🎧 2. Silly together, friends forever :)
Whee! Last episode was heavy, so now we go crazy.
Listen Now:
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⚠️ Warning: This episode contains some explicit swear words, hehehe 🐃💨❗
Highlights
😽 Whee! Last episode was heavy, so now we go crazy.
🖕 Shaming those subtle racism attempts.
🖤 That feeling when no country welcomes you as their own (Asian diaspora).
💋 My family’s secret history with the Sexy Evil Demon-Fox.
We believe in quality over quantity. These pieces take WEEKS of care to craft and maintain. Subscribing and SHARING keeps us pumped and helps us in a long way! 🚣🏻🎣🦊
Show Notes
References 👉
Pictures! 👩🏻🎨
Easter eggs & bonuses 🐣
Thank you 🙏
Transcript 🔍
SPOILER ALERT below onward
1. References 👉
BANANA~ (Despicable Me)
Furi furi! (Japanese Maid Cafe)
2. Pictures! 👩🏻🎨
For more modern adaptations, try the 2020 Chinese animation Jiang Ziya. He’s super cool there.
More contemporary interpretations in TV series like: Gods of Honour (2001), and Investiture of the Gods (2019). You’ll notice very quickly which character is the Sexy Evil Demon-Fox.
3. Easter eggs & bonuses 🐣
Behind those words 😏
“Ride elephants to school” = Wherever I went overseas and introduce myself as coming from Thailand, there would always be someone asking me this question. Seriously, how the hell would I park it at school? And who’s going to sweep it’s shit at home if we owned one. Certainly not me.
“Swam over from China to Thailand” = Somehow Joyce and I discovered that our grandpas independently used this exact same phrase to describe their migratory journey… If that’s true then I think they should go and compete in the Olympics. On a side note, they probably migrated during The Great Famine or The Cultural Revolution to escape poverty, make a living, and send money back home in China.
No country welcomes you as their own 😞
I speak 3 languages. Broken Thai 🇹🇭, Blundering English 🇬🇧, and Baby Chinese 🇨🇳.
As an overseas-born ethnic Chinese, migrating back to Mainland China is a super weird thought…
As a UK graduate, settling there is still challenging. I look different and will always be treated as such by some (there are lots of awesome people too!).
As a Thai national, I wish to settle down here but it’s hard knowing that us citizens are not all treated with fairness and respect — from the past to the present. There’s even a strong movement among Thai youth to mass migrate out…
So where then can I call home?
Where is home?
After much thought, the answer I arrived at came from a surprising source… my wife, Joyce 🦊.
Partly, since my ageing parents are here in Thailand and I want to take care of them, I cannot migrate away anyway.
But most importantly, it’s seeing Joyce everyday — through tears and outbursts of mania, after 7 years and now almost a PhD — still dedicating her entire existence to creating the change she wants see in Thailand. Never giving up or once thinking of leaving.
Now there’s nothing wrong with migrating; people have different life preferences. But WOW, how can I not be inspired by that too? Wherever you go, I go. 🔥🔥🔥
Anyway, I suppose there’s no such thing as a perfect home. Therefore home is wherever you’re willing to embrace the suffering that comes with it.
Let us know what you think about any of the above! And also where are you listening from? Where do you call home? 🙂
4. Thank you 🙏
😎 To you, our listener, for listening
🦊 Co-host = Joyce, possibly the bane of my ancestry
🤜🤛 Guests = Sky 🇹🇭, Tony 🇻🇳, Criscille 🇵🇭, grandma 🐲, dad 🐶
🎸 Music library = Shutterstock Music
💥👋 SFX library = freesound.org
We believe in quality over quantity. These pieces take WEEKS of care to craft and maintain. Subscribing and SHARING keeps us pumped and helps us in a long way! 🚣🏻🎣🦊
5. Transcript 🔍
Notes
This is a sound-rich episode with musical scores and sound effects. Listen to it to get the best experience.
Italic words = echoed voice
JW = Joyce & Win
SFX = sound effect
My grandma and dad spoke in Thai. Their words were translated by me, but voiced-over by Joyce and myself in English respectively.
Segments
Warning
Intro
The subtle racism on us
No more excuses
The Uerpairojkit montage
Where can I call home?
