Asian America: The Ken Fong Podcast

Alexandra Chan had excelled in life as a left-brain, logical and educated person. But the recent loss of her amazing father Robert Earl Chan showed her the inherent limitations of just using reason to deal with life's greatest challenges. In her new book, In the Garden Behind the Moon: A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Magic she takes us all on this journey inward, while telling us about this actual 'most interesting man in the world.'

Newton Cheng is the Director of Health + Performance at Google. He's a husband, a dad, and a champion powerlifter. From all appearances, he was doing great. Even better than great! But he was privately struggling with depression and burnout. It took his decision one day to take off his mask and openly talk about his struggles to set him on a course of getting better, but also pave the way for many other Googlers to step out of the shadows in search of solace and help.

In this latest episode of The Two Ken's podcast series, Ken Kemp's regular guest Betsey Newenhuyse from Chicago joins us to talk about the ongoing need for regular groups of reliable, religious people, despite the burgeoning exodus from all forms of religion in America. Although unprecedented numbers of us no longer belong to a religious group or have zero-interest in every joining one, most of us haven't found viable alternatives to them. Without anywhere to go regularly, and without a caring community around to help each other navigate life's twists and turns, what might happen to our country?

Wing Ho is the founder of Xcela Coaching, where he offers  Leadership Coaching and Team Culture Coaching. His relational-driven approach is something that leaders today in all kinds of settings need to understand and incorporate.

Writer and director Lisa Sanaye Dring's new play Kairos opens East West Players new season on April 4th. Because her play explores what can happen to a couple when there's a possibility of them living forever, we delve headlong into a captivating discussion of the significance of time, special moments, mortality, immortality, and even success and failure! To see the schedule and buy tickets to performances, go to www.eastwestplayers.org.

Back when Joseph Tseng graduated from college, he focused on making a living as a singer/songwriter/storyteller. But he soon discovered that that dream wasn't ready to become a reality. He put his music behind him and worked conventionally for years. But questions began to float to the surface of his awareness. About his identity as an Asian American. About the importance of being part of a close-knit community. About whether there was still a way for him to see himself as a Christian. Nineteen years into his adult-journey, Tseng has discovered how these various streams of consciousness intersect poetically and musically for him. He wrote and recorded the EP "Pearls of Home" (https://josephtseng.bandcamp.com/album/pearls-of-home) and you'll now have the opportunity to appreciate his thoughtful artistry by listening to this episode.

Danna Okuyama left her career in high finance to become the founder and CEO of Urban Sandbox, a new modern-day pen pal app and safe space for students to connect, share, and grow with other like-minded peers from around the world, while learning from qualified educators. Students have a place to engage like other platforms, without the concerns of unregulated content, as parents have access to easily supervise activity and ensure safety. www.urban-sandbox.com

In this latest installment of The Two Kens series, podcasters Fong and Kemp see the decision by Alabama's Supreme Court to outlaw invitro fertizilation (IVF) as the latest and most blatant example of Christian Nationalists and members of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) to colonize America. They adhere to the historical falsehood that God created this country to be a Christian theocracy, where conservative white Christians use their biased interpretations of the Bible to dictate how everyone must live here. Former POTUS Donald Trump has convinced them that he alone can lead them to victory in this perceived spiritual battle between the forces of good (them) and evil (everyone else).

This is probably stating the obvious, but there is more than one type of personality. Eric Gee has spent countless hours and many years perfecting a system of personality typing that is less rigid than the Meyers-Briggs system (MBTI) and also much easier to remember and grasp. Defining sixteen different 'animal' types and arranging them into four logical 'packs,' Eric consistently captures people's imaginations as he takes them deeper into this world. You can take his test by going to www.youtopiaproject.com, and you can pick up his book "The Power of Personality," when it hits the stores this April. You can also pre-order it now.

Ever since she learned to drink alcohol in college, Brynn Evans had been embarassed by how red her face would turn, "a consequence of being half Chinese," she'd lament. Taking an antacid when she drank seemed to do the trick, but that eventually made her really sick. Thus began her decade-long journey to come up with a safe and healthy dietary supplement that would reduce or eliminate this alcohol-induced flush, and even mitigate serious hangovers. She recently launched JOYN (www.joynthefun.com) and is excited to tell the 600 million others who also suffer from this malady that relief is now possible!

In this latest installment of The Two Kens series, friends and podcasters Ken Fong and Ken Kemp roll up their sleeves to have difficult conversations about three issues that involve borders or boundaries, i.e., immigration at the U.S. southern border, the war in the Gaza Strip that to a growing number of people--especially Millennials--is looking like the genocide of the Palestinian people, and whether heaven and hell are real, and if so, who decides who's going to which place?

With more than 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, 45% of Americans reporting no savings at all, and of the 55% who have retirement saving, over half report that they have less than $250,000. Given the a person making $40K/year will need to have saved $1M to have a dignified and comfortable retirement, it's clear that America is heading for a retirement crisis. Ali Khawar is the U.S. Department of Labor's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), which is responsible for overseeing retirement benefits programs for millions of working Americans. He talks about the disparities in retirement savings among different groupings of Americans, and some of the contributing factors. Most significantly, he lays out what the federal government is currently doing to help greater numbers of Americans save more for their retirement years.

Music Will runs the largest nonprofit music program in the U.S. public school system. For more than 20 years they have provided teacher training, curriculum, resources, musical instruments, and equipment to restore and expand music education to more than 1.6 million students (K-12) and in over 6,000 public schools. Janice Polizzotto is Music Will's Chief Relationship Officer, bringing more than 25 years of experience working in both the private and public sectors with an emphasis on social impact, nonprofit management, fundraising, event planning, and strategic partnerships. You'll soon learn that she has a burning passion to further than impact and mission of Music Will. www.musicwill.org

Headwriter Eric Vue and Director Shinshin Yuder Tsai co-founded the Orange County (CA)-based Asian American sketch comedy troupe No MSG Added. In this hilarious episode, Ken prods them to explain the differences between improv and sketch comedy, and the challenges of recruiting a representative group of AANHPI comedians and writers to entertain and educate rooms full of diverse people about life as Asian Americans. www.nomsgadded.com

Growing up in a family of matchmakers, you could say that Cassindy Chao was destined to become one, too! She eventually left the sterile confines of finance to pursue her passion: helping Asian Americans find that perfect match and true love! You'll be enthralled with the energetic back-and-forth between Cassindy and Ken as they compare notes gleaned from their many years spent guiding individuals through the maze of issues that arise when trying to find a compatible soulmate.

Psychologist Dr. Gordon Nagayama Hall retired from academia a few years ago, but he's continuing to work to increase the percentage of AANHPIs who will seek help from mental health professionals. To this end, he is part of a team that has developed the Mind Boba problem-solving intervention app that is culturally adapted and created for Asian Americans! (Check out trifoia.com/mindboba on the Web, mind.boba on Instagram, and the Mind Boba FB page). Here's your chance to learn about this easily accessible new mental health tool before it launches.

In this year's last installment of the collaborative The Two Kens podcast series, Fong first updates Kemp on how his relationship is going with Doreen, his high school girlfriend from half a century ago, then coaxes Kemp to read his latest Substack essay entitled The Baby and the Bathwater: What Is the Baby?. The focus of Kemp's mental exercise is what's left after growing numbers of conservative Christians "deconstruct" their beliefs. Are there still solid reasons to believe in and worship God? This leads to Fong and Kemp wondering aloud about the power and importance of Jungian archetypes and mythic figures and stories, and whether this lens can or should be applied to the Christmas Nativity.

In 2022 Korean American Christian actor, writer, producer, and director Kenneth Chang teamed up with David Chan Lee to create the short horror film Refuse, in which a down and out Korean American Christian young man is fighting the demon of meth addiction, while his mother's KA church views him as a demon. You'll learn about how great horror films are able to depict not just the battle between good and evil, but spiritual battles between God and the devil.

My guest this episode is a proven leader who's a great example of the power of unconventional thinking. Jim Fong was an executive vice president and chief commercial officer for CTI Biopharma. This summer a Swedish pharmaceutical giant plunked down nearly $2 billion US dollars to acquire this startup, but as you're about to learn, almost no one in the industry predicted that this would happen. Jim and his team were given the near-impossible task of recruiting a salesforce of 100 to sell their blood-cancer treatment before it had received FDA approval while 80% of the market was already controlled by a huge pharmaceutical company. Jim and his team decided that they needed to look for people with the right attitude, not the right aptitude. He's the youngest of my two brothers, and I'm extremely proud of him and what he accomplished in the face of insurmountable odds.

UC Santa Barbara English Professor Dr. Yunte Huang recently published the final book in his "Rendezvous With American History" trilogy. Following the ones about the real and fictional detective Charlie Chan and the unbelievable one about the Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker, Huang has now researched and written a thoroughgoing book about Hollywood's first Asian American movie star Anna May Wong. How did the daughter of a laundryman in LA's Chinatown get bit by the acting bug? Have the rumors about her sexuality been confirmed? Why did she suddenly depart for Germany after starring in her most successful film? When she returned to America, had the racist attitudes and restrictions in Hollywood improved at all? Had all that time in front of cameras stolen her soul, as her parents first warned her?