I think if you want to cover Thai, Thai-Chinese or Chinese-Thai food, it would be great to see a crossover in between you and a thai channel! They can bring their Thai experience and probably find cultural influences you wouldn't have thought about! I am thinking of "Hot Thai Kitchen", for example
2 years ago | 11
This is a really touching read, appreciate your sharing. "Home" can be a difficult abstraction, but it seems to me like you guys really know how to find it, or how to make it. No matter where you are, excited to see what you guys share.
2 years ago | 103
As for whether or not we care about your personal circumstances, don't underestimate the fact a big part of the value of your channel is that you're on the ground in a part of the world most of us will never get to. This usually relates to food and cuisine, but knowing what your lives are like in southern China and Thailand is giving us insight into parts of the human experience we wouldn't have access to otherwise. So I say share as much as you're willing; you've got at least a few viewers willing to read it all, ha!
2 years ago | 388
Its quite fascinating hearing what you went through, I'm glad you and Steph managed to find your bearings after something so drastic and hastily put together. Never apologize for putting out more personal content instead of strictly food based content, you are as much a part of the channel as the food you teach us about
2 years ago | 30
In particular, I like what you said about Thai Chinese food vs Thai food. Where I live, there’s a lot of Chinese immigrants, but also a lot of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Filipino, and Lao people. There are even enough Hmong people that we have both groceries and restaurants that specialize in Hmong food. So on one end, we’ve got people from all over Eastern Asia, some with restaurants, and those restaurants cater to different people. A lot of them are ChiAm, Teriyaki, or KoreAm, but every once in a while you’ll find a place that is specifically catering to two communities and doing kind of a fusion thing. For example, there’s a Chinese Vietnamese restaurant in our neighborhood that isn’t great, but us super interesting. You might order a dumpling dish you know well and be served a version full of sticky rice and mushrooms instead of pork and seafood. So yeah, I hear you. What is authenticity? What is fusion cuisine? When is a new dish innovative and when is it inauthentic? Who can really say?
2 years ago | 24
I like this, thank you, I like the way it is written and the insight it gives, good on you both for making such a tough call
2 years ago | 10
I know the name of the channel and all … but you guys are so good at researching and explaining cuisine and cooking, that I’d absolutely watch videos about Thai food (not Thai-Chinese, just Thai). It can even be “recreating Thai dishes with Chinese techniques” or something. I’m personally not remotely a cook / chef, I just watch for the culture. In other words, maybe your secret sauce os different than what you may be assuming. All the best!
2 years ago | 5
Chris, even if we do not share your need to move, we care about you three and care about the future of the channel too. I am always interested in learning more about Thai, Malay and Philippine foods and with your noses to root out local tastes, even if you stay abroad, I have no doubt interesting cooking will come from it. Take care of you; we are here. 💛
2 years ago | 17
I'm Thai, Chinese, American That is that my dad is Chinese (Teochew) but 2nd gen Thai, my mom is first gen Chinese (Toisan) American, I grew up in Bangkok but have lived in California since coming here for College. You've really helped me to grasp some of the cultural diaspora confusion Ive had all my live and now your showing me some of what I was too young to grasp where I grew up. Thank you
2 years ago | 4
Watching Adam's video, I'd love to see you branch out to accommodate for your new location. The Wa cuisine looked amazing, and that's just one culture. I love your Chinese videos, but seeing this alternative and mostly undocumented food would be equally amazing, in my opinion.
2 years ago | 4
I love Thailand and Thai food. Been a long time since I’ve been there. Would love to see you present Thai cooking and how intertwined Chinese and Thai cuisines are
2 years ago | 8
"high stakes game of bloons" is one of the funniest ways to describe what happened but I'm glad you guys are doing alright :)
2 years ago | 124
Thank you for sharing! Wishing all the best for you two. Hope you guys have great adventures in BKK
2 years ago | 2
I can't wait to see where you go from here. I wish you all the best of luck in getting settled and accounting to your new environment. Thank you so much for such a personal and comprehensive insight into your lives, the honesty is appreciated. Love from the USA.
