Paradise, Then the ER

Some people collect stories. Rio has survived them.

In 1998, when he was barely old enough to walk, his parents hid him somewhere in their Jakarta apartment, a room, a box, they still can't agree on the detail, while Chinese-Indonesian homes and businesses were being destroyed in some of the worst racial riots in Southeast Asian history. His father, one of only four Chinese students ever admitted to the "MIT of Indonesia," was beaten, bullied, and called slurs his entire childhood. He fought off five men in a single afternoon. And somehow, Rio says, his dad never let a single drop of that hatred live inside him.

That lesson shaped everything.

At 13, Rio won a one-in-thousands scholarship to Singapore. By his late twenties, he was walking away from three corporate jobs to start a company from scratch. And less than 24 hours before his own wedding, instead of rehearsing vows or greeting family, he was at his co-founder's apartment writing code, a decision he admits he still hadn't fully explained to the woman he was about to marry.

Then came Maui. A four-day babymoon. Day two, something felt off. What started as a precautionary ER visit ended with a private medical jet flying below 30,000 feet to Oahu, five days of praying his wife could hold on, and their son Rafael arriving four months early at two pounds, lungs too small to make a single sound.

In this conversation, Rio walks through all three chapters, the riots, the wedding-day bet, and the NICU, and what it actually costs to come out of each one softer instead of harder.

If you've ever had to be the "stable one" while the world quietly fell apart, this episode will stay with you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey friends, welcome back to Soul Sessions, where we have the realist conversations on the internet. For this season, we're exploring the concept of change and how we deal with it. You know, I'm curating these stories so you can have a window into the lives of others. And my hope is that you can relate to them. For this specific episode, as we start, Rio walks us through his background, the challenges he faces as he came to this country, and how he's working through them. One thing I want to highlight is that Rio is still working through things. And this is a general theme going forward. I don't want you to get a sense that people have had it all figured out, but I want to also give you an into an insight into people just still going through things and the tools that they're using. All the guests are still working through things in real time. I hope you enjoy these episodes. I'd love to hear some feedback from you all. Uh let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Have you been to Indonesia? I've not. Okay. Uh people probably think of Bali, but and that's fine. But we're tens of thousands of islands. And if you ever visit um and you look at me, I probably look a little different, right? Because my ancestors were Chinese and they moved to Indonesia, so I look a little different. Uh I was born in ISIC, so when I was about one-ish, maybe two years old. Um and my parents still tell the story, but they hide they had to hide me. Um I don't remember if it was in a room or in a box or something, but there were massive racial riots, you know, happening all across the country where the Chinese Indonesians were they were getting, you know, unfortunately just brutally attacked. And um a lot of them eventually escaped uh during that period, whether it's to the US or to uh Singapore, uh which is way closer. But you know, we my parents they didn't have a whole lot of money back then, so the only option for it was to stick around and just survive that period. So I I feel like that's a story I keep coming back to because it's what shaped me in my very early days. Having I don't recall anything because I was so young, but my parents had to, you know, navigate through what was such an intense period. And you know, they've faced um racism their whole lives, but this was at at its peak. Um and I think that was when you know these stories, it it doesn't make me hate my country where I'm where I was born. Uh it makes me appreciate it even more because now it's so different and we've taken so much step forward, but just having to uh being exposed to you know these racial divisions that early on it kind of shaped who I am.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah. When you say riot, like were people just bashing in the streets, like did did did they share a little bit about like, oh man, like this is the thing that when I remember the it's I the sirens or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Oh yeah, it was chaos. Um the streets were filled with demonstrators, and I think especially Chinese Indonesian owned businesses and homes were targeted heavily. And so we lost a lot of you know great Chinese Indonesians back then. Um a lot of them injured, unfortunately, you just brutally um might need to censor it, but you know, sexually harassed, um a lot of destruction everywhere. Um and I think uh the army, you know, had to step in and um there was just so much happening that I feel like when I talk about it with with you know the older folks, they try to just block it out of their minds, but it was definitely chaotic. Yeah, that's super helpful. What were some of the things that your parents were trying to accomplish? Yeah, they were just starting off a family, right? So kind of like where you and I are at right now. Um, not a whole lot of money at all. So they moved to Jakarta, the capital city, with two suitcases, and they just got a small starter home, very humble. I still remember it till this day. Uh just two bedrooms, and we would all squeeze together in one bed, uh, all sleep together. And they were just hustling, man. They were trying to build their careers from the ground up, and they were also taking care of their parents who were getting sick as well, and so they they were sandwiched between these two generations, um, and just hearing the stories of how they made it through this period on top of the riots as well. Man, like I know it's not easy for me right now, but they had it so much worse, you know. Yeah. I think my dad had a lot of stories getting bullied. Uh, but he's feisty, so he would fight back. And there was a time when he had to fight off like four or five guys on his own. He was, you know, just bleeding in different places. But that was his childhood, you know. He was called Jinat, which means Chinese, you know, and he was targeted and picked on a lot, but um that definitely shaped who he is and the resilience he has, and he made it to like the MIT of Indonesia, so a very exclusive school, predominantly no Chinese students at all. He was one out of like four out of like the hundreds and hundreds that got accepted, and so I don't think he ever became racist. Uh, and I think that's one thing that he taught me. It's like, you know, the world can throw things at you, but you can choose how to react. And it doesn't mean that, you know, just because there's a lot of hatred going around, you need to hold it internally and keep passing that hatred. So um I feel like just seeing him not just overcome all these obstacles, but being the man he is today, how he does not at all have any racism inside his heart, like he's super um like open-minded and all that. It just shows me that you know you people can be surrounded with so much hate but come out on the other side with a lot of love.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

