Ted Audio Collective Hi everyone, it's Mona Chalibi.
I'm a data journalist and I was the host of season 1 of Am I normal?
And today I have someone else here with me.
Hey y'all, I'm Salim Rationwala, host of the podcast, more than a feeling, and Ted's very own far-flug.
I'm a big fan of Am I normal?
And I'm here because I have a pitch for this special season of the show if you're down to here at Voda.
I am always down to here at pitch.
Okay, so in season 1, you got into all these ways that data can be biased or overly simplified or misunderstood.
And a lot of times that data is about real people.
So my idea is to try something different for a few episodes.
What if we start with one interesting data point, find someone who fits that data, and then just zoom in on that one person's lived experience?
Try to get into that complexity that data can't show what it's all.
That sounds really, really exciting to me.
I can actually work on a book at the moment.
And the format of the book is actually really in-depth interviews with just one person who may or may not be representative of like a specific trend that's going on.
And the reason why that approach is really exciting to me is because as we found so often in season 1, and as I've seen over and over again in my career, data is fantastic at explaining the what?
Like, who is affected by this thing?
How has it changed over time?
How does it vary by geography?
But it often comes up short at explaining the why.
And I think that getting to know a person in all of their kind of messy complexities can get you to a different place of understanding with those kind of more cold clinical numbers.
And you can't really understand the world with just one side of that equation.
Oh, I love this is something that's fitted with work.
You're already doing. But wait, let me shoehorn it in on compliment as well, seeing as you did it.
Oh, I always do want to say that.
I love listening to farflung.
And I really think you're the person to go forward and do this special season because I love how much you drilled down in your conversations with people about the why.
And the other thing that was so great about the podcast was kind of dissecting this idea of otherness.
And what my first thing really, really far away actually being a little bit closer to home than you might think.
It's almost like a mashup of the two shows we're kind of getting to make a stat driven micro farflung episode at the same time.
Yeah, it's the middle of the vent diagrams, Salim.
I love being in the middle of a vet diagram.
So let's talk about this first episode.
Is there anything you've been interested in lately?
Any topics that are on your mind related to data?
Well, actually, there is.
So I've been thinking about this idea of living with your parents as an adult.
Is something that we know increased dramatically since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the US, the number of young adults who are living with their parents is higher than it has been at any times.
It's the great depression.
So now half of everyone aged 18 to 29 is living with a parent.
It's funny because I feel like there can be a stigma attached to that to moving back home in the US.
Maybe like, oh, you weren't able to make it on your own or some idea like that doesn't seem to necessarily exist everywhere else in the world.
I've got cousins who live at home in India and that was totally the plan from the beginning.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
I feel like I also have cousins for whom living with your parents is completely standard and expected.
And so what's it like in the rest of the world?
How are other cultures positioned in this stat of living at home or not when you're a young adult?
What I can tell you is the numbers themselves do change from place to place.
So one of the stats that really kind of stuck out to me was from a survey that was done in 2013 with three quarters of respondents aged 18 to 35 in Hong Kong said that they lived with a parent.
And that is obviously way higher than it is in the US.
And I guess I'm kind of interested in that interplay between culture and data, right?
So just having a higher prevalence of something mean that it's less stigmatized because there are way more people that can relate to that experience.
Or does it mean that it's even more stigmatized because it's viewed as like this national crisis of, oh my god, there are so many young people living with their parents.
We have to do something about this.
Yeah, that interplay of culture data, it's such a succinct statement of what I want to get into with this.
And I'm also just curious about what living with your parents really looks like.
What's that experience beyond whatever stereotype people might have of it?
So I will do my best with the squad, about one person in that data set and learn about them.
I'm excited. I'm Salim, Ressha Mwala, and from the TED Audio Collective, this is a special season of M.I.
Normal. So I do have my own room.
That's my little space.
But then we share the same living room.
So usually, evening time, all three of us will be gathering in this space.
This is Ives Lung. Ives, by the way, is a nickname.
She's 28. She's a teacher in Hong Kong.
And she's basically always lived with her parents.
But she did spend a few years abroad.
Yeah, yeah. It wasn't that long.
But it's enough to experience, you know, taking care of things on your own.
She's back living with her parents now.
And I wanted to know what kind of rhythm she and her parents have settled into at home.
I think my day would be, you know, waking up.
I had my own breakfast and then I rushed to work.
And then my entire time would be at work.
But then coming back, that's when your second part of your day starts.
Normally, if I don't have anything to do at night, I'll just sit there and talk.
And I spent probably two hours and dinner.
It's too long, I know. But then I just enjoy just sitting there, just chatting with them, just watching television.
And that's, you know, my day.
But then we can't as more complicated because you don't have two days for your weekend.
But then your parents are expecting you to, you know, help them fix something that you don't have time during the week.
But then of course, we can also want to spend day with my partner and my friends.
So usually now, Saturday, it's for me to go out where Sunday I, you know, stay at home to help them.
How does so many people living with their parents?
How does it affect romance and dating and how do you even start that conversation?
I think so. We've been reading different posts on social media, but also, you know, different reports about how romance can actually happen, you know, inside a house.
I think quite a lot of people actually live with their parents even after marriage because they really cannot afford the flat.
So they will share one room.
But then in the next room, it will be, you know, parents.
Obviously, it's going to be embarrassing.
So some couples that I read from the post, they actually have this, you know, capsule thing.
Like a host of us just, you know, inside a capsule where you rent for a few hours, you know, do whatever you want.
And this is the space that the couples want.
My partner has his own space.
So it's so much easier. It's more comfortable.
For two of you to just chat, have time, you know, just to get together, other couples would just be sitting in the park, just to chat after dinner.
And how does living with your parents mean that your partner meets your parents sooner than they might otherwise?
Or is it usually just kind of a separate thing?
Separate thing, separate thing.
To my family, meeting the parents is kind of like the last step before you enter marriage.
It's not like casual dinner.
Oh, hi, I'm cold. It's not like that.
Okay, it's very official.
It's a very formal setting.
But some friends I know they are more, you know, chill.
So it really depends. Yeah, that's really funny.
I feel like I can't speak for the entire community, but what are the communities I'm part of is a largely busily Indian community.
And there's a lot of joking about how like, you know, other folks might meet parents very soon, but meeting parents very quickly after dating would seem really, really intense.
Yes, exactly. We were intrigued by Eve's mention of capsule hotels.
So we did some reading. Instead of full-sized rooms, these hotels rent out bed-sized pods.
Couples can rent a two-person pod for a bit of a loan time.
Hong Kong also has so-called love hotels, verant by the hour, that are pretty popular among couples, which makes sense if you don't really have your own space at home, you're gonna look for it somewhere else.
So much of what Eve's is talking about comes back to this idea of privacy.
It might be a physical kind of privacy, like checking into a capsule for a few hours, or it might be setting up boundaries in terms of personal time, which is something that affects Eve's relationship with her parents.
I'm curious how has your relationship with your parents changed over the years as you've lived with them as a child, but then also as an adult?
You know, we came across a survey on parents and adult kids in Hong Kong who were living together about half of them said they argue at least once a week.
Is that number about right for you?
I don't count it. Do they count it?
That's an excellent follow-up question.
Kelly on the refrigerator.
For me, so first of all, I don't count, but then of course there are conflicts, but I think the biggest contrast is when I move back from the states.
The shock is bigger. As in you spend those two years just completely on your own compared to here, and then we don't fight for things like whether you have the television tonight or not.
But to me, it's really more about a little time when should you be coming back home or whether you go out too often?
That's why I don't count because if I have to count, I don't know if I should define this as one telling.
Do you remember maybe your favorite moment after you moved back home?
Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of them, but I think living with my parents, I have this completely cut off time from work.
Because when I was living on my own, when I was doing my dishes, I kept thinking about work, okay.
What's the plan for tomorrow?
For tomorrow's meeting?
And there are a lot of issues that you've been thinking really hard even on community.
But then it's just like magic, pols suddenly.
You sit down for dinner and then my mom keeps talking.
And then suddenly after two hours you feel like, oh, it wasn't that bad.
So it gives you a fresh start to the next day, but also to the problem.
It's also family warmth, I'll say.
That someone really genuinely cares for you, ask how you are doing.
I mean, even for close friends, you call each other, I think, once a week.
But then to the people that you're living with, you see them every day.
Of course you have the most comforts with them, but they are also people that you're closest to.
I love that positive that Eve's brought up.
Having a parent chat with you while you're doing the dishes.
Yeah, that might be a nice way to enforce some work-life balance.
I never thought about it that way before.
After the break, I ask Eve's about the stigma of living with your parents that exist in certain countries.
