Claim OwnershipAsian Rebel Club Podcast
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A podcast every Asian should’ve had growing up, and probably still needs.
A podcast for Asian/Asian diaspora untangling family expectations, cultural guilt, and the myth of perfection.
Hosted by Crystal Ren, who brings her own messy, magical story to the mic, so you don’t have to figure it out alone. This podcast is a mix of honest conversations, cultural unlearning, emotional plot twists, and slow rebellion. Each episode helps you break free from cultural pressures so you can finally make decisions that feel right for you.
If you’ve ever felt torn between your own dreams and your family’s expectations, you’ll hear real stories, practical mindset shifts, and tools to navigate cultural guilt without losing connection to your roots. These conversations will give you the tools and courage to start living on your own terms, starting today.
New episodes bi-weekly-ish.
24 Episodes
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Send a text Eleanor Mooney grew up between two worlds - a white father and a Filipina mother who worked in hospitality, where kindness and service weren’t just values, they were survival. As a kid in Massachusetts, she watched her mother remember everyone’s name, favorite drink, and story - even as people sometimes dismissed her accent or heritage. That early contrast shaped Eleanor’s life mission: to make people feel seen, included, and cared for. Years later, she carried that same warmth in...
Send a text Jason Lim has lived life in the fast lane, quite literally. From leading social media at Netflix Southeast Asia and helping ONE Championship grow from zero to millions of followers, to co-founding Stratgeist, one of the region’s top digital agencies, he’s been at the center of Asia’s attention economy for over a decade. But behind his adrenaline-filled life, from skydiving and scuba diving to scaling startups, lies a deeper story about mastering fear, learning self-awareness, and ...
Send a text When you meet Hafiz Kasman, you don’t feel hustle. You feel a presence. Hafiz grew up in a lower-middle-class Malay family in Singapore, where stability was prized and risk-taking came second. He started his career as a management consultant — a path few from his background dared to walk. But at 25, he did something bold: he left it all to build Kinobi, an ed-tech platform helping students across Asia navigate their careers. In just a few years, Hafiz and his team grew Kinobi to r...
Send a text In this episode of the Asian Rebel Club podcast, I sit down with Bradley Sutton - VP of Education and Strategy at Helium 10, host of the Serious Sellers Podcast with over 4 million downloads, and one of the most recognizable voices in global e-commerce. But before he became a household name for Amazon sellers, Bradley lived many lives. Half Filipino and half American, he grew up in a deeply Asian household where grades were non-negotiable and shoes were banned indoors (atypi...
Send a text In this episode of the Asian Rebel Club podcast, I chat with Anshu Singh - technologist turned spiritual teacher, founder of Solana Wellness Retreats, and author of Pressure to Pleasure: A Seven Pillar Approach to Living Your Best Life. Anshu spent over 25 years building software and startups in Silicon Valley, chasing success, status, and the perfect life. She graduated from college in India at 18, climbed the corporate ladder, and lived what most would call the American dream. B...
Send a text In this episode of the Asian Rebel Club podcast, I sit down with Swan Chen (SwanVR): an artist, technologist, and cultural disruptor who walked away from Wall Street to design a radically freer life. Born in New York City but raised by her grandmother in rural China before being air-dropped into suburban Ohio, Swan’s story is full of twists and turns in the theme of courage. From dropping out of pre-med against her father’s wishes, to going viral in VR with over 100 million views,...
Send a text In this episode of the Asian Rebel Club podcast, I sit down with Joachim (Jay) Brackx - musician-turned-entrepreneur, teacher, and host of Relating to Self - to explore the radical power of boundaries. Growing up in families where survival meant prioritizing everyone else’s feelings, neither of us learned the language of boundaries until much later. In Asian households, especially, the word itself barely exists. Instead, we inherited guilt, shame, and a constant pressure to self-s...
Send a text What happens when you stop following the script that was written by generations of legacy? In this episode of the Asian Rebel Club podcast, I sit down with Kaushik, a former ship captain turned 3x tech founder who walked away from a conventional South Asian medical legacy to confront some of the most outdated systems in global trade. But Kaushik’s story isn’t just about entrepreneurship. It’s about identity, scale, truth, and the discomfort required to live a life with no escape h...
Send a text What if you’ve been told that you’re too queer and too much, but you choose to become even more? In this episode of Asian Rebel Club podcast, I sit down with Darice Chang - a queer Taiwanese-American writer, performer, meditation teacher, and cultural disruptor who has never fit neatly into the boxes assigned to them. From competing in the Miss Taiwan Pageant to strutting through Taipei’s queer nightlife scene in Midnight Asia (Netflix), Darice has spent a lifetime reclaiming visi...