What effect did that experience have on you and how did it contribute to the person that you are today?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

I think I saw that there was instability in my country, and my dad instilled from early on that I had to it's on me to you know figure out what the best future would be for me and um you know not just be at the mercy of my surroundings, but you know, seek growth and seek better surroundings for myself. And so uh brings me to, you know, getting a scholarship when I was only 13 to study in Singapore and abroad. Um, I you know fought tooth and nail to get that scholarship. I think thousands of people were considered and only two got it. Um, and so it definitely taught me to, you know, play an active part and be proactive in shaping my future instead of just kind of waiting back and reacting to my environment and the situations around me. It's g it's instilled, you know, all these challenges. It's really instilled a sense of you know, I gotta um bust my ass and you know shape the future that I want instead of just waiting for it to come.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

I'd be curious about like your decision to start a company. Yeah, I think as you were talking, my mind went to the day right before my wedding, and there was so much happening as you can probably imagine. The day before the wedding, you're just preparing, you know, for the many, many things that you need to prepare for, and instead, I was at my co-founder's house, Gary's house, and we were working on this brand new startup idea that we just had, and that was a memorable time because I remember just grinding it out with my co-founder, but then my wife was looking for me, and we also eventually had a discussion around okay, like I'm getting married, but at the same time, I am leaving like stable careers in order to build this brand new startup from scratch, and I feel like I could have done way better in communicating with my wife and kind of laying things out for the future better there, but I think ultimately it was not that I wanted to be reckless, but it's that I had strong belief and conviction in my ability to thrive as a startup founder and just as much my inner confidence and belief in my co-founder and what he's going to achieve as well. And we thought, you know, creating something together from scratch, from zero, is the best way to not just set up the rest of our lives, but to grow as fast as we wanted to, and that was the biggest thing we wanted to achieve was just learn as much as possible. We know it's what it's about to be a painful process. We didn't know it was gonna be this painful, but we decided, you know, let even though I'm getting married and you know a kid is in the horizon later on, um, it's not that it's not about us being reckless, but it's about betting on ourselves and you know, bet betting on our partnership that we still have to this day.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

You're starting this new chapter for your life like this. Um TF man, like what were you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

I think having worked about six, seven years for you know, three different corporations taught me that it's not for me, and I'm a mixture of stubborn and also you know, creative mind, and it just felt so necessary to set out on my own and do things my own way, and even if what I built ended up being small, at least it's mine. Um so that was the mindset, and I just didn't see myself at the time working for anyone else but myself. Um so again, man, it felt necessary. And if I didn't have my co-founder, I don't think uh I would have done it. So it was a bet on both myself and him as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