2 years ago | 1
Would love to see whatever kind of videos you guys think would be best for y'all to make! We're here for you either way. Much love, God bless, and stay safe
2 years ago | 1
This is such a comforting read, and we care so much about your life, how you are doing and what your interests are regardless how we each ended up on this channel. This storyline of looking back really resonates with me as we left China around the same time after surviving the harshest lockdown in the history of lockdown. Leaving was a relief but also very painful as it was a city we learnt to love and enjoyed living in. We had so much fun. There was simply no hope of things improving and the solution was quite simple, pack up and leave. Obviously things turned out not the way I thought it would (but I’m glad it did) but the benefit of hindsight was simply not upon us. It gives me hope however that one day it can all be continued again.
2 years ago | 1
One thing I've learned in 57 years is that when when you leave your comfort zone you will grow. There is no other way.
2 years ago | 0
I've been watching your vids for years. They've gone a long way to making me explore Chinese cooking, and I especially appreciate any time you display techniques. Something I absolutely loved though was any time you showed people eating out, and the dishes you loved enjoying at these places. It always put the thought in my head that I'd love to carve out time and resources to go visit some of these places. However, I've started to learn more about the so called 'gutter-oil' problem in China over the last decade. It's one of those things that if you search on, it looks like its a serious issue, but I can't tell if that's just the algorithm feeding me propeganda. It seems that eating out daily is much more common there than in the US. Do you think you could speak a bit to the perception of this problem to those living in China? Is it common to think, "I wonder if this place uses good oil?" a common thought to the typical citizen? Anyhow, looking forward to more vids, an I wouldn't mind at all if you start dissecting Thai cuisine. I like your methods of explanation, and I'm sure I'd continue to enjoy them.
1 year ago (edited) | 1
We are all living with uncertainty, and while we may like to think we’re prepared and have a plan, a plan B, and a plan C, at the end of the day we all have to adapt and change direction at times because we cannot account for all variables and so much is not within our control. Adapting to change is critical. Do whatever you and Steph decide is interesting to you personally; don’t worry about losing any viewers. Much of your appeal comes from your incredible enthusiasm for whatever culinary puzzle you are trying to solve and the intensity you have for it. It honestly doesn’t matter to me if you move in a new direction because good food will always be fascinating. Best wishes.
2 years ago (edited) | 1
Chinese Cooking Demystified
Eight months ago, me and Steph packed up our life in a (relative) hurry, and moved from China to Thailand.
It’s been… an emotionally exhausting eight months. The other day, me and Steph were contemplating over a beer whether we would do it all again - knowing *everything* that we know now.
I’m not sure if any of you actually care about any of this, but the answer is… probably? Maybe? We’ve got a… complicated array of feelings, if you’ve got a hot minute for a read:
1. At the time of the move, things in China were looking increasingly dire, re when and if they were ever going up again. The way the world ends up always looks inevitable with the benefit of hindsight, but it’s worth highlighting that it took an almost unprecedented social movement within China to finally force the government’s hand to end the Zero-COVID policy (though I’m sure some particularly dire looking economic data didn’t hurt). Could we have simply waited seven months for the borders to have opened? Definitely – if we had known for *certainty* that it’d have been just another “seven months of suckiness”, we wouldn’t have pulled that trigger. I mean… we were quite happy in China.
