. And I feel like that I can move in. I feel like that New York understands what we do better than any other place that I've been in. I wish I felt like that. You guys are more New York than me. That's what I think. Ben feels like the city doesn't want him at all. I feel like I'm a negative at this point. No, that's good. Cause like we were talking off air before, how maybe you had like hypothetical thoughts about possibly in the next five years, maybe if things went the right way, you would sell down here. So like that's always a good sign that you've come to the city.  So that's always good. Yeah, maybe my kid goes to a PS. Yeah, yeah. Ah, I don't know. All right, just to bring it back a little bit, right? I want to talk about like those first early days of YouTube because now it's a little bit different. If you ask like a lot of young people now, Gen Z, whoever, what they want to do when they grow up, like content creator, YouTuber that's up there, like top tier, right? TikToker. Yeah, TikToker, content creator, whatever. Like somehow that's like a job that they want. I want to pop up with the iPhone and ask people ratchet questions on the street. Oh, people with the mics on the street. Yeah, that's exactly what they want to do. How many bodies you got? I want to be a high influencer that gets flown out to places. That's a lot of dreams is I want to be a, I want to get sponsored. But like back in your day, when YouTube was like just a new thing, when you guys went into YouTube, were you doing it for fun? What did you actually think you would like turn into what's it been like a 10, 15 year career so far? I thought we'd be even bigger about now to be honest. That's how ambitious I went into it. Even back in the day when you first started? No, for sure. So we didn't like, we're not natively YouTube guys. Like we were doing stand-up comedy, music performance, like very live performance type people were thinking about, I was thinking about acting and stuff like that. But we had done a little bit of YouTube in Seattle, but when we got to LA and we knew those guys and we had networked with like Wong Fu and those guys are all a lot of good guys, a lot of nice guys, shout out to Wong Fu, AJ Raphael, those guys. Then, and we're like, oh, this is a career and we see Kev Jamba doing it, you know? And we're like, okay, so people are doing, this is another platform that we don't have to wait for the industry to pick us up. We create our own content and it is a career. It is true that we saw it as a career too, but we also saw it as a way to express our creative. Cause we had already been doing stand-up in Seattle and Russell Peters had already popped off on like, you know, Napster and Morpheus and all that. That Canadian special authority gone viral at that time, but we just knew that nobody wanted to watch Asians that looked like they were like 16 years old on a comedy stage. Cause I knew that because I was doing open mics and people would say racist stuff when they were bringing us up. Or like racial, maybe it's not racist.  How am I going to rise up this system? And obviously some people did and they did well for themselves. Other people didn't. But like, I was like, let's just go with this self-produced independent route. You know what I mean? YouTube was that, you know, potential right there. Yeah, because everybody from California, not everybody was Ryan Higa's from Hawaii. Kev Jumbo was from Houston, but like for the most part, everybody was from California. So we were the Seattle guys who came down. Okay. And your parents never had any pushback about this. Cause the plus side is you guys have like an older sister. So she has a more conventional career. There was, I think at first they saw it as a phase. They saw it as like us going, cause we had just finished college though. They kind of saw it as like us going to grad school. In a way that they were like, oh, three years. Okay, come back and get a good job. And then it's funny, even when we had started making a decent living and we were well into it like six, seven years in. We were lucky in the sense that we popped like within a year and a half of moving. You know what I mean? Like we had like newspaper articles, write ups, radio interviews. But you better believe my dad did ask literally seven years in like, hey, do you guys want to go to law school? Maybe if you guys start about it.  You write a dissertation on the entertainment industry. It will make for a very compelling material to the academic council. You're at one point, you're so successful in this. I hope your dad really does. In this hospital, you know. These are my dad things. He's like, write the dissertation and then maybe after they see your paper, maybe they want to make a film. I'm like that. That's not how it works. And you guys never wanted to like follow that though. Like there was never one point back then that you thought, hey, maybe I should do a more conventional job. Like this was always where it was. Because I assume at some point, it was like a roller coaster, right? It was a very bumpy road.  There has to be like some down times when you guys even had a like small thought. Maybe you thought it was a phase or something. Honestly, it's just, no. I think so. There's been times where we thought when we were in LA living that we were going to be a little bit more industry. Like we were going to do more auditions going to, I got a commercial agent for a minute. Yeah. A big commercial agent. There were some really big people. Okay. Shout out to not them. You can say that. Shout out to not them. I forgot the name. I even forgot it was a while ago. We were signed with a big agency at one point with a really big, and this is like not even as a group. Me and my fumbos were signed to a really big thing. So we thought we were going to, we had a TV show for a second on FYI. FYI, which converted into Vice Land, but now was like back as FYI now, but like digital only. Oh, I didn't know that. I don't even know the fragments. Love at First Sight was another show on there. Amber Rose had a show on there. Yeah, but long story short, it's like, no, I still love the independent style. I love saying what I want to say. And I think I feel more convicted now in 2024 to say things that I was never going to get a show to say. You know what I mean? Anytime we've been asked to do a pilot, it's usually like essentially like a goofy food show. Okay. You know, sometimes they're a little bit more hardcore substantial content. Sometimes it's a little bit more on the silly side, but it's always in that direction. But what if you want to be a thought leader? And what if you want to say what you want to say about what's happening in the world and talk about the topics you want to talk about? Especially more like free speech and stuff like that. The last thing I want to do is feel constricted in the topics that I can approach. Yeah, I'm just trying to exercise my first amendment. Yeah. God bless America. Because that's like the main thing about a lot of Asians, right? Like you could say that whether they're holding their tongue or they don't have anything to say to begin with, it's a combination, right? It's different. It's a variance depending on who you're talking about. That's the situation, right? Nobody ever says anything.  What I like being in New York is and having friends out here and being productive out here is that it makes me feel better and that I'm a little bit free. Cause when you're in LA, there is a pressure to be industry. Cause if you're not somehow getting auditions and on your way to some larger network or system picking you up, you feel a little guilty. And that's what I didn't like about. That's one aspect I didn't like about being in LA. But now in New York- Oh, they get invited to Unforgettable Gala. Oh, and then once you get the Asian award, oh, I didn't get invited to Golden Globes. I didn't get invited to this. Like LA is kind of like when they say like, oh, my people will talk to your people. It really does feel like- A little bit artificial kind of. And if you're not official in LA, then you feel bad. But I'm like, I'm in New York and there's real things. I can get up on stage here. We run a comedy show. We got really good friends. Shout out to Ronnie Chang. He's a big comedian and you know, we're friends with him and there's just, I'm friends with a lot of other comedians. So it's like, now I'm like, oh, this is nice. This is, I like this too. Like I don't need those systems. Yeah, just to backtrack that. I think a lot of people, even if they've watched their content for a while, kind of forget the point where at some point, you guys did have that show on FYI, right? It was like a travel show. That was like in the first three and a half years. You guys traveled around like the US. You did like different things, but that is almost counter what YouTube is because YouTube is free expression. You're allowed to do exactly what you do. You're allowed to mold it in the way that you see fit. Whether your opinions are dumb, stupid, whatever, you're putting yourself behind that opinion, right? But when you do like these larger network big network contracts, those shows, you guys were binded, right? Yeah. Oh, for sure. There's contracts. I remember one time we were in Denver and they're like, oh, say this white chef's ramen is the best ramen you've ever had, this like smoked brisket ramen. And I told them, I said, I'm not going to say it. You're not going to get me to say it.  Really? They're all you guys are being non-compliant.  