Episode Transcript
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0:00
Craft matters in small ways, like how
0:02
coffee is made, or
0:04
how a wooden table is built piece by piece.
0:07
And in not so small ways, like how your money
0:09
is cared for. At UBS,
0:12
we elevate investing to a craft.
0:14
We deliver our services with passion,
0:16
expertise, and meticulous attention to detail.
0:18
This is what investing means to
0:20
UBS. Not just work, but
0:23
a craft. Discover more
0:25
at ubs.com/craft. The
0:28
value of investments may fall as well as rise, and
0:30
you may not get back the amount originally invested. A
0:35
quick warning. There are curse words that are unbeeped
0:37
in today's episode of the show. If
0:40
you prefer a beeped version, you can
0:42
find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. My
0:46
dad's ATM password was $11.19 till the day died. $11.19
0:51
was also in the password for his home Wi-Fi network.
0:55
$11.19 was shorthand for 1119 Bayard
0:57
Street, which is where his
0:59
grandfather, my great grandfather, owned a
1:02
tiny grocery store on the ground floor of a house
1:04
in downtown Baltimore in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Picture
1:08
a neighborhood bodega and you've got the
1:11
general size of this thing. The family
1:13
lived upstairs, worked downstairs. So
1:16
much happened at 1119 Bayard. So
1:18
many things about our family were set in motion there. But
1:21
my sisters and I only got little scraps of stories about the
1:23
place. This handful of
1:25
family defining origin stories. They
1:28
got trotted out now and then. Like
1:30
for instance, there was the one about the chickens. My
1:33
dad and his brother Lenny both worked
1:35
in the store from the time they were little kids. And
1:38
chickens were slaughtered at the store, or
1:41
tricked them out, both of them. To
1:43
the point where decades later, as grown
1:45
men, neither of them ate
1:47
chicken. And they'd explain this was
1:50
the reason why. Or
1:52
there's the story about my great grandfather's bookkeeping skills.
1:55
I'm actually named for my great grandfather,
1:57
Isidore Friedlander. My parents.
2:00
chose Ira instead of
2:02
Isidore because Isidore Glass
2:05
is a parsable English sentence. Is
2:08
a Dory Glass? My
2:11
mom once told me that they picked Ira over
2:13
the alternatives because it sounded less
2:15
Jewish to them. It
2:17
just goes to show how completely utterly Jewish
2:19
their entire world was back then. I've
2:23
heard all my life what a kind-hearted man Isidore
2:25
was on a soft touch, which
2:28
brings me to this next story we would hear now
2:30
and then. During the Depression,
2:32
when everybody in the neighborhood was broke and
2:34
buying on credit, Isidore
2:37
set up a system where every customer would
2:39
have a little book, like this
2:41
flimsy paper thing, where he
2:43
would write down what they owed. But
2:46
the thing about the system was the
2:49
customer kept the book. Maybe
2:52
you see the problem with this. All the
2:54
time, customers would show up at the store and say,
2:56
I lost my book. And
2:59
Isidore would say that, ah, it's OK. What do you think
3:01
you owe? And then they'd
3:03
say some not very high number. And
3:06
he'd write it down and hand him a new
3:08
book to take home. Years
3:11
later, my dad became a certified public accountant.
3:14
And this became one of those, the day Peter
3:16
Parker got bit by the radioactive spider sort of
3:18
origin stories. What bad bookkeeping
3:20
he saw his grandfather do at 1119 Bayard. And
3:24
now he was going to do better. I'm
3:30
sure some good things happened at 1119 Bayard. But
3:33
those stories didn't get passed down. We heard painful
3:36
things. My dad
3:38
was miserable working there, so was his brother. His
3:41
mom, my grandma, Frida, got
3:43
out of the store, went to college, taught
3:45
Latin in junior high school. But
3:48
then got dragged back into the family
3:50
business against her will like Michael Corleone when
3:52
her dad Isidore got sick. I
3:56
visited 1119 Bayard, I don't know, maybe
3:58
half a dozen times in my life. when
10:00
the Communist Party suppressed any expression of
10:02
religion. They were atheists by
10:05
default. Their conversion here in
10:07
America goes against everything they learned
10:09
in China. The only problem
10:11
with this story is me. After
10:14
22 years of Christianity, I
10:16
left and never came back. Have
10:21
you ever felt depressed? Perhaps a
10:23
bit blue? Did you ever
10:25
have an existential crisis and start to
10:27
question the very foundation of your faith?
10:30
I am raised in the church. I
10:32
go to Sunday school and worship service
10:34
and youth group and Bible study, which
10:36
I come to lead. Every
10:38
break, I go to a retreat that's held
10:40
at a camp near Lancaster, out
10:42
in Amish country. When
10:45
I'm 17, I make this promo video
10:47
for our upcoming spring youth retreat. Maybe
10:50
you have doubts about your faith. Maybe
10:52
you've been a Christian for many years, but
10:54
you're still uncertain about some things. Maybe
10:56
you're new to Christianity and have a lot
10:59
of questions. Either way, you
11:01
should take the opportunity to go to
11:03
the spring youth retreat. Don't
11:05
believe me? Just listen to these
11:07
satisfied customers. At first, I
11:09
wasn't too sure about this retreat thing.
11:13
People going to woods, singing, worshiping,
11:15
isn't that what cults do? But
11:18
then I went to it and it was really
11:20
interesting. We went singing, we worshiped, and it wasn't
11:22
a cult at all. I mean, you should definitely
11:24
go. In retrospect,
11:26
this sounds like a cry for help. I'm
11:29
totally not trapped in a cult, haha. Being
11:32
immersed for decades in this not cult didn't
11:34
just shape my behavior. It rewired
11:37
my brain. Like even today,
11:39
when I'm washing the dishes, I'll
11:41
be thinking about how this scrub daddy I'm
11:43
using is falling apart. And I should probably
11:45
get some new sponges from the supermarket. And
11:47
Jesus Christ, remember that time at the food bazaar
11:49
in Flatbush when I almost ran my shopping
11:51
cart into that old lady and she yelled
11:53
at me, God, I'm such a worthless piece
11:55
of shit. But anyway, I should
11:57
probably go to Giant Eagle to get some sponges.
