YouSaid · the spoken record

Mei Xu

lines on the record: 68
first: 2019-06-17
most recent: 2019-06-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Being amazed And I love the women in New York, the way they are so confident and they dress in those collars in those shapes and they look great. And then I would always end in a home department. Anna would always give me a lot of questions because it looked like it's in the 1920s.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every day I would go starting from the first floor, which, you know, all these sales ladies that they spray fragrances and everybody hate them, not me. I love them. They say, spray on me. I like being sort of in the middle of something they're launching and be able to tell what's in the fragrance that I like and dislike. And then look at the packaging. Packaging is always fascinating to me because I grew up in a country with no packaging at all. But what interests me the most is the fashion floor and it's usually the second floor and just”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, imagine a bird out of cage. I have always been interested in fashion. Many people wonder, you know, if you grow up in a country without any fashion, how can you really have an eye for it? And when I was growing up in the foreign language middle school, China at that time already started exporting fashion and they would have those rejected fashion and they put them on sale near the bus stations. So we would be jumping from one place to another looking for cheap fashion. So that was always something I'm very interested in. And when you're put next to a Bloomingdale, that was the best thing that can possibly happen.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was boring. I have to be honest with you. It was a lot of paperwork pushing, a lot of import-export documentations working with, you know, different factories about skew numbers and pushing line of credit through the banks.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so I found a job in New York. It was a job for American medical device companies to export equipment to Chinese hospitals.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't find it particularly difficult to adap. What I find interesting is that in Washington DC, people kind of avoid eye contact. That's something I still think was my first impression of the city. I was riding the subway and I found it very interesting that as quickly as I look at someone, they immediately changed their eyes and they try to focus on reading. And I said to myself, I said, wow, this is a really deep city because everybody's always reading very big volumes.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What was it like to adjust to the US? I mean, you had sort of immersed yourself in American culture, your entire childhood, but then you finally arrive here. Did it surprise you? Did it disappoint you? Was it lonely”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and the word aliens was kind of confusing to me because I remember aliens from Star Wars or from, you know, those science movies. And I was so excited. I said, wow, they actually have a section for aliens. And so I got very excited. I said, let me see. I'm certainly not American citizen, so I guess I'm going to have to go to the alien part and that's great because I can see them. I never knew that the word alien means the non American non green card holders. I say they say they say they say To something a little bit more human.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I flew to Washington DC When we arrived at Dallas Airport, I was very sleepy because of the jet lag and I saw two signs one is American citizen. And the other is aliens”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sumay she decided to quit. She and David thought about what to do. He was a trained geophysicist, and she spoke great English, so they decided to apply for temporary visas to come to the US, and after two years of waiting, they got him.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was beyond miserable. At that time I was already dating my first hospital. His name is David, so we were very close and being far away was obviously not a good arrangement. On top of that, what I worried most is that for ten years I was practicing and speaking English, and language is very easily forgotten, and I barely speak Chinese let alone English because my boss does not like to talk to me. He is a man with few words. He smoked most of a time, and that's my life for a year.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They assign me to a northern city very cold, not even a city or suburb. My job for the whole year is going to be watching a warehouse for minerals that are going to be for export. So I have a clipboard. I have two highlights of a day when the truck comes to pick up one load I put a check, and then it came again in the afternoon I check that will be the day for me for a whole year.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a pretty charmed life, especially compared to other Chinese kids. Mei was on the fast track to becoming a diplomat. But there was one problem. In the spring of nineteen eighty nine, Chinese students started to organize demonstrations calling for more reforms, what we now know as the Tiananmen Square protests. And after six weeks, the Chinese government cracked down. Now Meishi wasn't an activist at the time, but that didn't matter. The government decided that educated young people like her were a threat, so they were sent out of Beijing.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we learned Western culture, American studies, renaissance art, all in English. And I knew more about Smithsonian and the locations of each art than many Americans. And this was the thing about learning a language. A language is really living it. I remember it was very funny that I was watching Godfather at 14, which has a lot of violence, a lot of sex, and a lot of murders. But we were enjoying it. We thought it was something that everyone in the United States do on every given day.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the 1970s, China was still a black box, closed off to much of the world, but eventually the government realized it needed better diplomats, people who spoke foreign languages well. So around the time may turn twelve, this is nineteen seventy nine, the government decided to open up some boarding schools to train that next generation of diplomats. And Mexi was one of the lucky few who got in.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When we grow up, there was absolutely nothing. Everyone wear the same thing, everyone would be eating the same food, everyone had the same small apartment. Life was very happy in the sense that you don't have to be jealous of each other. You don't have to be wanting things you could not have”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Registered for the New York Gift Show, which is the holy grail of trade shows. And we thought that this is going to be the ticket to our success, but we were wrong. It was a complete disaster.”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, one of my favorite parts of traveling is getting a feel for a neighborhood, the way locals do. A few summers ago, I was in Rome and stayed in an apartment I booked on Airbnb. It was tucked in a quiet neighborhood just outside the Roman forum. Every morning I'd walk to the corner cafe, grab an espresso, and just watch the world go by outside. I even managed to chat with the owner about the neighborhood he lived in for nearly forty years. And he got me thinking about my own neighborhood. There are incredible hiking trails and great restaurants and, of course, the beach. And when I'm traveling this summer, listing my own place on Airbnb could be a really smart way to let someone else experience the area the way I do, like a local. Listing your home on Airbnb while you're traveling is a great way to make some extra money. You could put the money toward your next trip. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much”
2019-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu (2017) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT