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Today is Thursday, July 1st, 2021. My name is Vivian Zheng, an intern at the Houston Asian American Archive. And today I have the privilege of interviewing Mr. Andy Chan, who is the current mayor of the City of

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Southside Place. So Mr. Chan, could you just briefly introduce yourself, kind of when and where you were born? Yes. So my full name is actually Andrew Chan but everyone calls me Andy.

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I was born in New York City, specifically the borough of Queens. I was born August 11th, 1965. And what was it like growing up in New York?

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I was pretty young. I do remember that we were in a multi-story apartment, right across from Flushing Meadow Park. In fact, if I looked out my window, I could actually see the rockets that were left

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over from the World's Fair that were there. It was some—there was a mixed culture there, there were quite a few Jewish families and Asian families that were living there.

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And I actually remember back, which really dates me, but my pediatrician actually lived down the street, and would actually do house calls and carry the traditional leather doctors bag and walk-in

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with his exam and so forth. And yeah, neighbors would just watch after me when my parents were busy. Could you talk a little bit about your family, like your parents when they came to the US and stuff like that?

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So my parents came to the US specifically for college opportunities. Both were born in Hong Kong, my father did actually live for a period of time in the Southern Canton China and go back and forth. But predominantly lived

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in Hong Kong. My mom was at Hong Kong. Pretty typical story where my grandparents wanted them to have a better opportunity. Went to pretty much traditional Catholic schools while over there, and then came to

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the United States. My father originally went to Minnesota of all places, had no idea how cold it was or anything. And he tells the story of how he didn't speak great English and when he first came, he

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knew what Campbell's Soup was, and ate a lot of that in his dorm on a little burner, and then he gathered enough money and went to a diner to order food. And all he recognized was soup and wound up ordering another bowl of soup instead of

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having a hamburger, which is what he really wanted. My mom was on the East Coast, don't remember the university she went to. But eventually

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both of them wound up in New York City, where they attended—my father was studying graphic arts and my mother was in biology at the time. And wound up doing biochem stuff.

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Yeah, so what were your parents like occupations when you were growing up? So my father was actually the one of the art directors for Royal Dutch Shell—Shell Oil company. And so when Shell came down to Houston, when they were setting up Shell One and Shell

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Two to be their US headquarters, he was asked to come down and join them. My mother at the time was studying, she actually worked in the biochem

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labs doing testing over at St. Joseph's hospitals, and at the same time was raising myself and then my younger sister six years younger than me, while also doing a Master's degree program in Public Health for the University of Texas.

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And so she was juggling quite a bit back then. Yeah, yeah. So I saw that you moved to Houston when you were like about six in 1971? Yeah, mid-mid five years old, right before I turned six years old.

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Why did your family decide to move to Houston? Mainly because of the transfer from Shell Oil Company. It was a better opportunity for my father and my mother, like I said, originally wanted to be a physician, but decided she did not want to

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go through any more schooling, finished out her Master's Degree in Public Health and then did not actually use a whole lot. She stayed with St. Joseph's for quite a while.

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She didn't use her master's degree until much later in life, so. And did you move to Southside Place like then or was that—where did you first move to when you came to Houston? No, so much of the oil boom companies actually back then we lived pretty far away.

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Back then the trend was actually to live outside of the urban area and be a little more rural. So we lived up at FM-1960, up at I-45, which is quite a bit a ways from downtown.

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But that was the trend was to live further out and get more land and carpool into work. And so that was pretty typical. Were there like a lot of Asian Americans back then that lived in Houston or...? Um, at my particular high school, no.

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There were very few, I think, gosh, I think maybe—so this is prior to when Vietnamese refugees came into Texas and was setting up.

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So I think at that time, there was only five or six of us. And then we had a small influx, but it was very transient, back then. So people come to visit family, they can send their kids to school, but as soon as they have other opportunities, they wound up

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leaving, so. Yeah, I see. What would you say some-were some of the values that your parents emphasized in your upbringing? Um, so pretty typical of Asian families is, you know, academics, study, you

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know, I was pretty traditional in the sense of playing piano. We were afforded opportunities that my parents didn't have necessarily growing up. And that was their main thing was to kind of, to try to push certain things.

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I remember very specifically, computers, home computers, were just something new coming online. I mean, it's very commonplace now, in terms of technology. But, you know, back then, Pong video games were

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hundreds upon hundreds of dollars and played all three games. And I remember my father wanting—bought that for the family and it was like a real big deal. And then getting the first colored personal computer, which was

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like an old T, they call that a TI-99/4. So it was like, a pretty big deal wanting us to kind of learn technology. And we did a little bit of programming on it just to get into that. But, you know, ironically, they didn't necessarily

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embrace technology until much later than that but definitely wanted us kids to be kind of exposed to that at a much earlier age than probably most kids actually. Yeah, that's cool.

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Still like back in the 70's and the 80's too. Yeah. How would you say like your Chinese American identity too like, affected your childhood, especially growing up in an area that like, didn't have

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as many Asians? Well, in New York, I was raised with a family friend so Cantonese was predominantly spoken. So actually, I didn't speak a lot of English when I was growing up.

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It was just kind of culturally the thing that, you know, you had everyone, as you know, was either an auntie or an uncle, right? And so she was an Auntie Fung Gu Jia, who, you know, she was the, you know, she was

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the one who took care of me. So, evidently, my parents told me that I spoke and wrote Chinese when I was younger, and then I remember coming and then attending

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kindergarten school, and I actually had a little bit of catch up to do in the beginning, just because, you know, we did speak English, internally, but being raised around—being taken care of by a nanny who mainly spoke Chinese

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that's kind of that. So I-I can speak Cantonese conversationally. You know, my grandfather, when he was alive, he used to always just kind of make fun of me, there was an old Chinese idiom where he

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basically said, you know, a cow's head doesn't understand what a horse is speaking, that's how it kind of broke down. So, you know, I kind of have very broken Chinese, but well enough to communicate with them, and certainly

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well enough to order dim sum, so. That's good, that's all you need. Did you ever experience any, like discrimination or like racism or anything growing up?

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I did. It was pretty typical of kids teasing, you know, 'Ching Chong,' the slanted eyes, you know. You know, "I thought you'd be more yellow," that type of thing. So, yes, there was definitely a lot of that.

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You know, also thinking that Asians were not physically as strong as perhaps other people and perhaps, there's, you know, I kind of got pushed on that. Certainly, you know, people would try to take-

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take me to task on certain things, you know, in that sense in the ones like, how much kung fu do you really know and so forth like that. So back then too David Carradine at the time had the Kung Fu Show and so there was that

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kind of, like all Asians should know kung fu, right? But I did know a little bit, so. Because my uncle, who lived up in Canada, we—when I was younger, would actually, we would go out and stay with him.

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And he knew Wing Chun and was actually was a master. In fact, when he was in Hong Kong, he actually took—his master was the famous Ip Man, you know, that's being portrayed in movies and so forth.

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And he brought that, and as he would tell his kids, and myself, as we were learning together, he said, "I'm going to teach you enough to get yourself killed. So don't use it." Because what he would say

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he said, you know, people are going to push you. Don't use it to do that. You only use what you learn to get out of, you know, situations.

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Did you have any siblings growing up? I did. I have a younger sister who is actually six years younger than I am. Okay. Would you say you guys are close, or like, is it like too big of like an age gap?

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We became much closer I would say afterwards when she became an adult. You know, suddenly I had to take care of—I was, I had to take care of her when she was younger. We were kind of key-latch kids.

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So that was pretty typical, especially with my mom doing everything she was doing. My father said it was pretty commonplace back then to, you know, do that since I was six years older than she was.

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So kind of moving on to like the next phase of your life, what college did you attend? So originally, I attended Texas A&M University. I was there for a year, I did environmental design. I won't

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say—I did have some struggles, but I mainly came back when my parents had a business. See what happened back then was Royal Dutch Shell had bought back out their stocks. And so they were—they offered the US workers a golden parachute in a sense.