My secret family’s origin
Outro
ROFLMAO bloopers
Episode begins
Warning
[SFX: background environmental sound slowly rises — wind blowing 🌬️, wind chime ringing 🎐🎵, a bird cooing 🐦]
Win:
Swear words alert.
Headphones without doubt a must.
Awesomeness awaits.
[SFX: background environmental sound slowly fades]
Intro
Win: Hi listeners. If you’ve listened to the first episode—
[Music: playful bouncy song begins]
Win: —you now have a good sense of my dreams and beliefs deep down inside.
Joyce: And also the gist of the show.
Win: But not our everyday personality and who we are, though.
So, on today’s episode, let’s SMASH DOWN [💥, literally bang the table] all awkward formalities and REALLY get familiar with each other.
[Joyce popping her lips]
Joyce: Finally, BANANA~ [Despicable Me’s Minion tone]
Win: We’ll start with some basic stuff that you should know about us.
Joyce: Our names and origins.
Win: How pissed off we could be—
JW: BLAH! 👻 BLEH! 👻 [evil monsters noise]
Win: —if you ever tease or butcher our Thai names—
“Ooo! Super porn!” [playing an excerpt as a teaser]
—like how many others did whenever we introduced ourselves.
Joyce: Seriously, the kind of weird kerfuffle we had to put up with.
Win: And I’ll also let you in on a fun story about my family’s origin.
“Sexy evil demon-fox? What the fuck!?” [playing an excerpt as a teaser]
Joyce: It’s going to be blast of delight. A quick escape from your daily worries.
So stay with us!
[pause]
I hate you making me do all these ads…
Win: [evil laugh]
Joyce: YOU!
Win: Finally, this was one of first episodes I produced, so I beg for your forgiveness in advance on the audio quality.
Joyce: I’m Joyce! Thornchanok Uerpairojkit.
Win: I’m Win, Chaiyakorn Srisakvarakul.
[Music: playful song begins]
Win: And this is East Asian Story.
The subtle racism on us
Win: Let’s start from the top for our listeners, about the tragedy of Thai names. So how did people pronounce your name when you went overseas?
Joyce: U-er-wharrrgg [puking sound 😨]
Win: [disbelief laugh], what the fuck, you!
Joyce: [cheeky laugh in the background]
Win: You almost like barfed onto the thing for real or something (the microphone)
Joyce: U-er-wharrrgg [puking sound 🤢]
Joyce: That’s literally, that’s literally how—
Win: How is it like correctly pronounced?
Joyce: Oo-wer [note: try pronouncing it together quickly]
They see the U and E follow by the R, so they say U then ER, that makes U-er-wharrrgg [puking sound 🤮].
The kind of weird kerfuffle we have to put up with.
Win: [chuckle] I see.
Joyce: What about yours?
[Music: ‘epic fail’ hilarious ballet song begin]
Win: Chaiya-Srisa-Mala-Cha!!! [racist Bruce Lee high-pitch mocking tone]
Joyce: [maniacal laugh]
Win: That’s how people say my name I’m serious, those bastards!
Or in another peculiar case, simply refusing to even muddy her tongue from pronouncing my unorthodox nickname, Win.
Joyce: Here’s me impersonating her with a voice changer.
Joyce [posh British accent]: Guys, stop, stop.
[SFX: pouring tea from teapot 💧]
Let’s pronounce it in a civilised manner, alright?
[SFX: putting the teapot down on the clothed table 😒]
Let’s call you… Chai from now on.
[SFX: pickup the teacup ☕]
You know, like Chai Tea from India?
[SFX: sip, gulp 👄]
Win: That’s alright I guess…
Joyce [posh British accent]: Charming.
[SFX: teacup down ☕]
Win: My face burning.
[SFX: kettle boiling 😡]
Win: Only once did I get off the hook from being a joke, seriously. It was this one time with my enlightened math teacher, in a classroom.
Win [old, kind voice]: Chai… Chai… I’m just going to call you Win if that’s alright?
Win: Yay! Finally!
Win [old, kind voice]: OK next. Ahhah! Here’s a Thai name that looks easy enough for me to pronounce. Su-pa-porn? Am I right?
