[Old Patreon Exclusive:] Dehong, the Vegan Hotel on the Edge of the World, etc.

what up this is a patreon exclusive
podcast and the odds are it's the last podcast I'm going to record in the year 2016 because this is New Year's Eve I am live streaming on you now so while I record this you may see me or hear me react to some comments in the audience I think that's cool because i think it enriches the podcast it makes it a little bit more lively and spontaneous something spontaneously so a member called bore town who is an example of a vegan is joining the military we may have them on in the future we may have a podcast for them after it gets back from basic training I've talked to quite a few vegans in and out of military service vegans and vegetarians truth be told who talked about the difficulty being vegan in the army it's an issue that's come up a few times in this channel and but he just said the annoying thing about soy milk is that it's hard to find it unsweetened so I have a long list of things to talk about in this in this podcast however spontaneously kicking it off of this one of the funny things that comes up in veganism again and again you know is when we have kind of unstated extra requirements that we've added on to veganism like it's not good enough that you're vegan you also have to live up to this standard to be a real vegan and I mean I know some people on the internet do that like intentionally and consciously but they actually propose you're not a real vegan if you buy clothing that's made in a factory something like that they've added something on and they actually articulate it they express it as part of their philosophy um but there's also a habit of mind you can fall into wear without heard me I'm still sick without really thinking it through without really being aware of it you've added on some extra requirements the veganism right so like one woman at my school she was sort of like the executive director of my school the boss at my school in kunming she was vegan but I remember just spontaneously without being able to help herself I mentioned that I was surviving by drinking a lot of soy milk it was true at the time all the fat in my diet and most of the protein was coming from soy milk powder you buy the powdered soil mix it up and she said to me yes but does it have sugar added I guess it is it sugar added Eddie you can see without really thinking about it without thinking all the way through you know in her mind real vegans drank soy milk with no sugar added and I remember saying to her man i can't i can't read chinese that well I said well yeah to my knowledge I've read the package reading it in Chinese I believe this has no sugar and I got the package and showed it to her and she looked at the package she was like yeah okay like this is real so I it's funny there were only a few other words exchanged but I could see in her mind real vegans drink sugar free so I mean now maybe that's because she's aware that you know most sugar is not vegan most sugar is made with bone char there are elements of animal products are used in refining the sugar it's asher's do with the color and texture of the sugar it may be for that reason that she felt vegans should avoid buying products that's your attitude it may be out of a health basis you don't know but I could absolutely see in her mind this was a test about whether or not I was a real vegan now me God the fact that i am the fact that i'm constantly uploading morality lectures about veganism to youtube this alone doesn't qualify me do you or do you not have sugar in your soil anyways i just mentioned I'm coughing a little bit i'm at the end of a long and and pretty bad illness actually I was bedridden for a little while I made a trip from Mancha to really and back again between two cities here in dehong province to home special zone and I uploaded some photographs from that trip if you guys don't know I'm on an app called nice I've provided the link to that before you can search for it under the name one nice app and nice is basically a competitor to Instagram and if you go and look there you will see some photographs from that trip I made just between two cities within the same area of China I've had a lot of thinking lately I reflected this in the pro you to this video the half hour half hour podcast before I started recording this podcast I've had a lot of thoughts about how I'm going to share my life into your head and whether or not i should start having friends and girlfriends and more my personal life appearing on my Instagram which is really nice because again Instagram is blocked in China I've been thinking about those things affair bed but also more generally you know I've been struggling with the question of how i can share this beautiful place with you doha itself it really doesn't show up in photographs as well as I'd liked it to and you know just to kick it off with this you know very basic reflection when you're living in a place that's famous for being beautiful like the south of France you know the south of France each city in the south of France will have maybe one the street maybe two streets where the government has put in the money to have palm trees to have some beautiful beautiful flowers beautiful gardening just one street that's named after some army general something like that you know and in some ways the most amazing thing about this part of China is that it's never just one Street here in mancha it's the whole city streets that are of no special importance are covered with beautiful palm trees of beautiful gardening just natural beauty is is surrounding you here it's teeming around you in a way that it's really not in the South of France and of course the south of France is famous for having beautiful cities understandably so too but in France normally you'll be looking at one street that's named after an army general you know it's charles de gaulle boulevard or you know plaster the revolution there will be some special street that's really that beautiful in that striking and the rest of the city is kind of Jung and here in the home I'm commented on this on this photo sharing application I commented you can only really appreciate the beauty of this place when you appreciate not just how beautiful it is but how utterly normal the beauty of the places when you appreciate the extent to which ordinary people here take it for granted ignore it that it just becomes part of the background noise of daily life the astounding beauty of the place now along with this podcast i believe i can upload you know at the same time a group of photographs try to do it as a zip file but on patreon one way or another i'm going to share with you a bunch of photographs of just how beautiful this place is there's one in particular draw attention to it's somewhere in here but you know there's one moment where it's just a construction site there's a gap in the fence on this construction thing the construction site is not beautiful I mean obviously it's not guard and earning it uh and through this gap in the fence you can see the side of the mountains and the golden temple you see this beautiful Vista Del Hong is like that all the time you can be in a muddy muddy ugly alleyway you can be in a kind of unbelievably ugly construction site and it's still beautiful you know it's not just the parks it's not just the tourist attractions you get these strikingly beautiful vistas you know in a gap in the fence looking onto a construction site and what have you that's surrounding you all the time but anyway and i don't think i have rose-colored glasses on yer in some ways I'm used to this I've lived in Cambodia I've lived in Thailand I've lived in all these places that people consider so beautiful and I've got to tell you dong is more beautiful this is really genuinely right now one of the most beautiful place in the world and there are no tourists here whatsoever you know i'll also say so you know i mentioned in my apartment tour I am actually sorry some people are complaining about the noise from the microphone I'll try it out I'll try to improve that by moving the mic to one side some people are um change of topic moksha is tremendously beautiful to Hong it's tremendously beautiful and I mentioned in the apartment tour video that I am I do actually drink the tap water here I boil it first but I do drink it mancha is built on a natural Hot Springs we have natural clean water coming up from the coming up from the earth at all times and there is a beautiful beautiful swimming pool here they're actually several I've only visited one of them there's a beautiful swimming pool here are larger than an Olympic size pool that's filled with this water from the hot springs so I'm going to include photographs of that for you guys on patreon also so you can see that and of course that pool it also is a special play area for children so I really do I look at that swimming pool and the swimming pool is not hot it's not boiling hot like a hot tub but it is hotter than a normal swimming pool and they also have you know they have different kind of hot tubs tide pools they have a special swimming pool just for children to play on and so on and you know for a three-year-old or a four-year-old if you go to China you're not going to appreciate one of the museum's you're not what a child at that age can do and appreciate is really limited but a child could definitely appreciate swimming in that beautiful warm pool filled with natural water from Hot Springs so I