Stick around. When you came back to Hong Kong, did you think about moving out on your own?
I think I didn't really have a choice.
I will put it that way. So it just makes sense to live with them.
But I think this is a very cultured thing.
Because in Hong Kong, I can only represent Hong Kong.
It has always been very normal for especially girls to just live with your partner after you get married.
But then these, I think, these two years I've been having this thought of really going out just to have a space of my own.
And if you're living with your parents and oftentimes in my case, I will be coming home fixing this, fixing the light bulb, fixing the pipe.
And then it seems that your time has been gone and it's already 10 and you're off to bed.
So you don't really have that space and time just for yourself.
But of course, sometimes I also have this ambivalent attitude, whether I should really go on my own.
So my best hope is that, okay, for five days, I'll go living on my own.
We can't. I go back, stay with my parents.
So this, I do case. Everything you're bringing up is super fascinating to me because not too long ago I came back from a trip visiting my cousins in Mumbai, in India.
And a lot of them live with their parents, but it's almost in part of growing up in a way because now they help take care of their parents.
And that's almost like that's the most grown up thing they could do, you know.
So it's interesting. It's part of why we were interested in this subject is it's tricky to wrap my head around it because so much of it does seem so much around cultural norms as to whether moving out is something that makes you feel super independent or whether taking care of your family is a sign of being grown up.
Yeah, I agree. No, completely.
I agree. I think it's especially when when your parents are older.
So now that my parents are, I think in the 60s, 70s.
So there comes a lot of issues around health that oftentimes I have to bring them to the doctors for medical appointments because the nurses, they speak so fast.
I couldn't even catch up like me.
I couldn't even catch up.
So I feel sometimes it's really your presence there.
Because to me, I think one part of me has this very traditional Chinese family oriented value where I think your parents, it's not about how much money you give them, you know, or some attention, some text, what's that messages?
It's more than that. You know, I feel like in the US, it's pretty safe to say that there can be a stigma about moving home, right?
It's like a trope in movies like a guy who has to move home with his parents.
Why do you think there's a stigma around living with parents in certain cultures?
I think this is more an issue in the States, especially because, you know, people are expected to leave from after college.
And that's why this whole stigma or this contrast of you having to move back to your homeland, it makes people feel that you are, you failed at work.
You know, but then I honestly, I don't think.
I think this person, when he or she is really experiencing this so-called failure, of course, family, it's always the place that he should turn to.
And here in Hong Kong, I think this stigma is still there, it's just that it has become this reality that, of course, because it surprises to a high outside, so you live with your parents.
But then to me as a Chinese, I always feel that it's very weird to see people from the States only go back home during Thanksgiving, Christmas, like toys in a year.
I mean, even for me, if I'm not living with my parents, I'm sure I'm going to see them every weekend at least once.
Since you have this positive view, what advice would you have for someone who is about to move home?
And maybe it's not from a culture where it's super normalized and is trying to figure it out.
What tips or wisdom have you gained from going through it?
I mean, everyone is trying to figure out their lives.
So I think I'll rather give advice to people around him or her.
Not judge. I mean, this world, it's cruel enough, I would say.
So if your friend of him or her gives them support, like why are you judging them?
Of course, the stigma is there, it exists, but then it doesn't mean that you should reinforce this.
So I think honestly, for the person who decides to whether you know, coming back, living with their parents, I think no pressure.
Do whatever you want with your life, it's your life, it's not another life.
Is the person moving home in mature or kind of flexing their maturity by switching roles and taking care of their elders?
Are they losing their privacy or fixing their work-life balance?
Or some other interesting combination?
Without understanding the cultural and social context, I might just not understand what a number really means.
So that's something we're going to keep coming back to, that context.
Until then, like Eve said, the world is cruel enough.
Do what you want with your life, y'all.
M.I. Normal is part of the Ted Audio Collective.
This special series is hosted by me, Selim Reshamwalla.
This episode was produced by Daphne Chen and edited by Sarah Nyx.
Our team includes Joanne Deluna, Constanza Gallardo, Michelle Quint, Ben Ban Cheng, Roxanne Highlash, and Jimmy Gutierrez.
Jennifer Dub is our researcher and fact checker.
Original theme song by Sasami, Sarah Bruguer is our mix engineer.
And huge thanks, of course, to Mona Chalavi for bringing me all this data scavenger hunt.