And I was just like, dude. Can I ask, was it actually good though or? It's okay. It doesn't taste like ramen though. It wasn't the best ramen we ever had. That sounds the thing too. I was like, imagine you guys are like, this is actually pretty good. He wanted you to say that line word for word just so that for the sake of the show, it made it look like she wanted us to say it. It probably came from the top down. Let's be honest. I mean, if you guys know about how they book these shows, oftentimes there's somebody, there's even another agreement with a restaurant group behind the scenes. So you're going to like seven spots and you're like why is the soap all the same in all these seven spots? It's actually all tied in with one restaurant group. I mean, after filming a lot of food videos ourselves, I understand why people do that because it's easier. Like sometimes you'll get paid to come go for us to check out a restaurant, right? Versus us gotta pay them. But essentially through the hospitality group, if they make it easy for them to come in and film because sometimes they can't get the clearance to go get the mom and pop.  That's true. But I'll tell you this, shout out to that show because I experienced things in that show. I don't know when else I would have. We're in Charleston, South Carolina. We're in a kitchen of a dude, old dude who doesn't want us there because he didn't know the hosts were Asians and he didn't know a lot of the crew was black. No, that would have been a really interesting. From New York. The DP is Barbaden. He's from Barbados. Everybody's from Brooklyn. Everybody's from Brooklyn. Like they're black, right? And then the other DP is Korean and then we're Chinese, we're Asian.  And then he's grumbling and we're like trying to film and put on a spot. Are you trying to ask some questions? People lying?  Guy Ferry was gonna pop up. And then he's looking like back to Wong Fu shows up and then he's just like, I don't know what's going on. You know, he's tripping out. It was like Vietnam. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy also on camera with the A&E cameras on him says the war of Northern aggression. He literally calls it the war of Northern aggression. Obviously it got put on the cutting room. Yeah, of course. You gotta take that out. Still we're like in an interview, I was like, oh, what? We got the ADR, that one. I'm not like to dump on Charleston as an entire city but like it's a charming place. It's an experience. But that obviously Charleston has a history. All right, we all know.  But long story short, just to wrap up this particular segment, it's like, yeah, a lot of people on YouTube, they don't know about that side of that show because first of all, the network, the cable TV world and YouTube are already super different. But we weren't allowed to talk about the, promote the show on our channel. And once the show came out and the edits came out, we were so in a way, like, I don't want to say a shame but not super proud of it to the point where we didn't hyper-promote it either. Oh. You know what I mean? Even though at that point you could have, but you didn't feel as proud of the work because it was so different than what you had visualized when you were actually filming, right? We could have played it better. And I remember how much fighting we were with them. We could have played nicer and been more cooperative. But I don't think that we gave up a career on TV. Do you think there was a part of it where, because this was like not in the last five years or so, where it's maybe a little bit easier for someone that looks like us to get a show like that, but back when you had the show, it would have been very unique. So you felt maybe subconsciously, and it's just a question that you needed to do what they wanted as a stepping stone to hopefully something bigger. To a limited extent, yes, but we were fighting them the whole way through. They said just everything about that show. I mean, maybe do we need to do it exactly how we did it? That's just how I was feeling at that time. And essentially, I think I have a more refined version of my opinions about representing Asians in a mainstream world, in the Western world, but it's essentially driven by the same core. I might be more refined or polished in my approach. Back then, we're like going crazy, but it's like, but... I think you have to understand at that time, our YouTube channel is pop too. So our YouTube channel is going well, and then we take time off to do the show, but then the show structure is completely different from YouTube. So then that's why, again, if we got the opportunity again, I think we would play it a little differently, but we'd still stand on what we did. Instead of just going to Asian restaurants on YouTube in the South, I probably would have showed people the local food. It'd be crazy if you guys actually went back to the same guy and he's like, yo, my bag, yo, I'm so sorry.  I don't think so. I think he's pretty... He's pretty out of... He was there on January 6th. That was probably... I want to say...  Anyways, it's all good. It's... Everybody learns something from all that. Right, exactly. And hopefully... I'm grateful for the opportunity. Made you a better person, you know? Also, just want to say thank you. To travel America is awesome. Yeah, just also thank you for inviting us for the Vining Chain thing. That was really cool, you know? I think he thought of security at one point. Oh, you mean for the last show? Yeah. I want to say thank you for that. I'm pretty convinced.   I was pretty stiff in the middle.  Yeah. Sure. Ronny, this way. Alright, this way, sir. David, that's cute. Yeah, I think David asked me. That's funny. Alright, how long has it been that you've been on YouTube? Is it 15 years? No, it's 10. It's been 10 years or so? Oh, that's a lot, man. It's like, ah, it's just 10. It's 10. I mean... 10 strong years. Yeah, it's different, man. Wang Fu... I think I'm going to say Tim DeLaGhetto, they're 15. Oh, wow. We came in five years later. We're probably still part of that first gen, but we caught the very, very, very tail end of that. So, yeah, I mean, it's been cool to see how much... I guess it's changed a lot in a way that I didn't anticipate. But one thing I learned is that like, as far as mainstream penetration, it's just going to move however it moves. Like, no amount of YouTube buzz is really going to change that. Like, you know what I mean? Like, no amount of Asians right now that are going super viral, asking people funny questions on an iPhone is really going to make them the next host of America. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, how many bodies do you got? Yeah. How many bodies? And then that's every question. There's part of the reason why sometimes people complain that it's too easy to start making content because things are cheap now, mics are cheap. We're holding four mics right now. It's probably like extra cheap. And you just need your phone as a camera. We were talking about that before. I want to say that every generation says this about the next generation. And I am saying it. I'm acknowledging that people said that about YouTube. A bunch of film directors were like, what are these kids on YouTube making movies? Wong Fu? What do they think they know about film? Blah, blah, blah. Everybody says it. And then now I'm like, yo, man, it's too easy to make content. No, you just have the hype. We're becoming like the old NBA players. The little iPhone Bluetooth? You know, there's real low quality. You can get it off 25 or whatever. Like no, nothing. Privacy is out the window. Yeah, forget it. Oh, you don't want it up. Remember, though, you can always make a claim if you don't want to be in a video. If someone finds you on TikTok, you can talk about that again. Like it was harder to actually produce stuff strictly for YouTube. Yes. YouTube is higher barriers. But social media is right now, especially TikTok, Reels on Instagram, maybe even shorts on YouTube, whatnot. It's it's easier to produce. But at the same time, the virality of it is a lot more, right? So what I'm trying to say is like, I think the cream always rises to the top. But in the world that it is right now with TikTok, it rises faster because let's say a talented person back that maybe would have taken like lots of videos, lots of effort before they, you know, popped and blew up, right? I think the cream still rises to the top, but it's so much faster. And I think it dissipates faster, too. Yes, yes, yes. It rises faster, but it dissipates faster, too. There's more views to go around.  But a lot of people will be like, Oh yeah, I saw that. You know what I mean? It doesn't mean as much. You don't connect with the creator. That's why like people who are famous in the 90s, like they're going to be famous like forever because they were famous at a time where there wasn't that many famous people. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like just the amount. A different amount of avenues of becoming famous. Dude, you will remember like people from the breakfast club, that movie. Yeah. Like Emilio Estevez and so. Tom Cruise is still the biggest. Tom Cruise is still a star. He's like 60. Yeah. Yeah. So doing his own stunts and what not. Jackie Chan will still have theater releases in America and he's 60 like pre-cell phone people are like cemented in Mount Rushmore. Yeah. That's a good point. But you know, like I think the way that it is right now it does bring like some creators that maybe, let's say they didn't have the effort to do the whole YouTube long format content kind of thing. But they're still able to do TikTok and still come to the top like, what's her face? Bella porch? Bella porch, right? Yeah. She went viral first on. I mean, let's be honest. I'm gonna be honest. She's super talented. Some people are gonna take this the wrong way.  You're like Embiid on offense. You could do whatever you want. You want to take a long range, mid range, short range, whatever you got.  