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So they were changing the kind of corporate environment, so to speak. So the culture was definitely changing. So my father took the early retirement package and then parlayed that money into starting

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to open up his own businesses; and so this kind of began my parents' kind of entrepreneurial streak. They own several businesses. First was, an interesting one was they opened up the

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equivalent of a Benihana but it was an independent restaurant, it was called Fujiyama Gardens. It was up on 1960, it was a Teppanyaki Hibachi-style restaurant. People thought they were Japanese but that wasn't the case.

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It was in partnership with my aunt, whose boyfriend at the time was actually one of the chief chefs at a form of Benihana. And they partnered together and opened up a very successful restaurant back then.

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And that spawned another business in graphics, which my father, that was his background. So he wanted to open up his own graphic studio. And then that spawned like four more

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other businesses after that. So office supplies, printing, and on and on, so. Did you ever join in like, I think I saw somewhere that you like, helped your father with his like printing business?

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Yeah. So when I came back from A&M, my father, actually, his gallbladder kind of, they didn't catch it in time. So he kind of, I guess, burst, that's the best way to put it, had a little bit of sepsis that was involved.

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So he was out for a little bit. And at that time, I was helping out and doing some of the general things that were kinda involved in my parents' business at a young age. So I would busboy at the-at the Japanese restaurant or

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stocking supplies at the-at the office supply store. So when they opened the printing business, I helped them out with that. And then I was doing sales at the time, because my father couldn't attend some of the

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things so I would go in his place and that's where I had to put on a suit and actually go out and talk to clients. And then I'd rush back and then help at the store. And I took a real interest in the actual

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mechanics of how the printing press worked. And so I started just wanting to learn that aspect. And then a good thing—in some ways, that was a good thing because

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our printer suddenly left and I wound up having to kind of just jump in and kind of take him over that whole aspect of the business realm. Yeah. And was this also when you transferred to Texas Southern University?

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Yeah, my parents actually—so they opened up their original stationery stores up north and then the print shop got transferred down off Leland, which is near Texas Southern. We're over there. It's kind of the old Chinatown

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part but further down. In downtown. And so you know, they had a previous location that was on Main Street. We did a little bit of printing there, but the big printing actually wound up happening off that Leland

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location where-where we wound up expanding the printing business and so forth. What were your experiences like at TSU? You know, TSU it's-it's a

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traditional African American University. So it was actually my first exposure to that environment up north. In high school, we didn't have very many African Americans.

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There certainly-there was a smaller exposure at Texas A&M. But the one thing I found out is it was a very inviting university in the sense that they wanted to make sure everyone felt inclusive. And they challenged all the students there.

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You know, there's always, I think, misrepresentation about universities that are predominantly African American, which didn't start in my kind of insight into inequalities that were happening, which later plays on into my public education

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advocacy. What would you say TSU taught you about like, like diversity and like inclusion and stuff like that? Well, I was probably one of the very few Asians actually, on campus. Very few Caucasians, besides in the law

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school on campus. I was in the-I was in the business program over there. The one thing they wanted to try to teach people was to really think about the fact that

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you're going to be, you're going to be challenged in life, right. And what you do is you take the opportunities that are given to you, and you try to make the best of it. So some of the courses I really enjoyed was entrepreneurial classes, seeing what my

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parents were doing. I really enjoyed marketing. So I took extra marketing classes, you know, because I kept thinking to myself, you know, I think in the end, I'm gonna wind up owning my own businesses is what I wanted to do.

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I had a professor who actually set me up on a with—back then it was before it was JP Morgan, Texas Commerce Bank, before the mergers and so forth—set me up for an internship and had everything lined up.

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And I went to an interview, and they said, "Oh, we really like you. You've got good recommendations. So what's your interest in finance?" I looked at the person, I said, "I actually have very little interest in finance, I'm not the greatest, my professor just wanted me to

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do this. Really want to wind up owning my own business." They go, "Why are you here?" I thought it'd be rude not to come and for the professor to go through all the effort. And they said, "Well, we appreciate your honesty, but really, we're looking for

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someone who wants to do finance." I was like, "Well, thank you for the opportunity." But I didn't wind up taking it, obviously. Yeah. What other like extracurriculars or clubs were you involved in in college? Um, so in terms of being on campus, I did not participate

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a lot besides anything involved with business aspects. You know, I had interests in high school, I played tennis. In terms of actual collegiate extracurriculars? Probably not-not a lot.

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I did do—I did start an interest in terms of looking at opportunities for-for business, even in that area, just because that's where my parents' businesses were, so.

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Yeah, so after college, what was— I was working 40 hours a week, every day, a full load, so I didn't have a lot of time. That's true, that's true. After college, did you end up taking over your father's printing business?

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Or did you like have other business endeavors before that? Um, so the interesting thing about that was that was quote, the game plan, but as we all know, plans do change. So I—because my father had this interest in technology

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for me, I was starting to look at things in a different way. Printing, you have to understand, back then, even until when I owned my business, was very analog. Okay. Things were done in a very traditional method inside of a darkroom and

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had, you know, motion processes and burnings and plates. So it was very, it was very hands on. I then started wanting to expand, wanting to be a little more aggressive in expanding my parents' business and they didn't see the need for

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that. So it was at that time I decided to go ahead and kind of move off. You have to understand when I started with them when they—it's called typesetting. So back then what we physically do to produce a business card,

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just to give you an idea of how tactile this was, there would be a sheet of letters of the alphabet, sticky letters, and you would take and you would burnish in one letter at a time to form a word.

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Okay. And then you'd have to shoot a negative and then produce a plate to even print it. Later on, I talked to them, we got one called the typesetting machine, but just like HTML, you'd have to code things to say, I want it to be this font,

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this letter, and it was all coding to produce it. And then later, of course, then you have desktop publishing, which everyone seems to be doing now. So then, like, I guess, like, since the plan didn't end up going the

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way like the game plan wanted to work, what happened after that? Or like, what were the jobs that you had after that? Well, afterwards—so at that time, I was married at 25. So I had taken off a couple years 'cause my

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graduated, we were looking for—my wife is a physician, she was in her internship first then she went into residency. So in her

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residency program, she was over at with the Baylor College of Medicine, there. So we took a look at things and we decided to take a risk. So what little savings we did have being newly married, we decided to

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invest into my own business, which was the Alpha Omega graphics, which we went to a full, it was like, kind of on the cutting edge of doing desktop publishing.

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Direct to negative, so instead of doing all the typesetting, and all that we do negative, which then we go to the plates. So that was kind of a first, shall I say, it's kind of a first cornerstone or first stepping stone into what-what is now the modern day of

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printing. And from there, we just continue to grow that. But yeah, it was-it was a big step for us, it was-it was really difficult. At a pretty young age, because the equipment, I mean, even equipment investment back then was

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probably close to 60,000 dollars. In today's age if you were to take the inflation rate, you're talking pretty good six figures into something like that, so. When did you like—or did you ever move back to like your father's printing business or

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your family one? I continued to help where I could, I mean, we-we went on to do other things. My parents certainly used my me as a vendor just because there was a process they wanted to continue to do.

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I had a crew, we had a crew that continued to work with them that I had trained up who are very competent, and being able to do the work. So we were comfortable. But you know,

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as in everything, moving from analog to digital was—grew pretty exponentially. And so eventually my parents, their business kind of aged out, they aged out. You know, they went on

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to do different things my—after my parents closed and sold off the assets. My mom, this is when my mom actually used her public health degree she-she wanted working for the city of Houston, in infectious disease.

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In fact, her specialty, this is during the AIDS epidemic. She was one of the top people in her study of AIDS over there and keeping up and tracking going through the hospitals and then on to other

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infectious diseases as well. So and then my father, my father—I kind of laugh about this. My father went on he—they had a smaller stationery

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store, he went back to that, but then he wound up owning a laundromat, which we all just kind of laughed about because it's one of those stereotypical businesses. So you know, but he had a

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couple of scares, and running the business that we at that point said, we're gonna shut it down, so. At what age did you like, kind of transition from, like business, entrepreneurship to doing more like education,

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volunteering, community like public service stuff? So it actually had to start when we had children. So I actually wound up, gosh, when did I wound up selling my business?