Send a text Di’s career sounds like a startup fairytale—she’s worked at four billion-dollar companies (Zhihu, KEEP, Airbnb, and Zoomcar) before they hit it big. But her real superpower? Defying expectations. In this episode, we explore: How she escaped the "study-or-fail" pressure of her upbringing in ChinaWhy she turned down a traditional career path (and her parents’ approval) for startupsThe cultural comparisons of working in China, Singapore, and Japan, and the work habits she had to unle...
Send a text Jeff Jimenez was grinding in corporate finance when a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis flipped his life upside down. Instead of slowing down, he launched Love Jane, a fashion brand worn by Miss Universe and featured on Netflix, while undergoing chemo. In this raw conversation, he shares: Why he built a business instead of "just traveling" after his diagnosisHow cancer erased his ego but sharpened his ambitionThe unfiltered truth about success: "You won’t regret missing a de...
Send a text In Part 2 of our conversation, Alex Liang, fashion influencer turned real estate creative, gets real about: The downside of social media fame ("I’m more private than people think")Navigating identity as an Asian man in fashion ("I had no role models—so I made my own rules")Why he walked away from the influencer world ("It got boring… and gross")His surprising definition of freedom now (Hint: It’s not followers or fame)The cultural belief he outgrew ("Saving face? I never bought in...
Send a text Named one of Canada’s Top Style Influencers, Alex Liang isn’t just an influencer, luxury brand collaborator, and a Partner of the luxury real estate agency Engel & Völkers. He’s a quiet rebel who traded the glitz of social media fame for a life of deeper purpose. In this candid first installment of our two-part conversation, Alex opens up about: The paradox of being "Asian but not Asian enough" - growing up Chinese-Canadian in a privileged yet culturally ambiguous worldWh...
Send a text In this episode of The Asian Rebel Club Podcast, I sit down with Jacob Tan, a two-time Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and pioneer of sustainability consulting in China. From surviving premature birth to nearly dying twice while backpacking, Jacob shares how confronting mortality shaped his unconventional path, leaving corporate stability to launch a sustainability firm when no one in China understood the concept. Discover how Jacob’s anthropological background and global experiences t...
Send a text What does it mean to create beauty in the midst of exile? Photographer and activist Fatimah Hossaini was forced to flee Kabul when the Taliban returned, but not before capturing the untold grace, power, and resilience of Afghan women through her lens. In this episode, Fatimah shares the story behind her escape, her fight to reclaim the image of Afghan womanhood, and how photography became both her rebellion and her refuge. From confronting patriarchy to rebuilding iden...
Send a text Why do so many high-achieving Asians struggle with perfectionism, fear of disappointment, and late self-discovery? In this episode of the Asian Rebel Club podcast, I talk with licensed therapist Jessica Lan about the deep-rooted cultural patterns that trap Asian Americans in cycles of people-pleasing, emotional repression, and rigid identities. We explore how these behaviors show up in careers, relationships, and even hobbies (or lack thereof), and why breaking free of...
Send a text Why do so many high-achieving Asians feel stuck in careers they don’t love, even when they know it’s not right for them? In this episode of the Asian Rebel Club podcast, I sit down with licensed therapist Jessica Lan to explore the psychological fears, like uncertainty, guilt, and societal pressure, that keep people frozen in unfulfilling paths. We dive into the two critical moments when people question their choices (college vs. mid-career), the difference between sur...
Send a text 🎙️Community Voice: Good girl. Good student. Good daughter. The kind of “good” that quietly eats you alive. In this raw, deeply personal episode of Asian Rebel Club, Crystal sits down with Kayla - a mixed-race woman from small-town Missouri navigating disability, betrayal, and survival - and Iris, a Filipina who rejected her family, university, and culture’s expectations by undergoing voluntary sterilization. From violence disguised as excellence to the silent shame of being “unwan...
Send a text 🎙️Community Voice: Wendy was the definition of a “model Asian daughter.” A violin prodigy. Straight-A student. Accepted into every top university. But underneath the achievements was a girl quietly falling apart. Her childhood was spent under intense emotional and physical pressure from a mother who beat her for missed notes and told her she was worthless. School was her safe haven. College across the country was her escape plan. And success? Just a ticket to survival. In thi...
Send a text What happens when chasing success almost costs you everything? In this episode, I sit down with my friend Ivan Ong, who built and listed a company on the Australian Stock Exchange in his 20s, only to find it hollow. It took a near-fatal bicycle crash and months of paralysis to force a full reset. From that rock bottom, Ivan co-founded KeaBabies—a parenting brand grounded in love, not just hustle. Today, it reaches over 6.5 million families and generates nearly US$85M in annual rev...
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