SPEAKER_03

Welcome to the Expat Rewind Podcast, where we take a book from an Expat OGOPAT's first year in a country and see how it helped them adjust to the new culture. The Expat Rewind Podcast is part of the greater Expat Rewind PodTube experience that is part podcast and part YouTube channel. In this podcast episode, we are very pleased to have Evo Terra, prolific podcaster, and so much more. Evo has selected to talk about the book Working with the Ties to explain some of the culture shock that he encountered when working in Thailand. I learned about Evo first on the Bangkok podcast, where he was co-host in season two with Greg Jorgensen. However, Evo's history in podcasting goes much further back. In fact, his podcast was the 40th podcast of all time. And it was, funny enough, a book podcast where they interviewed sci-fi authors. I do have links in the show notes from and about Evo, so please feel free to dig in to learn some more. For those of you who are podcasters, Evo did a fantastic presentation for International Podcast Day a few years ago, where he went through his podcast workflow when he was on the Bangkok podcast. And the examples, the workflow, the spreadsheet joy that he shows in this presentation is just top-notch and extremely, extremely useful. Over on the YouTube companion video, I go further into the concept of saving face. This is something that every expat that comes to Northeast Asia is told is very unique to the region. Even when I ponder this a bit in the podcast, and I wanted to go more into depth on my experience with it and more so my questions with it. 15 years in Asia and I really, really can't put into words the difference between saving face in Asia versus getting embarrassed or losing face in the West. And of course, when I can't figure things out, I look online to other content creators and I reach out to Asian Boss, a wonderful YouTube channel that interviews people on the street and asks them questions about things like this. If you have any questions, comments, or any feedback on this episode with Evo Terra, please do feel free to contact me on any social media platform. My handle's the same everywhere. S-T-E-P-H-F-U-C-C-I-O. That is also my Gmail address. Let's get to Evo now. Thank you so much, Evo, for uh joining us at Xpat Rewind.

SPEAKER_02

Hey, you are welcome. Thanks for joining me. Um I apologize in advance if I do things like or because I've got this nasty cold uh that just hit me like a ton of bricks the last four hours. But you know what? Luckily I'm here with Western medicine in America. I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_03

Are you? Because my husband, we just had a shipment of like theraplu that we shipped with a bunch of clothing and shoes and things from the U.S. to here. There are many things in China and in Asia in general that I prefer over the U.S. stuff, but cold medicine is not one of them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I mean, well, cold medicine is mostly bogus anyhow, right? There's not a lot of can do it. It treats just the symptoms. And I didn't find very good cold medicine when I was living in Thailand for the two and a half years I was there. I didn't find very good cold medicine when I was touring Europe and Australia. We do have pretty good cold medicine uh here in America. Actual medical care, way better in Bangkok than it was.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, and and a lot of other places too. Exactly. Yeah, we'll knock you out for a cold, but if there's anything serious, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm I'm getting on a plane and flying back to Bangkok if there's something serious.

SPEAKER_03

Exactly. So let's start with your geographical trajectory. Where have you lived outside of the US?

SPEAKER_02

Where have I lived? I guess that depends on your definition of the word lived. Can I just do a quick rundown of my my travels from 2015 on? I think that might help clarify some things. Okay. Sure. So in 2015, my wife and I had a shared midlife crisis. And so on, I think January the 16th of 2015, she and I had already sold everything that we owned, and we jumped on an airplane with uh two bags and two guitars, dummy enough, and with a one-way ticket to France and no plan after that. Not kidding. Really did it. And then yeah, it was that was a lot of fun. And what the way we did 2015 is we were house sitting for people. And so from there we got to it was three months in a little farmhouse in the uh Brittany area of France. Then we did three weeks uh just outside of Copenhagen, spent six weeks at two different spots uh in the UK, little towns no one's ever heard of. And then about six weeks in Spain, which was quite lovely, four months in Thailand, trips to other places in there, wound up going to Vietnam and Hong Kong for house sits, uh, and then Australia for about two months at the end of 2015. And when we were done, we realized we while while the money was out, which was the plan, which was the plan all along, we were out of cash, but we knew we didn't want to move back to America. And so we we went to Bangkok like the like on the 30th of January or of December 2015. So literally from 2016 on. And it wasn't but a matter of days that my lovely bride, Sheila D, uh, scooped up by the international school system because she has two decades of teaching experience and a master's degree in in curriculum design. And two and a half years later, she was the principal of a private school just outside of Bangkok. And two and a half years doing that. So uh yeah, so how many places have we lived? I mean, places I played and paid rent other than America was Thailand.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. And then from France through all of those places that you just mentioned, that was one year experience?

SPEAKER_02

One year, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And then after the year, if I understand correctly, then you were in Bangkok for did you say two and a half or three years?

SPEAKER_02

About well, yeah, we we moved there at the beginning of 2016, and then we were there all the way until we we moved back to America in April of 2018. So I'm up on my one year and close to my one year anniversary back in America.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, happy reverse culture shop. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It has been a weird year of that, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, I bet. Oh, we'll we'll get to that. Don't worry. The book that you've selected for today's conversation is based on you when you were in Bangkok, right?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Okay, that was a fun year of being uh semi-retired, but let's get jobs. And like I said, my wife got a job right away. I really struggled to find a job job because most of my career at the time had worked in the advertising and marketing and had been really focused on the startup space uh for the two years prior to our trip. And as much touring as I was doing and meeting with people and and having conversations, I just wasn't getting anything out of it. And one of the reasons I think I wasn't getting anything out of it is because I'm I'm a pretty powerful personality. It kind of shines through in everything that I do. And so a friend of mine lived for a long time, he said, You're not getting hired because you are the classic American. And no one in Thailand wants to work with the classic American. So he recommended to me that I buy a book called Working with the Ties. And it was eye-opening. First off, it's it's not really an incredibly well-written book. And I think it's from like the 80s or 90s when it was written, but it was eye-opening in the vast cultural differences. I knew there were differences between America and Thailand. I'm not, I'm not that dumb. But what you don't get by visiting a place that you only get when you actually work in a place, is the understanding of how those cultural massive changes are vastly different. So I read the book, shared it with my wife, and we would just, you know, tell stories. She's she's telling me stories of of her Thai staff versus her American or Canadian or some other English-speaking uh staff. I went, I went up teaching as well, uh uh at adult education center, like teaching web skills and that and that kind of stuff. And it was very invaluable just working with the these schedulers and the people that work there at the school I was teaching at, as well as the students, as well as the students that I was teaching, just understanding the weirdly different relationship that high students who are adults have with their teachers. That just simply doesn't exist uh in the 48 years that I had been on the planet at the time.

SPEAKER_03

Um, do you happen to have the book anywhere near you?

SPEAKER_02

I don't have it near me. Okay. I left it in Thailand because I gave it to other people.

SPEAKER_03

That's that's what should happen with books. So that makes complete sense.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Like how big would you say it is? Like how many pages is a small.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, it's probably maybe 30, 40,000 words. It's half size. I mean, it is a is a trade paperback, not not a big book, but it's a lot of it's dense information. You know, they they they weren't very flowery in the author who wrote the book, and I've already forgotten the name. Was wasn't using a lot of prose and a lot of that, but but there's a lot of examples, a lot of what I hope are fictional examples of exchanges that would happen between Western managers and and Thai staff, and the reverse of that, true. Uh a Western subordinate working with a Thai upper management. Uh just just so fascinating and and kind of scary.

SPEAKER_03

Can you think of any specific examples of situations that were described in there that you thought were too different to really exist?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think the biggest thing that that I I just wasn't buying it when I was reading it. This can't be true. Something in the book was talking about the fact that Thai people, when they are working with anybody else in uh in an organization, they do things at a different pace. And they do things very much by the book. Uh Thailand is a, even though they break a lot of rules in Thailand, when it comes to business, they they follow the book and they follow the order, and they also do things on their own time and like Thai time. They do it in the way they need to be. Of course, here in America, the way that you you know motivate your employees to get stuff done quicker is you know, you impress upon that and how urgent it is. And then when that's not getting through, then you you kind of raise your voice and you think, no, we have to get this done. I'm staying late, you're staying late. So Thailand is known as the land of smile. That's its common name. And the reason that that is that it's not because everybody in Thailand is very, very friendly, it's because they smile in the most inappropriate spots. The way that they show that the smiles mean different things to different people in Thailand. So when you're stressing someone out, someone who works for you by shouting at them, they will smile at you. You almost get a little incensed by that. Like, this is not a time. I'm I'm very upset right now. This is not a time to be happy and smiling. You think I'm joking about this? So that was part one of the thing. You know, watch out for when when someone starts smiling at an inappropriate situation, it means that you, the Westerner, don't understand what particular type of smile that is. That was number one. And the second thing is if you continue to push and you continue to pressure, the they will do the exact opposite. They will tell you, you bet, I will get that done right away, boss, and then not even think about doing it. Put it down even further on their priority list. It actually works, it works against you to try and push them to go faster. I didn't believe it when I read it. I thought that can't be true, but I've experienced it. It is very, very true. Do you remember the first time you experienced it and had that realization that Yeah, I was working with the scheduler at the school that I was working with, and she just wasn't getting it. You know, the the types of classes I was teaching were were were were different than anything else that the school was doing. And she's continuing to to put things on that are in in the wrong the wrong spot. I mean, it's it's it's times when I've already said I can't do it then. That was that was one challenge. And so I several times they're telling her, no, that that time is is not the right spot for me. These are the times I can work. So again, let's do it this way. And I actually went into the office because she just wasn't getting it, you know, and and I guess I'll use the word got in her face, and I and I feel bad about it now, but I totally kind of got in her face. But no, what what part of not any time from two to four didn't you understand? That that's not I can't do that. And I got that smile that they talked about. But luckily I'd read the book and I went, oh, this is that. This is that smile they talked about. But the damage had been done, and then for the next like six weeks, the only thing I got were appointments at that two to four o'clock splot that I that I told him said I do not want. I'll get you, I guess.

SPEAKER_03

She's oh my gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so it took a lot of uh a lot of time to dig out of that hole. You know, I uh came with my hat in my hand and I said, Look, I'm sorry, I didn't realize, you know, uh the cultural difference, and I get it, you know, did a lot of whys, a lot of my pandemies, um, and just you know, slowly got her back onto my size, being being very pleasant, you know, never questioning anything, and uh it got better. I mean, the good news is um she didn't hold the grudge for too terribly long, uh, and uh the the damage wasn't irreparable.

SPEAKER_03

It's so funny that you bring this up as the first example. Um, the first place I worked in in Asia was over in Taiwan, which everybody thought I was saying Thailand in the US because our geography sucks in general. And I was like, no, no, Taiwan, Taiwan, it's near China. Anyway, so so yeah, and I had a similar experience with the smiles, only a slightly different reason. Like my students and my co-work, my local students and my local co-workers would smile when they were embarrassed. And so if I was like trying to somewhat discipline a child or a teenager, they would smile at me. And I thought they were being a cheeky teenager, but in fact, they were just embarrassed and they were losing face, and it just kind of escalated a little bit at first until I figured out what was going on, and then I stopped embarrassing myself by acting that way. But it was it was such a knee-jerk reaction of why are you smiling in this inappropriate moment? Oh, wait, this isn't inappropriate for you. This isn't appropriate for me. I'm the foreigner here in this culture.

SPEAKER_02

I heard about saving face and watched enough movies to know that that's what people from Asia have this kind of a saving face. I didn't really understand what it was, but yeah, it only takes a few examples, first person examples like that to where you get it. You totally get it, and then it makes foreign relations totally understandable now. Now that you get where this whole idea comes from. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and we do have saving face in the West. It's just not, I don't know. I don't even I even after like 15 years, I couldn't tell you the difference. It just feels slightly different, but it does exist. We do embarrass people, we do annoy people, we do all kinds of things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you're right. We we certainly do, but I don't think to that level, and when when when you get embarrassed or I get embarrassed in a situation that you know it a it's probably our fault, but nonetheless, let's say that it's not, you know, and somebody's just being over the top and screaming at us for no reason. We're embarrassed, they're embarrassed by it. Everybody else just kind of goes about their way, you know, and didn't and deals with it and come back later and say, sorry, you had to deal with that jerk, you know, or whatever that the case will be. But what I have found, and and I don't know if it works that way everywhere, but the it's it's the damage you're doing to the people around that person. It's like they have lost face with other people around them, which I think is the really different thing about America. Yeah, I'm embarrassed because it happened in front of people, right? But I wouldn't think that the people around me, my co-workers in the States, are thinking less of me because of that exchange. But I feel that's totally the way that it is in in Thailand, that when you lose face, it's not just with that other person, it's with everybody else that's around you in that.

SPEAKER_03

The ripple effect. Oh, you've massively hit on something there. That, and as you were saying that, I was also thinking the time of the effect seems to stay longer. I feel like losing face in the West is maybe we just rebound too quickly and just chalk it up to a bad day or something weird, or that was just a jerk. But it feels like the effect of losing face in Asia lasts longer. I don't know if it always goes back to some sort of mischievous revenge, but it feels like it's hard to reverse once it's done. Well, you know, from from my reading.

SPEAKER_02

No, you're no, I don't, I don't disagree. And I think from the readings I've done there and some other just digging around to understand this, you know, status is super important at a level that it's really tough to understand when you come from a land that, you know, we've all been promised the American dream, right? So status to us is is very, very different. But status means everything, every every single exchange that you have with someone, and I and I never grasped this unless I was trying to be funny intentionally, but I never fully understood the fact that the conversations that someone that I'm having at my condo, right? So the the woman that worked behind the counter at my condo, when she and I are having a conversation, that's that's one status level. When she's talking to the other person behind the counter, that's a different status level. But then when the when their boss comes in, it's a totally different status level. Which, which doesn't sound weird when when you said, I mean, yeah, well, of course it makes sense that way. But mannerisms, deference, tone, um everything is is completely, completely different. So yeah, I I got a crash course in understanding how status works when I was there.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my gosh. I mean, I don't want to say all of Asia is the same, but there's a lot of similarities in the places that I've lived in in Asia and what you're saying right now.

SPEAKER_02

Right. You know what? Here's one of my favorite things to do, which is a terrible thing. It shows you what a terrible person I am.

SPEAKER_03

So we know that Ivo's not really a terrible person, but we'll listen to his funny cultural story in just a moment. What I did want to tell you is something that you can do to be a less terrible person yourself. Are you ready? I would like you to share X Pat Rewind with just one person. There's so many ways to share.

unknown

I don't care how you do it.

SPEAKER_03

I just would like to have more bookish cultural moments about different countries and different cultures in you and your friends' earbuds. Now we are veering, as I mentioned before, to completely bookish episodes. Come July, we will just be focusing on expats and the books that they read in a specific country. We're going to have a new name at that point, a new format, and of course, new lovely guests. My homepage with all of my projects, S-T-E-P-H-F-U-C-C-I-O.weebly, W E E B L Y dot com. Or you can send them to the expatrewind.podbean.com website. Thank you so much for your help on this. We really look forward to the transition over to our 100% bookish selves coming soon. Thank you. Let's get back to Evo.

SPEAKER_02

But it's a kind of a it's kind of a little harmless joke, sort of. I at least I think it's harmless. Uh to me, to me, I kind of think it's funny. So in Thailand, like a lot of cat a lot of Asian countries, where there is bowing. Uh in Thailand, it's called the Y. We spell it W-A-I. And depending on where your hands go, like close to your chest, up to your chin, up to your nose, up to your, you know, it all has to do with status, right? But but but that that's for the Thais, that's not for us. We just simply put both hands together, not much bowing that goes, it's literally just putting both your hands together in a prayer formation, somewhere around your heart, right? So that's the why. However, however, back to status from that in Thailand, it is always the person with lower status whys first. And then it's up to the other person, the one higher status, whether or not they wish to why back or not. It's not rude. You know, be like skipping someone's high five, leave them hanging. That'd be bad. But no, that's not, that's not a bad thing there. So one of my favorite, and again, I'm a terrible, terrible human. One of my favorite things to do is when I would go, when I like frustrated with my condo for whatever reason, because you get frustrated a lot, a lot with with various things. So if I was frustrated with them, when they would be on the phone as I'm walking by, they would look at me and I would why first. And that just puts them in panic because then they're thinking, oh my God, did I forget to why to this? Why why would I have to do that? Oh, it just puts them in, they sometimes a single hand goes up to their chest while they're fumbling with their phone out. It again, I am a terrible human being, but it's really, really funny.

SPEAKER_03

But did they actually bow every time you did that?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, oh yeah, totally. Every single time I did it. Yeah. We wouldn't have something in their hands, they would drop it and put their hands together because they missed it. I mean, they have to be first and they weren't first. So that means they did something wrong. It's again, okay. That makes me a bad person, but I it's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my goodness. Oh my god. Did you do that the whole time you were there or just at the beginning?

SPEAKER_02

No, just oh no, the whole time I was there, but I didn't do it every single day, right? So I would, but I I I probably learned that once I learned about the status thing, probably probably six months in, yeah, I did it accidentally once. I just did it accidentally. I was in a I was in a restaurant and walked up to, or I was going into a restaurant and walked up to the uh the the server, not the server, the uh the the matri D, if you will. You know, so it was a Western restaurant. And, you know, I just I said cop on cop and did uh did a little Y thing there. And the guy had a menu in his hand and he dropped the menu. He dropped the menu on the floor to quickly get his hands up there, and then and like and and like almost prostrates himself, you know, caring walking me to the table with his head super bowed underneath mine and getting the table right away, like I was some huge star that had done this. So yeah. So I learned right away, like, oh, that's that's terrible and funny at the same time.