12:00
And Jesus Christ, remember that time when I met
12:02
up with the Arts Council guy at the 61C
12:04
Cafe across the street from the Giant Eagle and
12:07
we said goodbye, but then we were walking the
12:09
same way and awkwardly made more conversation until we
12:11
reached his car? God, I'm such a worthless piece
12:13
of shit. But anyway, I
12:16
should email the landlord about how the dishwasher
12:18
doesn't work, so I don't have to hand
12:20
wash these dishes. It hasn't worked this entire
12:22
time. And Jesus Christ, it's been almost a
12:24
year since I moved into this apartment and
12:26
I still haven't emailed him. God, why
12:28
am I such a procrastinator? I'm such a worthless
12:31
piece of shit. Sometimes I
12:33
whisper it to myself. I'm
12:35
a worthless piece of shit. I
12:37
hate myself. This
12:39
is the main thing I learned from Christianity, that
12:42
I'm a worthless piece of shit. And
12:44
listen, I know that that's not the main message of
12:46
the gospel. I know Jesus teaches
12:49
us that we're redeemed by his sacrifice, that
12:51
we're all children of God. But
12:53
all that nice feel-good stuff bounced right off
12:55
of me. What was drilled
12:57
into my mind and what I really internalized is
13:00
that while I'm a child of God, I'm
13:02
also a child of Adam, who
13:05
ate the forbidden fruit offered to him
13:07
by Eve and whose original sin I
13:09
inherit. Christians remind you of it
13:11
all the time. I was at
13:13
a wedding where the groom's brother told the
13:15
newlyweds they need to never forget that they're
13:17
broken sinners, at a celebration of
13:19
the couple. So I learned to
13:22
hate myself. I need to
13:24
punish myself every moment of every waking
13:26
hour of every day for my sinfulness,
13:29
which morphs into a need to
13:31
punish myself for anything I've ever
13:33
done that's vaguely embarrassing. For
13:36
years, I hated talking about myself because
13:38
I hated myself. If
13:40
I'm at a social event and meet someone new, I'll be
13:42
like, So where do you live? How long have you been
13:44
there for? How do you like it? Where are you from?
13:46
What school did you go to? And if someone asks me
13:49
a question, like what I do for a living, I'm like,
13:52
Oh, uh, well, you know, I make
13:54
like podcasts or whatever. It's stupid. And
13:56
then I do rhetorical jujitsu and redirect
13:58
back to the other person. How
14:00
do you do for a living? How'd you get into that? How do you like it?
14:03
Humility is a big part of Christianity.
14:06
The good are humble, quiet, and
14:08
meek, while the evil are loud,
14:10
boisterous, and proud. As
14:12
Solomon teaches us in Proverbs, when
14:14
pride comes, then comes disgrace. But
14:17
with humility comes wisdom. So
14:19
if I don't want to disgrace myself, I
14:21
need to make sure the attention is always on the
14:24
other person. I need to stay
14:26
humble and never answer anyone's questions about
14:28
me. Because if I talk
14:30
about myself, they'd soon discover my fundamental
14:32
worthless piece of shitness and
14:34
be as disgusted with me as I am
14:37
with myself. Besides,
14:39
who would want to talk to me in the first place? Who
14:41
would possibly want to get to know me, befriend
14:43
me, or, God forbid, date me?
14:47
Sex was out of the question, even as
14:49
an adult, living on my own. As
14:51
Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, anyone
14:54
who looks at a woman lustfully has
14:56
already committed adultery with her in his
14:58
heart. So not only
15:00
is it immoral to have sex, to just
15:02
think about sex is a sin. I
15:05
held onto that even after I left the
15:07
church and graduated college. I
15:09
simply cannot imagine myself ever dating. When
15:12
I thought about the future, I pictured
15:14
myself getting frozen fish nuggets from Trader Joe's,
15:16
frozen hash browns and tartar sauce from Giant
15:19
Eagle, and eating them together as the saddest
15:21
fish and chips in the world while watching
15:23
through all of Twin Peaks, which
15:25
is what I did my first semester in
15:27
grad school, living with Craigslist roommates in a
15:30
single room in Pittsburgh. I
15:32
read an interview in The Cut with
15:35
a, quote, 58-year-old virgin who said that
15:37
the worst part about his life is,
15:39
quote, laying alone at night, falling asleep,
15:42
and then getting up in the morning and remembering you're
15:44
alone. I read that, and I
15:46
was like, yep, all right, here we
15:48
go. At
15:51
age 25, I started dating my partner,
15:53
and now fiancé, Grace. They're
15:55
the first person I ever dated. We saw
15:58
the movie Challengers the other day. The
16:01
Horny Zendaya Tennis Movie. About three tennis
16:03
players who fuck each other while fucking
16:05
each other over. On
16:07
the drive back from the theater, Grace was like, Wow,
16:10
Horny Zendaya Tennis Movie sure
16:12
was horny, don't you think? And I
16:14
was like, Uh, well, I just
16:16
really like the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and
16:18
Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails. They also
16:20
did the music for the social network and
16:22
Gone Girl and the Watchmen TV show. Right,
16:24
but the movie was also like, really horny,
16:27
right? Did it make you horny? Uh,
16:29
maybe, I don't know. It's just that Nine
16:31
Inch Nails actually released an album of instrumentals
16:33
in 2008 entirely through a
16:36
Creative Commons license, so you don't have to
16:38
pay any licensing fees. I actually use some
16:40
of their songs in my podcasts. Bowen, did
16:42
the Horny Zendaya Tennis Movie make
16:44
you horny? Why are you being
16:47
so immature about this? I
16:50
don't know what exactly happened in this moment, but
16:52
I felt like a child. I felt
16:55
swallowed by an overwhelming feeling of shame.
16:58
Shame about sex, about sexual desire,
17:00
and simply being a sexual being,
17:02
for having a body. For
17:04
a long time, I wish I didn't have
17:06
a body, that I was a floating consciousness,
17:09
freed from the shame and guilt of the flesh.
17:12
It's been seven years since I left Christianity,
17:15
but the effects are still there. These
17:17
mental grooves are so well-worn at
17:19
this point, it's basically instinct. Where
17:22
does my fucked up-ness come from? Well,
17:25
I think I can trace all of this
17:27
back to my dad at
17:29
the Oklahoma City Airport. The
17:35
story of my dad waiting for someone to
17:37
pick him up at the airport has taken
17:39
on in almost mythological significance to me. This
17:42
moment that sealed my fate years before I
17:44
even existed. Because as he
17:46
stood in the terminal, he also stood
17:48
at a crossroads. Is
17:51
there an alternate reality where Dave doesn't
17:53
pick him up, and someone else does
17:56
instead? Someone who isn't a Christian, and
17:58
my dad never converts? and my
18:00
life is so much better as a result. I
18:03
was born in Oklahoma and moved away when I
18:05
was two. I have no memories
18:08
of living there or of Dave. What
18:10
was it about this place and these
18:13
people that made my parents choose Christianity?
18:15
If I went there myself, if I
18:18
talked to Dave and the people who knew
18:20
them, visited the places they spent time in,
18:22
attended the church they worshiped at, and tried
18:24
to imagine what their lives were like 35
18:27
years ago, maybe then, I
18:29
could finally understand why things went the way
18:31
they did. Okay,
18:35
I'm standing in the Oklahoma
18:37
City Airport. I had
18:40
this idea where I would stand where
18:43
my dad stood, looking
18:45
around for someone to pick him
18:47
up, but I don't know exactly
18:51
where that would be. I
18:53
just seem just tired and wanna lay in
18:55
a bed. I think I'll go do that. Rolling
19:01
my suitcase across the parking lot, I
19:03
think about how my dad flew in
19:05
from Beijing as an alien, to use
19:07
the official terminology, while I
19:09
arrived from Pittsburgh as a US citizen. How
19:12
my dad was at the mercy of strangers
19:14
for transportation, while I have a
19:16
license and rental car. How
19:18
I would now retrace the route my dad
19:20
took from Oklahoma City to Norman, and
19:22
how the one thing we share is a sense of
19:25
exhaustion, of wanting nothing more than
19:27
a warm bed in a private room, at
19:29
the end of a long day in a
19:31
strange place. One,
19:33
two, three, four. ["The
19:39
Star-Spangled Banner"] Do
19:50
you remember what you saw looking at the window? I
19:53
think it's just highway,
19:55
it's dark outside. Red
19:57
Lobster, Chick-fil-A, McDonald's. Just
20:01
naming chain restaurants here.
20:04
All lit up in neon signs. Highway
20:07
signs. Get off.
20:09
Get on. Exit. Ice 35.
20:11
T-20, Ice 35 South.
20:14
13 miles. There we go.
20:16
University of Oklahoma is our exit. And
20:19
then we went along and
20:21
we got to Norman. I
20:29
think I was very tired. I fell
20:32
asleep quickly. Tell everyone
20:34
you know
20:38
someday.
20:51
The next day, I go to my parents'
20:53
first apartment. I just want to see it
20:55
with my own eyes. The building is
20:57
two stories and painted a pale yellow. With
20:59
a big porch a guy is sitting on. All
21:02
of a sudden. I
21:06
guess that's some sort of warning? Like
21:08
a tornado warning? Is there a tornado
21:10
coming? No idea. Anyway,
21:13
I'm going to do my parents' commute. Walk
21:17
to the old
21:19
chemistry building that they used to stay
21:21
at. It's
21:24
very quiet. Nobody, when you walk
21:26
on the street, you
21:29
even can hear your own footstep
21:31
and your own breathing. We
21:38
came from Beijing and
21:40
such big city. So
21:42
many people everywhere is crowded.
21:45
All of a sudden you want to place
21:47
just opposite. So you
21:50
can imagine that kind of shocking feeling.
21:54
This might be the chemistry building. This is the
21:56
old chemistry building. It's called
21:58
the chemistry building. annex. I
22:01
kind of feel very lost and
22:04
have no sense of being anchored
22:06
to any spot because I feel
22:09
I'm just parachute to the place
22:11
in the middle of nowhere. I don't
22:13
know anyone. You start with
22:15
a zero. I mean you are on ground
22:17
zero. Three or four stories and like
22:21
faded yellow brick. Some
22:23
like castle like turrets on the top.
22:26
Interesting. Some of the outside
22:29
is pretty corroded now. When
22:38
you said like you just like parachuted into
22:40
this place and you had zero, you started
22:42
at zero, you had nothing. Do
22:44
you think that's why like you relied so
22:46
heavily on the church? I
22:48
think so because you all started last
22:51
year. You don't have a
22:53
gravity. You don't have a
22:55
gravity. Life is so fragile.
22:57
That's how I felt. This could be
22:59
happening in a second. Just
23:02
turning upside down. I
23:08
visit the campus library and find
23:10
physical copies of my parents' PhD
23:12
dissertations. My mom's is
23:14
titled, Formation and Characterization of
23:16
Anchored Polymer Coatings on Illumina.
23:19
There's a Cheetos bag sandwiched between the front
23:21
cover and first page. No idea why. I
23:25
ask my mom about this later. Did
23:27
you leave a Cheetos bag in your dissertation? Maybe
23:29
as some sort of message to future readers? She's
23:32
like, what? No. In
23:36
the acknowledgments, which is the only section
23:38
I can understand, she writes, I
23:40
shall give all glory and honor to
23:42
God, all caps. He,
23:45
all caps, is my strength. I
23:48
throw away the Cheetos bag on my way out. I
23:55
throw away the Cheetos bag on my way out. The
24:02
first person I talked to in Oklahoma is
24:04
Dave, the nice gentleman with the warm smile
24:06
who took my dad in and brought him
24:08
to Christ. Dave
24:12
knew me as an infant and visited us in
24:14
Philly, which I have no memory of. My
24:17
parents always referred to him as my
24:19
yie yie, my grandfather, perhaps
24:21
in place of the yie yie in China I
24:23
never met. This
24:26
would probably be my first and only chance to
24:28
talk to him, at least since I
24:31
gained consciousness and the power of speech. I
24:33
wanted to know, who is this man? How
24:36
did he end up in charge of this Chinese
24:38
ministry that changed the fate of my parents' lives
24:41
and my life? Hello? Good
24:44
afternoon, boy. Hi,
24:47
nice to finally talk with you. How are you?
24:50
Well, I'm well. I'm going
24:53
to be 90 next February. You're
25:00
okay with me recording this? You're
25:04
recording it? Yeah, is that
25:06
okay? It's okay.
25:09
All right. But let me say
25:11
this. Sure. I found
25:13
that if you publicly
25:18
identify somebody, the
25:21
devil really can come in and
25:23
try to take away their
25:26
testimony. I would just urge
25:29
you that if you do
25:31
write this, that's honoring
25:33
to your mom and dad, but
25:36
you don't want the devil jumping on them.
25:38
So do you understand that? I
25:40
do, yeah. The way I
25:43
understand what Dave is saying here is that
25:45
since I'm publicizing my parents' story, I need
25:47
to make sure not to dishonor or slander
25:49
them because the devil is lying in
25:51
wait. Dave worked as
25:54
a campus minister in colleges across the US
25:56
and the world, in Nebraska and
25:58
Maryland, and I wrote a book. but
26:01
he spent the bulk of his career
26:03
ministering to Chinese international students at OU
26:05
as the University of Oklahoma is confusingly
26:08
nicknamed starting in 1987, two years before
26:10
my parents arrived. Did
26:13
you have any sort of like prior knowledge
26:15
of like China or Chinese
26:17
culture or the language or anything like
26:20
that? Well, no.
26:23
When the Chinese started coming
26:25
over here from mainland China,
26:28
they had never been in a church.
26:31
They had never met a Christian. They
26:33
had never seen a Bible, but
26:36
they came over here wanting to
26:38
know our culture. It
26:40
sounded like he almost stumbled into this role. He
26:43
saw a new population at OU, many
26:45
of whom were already curious about Western
26:47
culture and Christianity, and he
26:49
was happy to oblige. It was
26:51
clarifying for me to learn that Dave had been
26:53
a missionary in Kenya. I've come
26:55
to think of him as a sort of
26:58
domestic missionary, serving people from outside the US,
27:00
within the US. I
27:02
think somewhere close to
27:04
450 Chinese, closer
27:06
maybe even to 500 during
27:09
that time over the years. We
27:13
didn't rush him. We didn't want him
27:15
to become Christians to please us, but
27:19
we would love them. We'd take him on
27:21
trips. We'd have Bible
27:23
study with him. Among
27:26
these acts of love were practical things, like
27:28
picking my dad up from the airport. My
27:31
mom came four months later. Dave
27:33
picked her up as well. At
27:35
that point, my dad was ready to convert. Dave
27:38
and his wife came to my parents' apartment. My
27:40
dad got on his knees, prayed to accept
27:42
Jesus into his heart. And then
27:44
your dad looked up
27:46
and smiled, and he said, this
27:50
wasn't as hard as I thought
27:52
it would be. And
27:54
he was really happy. And
27:57
I looked over at your mom, and she was
27:59
crying. And I said, what's
28:02
the matter? And she said, well,
28:04
you're a Christian, and now my
28:06
husband's a Christian, but I'm
28:09
the only one that's not a Christian. I
28:11
just feel now same as the rest of
28:13
the line between me and Daddy. And
28:17
so that makes me mix
28:20
fading, really mix fading. You
28:23
felt like there was a line, like a
28:26
dividing line between you and Dad at that
28:28
moment? Yeah, because he became a
28:32
child of God. I'm not yet. So
28:35
it feels like we are now in a
28:37
different path. I said, well, be
28:40
patient. We'll get to that, but you
28:42
need to know what it's all about
28:44
first. Oh,
28:47
I love your parents. How long
28:49
after my dad came to Christ
28:51
until my mom came to Christ
28:53
as well? Oh, it
28:55
was only maybe a month or two
28:58
or three weeks. Over
29:00
the phone, I didn't have the courage to
29:02
tell this kindly old man who led my
29:05
parents to the path of Christianity, who then
29:07
raised me on that path, that
29:09
I rejected all of that and that I'm still
29:11
recovering. But then when
29:13
I go to him in person, I resolved
29:15
to tell him the full truth. Dave
29:18
is in an assisted living facility now. In
29:21
the lobby, I meet his son and daughter-in-law,
29:24
who had asked that I not record the conversation.
29:27
Dave had fallen recently and broken a
29:29
vertebrae. He sits in an armchair in
29:31
his room and wears a neck brace. If
29:34
he sneezes or laughs too hard, he can
29:36
hurt himself. After
29:38
a softball question, I force myself
29:40
to come clean. I'm
29:42
no longer Christian. How does
29:45
he feel about people he tried to lead
29:47
to Christ, who either didn't believe or later
29:49
left? Dave
29:51
smiles. He asks if I'd
29:53
heard the story of the prodigal son. It's
29:56
a classic, one of Jesus' most famous
29:58
parables, where a failed His well-sung
30:00
disobeys his dad and later returns to him, penitent
30:03
and willing to accept any punishment.
30:06
But instead, his dad forgives him
30:08
and welcomes him home. Dave
30:11
then explains that he has a daughter who left the
30:13
church. In high school, she
30:15
angrily confronted Dave with tears in her
30:18
eyes and told him, "'Dad, please
30:20
apologize to me for being a Christian.'"
30:24
I think I understand what she meant by that. It's
30:26
a way of saying, "'Apologize for making this
30:28
decision for me, for raising me
30:31
with this belief I didn't choose and
30:33
that I don't agree with. In
30:35
a sense, I'm asking him the same thing. Yeah,
30:38
yeah, why did you convert my parents?'"
30:42
His daughter left the faith. Dave didn't
30:44
try to convince her of anything, just kept
30:46
loving her and praying for her. And
30:48
after 20 years, she, like the prodigal
30:51
son, returned to the faith and to
30:53
her father. These days, she
30:55
visits him every week in the assisted
30:57
living facility. Dave
30:59
emphasizes again that he never forced
31:01
anyone to believe anything, that
31:04
if someone chooses to reject Christianity, they
31:06
need to be loved whatever their decision
31:08
is. But he also
31:10
tells me, "'There'll be nobody going
31:12
to hell who didn't have an opportunity
31:14
to accept Christ.'" He
31:17
says it in a way that isn't angry or spiteful,
31:19
just sad, almost kind. It's
31:23
getting late. Dave needs to take
31:25
his medication. We stand up. "'I
31:28
love you,' he tells me. Give my
31:30
love to your parents." We
31:32
hug and I get
31:35
it. I get why my parents
31:37
converted. This man is filled with
31:39
so much love and gives it so freely
31:41
to my parents, to
31:43
me, to all the people he
31:45
picked up from the airport and fed and sheltered
31:47
and helped get on their feet. Where
31:50
does his love come from? In
31:52
the moment, I'm convinced that it must
31:54
be something beyond what any human is capable
31:56
of. It must come from God.
32:00
The receiving end of his unconditional love, I
32:02
consider being the prodigal son. For
32:05
the briefest flash of a moment, I
32:08
consider returning. Can
32:10
I pray for you? When we were on
32:12
the phone, this is how Dave ended the call. I
32:15
didn't feel like I could say no. I
32:17
didn't want to disappoint my white grandpa. Sure.
32:21
Okay. Lord, thank you
32:23
for this wonderful invention, the phone
32:26
that Bo-Ann and me join our
32:29
hearts at the
32:31
throne of grace. And Lord,
32:33
I just want to thank you for
32:35
Bo-Ann calling and
32:38
I pray that the rest of his
32:40
life that he will
32:42
walk with you till he draws his
32:44
last breath. In
32:47
Christ's name, amen. Amen.
32:53
I talked to Dave on Saturday night. Come
32:55
Sunday, it's obvious where I have to go.
32:58
Quick voice memo, because I'm already late,
33:00
but I'm at the church, kind
33:03
of tired, woke up at 8.30, stayed
33:05
up too late last night, already late, but
33:07
gonna go to this Mandarin Sunday school. We'll
33:09
see how it goes. This
33:12
is the church where Dave led the Chinese fellowship,
33:14
the one my parents attended, and that I attended
33:17
as an infant until we moved away when
33:19
I was two. What did
33:21
this place mean to them? These are
33:23
people who had zero experience with organized religion.
33:26
What did they get from going? The
33:28
Chinese fellowship is now run by seven people,
33:31
seven Daves, in other words, three of whom
33:33
are Chinese and four of whom are white.
33:36
I spoke to one of the new white Daves over
33:38
the phone who told me that I could record the
33:41
service. But a few days later, while
33:43
I was cooking butternut squash risotto, he
33:45
called again and told me he had
33:48
found a podcast called Jesus Wept. Jesus
33:52
Wept is a podcast my fiance Grace
33:54
and I make, where
33:58
we analyze and... To be honest,
34:01
make fun of various topics related
34:03
to evangelical Christianity. We
34:05
process our respective religious traumas through
34:07
humor. In the most
34:09
recent episode, I went to a Chinese
34:11
church and recorded the service. Afterwards,
34:14
Grace and I critiqued the speakers and,
34:16
again, to be honest, made fun of
34:18
them. I told Grace about
34:20
how one of the speakers said that because
34:22
Paul writes that women shouldn't have authority over
34:25
men, she won't teach men in the church.
34:27
So then, basically, she was like, well, in
34:29
the church, I
34:31
will teach women, I will teach
34:33
children, but I will not teach
34:36
men except in specific circumstances.
34:39
Like what? I
34:41
don't know, but... Have you ever changed
34:43
a diaper? Maybe. Or...
34:45
Doesn't she have a fucking PhD? She has
34:47
a master's in divinity, yeah, from the seminary.
34:50
Which you can't teach. Yeah. I
34:52
don't know. See, an MRS div. New
34:56
Dave tells me over the phone that after
34:58
listening to the podcast, he's changed his mind and
35:00
won't allow me to record anything in Norman, which
35:03
is reasonable. I recorded a church service and made
35:05
fun of it, and he doesn't want me to
35:07
do the same thing to his church. In
35:10
the podcast, I talk about how I don't believe
35:12
in God. And as we wrap
35:14
up the conversation, New Dave says he
35:16
needs my word that I won't record anything.
35:19
He says, I know you don't believe
35:21
in God, but there must be something you can
35:23
base your word on, like your
35:26
Chinese heritage. Which
35:28
is kind of a weird thing to say, but I'm like,
35:30
sure. You have my word. See
35:33
you Sunday. When
35:40
I enter the church, New Dave is waiting in
35:42
the lobby. I shake his hand and
35:44
tell him I'm not recording. That
35:46
was a royalty-free sound effect from freesound.org,
35:49
although I do have the pink notebook I bought from
35:51
Target for $3. We
35:53
walk past an armed guard to the gymnasium
35:55
where the Mandarin Sunday School is held. It
35:58
seems notable that the Mandarin Sunday School is held in the middle of the day. isn't
36:00
in a dedicated classroom, but an echoey gym
36:02
with a basketball court. New
36:05
Dave introduces me to a group of Chinese immigrants
36:07
sitting around a folding table. They ask
36:09
if I can speak Chinese. I say
36:11
I can understand it okay, but not speak it that
36:13
well. New Dave is like, ah,
36:16
there's that phrase, ABC. And
36:20
I'm like, yep, that's me, American-born
36:22
Chinese. As a side note,
36:24
I really hate the phrase ABC. Just call
36:26
me Chinese American. Anyway,
36:29
New Dave says that since he can't speak Mandarin, he's
36:31
going to leave us to it. It's
36:34
nice to be away from white people, at least for a
36:36
little bit, to talk among ourselves
36:38
in the language I associate with
36:41
family, home, love. My
36:43
parents must have really craved that when they first came
36:45
here. Where else could they find
36:47
a Chinese community in the small town in
36:49
Oklahoma? Someone later tells me
36:51
that this church is usually the first stop
36:54
for new Chinese immigrants. People from
36:56
church are willing to give rides to
36:58
the supermarket, furniture for apartments, help with
37:00
taxes, and all sorts of essential services.
37:04
My mom still uses a set of bowls that Dave
37:06
got for her. When
37:14
the service begins, we sing hymns in
37:16
Mandarin. Again, this is not a
37:18
recording from Oklahoma, it's YouTube. The
37:21
speaker, an older white guy, delivers the
37:23
sermon in English. And like most sermons,
37:25
it's boring. I picture my
37:27
parents in these same seats, praying
37:29
the same prayers, singing the same
37:31
songs that I would grow up singing. Bowen
37:46
Wong. Coming up, Bowen
37:48
flies home and considers the question, maybe
37:51
it wasn't Christianity that messed him up
37:53
as a kid. That's in a
37:55
minute. Just gotta come up with a video when
37:57
our program continues. Craft
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value of investments may fall as well as rise, and
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you may not get back the amount originally invested. This
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podcast is supported by washington.org. Washington,
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D.C. offers visitors so much to
38:40
explore. Just ask Dayo, who
38:42
shared her experiences from a recent visit. What
38:45
was your favorite food all weekend? The Ethiopian
38:47
food at Sihay. And the first
38:49
place you would visit again? The bookstore, little
38:52
district books. What did you appreciate
38:54
the most? Really just like the genuine
38:56
kindness of everyone that I encountered this weekend.
38:59
Why should people visit D.C.? Well,
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D.C. is a place with such a thriving culture. Washington,
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D.C. has something for everybody. Plan your
39:07
next trip at washington.org. My
39:10
name is Abdi Latif Dahir. I'm the East
39:12
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39:15
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understand what's happening here in East Africa
39:20
and see how it plays a role in the bigger picture. New
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nytimes.com. This
39:37
is American Life from a Heart Glass.
39:39
Today's program, Children of Dave, Bonemong's
39:42
pilgrimage to finally understand why
39:45
his parents decided to become Christians when they arrived
39:47
in America. We pick up our story
39:49
where we left off before the break. When
39:52
I fly home to Pittsburgh and tell Grace
39:54
about going to my parents' church and meeting
39:56
Dave, they point out that maybe
39:58
I'm just blaming Christianity for my life. own
40:00
problems. Maybe Christianity is just my
40:02
excuse to hate myself. It
40:05
gave myself loathing as shape and structure, but
40:07
it isn't the root cause. Maybe
40:09
I would have hated myself no matter what. Maybe
40:12
it doesn't matter what path my dad chose
40:14
at that crossroads in the Oklahoma City Airport.
40:17
If he never met Dave and never believed,
40:20
maybe I'd still have the same self-loathing. If
40:23
I grew up communist, like my parents,
40:25
maybe I'd be like, ugh, I'm such
40:27
a bourgeois, capitalist, worthless piece of shit.
40:29
I need to write another self-criticism and
40:31
do another struggle session. Thankfully,
40:34
I can answer the question of
40:36
whether I'd hate myself if I hadn't been
40:38
raised Christian by comparing myself with
40:41
my high school friend Andrew. Andrew
40:44
grew up in the same suburb of
40:46
Philly as me. His parents are highly
40:48
educated Chinese immigrants. We attended the same
40:50
school district and have the same circle
40:52
of friends, but he
40:55
was raised by atheist parents who were never interested
40:57
in Christianity or church. I asked my mom one
40:59
time, like, have you ever been to church? And
41:01
she's like, oh yeah, of course you've been to
41:03
church. And then what she really meant was that
41:05
we walked into a church one time and walked
41:09
out. So I sit Andrew down and
41:11
tell him that I want to conduct
41:13
a science experiment where you're the atheist
41:15
control group and I
41:17
am the ex-Christian test subject. Okay,
41:20
I understand that we have a sample size
41:22
of two, but just humor me. Andrew
41:25
has lived the life I always
41:27
imagined, a life without church or
41:29
youth group or Bible study or
41:31
retreats near Lancaster out in Amish
41:33
country. And so my
41:35
question is, in this alternate atheist reality
41:37
that Andrew was raised in, does he
41:40
also struggle with self-loathing? Does
41:42
he not like himself? I don't like myself. Okay,
41:45
all right, well, fine. But does
41:47
he dislike himself the same amount as I do
41:50
in the same way? Does he
41:52
do the thing where I ask someone endless
41:54
follow-up questions and if they ask me something
41:56
I do verbal jujitsu and redirect it back
41:58
to them because I hate to talking about
42:00
myself because I hate myself. So familiar,
42:02
I could say those exact same words
42:04
and that's exactly what I do. Like
42:07
if Andrew is meeting one of his colleagues for the
42:09
first time, he'll be like, what department are you in?
42:11
How long have you been in the university for? What
42:13
kind of research are you doing? What's your lab like?
42:15
Who are you working with? And if someone asks Andrew
42:18
a question, like what his research is, he'll be like,
42:20
oh, I work in biostats and then I just call
42:22
it a day. I just make sure as hard as
42:24
possible that they don't ask me any questions. I
42:26
don't wanna talk about it. Andrew didn't even
42:28
have to grow up Christian to hate himself
42:31
and for his self-hatred to manifest in the
42:33
exact same way. So where
42:35
is this coming from? Andrew
42:37
doesn't believe in sin or God. Why
42:39
do we hate ourselves even though we were
42:41
raised with such different beliefs? Well,
42:45
Andrew thinks the answer might be right in front of us.
42:47
I wonder, you know, with the science
42:50
experiment, maybe the main thing that's balancing
42:52
us, that makes us comparable is a
42:55
second generation upbringing. Our
42:57
parents are from a very specific cohort
42:59
of people who grew up
43:01
during the Cultural Revolution, went to
43:03
the best colleges in China, went
43:06
abroad to get STEM PhDs, and
43:08
got well-paying jobs in academia and
43:10
pharmaceuticals and biomedicine. And I
43:12
think that to me, make
43:15
me always kind of feel inadequate
43:17
in a way, right? Like I'll never be
43:19
able to do that. I'll never be able
43:21
to achieve that kind of, you know, rags
43:24
to riches kind of story, you know, because
43:26
I was never in rags. Even
43:28
my parents, my parents were the ones that kind of struggled
43:30
through that. So
43:34
we're more or less on the same page when it
43:36
comes to self-loathing. But what about
43:38
the shame I feel about sex and sexuality? What
43:41
about my inability to talk about the Hornies
43:43
in Dea tennis movie with Grace? Does
43:46
Andrew feel that same immense shame? So
43:48
then how did you feel about sex
43:50
morally? There's nothing wrong with it. I
43:52
think this is all somewhat funny that, like, a lot of
43:54
Christians will marry early, right, because they have to marry before
43:56
they have sex. But like, for people that don't grow up
43:59
Christian, like a consensual. Active sex is just like not
44:01
a problem. Andrew started dating when he was
44:03
15. I didn't start until a
44:05
decade later. When we tried
44:07
to isolate the effect Christianity had on me,
44:10
that's the word we kept returning to. Shame.
44:14
The shame I feel about having a body, about
44:16
being a wretched sinner in need of redemption. Andrew
44:19
feels none of that. The shame
44:21
goes to my very core, in a way
44:23
that Andrew can't relate to. I
44:26
told him about how, even today, when
44:29
I remember something embarrassing, I said or did
44:31
years ago. I'll still say out loud to
44:33
myself, because it's such a reflex at this
44:35
point. I'm like, oh, I hate myself. I
44:39
should kill myself. Like, I verbalize
44:41
that. You still say that. Yeah,
44:44
you act surprised. Have you ever
44:46
done this? Have you ever said
44:48
no, no? But I... Yeah,
44:52
that's intense. That's intense reflex. I don't have
44:54
that reflex. Are you telling me that you've
44:56
never said out loud to yourself, I hate
44:58
myself, I want to kill myself? You
45:01
never said that, Andrew. I've never said that.
45:03
That's the Christian difference, man. That's
45:06
the Christian... Yeah. The
45:14
Christian difference is a belief that my
45:16
existence is fundamentally wrong. The
45:18
Christian difference is a need to punish myself
45:20
for my existence. I
45:23
don't regret being raised Christian. I
45:25
wouldn't be who I am today otherwise. And
45:28
I'm incredibly grateful for everything my parents have done
45:30
for me. But in
45:32
this one aspect, I know I would
45:34
have experienced less pain if my
45:36
dad had stood at that crossroads in the
45:39
Oklahoma City Airport and chosen a different path.
45:42
I never told my parents about the damage
45:45
Christianity caused me. I didn't want
45:47
to make them feel bad or think I was blaming them.
45:50
I didn't want to seem ungrateful. But
45:52
now, it's what I finally decide to do. At
45:55
this point, it's the only thing I can do.
46:05
I was actually damaged by going to
46:07
church and being raised in church. Does
46:11
that make sense? Like, do you understand that? It's
46:15
heartbreaking to realize.
46:19
And of course, whatever happened in the
46:21
past, it's gone. It's a past, right?
46:24
But I just feel that we
46:27
could have done better. We could
46:29
have done better. Really?
46:33
Why do you feel that way? Because we
46:35
really didn't check on
46:38
how you receive the information.
46:40
We didn't really talk to you
46:42
that much, and we just received
46:44
it automatically without checking. And
46:46
we just blindly believed everything what the church
46:48
teaches us is right. You
46:53
felt like you blindly believed? Yes. Because
46:56
I mean that blindly not believe
46:58
what church is teaching, the way
47:00
they teach. Yeah. So
47:03
then, do you have any regrets
47:05
then about raising me and sister
47:07
in the church? Yes.
47:10
But after you said that to me,
47:13
yeah, I do feel I do feel
47:15
I didn't really pay too
47:17
much attention to how
47:20
they taught you, how they taught you,
47:23
and how that has print on you,
47:25
and how that manifests
47:29
in your overall
47:31
well-being. I
47:33
do feel very sorry. I
47:36
was not expecting this. I
47:39
always thought my mom and dad were a united
47:41
front, true believers. When
47:44
I first interviewed my mom about converting to
47:46
Christianity, she described it as the happy moment
47:48
when she joined my dad in the same
47:50
belief. I feel we are the same
47:53
people now. We are
47:55
the same people. We are equal footing. We
47:57
are children of God. But
48:00
when I came back to her a few months later... ...the
48:30
outside factors. You
49:01
are not bribed that
49:03
person to become a believer.
49:05
That's my point. Yeah,
49:08
I think that's a bribery. That's
49:10
a strong word, Mom. Yeah, I
49:13
do feel that's a bribery. You
49:15
bribe those people. You give them
49:17
free lunch, free rice, free stuff.
49:22
Well, how about all the free stuff that
49:24
you and dad got when you were first
49:26
in Oklahoma? I didn't really
49:28
think about that way at the moment. Now
49:30
I feel... Yeah. Over
49:33
the years, my mom's been really hurt by
49:35
people from church. She'd raised questions
49:38
about the Bible. Like, if God
49:40
created everything, why did He also create Satan?
49:43
Why would He allow Satan to tempt Eve into
49:45
eating the forbidden fruit? Why would
49:47
He even create forbidden fruit in the first place? No
49:50
one at church would ever fully engage with
49:52
her. They'd give her surface-level platitudes that never
49:54
satisfied her. There
49:56
was also a period when she was depressed. I
49:59
remember coming home for a few days. school and seeing my
50:01
mom lying on the couch with the lights
50:03
turned off and the curtains closed. My
50:05
mom tells me that while some people at church
50:07
helped during this moment, others weren't so
50:09
kind, and some actually seemed happy
50:11
that she was suffering. I think
50:14
now they believe, they already labeled
50:16
me as a non-believer. Wait
50:19
really? At church?
50:21
Yeah. Why do they think that
50:23
you're a non-believer? Because I
50:26
don't go to church anymore. I
50:28
do not participate in any kind
50:30
of church activities. Why
50:33
did you stop participating? Because
50:35
I don't get anything from participating
50:37
in all those activities. And if I
50:40
ask them questions, they give me standard
50:42
answers. I just feel I'm in a
50:44
circle, not going anywhere.
50:46
I don't really get enriched
50:49
or elided by doing
50:51
all those activities. She
50:53
hasn't been there since the pandemic shut everything down,
50:56
and is much happier for it. But
50:58
as my mom withdrew from church, my dad got
51:01
even more involved. He became a
51:03
deacon and spent more and more time at church
51:05
functions and less and less time at home with
51:07
his family. If someone needed a
51:09
ride to the supermarket, he would do it. If
51:12
someone needed a ride to the airport, he would
51:14
do it. My mom was not happy about
51:16
this. I feel he's like a robot.
51:19
He just does it automatically
51:21
when I'm with someone from
51:23
all directions. So
51:26
to the point that he's
51:28
completely crazy. So that is
51:30
the time I think the church can destroy
51:33
a family. Church can
51:35
really destroy a family because you
51:37
are not really thinking at
51:39
the same level, at the same level, on
51:41
the same page, and you
51:43
kind of just go
51:46
apart. So do you feel like
51:48
church almost destroyed our family? To
51:50
the point. Really? Yes. I
51:54
was really, really upset at one point.
51:57
So my mom finally put her foot down and
51:59
gave my dad an ultimatum. And
52:01
I told Daddy, you quit the ticket
52:03
now, otherwise we are not going to
52:05
have the same life
52:07
under the same roof. So
52:10
Daddy sent a letter to the church
52:12
that he's going to resign.
52:16
It was almost comforting, realizing I
52:18
wasn't the odd one out in my family.
52:21
I thought I was the only one who was
52:23
damaged by Christianity and who left the church.
52:26
I thought it was me against them. But
52:29
it turns out that my mom was actually on
52:31
my side this whole time. Who
52:33
knew? I
52:35
wasn't surprised that my dad gave in to my mom
52:37
though. When it comes down to
52:39
it, he puts family first. I
52:42
asked him once if he ever had any regrets. And
52:44
he told me this story about how when my sister
52:46
was a baby, he discovered that she'd
52:48
torn up an important piece of mail. My
52:51
dad yelled at her and made her cry. And
52:53
then he thought to himself, why did I do that? She's
52:56
just a baby. She doesn't understand what
52:58
she's doing. And he remembered
53:00
that moment forever. So
53:03
he's always been a kind, thoughtful,
53:05
reflective person who wants the best for
53:07
us. He's also always
53:09
been a true believer, going back
53:12
to the very beginning. June
53:23
1989. My
53:34
dad has been accepted to the University of
53:36
Oklahoma. He applies for his
53:38
passport and visa so that he can leave
53:40
Beijing. On the evening of
53:42
June 3rd, my
53:45
parents watch the news on their Landlords TV since
53:47
they don't have one of their own. There's
53:50
a TV announcement saying don't
53:52
go to Tiananmen
53:55
Square. They
54:00
go to bed. In the middle
54:02
of the night, we heard some
54:04
gunshots. And on the morning of
54:06
June 4th, they wake up. In
54:09
the morning, we were planning to
54:11
visit a friend to
54:14
bicycle to her home. On the
54:16
way, we saw a lot of
54:18
buses, you know, they were turned
54:21
around and blocked the road. And
54:23
also a lot of huge
54:26
trucks, like armored vehicles, just
54:29
parked along the highways
54:32
blocking the road. All
54:35
the government offices are shut down. The
54:38
entire city is shut down. To
54:40
get his passport, my dad now needs
54:42
a letter from his workplace saying he
54:44
didn't participate in the demonstrations. But
54:47
there's a problem. He had
54:49
to quit his job to apply for the passport. And
54:51
they're saying that since he doesn't work there anymore,
54:53
they can't provide him with that letter. My
54:56
dad is freaking out. He staked
54:59
his entire life on studying abroad. This
55:01
was his plan, his future, his chance
55:03
to leave his boring job in a
55:05
Jeep factory, living in his
55:07
tiny room in Beijing with no running
55:10
water or heating or cooling. Now
55:13
his future is crumbling before his eyes.
55:16
In this most desperate hour, my dad
55:18
does something he's never done before. So
55:21
I pray to God or
55:24
San Di, and ask San Di to
55:26
help me. That's
55:28
how I think I prayed
55:32
for the first time. Were
55:34
you specifically praying to the
55:36
God of Christianity at the
55:38
time? We don't have the
55:41
habit of praying, growing up.
55:44
We don't have the habit of praying
55:49
or talking to a God
55:51
or something. So it
55:54
just came natural.
55:57
I just laying on
55:59
back. and say, oh
56:01
God, help me. I
56:04
never knew this story. I thought my
56:07
dad's first encounter with God was in America. But
56:10
two months earlier in Beijing, my
56:12
dad naturally and spontaneously cried out to a
56:14
God he didn't yet know or believe in.
56:17
And then when his workplace finally gave him the
56:19
letter that allowed him to leave China, it
56:22
had to be God answering his prayer. So
56:25
my dad was already primed to believe. And
56:28
when he came to America, he would
56:30
have encountered a Christian eventually, inevitably.
56:33
So I think in my
56:35
case, I will meet someone else and
56:39
I will came to the face,
56:41
yeah. You would have
56:43
eventually been exposed to
56:45
Christianity and you
56:48
would have always, after having considered it,
56:51
accepted it. Is that right?
56:54
Yes, yes. Why? Well,
57:00
I think it's a fundamental truth. God
57:03
revealed to us
57:06
in the Bible. And then
57:08
everyone has to make a
57:10
decision either to accept it
57:13
or reject it. And
57:15
you choose to accept it? Yes.
57:19
So, when
57:37
my dad stood at the Oklahoma City Airport,
57:39
waiting for someone to pick him up, I
57:42
always thought that he stood at a crossroads, that
57:45
if Dave hadn't appeared, my dad
57:47
wouldn't have become Christian. But
57:50
I understand now that he was ready to be a
57:52
Christian. Norman's a small
57:54
town. He probably would have run
57:56
into Dave and his Chinese ministry eventually. Even
58:00
if my dad didn't go to Oklahoma, there
58:02
were kind Christians with warm smiles in
58:04
every city in America. So
58:07
the airport didn't matter. There
58:10
was never a crossroads. It
58:12
was a straight line. Do
58:16
you realize that
58:24
you have the most
58:28
beautiful things? Do
58:34
you realize
58:43
that we're floating in
58:45
space? Do
58:47
you realize that
58:56
happiness makes you cry? Do
59:00
you realize
59:10
that everyone
59:12
you know someday
59:18
will die? That's
59:23
story by Bowen Wong. He's an audio producer
59:25
living in Pittsburgh with his fiancée Grace Gilbert.
59:27
He came up with the title for today's
59:29
episode. Bowen's website, bowen.cool.
59:34
That's B-O-E-N.cool.
59:38
Who have already produced today by Lily Sullivan? The
59:40
people who put together today's show include
59:43
Thea Benin, Michael Comite, Henry Larson, Seth
59:45
Lynn, Catherine Ray Mondo, Safiya Riddle, Ryan
59:47
Romery, Alyssa Ship, Elise Spiegel, Christopher Sitala,
59:50
and Matt Tierney, our managing editor, Sara
59:52
Abderrahman, our senior editor, David Kestenbaum, our
59:55
executive editor, Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks
59:57
to Rebecca Curtis at the University of Oklahoma.
1:00:00
Austin Hua, Jenny Lynn, Manhong Liu,
1:00:02
and Jesse Nelson Greta Zeewe at
1:00:04
Red Cayman Studios. This is
1:00:06
our very last show with our production fellow Safiya
1:00:08
Riddle, who's done a great job here. She is
1:00:10
off to do reporting for the Associated Press at
1:00:12
her next job in Montgomery, Alabama. We
1:00:15
hope she finds a story down there she can come back and do here
1:00:17
on the radio. Our
1:00:19
website, thisamericanlife.org. If
1:00:21
you need something to listen to and a long drive during
1:00:23
the summer holiday, you can stream from our archive of over
1:00:25
800 episodes for absolutely
1:00:27
free. thisamericanlife.org.
1:00:31
This American Life is delivered to public
1:00:33
radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio
1:00:35
Exchange. Thanks as always to our program's
1:00:37
co-founder, Mr. Troy Malatia. You know, he
1:00:39
is the worst babysitter I have ever
1:00:41
seen. Baby won't go to
1:00:44
bed, starts crying. Tori's technique,
1:00:47
he leans into the crib, looks in the baby's
1:00:49
eyes and says, Why are you being so
1:00:51
immature about this? I'm out of
1:00:53
glass. Back next week, there's more stories of This
1:00:55
American Life. Do
1:00:58
you realize that
1:01:06
you have the most beautiful face?
1:01:18
Do you realize that
1:01:26
you have the most beautiful face? Find
1:01:56
the Vizio Quantum Pro today.
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