Navigating Home, Abroad, and Everything In Between

Join me for my conversation with Mai where we discuss creating new communities abroad from scratch, navigating travelling back home, and how to combine it all. Among other smaller ones, these are my biggest insights from our conversation together: - It’s important to create a home within you, that way you can take it with you wherever you are. - We have a relationship with each country like we would have with a human. A countryship! - How you feel about the country you’re in and how you feel about yourself in the country you’re in, are not always the same. Act accordingly. 0:00 - Introduction 4:40 - Navigating Travelling Between Countries 11:00 - Time Back Home & Family Expectations 20:00 - Building New Community Abroad & Adjusting to New Culture 42:00 - How Do You Decide Where to Move & Recognise If a Place Is Working for You 58:00 - Life Lesson & Life Challenge About Mai: Former classical pianist of 18 years and jazz radio host, Mai went on to earn her Master of Arts in Global Entertainment and Music Business from Berklee College of Music. Her career spans global roles across companies such as BeatStars, Nvak Collective, Bleav Podcast Network, Giant Noise PR, Bauer Entertainment Marketing, ONErpm APAC, SoAlive Music Conference, Vietnam Music Week, and more. She also spent two years at LIONS SHARE as a podcast producer prior to its acquisition by Jaded, and worked as Production Assistant for Friends:Forever Showcase at SXSW 2024. She now works between Asia and Europe, serving as Promoter (Intl.) for HOZO Fest in Vietnam, Editorial Assistant for Hypebeast, while in Spain, she handles International Partnerships for Kpopverse España, a community that organizes Korean culture events and sells official merchandise/albums from Kpop groups, and is a Booking Agent for Monochromo.live focusing on bringing Asian diasporic acts to Spain, Portugal and wider Europe.