SPEAKER_03

What do you think is the equivalent, the US equivalent when foreigners come to the US and there's something we do that they don't in general, like something that's very distinctly American that we do that they would find interesting to play with?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, I think it's probably the volume in which we speak, I think is is frightening to a lot of of especially Thai's that come over because they're all reserved, they all speak very quietly, which is really odd because if you go to a Thai supermarket or you go to the mall and there's a sale going on, they will have the volume turned up to 11 and the microphone shoved down someone's throat while they are screaming about this super great deal that is over here. And it's the most maddening thing. When I walk through the grocery store with my fingers in my ears, and I'm largely deaf, and I still can't handle the massive amount of noise from those environments.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But that's but that's a different thing, right? That's a promotion, and that's how they pronounce it. That's a promotion, and they love promotions. Yeah, they love sales, man. They will get a crowd around them like it's you know, snake oil salesmen from 1874 in the wild, wild west, you know. Scouting from the top. That's how they sell a lot of things there. Of course, we don't do that here, but we do. We are boisterous. We are loud at when we meet people, you know, we see some friends we haven't seen them out. We'll scream and yell and hug and all that stuff. That's very, very odd to ties.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, the one-on-one loudness, definitely. Oh man, you hit the nail on the head with that one. Um so tell me more about this book. Do you remember were there were there any pictures, like illustrations in it or anything visual?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so there were two things that that struck me, and I don't think they were done very well, but again, this book was made, made, made some time ago. So they did have photographs, black and white photographs, that they would use to try and and and then they would draw word bubbles, or what a word cloud I'm trying to say, you know. So that it would have the exchange between the Westerner and then what the Thai person would say, so the word blob, the word cloud or word bubble, and then the thought cloud behind it, what the Thai person was actually thinking. And so that was good because you're reading this, this, this dense text that's talking about, you know, whatever it happens to be. But having that illustration, not a illustration, but uh uh again, a picture with extra drawings on it, really helped kind of drive the point home. And it it made me sit back and reevaluate, you know, what are situations I've been into that are like this, or what might I find myself getting into? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Were were the illustrations as accurate as the information that was in there, or were any of them really stereotypically funny?

SPEAKER_02

Hmm, I think they were all pretty accurate. You know, the they they did it was written by a Westerner, and I th I believe his Thai partner um who'd been there for a long time. So so he wrote the book. And so his representations of Westerners weren't caricaturized, be as as it might have been that to have been for a person who was from Thailand. So none of none of the things against Westerners are very stereotypical. And and honestly, I don't think I understood enough about the culture to find out if he was oversimplifying, and I likely was oversimplifying what it what the Thai person was really thinking about and going through. Um but but I the good news is no, it didn't have any of those easy tropes that you might fall into it. It it seemed pretty much it's very much business focused, and so yeah, it didn't go for the for the the easy jokes.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, good. I was gonna ask you that. Was it with so I'll just I'll just clarify this one. So it was mostly focused on the was it mostly focused on business relationships or did it delve into personal relationships too?

SPEAKER_02

Everything was business focused. Okay, and it would the only time it got to personal was there was a section in there about you know after work things, which you know are pretty common where I'm from. You know, hey, it's Friday night, let's go get a beer somewhere, you know, and I and I will go to my staff. I I ran a big agency here in the States before I before I took off. And so I'd so go around and say, hey guys, it's it's Friday night. I'm gonna I'm gonna go over to the the you know beer place next door and grab a beer, you guys want to come? And I don't know, two or three would show up if I did that. But from this book, if I was to do that in Thailand, everyone would show up and feel compelled to stay until I said it was time to go, even though it's an after hours thing. The boss said, We're getting a beer here, done. End of story. So that that that was the only interpersonal relationship, but it all came from the perspective of it's business.

SPEAKER_03

So were there any other parts of the book that really stuck out or helped and helped you?

SPEAKER_02

I I think all of those examples, you know, that they were really good about detailing out the what was really happening, how's the status of changing back and forth. And they did a nice job, I think, of doing a little bit of role-playing uh inside of the uh the text itself, as well as those illustrations I talked about before.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I mean you it it's while the book wasn't fantastically well written, it is one of those things where you you read it over the course of a week and you're you're able to see the things they're talking about almost immediately. Uh when when you even I didn't see a lot of it, but when my wife would get home in the evening after working in school all day, I would say, hey, this is a thing I just read about. She's oh yeah, oh yeah, here, let me tell you exactly how that happened. So it was spot on. There wasn't there wasn't any bit of that to where it's uh where it didn't actually work. So yeah, if you wind up going to Thailand for any time uh and you want to work there, working with the ties is a pretty amazing book.

SPEAKER_03

You weren't in the teaching English field, but you might have seen this book anyway. The experience preferred but not required.

SPEAKER_02

Yep, I did see that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Oh my gosh. That is that is the niche version of what you're talking about, but for the TEFL industry in Thailand. Yeah, it's very, very funny. But if you do if you've never taught English in at least one or two different Asian countries, it won't make sense. It'll be like, this is goofy, this is this can't be true. But if you have, and oh my gosh, my husband and I have bought it. Like every time we go visit Thailand, we'll get a copy and end up give gifting it to someone. Reread it and just go, this has to, this has to be shared with the world. Because it's it's like stereotypes exist for a reason, but then you don't want to stereotype things, but then some things just fit really well.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Yeah. I I think well, especially when you're in that situation where you're there teaching English. And of course, everything I taught to my students, my students were all grown. Everything I taught was in English because, like any good American, I speak two languages, English and bad English. So all of my classes were in English with these people, and these all these people had all spoken English. I mean, Thailand's had mandatory English training in public schools for 20 some odd years now, you know. So anybody under the age of 20 took English every single day for eight, 10 years of their college education, whether they retained it or not is a different story. But everybody coming to this school I was working at certainly had a command of the English language. But that's not true. I started doing some trainings where organizations, companies would send their entire team. Like there was one time I recall it was a marketing and advertising agency ran ran by a French woman uh in Bangkok. I won't name it, although it probably could narrow it down if somebody really wanted to go to and figure it out. Anyhow, they sent their entire staff, nine people, all of them, hmm, no, not all of them, about half of them Thai, a few Filipinos, one per million. Um, anyhow, sent to this to this training. And I don't oh, I know this was I was supposed to train them in strategic thinking strategically for digital agencies. So it's like, okay, great, let's do this. So met a few of the people, great command of the language, but there was this one one woman in the back who was very quiet. And I realized after I think the third day of training that she did not have a great command of the English language. I think she was kind of, you know, faking it more than anything going on there, but would would intently look at me, take notes in Thai, so I couldn't read them, right? She's taking notes in Thai look and nod her head up and down, but had no idea what I was talking about. You know, asked asked to regurgitate information, asked to, you know, can can you what do you think about this? Um nothing. Nothing. Like I was speaking a totally, well, I guess I was speaking a foreign language to her. So I'm really curious what those notes were, because I can read some Thai, but not anyone's Thai handwriting. I am really curious what she was writing down. I have no idea what this guy is saying. I just can't wait to get out of here, go to the bar. I don't know what the what the notes were, but it certainly wasn't what I was talking about. But she faked it really, really well.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. It could have been a grocery list or she could have been writing a novel. We'll never know.

SPEAKER_02

Right, right. We won't.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so if you were to rate yourself as how basically how bookish are you? Like 10 being total, complete bookworm, read every moment you get, to zero of never read a book, what's a book? Well, clearly it's not zero then. So we'll go from one to ten. Where would you put yourself on the scale?

SPEAKER_02

In my life today, probably is six and a half, although I've been at a nine. And a half okay I'm gonna go six and a half. Yeah, I gotta get half points right. So um, and and that's because well, I read every single day. I'm talking about a book. I know that we yeah, I read all the time. Yeah, email and Twitter doesn't mean anything. No, read a book. I read a book every single day. But right now, reading for me is a pure escape, and it is a reset of my brain so that maybe I can get more than three and a half, four hours of sleep at night because insomnia has really cropped up for me. So I I have fiction, I always read fiction now. You know, people say, Oh, I've got those great nonfiction books. I can't, I can't read it. They have got so much going on right now and everything else with my life that when I sit down to read, I need to read some some fiction. And I alternate between really in-depth, intricate plots with 20 characters going nuts to super popcorn level stuff, just depending on where my mind needs to go. I usually have two different books going at any time to see what's what uh what my mind feels like any given evening.

SPEAKER_03

So did living o overseas affect how much you read? Well, what you read, either one.

SPEAKER_02

I think it had an impact on what I read because uh I have a uh penchant for for fiction and and I would I really started enjoying fiction about Thailand. You know, there was some there's some interesting books that were written that are about Thailand, and I wish I could think of the name of one.

unknown

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02

It's like Thailand in in in 2142 or something along those lines that uh that that was quite was quite good, you know, basically a domed city and everything's flooded out and whatever, because I'm a I'm a big science fiction nerd. So that's the kind of stuff that I like to do. So I would try to read things that were not the standard American fare that I had been used to, you know, a little a little bit more worldly. Because it's always fun to read a book about a place that now I have been to. Right. You know, never never having gone to Hong Kong before. You have zero understanding of what Hong Kong is until you're there, right? And you understand that that is like the most international cosmopolitan city on the planet. And so then when you read a book which features Hong Kong, it's like, aha, I get it. I understand this this is why they didn't set it in Los Angeles, which you think is very international, but it's so not not compared to Hong Kong.

SPEAKER_03

It's compartmentalized. Have you read the three body problem by any chance?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. I just finished the third book in it.

SPEAKER_03

No way, I haven't started it yet. My husband's in the middle of the first one, and I'm I've been meaning to start it for a while.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I hope you're ready. It is a it is a challenging read. It's wonderful. I really like it because it again, I've read a lot of sci-fi, but sci-fi from someone from China that doesn't really the translations didn't really care to make everything Western friendly.

SPEAKER_05

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Was was was great and bad at the same time. Because when I when I read the first book, I I had not traveled yet. I read that first book before I left.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So 2014 maybe is when I read, I think when it first came out.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But then I read the second book while I was still in in Thailand. And I read the third book when I when I came back. And really, really good. First book is is great, but hard to get through. I think they got a better translator on book two, but it's kind of like book two of Lord of the Rings. There's a lot of walking, I guess, is one way to just talk about it. It's a sophomore effort. But the third book, they got an amazing translator this time around who really nailed everything. And I think that the author had really fine-tuned his um overall skill uh and in and ability to write. Because it's it's just I didn't want to put it down.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Every single chapter is really, really good. So yeah, so power through the first, just take deep breaths and make it through the second because the third is an amazing payoff.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my gosh, that sounds really worth it. It's it's good that it's in that order and not the reverse, because I hate it when I start a book or movie or even TV series, and it gets so much worse over time.

SPEAKER_02

Right, right. We've all experienced that. But nope, definitely not this one. There's that little weird sophomore slump in the middle, but that third book is such a payoff. Such a payoff.

SPEAKER_03

Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Oh, sorry for the listeners. Is it set in China? Because I know it's a Chinese author.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, but it doesn't matter after a while. So it's set in China, it's set in outer space, it's set all over the world. But yeah, the first book is largely set in China.

SPEAKER_03

Gotcha, gotcha, got it.

SPEAKER_02

Maybe all set in China. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So, okay. So when you read, are you a paper person, a Kindle person, an on-screen computer person? How do you read?

SPEAKER_02

Kindle all the way. Kindle all the way, yeah. Um, I listen to a lot of audiobooks.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm. Me too.

SPEAKER_02

But but that's, you know, I can't I can't listen to an audiobook in bed. I'll be asleep in 10 minutes. Uh it just it just knocks me out. And I have to be doing it's like with like listening to podcasts.

SPEAKER_03

I I can't sit in a chair and listen to podcasts or week. Start listening to audio books.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it but here's the great thing. It does puts me to sleep, and then I'm awake again in 20 minutes. So that's not very helpful.

SPEAKER_03

So never mind.

SPEAKER_02

I don't I don't fall, I don't stay asleep.

SPEAKER_03

So I haven't had a Kindle for a really long time. Can you highlight certain passages in there now?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Yeah, they've they've and you can even share right from your device if it's connected to the internet. So you can highlight a passage and hit share, and I think it's connected to you know the standard social uh connections, or you can just simply highlight it and save it uh on your own. Are are are you a big highlighter of books?

SPEAKER_03

I have some eye issues. So I move from straight uh paper books to audiobooks, or if I have to read if it's if it's not available in audiobook form, I have to read the paper form because the screen too long uh doesn't do well with my eye issues. So when I have the paper book, I absolutely massacre it. It's pretty blasphemous. I write all over it, I write questions, I highlight, I uh turn pages over, I I tear I tear pages out sometimes.

SPEAKER_02

Goodness.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I'm I I'm pretty intimate with the damn book.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, really good to know it.

SPEAKER_03

Which means I can never pass books on because there's too much in them for like my soul.

SPEAKER_02

Every everything's annotated, but only annotated for you.

SPEAKER_03

For me, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And including grocery lists and different things. It's not just about the book, it'll remind me of lots of different things. So, yeah, it's impossible for me to pass books on.

SPEAKER_02

Right. And and I'm the exact opposite. When I was in college, I know a hundred years ago, the standard thing is you know, you go buy used books when you can. But it didn't take me about a semester to realize I can't buy used books because for something wrong with my brain, when something is highlighted, like I'm talking about the standard yellow highlighter or pink or whatever the colors are for the for the highlighter tools, my brain skips them. I skip chapter names, I skip chapter headings, I skip, you know, H1s and H2s on websites, you know, all of that stuff. I I my brain automatically goes down to the the text itself. Normal font is all at work. So so I never highlight if I don't make if I want to make a note about something, I will go take out a notepad or I'll fire up some other app and take a note. But I I physically can't do it inside of a book just because of the way that my brain works.

SPEAKER_03

Right, right, right. Oh wow. No, I'm the opposite. I'll like remember what part of the page a certain section's on. If I have uh manipulated it and or highlighted it, written on it, circled it, anything. I'll remember what what I won't remember what page, and sometimes I won't remember what book, but I'll remember the section of the pages.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I'm pretty good with recall like that too for for the nonfiction books that I read. I'm I can see where it is. I can probably even pull out a page number so that if I have it on the shelf, I can quickly flip back to it. Um but but I don't I highlighting would throw that whole thing off for me.

SPEAKER_03

Too funny. Were you a book person as a kid too? Did you go to the library around?

SPEAKER_02

Huge book person. Yeah. My my my mom was uh was and is uh awesome, and she had me reading at three.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, I was I was an avoracious reader. Mom read all the time. My my grandmother read nonstop. Um, we we always had books uh with us on I carried paperbacks with me to school, reading, you know, far above grade level, all the way through into college, even was still just devouring books. And I was that weird guy who for probably for the first probably from high school on until my early 30s, I would go through a novel a week. But I actually decided one time I I worked about 15 minutes away from my office. But if I took the bus, it was a 45-minute drive. So I took the bus so that I could read. It gave me 45 minutes. That's an hour and a half of uninterrupted reading that I could do every single day. So I would just plow through books. I had books, I used to have bookshelves and I would keep all those books, and they were nonstop. When I started podcasting, uh I was on a book-focused show. We were interviewing authors, and so we would get anywhere from eight to eighty books every single week would show up at our studio from authors and publishing houses that wanted us to interview their people. So I was, I was, I've not been without anything to read as long as I can remember.

SPEAKER_03

Wow, what was the name of that podcast? And is it still out there?

SPEAKER_02

Uh no, it's not. It was called The Dragon Page. And uh yeah, we started it and started in 2002 before podcasting. It was an internet radio show we were doing back in 2002, and then in October of 2004, we turned it into a podcast. It was the 40th podcast ever.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Which was which was pretty pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_03

That's super super cool. Let's go back to working with the ties. If you could ask the author of that book any question, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02

I think I would want to know, especially of those examples that he would give. How much of those examples, how many of those examples was true versus manipulated based on what has been learned? Because I have that feeling that a lot of the this one time stories that you hear in those places and these other situations are a little bit contrived. Some felt that way, but again, it was such a different environment that I wasn't I wasn't confident in saying, oh yeah, that's totally made up. But I would love to find out. You know, there were certain parts of going, this exchange, and I can't remember specifics of those exchanges right now, but this exchange seemed awfully weird. Did it really happen or not?

SPEAKER_03

Do you think you could have written examples for most of the things in there by the time you left? Could you have written your own version of that?

SPEAKER_02

A smaller version, because two and a half years in Thailand is not nearly enough time to really be absorbed, uh absorbing the culture completely. There were still so many things that that came off as alien to me. I could have probably done an updated version of it to deal with more of the digital world that that we live in and how exchanges with people via email. The book doesn't talk about that at all because there was an email when this book was written. So how to communicate with ties that you work with over email, which is quite different. Uh I'm of the the family of emailers that is typically pretty short and to the point with things, but you can't do that in Thailand.

SPEAKER_03

I imagine there could be a section on social media too. Like line's pretty popular there, right?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody's got a line account. So yeah, exactly. How do how does that and that's a totally different world that we don't really understand? It's it's not an addiction, it's simply the way the communications happen and the way people communicate online is different than people communicate on on Instagram or on whatever else it happens to be. It's just it's just a different, different world.