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I think it was 04—2004 is when I think I sold my business, if I'm not mistaken. What was before then, let me think. Yeah, 2004, I think.

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It had to do when we wound up having children. When you own your own business, you-you do everything for that business. And so the-the focus was very much on the business

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and continuing to grow, we invested in it. In many ways it is like a child, right? You have to feed it to grow it. So you take your money and you invest in, continue and it grows and you nurture it and

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continue watching. The story is I was supposed to take the kids to see Santa for Christmas and I wasn't able to do it. And my wife took the kids

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and they had their photo taken, it was called Santa in the Village, which happens over in the Rice Village area there to get their photos taken. And I came back and it was pretty late and I had just gotten home right before my daughter was going down

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to sleep for the night. I walked in, gave her a kiss and I said, "Oh, how was it?" And she goes, "Oh, it was okay, nothing great." And I said "Okay," shut the door, go down, throw the dinner

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into the microwave. And my wife is standing there and she goes, "You know, the kids actually had a really good time. And she told you that for your benefit, because she didn't want you to feel bad that you weren't able to make it." And so after that,

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it kind of reset my priorities and looking at things I think everything happens for a reason. I think a lot of things happen in God's timing. So at that time, our nanny, she had a big health scare.

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And was-was not going to be able to-to stay with us. And so we talked about priorities, because my daughter is at that age where they're, you know, schooling starts happening, and so forth.

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We had a young son at that point, my son is two years younger than my daughter. And so my-my wife is a physician at this point, a radiologist in a good

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partnership, we just made a decision, the easiest thing was for me to go ahead and sell the business. So after selling the business, and my kids are entering into school, I realized where we were at our school, West

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University is, we're pretty lucky. I mean, for all intents and purposes, it just is—it's not the highest funding school, in fact it's the lowest in HISD, but because of the demographics in the area, the PTO makes up for any shortfalls

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within-within the system. But then I started to look around and see other schools within the areas, because we were also involved at first it was Houston Chinese Church, and then we moved over to St. Luke's Methodist.

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And we—I worked in a program called Kids Meals. And that's providing meals for children that are prior to school age or young school age, 'cause a lot of them have food insecurities.

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And it wasn't until then I kind of went around and looked at other schools, we also did a backpack program and then went to go look at the school over there by the Hope Mission downtown.

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And just really kind of take a look at things and then I realized at that point how blessed we were to be in our-in our situation. So that was probably the first stepping stones. And then working in public education, even at the local level at a school that does

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have great parent support, you can see that public education has shortfalls and gaps within-within the system holistically, not even just locally, but holistically.

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There are some really big gaps, so. Would you say like, moving from having your own business to like doing more public education, public service and volunteering and stuff was an easy transition, or was it kind of something you

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had to adjust to? Um, I-I would say that any skill set that you learn in life provides you with a certain foundation in order to be able to do certain transitions.

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Certainly they're not the same animal, I'm not gonna say that at all. Because when you own your own business, the buck stops with you, right? And you can take the praise, you also take any

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arrows that are slung at you as well, okay? You make your own time. So, you know, I'm a firm believer that the time and effort you put in is what you reap at the end.

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Public education is not so much that. Even within the systems itself at a local level, and at a district level, there are so many layers that are involved in that.

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And you learn to work much more as a team, and there's an—even in PTOs, and so forth in the organization. So the skill sets I took from

00:30:53.030 - 00:31:15.380

business certainly helped in that, but realizing that you have to reacclimate yourself to certain things. Certainly, there's a level of, for lack of a better word, political clout that has to be expended when dealing

00:31:15.720 - 00:31:32.830

in such environments. And so, I would say it helps. But definitely, you have to kind of reacclimate yourself into working that. You mentioned earlier that there's like some, like gaps, so like some

00:31:32.830 - 00:31:44.850

clear, like things that are difficult in working in public education. So like, after your time serving in like the PTOs of like, elementary, middle, like high schools, what would you say is the biggest challenge of working in public education?

00:31:46.130 - 00:32:01.110

Well if you're talking about locally within school, parents at an elementary school are very involved, they will sign up for everything from, back then, you know, the birthday parties to Teacher Appreciation.

00:32:03.160 - 00:32:14.460

Any of those type things. As you get older, it's natural, for of course, children to want more independence, and then parents to matriculate out of the type of system.

00:32:15.950 - 00:32:34.220

My argument would be this is that I think, as you—as children get older, they- they still need a certain amount of guidance, because being totally hands off too soon-too

00:32:39.190 - 00:32:48.420

soon can cause the fact that children will slip through the cracks. And I'm not talking necessarily always talking about your own children. I'm just talking in general in the whole system.

00:32:49.480 - 00:33:04.760

One thing we found out about public education is the most foundational years for public education is basically Pre-K 4 to third grade. Third grade is the watershed year for most children. Most gaps can be made up by that third grade year.

00:33:05.990 - 00:33:23.670

If you are not reading on level by third grade, it becomes exponentially more difficult as you move up for public education, your fourth grade grades is and is what is used in the rubrics to set you up for middle school.

00:33:25.080 - 00:33:40.100

If you are not set up by third grade, and you enter fourth grade, and with standardized testing and everything else and realizing that your fourth grade grades is what is used in the matrix. You may not necessarily get into the magnet

00:33:40.570 - 00:33:49.300

program that you want to. That has a cascading effect as you move up from middle school to high school. Yeah, yeah.

00:33:51.380 - 00:34:07.350

On the flip side, what do you think is the biggest reward of doing this type of job? In public education, I think it's-it's—I had—when I was PTO President, our PTO when I was setting up the

00:34:07.350 - 00:34:26.290

theme with-with the leaders within the group came up with this saying: our children are our greatest legacy. You know, parents, adults, leaders, you leave a certain amount of legacy behind in the end, right.

00:34:26.290 - 00:34:36.200

The one thing we want to do was, we wanted to-we wanted to leave things better than we how we found them. And I think that should be said in any leadership capacity.

00:34:37.160 - 00:34:55.110

So when we're dealing with a system like this, where you're talking about nearly 220,000 kids and the HISD system alone, okay? And you realize that 80 plus percent of those require free and reduced lunch, which means they're low SES, social economic status.

00:34:57.280 - 00:35:13.240

You realize very quickly one, either how blessed you are, or two, how much work still there is left to be done within the system. So even after 17 years, I don't have children in the system, I'm still doing things with HISD and still

00:35:13.240 - 00:35:28.910

trying to move that needle at this point. And, you know, we use the analogy a lot of the Titanic, right? We know that there's that we know what the dangers are if we don't get our children educated.

00:35:29.510 - 00:35:45.600

Now you look at where the US sits-sits in terms of international education, okay, compared to other places, and you realize that we're behind, and we're continuing to slip behind. And that has to do with the fact that I don't feel like we invest enough time,

00:35:47.410 - 00:36:02.230

money or effort into the public education system. Granted it is a large part of the sum of money in the Texas Education System, but when you look at Texas as a whole compared to other states, our funding is far below: it's in the 40's.

00:36:06.230 - 00:36:18.130

So that's where you kind of go from local level from PTOs, to work, doing work at the district level, and then going to speak and talk to people at the state legislation.

00:36:19.350 - 00:36:37.680

You know, the legislators and ask them for more funding when you go to speak to your local representative. So you'll pick up you know, the phone and call those that are on the Education Committee, the subcommittees. I also wound up doing a fellowship with

00:36:37.780 - 00:36:53.940

leadership ISD couple of years ago too, which also promotes a lot of the same values, kind of pushing forward. You know, about inequities, and funding inequities and asset, you know, asset distributions and just trying to fill gaps.

00:36:56.520 - 00:37:12.350

You know, a lot of volunteers are in this, you know, and you only have 10 fingers, 10 toes, and there's a lot of holes in that dike, you know, so. I know you've been mentioning that you also serve on the as like a District Five appointee, right, for

00:37:12.350 - 00:37:23.090

the HISD. What exactly like does that role entail because I think you're currently serving in that still? Correct. So District Advisory Committee is, as it sounds, it is a group of

00:37:23.190 - 00:37:35.260

teachers, administrators, and parents and community leaders. It used to be years ago that it was the superintendent would sit in on that, they don't do that anymore.

00:37:35.280 - 00:37:49.910

It's something that I actually wish that either a cabinet level member or the superintendent would sit back in. But it is, it's about certain things that we bring before the board of education, the trustees, the nine trustees in

00:37:49.950 - 00:38:07.260

HISD. We make suggestions, we-we do not set policy. So in governance of education, it is the trustees that set up the goals for administrators.

00:38:08.950 - 00:38:25.500

It is up to the administrators to then manage those goals and fulfill the goals. We as a District Advisory Committee, therefore, send forth recommendations and views upon certain policies that are

00:38:25.500 - 00:38:43.310

coming forth in terms of education on how to improve and move that needle, creating equitable and yet, but yet high-high quality education for the students of HISD. So of course, the most important thing when we look at things

00:38:43.790 - 00:39:02.300

is safety. It's you know, we talk about that: we talk about access to programs such as magnet , okay. But we also talk about, we talk about teachers and the importance of teachers. It's well-it's a well known fact, the

00:39:02.890 - 00:39:18.520

number one influence in a child's education is a quality teacher inside the classroom. Number one. And then number two is the administrator who can support that teacher: local principal, administrators higher up with a high demand

00:39:19.180 - 00:39:33.110

. So we try to find ways. Of course, there's some minutiae things like continuing education, which has more to do with the teachers and administrators, parents, a lot of times they'll get the

00:39:33.110 - 00:39:45.600

nuances of that. But that's what we're there to do, sit and learn and kind of discuss. So the advantage of me being in an environment like that is because I have been there for over 17 years within the system.

00:39:45.990 - 00:39:57.600

I don't have children there. I don't have, you know, I quote, don't have an agenda within the system besides trying to move the needle. I have sat on, gosh, I think the last four

00:39:57.730 - 00:40:11.910

named Magnet committees, so I bring an institutional knowledge to HISD that a lot of people don't have in that sense. You know, I've gone through Dr. Saavedra, I've gone through Dr.

00:40:11.950 - 00:40:20.660

Grier, Dr. Carranza. Okay. You know, Dr. Lathan, and now our fifth one, Dr.

00:40:20.660 - 00:40:36.960

House, so, five superintendents. Wow, it's been a long time. So after like all your experience like serving in like these public education settings, what do you hope to see in the future for like Houston school districts, or

00:40:36.960 - 00:40:52.320

like, what's something that you want to see improve? Well, my biggest thing is, and I mentioned this earlier is I would like to see, I would like to see the Pre-K program, which has just started recently,

00:40:54.350 - 00:41:09.060

to be more robust, and see if we can home-grow that foundation, or that cornerstone in education by third grade. Now, HISD is an extremely diverse population, we have students that are

00:41:09.060 - 00:41:23.470

coming over who don't speak any English from many different foreign countries. I can't even remember how many languages that there are out there within HISD. I know it's well over 20, maybe greater than 30 different

00:41:23.520 - 00:41:38.710

languages that are brought in here. And certainly, those students are not the ones—those students are brought into the system and then are brought up very quickly through it.

00:41:40.620 - 00:41:56.840

But we really are, in order to grow and set that cornerstone, I think an incredible amount of attention should be paid to Pre-K 4 to third grade to get literacy up.

00:41:56.840 - 00:42:10.830

The problem right now is with standardized education, especially with testing, we talked about the testing culture, everyone's like, "Well, why don't we do this?" Well, a lot of it has to do with funding from the federal level. Right? There's an accountability

00:42:10.830 - 00:42:24.600

that has to be addressed when we talk about that, because the money has to come from somewhere, right? And the federal dollars don't make up the largest portion, state dollars do. The state also has an accountability system too,

00:42:25.140 - 00:42:38.230

as well within TEA. So in order to do this, I think we need to look at that. Because the problem like what I was getting to about testing is most of its reading, you look at the math, it's word

00:42:38.230 - 00:42:50.250

problems, right? You look at ACTs, you know, reading the history part, the science part, it's all about reading comprehension. If you don't understand the question, there's no way you're going to get it correct moving

00:42:50.250 - 00:43:02.740

forward. You know this as a university student, when it comes to critical thinking, if you don't get that first part of it down, anything you come afterwards is basically going to be erroneous, so.

00:43:05.950 - 00:43:21.370

Kind of like transitioning over again, to your like public service career. How did you become a City Council member? Um, so a lot of what I wound up doing in public education, in that sense, I think, did help me

00:43:21.720 - 00:43:38.940

kind of move forward. I have lived in this neighborhood for 17 years. I had always continued to do things within the neighborhood. So prior to being on city council, I was I worked a lot with the parks. Firetruck Park, which is what you see in the

00:43:38.960 - 00:43:54.400

background right now, that was after we did the renovations. You know, as blessed as we were to live within this neighborhood, there were still some things that needed to be addressed. So going way back, I was actually involved

00:43:54.480 - 00:44:12.580

with our swim team here at Southside, The All Stars, and I volunteered for 10 years. I was involved either as swim director, coached swim director for four years, four plus years. And so that's all there within the park and then later

00:44:12.580 - 00:44:26.810

I became the park board President. And when I went into that job, I didn't realize Southside at that time, the park was actually privately owned and did not belong to the city. It was very interesting.

00:44:26.810 - 00:44:40.590

The way the Southside had originally set it up was that the neighbors were all a shareholder within this corporation which owned the park and the assets in the park, which meant the tennis court, the pool, at

00:44:40.590 - 00:44:55.080

one time the clubhouse but then the clubhouse was redone, refinanced, and then that asset was then sold off to the city. They basically, they didn't sell it in that traditional sense, it was more of a conveyance of assets, right?

00:44:56.110 - 00:45:07.060

When I look at it, this is where I apply my business experience: I broke open books, and I took a look at it. And I looked at, you know, I looked at basically the inputs of the fees coming in versus the output of money that we're going to do.

00:45:08.180 - 00:45:21.390

And I knew something about playgrounds because of my public education. And so I started walking around doing an inspection and I said, "This is not CPSC compliant, this is not ADA compliant.

00:45:22.460 - 00:45:38.630

This is 17 years old." Yeah, it needs to be redone. So that's, and then knowing that this was a private, I looked at it and I told all the board members plus all the-all the membership, the general

00:45:38.630 - 00:45:55.390

membership, I was like, "My job here in my one year is to work myself out of a job." What I mean by that is, we can no longer exist as a functioning organization. I will get this to city council and I want to

00:45:55.390 - 00:46:14.710

convey the assets of all the parklands over to the city. So in that process, there was a 501c3 that is the—which is the park fund. And it had not been utilized

00:46:14.710 - 00:46:29.770

in many years. So I found volunteers within the neighborhood, I went around to neighbors and friends and said, "Hey, this is where we're at, this is what I'm trying to do, will you help me achieve this?" And so it had gone through revocation, I

00:46:29.840 - 00:46:45.000

helped to get out of IRS revocation and got it reset back up against a 501c3. And then we started fundraising. And long story short is when, gosh, under a year, we raised 500,000 dollars.

00:46:45.170 - 00:46:54.800

Over 500,000 dollars. And then wound up renovating the park. Getting it planned out, I was—Winston B.

00:46:54.800 - 00:47:10.250

Jones was a landscape architect who set up the initial park, but because of my initial background at Texas A&M, when I was up there, I was in their architecture program. So I helped design and set forth a lot of what was going on at that

00:47:10.530 - 00:47:27.210

time. And then, because of that, because I knew we couldn't set up, I had to start working with City Council. And the mayor was like, "Hey, I know this is not your headache, but I'd like to get the park in such condition and then convey this

00:47:27.340 - 00:47:43.650

all the assets over to you, if you will continue to upkeep and in certain parameters." So we've also noticed that all that land at the park is also completely protected, you can never build anything commercial or residential property.