[half a second pause]
Ooo! SUPER PORN? 😍
[silent]
[SFX: fire starting 🔥, 5x face slap 💥👋💥👋💥👋💥👋💥👋, 1x whiplash 💥🐍]
No more excuses
JW: [sigh]
Joyce: Listeners, please don’t be like that.
Win: Yea, that’s why, we’re demystifying Thai names once and for all in this episode.
Joyce: To clear this minefield of awkwardness so you can call us and all Thais with confidence.
Sky: YES.
Joyce: That’s Sky, our guest troublemaker for today.
Sky: Let’s go. I’m ready!
Win: OK. There are 3 main confusions that I think we should quickly cover.
Number 1. Why do so many Thai names have the word porn?
Joyce: Like poor Supaporn (สุภาพร)
Win [that old teacher voice]: “SUPER PORN!”
Win: Why do so many Thai people often have weird English nicknames?
Joyce: Like Win! Win!
Joyce [that posh lady voice]: “Let’s pronounce it in a civilised manner alright?”
Win: And finally.
Joyce: Why are Thai names sooo long?
Win: Chaiya-Srisa-Mala-Cha!!! Chaiya-Srisa-Malala-Cha-Cha-Cha!!! [racist Bruce Lee mocking tone]
Joyce & Sky: [combined laugh]
Win: Right, first.
Joyce: Porn.
Sky: Porn!
Win: Let’s get this out of the way shall we?
[Music: bouncy ice-cream truck song plays]
What does porn mean—
Sky: —You want in English or in…?
JW: [surprised laugh]
Win: Yea… [grim tone]
[SFX: face slap 💥👋]
Joyce: Porn, porn [broken, trying to recover from laughter] PORN in Thai means blessing.
[SFX: fairy dust sprinkles ✨🧚]
Now that you know, please don’t tease us.
Sky: OKAY.
Win: It’s as annoying as asking if we ride elephants to school.
[SFX: elephant trumpets 🎺🐘]
Sky: HAHAHA
Win: Seriously. Guys…
Win: Next, let’s move onto why Thai people often have weird English nicknames.
Joyce: Actually, nicknames were used long before full names existed because they’re easier to remember.
Win: And the way that we traditionally name our kids are based on characteristics or things that we like!
Joyce: Happiness!
Win: Durian with sticky rice!
Sky: Porn! ❤️
[silent]
[SFX: 1x punch 💥👊, 1x kick 👢💥, 1x bash 🏸💥, 1x smash 💥🎸, 1x laser beam 🔫. Then the disintegration sound effect from a retro 16-bit RPG games 🔥💩]
Win: [sigh] Anyway. It’s also been a trend for some time now to give kids an international sounding name.
Joyce: That’s why we get names like Sky.
Sky: That is cool.
Win: Joyce as well.
Sky: Aha.
Win: Her true nickname is actually… Joint 🍖
Joyce: Dad’s an Orthopedic surgeon, so he actually named Joint. J-O-I-N-T. But since I went to the UK I converted it to Joyce for simplicity... [sigh]
Win: And of course, my name… Win.
Joyce: W-I-N.
Win: Directly from the English word meaning victory.
Sky: Weeheeeeww! [cheering in the distant]
Joyce: Which also explains how he got his first name—
Sky: —YES—
Joyce: —Chaiyakorn.
Sky: YES YES
Win: Translates to “winning with my own hands”.
Joyce: Because his parents wanted him to succeed in whatever he does.
Win: Noooooo… I did not pick this corny nickname. [resigned tone]
[Music: bouncy ice-cream truck song fades]
The Uerpairojkit montage
Joyce: Which brings us to the final point. Why are our Thai names soooo long?
Win: Actually, you know what. This is a misconception. Native Thai names are usually short and pronounceable. If you encounter a long one — Srisakvarakul, 5 syllables — he or she is probably from a Chinese-Thai family.
Sky: AIYA!
Joyce: OH!
Win: The easiest way to explain this is to use a perfect example. How Joyce’s last name was created.
Joyce: Uerpairojkit, 4 syllables. So since my granddad swam over from China to Thailand—
[Music: flowing harp song plays]
—We already had a Chinese last name, which was Yang (杨).
Win: Like Jerry Yang, the founder of Yahoo! Or Michelle Yeoh, the super cool Malaysian actress in Crazy Rich Asian.