hope in the year ahead my daughter is going to get to enjoy the natural beauty of this place this place is not just linked to my life and my past research it is also very strong link to my ex-wife's research past present and future the languages she studies she really as an anthropologist she's an expert in exactly this part of the world this is the perfect location for her it's very helpful for her that I have a job in a base of operations here so it makes a lot of sense for her and my daughter to come over and start spending time um we will see we will see what's what's possible into the Attic now okay short-term and long-term thoughts about oh yeah so guys some questions again this is nice I like being able to spontaneously answer some of these questions one of the questions from Austin Sims oh no no from art of war art of war says why do I sometimes call the city mancha and sometimes call it da Hong so even on maps there's confusion about that till Hong is really the name of the region of the special zone and monkey is the name of the city but people very often call the capital city the name of the region and you will even see that listed on unofficial maps that way sometimes and many people do not know the name Mancha because the name of the city actually did change there was an official legal change to the name of the city recently to go from an artificial Chinese name to more of a natural local sounding name and they actually had a vote on that as I recall they had a referendum so the city has more than one name and that's confusing and then the name of the region is generally so it would be a bit like Las Vegas legally speaking actually Las Vegas is not really Las Vegas and it let you know it's an area it's not really the city there are a few different places in the world like that we have a name for a region pattaya thailand is like that and actually Stanford in California Stanford is not the name of the city it's the name of a census-designated place so whatever so till hong is generally the name you will hear used but it is true we use more than one name for the place when I look up this place on the map application it's actually I think Apple maps it gives the name as dehong not as must shut rightly or wrongly so you do you do see that around I get another simple question from Austin Sims is my ex-wife vegan is my daughter vegan so far as my know my daughter has been vegan not just since birth she has been vegan since conception and so far as i know my ex-wife of my daughter of her main I it is possible that's changed but if so my ex-wife has not admitted it to me so yeah I'm in that sense I'm proud to have raised my daughter vegan and we went through you know Amy went through the whole pregnancy and the early childhood during her infancy we did a lot of research on you know nutritional requirements making sure the baby got all of the vitamins required not just be 12 etc etc um okay so where did I leave off this is more spontaneous having these comments but also means have to remember what I was talking about I was talking about how beautiful the Hong is you guys know already have had some good news from France about that legal case it may be that within just the next few months I can start spending meaningful time with my daughter again on the other hand it may be poor timing because I'm moving it with the court case and at the same time I'm also going back to having a full-time job so you know I'm not gonna have all that flexible schedule once that job starts compared to the situation was in before it seems like i have only good news about durianrider and the court case in thailand also if you've been watching every single one of my videos we've now had confirmation on that it's not just that I know that the case is real I know that durianrider knows that it's real so you know the hysterical people who are claiming the case is a is a fraud or something you know that's become more and more of a laughingstock and not to be taken seriously right coming back to where I left off comments about folic acid being important to pregnancy yes there's actually a long list of things you need to be concerned about with a vegan pregnancy there are websites out there to help you and during that time I remember my my wife no my ex-wife she also took the time to put some of that some of that information on you know vitamins and supplements on the internet there was just one vitamin that was impossible to get vegan and where we had to use one supplement that contained an extract from sheep's wool but you know you do your best as a vegan and you know obviously if the if there is absolutely no alternative if is actually impossible to to get a vegan medicine medication that you need then you're going to use an on Beekman but as I recall there was that were there was just that one a vitamin that was non vegan and otherwise you manage to do everything else vegan you know if you were example you know DHA although it is difficult to get DHA DHA is a supplement that only pregnant women need to be concerned about you can get vegan tha and we did so we went through that whole process anyway something you guys may or may not know about me I have talked about it in the internet a few times you know I'm at a crossroads in terms of my career short term and long term crossroads there's a lot for me to think about what does my life in China mean right now what does my life in China mean for my own long-term future and for my long term vegan activism and all these other things and again the sort of the first half hour of this podcast the half hour that's on YouTube it's already musing about that some extent you know one of the ideas that have bandied about again this links back to the photos of still home that I'm sharing along with this podcast one of the ideas that I've talked about pretty seriously with other youtubers with people on the internet with people to know me in real life I've talked about the possibility of opening my own vegan hotel now there's a lot to that in terms of investment in terms of start-up costs would you first open a gym and then wait till you have more money and open a hotel when you first open a you know a small guest house that just happens to have vegan food there are a lot of different ways to do it now I fold this idea goes back so long I talked about this at length and I met with a guy who's a real expert when i was living in taiwan before I moved from Taiwan to Canada and I'm still in touch with him so I know one guy who was a real pro in exactly that field exactly the field of taking a building and renovating it to work as a guest house or small hotel it's a very technical field of expertise and he's here in Asia he speaks Chinese and English and a couple other languages he's a priceless contact to have and he'd be very happy to come in on that project me so that's one reason I was already looking into that and thinking about that several years ago it's also something this has been mentioned maybe a year ago my youtube channel so i'm going to answer your question guys i am i am reading the comments as we do this here but i don't want to drop myself in mid-sentence too much um it's also something that would be such a wonderful basis for collaboration with other vegans if you have a small hotel you can hold conferences you can have meetups with other vegans and you know even some of the really soft core silly youtube channels about veganism you know channels i don't watch you can see that's part of what they've got going on there are you know those vegans who are based in los angeles you can see they have a big house they have some kind of venue where they can you know have other people visit i don't think any of them are doing conferences but you know having a bricks and mortar location it can be a very powerful thing long-term so connected vegan activism and of course it's also just a way to have a job that is quietly providing vegan propaganda obviously you have a small hotel like that many of your customers will not be vegans they'll be vegan soup booked a room and then only when they eat breakfast to the next morning do they realize oh the breakfast has no cow milk it only has soy milk like oh they have cafe latte or they have cappuccino but the cappuccino isn't made with cow milk it's made with vegan ingredients you'd have people who come and they say oh you have ice cream but the ice cream is vegan they get to try vegan ice cream so you know on a subtle level something like a small gym a guest house so a small hotel guest house or a gym or starting with one of those three and expanding it to the others I've always thought that was a real powerful really positive idea and it's enjoyable and it's a way to earn a living and so for several years now I've been really researching that talking about that and uh incidentally you know [Music] let's not get too incidental here I did actually enroll in sorry that's an overstatement I spoke to and started the applications process to get a masters degree in Hotel Management or a master's degree in tourism where the real focus the degree was in hotels so that I could formally study that business for my long-term future in that field so while i was in canada during the last two years i didn't just you know i didn't just any i didn't just think about that in the abstract and just talk about that with people including people are in the industry i also looked at in a university context in a formal setting committing some of my time and money to