00:47:43.650 - 00:47:57.570

So it will always permanently remain green space for-for the city, because the land here at Southside is worth a lot of money per square foot. So that's

00:47:57.570 - 00:48:12.920

how I got involved with City Council. I mean, just prior to that, also during the same time as my involvement with Poor Farm Ditch, the flooding issues that were going on within neighborhoods, so that was that's at a higher level

00:48:12.920 - 00:48:27.580

with Harris County flood control and all that I would attend those meetings with the Council. But my deep involvement came with the Parks Association, and then after that was all conveyed and everything was done, and

00:48:27.580 - 00:48:43.920

seeing the work that Council did because I would have to attend meetings, and then Council and I would just sit afterwards—I realized I wanted to do something at a higher level. What do you think about like, the fact that stereotypically like Asians don't really serve in this like industry or

00:48:43.920 - 00:48:53.860

occupation? I feel like obviously, like recently, there's been some more candidates but there's that kind of expectation that like Asians are like going into like medical or like law or engineering fields not really, like public

00:48:53.860 - 00:49:11.600

service? What do you think about that? Oh, um, we kind of laugh about that. My family, on the Chan side of our family—my mother's a Pang—but my father, my father wanted to go into graphic arts, which is like,

00:49:11.880 - 00:49:26.590

so different because his-his one of his brothers was an aircraft engineer. The other one was, the other one went into medicine, not a physician but was doing, what

00:49:26.590 - 00:49:42.350

is it called, the electron microscope. So he was-he's head of his department there in California. You know, so very typical, you know, most people are engineers or medicine. But my father decided he wanted to be an artist.

00:49:42.350 - 00:49:55.460

That was-that was a bit of a shock to my grandparents. But he was successful in what he did in graphic arts. A lot of his campaigns are still known within Shell Oil Company and art news.

00:49:56.150 - 00:50:14.310

So in that sense, I didn't have that typical thing, you know, in terms of models. Of course, my parents wanted me to do something successful, but I wound up having an entrepreneurial spirit in that sense, and then I am different

00:50:14.430 - 00:50:32.290

in the sense, in our family that I did—I wanted to be involved in leadership, even younger in high school. Like I wanted to be involved in our youth groups' leadership; you know, like, I wanted to plan to be part of those,

00:50:33.330 - 00:50:50.010

those meetings and whenever we did camps, and so forth. So it was projects like that, so. How did your parents or like, rest of your family react when you decided to run for public office? Um, they asked me if I really wanted

00:50:51.160 - 00:51:03.420

to do it. But they-they were proud of the fact that I continue to serve. You know, we may have left, we left Houston Chinese Church to go to St.

00:51:03.450 - 00:51:18.030

Luke's because, one, it's closer to us but two, we have some more opportunities to serve over there. So my parents have always known that I've always wanted to serve in some capacity, no matter where I go.

00:51:22.160 - 00:51:35.780

So they, they just wanted to make sure that I want—if I was doing it for the right reasons, you know. And my thing when I spoke on the campaign trail was that I really do.

00:51:35.910 - 00:51:44.140

I was—I'm a servant leader, right? I have a servant's heart. I want to be able to do things. And as I said before, I

00:51:44.170 - 00:52:00.460

want to leave things better than I found them, right. So in the end, they were-they were proud of the fact that I wanted to do that. I mean, I-I continue to work another 501c3's. I mean, my sister, we lost my niece—at a very young

00:52:00.600 - 00:52:16.790

age, she was- she was seven years old—to a very rare form of brain cancer, DIPG. Don't ask me to pronounce it, but it's DIPG which is a brain cancer; and it took a while but we wound up setting up a

00:52:16.790 - 00:52:30.900

branch for-for researchers called The Cure Starts Now and I still sit on her board on that. And that organization is trying to find literally the homerun cure for cancer and pediatric cancer.

00:52:31.830 - 00:52:44.850

They've done miraculous things. But you know, I've done the MS 150 eight times, right from Houston to Austin. And now they're changing the route from here to A&M.

00:52:46.800 - 00:53:00.340

But, you know, I challenge myself in that sense by—I like to think I'm challenging myself with purpose, so. How did you end up becoming the Mayor Pro Tem in 2016?

00:53:02.000 - 00:53:19.780

So I just started Council, the previous mayor, Mayor Pro Tem was Randy Sim. And he had finished his term and he was stepping off of Council so it left a vacancy. Mayor Patterson at that time was looking for—and as I said,

00:53:19.780 - 00:53:37.750

I want to kind of get involved at a higher level. So I approached him, there was another council person who also was interested in it. I think he just found confidence in me and decided to allow me to be

00:53:38.550 - 00:53:50.670

mayor Pro Tem and so I took over the roles as such. That was during Hurricane Harvey too, right? Prior to Hurricane Harvey is when I took over.

00:53:51.070 - 00:54:06.850

The Mayor had set up a vacation, he had already left, and Hurricane Harvey comes roaring into our backyards. What was it like being mayor then? A little nerve-wracking, to be quite honest with you.

00:54:08.580 - 00:54:22.960

We knew it was going to be bad. We didn't know how bad it was going to be. You know, when they start talking about rainfall that was as great or not greater than Allison, that's a little nerve racking because homes did flood here during Allison.

00:54:23.930 - 00:54:37.520

The rainfall pattern, sheet flow patterns were very different this time with Harvey, we did not get the dailies directly dropped upon us as the North-Northern part of this greater metropolitan area.

00:54:38.120 - 00:54:51.900

So we kind of escaped that. If those same rain patterns had hit here in the Southern part, it'd be a much different story. Now I give all the credit to our first responders, the police were out there and the

00:54:51.940 - 00:55:04.060

fire department, they slept through and they slept in City Hall. You know, very thankful for the efforts they put in. We assisted in many high water

00:55:04.060 - 00:55:23.180

rescues that were not in part of the city of Southside. We didn't have homes damaged like our neighboring city of West University Place, they had many homes that were damaged. So kind of transitioning over to like this most recent

00:55:23.180 - 00:55:39.150

election. Congratulations, by the way, on being the Mayor of Southside Place. What motivated you to like run for mayor of your city? Mayor Patterson, who said he was retiring after 10 years, let it be known. I

00:55:42.380 - 00:55:59.060

thought to myself, I didn't—I wanted to still continue the work that I started as in Council. Many of the things I wanted to do had to do with continuing to push the agenda of

00:55:59.060 - 00:56:15.720

flood mitigation. The City of Southside is what we call on a one-year standard, which means that once a year, there's something that's going to cause street flooding within our city, when you're flooded, so most municipalities are on a two-year standard.

00:56:16.790 - 00:56:35.840

Poor Farm Ditch is a 66 year-old ditch, it's been on the replacement lists with Harris County flood control for 21 years, still has not been done. We've had multiple failures of actual collapsing of the cement part of the ditch into the

00:56:35.840 - 00:56:51.970

channel. So that potential of that particular controlled area for water being able to move through to get to Brays Bayou if that's compromised, it will flood

00:56:53.310 - 00:57:11.050

Southside and West U in a catastrophic way. Okay. Because of my familiarity with that, I wanted to make sure that I kind of continue that. I also wanted to continue to make sure that Southside was a

00:57:11.080 - 00:57:23.300

safe and great place to raise families. I mean, we have, we have as many as three generations now living here in the City of Southside Place. You can't say that about many

00:57:24.140 - 00:57:43.120

places, you know, that grandparents, you know, great grandparents, kids alike all want to be within literally walking distance of each other. So it's I very kiddingly say, but in all seriousness, called this is-this is what Mayberry would

00:57:43.120 - 00:58:06.660

be like in modern day times. Yeah. I mean, that was a large large part of it. How have the last like two months been since the May 1st election? You know, being on Council, you get information packets, and so forth.

00:58:06.770 - 00:58:22.300

And you get, you get a lot of that information prior to the City Council meetings. I like to be in the know, so I'm trying to always acquire knowledge and information when I don't know something.

00:58:22.710 - 00:58:39.320

I'm not afraid to pick up the phone and ask questions. So I'm sure our city manager, David Moss, who is incredible and has been with us for 20-something years. Probably one of the most gabby mayors he's ever had to deal with in that sense, but I

00:58:39.340 - 00:58:55.810

think it's important. So I've been—I pick up the phone, I call him, talk to the mayor of the City of West University Place. We've already had a lunch meeting just to build a more, the more synergy and a cooperative environment with our local

00:58:55.810 - 00:59:10.060

agreements between City of West U, City of Bellaire, the City of Houston, in terms of coverages, and I'm trying to build upon that. I've already had a meeting with the Harris County Commissioner, District Three Tom

00:59:10.060 - 00:59:29.140

Ramsey, to talk about this. You know, I've met with Alan Black multiple times prior to me being the mayor and then after in Commissioner Ramsey's office, who just recently actually got named the interim head of director of Harris

00:59:29.170 - 00:59:44.780

County Flood Control. Prior to that, the current one had to resign. I saw that like you gained I think 87% of the electorate in the election. What do you think like—I mean, that's

00:59:44.780 - 01:00:00.440

a pretty significant number—aside from your, like years serving in the city or like living here, what do you think was the key for you to win the support of like Southside Place citizens? Um, I actually canvassed, I went pretty much door-to-door twice.

01:00:01.410 - 01:00:21.360

We'll go out—you know there's the old saying, you know, you want to put a face in front of people, you know. Southside is not a very large municipality. So I think it's important for people to know that there's someone who's willing to meet

01:00:21.360 - 01:00:34.750

with them, and listen to them. A lot of people knew me by name of reputation, and I've seen my name involved in different things, but never knew me, as you know, as the person.

01:00:34.950 - 01:00:51.220

So I went around and made sure that I tried to talk to people and address them. It was challenging during COVID because you want to maintain safe distance. Walking with a mask, and being in hot

01:00:51.220 - 01:01:11.050

weather was not real fun. But I found it to be necessary. But I think it spoke to the fact that people were confident in me as the candidate, to be able to continue on and to be able to work on those things in which the, which I

01:01:11.160 - 01:01:26.730

spoke about. And we have a candidate forum where the candidates for the different open positions were in, and I spoke then, and I just reinforced that when I went walking around so. And you know, I appreciate the voters, I was also

01:01:26.940 - 01:01:36.520

told something like that number of voters might have been greater than even the presidential election. So voters came out to speak their mind. Oh, wow.

01:01:37.530 - 01:01:51.560

How do you think you'll plan on continuing to involve residents in like decision-making process- processes like in your town? Council meetings are open to everybody. But one thing I've already talked to council members and to the city

01:01:51.750 - 01:02:03.000

manager is that I'm probably going to hold a lot more town hall meetings than any other mayor has, I think it's important. I'd like to do at least twice, maybe three times a year where I'm actually going to reach out to the different

01:02:03.000 - 01:02:18.410

civic organizations and different committees. I'll probably—and then to get them to come to speak to Council on a more regular basis. And-and then try to get people involved, I think it's important that people understand

01:02:18.410 - 01:02:31.710

what is going on within their community. Certainly, we're trying to address other things and developing a better form of communication. One of the first things I did on Council when I came in was, I told them, I want—we need to update the website,

01:02:31.890 - 01:02:44.200

our website was antiquated. You weren't getting information, you didn't get emergency alerts, it really was a straight, oh, this is the city of Southside, then maybe you have the police number and so forth.

01:02:44.860 - 01:03:01.800

Now it's been modernized, where it'll send out alerts, it's-it's-it's much more intuitive, you can make reservations, you can pay bills, if there's warning floods, it gets kicked out to people's cell phones and emails get sent

01:03:01.930 - 01:03:13.200

out. So communication is a big thing. The other thing that I was working on the Parks Board was, I had created a newsletter. Unfortunately, after I left,

01:03:13.200 - 01:03:30.300

the newsletter didn't get published. So I'd like to be able to do that in terms of city communication. What would you say is the best way to handle criticism from residents in your city?

01:03:31.540 - 01:03:45.960

I think anytime you hear criticisms, it's something that bothers them. But one thing I've also learned here is that there are some things that are—there are some things you can't do things about.

01:03:47.140 - 01:03:56.520

And to understand that in the position that we are, okay, in terms of Council or the Mayor, we're about governance, okay. We set policies, the

01:03:57.220 - 01:04:12.410

city manager has to enact those policies that we set forth, okay. At the same time, you can also legislate yourself. There's so many layers that you are, you become the very thing that you're not supposed to be and that is you are

01:04:12.520 - 01:04:25.140

bureaucracy, you stand in the way of things. I'd love for everyone to be happy. I mean, I mean, that's just human nature, right? But there are some things like you can't do anything

01:04:25.500 - 01:04:40.890

about. You just do the best, you know, like, you wish you could save every tree within the city, but if the tree is diseased, right? There's a safety issue

01:04:40.940 - 01:04:55.230

there. The tree has to be removed, replace it with something else. Now there's-there's an understanding that some things have to be seen through a different perspective. And so we do.

01:04:55.230 - 01:05:11.780

We listen to them and if it's something that we can help that makes sense in terms of how the city as a whole can address it, we'll look into it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What would you say you love the most about the city of

01:05:11.780 - 01:05:30.440

Southside Place? The people. Straight up. This area really does appreciate the whole small town neighborhood feel, right.

01:05:30.900 - 01:05:46.700

Like I referred to it earlier as the modern-day Mayberry. It's, you know, the blessing is that everyone's friendly, and really does care about the neighborhood. Sometimes people know a little more than they should but you know, it's just

01:05:46.700 - 01:06:00.490

kind of the way small—t's a small city, a small municipality and it's being surrounded by a much larger municipality in the city of Houston. I mean, you know, our neighborhood here, there's

01:06:01.460 - 01:06:12.280

three small municipalities all within a five-mile radius of each other, right? We have, we have the City of West U, we have the City of Southside, we have the city of Bellaire. And then you look at the greater metropolitan of the city of

01:06:12.280 - 01:06:27.840

Houston surrounding all of us. But we've all kept our own independent, unique identity. Yeah, that's something that's definitely unique to Houston. What is your vision for Southside Place's

01:06:27.840 - 01:06:41.100

future in like, 10 to 20 years? That's a good question. Um, the one thing I said I would like to do when I was campaigning is I want to continue the legacy of Southside Place.

01:06:41.150 - 01:06:56.250

And what I mean by that is, I want this still to feel and have its own unique footprint within the larger city, I want us to continue being neighborly. And as I said before, I want it to be a very

01:06:56.250 - 01:07:15.590

safe and loving environment by which we can raise families. I think that's important. Now moving forward, it's— the one thing I have seen over the years is because with the advent of technology, for better or for worse, is

01:07:15.590 - 01:07:29.150

that there is the time that we spend together as neighbors is not as great as it was. And time is, time is not a commodity in that sense, right?

01:07:29.290 - 01:07:43.840

It's-it's an asset, it's only finite. And so I'm seeing less and less of the neighbors coming out. And the funny thing is, we saw more neighbors being neighborly during times in need, like during Hurricane Harvey, or during the freeze, right?

01:07:44.370 - 01:08:00.070

When the-when the modern comforts are taken away in that sense. What I would like to see is that we—we don't forget that part of our humanity, about making those types of connections.

01:08:00.070 - 01:08:12.090

So, you know, I'm trying to find more community events, you know, swim team is near and dear to my heart because of my involvement all those years. But it was a way that families who don't see each other normally during the year get

01:08:12.090 - 01:08:24.340

together, because a lot of the kids here go to private schools and different schools and some kids go to public school. But it's the one thing that draws all the families together into one unified team to be able to do things.

01:08:24.340 - 01:08:37.840

So it gets kids being able to reconnect and reconnect those connections. We have a summer camp here, which has, gosh, been running forever, where kids just come in and they just hang.