Joyce: Since Yang is pronounced as Eyr in our Chinese Teochew dialect—
[SFX: typewriter clicking ⌨️]
—we took that and added the word Pairoj—
[Music: flowing piano plays atop harp]
—which meant prosperous to make it sound Thai.
Win: And so they went to do the registration at the local government office.
Joyce: But Uerpairoj was already taken.
[SFX: government official his shakes head / rejection voice 🤨]
Win: For easy identification by the government, you couldn’t register a last name that already existed in the record unless you’re related to that family, sorry!
Joyce: So we just extended it—
[Music: intense flowing strings plays atop harp and piano]
[SFX: typewriter clicking ⌨️, then bell rings 🔔]
—by adding Kit at the end which means business.
[SFX: government official judging noise “HMPHH!” 🧐]
And that’s how we got Uerpairojkit—
[SFX: stamping seal of approval 💯™️]
—which translates to the Yang family that succeeds in whatever they do.
Win: That’s why it’s so long but meaningful and rich.
Joyce: We were late comers in the registry and also wanted to preserve our Chinese last name.
[Music: the ensemble peaks at the end as an epic conclusion]
[pause]
Sky: Weeheeeewwww!!!
Where can I call home?
Win: That’s generally the case. After learning about Joyce’s, I got curious about my own of course, Srisakvarakul.
Joyce: Translates to the family with great dignity.
Win: So I dug the history up and realised, in my case it wasn’t so beautiful.
Grandma: I didn’t know how to choose because I was uneducated.
[Music: slow sad guitar plays]
Win: That’s my paternal grandma.
Grandma: So I asked them to do it for us. Told them anything is fine, no idea. I wanted to buy a piece of land but they wouldn’t let foreigners do it. I had a Chinese name back then.
Dad: Even though grandma was born in Thailand.
Win: That’s my dad.
Grandma: But they told me to change my name anyway.
Win: All she wanted was to make a living, by opening up a local corner coffee store.
Joyce: Basically Chinese people living in Thailand were heavily pressured by the government to assimilate after World War 2.
[SFX: military march 💂💂💂]
[Music: guitar volume raised as an interlude]
Win: So, I got teased for my name. One which I now realised, was forced upon us randomly. And worse, without any relevant meaning worth defending at all.
Joyce: All the more reason not to piss him off about his name.
Win: No historical link whatsoever to any ancient dynasty like the Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese — whose last names I could never pronounce correctly.
Tony: Nguyễn, Trần, Lê.
Win: Or at least having meaning relevant to the family, such as current personal faith like many Filipino-Spanish last names.
Criscille: De la Cruz.
Win: Of the cross.
Criscille: Santos.
Win: Saints.
Criscille: Bautista.
Win: Baptist.
[Music: sad, reflective guitar playing as an interlude]
Win: Where then do I belong, as a descendant of an immigrant? Where can I call home?
[Music: guitar volume rises, then fades in a reflective mood]
My secret family’s origin
Win: Anyway, if I end the show here, it’ll be a downer for you, our listeners.
Joyce: Umm.
Sky: YES.
Win: But on the bright side, my family’s history is not always depressing you know.
Joyce: [popping her lips] Oh!
Win: Even though my Thai name was created out of necessity. My 3000-year-old Chinese family origin was not so easily erased from our minds. I mean like how… how could we forget! When it’s such a ticklish story~
Joyce: Oooooohhhh!
Sky: OKAY!
Win: Here’s the gist of it.
[breathe in deeply, breathe out heavily]
[Music: epic Chinese flute playing in the distant — ‘sage on a cloud mountain/river’ vibe]
Win (dramatic deep voice): Long, long time ago, in a far away land of ancient China, citizens were suffering as the government was corrupted. At that time, there was a holy fisherman fishing by the river—
[SFX: river flowing 🌊, fishing 🎣]
[Music: Chinese war drum plays]
—who was a master strategist… in disguise!
[Music & SFX: suddenly cuts]
Joyce: Wait… huh!? What do you mean by holy— [super skeptical tone]
Win: SHHH! [angry at the interruption 🤫] Ahem!!!