That's what they do. You are the Joelle Embiid of optionality in terms of monetization on online income. Just for the record, Bella porch, she is a hot girl. She's a hot girl. And she's talented. I'm saying if you want to go clean, you can. If you want to go edgy, you can. Or adult with OF and things like that. And everything in between. You want to be on whatever podcast, just talking about hot girls playing rich guys or whatever, you have that. You know what I mean? You got every single option like Embiid. So it's too bad. You guys aren't the funk sisters or something, right? No. That would make things a lot easier right now. You know it's funny because we are two Asian guys and shout out to everybody who's ever watched the video because they watched two Asian guys do something. Yes. Two Asian guys. Not one. And not two like model Asian guys. No tattoos, no colored hair, no contact lenses. I think we're decent looking, but not like, we're not modeled here. So we're not like. Never dressed up as, you know. Something crazy. Never dressed up crazy. Never dressed up. Didn't put on the dress. Listen, we didn't. Honestly, we didn't. I'm not even saying that that's the standard of anything but it's true. We don't cuss really. Not really. Not on our stuff. We might cuss on this podcast. New Yorkers don't say cuss. That's weird. I've never heard a New Yorker say cuss. Oh, what is it? I just cursed or swear, right? Yeah. Yeah. We don't swear. We don't talk crazy. We're still going. We're still relevant. So I think I do take pride in that. That's good.  You can always go dirty if you want. You can always dirty it up. Easy.  Let's talk about that because I think you guys have semi-pivoted on your content a little bit. You were doing like a lot of skits, sketch comedy, things that I would like when you first started, right? Obviously the food was always there. That's always a banger and you're still doing some of that right now. But for instance, Andrew, you're doing some stand-up comedy in real life, which is people think it's semi-adjacent to what you're doing. But stand-up comedy, it's its own creature. You can be good at everything else, but that is uniquely difficult. Yeah, it is. To be very good at it, it is very time-consuming. So I'm not going to tell people that I'm trying to be the next Ronnie Chang or anything like that. I don't even think I have the ability to be. But I think it's very gratifying. It's very fun. And it's something that we do have the muscles for. It's something different about just being on stage, right? There's something different. Just being able to speak whatever's on your mind. You can go more raw. People see your intentions better. When you say something on YouTube or TikTok and you let it out in the world, people will feel a million different ways about it. But when you're in a comedy club, you're basically told, hey, guys, you are supposed to think this stuff is funny. And they are supposed to be joking. So take what they say with a grain of salt always. And I feel like a lot of the people in a stand-up crowd, I don't want to say, obviously, everybody, they're more like extroverted nerds. Whereas if you really think about your average internet consumer that is on a Reddit, on a YouTube, they're almost like an introverted nerd. Right. Do you see what I'm saying?  Oh, park it. To drink minimum. And you had a ticket price.  Asianology is the one drink minimum.  They're going to be going at you, how you look, who your date is. That's a whole 99% of the YouTube watchers do not want to be front row at the comedy cellar. No, you're outside. Especially at the cellar. Yeah, at the cellar. Yeah, you're right about that. No, you're outside. Like you have to, because I think a lot of the time in comments, people will express their emotions through the comment section. But in real life, they have to express it out loud. And they're with other people. The crowd is right there. Yeah, and you have a whole group of 100 other people that are trying to do it with you. And you feel it right there.  You get like, it's immediate right there. Dude, when you're by yourself and you're reading a comment, I can see how nerve-wracking it is. Because you feel, you see some type of content. Yeah. And you look around, no one to talk to, no one to express anything with. And then you're just like, ah! And it's just like, it's terrible. Yeah. Well, it's not terrible, but it's just natural. But it's different when you're on stage, it's like one of the few last ways of really expressing yourself, like real ways of just true expression. Shakespearean. Yeah, right? It's the oldest theater. Yeah, it's just theater. You know, so when you go up there and if a crowd does interact or heckle, you can make it back, too. You can play on the crowd. And now you can do something completely different there, too. No, it's just lost. You guys just sound comedy way back then. Yeah, way, way back. Like 15 years ago. We took a long break and then being in New York, it made it obviously very easy to do it. Comedy scene here is better than what's posted. Yeah, it is. People, man, I've never seen anything like it. People in New York love stand-up comedy. And they love smart comics, too. You can't just cut.  But it's like they you could mix it in there.  It's really cool that you guys are pretty like deep into that kind of scene. Like, you know, like a lot of great comics.  You want to talk about a show that you have every month? I'll just play. I mean, just Asianology. We have one coming up end of every month. A Fall of Fung Bros. January 30th, 7.30 p.m. at Sourmouses. The next one really funny. And just given Asian comedy, it's a little bit like a mix because it's like on the West Coast, they have this type of show like a lot. Asian comedy. Yeah, Asian comedy. In New York, there's less of it, right? Because there's but it's more common to see like maybe an Asian on a regular stand-up. Yeah. Like Bill or whatever. So it's almost like just wanted to get everybody together. Some people do more Asian style comedy at the show. Other people are just like, yo, I'm that weird, awkward type of like cadence comedy, but I just happen to be Asian. Yeah, right, right. Like different people have different, you know, styles. Some people are more like Joe Coy, other people are more like the other guy who don't want to. But I love it because the comedy club, and this is like the last thing I'll say, it's like when you're on stage together and you're sharing the stage at the same show, it's almost like everybody's united no matter what color, creed, identity, fringe identity. If you're this or that, it does. Like we're all comedians trying to make people laugh. And that's why nothing is taken too seriously, even if I might have some comedians who are not super woke and then I have very woke comedians on the same bill, but we're all Asian and we're just like, we understand, hey guys, we're all being like pro-Asian here and make people laugh. I noticed that in New York, like a woke comedian and an unwoke comedian are more willing, in my opinion, to be on the same billing. But in the West Coast, it would be more like we all got it. Like vegan comedians. Like they have woke Asian comedy shows and then they have like, but I'm like our show is just everything. Like I want it to be rush hour comedy. We cracking racial jokes with my black friend and then we're cracking Asian guy jokes, Asian girl jokes, everything. I mean, it's a sweeping generalization, but people are more okay with somebody who's with like an opposing viewpoint, right? You know what I mean? Here, cause everybody's so contentious here. People are very contentious. You know how like they're only like yelling and honking and you just got to deal with it? Like the other day I bumped into somebody super hard on the sidewalk and nobody said anything. We just kept it moving. You know what I mean? It reminded me of living in China. That's a New York thing. You know what I mean? Like, cause what are you gonna do? Like turn it into a whole thing. Like somewhere else in another place, I'm not even just saying whatever like LA, but like another place it's gonna turn into something. No, there's this interesting undertone of like, hey, keep it moving.  Nobody got to exchange infos in the club. I don't need to know your name. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for holding the subway door for me. It's like, no. You ever saw that video? It's like a biker. He's just like jetting it.  They're both cursing at each other. They crash.   He's like, I'll get it. And then he just walked away. And I was like, that's New York.  So guys, if you have never been to a live comedy show, it is a very unique experience. You know, like, it's not for everyone's taste, but you got to give it a shot because the vibes there, maybe it's part to do with the two drink minimum or something, but the vibes are definitely there. It is different. And it doesn't even matter if like the guy's doing well or if he's bombing. It's still always a good time. It's always a good time. Dude, you got to get outside and get around other people, man. I like to think of it as kind of like an Asian kid. I don't want to just say a community thing. I don't just do it for like the community aspect, but like, yes, come there and see other Asian, bring a date, whatever. I remember one of the first comedy shows I ever went to was Danger Field. How's that? It was a Rodney Danger Field. He had a club called Danger Field. That was a while ago. A long time. A long time. He's been gone for a while. RIP by when? And we were like in the first row, but it's like very intimate, you know, even as an audience member. Intimacy, man. It's very, very intimate. You can touch it. You can like grab their legs if you want. Technically.  