Goodbye Studio, Goodbye California.
Life on the road - Part 1
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update from the studio. That’s partly because the studio is no more. At least… not in its full original form.
A few weeks ago, we packed away all the microphones and instruments, I took down the acoustic treatment, and we split our belongings into three piles.
Let go
Luggage
Ship
Yes, ship.
We gave our acoustic panels to a very talented friend. He’s also keeping our baby grand while we continue to search for a buyer. We sold several keyboards, guitars and other instruments; all the studio monitors; a whole bunch of mic stands and cables; our desks. The idea was to keep only irreplaceable items such as the oak shelf in the picture below, which my husband made for me, the pictures, and a few studio essentials that we use a lot.
So many fond memories resurfaced as I took down the panels I had been so excited to put up a few years ago, converting the studio back into a plain bedroom. I delivered my first commissioned song in this studio. I produced and mixed many more (Spotify | Apple), including the one that brought us our biggest license to date, and my husband’s three-movement Suite for Strings here. I started the podcast in this studio. I made a lot of TikToks there. I spent over a year at that desk by the window, poring over academic literature for the Queering Premodern Asia series. My husband calls it my bat-girl cave. Sometimes I’d spend days there, only emerging to feed before disappearing back into the creative zone.
As I type this, our few remaining belongings are sitting in an 8x8x4 lift van at the port in Long Beach, CA, where they will eventually be loaded into a container and onto a ship. We are leaving the U.S.
The 6 month countdown.
Ever since I woke up on Nov 6, 2024 to a pacing husband who was alternating between swearing and exclaiming “we’ve got to get out of here”, it has been a wild time. Suffice it to say - we decided right then and there that we were going to do it. We were going to leave the U.S. and go somewhere else by April 2025. We figured we had six months before sh*t really hit the fan.
This meant selling our house, our car, and most of our worldly possessions by then, all while also researching, applying and filling out paperwork for our next destination(s). We spent the next 6 months executing our plan, somehow managing to fit in medical appointments, family reunion trips to Malaysia, Taiwan, Las Vegas, Roseville, and a road trip to Death Valley.
If you know me, you know how methodical I am. My husband is thankfully also very organized so together we conjured up a well-oiled machine, dividing and conquering punch lists as we go. But a move like this is akin to solving a giant puzzle where the pieces keep changing shape every day. What fit yesterday doesn’t necessarily fit today. The plan is never the same for more than a few days in a row, if you’re lucky. The trick is to just go with the flow, and give yourself buffers whenever possible.
Most days, one of us would, at some point wonder, out loud:
“How the hell are we going to get all this done on time?”
But we kept chewing at it one day after another until we finally arrived to the 17th of April 2025. We were officially without an address, about to become full-time nomads for the foreseeable future. I still don’t know how we did it all but somehow it all added up just as we had planned it, both the good and the bad. The ugly too, unfortunately. As the months went by, we saw our predictions come true one by one, including the market plummeting.
I think I was too stressed to be sad about saying goodbye to our lovely home - the first I’ve ever owned. I loved that house, I loved our handmade furniture, I loved my plants, the studio, the pool, having a big kitchen. I thought I would be incredibly sad to let it go but I’m actually much more at peace with saying goodbye than I anticipated. I think maybe the secret to happiness is trusting the future enough to let go of the past. A house is just a thing. A home is anywhere we are. There will be a nice home in our future elsewhere.
After one more stay at the Omni Los Angeles in downtown, and one more dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant where we had our wedding party, we boarded a creaky Lufthansa plane headed to Frankfurt on April 21, 2025. I had been waiting for the moment I’d be sipping that airplane wine for months, and it was finally that time. It didn’t feel real. Had we really pulled it off?
For the first week after, I kept waiting for another shoe to drop, constantly on edge - sequelae of the final few weeks where everything almost fell apart so many times (more on that in future updates, maybe). As the jet lag subsides, so do the adrenaline and stress hormones. My body is starting to wind down again. I’m clenching my jaws less at night.
American Dream Aborted.
Ironically, on the day I landed in Frankfurt, an episode about my immigration to America was published by the podcast The American Dream in the Eyes of Immigrants. In the episode, I share with
that I had never actually thought about moving to the U.S. until a job offer I couldn’t refuse landed on my lap. The episode was recorded last summer but everything in it is still relevant. Listen to the end to find out how I define the American Dream and what message I have for fellow immigrants.While I am excited for the next chapter, I do have some mixed feelings about leaving people behind. Some want to move but can’t afford to, some kinda want to but aren’t ready to bite the bullet, some have roots in this land that run way deeper than I’ll ever comprehend, who would never dream of leaving. I have come to appreciate that many Americans are true patriots who want to fight the good fight and defend the American Dream. I am not one of them. I’m not one of the brave ones. This dream was never mine, so I hope you’ll forgive me for returning it.
I am thankful to everyone who has been a part of my journey in America. I will always cherish my time in California. Whether we made music together, wrote code, talked shop in maps, music business, podcasting, or shared meals and drinks, I’m grateful for these moments. Let’s do it again soon. We live in the internet age after all!
The portable studio in a suitcase.
We boarded the plane with one large suitcase, two carry-on suitcases and two backpacks, all stuffed enough to put the seams and stitchwork to the test.
My husband cannot live without at least a guitar, so we have a travel guitar and mini amp, as well as a small MIDI keyboard. I get nervous without a recording setup in case a brief comes by way, so I have brought an M-Audio 2x2 interface, a SM27 condenser mic and my Kaotica Eyeball. It wasn’t my mic of choice but it was the lightest and most practical one to take that could work for recording both songs and podcasts. We’re trying to travel as light as possible, after all. Plus, I do think the Kaotica Eyeball would help greatly with the acoustics, as opposed to using my usual SM7B dynamic mic without acoustic treatment. Let me know if you’d like me to talk more about my setup in the future!
The plan.
I started writing this update on the plane from LAX to Frankfurt, and as I finish it, I am sipping tea in London. The plan changes almost every day. At the moment, the plan is to travel for a bit. I still can’t believe we’re here, and that it’s already May! We said “let’s never move ever again” after we bought our house in 2020. When I bring that up, my husband jokes:
“As Justin Bieber says, never say never!”
He does not know what Justin Bieber looks or sounds like. But somehow he knows this tidbit and it cracks me up.
When it comes to podcasting and music, I have my studio ready, wherever I am. I will get back behind the mic as soon as I make up my mind on what the next season will focus on, and whether it will go back to the interview format or continue the series format. If you have any opinions about that, feel free to comment or DM!
Thanks for reading.
PS: If you are also considering a move and would like to chat or need some encouragement, feel free to reach out.
Good luck on your next adventures! Thanks for bringing us along for the ride.
Thank you for sharing! And thank you for being a guest on my podcast. Whenever things settled, it would be interesting to have you back to share an update. I, too, was trying to convince my husband for us to move until things settled in the US. However, we are riding it out. I look forward to reading about your next adventures! :)