[Music & SFX: resumes the war drum and river sound 🌊]
For years he patiently waited…
[Music: adds a mystical deep male hum together with the drums]
[SFX: running through a corridor 🏃]
Until he found the right leader and assisted him in establishing a new dynasty by overthrowing the fallen emperor—
[SFX: dramatic jump 🤺💨, male gasp 😱, 2x face slaps 💥👋💥👋💥]
—and also purging The Sexy Evil Demon-Fox—
[SFX: echoed evil female laugh 💋, whiplash 💥🐍]
—that was the mastermind behind the corruption.
[SFX: powerful magical wind force 🙏💨🌪️ , woman shrieking hauntingly in the distance ☠️☠️☠️]
[Music & SFX: suddenly cuts]
Joyce: Before you switch off because of how unscientific this sounds… Purging The Sexy Evil Demon-Fox, what the fuck?!
Win: Seriously! The Sexy Evil Demon-Fox seduced the emperor, that's the truth! [laughing voice]
Joyce: Truth as in truth-truth or folklore truth?
Win: No like in the, in the folklore.
Joyce: Man, your clan goes a long way…
Sky: That’s complicated.
Win: Why!? Why is it complicated?
Joyce: Hashtag complicated life.
Win: What?! Why is it complicated I mean like—
Sky: [laughing voice] —YOUR ANCESTOR IS A HOLY FISHERMAN. Isn’t it complicated?!
Win: No! That’s like I don’t know how many freaking generations ago—
Sky: —And you fight The Demon-Fox.
[SFX: evil female laugh 💋]
JW: [mad laugh]
Sky: Yea. That’s complicated enough.
Win: Sorry, listeners. We laughed so hard that some of our microphones broke.
This story is a well-known Chinese folklore adapted into several TV series, film animations and even a Japanese manga. The holy fisherman, my ancestor, is called Jiang Ziya (姜子牙). Have you heard of him?
Sky: I don’t know. I only like Naruto you know? They have fox, evil demon-fox, evil one. 🦊
Win & Sky: [surprised uncontrollable laugh]
Win: Yea actually that’s, that’s also an evil demon-fox. OK [laugh]
Win (impersonating an anime voice): Nani?! [‘what?!’ in Japanese]
Joyce: Naruto is a popular Japanese manga series about a ninja boy who hosted a demon fox in his body.
Win: Anyway.
[Music: bedtime story song]
So some of the Holy Fisherman’s descendants later settled in a city called Yingqiu (營丘) and took the word Qiu (丘), Q-I-U, as their last name. The end.
Sky: That is cool.
Joyce: Hashtag grateful.
Sky: Cool cool.
Win: So whenever I got pissed off about my Thai name now, I take comfort in thinking back to this story. That I came from a family of a famous Chinese demon slayer 🙏 / fisherman 🎣.
Joyce: Awww.
Sky: [laughs]
Win: It’s a shame that my dad hasn’t passed down those secret techniques to me yet though. That’s why in the mean time I work in podcast, the next most interesting line of work.
But someday, someday...
[Music: bed time story song fades]
[dark tone] I’ll defeat my own sexy evil demon-fox too… just you wait.
[SFX: powerful magical wind force 🙏💨🌪️ , woman shrieking hauntingly in the distant ☠️☠️☠️]
Joyce: EHHHH! 🦊 [her voice concealed behind the demon’s shrieking voice]
Sky: WOW.
Joyce: Umm… okay?
Sky: OKAY.
Outro
Joyce: And that’s NOT the end of our show.
Win: Stick around to the very end for more delightful moments behind the scenes.
[whisper] And also what I suspect about Joyce’s evil background…
Joyce: EHH?! 💋 [evil monster voice ]
[Music: chilling, fun guitar with hum plays]
Joyce: If you love our work, grab your best friend’s phone then smash the subscr—
[Music: guitar abruptly stops]
Joyce: [shocked laugh] GOD.
Win: [sneaky uncontrollable laugh]
Joyce: I should have read this script before we started recording. You’re just visualising somebody with a friend’s phone and then UGHH. [‘stomping a subscribe button’ emotion]
👠
💥
📱
Win: [laughing voice] EXACTLY.
[Music: guitar restarts]
Joyce: If you love our work, grab your best friend’s phone then smash the subscribe button on—
[Music: guitar abruptly stops]
Win: [loud snort, then uncontrollable laugh]
Joyce: STOP IT! You wrote this! And I’m the one DOOMED with having to read it out!