And it was just like, it's crazy. It's just your voice. There's, you know, like surrounding the room. And it is definitely more of an intellectual, like humble thing though, because like my friends that are like super cool, you know what I mean? Like always trying to be like the coolest, like shades, like tattoo, like AP, Rolex. That's not the comedy crowd.   And oftentimes comics were like at some point in their life or throughout their life, outside it because that's what makes them a good comic is like that outcast identity. Different perspectives. Yes. So like is the whole comedy thing a way for you guys not to get burned out? Cause it's like a different channel, like a different branch.  It's an interesting way to look at it. I would say it's just like, man, we got a lot of muscles from our upbringing that we don't always get a flex on YouTube because YouTube wants a certain thing. The algorithm wants a certain thing. So if you have muscles that you never get a flex, they atrophy, right? But you spent your whole life building up those particular muscles is good to use them. Imagine if you were a volleyball player, you love jumping, right? But all of a sudden you discover you're super good at tennis. In tennis, you don't really jump that often, right? There's a lot of lateral stuff. Wouldn't you be like, I miss jumping? You know what I'm saying?  It was crazy. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? So it's like you're just looking for those avenues to still utilize like how you were built. And also it's to utilize what we've built in our platform, you know, like Smala, obviously it all runs together. Like I have a way to promote Smala. I have a way to promote Asianology. It's like we can activate people and you have to understand like what, like you have to look at what we've built. Like we have to look at what we built as like, it's what we built, but also a gift and a tool that we should continue to use. And we use for good and we use for projects that we think are interesting and beneficial to people. So it's like, yeah, like, I've promoted tons of brands on YouTube before. Why not promote our company? Yeah, exactly. Cause I think like when you're doing something new, that's exciting, right? That's always exciting to try something new. Whether or not you're actually going to succeed in there or like do well or bomb or whatever. Not every comedian can bring out 70 people a night. You know what I mean? So I'm like, I'm thankful for that. You know, I'm cool. How was the hot sauce experience? Cause that's, I guess that's food adjacent cause you guys do food commentary, but like how was it to produce a physical like tangible product? Cause you guys don't do like a lot of merch. No, we don't, we don't. And probably, probably should have looking back on it. But, you know, I think this is just a product that talks a lot about what we talk about on the channel. You know, mixing things up, knowing like the past and the history and the heritage, but still taking it to a new place. Cause that's what we talk a lot about being Asian. We always tell people to like, to be what I believe is going to be the most optimal like Asian identity in the West. You actually have to know everything about being Asian, know everything about being Western to like come up with it. I think a lot of people are feeling their way through the dark and it's like, if I was to just make it all metaphoric or whatever, but to my lies, like that's, you know, half Italian, half Chinese.  And it's something that people can use and make their life better, you know? I mean, we could sell T-shirts and I got a lot of friends that make great money off T-shirts, but if I don't have a good T-shirt design, I don't want to try to sell you something that you don't need. You don't need another T-shirt, probably. You don't. You don't. The world doesn't need another T-shirt. John, it's a Richie Lee collection. This is an amazing T-shirt. No, that's a dope T-shirt though. We're talking about some... This is the same brand from my friend, Richie Lee, but Smala is something that you can carry with you and you're like, you feel it, you taste it and I think that's an interesting experience. Because it's kind of like a mala buzz for people who don't want the one that's like super authentic. And it's fun, you see me, I can pour it on pizza. I'm like, hey, you want some? You want some? What can you do? It's good on mac and cheese, I said. You take the actual... Put it on jar. It's almost like if you actually put the full on Chinese chili oil, which I love on pizza, it doesn't fully taste right because it's not Western enough. Because the flakes kind of like throw it off a little bit. And you can obviously put Calabria and chili oil from Calabria on the pizza too, but this is adding a whole another Eastern element in there too. What was the hardest part about doing the whole hot sauce thing? Well, just keeping it going. Like, you know, we didn't make it yet. You know, we just sold our first batch. We're almost sold out of it. So please get yours. Dragon 15, if you want. Yeah, Dragon 15, not 15%. Plug away. Plug away, dude. It's almost like what now? Like, we got to keep going. Like, just because you did one good round, you got to keep selling. I think expanding it, you know, there's all this like background stuff that you actually really don't know about until you get into like food manufacturing. Oh, that's good. There's all those levels. It's tough, right? I assume, yeah. There's people who got to eat off it. There's a manufacturing, there's delivery, shipment, all this stuff. There is cost. Like, I'm not going to say we made it. Large ones are slim. Large ones are always slim. Well, you try to make the margins better, right? That's the whole point. And then over time, distributors want it.  So all this other stuff. So now it's got more complicated than now. It's not just merch now. Now I'm trying to get other people to buy it so that they can sell it. Yeah, it brought us into a whole new ecosystem. It's like you're talking to supermarkets, food distributors, chefs, food press. Supermarkets. It's like a lot of stuff that you weren't really interfacing with prior to. Hey, Ben, you got to plug in HR. I'm trying to get an H mark. Yeah. Just because you happen to be Korean. I have three, so hold on. Let's check out right now. Use promo code. What was it again? Dragon 15. Dragon 15. There it goes. But the good thing is like you've done so much food content that you know a lot of people like there are in that area, right? So it's a little bit easier to like get people to try it out. And it's a space. Honestly, there's a lot of Asians in it. A lot of Asians own small CPG brands that they want to grow to be medium size brands to big brands. Like there's a ton of Asians in the food ecosystem, whether we're talking about purveyors of brick and mortar restaurants or on the packaging side, like second generation owners that want to modernize their parents like more Fobby brand from overseas. You know what I'm saying? Like there's every level. You can't believe how many Asians are involved in it. It's a good community, man. I met a lot of nice people that are very helpful and everybody's cool in the consumer packaged goods. That's what CPG stands for. And so it's like in this kind of food, because Asian food is good and Asian sauces are good. There's our friend Tree from Austin. He got fierce whiskers. He opened his own distillery. He's making his own bourbon. Different types of bourbons. I was going to say he made both of these right here. Both of them. I'm Choi. And then this is a premium small batch pot stilled. I don't even know what that means. If you want to try it afterwards, we can't. I know you. We'll be taking that two bottles home, don't worry. So you'll guys turn around that way real quick. And I know you guys were taking them. It's a nice looking bottle. Where can they get a smaller hot sauce again? Smollasauce.com. There you go, guys. I'll put a link down below for that. OK. And you got the comedy show that's going on every single month or so. Great show, by the way. I got a lot of little stuff, I don't want to say little stuff, but stuff going on. Yeah, I was going to say, you guys are busy, man. You guys are always busy. Making the product. Stay busy. Having a comedy show may seem little, I guess, relative to what else you have going on. But each individual thing takes a lot of goddamn work. Yeah, I got a lot of stuff I need to promote, guys. Yeah, you do. I think I'm proud of it.  That's the whole show. Sorry, number one.  Nobody asks you guys to make the podcast, right? Like, I don't know if you guys had 100 people around you shaking your shoulders every day.  No, they probably were like, they're probably, and maybe even initially, sometimes your friends even try to downplay it like, oh, you guys. They were trying to make us a stop. You guys have a lot of time on your hands. I didn't ask for this. And you go, I was going to knit. In a way, and this sounds great.  