SPEAKER_03

Well, it sounds like a a reference book. So I have to ask you, did you read it front to back or did you skip around chapters?

SPEAKER_02

Read it front to back over the course of about a week, but then would refresh myself using it as a reference book. I would refresh myself going back. I probably skipped maybe a chapter or two that you know that that that didn't apply to me if I think back on it, but mostly, but but that's also the way that I like to read. I mean, I the first time I bought a for Dummies book, I read it cover to cover.

SPEAKER_05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

That's because well, that's because I was writing a for Dummies book and I was afraid I was gonna do it poorly. So I went and bought it and I read it cover to cover, which I realized that no one, no one ever does now. But it was very instrumental to helping me learn to write in the in the dummies way.

SPEAKER_03

Which dummies book did you write?

SPEAKER_02

Podcasting for dummies, of course. And and and then they also had me write, oh my god, they after that, they said that book sold so well, we want to do a follow-up. We'd like to do a book called Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies, which is arguably the worst book title ever.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Expert Dummies? Nobody wants that. So okay, I will write that book, but you'll have to double my advance. And they did, and it has never come close to paying back.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yeah, I know, because it doesn't that's just yeah, just dumb idea.

SPEAKER_02

Dumb idea. But I'm happy to take your money. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

So the person that you gave it to, had they given you any feedback on it?

SPEAKER_02

No, uh, I have not. I've I've not chatted with them, I think, since we left. It was someone that my that my wife worked with, uh, young guy, 24, 25, I think, from America, who was working at the relatively new to the school, and it was his first, his first overseas placement, and had been having some uh struggles, not necessarily with ties that he worked with, but those he was dating. So I said, this would probably help. I mean, there's nothing specifically about dating in here, but it does talk about that that dynamic uh of how professional relationships work. So maybe that would help you with this. So I don't know if he's got it or not.

SPEAKER_03

This is it. This is the first version, the first bookish version of Expat Rewind.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah?

SPEAKER_03

I'm so excited that you were the first person for this. So every interview I do, I do ask people what questions are missing. Since this is the first round, I want to do a little disclaimer, and I'm sure there's a time missing already because it's the first way through. If you were to join me for the next interview with a different expat and a Different book, what question would you ask them that I haven't asked you?

SPEAKER_02

I think uh if if they're like me and if they since returned, they've been repatriated. I like to call I like to call myself an ex expat because repatriate, everyone knows what that means. Um if if that's the case, you know, how has the book and the experience they had over there in that other particular country, those countries, how has that changed them now? What what did they what lessons did they find from that that are still applicable in their in the new, or maybe even just a brand new country, right? Because a lot of expats just bounce around from spot to spot to spot. So you write you write this great book about working with the ties. How did it impact you when you wound up in South Africa, which is a totally different culture for for four years? We're doing the lessons that you learned over there along the way. That might be kind of cool.

SPEAKER_03

That would be very cool. I'm gonna add that for sure. So you know what you need to do now, answer your own question.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it it certainly has. I'm not sure it was necessarily from the book, as much as it was just from being there, but since the two things happen together, I really can't I can't separate them. I definitely deal with people differently. And the one thing that I do now, and they the book harps on this a lot, is that idea about status. Is I really in the back of my mind, uh because it's all I'm always processing, what's the status relationship of this relationship I'm in right now? Do I have more status or less status? And it's not an ego thing. It is not an ego thing, it's not a way, okay, how can how can I get more status? No, no, no, no. That's not it. It's where am I? What is what role do I have to play? And I then respond accordingly.

SPEAKER_03

It's funny you say that because I basically moved to Asia in my was it mid early early 30s, and I've been ping-panging back and forth, but more time in Asia than in the US or in the West in general. I as I get older, or because I've moved to Asia, I'm more aware of status than any other point in my life. And I do tend to do what you were just describing, where I'll be like, not to try to up someone, but try to understand the relationship that's happening, similar to what you said. And I can't tease it out because I I grew, I adult grew up in Asia. So I've I'm like, okay, that happened because I just grew up and that just happens when people grow up, they start understanding the connections in the relationships around them, or is that because I'm in a place that has a really, really clear status impact on everything you do?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and then and how do how do you take that forward into the next time that you're then when you're somewhere else, right? But I I think it just I think it makes us more aware. I am not the most empathetic person on the planet. Um, that's just me by nature. But I think I'm better uh than I than I was, if if only because I'm now doing that quick evaluation of okay, where where do things stand? So I'm I'm probably less in your face uh than I used to be.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that must probably drive people crazy. Because I know I was like that too. And especially and even more so as a woman coming into Northeast Asia, they were not really anticipating that for me.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

They were just like, you're not not that all Asian women are timid. I don't want to perpetuate that type of very, very false one. But I was very, very matter-of-fact. Let's make a list, what's wrong, what's happening right now. Tell me, tell me what's wrong, tell me what your feelings are, let's work through this. And they're just like, what is happening right now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, wrong, wrong way to go. Yeah, I can definitely see that that challenge.

SPEAKER_03

And I would talk to them directly, and you don't talk to people directly about issues, you go through superiors, and there's all this other stuff that and I thought, oh, that's so that's so backstabbing and it's so wrong. And I was just so naive.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and and the other thing that really threw me today was, you know, in in the West, or at least in America, you know, the idea is you know, you you give you a very direct conversation with someone subordinate that isn't isn't performing well. And then after that, after that, then you finally praise them. So you yell at them if you will, and then you praise them for the good stuff they did, right? So you you give them the beating and then you kind of pat them on the head.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02

So that's pretty standard. Exact opposite in Thailand.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it is it is exact opposite. It is all about how great and wonderful everything's under this ground. But but just if it's one minor thing, you know, maybe you could, you know, start coming to work on time. You know, a little minor thing like that, you know, which is not a minor thing at all. My God, get on time. It's super simple, but yeah, you just gotta flip it on said.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my god, that's really, really true. Even with correcting writing, there's like this sanguage language thing where you know you say something nice, you critique something, then you say something nice again. And my foreign students in my writing uh like second language writing class were just like, what is all this niceness? Can you just write can you just red pen it? Can you just have all my mistakes so I can change them? And I'm like, but you need to know what you're doing right too, so you keep doing those things, so you don't think those need to change. And it just was a little bit of a back and forth, and they're just like, No, I don't need the niceness. I'm like, I can't not do it. It's not happening, right?

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_03

I will change culturally, but I'm not taking out the nice parts.

SPEAKER_02

Good on you.

SPEAKER_03

Uh well, yeah. Where can our listeners find you?

SPEAKER_02

Sure, you can find me pretty much everywhere. The great thing about being named Evo Terra is uh if you search for me, you will find me. Uh, if you are interested in podcasting, I do a four times a week, almost a daily show. Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I do a little less than 10 minute show called Podcast Pontifications, where I talk about the future of podcasting. That's a podcast, pontifications.com. And I'm all over the internets with the social stuff. So, you know, Twitter, that's a good place for me. I've been you can follow my face on Instagram if you want, evo underbar Terra for over there. But yeah, I'm kind of everywhere.

SPEAKER_03

Awesome. I love your podcast, by the way.

SPEAKER_02

Ah, thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Um I don't listen to a lot of short podcasts. It's like you and Nutrition Diva are my two short podcasts. And I absolutely love yours. I love hers too. Yeah, every day, four times a week. I'm just totally addicted to listening to them because they're just they're so concise. Do you take a lot of notes and outline it before you do it? You don't. You're laughing, so you must know.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, oftentimes no. Occasionally I will. Occasionally, but I'm I'm usually pretty good about revealing. Like I'll pull it by the camera because you know, as you know, I don't know. Do you watch it or do you just listen to it?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, do you do it live?

SPEAKER_02

I well, I record it live on Facebook right now, but only because if I I if I just talk to a blank wall, I'm not doing a good job. So having the camera on me helps. Yep, but and and a handful will watch it, right? So if I if I do fess up, if if if I have actually done, if I made an outline or I've made some notes, I will say on the show, hey, I made some notes about this, so I get it all right. I'm not sure if I remember if that gets cut before I put it live. Anyhow. But yeah, typically no. Typically there's there's not a lot, I mean there's a lot of planning, but it's drawn off of my 15 years of experience in podcasting and 30 years of doing business operations is really where I draw that from. Yeah, if if anything, like uh occasionally I'll write a note or two, but uh yeah, not uh not a lot of super detailed outline for that show.

SPEAKER_03

So do you do it live off of the IpotEra one or do you have a special account on it?

SPEAKER_02

It's from my simpler media uh Facebook page.

SPEAKER_03

There it is.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, that's where it goes. Yeah, that's where you'll see that. So you can see all the old videos. That's fine. Most people, most people listen to it as well. And as soon as uh LinkedIn Live is finally released everywhere, I'm gonna switch uh to that as a as opposed to Facebook because it's 10-minute videos, right?

SPEAKER_03

Is that the time?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, 10-minute videos, that's all it is.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's really interesting. That that is changing so much. Anyway, well, man, oh man, thank you so much for joining us. This has been really fun.

SPEAKER_02

Stephanie, you are very welcome. Thanks for inviting me and enjoy your your continued time in in Beijing. When I was there this time last year, um, I believe it snowed on us.

SPEAKER_03

I'm actually in Shanghai.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, you're in Shanghai. I'm sorry. I thought you were in Beijing. Wow, that is very strange.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, it doesn't stay long either, but it does it did happen two years in a row.

SPEAKER_02

You know, for us, we had just left Bangkok and shipped all of our stuff back to America, moving back to Phoenix, Arizona, and it's you know, April. And so we thought, wow, we'll just we'll take a light jacket with us into Beijing. And it snowed. Yeah, it was miserable cold the entire time we were in China and South Korea. Finally warmed up when we got to Japan. Uh, and then uh yeah, but anyhow.

SPEAKER_03

The weather is not the reason to come to most places in China, except for me to the south, but then you're it's terribly humid. Yeah, it's been it's hot and muggy. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Although it did snow, I lived in Tucson, Arizona for grad school, and it snowed one of the years we were there.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we had a lot of snow in in Tucson this year. So yeah, that we've had a we've had a crazy way. In fact, I just flew when I flew back from Orlando last week, we flew over Tucson. Yeah, Mount Mount Lemon, and uh you could probably ski there was so much snow on it still, and that's been a week since it snowed. Although we just we just got another uh storm that came through today, so who knows? It might be still it might be snowing somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03

Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Thank you so much, and I hope you feel better soon.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, as do I. Uh thanks for chatting with me. You know, it was fun to not focus on my misery and talk about something else. So I appreciate you taking my mind off of it.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, it was my pleasure. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of X Pet Rewind. And while I'm doling out the thank yous, I need to do a couple of more of these. Thank you very much to Evo Terra for volunteering to come on the X Pat Rewind podcast. If you take a look at his information, his website, etc., you know how busy Ivo is, and I just am forever grateful for people who have a lot to do and choose to do stuff like this podcast, also. Thank you, Ivo. Last but certainly not least, the music for this podcast is courtesy of Damon Castillo. Damon is a fantastic musician based in San Luis Obispo, California, in the US. That is the place where I went to university, and I used to go see his live concerts all the time. And he has been generous to donate the mess of me album for all three of my podcasts. So thank you, Damon. You can find the rest of his music, including his newer albums, at Damoncastillo.com. So with each book, we're getting closer and closer to switching over officially to Bookish Expats, which starts officially in July with all kinds of new changes, surprises, and whatnot. If you'd like to be a guest on that new version of Expat Rewind called Bookish Expats, please do contact me any way you so wish. Thank you very much. More soon.

SPEAKER_00

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