Win: Go on, try again.
[Music: guitar restarts]
Joyce: If you love our work, grab your best friend’s phone, then smash the subscribe button on the show for them. UGHH [‘stomping a subscribe button’ emotion]
JW: [laughs together]
Win: If you are curious on what The Holy Fisherman and The Sexy Evil Demon-Fox looked like, head over to our episode show notes, eastasianstory.substack.com.
[This page is it!]
Joyce: The link is in the episode description.
Joyce: Wait. So before we finish, since you just spent an entire episode figuring out this whole thing, what do you want people to call you?
Win: Yea, so Win is fine, just call me Win. It’s probably unique enough in the English speaking world anyway.
Joyce: Chaiyakorn is even better? [cheeky tone]
Win: The only time I remembered being called Chaiyakorn outside of official business was when an angry teacher in Thailand caught me poking my friend in class.
[SFX: comical poking sound, poke poke 👉👉]
Win [voice changed to high pitch, impersonating the teacher]: CHAIYAKORN!
Joyce: Awww.
Win: As for all Thai names in general, just politely ask us how we would like to be called. We’ll give you a simple, pronounceable name and then move on. I hope the teasing ends… please. [begging tone]
Win: Special thanks to Sky for being such an adorable guest today.
Sky: Wooohooooo!
[SFX: poke poke 👉👉, then whiplash 💥🐍]
Win: Also my lovely grandma
Grandma: umm, umm
Win: And my friends Tony and Criscille for the help on Vietnamese and Filipino names pronunciation respectively.
Tony: Hey Win.
Criscille: Criscille May Aguilar.
Joyce: Hope you feel more comfortable with us now, as your new friends.
Win: And see you in the next episode, our pre-marriage trials. About my battle against Heaven for violating my marriage.
[excerpt plays as a teaser]
Joyce: How can they ever comfortably perceive me as part and parcel of the family as well… The label has been assigned.
Win [impersonating Heaven with a deep voice]: DOOMBRINGER.
[SFX: Thunder booming 🌩️💥]
Joyce: The fate had been articulated. It’s never going to leave the space that we’re going to share together.
[cuts to a new segment]
Win: Hello Heaven. You mess with my family. Prepare to cry.
[end of teaser]
Win: I’m Win.
Joyce: I’m Joyce.
Win: And this is East Asian Story. Sawaddee krub 🙏.
Joyce: Sawaddee ka 🙏.
Win: Now onward to good stuff.
[Music: chilling, fun guitar rises in volume]
ROFLMAO bloopers
[Music: guitar volume suddenly lowers drastically]
Win: [laughs like a mad dog, breathe, tries to suppress laughter, snorts loudly out of failure]
Joyce: [laughs madly in response to this pathetic being in front of her] I’ve got tears again… [laugh-cry]
Win: This is too funny for me to say.
Joyce: [breathless laugh—]
Win: —SHHH! 🤫
[pause]
[deep voice] For years he patiently waited. Until he found the right leader and assisted him in establishing a new dynasty by overthrowing the dark emperor and also purging The Sexy E— [stumbles]
JW: [laugh HARDER like idiots]
Win: I can’t do this!
[uncontrollable laughter] Fucking Sexy Evil Demon-Fox. I’m corrupted by it!
Joyce: [weird laughing noise, totally wrecked from laughing]
Win: It’s the bane of my family!
Joyce: The things I do. And to think that I’m doing a PhD.
JW: [Hehehehe!]
[Music: chilling, fun guitar song peaks then slowly fades]
[pause]
Win (whispering): Since you listen this far, I’ll let you in on a secret. I always suspected that my wife is a sexy evil demon-fox!
Joyce: EHH?! 💋 EHHHH! 🦊 BLAH! 👻 [compiling all weird monstrous noises Joyce made throughout the episode]
Win: Don’t tell her that! Bye!
[pause]
Joyce: Furifuri~ 😽
End of transcript. See you in the next episode! 🙃
We believe in quality over quantity. These pieces take WEEKS of care to craft and maintain. Subscribing and SHARING keeps us pumped and helps us in a long way! 🚣🏻🎣🦊