So you went and did it. You know what I mean? It's not about what other people ask for or what they, to be honest. I mean, a lot of times, the audience doesn't know that they even want something until it's created. I'll tell you this. Shout out to you guys. I do think starting a podcast is not hard. Keeping it going and being growing it, tough. That's a lot to do. And you guys are doing it. No, but you guys are doing it. Because nobody's doing it out of like, there's these ultra-Asian enclave zones, right? Probably the three most noteworthy in America. Let's just say two realistically, for first-gen, like super linked to the motherland. One is San Gabriel Valley. The other one is Queens. Those are your two like, super, super Asian zones, right? And it's different types of Asians. Yes, they're more, I guess, predominantly Chinese, but also most Asians in the world are predominantly Chinese, yeah. Statistically, yeah. So it's like, but it's like, hey. The facts of life. Ben's like, I've had it accepted for three decades. So, you know. I gotta take it. So it's like, it's just nobody is producing a podcast about those areas. Like you guys, though, analyzing some minutia that it's almost like you wouldn't know unless you are in one of these super-Asian zones, right? I appreciate that you like to put such a nice spin on our- Yeah, I was gonna say a lot of it. I owe it to this guy, actually. It's a lot of Chinese guys. The Chinese guy. You know, just by the way. Chinese guy doing all the work. I didn't say it like that. Yo, that's true. He turns in and adds the flash. That's true. I'm not saying it like that. I can't. You need to do it. You need to do it. I can't do it without this guy. Like, he literally does everything.   Let's move on with this thing, okay? So, future. Future. You've been doing it for 10 plus years. You got a lot going on right now. You're doing a lot of the same stuff. You're doing a little bit of different stuff. Cause I saw you've been like, steering away from food a little bit, right? Doing some more social commentary right now. Like, what's going on with you guys in the medium and the future? What do you see you guys going? We still do a lot of speaking engagements at colleges and corporate gigs. Different, even sometimes online. I got a book. Or working. Oh, nice. Book that I've been working on that's full of like super hot takes, like even like hotter takes than I would do women's. I think it's like super hot chicks.  Sign me up for five, bro. It's like, oh, hot takes about to take five. No, count me out. ABG calendar. ABG calendar. Yo, that's not a bad idea. Actually, that's actually a pretty good idea. The book on how to date ABG is effectively would actually sell sadly enough. It would sell very well. It would sell very well. Get buff, get tats. And do wild, edgy things. That usually is a pretty good stack. I would say. Future, future, talk about your future. But it's like, you know, we just want to do more. And we're still interfacing with the mainstream. Still doing stuff like that. Still want to grow YouTube. Dude, we got so much stuff that we haven't like even fully even delved into and like so many ideas. I mean, we were doing even short films for a little bit working with a lot of filmmakers. That's when I started learning about all these like focal lengths and all this like lighting stuff. There's more of them like movie, movie stuff. But like, you know, that's like pretty hard. I realized.  But, you know, I'm pretty excited. You know, to be honest, I don't know how all these brands converge. I know that they're all under umbrellas of like Fung Bros. Yeah. But it is interesting. And I guess like I'm not. I can't tell you exactly where everything is in four years. But I just know that steadily working at these things, it's going to turn into something and it's just going to. It all does align and falls under a similar like. I don't want to say like maker. Like we're the like, you know, it's all us. But we want to do some brick and mortar stuff to in New York, too. I mean, that's a lot of stuff going on. So we'll see. But I mean, obviously YouTube is still like the passion is still the crux of it. But yeah, who knows? I mean, small blows up, maybe it becomes a bigger thing and we've got to hire a team for that right now. So so if like only fans like approach you guys like Snoop Dogg. Oh, let's take a look at the deal, man. Let's just take a look at the deal. Show me the contract or both of us Fung Bros. That would be weird. I don't know what content they'd want. But anyway, I've got a bunch of questions from our viewers and I'll try to get them from the back of my head or so. A lot of people want to know like, what's it like to work with your brother? What's it like to work with your sibling so close and for so goddamn long? Good question. Because a personal experience, Ben and I have been friends for as long as like some siblings have been siblings for. So I kind of like feel what you guys are feeling. But at the very least, I don't have to go home to him every single night. Right. Like, how has this relationship been?  It's a family. Yeah, it's both family, it's friends and it's a business relationship, too. What's the goal first on this? I mean, honestly, I would just say you got to just work through it.   They don't even want to be in the room for it with each other for more than like an hour. And it's like, man, it's just something I just know that nothing that crazy happens for it to be that serious. You know what I mean? Because you just got to feel the mission of what you're trying to accomplish together so deeply. It's almost like I'm sure it's like being in the military together, not everybody in the same platoon or whatever. They don't all like each other.  Like just look at Andrew's face, his reaction. I think in any long term partnership, whether you're business partners for a long time or you're in any type of relationship or family business, I think that there just has to be respect and communication. Just like any related like that's not that's for literally any you guys need respect and communication, right? Even if you guys just be in friends. And then that's true. So you have to be able to have respect and communication with each other to keep it going. And yeah, keeping the same mission in mind. Obviously, we're family. We spent a lot of time together. We even play ball together. But I think you need your space. I think you need your space and you need boundaries.  And that's all it is. So you guys want to take trips away from each other like actual vacations separate of each other? Like, is that something that sometimes there's a good reason? I mean, if there's a yeah, if there's a reason to if there's a reason to work together, if there's work and we're getting like, for example, paid, then we're traveling. No, like sometimes for speaking gigs, we go out individually. Oh, really? One person. Because obviously, there's a lot of stuff that you got to keep running and it is difficult to run that on the road. I have done some shows without David and vice versa. But no, I think being able to operate without each other at least temporarily is key. Oh, absolutely. Key, because you cannot just keep it when you're young. You don't care because like we were in a house in L.A. like 66 together and we had like friends packing it out and our production guys were there. And it was also like college. So that's why for like five years, you didn't think about this long term stuff at all, you were just going, going, it was fun, fun, fun. Work, work, work, work, work, build, build.  And then you're kind of like, all right, well, we need to like we're getting older now. So it's good that you guys are on the same page. Because I think like that's what it takes to have something like this be sustainable long term. Because if one guy was too heavily reliant on the other or whatever, I think it really wouldn't work out because he eventually things will get to the point where there's some, you know, bad will that's built up and one person's caring like a little bit too much of the weight. But the fact that you guys have that same vision and you're doing the same amount of work and you understand all parts of it to get there. And like separately, I think that makes it a lot like there'll be less bumps in the road. Obviously, you can have like always, there's always everything is bumpy.  Yeah, you just got to attack forward. I mean, it's just like any successful business, man. You just seen people, they just got to work through it. You know, or probably marriages are like the same way to write. It's not going to be if the first six months for the next six years to the next 60 years. It always up and down. Yeah, you know, learn, continue to grow. All right, something sounds all very cliche, but it's true. It's true. Yeah. I mean, I've seen so many people like in this Asian game. I mean, any game, right? But like specifically for Asians is like, I've seen so many people come and go. You know what I mean? In this space and like you got to think there's like a checklist of things that a duo or whatever squad or organization or a brand needs to constantly check off. And that list is probably checked like every day. And sometimes people got it all, but sometimes it goes away.  But there's only a few people was like they're hitting out enough of the check marks all the time. I guess the other plus side is like having two people as opposed to one person. That's the main operator of the thing. You kind of like can't support each other because there has to be times when one person is down and the other person maybe is more active or like step up in lieu of the other person. Like that is the plus side of having multiple people when you're by yourself. Let's say you're in like a like a bad month or a bad week or so. You still got to do what you got to do, but you can't do it as well. You guys can at least like hopefully I assume like carry the weight when the other ones like off game or something. You know what I noticed about the solo creators is they like sometimes they're like super successful. But when you meet them in person, they're sometimes kind of weird.  Never meet your hero. It's kind of like that because they're never like that way on camera, which kind of leads to some of the questions that we got like off camera on camera. Obviously, we've seen you off camera and everything. Do you guys feel like and I kind of feel this way sometimes too, but like not to such a crazy extent. Like there is kind of like a persona that you put on when the cameras go on. Right. Maybe it's not a different persona. Maybe it's you, but to the 100 percent nonstop, right? Maybe you are like that, but in real life, you're not like that all the time. You guys kind of like feel like that, like when the cameras roll, things change a little bit. I don't feel like there's that big of a gap.  Yeah. OK, if you were to watch our videos from eight years ago and talk to us today, of course, because our content right now is more similar to us in person. Yeah. So I right now, the gap is not big. But I know that people in the past, and I think it's more so an issue with their expectations, where certain videos we used to deliver like very like different types of Asian girls who did it, did it, did it. And we don't talk like that in person, right? Because that's just like that's it was like, yeah, it's ridiculous. And then people like literally I'd have like people be like, it goes talk differently. I'm like, why would I talk like that if you're like, I'm like, I'm on speed in that video. But now I'm like not on drugs. I'm OK. You know, I'm just relaxed. Yeah. I'm chill. To me, I know it's different. Like other people that I feel like they're more Americanized, they more go off the energy and the feeling that you have. But for me, I think I'm my brain still works a little bit more Asian where I'm always focused on what I said. The content as opposed to the context, the facts, the observations, the insights, the news that I covered, the hot takes I gave more than the energy. But I noticed that the more Westernized you are and you could be Asian, there's like more become more became more Westernized in your thought process or your analysis, you more go off the feeling and the delivery. I mean, David does not like he yells on the podcast. I know the hot pot boys. He is not talking like this. No, I was like, we're like, we're like, we're like, I'm like, you're like right at my ear or like my ear. You're late back in real life here, too. So yeah. So that already, I mean, we could tell you that's the difference right now. Yeah, that's true. All right, next big question that people want to know, how good is your Chinese now? We're separate people on the same. OK, separate people. You sprinkle in some Chinese here and there. Who sprinkles in the Chinese? Both of you with some Chinese. OK, to me, knowing the language, Mandarin speaker, right? I'm Winslow, but I speak a little bit of Mandarin because I'm learning that my wife speaks Cantonese. So I you've heard it all. I've heard it all. So I can understand like what's good or bad, even though I cannot personally speak. I can understand what's good or bad. Winslow is considered a very hard diet. It's a very hard diet. It's the devil's language. Well, thank you. You got to speak some after we give our answer. Can you speak some ones? Oh, OK, fair enough. So how good is your Chinese? Who wants to go first and like, what is the history on why it's good, bad or mid-tier? Well, I think you got to start with David and then it goes to me. On the ABC level. On the ABC level? For American born Chinese. For ABC, man, honestly, I got to be. Because you can do both. That's super Americanized that can like do all these Americanized things. You'll see, that's a lot of disclaimers before you give your answer. Because I was going to give myself a high number. I was going to give myself a seven. I was going to give myself a seven out of ten. That's why I needed to say it. Oh, because I'm not like somebody who like sits and watch sea dramas all day like and watches dubbed over enemies. And like, I'm just not like that. You know what I mean? Like I know. So David can walk into Cantonese and Mandarin spots and have a conversation with pretty much anybody there. Oh, maybe not about like. Politics, but like great school. I can't host the TV show. Yeah, no, no, no, no. But to get stuff done is hard to watch. Yeah, that's because you've lived in China for a little bit, right? Yeah. So it's like conversational stuff. Just getting around. So that's why I said the ABC level because to me, ABCs are so not good. So it went from this to ABC level. Now we're in this on an actual on an actual Chinese person scale. I'm probably like a 2.75 out of 10. Yeah, that's a very specific. If David's 2.75 on a Chinese scale, I'm like, I'm like negative. Well, you're the younger brother. I feel like, you know, as it always goes with siblings, the parents put the most effort like at the beginning, right? And like towards the end, they put less and less effort. So I didn't put in the work that David did. So I'm going to say I just didn't. I just didn't. I didn't pick it up as much. I don't know if naturally I'm as great as soaking it up. But it's true that our parents spoke English to me. They they David's and my sister still grew up speaking some Cantonese when they were kids, right? That was their language that they communicated at a young age. OK, OK, OK. But so I don't even have that in my bone. But that's not fully the full excuse is I didn't study it enough. Yeah. But now my Mandarin is better than my Cantonese. Oh, really? Yeah. But your parents speak. But trust me, I'm not. I'm shitty at both. However, our parents are our dad is Cantonese or our dad's from Hong Kong. He's half Shanghainese. Our mom's from. But they speak both. They speak three. They speak two dialects in English. Fluently. Yeah. Oh, wow. They're both fluent in each other's languages. Well, my dad's Mandarin accent is kind of weird because he's Cantonese, but he can say everything. Yeah. And my mom's Cantonese accent because she's naturally Mandarin is weird, but they can communicate. Oh, OK. So the accent's not there, but the language and the context and the words and the vocabulary. They're both can understand Shanghainese. And they can understand like news and that's super level. And you guys just destroyed all that by not learning enough. I think they chose. Uh, I don't know. Like they thought I had a speech. You know, it's weird. Here's here's the weird thing. The kids who feel the most Americanized and can ping with like other races really well. Typically, they're much worse at their parents' language than the kids. You know what I mean? Like the super Americanized crowd, unless they're super rich, like a Eileen goo or something like that.  Right. Do you it's I'm not saying that's 100 out of 100 people, but it seems like that dichotomy and that hard choice exists right from what you guys have seen. 100%. I would say like, even me, my English is very good because I grew up with friends that were like some of them were Chinese, obviously, but none of us were Chinese kids speaking Chinese or we're Chinese speaking English. So like that's just where I gravitated towards. And I didn't have siblings to speak that with me. My parents are working like 18 hours a day. So they didn't have time to speak with me.  You know, it's just like playing sports. Like if you're super good at football, you're probably not going to be super good at soccer and super good at basketball. It's not that there's nobody who isn't good at all three, but it's rare because just the distribution of time and who you were spending time with is different. Like you can't be good at everything in the world, you know what I mean? And be a number one good at playing instruments or whatever, you know, your parents like give you a hard time. So about it, like, you know, speaking it or they kind of like, we give it up. No, I don't think they gave up. I mean, if I tell them like, hey, mom, speak more Chinese and then we'll speak Chinese and try to like. Practice, right? But my mom is so funny.  But, you know, I'd like her to speak Chinese. I'm like, I don't even speak Chinese. What do you got? How you she's like, I will try to teach her some. You didn't teach me some. What are you talking about? She just wants that grandchild. That's what she really wants. Laying the foundation for the grandchild. Parents are weird with that, you know, because it's like language. It is a link to the cultural heritage. It is. No doubt. It is, but it's not the only link, but it is and it isn't.  But then you could let's say, for example, you're you're good at talking to the grandparents, right? But you don't know anything. You don't support the culture. You don't support the community. Yeah. I seen both of those happen. That's true. That's true. I think I do a good job of making up for it. Yeah, because I know a lot of kids who are more whitewashed or less who don't do nothing for the culture that can speak it better. For sure, a bunch of people, which I'm not dumped. Like everybody has their like, again, language is part of culture. But if you're not using the language for the culture, then what's the point? Yeah, that's true. You know what I mean? You're just doing it for yourself. Like, I'm, you know, I'm trying to, we push, we push in the culture forward.  I'm like, and then they talk to me in it. I'm like, look, I'm not gonna front it. My Korean is just garbage. You don't have to do that. It's okay. I believe you. I think what you're saying sounds Korean. Sounds mainly Korean. But you understand what they're saying, right?  I'm oddly attracted to you right now since you started speaking Korean. But can you cook? And then it's like, we'll see from there. You know? But yeah. Do you get with those chicks? There's a lot of non-Asian women that are like fetishizing Korean dudes in 2024. Yes. And I totally... I can't say that Chinese guys got the same thing. Have you dated some of them? Yes, sir. As a married person, can I give my opinion on this? Like, if they took the effort to learn a language in order to like go up to someone like Ben, I was like, yo, give her props for that. Yeah, which I, yeah.   I like the Tista. Dave Bot Tista, Chris Pratt. So you got the Guardians from K-Town. Guardians of K-Town.  I do. I'm going to be like John Wick 5. I'm going to be like Asian Henchmen, number 5. You're the guy from Token Drift. And your main move is just a power slam? No, yeah, cracking people's back and just snapping their spine, just going, oh. They just throw people, right? To be stereotypical, I could see some Latino girls who know Korean, like, like... Oh, yeah. And they throw like Papi.   Oh, hajima. Oh, hajima. Oh, male, male. They love the Korean corn dogs, too. There you go. We're talking about this. Is that a cold word? I'm talking about that actual food. I'm sorry. Two hands. Two hands on the ground. The jungle dogs. Let's talk about real food. Let me pivot this conversation to real food. Is it a corn dog or topoki? Which one is it, Ben? Is it corn dog or topoki? Ben, stay silent. Food, food. Let's talk about food. You guys, real food, real food this time. You guys do a lot of food content. I'm always curious with people like you. How much do you actually cook?  That's just part of the game. No creating content, whatever. Do you guys cook? I think I can cook moderately well, considering... I have a passion for cooking. I think I can do it. I'm capable. Right now, we're mostly... I'm mostly working the air fryer. But I'm mastering the air fryer, to be honest. You're like a Michelin rated air fryer. I'm the Gordon Ramsay of the air fryer. You're yelling corner behind. I would consider myself one of those meme people on Reddit or whatever, Instagram, that are like super pro air fryer. You too, with the air fryer? Well, we share it. I can hit the pan, too. Don't get it twisted. I know how to... Chef? I can toss with one hand. You've been in so many kitchens, you think you would just by osmosis pick up a lot of techniques. Oh, I think it is. You make fried rice. Just by being around. Just do it blindfolded. All of a sudden, there's fried rice in the front of you. Yeah. Let's just say seven days a week, you skip breakfast because you're fasting. That's two meals a day. That's 14 meals a week, right? Of those 14 meals, how many are you cooking for yourself in that air fryer? That's a real question. Take a second. Take a second. Out of 14? Out of 14. Like, 57. For real?  Well, if we're both here and we both cook, it's kind of like for both people. We just make a little extra and just split it. I think it is like when you go out to eat, it's not going to be healthy long story short. Of course not. Because the goal of the place is just to really either sell drinks or to stimulate your dopamine. And there's certain things, sugars, fat, a lot of hidden salt. A lot of hidden sugar. Refined carbs that stimulate dopamine. Yeah. Like literally bread hits your dopamine receptors. But for guys, it also stimulates estrogen production. So it's like, that's why guys got to stay lean.  No, you got to stay green, lean and clean.  If you just keep it lean, green and clean, literally rhyme those three words.  If you can literally follow that. I'll tell you this about delicious food, man. I think, and it's, I'm, we're privileged in the sense that we did, we seeked out a lot of different restaurants and ate at restaurants as part of it. Yeah. So I understand that we are not the average person. We have more time to spend on food than the average person, you know, because we were able to make it work for us. But after having a lot of delicious food and eating at all these different restaurants and some meals we got comp that were really nice, a lot of fusion stuff, a lot of cool stuff. I'm like, I go back to the basics. What's your basics then? Pho. Oh, yeah. Pho Grand on Grand Street is the most frequented restaurant that I've paid for in my entire life. It's not a Chinese restaurant. Nope. Although it is, I mean, it's, that's Chinese dishes. It's Chinese via like, you know, whatever. Yeah. But it's, Pho is like, I could eat that all day. And it's just like, and it's just, that's the, all this food. Pho is probably like a top 10 dish in world history. Yeah. I really think so. I think it's top 10 of like the goats in old history. You might be hungry two hours later, but then with that too, until that you're like, I know where they're taking Pho with the big shank rib and all that stuff. Like it's going crazy. Yeah. I'm sure you get like a whole lobster in there now. Yeah. I think, I really think Pho is like some, cause it's actually like, it has some even a little bit of French influence as well. But yeah. Anyways guys, check out smaller sauce. It goes well with everything. I was just gonna say, Pho will go really great with that. Okay. Let's wrap this up with a couple of small things. Besides Pho, is there any like big things or dishes, meals, whatever cuisines that like stand out to you that you would always want to get? Maybe not as frequently as Pho, but like that's your go-to meal. David has this one dish that like is so hard to find. Oh. What? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's called what Mandarin? It's called yellow braised chicken. It's called Huangmen Ji Fan. And that's like, it's very similar to Chinese chicken. Jim Doc. Jim Doc. You know what I'm talking about? Doc Jim? What language are you speaking right now? Doc Jim Jim Doc. I heard it called both ways. It's like that soy braised chicken dish. But it's like, it's got a soy flavor as well to it. Yeah. And it's... Which region is it from? It's from Shandong. Okay. That's why, and it's just so good. And it's considered the number one construction worker meal in China. That's funny. It's a very blue-collar meal. Okay, there you go. But blue-collar meals are some of the best. They are. They are. They're just hearty. Yeah. They're hearty. Pop up a photo of Huangmen Ji Fan yellow braised chicken. There's this place called Yang's. I'm telling you, you can add things to it. You can take things out depending on what your tastes are. Yeah. It's the best chicken stew. But it's not a stew. It's like a... Is it like Chinese chicken stew? No, no, no. It's different. It's different. You guys just got to... It's more like Jim Doc or Doc Jim Jim. I would like, I love dim sum, but that is something that I eat less of. Why? Because of the carbs? Not just that. I just like, I think that it's a... It's just a lot of meatballs. That's what dim sum is. It's a lot of meatballs. Meatballs wrapped in tofu skin, meatballs wrapped in a crystal skin, meatballs wrapped in a wheat skin. I think a lot of Asian-Americans, we kind of get stuck on just what we got exposed to growing up. And we don't even appeal back to layers like Cantonese. There's this gaipo, which is like a chicken hot pot with coconut slices in it from Hainan or Macau, I think.  There was only like two spots and fleshing to do it. And there's like no spots in the city.  I think the rare shit that's poppin' over there, that's not necessarily poppin' over here, we gotta get off what our grandparents and our parents only introduce us to.  No, nothing is... Nothing is played out in this whack. Sounds like a drug like... Nothing is played out in this whack, but it's like, we, to get to know ourselves and we have to like, peel back the layers and we have to peel back the layers for other Asians too. Like, I won't just try like, Pad Thai, right?   Yes. And you're not even doing the work to understand other groups that are not your own. And what I think is, and I think, shout out, I want people to enjoy delicious food and I think they should, but like try to derive as much content or knowledge and experience from it. Like what I would hate is that people take out, you know, they go out once a week or twice a week to the city for dinner and then they just go to a restaurant.  And I'm like, you don't have to blog about it, but like ask questions about it, learn about it. Like where does this come from? Even if the server doesn't know, just like making an experience for you. Make them ask the chef. Yeah. Make it like a museum for you. Like who cares? Like ask questions. You're tipping them. You're paying them. Like, you know what I mean? So derive as much as you can from those experiences and not just the delicious calories. It's yummy food. I get it. But like, make it in an exploration and that's how you're going to make it worth it more. Because food is getting expensive now. Plus there's no downside to it because if you went there and you got something new, you tried something new and you didn't like it for whatever reason, you can always default back to the Pad Thai next time, right? You can always come back to the exact same place, right? I don't know why people are so scared and it's not, I'm not saying that all people do this, but I know it's like white people or white Americans. They're so scared of not liking something. It's okay to not like something. There's a lot of Chinese dishes that I do not like. Yeah.  