w/ my 2nd stranger Winnie 🌈📚🧵 immigrating from Hong Kong to SF as a teenager + asking: how to find empowerment in the face of depression? (007)

Co-Host: Winnie Storey @skinniwini | Host: Xinyi Xan @xinyixan Welcome back to episode 7 of Don't Be Strangers, a podcast and social experiment for learning to create meaningful connections together via collaborative conversations! My name's XinYi and every episode is co-hosted by a friend or stranger (or stranger-turns-friend). In this episode, I'm speaking with @skinniwinni of instagram, whom graciously volunteered to co-host this episode as my second ever stranger to come on. I adored this conversation with Winnie because we hit on so many really interesting topics as well as the way that our shared cultural Chinese background influences these experiences. As always, I try to give a little personal introduction as well as ask each guest to give an introduction so you can see two perspectives on the same person. After talking with Winnie for an hour, I'd describe her as a heroine for immigrating from Hong Kong to America at the cusp of entering 9th grade, which is an especially fragile time in anyone's life to make a transition — especially one as dramatic as her's. She's extremely thoughtful and astute, as observed through her open-ness to share her personal struggles with clinical depression and her resolve to heal her own trauma by dedicating herself to a life of self-studying psychology. But the conversation is definitely not all serious, gloom, and doom. Winnie shares her pro-tips for how to refine your search when deciding on a new city to move to (hint: it has something to do with H-mart's, a Korean supermarket chain), we talk about my favorite book The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton, and her obsession with colors and rainbows, all sprinkled with generous amounts of laughter and serotonin. I will place a trigger warning here, as advised by my friend Hajar. There is no explicit mention of suicide, but I do share some negative self-talk that I mull over whenever I personally dip into a depressive funk. But as always, I'll have timestamps in my shownotes if you want to jump around and listen to the gem's of her immigration story or our discussion of the topic of strangers... [Full Index & Timestamps - Click Here] And I love that Winnie emphasized this idea of self acceptance throughout her story. It's something that I'm always working on. In fact, just this past week, I've been dealing with a lot of stress which was starting to burn me out. And as I mentioned in the conversation, whenever I start feeling tired, it's inevitable that I also begin to feel sad. But I somehow managed to kick my butt into doing something to distract myself, and what I ended up doing was editing this podcast. Re-living this conversation was just the prescription I needed to uplift myself. So Winnie, if you're listening to this, thank you sincerely again for being as vulnerable as you were with someone whom you had just met as we were recording live. Your story is truly an inspiration, and I will be referring back to it, every time I feel down. As a general life update, Winnie has indeed officially moved to Texas!! I'm so excited for her! And I'm actually flying out to Mexico in under a week. I am so nervous.... As always, feedback, comments, and discussions always welcomed in this community. Free to shoot a dm or leave a public comment and start a thread @dontbestrangers on instagram! As anyone of any background can apply to come on to co-host an ep, this is my invitation to you to consider applying! Or if you know anyone who appreciates deep conversations or loves making friends, you should totally consider introducing us!