getting credentials that would really make me more competent at that sort of job so i have a question in the chat from random bike trips random by strips asks where would you at open this hotel or guest house ad right well thanks to the question you know obviously I have given tremendous thought to that and the reality is once you have a location with that although there are the advantages we've just been talking about you can open the door to other vegans on YouTube other vegan activists so I could open the door to someone like yourself hit like a girl is in the chat room she has her own YouTube channel hit like a girl could come and film herself at the gym if I am I being against us although it's a positive thing in those ways it also means that one hundred and ten percent of your time is devoted to that one spot you are then routed to that one spot on the map you are going nowhere you have no free time for yourself you know 23 hours a day you were going to be inside that business devoted to you know worrying about everything from whether or not the windows are clean the windows the floors the dishes all the details of what's going on in that all your time and energy going through I have no illusions about that right is that you would be pouring your time into that location given the background I have in Southeast Asia the options included Taiwan Thailand Myanmar Laos Cambodia and here in um so when I was thinking about day long long term this is a nice natural segue into my next topic here you know I thought well boy the University here was offering me three years of contracts they were saying they want me to stay for three years five years they wanted to be a they wanted me to be a professor at this university quite long term so I thought wow well if I'm teaching the same courses of the same University for three years or five years that could be a great basis for opening a vegan hotel right because if you guys don't know this way university teaching the first year you teach a course it's a hell of a lot of work to get started and you know teach the course of the first time get familiar with the curriculum etc teaching the same course for the second time third time fourth time is exponentially less work you have much more free time and also of course I mean I would settle in here and really have business connections and really understand the situation to open something like that a hostel a small hotel or a gym or open one of the three and then expand it with time so at the time when I first moved here to dil Hong and leading up to that I was quite excited about the thought of opening a vegan hotel here here here and now and of over the next couple of years setting up the basis for that guess what irony of ironies there already is a vegan hotel here in doha how is it possible of all the places i went on planet Earth I went to the one place that already has a vegan hotel now we'll come back to just how vegan it is or how vegan it isn't I'm going to share some photographs with you guys of the food and of the restaurant itself which is I could show some of that on camera now I don't know if it's worth doing it's an extremely beautiful hotel that is also extremely underpriced because as you'd expect the guy running it is really running it as a charity it's not being run as a serious business so a normal room at this hotel is 128 qui 128 Chinese un you can figure out how much that is and a gorgeous enormous room the luxury room is 228 koi there are really really extremely beautiful rooms extremely well furnished with Chinese wood wood furnishings wood wall fixtures and you know they did that thing where they combined the traditional and the modern in a very tasteful way now the main attraction of the hotel is that you get to wake up and have breakfast in a vegan restaurant so their breakfast service which is in a fabulous extremely well decorated room all wood fixtures again beautiful mixture of kind of ancient and modern aesthetic criteria gorgeous room you can hold a conference there etc the breakfast room which again I assume they allow you to rent out for weddings or meetings or what have you really really really beautiful really wonderful facility so you know if you stay there you can eat dinner in the vegan restaurant you can eat breakfast the viewer they also serve lunch but you know breakfast is included with the room and they have lunch and dinner services etc this is the attraction they do not have a swimming pool they do not have a gym you can actually walk from the vegan hotel to the hotel I mentioned earlier with the beautiful swimming pool so if you see the photos for that you could actually stay at the vegan hotel and then have a short walk from there to that gorgeous swimming facility however there's another side to this um my first problem with the vegan hotel is that it's not really vegan it's advertised as vegan almost all the food is vegan but they have eggs why why do they have to serve eggs just why you no soy if a comes off as shallow or over the harsh or what have you but it really bothers me at first I mean they say they're vegan and I assume they're vegan I wonder if the owner who is doing it as a charity I wonder if he has a Taoist himself or if he's just trying to cater to if he's trying to appeal to the Daoists audience here in China because you know a lot of Daoists specifically in Taoism not Buddhism not the other Asian religions not confusion specifically within Taoism a lot of people they don't just passively eat eggs they regard eggs very very positively they regard eggs symbolically as symbolizing you know life and vitality and what have you I wonder if that's the reason why and most meals there would just be one dish so they have a you know it's an all-you-can-eat buffet set up they would normally just be one dish made of egg i don't think i ever saw two options of the same meal label thing but because of that I then had to ask them because I assumed there was it was really vegan as soon as I saw they had just one dish with a gannett now I have to go up and ask them in Chinese its own good noodle dish have to ask them does this or does this not a bag in it you know and have been into their kitchen again a sign that it's a non-profit charity operation the kitchen is gorgeous the kitchen is palatial everything about the place is really quite beautiful aesthetically and in terms of just the size and you're just beautiful wood beautiful stainless steel but I've been in the kitchen and I see this stack of eggs you know his thing why are you doing this you know why why would you have a vegan restaurant that has egg they have no dairy no meat of any kind and they're advertised as vegan but in each meal they have one egg-based option nothing about the place identifies as Taoist but I really do assume that's to reach out to to Taoism to people who really positively want to eat eggs but who are vegetarian otherwise or a vegan otherwise because only Chinese now only modern Chinese Taoism do I know has that attitude and by the way guys when I was in Taiwan the people who were serious about veganism who were very often Buddhist so Buddhist vegans or what have you they would insult they would speak contemptuously about Daoists they would say insultingly of it they would say oh egg religion so that's that's the religion of egg eaters is the religion of the egg people this kind of thing because there was such a strong positive association between that was in the next so that's that's the first problem the second thing is guides so I have some photographs of the cuisine again if you're watching this as a podcast I I think I can have a zip file if not somehow i'm going to upload these photographs the cuisine is very inventive it is very original it is not traditional chinese cuisine it is not traditional you nan cuisine it's not traditional vegan food from within Union and China I think this reflects the eccentric tastes of the the wealthy man who created this hotel as a charity this is also why you'd never want to compete with him by the way if he's running on a not-for-profit basis how are you going to run a for-profit hotel going for the same niche market right very difficult but you could you could open hotel here because probably I mean my hotel would be a foreign oriented till we attract Westerners the style will be more appealing of course I'd speak English and I'd have staff who speak English so already I would have mohnish but this is getting beside the point it's miraculous that I happen to be living in a town that has a vegan hotel even though it's vegan plus eggs who knows why um so the the owner of the hotel he makes his money in the tea industry and oddly the tea in the hotel is not particularly good but he he owns a tea factory so that's really where the money is at the money is not in owning the farm its owning the factory that refines and processes the tea and you know good for him so i assume he's an ethical vegan who owns a tea factory and is making quite a lot of money that way um interesting comments a random bike trip says that these days padam pen has vegan restaurants but they're serving milkshakes that have dairy in them well that's interesting though but random but if anyone the fact that any one input on pen knows the word vegan is already progress because I mean when I was in Piniella pen nobody knew the word vegan yet you know so that's that's progress if they're even advertising is vegan even if it's fake vegan that's better than people having no idea what