That's why a lot of, our Asian friends' spots who are kind of fusion Asian spots, some of their best sellers are still the burger because they have, because people know that form. Like it's a no brain. Oh, we're going to a Korean restaurant? Oh, they got a burger? All right, chill. You know, it's like, you're just going to get the Korean burger. It's familiar. Yeah. It's a familiar form, but like, and not everybody has the energy because it does take energy to process new things. Complex identities are tiring to consume and that's why that's a lot of the issue in politics right now that everybody has these complex identities and for some people to try to understand it all, it's like mind-boggling to them, which I get it. That is tiring. And that's why, just to wrap it all up, that's why I like your guys' podcast too, because you are talking about things that are not necessary to think about. Like no Asians need to think about the difference between the Cantonese and the Korean bakery in terms of like them making their parents proud to go to a college or making a lot of money. You would never need to understand it. It's not important, yeah. It's completely outside of those, the pursuit of those two things, right? Yeah. Or even like being lit at the club that's completely actually outside of that thing that's your third pillar of your life. But it's like, it's still important to do it because then otherwise somebody got to do it. Yeah, someone's got to do it. Somebody got to turn this thing over in their mind and flip it over.  The final segment of the podcast is called Ranting and Raving. We each take a couple minutes or just a minute quickly to rant about something. Shitty going on in our lives. We completely unrelated to what we're talking about. Unrelated to anything. But it should be personal? It should be personal or rave about something good. All right. Ben, you want to kick it off? What should I? Go for it, Ben. All right. So I drove in today with my car and whenever I drive into the city and I park in a garage now I never take my newer car. I always take my older shitty car because last time, last month when I came to the city with my wife we came in and it was like aligned again into this garage that we prepaid right? But then I watched the guy probably scratch up three cars as he was moving them back and forth back and forth and everything. And there was this one car that was like two cars in front of me. He didn't want to wait any longer so he gave the keys to the guy and said, hey, my car is double parked there and you just like pull in whenever you have the time, right? The guy's like, cool, cool, cool. I saw another car from the street just like side swipe that car and just leave. So my tip is like when you drive to the city and you park in the park in a garage if you have the luxury of having two vehicles bring the one that you don't care about as much. Don't bring the nicer vehicle to the city. That's crazy. That guy just like, yo, that's crazy. Swiping a car is crazy.  Who had the nicer car? What was his car? What were the cars? It was a car on car crime. But what was the nicest car? There was no nice cars in there. They were just newer cars. I'm trying to say. And my car is definitely not nice. Just committed like $20,000 worth of damage. Plus you would never know, right?  You tip the valet guy. You get in your car.  No one's doing like a 360 inspection of their car when they pick up the valet. Are you going to snitch on them? No. It's not my problem. Yeah. I just want to move on with my day. That's 500. I'll keep my mouth shut. You know what I'm saying? What do you got? What's it? So I have an old dog that, you know, I love him to death and stuff. 18 years old. No. 17 ounce of 17. But he's still old, right? So what's it? It's hard raising an older dog, you know? But my mom, he's very like spiritual when it comes to the deaf. She's like super Catholic, right? So like deaf doesn't scare her, you know?  I'm like, what the like? Yeah. So she's like, yeah, I thought he died because he just didn't wake up. So I started kicking him.  I was like, mom, what's wrong with you? He's old as.  I didn't know. I was like, I was like, I don't know. So yeah, that's a good idea. I could just picture her like nudging a dog. Yeah.   My bad.  Shout to your mom. Shout to your dog. Cute little guy. That's actually a pretty funny story, but thank you. People would, yeah, she had the soup boiling already. She was getting ready. She was getting ready. Like a lobster boiling. Yeah.  That prank phone call. Oh yeah. That, that went viral on Napster like 15 years ago.  Forget about that. That's anyways. Was that the one where they called the Chinese restaurant? There was a lot of prank calls. There was a lot of prank calls. I remember that one too. The Chinese restaurant. CYK and they were like calling. I think it was white dudes that were doing like that. I think, they were better at that. That's the kind of comedy that the golden age of comedy. We got to protect that. The more racist, the better guys. All right. We got to protect that. If you don't have one, I got one. Go first. Speaking of dogs, too many dogs in the city, man, too many dogs in the city.  I agree. These buildings and I live, I love this building, but there's a lot of dog owners in this building. They don't actually clean up after their dogs. And there's a lot of buildings over there. Because they were lonely. And a lot of people work from home. So they got dogs. They're not training their dogs. The dogs are pooping everywhere. On the sidewalk, there's tons of big dookies everywhere. And I'm just like, I don't know if New York was supposed to have this many dogs. And they're not even hunter dogs. They're not dogs chasing down rats. They're not these wolf dogs. Not these wolves, these dogs that can like protect your family.   Why do you want a Shiba in New York?    Like some people will pick up the dog shoe with the bags and just leave it on the floor. I'm just like, what is the point of that? In the bag, the little baggy in the same area. And they'll just leave it there.  Like that's where the ball was. Why is it, why would a dog like New York when there's cars, scooters, people, zoom, zoom, trash, there's not some grass. It's just all concrete. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. If you think it's like dog place. It's a terrible place for dogs, for big dogs at least. I guess my one rant would be just the amount of like cool Asian food from flushing. That's like super deep cut that makes it into the city. It's too slow. Like you see it. I think you can get like, Tanghulu now at Machi Machi in K-town. But like it should have happened like years ago, but it's like very, very slow.  Like, you know how Manhattan the Asian food, they have a lot of Asian food, but it's kind of like out of five levels. Maybe level like one, two, maybe level three, but the level four, five stuff. Queens only. Queens only. For sure. But it's like, I don't understand why what do people just, I think the people who are cooking the three, four, five level Asian food in Queens, they don't believe that the city will take it. Exactly. Exactly. But I think that they probably, it probably would though. But they don't believe though. Someone has to take that risk and they're not willing to take the risk. It is a risk. It's safer just to do that some, to do with the flushing. Because obviously in a place like Queens where everybody's like so Asian, they want to eat all five levels, one, two, three, four, five. Yeah. But there's a, there's a feeling that Manhattanites only want level one and level two, right? Like kind of like the more surface level dishes. You got to put it into a hamburger form or something and then they'll be, they'll be like, I'm not going to eat this burger.  I'm just saying, somebody got to take, you know, it's easy for me to just sit and tell people to take the risk because I'm not doing it. Do it. Do it for us guys. Do it for us. Yeah. Do it for us so we don't have to go to flushing. Yeah. Andrew, David, thank you for inviting us into your house. Thank you to the weather gods that it's cloudy today so that the sun is not super bright behind us. So you guys can actually see the nice view behind us. See where they live. Find out. Find this bridge. You can geotag them. Yep. Find the exact angle of bridge. See what altitude you can miss it. Yeah. See which altitude we're at and then we can figure it out. Dude, thanks for inviting us to your home. Really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the podcast. It's been a long time trying to get this together and everything, but I think we had a good time. Hopefully we can have you on the future episode. We'll keep it away from your personal history. We'll do like something fun maybe the future. Okay. We're going to talk about you guys are about to do our pod. Oh, yes. Talk about queens. I want to ask you guys about queens. Oh, damn. Andrew, you're the best. Do all the plugs that you need to right now. Oh, yeah. Check out small less sauce .com. Really good chili oil finishing oil made with real truffle. A mixture between the Italian and Mala chili oil. Check out Ham Choi. This is from Fierce Whiskers distillery Asian owned base out of Austin made in Austin. A high level state of the art distillery. There's some ways to do that. Those are just brands that we want to shout out. Check out Hop Hop Boys. Check out our channel Asianology January 1st 7 30 p.m. You guys are invited to come. Not to do a set just to be in the audience. You guys want to do five minutes. You guys got a couple minutes. Let me know. Yo, you know, it's funny we can talk about it. Ben has always said he wants to do stand up. I know, but I can see it. I can see that. Can you see it? Three minutes. Yeah. I can see it. I'm going to let you guys know. Three minutes. Three seconds. Maybe before we open the show like the pre-show. Funny story. Just keep it easy. You don't have to worry about joke structure and stuff like that. People are still getting drinks. Yeah. People are very supportive. I think they'll support a big Korean guy. Anyways, guys, check it out. Thank you so much. Shout out to the Worst Asian podcast.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. If you want to stay up to date with what we're doing on a daily basis, follow us on all the social media, TikTok, LinkedIn, I don't know, Snapchat, whatever, Instagram, at WorstAsianPod. Okay. All right, until next time, we'll catch you guys next time. Adios. Peace. Bye.