2. One of the great uncertainties of the move was whether Steph would be allowed to leave at all. During Zero-COVID, Chinese citizens were barred from non-essential international travel – whether the wife of an American moving to Thailand long term counted as ‘essential’ was definitely a grey area. It’s difficult to describe the roller coaster that was (1) waiting alone for a half an hour outside the Shekou border, as border authorities were figuring whether she could leave (2) hopping on a flight to Bangkok, wondering if and when we’d ever be able to go back to China again, followed by (3) landing, getting our life in order, and finally being free of all the Zero-COVID restrictions. No getting tested every 72 hours, no showing codes to get into places, no tirelessly explaining to people that ‘I know, I’m a foreigner, but I haven’t left the country since 2019…’
3. But at times, it was definitely a little difficult to edit some of our videos last year. Our ‘secret sauce’ has always sort of been to travel to some smaller city in China, find some fantastic food that hasn’t made much of a footprint abroad, and attempt to recreate it to the best of our ability. We rely on some of the pictures/videos we take to test the recipes, and we try to splice them into the videos whenever possible (always iPhone footage, but hey). During that time, scrubbing through Shunde footage, Guiyang footage, travel footage… it was kind of rough. Because while you know that you’d *likely* be able to swing back in someday (even if you had to quarantine), there’s always that nagging feeling that… maybe this was it? Maybe you won’t be able to return? From a global perspective, it’s not like that’s unheard of…
4. During that time, a continual source of comfort for us was the Chinese community in Bangkok – particularly in Huai Khwang (i.e. the newer ‘Flushing-esque’ Chinese neighborhood here in Bangkok). Now, we’ve always been big believers in trying to get out there and experience the local culture wherever you are, to the best of your ability – whether it’s in China, or Thailand. So while the Chinese comfort food offered up here was never a priority per se, on a rough day going over to the Chinese supermarket in Huai Khwang and commiserating with the owners… gave you a sense that you weren’t experiencing this all alone.
5. But, the last couple months of China opening up again? It’s hard to overstate how much it’s been an *enormous* relief to us. I mean, while our respective state apparatuses using our tax dollars on a high stakes game of bloons the last couple weeks doesn’t exactly bode well for geopolitical stability in the future, that’s sort of… ‘same as it ever was’. The borders are open. We’re planning a handful of trips back to China this year, which we’re really looking forward to.
6. So then, obvious question – will we move back? Not in the next couple years, at least. Because while I’ve just dwelled a bit on what made leaving China difficult, coming to Thailand’s also been… incredibly energizing. New country, new language – makes me feel like I’m in my 20s again, ha. There’s a real benefit to being jolted outside of your comfort zone. There’s just… so much to learn.
7. And for the channel? I think getting your feet down into a different soil can also give you a radically different perspective on your home cuisine. Like, before coming, we had the vague idea that we might be able to cover some of the dishes of the Chinese diaspora here in Thailand – we knew that there’s a ton of Teochew influence, in particular. But once you leave those original borders… the lines aren’t so clear, and things end up getting jumbled in fascinating ways. Like, where does Thai-Chinese food end, and Thai food begin? In Bangkok, there’s often Som Tam and oyster omelet on the same menu! Or perhaps equally interesting is to see how people in modern Thailand interact with Chinese food in the here and now: like, every day in our neighborhood we see people queuing up for “Mala Suki” – Sichuan-ish single-person sized hotpot with ingredients going around by conveyor belt. Or just down the road, you could chase that down with some Tom Yum dumplings from our favorite Taiwan-style restaurant. You can start to see how food travels, adapts, and localizes. It's no longer something distant, something you read about… it's something vibrant and vivid and happening right in front of your eyes – and you can taste it.
So yeah. Here is home for now. If you want to know more about that aforementioned ‘newer Chinese neighborhood’ here in Bangkok, recently we did a video on the topic together with our good friend Adam. Not going to link it here because the algorithm seems to nerf posts with videos, but it’s the most recent video if you swing over to their channel: youtube.com/@OTRontheroad
And as an aside, Adam was actually in a similar position as us, actually – left China after spending the last decade there (we crashed at his place when we first got in). He was a bar owner and restauranteur in China – I got to know him quite well because he was one of a handful of close friends that’d always be down to try out X new restaurant or Y regional cuisine. After moving here, he decided to try his hand at making videos instead of jumping right back into the F&B meat grinder. And while I’m pretty much the definition of biased, I do quite like what they’re doing over there. While in Chinese there’s the formidable A Xing, I’ve always felt that English language YouTube’s always been lacking smart food+travel content. Food geekiness-wise, think of their content as something of the mid-point in between us and Mark Wiens, I’d say. So if you’re in the market, definitely check them out. @OTRontheroad , in case you got lost there.
2 years ago | [YT] | 3,467