You're tuned in to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly today with Nioh Honglin and Yushan for now.
Coming up, 2025 has come and gone and it's time for all of us to say goodbye.
And when I say all of us, I do mean all of us.
We'll welcome some more people into the studio for a special year and final happy place slash.
Motivational mon Nope, not Monday.
Let's call it one day.
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And now.
And here we are.
The final hours of the final day of the year.
And as we prepare to say goodbye to 2025, we're also closing out the very last roundtable segment of the year.
And rather than prepare another story for you, we wanted to do something more personal.
So we've pulled some extra chairs up to the table and welcomed a few more special guests into the studio to help us send this year off in style today.
Welcome to all, almost all, of our roundtable team.
Who's saying hi?
Who's all here?
Step up to the microphone and say your name, please.
Hello, everybody.
This is Yushun.
Hello, this is Limey.
Hello, I'm Feifei.
This is Neil Holins.
And I'm Stephen Yushan.
And I'm Stephen Yushan's here, too.
Well, we're going to get to everybody's messages in a little while, but this is what we're doing here today.
Roundtable has some slight changes coming up in 2026.
Exciting.
Nothing drastic, nothing to worry about.
But we will be introducing some new segments and saying goodbye to some old ones.
Let me rephrase.
Saying goodbye to some old...
Old ones.
So we thought today we should give them a proper goodbye.
Here's one of the segments we will be saying goodbye to.
Motivation.
That's been with Roundtable for a very, very long time, but it's not the only one.
We'll say goodbye to next year.
Here's the other one.
Delivery.
Delivery.
Delivery.
What is it?
Happiness from Roundtable.
No more Motivational Monday, no more Happy Place coming up in the following year.
So today we're going to do a combination of the two, something that I like to call...
Momo Motivational Happy Plays.
I like that.
I made the two promos and two swippers.
I was the post-production editor.
And for those of you who didn't recognize, the Happy Plays from Roundtable is from me.
We did something with it.
Because when we designed those segments, we were thinking about making sure that you're motivated on Mondays and making sure that you have a little inspiration to wrap up your week on a happy note.
But it's not saying that we're not going to do that.
We can still find different occasions to share our personal insights.
But it's time to welcome some new segments.
Yeah, and we're not going to give away what those segments are just yet.
You'll have to wait until... next year to find out what those are.
Because today we just kind of wanted to focus on a final motivational and happy place style of segment.
So here's what we're going to do.
I would just like to hear from you perhaps, what 2025 has meant to you.
Slash if there's anything motivating you'd like to share about, perhaps your own life, or anything you'd like to say to our listening audience.
Slash any happy moments that you've had in the previous 12 months.
Can I begin?
Please do.
This is Lai Ming here.
My quote for the year can be deciphered in two parts, but it's all related.
Number one is, not everything is for show.
Not everything is a show.
Not everything is a show, in the sense that oftentimes when we go on the show we come with a consensus that everything on the show stays on the show.
We can agree to disagree.
We can even pretend to disagree with each other.
We can argue against each other, but everything stays the same. on the show.
Outside of the show, we are a strong team.
We love each other.
We communicate.
We hang out.
So that's one thing.
But outside of the show sometimes I've reached, I've done so much outside of the show I realized that not everybody, or not every topic, is well ready to argue with you.
Maybe they'll hold a grudge.
Maybe you have to be considerate, circumvent.
You can't afford to think that, oh, this is a show.
We all come here to agree to disagree.
Okay, that's one thing.
And the other thing is not everything is for show.
Sometimes you feel like you have so much in your life, you have so much work in your life, some of the jobs you have to rush through and you feel like you're only down 60 or you only get 70 points in the end result.
You feel like you're only doing this for show.
But at the end of the day, you have to have something that you do not for show but for yourself, but for the sake of doing it.
So going forward in 2026, I hope I get to remember not everything is for show.
Oh, that's really well said and well thought out too.
I feel like that was a happy note.
Yeah.
All right.
Thanks for that, Lai Ming.
Who's next?
Well, this is Fei Fei, actually.
I have something that I think a bit of a realization, after you know, this year talking to a lot of scientists both here in China and also elsewhere in the world,
And one thing keeps coming back to me is that a lot of these scientists, they're deeply, deeply romantic.
And even when like others, yeah, they're romantic.
They are, surprisingly.
And because when others are questioning them whether this vision is too distant or unrealistic, they just keep going and they bring into reality what we thought was only possible in movies.
And so they're both really bold, really fearless, and never afraid of step outside of their box, in a way.
And they keep asking questions and they imagine a world that many of us don't yet dare to imagine.
And I think that's also a thought I would encourage myself and also everyone else in the studio and possibly our audience.
To take that thought also into 2026 is just be bold, be fearless, be romantic.
And just try to imagine out of your box and believe that things can happen.
Things like we can control our homes with our voices one day.
Or you want to go to an island in the middle of the ocean.
That's also possible that one day you may actually step foot on that island.
That's something possible. that I think would deeply resonate with a lot of people.
I like that, yeah.
See the world through a romantic set of eyes.
Not necessarily romance in the human-to-human love type of way, but in the poetically romantic type of way.
You might see it from a different perspective.
That's cool, Fei-Fei.
Thanks for that.
Yuxin's here.
How are you doing?
Yeah, I'm the next one.
Since we looked back at a whole year of amazing tech achievements right, and the words of the year, the music of the year.
That is a great thing.
Announcement and i and also we're like saying goodbye to the two segments happy place and motivational monday.
I actually am the you know, emotional one of seeing this, but i realized that um, no matter how great 2025 or the past could be the, the 2026 or the future will just start at zero because we will have new updates, new challenges and we should have that kind of reset mindset.
It's about gently putting down your yesterday's wings and applause, just like how much we and our listeners love these two segments.
But resetting doesn't mean forgetting how far you've come.
It means, you know, making space, making space for new ideas, for new growth and also new possibilities, maybe.
So my thought is just empty your hands so you're ready to pick up what's next.
And that could be just so good and bright.
Nice.
Clean slate, so to speak.
Like an artist with an empty canvas.
Yeah.
And then they're just the whole field that you can create.
I love that.
And for me this year, I've been thinking for a while actually, what did this year actually teach me?
And I am Yuzhan, just in case you can't recognize my voice.
And if I have to boil it down to one single takeaway, that would be listen to your inner voice and take control of your own path, no matter how loud the outside noise can get.
And just like how we play the Noja 2 theme song just now.
There's one line that I really echo with.
That is I will gather my wounds and tears into strength, turn them into a clenched fist and, in an instant, punch through the endless night so that every unyielding life can write its own poem of freedom.
So that's something not only about rebellion or heroism, but also agency.
We have that agency for ourselves and we need to stop caging our own thoughts and ideas And just let go of that spirit of yourself into all kinds of adventures you can imagine for yourself.
That's something I'm training myself this year and I'm going to keep on trying to preach on that idea in the coming year as well.
Free yourself from the prism of your mind.
Exactly. that is lovely it is what about you nyonglin well i was combining my happy place and motivational quotes something that made me happy throughout the years that i get to go to different places because thanks to my business trips and i realized i really really enjoying doing the shows and Taking the entire team, go to different places and do on the ground interview and everything.
And this is the time when people started to make New Year's resolution, thinking about oh, what should I be achieving for the coming year?
What should I put on the schedule of some of my goals?
And to all of you doing that right now.
You've written down all of your goals.
No, I want to say.
The question is not what do I want this year, but what do I want to still be doing in five?
Because often people would overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years.
So find out what you really love and continue doing it.
Beautifully said by all of you, as a matter of fact.
Well, there you go.
We've reached the end of the road for 2025.
And before we sign off for the year, we need to express our gratitude as a show that has been building all season.
The fact that you invite our voices into your commute or your kitchen or your headphones from so many different places around the world is not lost on us.
And we love you for loving Roundtable.
And that'll do it for the show for this year.
For Niu Honglin and Lai Ming and Fei Fei and Yushan and Yushin, I'm Steve.
Have a great night.
We'll see you again in 2026.
