Wo Men Podcast

When most people think about China in the 21st century, they picture the big coastal megacities like Beijing or Shanghai. But that’s only a small part of the picture. For this episode, we traveled out west to Qinghai Province, which has an area the size of France but a population of just six million people. The region where Qinghai and southern Gansu Province meet has long been a frontier zone, a point of contact for many different ethnic groups, including people who still live a nomadic lifestyle. Today it is one of the poorest regions in China and has been the focus of intensive development even as many people who live there try and preserve their traditional lifestyle and distinctive culture.

We talk to Gombo, who was raised in a Mongolian nomadic family and went on to be the first in his area to graduate from college. Gombo describes his life growing up in a nomad camp, how Tibetan Buddhism continues to be a significant part of his life, and how he pursued his education and career in modern China. Today, Gombo works in the travel industry with the company Elevated Trips based out of Xining.

Gombo is also a very talented musician and he shared with us some of his songs which you can hear as part of the episode.

What’s in a name? For Annie Huang, potentially a new lease of life.

Annie recently changed her Chinese given name from Yating (雅婷) to Yiling (奕绫) based on the instruction of a part-time fortune telling master (who incidentally holds a full-time job as a private equity investor). Even though Annie has a well paid and highly regarded job and is in a loving marriage, she was bothered that this may not be what she wants and felt confused as to where her life was going. A new name, the theory goes, could potentially free her mind and soul and allow her to be a “free horse” (she is born in the year of the horse) to pursue what she wants.

She is not alone. Many Chinese seek comfort and assurance from fortune telling masters, who don’t only serve as a kind of prophet, but also to some extent play the role of psychologist. Amid the myriad pressures of modern life, many Chinese are turning back to traditional superstitions and beliefs, and fortune telling and Fengshui businesses have boomed over the past decade.

In today’s episode, Annie talks about her name changing experience and how it has fed into a process of self-discovery.

Debate is a historical form of discussion which was one of the earliest methods for decision making and even law and legislative making.

Six years ago, after witnessing a woman in an English debate by chance, Lysa Wei became deeply fascinated by the nature of debating – logical consistency, factual accuracy, and emotional appeals to win the audience’s hearts and minds. She became determined to be a debater.

At that time she could barely present an argument in English. Today, she is the holder of numerous debate championship titles including Grand-finalist of the China National Debating Championship (FLTRP Cup) 2014, and Grand-finalist and 5th Best Speaker of Singapore Debate Camp 2014. Lysa is not only one of the most prestigious debaters in China she has also co-founded China’s first women debate network and started to nurture the next generation of women debaters.

Today, we have Lysa Wei joining the show to share her extraordinary experience of English debating and how debate has widened her horizon in life and opened doors in her professional life.

(Note: This special encore episode was originally released on December 17, 2017)

Along our career paths, we face so many challenges and choices.

How can I make the best decisions for myself? This is a question that bothers us for the majority of our youth. Growing up in the ’70s, ’80s or even ’90s, we don’t have role models for career development.

Looking back, our parents’ generation — who received professional training under China’s planned economy — was very much used to the idea of going to work from 8 am to 5 pm, and believed in doing the assigned job diligently. They were not aware of the difference between a job and a career.

In addition to that, working overtime was an alien idea to them: why should one work so hard for their employers, as it is the employer who benefits, not each individual?

Our generation grew up in a reformed China, where more job opportunities had been created, new industries were developing, and Western values like “career development” had flooded in. However, we are pretty much on our own to navigate these changes, and learn how to build our careers.

Jackie You

Without realizing it, we’ve stepped on a career development treadmill, where we believe the only direction to go is forward. As we march ahead and grow older, we accumulate more and more baggage — families, mortgages, and children’s tuition all become factors dominating our career choices. Is that the only path we’re destined to take? Is there another option?

Jackie You’s response to these questions is clear and sound: No, don’t let these factors affect your choices. You should follow your heart!

Jackie is an ex-investment banker, former CFO of a US publicly listed company, and an entrepreneur. On our latest episode, Jackie uses her personal experience to explain why your heart knows better than your mind when it comes to certain life choices — according to her, when your heart points you in one direction, you should just go with it.

Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast can be found here, and you can find Wǒ Men on iTunes here.

Have thoughts or feedback to share? Want to join the discussion? Write to Yajun and Jingjing at [email protected].

Originally broadcast February 2018

China has transformed greatly over the last few decades, and Chinese New Year has also come to mean very different things from generation to generation.

When our parents were children in the 1960s, their pleasure at this time of year was being able to finally enjoy vegetable balls fried with the oil that the whole family had been saving for the entire year. By contrast, when we were kids in the 1980s, meat dishes, sweets, new clothes and endless playtime with our cousins made the Chinese New Year the happiest time of the whole year.

Today, we can purchase imported food and new clothes on e-commerce platforms every day. Material pleasure doesn’t thrill us anymore. Instead, the New Year has become an obligatory time to face relatives’ constant questions about why we don’t have boyfriends/girlfriends, or if we do, why we don’t have babies yet.

On this episode of the podcast, we recall our memories and discuss all of the interesting and weird (and superstitious) customs and traditions that surround Chinese New Year in our own families, particularly in the old days.

Do you know when is the proper time to eat dumplings on New Year’s Eve? Do you know why you are supposed to wear red during the New Year? Do you know what tricks there are to make sure you’ll stay out of trouble in the coming year (at least, the ones that Yajun’s grandma believed in)? You can answer all of the above questions in this episode.

Previous episodes of the Wǒ Men podcast can be found here, and you can find Wǒ Men on iTunes here.

Have thoughts or feedback to share? Want to join the discussion? Write to Yajun and Jingjing at [email protected].