Being raised in two different cultures is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I am grateful for the cultural values and traditions that come from my Asian background and to be able to compare and contrast that against American ideals that helped broaden my perspectives. On the other hand, being pulled in two different directions left me confused and stuck in who I wanted to be, which didn’t leave much room to build confidence within me. Do I follow the Asian traditions that have been passed down for generations, like family and sacrifice? Or do I embrace the American culture as an individual being born-and-raised in America and seek out personal passions and self-care? The short answer is that I don’t have to pick one or other, instead, I acknowledge that it’s actually a privilege of mine to be able to balance these two worlds so I can use that to create my own culture, traditions, and values.
I talk about all of this with Seibo Shen, one half of the duo from the Happy Asian Males podcast, where they talk about the traditionally taboo topics in Asian culture, like mental health, sex, drugs, gender roles and sexual identity and I was excited to jump on to do my part in breaking the social barriers we’ve put up that prevented us from having these difficult, but necessary conversations if we want to create a more cohesive society.
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Timestamps:
[6:34] How Human Up met the Happy Asian Males
[7:59] The balance between Asian and American identity
[16:20] Self-actualization as an Asian male
[26:34] The vulnerable process in understanding our own emotions
[36:16] The beauty that comes from openly expressing ourselves
[44:52] We need more safe spaces to learn how to broaden our perspectives
[50:41] Perfection is a chase for external validation that you will never be able to internalize
[55:28] Actionable step: identify your core values
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Resources:
Happy Asian Males podcast: http://www.happyasianmales.com.
Worksheet to understand your core values: https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/my-career-path-activities/values-exercise.pdf.
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