you're talking about when you when you say vegan art of war comments that that T is very important to Taoist to that is true they tend to have an irrational enthusiasm for fine tea and for chicken eggs but hey at least they're not pescetarian I guess right busy bee says your hope your hotel idea would be successful in Ottawa and Toronto that is true I think all of these ideas to start a small business as I commented in my apartment tour video they would all make more money in Canada and I might have much better banking much have em pardon me I might have much better backing from the bank that was what I tripped over was the phrase backing from the bank which is crucial to running a business with that line of credit but anyway so this guy I may have met him and not known it because I met a guy who seemed to be the boss on-site but I know if that's the manager of the actual owner there's currently a very distinctive style that wealthy men connected to the government we're here in China that relates to document number nine and the new line policy here at new mass line movement here in China if you search my youtube channel you can find a very informative video on the new mass line movement and document number nine in China but anyway the president of my university was dressed in the same way there's a certain official style of humble clothing that wealthy and powerful men are now wearing in China which is very different from ten years ago anyway it's possible I bumped into the owner but I haven't talked to him at any length anyway so this owner I assume he is a bit eccentric no shade he owns a tea factory and he decided for ethical reasons to open this project i'll come back to this there's more than one ethical reason for this project making it even more interesting um and you know he has he subscribes to this eccentric theory that fermented berries a kind of fermented herbal vinegar is tremendously good for your health okay and they sell this herbal vinegar as some kind of cure but oh my god this cuisine that he serves on the one hand I respected because it's actually edgy it is actually innovative it is actually vegan cuisine that has never existed in the world before he is actually an innovative new fresh approach to making vegan cuisine in China it's not imitating California it's not traditional Chinese cuisine many many of the dishes have had there are really new and on an intellectual level I respect it I hate four out of five dishes in this place four to five dishes taste awful to me and I love traditional you nan food I love vegan food with in Chinese culture vegan food in Taiwan vegan food in Hong Kong long and vegan food here in Union i had a special video and that is very simple it's very austere it's very it's very monastic I mean it's like just vegetables with nothing else but I did just green vegetables with garlic and nothing else so on the one hand I actually like looking at it on the plate and looking at what he's doing I have so much respect for the innovation that's involved in this but I actually can't stand I heat the taste of the majority of the foodies making and most of it is not that from my perspective is not that nutritious just like the green vegetables are so heavily cooked compared to the unit standard you get these vegetables that have been cooked to death and they've been cooked in this horrible sauce that's not really for flavor and it's not really for nutrition or to make it more filling or something it's this sauce that's made out of this insane medical tincture made out of this fermented herbal liqueur this like barry vinegar cure for all illnesses and he's awful and the most the most bizarre thing of all he even puts this magical juice this this vinegar this fruit vinegar he puts it in the desserts so you get like a dessert a sweet baltha or you get a dessert brownie seriously they have brownies but they're not flavored with chocolate they're flavored with this reddish purple medicinal the cure it's completely bizarre it's completely mind-blowing lehe weird you just you just can't believe it's real you know now with that haven't been said it's not the case that all the food is terrible a lot you guys can be looking at these photographs and saying wow that looks fabulous even if you hate four out of five dishes at an all-you-can-eat buffet it may be that picking one out of five it may be there's still enough there for you to enjoy a meal and sometimes that's been the case sometimes not sometimes I felt very grateful so it's not but it is currently it is the only vegan restaurants in the city of Mancha it is the only vegan restaurant in this part of the Hong so I do feel grateful towards it in a sense but there are also times if I take the time to go out there where I just feel like it's a waste of my time and I've paid for this buffet and there's like one dish I can force myself to eat and everything else is so awful to me so yeah i'm looking at a dish here some of this stuff it's really inventive like intellectually I can respect it he's taken a traditional form of fermented vegetables that only exists in this part of China and you would never get a Chinese restaurant the west and he's like combined it with like a mango chutney and with the yellow version of his uh you know magical tincture because he has a red version he has a yellow version have tasted both of them and by the way they do really contain alcohol if you actually drink it out of the bottle it's vinegar it's but it does still contain alcohol like I had a sip I was like oh my god like you know i would get drunk if i tried to actually drink this like you can call this medicine but it's still alcohol I mean it still contains el go um it's also disgusting to me but anyway whether or not it has medical benefits I don't even wanna have an opinion baby wait some of these dishes they're really edgy they're really pushing boundaries they're doing new things with traditional ingredients but it just tastes disgusting to me and it's also not nutritious enough for me to force myself to eat it you know it doesn't contain broccoli or the type of big green vegetables that I really value in Chinese cuisine you know oh my god so I I have had a couple of meals there that were ok but again four out of five dishes I can't I you know I can't bear and I'm vegan yo so that's mind blowing and now by contrast if I go to a normal traditional you nan restaurant the local cuisine here and I can talk them through making a vegan version of their normal ditions I'll love it because you're just talking about a pile of a pile of green vegetables cooked in a certain style right anyway so weird really really weird I've been thinking about opening a vegan restaurant vegan hotel vegan guesthouse vegan gym for so long I come here to dong and they already have a vegan hotel but I mean it is so beautiful the rooms are so gorgeous that I can still endorse the hotel and if you if you stay there you do get a vegan breakfast that will have one egg dish presented which freaks me out and I don't like it I don't like it ethically I don't like it otherwise you can still do that make that happen okay so slight change of topic here again one topic does segue into another and hello to you guys in the chat I am I do i do see you I am I am seeing your comments as they pop up here so if you guys want to you know interact with me while recording this podcast and happy to have to do so um I found this out in the funniest way I did notice that many of the employees were indigenous ethnic minorities were local tribal people here they were not Han Chinese ethnically and you know just notice that surprising for this business and when I went to check into the hotel they it first gave me a lower price the price is already incredibly low um they gave me so the actual price 128 and they gave me a price of just one hundred and then when they found out where I worked my the university I was teaching at they said oh no no sorry then we have to raise the price and I was laughing about it and joke with them so what do you mean why would you raise the price because I'm a university professor at this at this other hotel it's just it's just bizarre it's just a very very strange thing to happen in China and they apologized to me and of course we're talking in Chinese they speak absolutely no English but they explained they have a special relationship with the charity is operating partly to benefit their first nations school their indigenous peoples school so already this really brought my mind back to my own history with First Nations in Canada with First Nations University with you know Cree and a Jew boy and tribal peoples of Canada and projects of that kind and obviously the millionaire guy the wealthy guy who started this hotel his heart is in the right place and it's a wonderful thing to do when you think about it to say okay they're going to start with you know a vegan hotel and then it's not just vegan it's a vegan hotel that actively employs and assists and helps the tribal indigenous people and cooperates with that school you know that's great that's so positive but on the other hand the thing that makes it ridiculous is i'm talking with the staff at this hotel and none of them care about veganism none of them are interested they just regard this as a hotel that doesn't have any meet me because they haven't been hired for that reason they don't have a positive connection to the movement or even to the the concept you know of veganism being a positive thing so that's really funny too I was you know making the effort to talk to them in Chinese and say to them you know I say off the bat look you know I am a vegan person I'm not just vegan because I'm staying at this hotel you know vegan all the time and then I will explain them you know back in Canada I'm actually a vegan activist I have a vegan website you know this stuff means a lot to me you know i'm saying probably cuz i'm thanking them because they work in a vegan hotel right a hotel that identifies this vegan anyway and both what they say in reply and the look in their eyes they're looking you like it's as if I was talking about I collect transformers which I don't or yeah as if I'm talking about the most random unrelated thing like why are you bringing this up like what you're vegan why are you mentioning that I'm mentioning it because you work at the check-in desk of a vegan hotel okay and at one point I joked I said look why don't you have a discount rate for someone who's a vegan activist who's checking in here you know because this is a vegan hotel and I'm really envy you know they have absolutely zero interest in veganism and when you talk to them about it seems like they don't even understand the concept they don't even really know what veganism is now I talked about it with him under different headings but he won so bored that's a good job poor template the joke I suppose are suspiciously denies collective transformers I do not I have no positive connection transformers just yesterday I was joking about transformers with Richard with vegan gains we were it had some messages back and forth I was joke that is what transformers are on my mind but no i am not a fan of transformers that was just an example of a you know random thing to bring up we're looking at me like why are you talking about this you know but I talked them about veganism at are many different headings one was just introducing myself trying to be a nice guy or whatever um but another reason was you know the eggs the first time I noticed there was one dish with eggs in it I had to go to them and say look why are there eggs you know this is supposed to be a vegan restaurant that's supposed to be vegan hotel why do you have this dish with eggs in it and the guy was talking to you the first time but also the later times they just had no idea what I was talking about he was like yeah right that has eggs and I was like dude the other dishes have eggs he said no the others don't have eggs so well this is supposed to be vegan this whole restaurant why do you have just trying to talk with us my Chinese is far from perfect but I can talk about I can have this conversation in Chinese every member of staff I talked about that with had no idea what was talking about I might as well have been talking about collecting transformers no comprehension no idea that somebody would be care about that impassioned about that you know it's easy to imagine a business like this or charity like this in China having all employees who are you know religious vegans who are a Taoist or Buddhist or what have you but because this hotel has two mandates has two purposes because it is helping indigenous people and is also trying to help veganism the two mandates conflict they're not really compatible and you know that relates back to this question I've talked about so many times in my channel about the single issue cause really you should have two different projects if you want to have a project that helps native people indigenous minorities tribal people that's one project if you want to have a project that supports veganism that's a separate project and even though it's the most wonderful thing in the world like even in Canada that would be so wonderful to have a you know a vegan hotel where you have all the staff are CREE in a jib way you have a special connection to a school for korean ajiboye people that has a charity you're reaching out to and providing opportunities to create a jib way people you know uh it does not work because those people are working at that restaurant for the wrong reasons they're working in that hotel for the wrong reasons they have the wrong interests and from their perspective they're just stuck working in a hotel that doesn't have any eat meat they're stuck eating their lunch in a shitty restaurant that's vegetarian just because their bosses an eccentric that was really how they saw it you could see they were just like oh yeah the guy who owned this place is kind of crazy so everything's vegan like it's so counterproductive and of course this same hotel would be such a positive force in people's lives including being a positive force for the employees if you were employing people who wanted to be there if you employee people were there for the right reasons so it was a whole lot of really meaningful reflections that came out of my staying in this bizarre or this surreal semi vegan hotel in China and you know sorry like all hotels you know they have to talk to you about smoking a lot of people in China still smoke so I did say in chinese when i was checking in that i'm a nonsmoker and i also said you know I don't drink any alcohol you know I just mentioned it in passing and someone which of course is not surprising when you've already described as someone look I'm vegan I'm a vegan activist all these other things and so on you know so there was another moment that brought back so strongly the memory of my working with you know First Nations people in Canada back when I was studying Korean a jib way back when I was a student at First Nations University there was a guy there he stole the works that working behind the counter at the this hotel and he you know he is one of the native tribal peoples here and he looks he looks like them to some native tribal peoples here look the same as the Chinese not all of them have different ethnic features but he had brown skin much browner skin than most Chinese people he was kind of big and fat he had tattoos and he was very affable and friendly with me but he had no clue about vegans we didn't care even though he's working this weekend hotel and he was really nice it was really friendly but it made me burst out laughing I mean just in his behavior in many ways he really reminded me of kids i knew in in canada who grew up on First Nations reservations in so many ways and I went outside the hotel for a minute i forget i was doing i think i was getting out my camera i think i was just reaching in my bag to get out my camera and you know he was nice to me this guy at every point i talked to he was really nice to me but he just did not understand at all what I was saying them about being a vegan activist or that that's the reason why I'm in this hotel and why I'm it and why talking to him I'm interested in meeting other vegans like imagino different my whole life here would be different if I could meet even one vegan by staying at the scope give me one person who has common interests in veganism of this hotel whether it's a member of staff or one of the guests I want to meet other vegans but none of the staff at this hotel are vegan so I went outside and I was just messing with a magnet was taking out i think i was taking on my camera and he walked past me and he said to me in the most friendly self confident way in chinese he was like oh are you stopping to have a smoke you stopping up cigarette and it's just and everything about the way he said it it really made me laugh for a couple of minutes there because it's the sort of thing where I've been so honest to somebody because it suits my purpose to be honest in just talking in a couple different conversations about what kind of guy I am and why I'm here I'm a vegan activist I don't drink I don't smoke and he's being friendly with me but I it's still is invisible to him who I am why are there he regards me as a foreign tourists who's there for a good time who's drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes and you know he regards me as someone who you know he might invite to go have a smoke around the corner which is what he was doing he was leaving his post to go of a smoke in the alleyway beside the hotel it really brought back the memories of so many funny situations with Korean Ojibwe with First Nations in Canada and it brought together all these you know weird little contradictions in this microcosm of this this vegan hotel and you know obviously I don't want to be a jerk I don't want to be mean but no I don't want to have a smoke no I don't want to have a beer what I want is to meet other vegan activist I checked into this hotel hoping I meet other people or interested in veganism but it seems like absolutely nobody aside from the owner cares in the slightest Oh dig it is up so I really laughs but I mean my answer the guy ultimately was just no i'm not i'm not here to smoke cigarettes um k change of topic I mean look you know uh I've had some related questions come in i'm gonna i guess some community there's a no specific order this question that came in here on on youtube i'll just read this question you'll see where I'm going with this so question came in quote is there an amount of time that you believe a person can spend enjoying themselves instead of participating in some kind of humanitarian work you know working towards political goals the stuff I talk about my videos he says what kind of what percentage of one's lifetime do you believe is okay to enjoy without warrant and criticism I'm shortening the question a bit so you guys can