01:08:39.900 - 01:08:56.290

They have a good time being able to do that without necessarily distractions of, you know, all the modern devices. Yeah. What would you say is like your greatest accomplishment to date for the city?

01:08:59.000 - 01:09:15.270

Overall, greatest singular, probably what you're seeing behind me the renovation of Fire Truck Park Fund, I mean the Fire Truck Park. It was a great team effort by all those that were involved in, you know, we had

01:09:15.450 - 01:09:30.920

multiple members and we had the whole community come together. We raised a lot of money within neighborhoods. We had people reaching out to different businesses in the area. To be able to raise that much money in that short of a

01:09:30.920 - 01:09:49.820

time and being able to do that much with it. I was—without exaggeration, I was spending 30 hours a week up there doing a lot of supervising and going through and making sure we got things right. We-we took—we went to the

01:09:49.820 - 01:10:01.980

extent to be that new trees that we were planting, had enough root growth pattern for their canopies to make sure it wasn't able to compete with other ones and we knew other trees that were in decline would eventually have to be taken out.

01:10:02.450 - 01:10:16.000

We, you know, we accounted for that. So we really did try to look at everything very holistically as we were doing this, from planning of certain zones were set up to be just toddlers, you know.

01:10:16.060 - 01:10:29.410

So if you were watching— everything we made sure with, you could pivot within the shade of a pavilion, so you could have an eye. So the littler kids were always right up against the pavilion area, and the older

01:10:29.410 - 01:10:44.170

kids' islands were further away, and so forth. So, you know, it was, but it was a great team effort. I really enjoyed that. And the next thing we did on Council was, was the swimming pool, redoing the swimming pool. Now the pool

01:10:44.170 - 01:10:54.930

there was only four feet deep. So it wasn't in diving regulations. You know, there were a lot of safety issues that were, that needed to be addressed for such an old pool, and we were blessed enough to-to

01:10:56.210 - 01:11:06.400

get the money through Council. And we ran that through the city. So now realizing that when the park was privatized we would never get enough money to be able to do that.

01:11:06.550 - 01:11:19.440

So, you know, when the city was kind enough to take over all the assets, they knew what was coming down the pipeline and took a few years, but you know, they saw fit to kind of leave that

01:11:19.570 - 01:11:37.320

there. And now we got a very nice, permanent green space. So I'm sure you know, but like you're the first like Chinese American and Asian in Texas to be mayor of Southside Place. What does that like historical kind of title or accomplishment

01:11:37.320 - 01:11:52.440

mean to you? It was interesting that I didn't think about that at all, when I was running, in a sense. But considering the year that we're coming off of actually, you know, four years prior to that now,

01:11:53.470 - 01:12:05.220

things have transpired. I do take pride in that. There's even some talk about—and this can't be confirmed or denied. But I think I was told that I'm the first

01:12:05.590 - 01:12:21.010

American-born Chinese mayor in the history of Texas. Records are so loose, because there's so many small municipalities. But-but when—I think a Chinese newspaper actually approached me about that and told

01:12:21.010 - 01:12:35.660

me that, I was shocked to hear that there have been several other Asian mayors, but they've all been born in their native countries, and then become mayors while here. So yeah, I took-I took pride in knowing-knowing that,

01:12:37.020 - 01:12:51.170

considering what we're coming off of. Yeah. What is the Asian population like in Southside Place? It's actually a little higher than normal demographics. I think it's 14 percent.

01:12:51.890 - 01:13:05.380

Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah, like, how do you think that your role as mayor especially being like, an ABC, like American Born Chinese, is especially important during this time of like, the pandemic, and like this past couple of

01:13:05.380 - 01:13:20.520

years of like AAPI hate as well? Um, I think the main importance has to do with the fact that this particular community looks beyond ethnicity or even skin color.

01:13:22.750 - 01:13:37.680

You know, we have not experienced a lot with the little bubble of the city of Southside. Certainly, when I travel, I have a little more concern about it.

01:13:38.350 - 01:13:56.790

We have a house in Wyoming that is right at the edge of the Grand Tetons. So when we're traveling, I'm certainly a little more aware of it. You know, I have had situations where certainly, someone has said something, you know,

01:13:57.270 - 01:14:14.700

and at that point, as long as it's not a safety to myself or my family, I-I let it go. It's certainly a bigoted type of statement, kind of move on with that. So outside of work, and like

01:14:15.500 - 01:14:32.650

serving in public service, what are some things that you like to do in your free time? I know you mentioned like, riding the MS 50—or 150, and then like church and stuff like that? Um, so yes, cycling was-was a much larger hobby when I had more time.

01:14:34.160 - 01:14:49.890

And certainly, I've already told my wife, I said, "You know, I'm on the backs-on the mid-side of 50's, I've rid a—it'd be nice to get to double digits because double digits riding MS 150 is not a large percentage

01:14:49.890 - 01:15:02.630

of people who wound up doing it. So certainly want to try to get a couple more in. You know, I laugh, when I owned my own business, I probably had more

01:15:02.720 - 01:15:18.010

leisure time doing things because I'm entertaining clients than I do in my public service, but I certainly love to fish. I used to play some golf. I played—I used to play a lot of tennis, but I don't play as much as I

01:15:18.130 - 01:15:33.360

used to. Certainly like to read. You know, I actually even still play video games with the kids who are college students, so you know. Still do that.

01:15:33.360 - 01:15:47.850

And I play D&D with them every so often. How old are your kids now? So my eldest daughter is Cameron. She is 22. She is a—she only has a few more hours.

01:15:47.850 - 01:15:58.020

She's at Texas A&M College Station. So she's about to finish out. Then she's looking at postgraduate work right now in psychology.

01:15:58.760 - 01:16:11.780

Eventuality's that she probably wants to go into med school, which we're a little discouraging of that, because medicine is not the same as it used to be. But she really has a heart for service in the sense of mental health.

01:16:12.210 - 01:16:23.530

So she wants to be a psychiatrist and work with adolescents. My son is 20. He's at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. He is

01:16:23.530 - 01:16:39.750

currently studying—he's currently studying meteorology. It was interesting, because after Hurricane Ike, that really affected him wanting to do research in that. Now as he's into it, he's actually been much into environmental science.

01:16:41.120 - 01:16:56.620

So he's very big into that type. So each of them have their own way of doing service, in that sense, you know. I told them that doesn't have to be like me, but I always want them to remember when you're in a position to give back

01:16:56.720 - 01:17:07.220

you certainly should. Definitely service. How do you think the pandemic has like affected relationships and like community bonding, especially

01:17:12.590 - 01:17:31.190

within your city? We have an aging group of citizens in here. And I think it was difficult for them that their family couldn't come visit them. Certainly internally, in the beginning, because also we also have, on the flip side, very young families.

01:17:32.110 - 01:17:44.500

I think for a lot of parents, the difficulty was the-the virtual school. For the-for them. That's, you know, for a short time, it was okay.

01:17:45.380 - 01:18:05.770

But we very quickly found out, even in the latest STAAR scores, you can see what a difference in-school teaching does. It also makes parents appreciate it a whole lot more what teachers do. Because it's certainly not easy to teach your own child and then some of the material of

01:18:05.770 - 01:18:17.210

course is not material that we-we've seen in 20 to 30 years, you know. I couldn't do a diff eq equation right now to save my life. You know?

01:18:19.470 - 01:18:34.170

So, you know, my wife who is a physician actually had to think long and hard about some of the some biology and chem questions my daughter was asking her. So, you know, it's-it's hard.

01:18:36.000 - 01:18:47.880

Even for a university student who wanted to be there, because you can't take—when you do an anatomy class, you can't touch, you know, you can't work on anything because you don't see it.

01:18:47.880 - 01:19:04.540

So there's classes that have to of course be pushed off for the— those kids, a lot of kids in college wound up coming back home here in the city. We had-we had rising seniors and senior graduates that didn't get to experience a normal

01:19:06.560 - 01:19:18.820

end of their high school career before they moved on, you know. You get kindergarteners, who-who definitely are much more tactile in their learning and have to be taught that social environment because they were isolated.

01:19:19.320 - 01:19:33.550

So there are certainly challenges by all facets of our neighborhood. So now that we're kind of coming out on it, you're seeing more and more activity. Certainly at the parks, we had to

01:19:33.550 - 01:19:46.260

shut down the parks as policy, shut down the playgrounds. We shut down our clubhouse, our pool, you know, as per all the safety protocols that were being set forth so it did affect us. It affected us financially too, as well, too,

01:19:47.040 - 01:20:00.110

because a lot of the money comes from taxes and sales taxes from the business area. Businesses shut down, they can't sell anything, we don't reap any of the revenue from that either, you know.

01:20:04.330 - 01:20:18.450

So yeah, it did, it affected our city. So kind of go into like the last set of questions about your own personal identity, how would you say you identify yourself? Would you say like you're Chinese, Chinese-American, American, or like

01:20:18.700 - 01:20:33.650

Houstonian? So it's interesting, so when I talk about it, I-I put nationality first. So I'm an American. Okay. But my ethnicity

01:20:33.650 - 01:20:49.840

is Chinese. So I am an American-born Chinese. Some people would say, well, you're actually Chinese-born American. Well, in the sense that the oath we swore into offices that we're also here to, you know, we're

01:20:49.840 - 01:21:08.690

swearing an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, right? I don't look at ethnicity being an aspect of that. So whether I was Caucasian, or whether I was African American, when you're sworn into public office, in that sense,

01:21:08.800 - 01:21:27.850

we're here to defend the Constitution, right? And uphold the laws of the state and the federal government as well. So in that sense I identify as American first. Now, going back to the fact that I'm Chinese, I'm proud of our heritage.

01:21:28.060 - 01:21:42.160

I mean, my parents have done a lot of things. Certainly in history, the Chinese have done amazing things, you know, and my parents to this day still practice a lot of some things they brought over.

01:21:44.520 - 01:21:58.170

We appear to them in association with my parents; my kids, on the other hand, know them, but don't appreciate it. Like, it's also interesting that a lot

01:21:58.170 - 01:22:15.580

of people don't remember, like, the Chinese Exclusion Act. And that's not really taught very often within the state of Texas. And so, PBS had a special on it, we made the kids sit down, and we talked about it with them.

01:22:16.210 - 01:22:29.120

My wife's side of the family experienced a lot of that. She was born in New York originally, but then her family moved out to Mississippi. And there you see, of course, a lot more. Yeah, yeah. So

01:22:31.530 - 01:22:48.420

yeah. What are your hopes for like Asian American communities like in Southside Place and just the US in general? In Southside Place, most of the people here are either physicians or engineers or administrators. So, you know,

01:22:49.660 - 01:23:08.400

when you look at the demographics we are quite well-to-do. You know, if you're living here at Southside, you are usually a professional or someone of a certain economic status. Okay. In terms of their heritage, I think a lot of

01:23:08.400 - 01:23:21.530

that's personal, right? We don't see a lot of that being outwardly demonstrated within the city of Southside. Certainly people talk about it in their social medias or within their inner circle, but we don't

01:23:21.530 - 01:23:30.400

have any specific events within the city of Southside to do that. We recognize all the federal holidays. And certainly we adhere to anything that

01:23:31.050 - 01:23:46.930

comes down from Austin, in regards to whatever protocols like during COVID, for instance. What I would like to do is see more people serve. Now, the one thing I will say is that if you look at it even for

01:23:47.890 - 01:24:02.660

the lower, you know, the percentage is higher overall in terms of demographics, right, here for Asians. But we've had two back-to-back Mayor Pro Tems that were both Asian, right.

01:24:04.070 - 01:24:19.860

We do have people who step up and do different other community— committees that are here. So I'm glad to see that people will continue to participate. I think most people participate here. So because they want to

01:24:19.860 - 01:24:37.860

continue to do something, do something for the betterment of the community, right. Now, in terms of-in terms of the United States, I would like people to take an opportunity to-to step out of their comfort zone. Serving is not something that necessarily comes real natural, right,

01:24:37.930 - 01:24:49.330

because you kind of put yourself out there and the job that we do, whether it's in public education or what I'm doing now, it's not a paid position. A few of our members are like, "Well how's your office?

01:24:49.330 - 01:25:02.360

How much are you getting paid?" There's a ceremonial one dollar. No one has ever taken the one dollar, but it's more of a stance in ceremony and certainly in public education when you do service, like, the brave

01:25:03.380 - 01:25:21.840

people who serve as trustees for the Board of Education for HISD, they serve for four years, they put in 30 hours a week, they don't get paid anything, either. So, you know, you really need to do it with the right mindset and-and actually be

01:25:22.490 - 01:25:35.830

pretty pure in your intentions. I mean, it gets exposed pretty quickly if you're doing this for any other reason, you know. So, I really do believe that if you're going to give, you

01:25:35.830 - 01:25:49.030

give it your all while serving. So like, last question from my end, what would you say is kind of the biggest life lessons you've learned, whether it be about like your career, or your identity, or like public service or things like that?

01:25:54.520 - 01:26:10.150

I would say one of the things that most people need to learn, whether it's in service or business or in life is about grace, you know, whether it's to others and to yourself. You know, I think a

01:26:10.220 - 01:26:24.990

lot of times, we're our own worst critics. No matter what we do, I think it's really important that you realize that, you know, when you extend that grace, you get that grace back in return.

01:26:25.460 - 01:26:41.080

And so when you deal with the public and service, you've got to realize, you gotta, you also have to take time to listen, I think listening is a skill as a leader. And we yet a lot of times we don't do. A lot of leaders are in basically

01:26:42.390 - 01:26:54.790

the "I want to fix it" mentality, as opposed to listening first, and then taking in all that information, and then making whatever policy or decision making based upon what you've heard.

01:26:55.360 - 01:27:09.240

When you talked to me about criticism earlier, I take that in as information, not necessarily always, you know, it might seem like an attack to other people. But they—people when they come with that have concerns, it may not

01:27:09.350 - 01:27:21.590

sound like a big deal to you about your perspective. But if they're complaining to you, there's a reason for it. And a lot of times you can take that information and integrate it into whatever policy decision-making you're doing as a

01:27:21.590 - 01:27:36.990

leader. So listening again, is one of those skills. I think it's really important. Of course, yeah. So that's all the questions I have, is there anything else that you'd like to add to the interview that I didn't get to touch on?

01:27:38.780 - 01:27:57.580

In this—the only thing I would say, again, we did talk a little bit about this was, you know, I hope if other people do get to listen to this is that I think it is important to regardless, to find a way always to give back to your community. And I'm hoping that—I'm hoping Asians

01:27:58.550 - 01:28:11.350

do find a voice in service. You know, a lot of times we are portrayed in the sense that we're-we're meek, we're quiet, we sit in the background, we're not policy makers, we're

01:28:11.350 - 01:28:26.970

not, you know, we're not necessarily the ones in front and center. And I'm more inclined to say that what—you don't have to necessarily be or have a lot of bravado in your service.

01:28:27.340 - 01:28:43.600

Okay, I think actions speak a lot times greater than your words do. But to find a way to serve and give back to your community, I think when people see that, I think people realize that, you know, great things can be done.

01:28:43.600 - 01:28:59.130

I mean 87%, that's a pretty good number. It is. Do you want to talk about like your recipe a little bit too? Sure. So our family really likes Char Siu Baos.

01:29:00.430 - 01:29:17.440

So I'm going to be sending in a rec-the recipe actually how to make the Char Siu. And also actually make the Bao part and the integration of that and so it's something that we've been working on and I kind of it

01:29:18.510 - 01:29:35.060

got down at this point. In our family we kind of kid around that there's a local bakery here called King's Bakery that makes Char Siu Baos and stuff and I said, "Geez, I guess if this doesn't work out we can always open up a bakery." So yeah, I'll be sending over the Char Siu Bao recipe.

01:29:35.120 - 01:29:41.480

Yeah, thank you. Okay, so if there's nothing else that you'd like to add, I'm going to go ahead and stop the recording. Okay.