When that conversation came up, was there you know, was there like fear uh with your wife? Was there just like oh no, I did something bad? Um, where it was just like she understood.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Oh man, it was a mixture. I think she's always been incredibly supportive. She's the very stable one, still uh working a good corporate job until today, but there was definitely a WTF moment, and she felt a little surprised that oh now we're getting married, and not just that, I am apparently marrying a startup founder. Um, and so you know that we had no attraction back then. We actually pivoted from that idea. Um, and you know, I told she asked me how are you gonna put food on the table? And all I said was, I saved some money, yay, like uh we have some runway, but of course at some point that runway, you know, ran out and she had to really step in. But um, you know, fast forward, of course, now it's finally gaining traction and uh it's not you know that uh as painful as back then, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, yeah. Were there any learnings from that insights or reflection?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

I think I should have communicated better with my wife and you know, and understand that entering a marriage, you know, it's not just me anymore. It's uh her and I as as a team as a unit moving forward. And so that decision-making process, I definitely could have incorporated her way more. But at the same time, I knew that I had to do it, I took the leap, and maybe in hindsight was a little rash, but it revealed to myself that hey, I actually believe in myself more than I thought.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

So I wouldn't jump in here and set up the next part of the interview. Uh Ryo took a baby move to Hawaii with his wife. Then the unexpected happened. As you can imagine, the baby, this was in May, and the baby was due in August. He walks us through the experience in details. I hope you enjoy this intimate part of his story. It took a lot for him to share, um, but uh he's gonna set it up and then you'll hear the outcome of it. I hope you enjoy this part of it as well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