imagine why he's asking that if you've been watching my recent videos some related reflections recently uh you know vegan gains had some videos up talking about his own lack of time his own being stressed out is you know not having time to even make videos for YouTube and part of his problem you know V Gaines is the amount of time he has to spend on his dog he acquired a dog that is part wolf that is extremely energetic it's closer to being a wild dog in his behaviors and he has to spend all this time taking care of and cleaning up after this dog in his life so how much time he has for activism of various kinds or even YouTube he feels melting away so he had some videos talking about this um okay I might as well let's read out another comment here so before I before I replies there was another comment I guess I don't need us there was there was another comment asking basically whether or not my stalking on YouTube etc really is creating a basis for people to people to start cooperating to start engaging and meaningful activism organization which is certainly a question I ask myself all the time and okay more than one things me to reflect on here i remember when i was living in England living in england with my wife at the time just by coincidence these things come and go in fashions we heard a lot of this BS we heard a lot of this kind of prideful boasting from mail pickup artists mail I mean really what it is is on the news on the radio in newspapers you hear a lot of pop psychology and there seems to be this very popular British attitude very part wise in the British Isles that men there's a saying in England keep em keen Trita mean there were all these bizarre little social theories pop psychology theories in England about how men should keep their girlfriends interested basically by snubbing them basically by acting like they're too good for their own girlfriend and part of that there were all these theories circulating on the internet but again this was discussed on the radio and in newspapers there was all this kind of crap like men saying like you should only send your girlfriend one text message for every three text messages Seacole she says you you should only give her you know two phone calls for every five phone calls you get for the woman there were all these kind of bizarre theories about how to keep your relationship fresh or loving or meaningful or whatever for for the men in England basically these men trying to prove they're better than the girlfriend I guess basically by the man not paying too much attention the girlfriend and not helping her over basically not being helpful as bizarre this debate I mean it's not even a debate it's really just pop psychology and me and my wife at the time is now my ex-wife we saw a lot of this and some of the people we knew face-to-face talk to these terms also about basically how much attention the man is giving the woman how much attention the woman is giving the man and even sort of who is providing what benefits how much the man helps the woman how much the woman helps the man and people were really theorizing about this way so for me sorry if in case you don't catch the segue this really is linked to this question of being asked how much time can a person spend enjoying with them themselves as opposed to how much time can they devote to the movement how much time can they devote to humanitarian work etc and I remember saying to my ex-wife you know to me this is just totally bizarre because this whole mentality I see in England which I'd never seen in America I'd never seen in Canada just got maybe it exists in America cannibals but I've never seen it this whole mentality is based on the idea that your problem is restricting yourself from helping too much that your problem is that like by nature you would spend too much of your time too much of your money too much of your effort doing things to help your girlfriend in her life or your wife in her life and that you should restrict yourself so that you seem more commanding or more it's bizarre it's totally alien to me but I remember saying we discussed this at several points I said the reality is the opposite the reality is even if you do everything you possibly can do to help your girlfriend or to help your wife it will never be enough so you have to start from that perspective if I'm doing all I can to help you it's never going to be enough but I can say honestly I can look in your eyes and saying I am doing all I can right and a meaning in my relationships with girlfriends or my wife or what have you I have been in that position very very often you know I mean at one point my wife was living in China I had a job in Thailand so you know we're traveling back and forth to see each other and she did need help on some things including intellectual things helping her PhD thesis or something and you can say I could say honestly enough you know I am doing all I can now she's a very tough woman max wife it's not like she was begging for tons of hell but sure it's an issue comes up you know but whether it's washing the dishes or helping someone with their PhD thesis with their research helping them design a research projects because you know a lot of the help I gave max wife was intellectual in nature was research-based whether it's washing the dishes or doing the gardening or taking care of the baby or something really more more intellectual or related to politics or vegan activism you should be in the position of saying I am doing all I possibly can do and if that's not enough for you we have a problem it's so alien to me and so bizarre than a man and apparently in British culture this is a big thing that a man would want to put himself in the position of saying no I want my girlfriend or wife to be making three times as much effort as I'm making therefore i only pay to take her out for dinner this is like these were really the examples being discussed in the newspaper the idea that a man would only pay to take the woman up for dinner once after she's done three things for him like this like economy eternal economy within the relationship I think that's really psychologically unhealthy and evil and counterproductive and to me I just say it's it's very very very alien but obviously this fits into the British mentality the British ego and I do think a large part of the British ego unlike the American eco a large part of the bridge ego really seems you based on snubbing people you're only as good as the last person you've snubbed is really a large part of life in England and people there are very very eager to insult to denigrate each other to show who they think they are by contrast so okay this elaborate allegory for me comes back to this political question would you say it's sort of come up under a few different headings and i'll come back to vegan gains in this situation I think with activism and humanitarian work simply put you want to be in the position of saying I am doing all that I possibly can now as I've just talked about in the half hour prior to this podcast all you can may be very limited all you can do to help your wife may be limited like again maybe you have a job working in a submarine in the US Navy so while you're away in a submarine you're not doing a damn thing to help her because you're in a submarine and she's living somewhere else she's in a city or she's living on the land presumably all kinds of people have problems with other relationship same thing with vegan activism or humanitarian work or what have you if you have a job working in a submarine working on a cruise ship very obviously your ethical and economic commitments are going to massively limit the amount of a positive difference you can make how much you can contribute how much you contribute to the movement how much you could you can do period but why would you be in the position of trying to put a percentage on it that way of trying to limit how much you can help why wouldn't you want to be in the position of saying I am doing all that I can possibly do even if that all is a very very limited some it's very very tiny I mean like this year a few months ago I was living in the school and could mang and one of the reasons why I wrote that children's book I was looking for what positive contribution can I make and part of Michael positive contribution is coming on YouTube and engaging in critique and discussion and doing reviews all the stuff you guys know about and I decided okay i can write this children's book and try to get this children's book illustrated and then i can say well living in China being in these circumstances being a student may be right now this is all I can do but I still want to do that I still want to be all I can be and do all I can do so I guess it's starting from that position not of false humility but a very pragmatic realistic assessment of how limited your maximum contribution can be that you then move on to the pursuit of that maximum contribution that's how I perceive the answer that question and to me in many ways the question is quite alien if I regain custody of my daughter which course is going to be joint custody obviously the amount of time i would spend taking care of my daughter that will again massively reduce the scope i have to engage in even youtube or anything else i'm not going to feel bad about that i'm going to feel positive about doing what I can about doing all that I can do now this relates back to the example already mentioned of vegan gains so what are the sacrifices you can make what are the strategic decisions you have to make in terms of how you spend your time so you are spending your time effectively in terms of activists and politics humanitarian work what have you well whether or not you play video games is the decision you can make whether or not you own a dog is a decision you can make and there are so many other things you don't have power over right there's so many other things you can't control you may have to take care of your grandmother you may have to take care of your parents as they get old and need more help I'll take care of themselves you may have to take care of your kid you may have to you know work in a submarine you may have a job that's very demanding of your time there may be so many things you can't control or have limited control over that restrict your ability to engage in you know effective activism our humanitarian work any aspirations to make the world a better place you have but then there are the things you can't control the decisions you make and this is only one of many many reasons why I think owning a domesticated animal owning a dog owning a cat well I think it's not just a bad idea in some ways I think it's actually in a sense an immoral idea the opportunity cost is tremendous it really is it's a lot of time if you are walking a dog twice a day and combing the dog and cleaning up the dog's hair and cleaning up the dog's poo and all this stuff if you just walk a dog twice a day that is a huge commitment of time seven days a week and the the reason one type of this vegan gains is not the only one a lot of vegans are doing this and ya on that human level of your personal economy and your potential to be effective in activism and advocacy and change the world and supporting veganism many vegans start off with the assumption that their veganism they should be spending more time rescuing animals keeping pets I think I tell you it's the exact opposite feeding a dead cow to a CAD every day feeding dead sheep to a dog every day playing with a dog is not going to achieve progress to the vegan movement not if you have one dog and not if you have ten it's not and you know if you didn't have that dog if you didn't have all that time going into taking care of house pets whether or not their rescue animals whether or not there are these other excuses then your horizons for making a difference in the movement they change so those are think the strategic decisions you have to make those are the strategic decisions that shape what is the maximum amount you can do so I guess we'll my second last topic here uh I've had several videos just lately discussing the permanent vacation lifestyle people dropping at a school to pursue youtube and you guys may not have noticed but actually there's a really peculiar example of this in the well-known social justice warrior vegan youtuber called a privileged vegan so a privilege vegan is also called marine she for a while stopped using the name of privilege vegan she's the name marine and now she's back she's using the name of privilege vegan again a privilege vegan has only a BA she was enrolled in an MA program in a master's program and she actually had a video posted explaining her decision to drop out a for MA program and why is she dropping out of her MA program it's to join us here on permanent vacation on YouTube pursuing YouTube activism or YouTube advocacy whatever you want to say now that is really really bizarre you know of course it's bizarre first of all because it's a contrast to all the other people I've criticized who you know we're involved in lifestyle activism and bikinis and you know who people who have nothing in common with a privilege vegan politically or methodologically and yet of course it is still fundamentally the same thing she is not quitting she's not dropping in for me to have a full-time job she does she has not mentioned having any job at all I think you know I wish her well I don't know if she's born rich enough that she just doesn't need a job she is pursuing YouTube fame even if it is YouTube fame of an explicitly political explicitly activist form now yeah there are some comments in the in the comment section here about privilege vegan being a spoiled brat yes so you know she and I are not friends for the sake of veganism I would be entirely willing to talk to her again do a podcast with our collab with her because for the sake of veganism IV wound up I do willing to collaborate with freely I mean I'm really trying to make something positive app and even when I have significant differences people but she's somebody you know she doesn't like me and I think in a sense I don't like her but this is about this is about saving the planet this is about saving the animals blah blah blah so we should be able to put those kinds of differences aside correct me if I'm wrong and again there are some differences you can't put aside I mean you know remember I'm still like the only guy on vegan YouTube to really confront the neo-nazis and racists within vegan YouTube you know well that so somebody comments that she's only doing YouTube until the next MA program and so that is not what she says if you actually watch her video and I don't believe that's the case at all I think it's a serious decisions you made so look I'll put in a cavity here there are many many reasons to drop out of your MA program including just that the professor is lousy that the program is lousy you know there are reasons like that where you can just say well you know it's it's a bad program it's simple enough reason to drop out or it's going poorly she does not cite anything like that though she really does cite her decision as being because she wants to do this YouTube thing and she wants to build up her channel and she talked in some technical detail oh she's trying to attract more viewers to her channel so it does seem like she is making in many ways the mistakes that I've been warning against and I think she's probably seriously deluded as to how big the maximum size of her audience would be um but it's a little bit extra bizarre for me because I am someone who has never had the opportunity to get a masters degree let alone a PhD I have quite a few videos talking about that there's one that's just titled why I don't have a PhD parts one and two and still to this day there are professors who are fans of my work because I went back to school you Vic I have one bachelor's degree i'm getting a second bachelor's degree i still do not have a single option to get an MA anywhere in the world a single positive viable option so dropping out of an an MA program dropping out of a master's degree if it's a good program if it's a decent program that is quite alien and jarring to me given what my own struggle struggles in life have been and given the deplorable state of Canadian academia the incredibly poor options I've had um I don't know what can we learn from example of someone like like privileged vegan youtube this is the real philosophical moral I want to put on the story guys YouTube is wonderful and powerful because it allows us to challenge other people's opinions all these use one example myself i think is well i challenged a whole bunch of people who never really thought about what it means to castrate a dog vegans people who are already vegans people aren't supported animal rights and a whole lot of people had to sit down and really think about it holy why do we castrate dogs why do we castrate cats why do we on a hormonal level modify the behaviors of these animals so that there will be more like toys more like peth rather than having their well behaviors I was really successfully able to challenge people in a way they didn't expect to be challenged where they didn't want to be challenged with in veganism thanks to you that's the positive thing about about veganism but you know I think the negative thing about veganism is that for people like myself for people like privileged vegan and me it makes it possible to live your whole life without being challenged um I think that you know someone like marine someone like a privilege vegan she is in dire need of being challenged about many of her fundamentally ignorant fundamentally self-righteous beliefs in the world and that doesn't happen through youtube it can happen in a good university program it can happen between professor Minh student whether it's a master's degree program or ba it can also just have with people you know face to face it can happen by going to conferences being in some kind of Socratic dialogue with somebody you know marine had a video are you this is an example because to me it's very smoking gun marine a privilege video support me a privileged vegan she had a video talking about living without soap so if you guys don't remember I had a very comedic video where I was really ranting about how much I hate vegans who either don't use soap or makeup pseudoscience and excuses and myths to make it sound like a life without soap is superior to a life using soap this kind of nonsense you know there's a video from her totally uncritically totally unscientifically talking about a soap-free life so this kind of natural hygiene pseudoscience crap about not using soap you can watch don't watch it i mean it's garbage but i'm just saying and you know i watched that video and whether you're looking at what she says about soap or what she says about politics in israel i see someone who's tiny shred of fame on youtube is allowing them to burrow deeper and deeper into an echo chamber where nobody is going to educate her nobody is going to challenge her where she is able to just be ever more self-confident in to feel ever more unchallenged in you know her assumptions about how the world works and about questions of good and evil right and wrong I'm not a Zionist by the way I'm not saying that because I uncritically support Israel however I have a well-informed very cynical opinion about politics in Israel and Palestine and when I look at what she says what is your own Palestine it is very shameful as a lot of social justice warriors are which you know my heart goes out to some extent I can sympathize some extent because I know I know the type of propaganda she's been exposed to but if you just think about the meaning of the word education in terms of career I've already talked about the fact I think it's sad to see someone that is destroying their career opportunities just to come on YouTube and play this game that I'm playing right now but it is also really very sad in terms of Education in terms of real education in terms of the opportunity for you to be challenged your beliefs and assumption to really learn something new to really gain a new perspective to gain a new perspective on familiar facts and have a jarring unexpected confrontation with unfamiliar facts and that happens to me that's part of my education even though I'm in my late 30s you know I went back to university I already knew a lot about the history of Laos the history of Cambodia history of China to some extent and I go back to University I wasn't planning to study the history of Russia and I studied the history of Russia Wow I'm confronted with a new perspective that really of course you know intersects with overlaps with has a dynamic connection to all those other you know historical questions and it challenges my assumptions it challenges my beliefs I learn new things I gain new perspective on all things so yeah I mean you know i have heard marines perspective i've heard her own explanation in her own perspective on what she's doing and why she's doing it and it is certainly a you know bizarre and instructive and memorable example of frankly the permanent vacation lifestyle frankly this fundamental delusion that youtube is real activism that youtube is a real career or that theme within the digital vegan demi-monde is real Fame because it's not it's none of those things none of those things are true and valid but what it is I mean YouTube is a way to document your own life it is a way to make friends and you know I do appreciate it I do appreciate it for what it is but it's very sad to see so many people swept up in a sort of illusion of what they imagine it is and it's not and it never can't be okay so to end this podcast which is probably closer to two hours long if you include the first the first 40 minutes that are on YouTube as a separate video and then this as a patron only podcast yeah art of war comments we have coming ethica this is a negative pitfall on the internet staying in a silo of people with interests that match your own yeah I mean it's a it's a very strange thing you were exposed to criticism like I get idiotic comments on YouTube but it puts you it puts you in a self-selecting crowd that is almost always just going to reinforce your own delusions of grandeur and I see that with somebody like Ted car I mean I think I'm the first person that really criticized Ted car the philosophy of Ted car right now have maybe three videos criticizing Ted car one of them is not exclusively the video about dating advice I criticize him and some other people who's going to do that you know there's no percentage in it nobody nobody gains anything from engaging in that kind of critique there is no Socratic method to it there's no education to it you know there is no educational value to what's going on and people very easily perhaps even unconsciously done intentionally just surround them with people who reinforce their own delusions of grandeur all right um to end this video though this is now New Year's Eve I'm recording this on December 31st 2016 looking ahead to 2017 I've already mused on this to some extent you know I remember a quotation from a computer programmer a computer programmer who did die relatively young I forget if she died at 45 or 55 but died younger than then you might expect and the famous quote from this computer programmer is when you're on your deathbed nobody looks back at their life and thinks I wish that I spent more time sitting at my computer alone I do basically want to make this channel less isolated and one of the easiest ways for me to do that hopefully we'll see if it works is to reach out to some of you guys who are here on patreon reach out to people on skype yes have more people come on to the channel through those kinds of conversations and podcasts but also i hope i can reach out to some people here in china maybe they're people who are not vegan because there are not enough vegans for me to talk to here in china I don't know can I get the owner of that vegan restaurant the owner of that vegan hotel can I get them to come on camera maybe they're people who don't speak English maybe there are people who are not thinkin I want to have other people sitting here on camera with me I do want to make this less of an isolated and isolating medium for all involved I think there are people in this chat room right now you know who could who could come on the channel and you know it's very funny i'll just say only a few days ago i thought that my resolution for 2017 was going to be to spend less time on youtube and to put more of my time into language research and my career here in china and maybe into starting a small business here in China you know setting up the foundation for that looking at all those career shoes and options and then in just a few days things changed here including my contract for a bunch of different reasons my perspective changed because the facts changed the facts the situation changed so my perspective change and really my perspective is now that the role the Chinese language has in my life is very questionable it's very dubious the role that this job as in my life is pretty much a dead end job although it gives me a great opportunity to live in a beautiful place and learn Chinese throw all these good things about it but it looks like this is a one-year dead-end job in some ways a great educational opportunity I'll definitely learn more this one year then I would normally learn from one year and an MA program or PA program sure there are good things about it but it's still a dead-end job for me learning Chinese seems to be a complete dead end in terms of my career which is very sad but I can weep about that later I can we vote that in a separate video and you know youtube and networking with you guys the internet is not a dead end that actually promises something positive for my future so I feel like right now my resolution for 2017 is actually to work harder creating content for YouTube and I'm not sure to what extent that should be through doing things like book reviews reading more about what's going on in veganism maybe even reviews of academic articles from academic journals about veganism but I mean the sad fact is Chinese is a dead end this job as a dead end my university degree is a dead end I have no clear path in terms of my career for getting an MA or PhD after that university degree so when I go back to Canada I may be working at Starbucks we're still in that kind of really bleak career path situation or maybe working for the police force or joining the army etc etc but actually I do have every reason to put my energy my time and energy back into YouTube even more than before and i hope i can create a higher caliber of intellectual content again whether that's through book reviews or discussions of academic papers or through collaborations with other channels who are producing quality content I don't know we'll see we'll see what we'll see what's possible but course that's why this contrast is someone like marine a privilege vegan is so bizarre if I had an MA program if I had a door open to a real career doing meaningful research or even higher education none of these questions would even be asked right and it's precisely because so many doors have been slammed in my face because of the paucity of any opportunity mostly because I'm a Canadian citizen I'm a prisoner of my passport I would have far more opportunities over French citizen if I were a German citizen if I were an American citizen all those countries offer more educational career opportunities to Canada even England for a British citizen out of many many more opportunities but I don't these are the cards I was dealt and in some ways they're wonderful and some ways I advantages and in some ways I have disadvantages but in many ways my career situation and even you know my legal situation so on is backed me into a corner where you know YouTube is the best bet of God so I hope you'll stick with me here on patreon I hope you'll see the next chapter that comes in my life and in a real sense my resolution for 2017 is to put even more effort and energy and originality into brainstorming how I can make more out of this opportunity for this YouTube channel that at the end of the day is a crossroads for vegans to meet other vegans for people to make connections that can lead to real world activism even though I do not regard YouTube as a form of activism in itself hit me up