I mean, we knew we were about to be parents and we knew life was gonna be different, and so for the love we have uh for each other, we thought let's celebrate one last time and go to a baby moon, and you know, we considered even abroad, by the way, and so we were like, should we go to Paris or Italy? But then we were like, let's not go that far and go somewhere closer, a place that we love and still love, uh, which is Hawaii. And so we decided to go on a four-day baby moon to celebrate each other and have one last hurrah before supposedly returning to San Francisco and you know, uh continue on continuing on with the pregnancy and finally starting parenthood. The closest thing I've seen to what I felt was the beginning of White Lotus the season in Thailand when there's this gorgeous resort, tranquility, people are doing yoga, meditating, beautiful by the beach, and suddenly gunshots. So that's the closest thing I can um visualize because we were in a beautiful resort in Maui. Think, you know, sipping drinks by the beach and um a beautiful room, chilling at the pool, and at some point, you know, she felt something off, and I, you know, discussed it with her, and she was reluctant to leave this wonderful resort. But I thought, let's just have peace of mind for the rest of our supposed four-day baby moon, and this was day two, and I rushed her to the nearest ER, and even at the ER, she was like, Do we really need to go in? Like, maybe we don't. And even I started uh second guessing it, but I was like, Let's just leave the car here, let's just walk inside and let's just talk to someone, it's no big deal. And they, you know, uh noticed that she's pregnant, and they told us to immediately skip the emergency line and go straight to a room. And so that's when I started feeling, okay, is there something here? But we were still all smiles, you know. We were in Hawaii after all, right? Um, beautiful weather, very sunny day. Um, and then the doctor started doing some tests, and we were still smiling, we were taking pictures of each other in the hotel room, just messing around. I mean, in the hospital room, just messing around with each other. And the doctor came back after the tests, and they were like, You're dilated. And by the way, her supposed delivery date was still four months away. And that was just that turning point when all of our smiles, all the jokes vanished, and I don't think we were comprehending the severity of the situation yet. We were like, Alright, you know, Doctor, let's let us hop on the next flight to San Francisco. And they were like, Listen, I don't think you understand what's happening here. This baby could come out at any point, even in the next few hours. Think about that. And what we're gonna have to do is not fly across the ocean from Hawaii to San Francisco. That would be ludicrous. I still remember him saying that. You are gonna go to the next, it's like it's like a private jet, so like an emergency flight to the nearest NICU in the state of Hawaii, which is not in Maui. So if you were to give birth here right now, your baby will not make it. The best thing you can do, the only thing you can do right now is to hop on this flight that I am putting you in and go to Honolulu, so the island of Oahu. And we from that moment when we were taking pictures and joking with each other in that hospital room, like an hour later, we were in a small aircraft that had to fly below 30,000 feet for our safety, and we were headed to Oahu, and it's kind of a blur, but the next thing I knew was we were in yet another hospital room, except now it was they have a NICU if the baby were to uh come out, and we were surrounded by many doctors and nurses, and I feel like my like having trauma from this, I've kind of blocked this memory away, but I still vividly remember it was it was late at that point past midnight, and we were still surrounded by many medical professionals, and they just they were constantly doing tests on her, and she was freaking out, and she was in a lot of pain, and I had to be the stable one, and so I was like, We got this, don't worry, but deep down, man, I was like, This baby could come out at any point. Are you serious? Like, this was April, and our delivery date was supposed to be August, and so that was just such a crazy moment, man. Yeah, so my wife is so strong, five days of holding on, and what that allowed the doctors to do was inject a couple of things uh into her, which would then strengthen the baby's lungs to be ready for the world. And she was such a trooper, man. Um she made it through five long days, and every single day we uh would pray to God, and also we had this piece of paper where we would write, all right, one day down, you know, and we would write down what are we grateful for, and we would write down, you know, what are we what are we scared about? Let's just be real with each other and um you know voice our thoughts and concerns. And after five days, um I remember this was around this was definitely past midnight, so I had fallen asleep, and by the way, I was next to her on a couch uh the whole time, and I was asleep on the couch, and she had called the nurse to come in because she was feeling contractions, and uh they said it was time, and so around 2 a.m. Um we were ushered into the birthing slash I guess delivery room, and they put me in a ton of just medical outfit, I guess. I didn't really know what was going on. It felt like autopilot, and the scariest moment was just seeing the doctors and the nurses all like at least a team of ten rush there, put on gear, and then run into um the delivery room, and there was just such a sense of urgency, and I I had no idea what was going on, and I think the worst period was when they made me sit outside for a bit while my wife was inside with everyone, and at that point, like I feel like I'm a pretty logical person, and so what that means was I thought about the worst case scenario and also best case scenario, and worst case scenario, man. I even thought of okay, if I lose the my wife and I lose the baby, how would I react? I even thought of those things, and I feel like five minutes of sitting outside that felt like an eternity, but it also felt like this was my duty as you know the man of the family, I guess, to think of these things. Um and then, you know, long story short, after maybe only 30 minutes, which again felt like an eternity inside the delivery room, baby was born, wife is fine, everything went well, and I just remember seeing him. Uh his name's Rafael for the first time. At only two pounds, um, you know, his lungs were still small back then, so he didn't make a single sound, so it was eerily silent, and so I it felt off, it's different from the movies, you know, but I just kind of reached my pinky down to him, and I remember until now I can still feel it. He grabbed onto it pretty tightly, and I feel like that was the moment when I was like, I think we're gonna be okay. Um that that felt amazing. Uh, just that little grip that he gave me. It's as if he was reassuring us, yo, I'm good, bro. Like, uh, I know I'm way early, but things are gonna be okay. And then I I still have the video, but I then of course had to cut the cord and um followed them into the NICU where my son would then spend the next four months um of his of you know his life, his journey. Um and I remember just being a little paranoid because I was joking with my friends about hey, don't get the babies mixed up, you know. A lot of a lot of Asian babies, I guess, look like each other was the joke, but um I I had to memorize the room number, I had to memorize every single detail, and I was just in kind of like flight or fight mode, but that was just how I had to cope with the situation, and my wife was still in the delivery room, and then I had to wait for her, and so it was a lot of running back and forth in the hospital. Um, and apparently all that happened within like an hour. But again, that felt like an entire chapter of my life happened unfolding within one hour.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

As we wrap up, I'm curious like, how is that? Like affected you looking back on it for the type of dad you are today, type of husband, type of leader that you are today?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah. I don't take things for granted anymore. Um every moment, every time I get to spend with my wife, my baby, I make sure I'm gonna be here fully immersed and not thinking about anything else. Of course, being a startup founder is a challenge to that, but it's just taught me that hey, you know, I I made a deal with God, right? Like, yo, give me this, and you know, I'll glorify your name, and also I won't take my family for granted. And I feel like that is the core mindset that I have to start each day. It's just gratefulness that we have this second chance, it feels, and I'm gonna be a blessing to those around me. And so I feel like as a person I've become a lot more peaceful, and um just you know, I don't seek uh ever to harm or even like hurt others at all. Um, it's just taught me that, you know, we should all we're all going through things, we've all gone through things like let's be nice to each other and not take, you know, the relationships we have with uh our families and friends, co colleagues uh for granted.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah.