 Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome to a nation of immigrants. You can go to Japan, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to China, but you cannot become Chinese. You can go to Russia, but you cannot become Russian. But anyone from any corner of the earth can come to the United States and become an American. A nation of immigrants is a bi-weekly talk show featuring the life, achievement, diversity, and inclusion of some renowned immigrants. We invite first, second, or third-generation immigrants to come to the show to share their life stories and the insights. Today we have the honor to invite Greg Hu. Greg Hu is the CEO and publisher of China Insight, the only exclusive English-language newspaper dedicated to promote cultural understanding between the United States and China. Greg grew up in Chicago and in 1991 started, in 2001, started China Insight, the newspaper. A few weeks ago, he just received Asian-Pacific Leadership Award for his outstanding contribution to Asian-Pacific affairs. It is our great honor and a pleasure to have Greg to be on the show. Welcome, Greg. Thank you for having me, Chen. Thank you, Greg. Your life story is very inspiring and you grew up in Chicago, one of my favorite cities in the world, and you settled in Minnesota. And I believe you have a very large family. Could you please tell us about your family background and how your ancestors moved to the United States and how you settled in Minnesota? Okay. First of all, I want to clarify, not only was I born in Chicago, I was born in actually Chicago's Chinatown, which is one of the few Chinatowns right now that is growing versus other cities like New York and San Francisco and Boston and Washington, D.C. We have what I view as a very vibrant Chinese community and I was transferred here back in 1969 and back then I wasn't sure whether or not I was comfortable leaving the confines of Chicago's Chinatown. But I guess I can give you some background. I do come from a very large family. I'm number eight of 12 children. And what's very unusual with that too, that was with one mother, whereas a lot of men had more than one wife because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, then they came here and weren't able to go back and bring their family. So usually socially they married again here in the United States. My dad probably, I finally found some documents immigrated here through Seattle and back in 1910 and tried to establish himself and make some money and then went back sometime in, I think it is in 1916 and then brought my mother over. Now what's very unusual about that too is because of the Exclusion Act and what have you, Chinese is one of the most difficult cultures to immigrate to the United States and there were a lot of restrictions and they were really put through the third degree as far as interviews and the immigration office also established Angel Island, which is off the coast of California, which was very unique and I don't think it's ever been done for any other ethnic group. So my dad was able to get here because he was a merchant so to speak. Because again, because of the Exclusion Act it was very difficult for peasants or lower class people to immigrate and most of the immigration that took place in the early 1860s and what have you were working on rate rules and actually became restaurant tours and laundry men to service the public because they couldn't get jobs. So I actually moved to Minnesota in 1969. I was hired by a very large rep mail company and my background was in advertising and sales promotion, which was very unique because when I decided to go to college, I kind of disappointed my dad because everybody assumes your Chinese are good mathematicians and scientists and physicians and what have you, but I was an average student and cookbook history and political science which actually brought in my experience in a lot of different areas. So even though I grew up in Chicago and I took typical jobs working in restaurants and waiters and bus boys, I broke out of that by going to college and it was actually very unique that one of my classmates was a young Irishman at Welch and he was fascinated with Chinese and he would always send me down someplace and ask me to speak and say something and then the main language obviously was Cantonese. Mandarin hadn't broken through until after Nixon it really hit and opened up China. So he would follow me around and I did take some Chinese school but I didn't reluctantly to satisfy my parents, but was not really a good student. So I moved up here in the 90s and there were hardly any Chinese in the Twin Cities back in 1969 and the Chinese food was a lot to be desired but we persevered and have settled down. One of the and I pretty quickly determined that I wasn't a candidate for corporate America so I managed to go into business for myself. I was a rep and I started a real estate company. I became a broker and as a matter of fact the name of my company that was located in Minnetaka was called Earth Good Earth Realty after the Pearl Buck movie because it was earth and land and all this other stuff and when I did that I actually found two Chinese guys approached me. One was a restaurant tour and another one was in real estate and they said hey we'd like to have you start a real estate company for us. So I did that in actually 1979 and granted for about 25 years was a broker and except but we naturally had a tremendous recession during that period after 1979 and that was pretty tough. While I was doing that I broke out of my shell and discovered my Chinese-ness more than I had previously and that was simultaneously with the immersion of China with the visits by Nixon and what have you. So while I was doing the real estate and that was about the only few my partners and then I did meet some other restaurant tours like Jackie and Lian Chen and Rice Bowl was another restaurant that was very popular. So my wife and I also socially started a tradition of hosting a Chinese New Year dinner where I would put together a menu and wine and you know I would reserve a rest. I started with maybe 20 or 30 people but when we decided it was enough we were up to over 200 people and this day some of my friends would ask us when are you going to have another Chinese New Year dinner and what have you. May I quickly interrupt to Greg and I was very curious because you talked about Cantonese and Mandarin. What language you spoke at home when you grew up. It was what we would call Ijian Cantonese Kui San. Because your family, your last name is Q, that's a Q that is in Guangdong province isn't it. Right and twice they're all around there because the early immigrants came from what was then Canton. And you're born in Chinatown and you have a very large Chinese American family. Well you have this very clear identity when you grew up that you were a Chinese American and you have a very so it appears that to me and you have this Chinese New Year party you're fond of Chinese food you are you I think you were very clearly aware you are you have you have a very strong and long cultural tradition and unlike the the teenagers, teenagers Chinese American these years they don't they don't feel that a strong connection to the cultural tradition. Right I think as a tribute to the fact that I spent a lot of my youth in Chinatown and was exposed and not to reflect on today's generations there was more of a cultural understanding, work ethic and respect that that was just hidden to us that that's the way we had to behave. Yeah but but Chinatown is still different from China. When was your love for to visit to China and when was your love to visit to China? Well let's see I made I believe three trips to China pretty much the first one was typically as a tourist because I didn't know anything about it and then another time we went then and did more sightseeing and and went went to Hong Kong and the land top island and the monastery and the most recent trip that I really enjoyed the most was 2019 I was able to get included on a official city delegation to the sister city Harbin and Minneapolis and my wife and I went there during their ice festival which was I mean St. Paul has a ice festival this is about 20 times as extravagant as what we saw and people were really nice and accommodating so that that was really a eye-opening experience and we would like to go back there again in the summertime and because they have a huge music festival so that that would be something that we would look to take advantage of now so that pretty much with family in fact there's a still seven seven siblings living and and we're going to get together shortly and have a reunion mm-hmm a lot of things that I I attribute to when getting involved with China Insight as a newspaper I was approached by a couple of the founders early on and they were looking for investors and their business model originally was to create a newsletter that would appeal to business people that want to do business in China and I thought you know everybody wants to be a China expert you know 25 years ago and nobody's ever going to be I think federal motors and electronics they're all trying to figure out how to do business in China so I I decided to try to serve the community in a more constructive way by being a bridge and promoting understanding between the US and China and right now too I think it's a really a challenge because very previous administrations maybe you know always tries to pick on the big guy and don't have our acts together so I I want to try to provide pro and con approaches to what makes sense because there are big differences between the US and China relationships but that's a tall order and I think we got to keep open mind and that's what I tried to do with China Insight you know trying to promote the culture right now there's a big project going on trying to get a China garden going in St. Paul which is a sister city with Chang Shao and I think that promotes better understanding so if you were a military guy the best thing to do is you really you got to study your you got to know your enemy and deal with them and compromise so I'm seeking to try to establish that but also I feel the Chinese and the Pacific communities need to work more together you know to become a more mainstream and work together solve some of these problems so you know that that's kind of my goal right now thank you very much that's exactly the question I wanted to ask you and congratulations again for you outstanding achievement award on the Asian Pacific leadership award and it was very good to see you the governor and the US senator and so many 600 people showed up at your award ceremony congratulations thank you thank you and yes thank you and obviously the your contribution to the community is so vital and the Chinese Insights for so many years remains the only English language newspaper about China affairs and so they are because immigrants particularly the first generation immigrants they tend to love in their own silos they love in their you know little world they speak their mother tongue they never get out and have a very isolated from the the larger community and but your your uh provided this platform China Insights to build the connections between Chinese community and other Asian Pacific Minxotian community as well as United States and China so I truly admire your contribution and you brought up that you want to be China to be more visible now the question I have for you is and what you see the future and for Asian Chinese Americans and or Asian Americans at large in the American society was that how different that will be from 1960s and to maybe the next 20 or 30 years boy if I had the the answer to that I would I'd be someplace drinking peanut coladas and what have you I think there's a lot of factors that are going to have to change I mean we we could talk about threats of devaluation of the dollar and and whether or not you want will become international currency I felt early on when they're prepared to be an envy of China becoming such an economic powerhouse that they were in the queues of making cheap goods but we went through that in a couple of cycles way back when I was growing up in Japan was making up all the cheap toys and everything and then it went to Mexico and and to Vietnam and as far as most people if they understand you know China wasn't making cheap goods because they wanted to it's because Americans or the consumers wanted the best product they can as cheaply as they can and depending on the transition now that China is is drifting more towards more high quality products they are already shifting to other continents for cheap labor so you know China can shoot itself in the foot because they could be a victim of their own success and and some of the other things that people gotta be careful about accusations about human rights activity and how bad are they and and is the does the end justify the means so it gets into a lot of moral and and philosophical things that we would have to see I think you know this is a big universe I think there is opportunity for major powers to coexist and whether or not there would be concern that China would be dragged into a war with Taiwan and the US is stuck with a commitment that maybe have been made we have to be careful about how that is going to transpire so one of the concerns I have and encourage is for Chinese and Asian communities to get involved in politics and get into the grass roots level and not wait until it's too late because once once they start sending missiles it's it's all over you know I cannot agree with you more I appreciate your optimism you know it's overall you're very optimistic now I'm a much more pessimistic guy you know I do I feel that you know the subtitle of our show today is being harmony yet different you'll be different that's from Confucius that means that we are in this together but still have a distinct cultural identity but the the problem I see that your generation in my generation we still have this quite we speak the language we read the literature we watch the movie we eat the food but for younger generation I'm not entirely sure you know these you have a cultural connection or mentally or physically with another culture so anyway we are have a few minutes left but I do want to ask you this very important question we ask all our distinguished guest and you are a little bit older than me and but I was wondering that if you time travel permitted you were able to travel back to your 20s and meet yourself in your 20s what advice you want to give you your younger me and with all the knowledge and experience you have today yeah you know one thing I I I attribute a lot of things to and and advise you know my children my grandkids and what have you is get involved you're going to make mistakes but you don't want to have any regrets that you could have you should have be aware of what's going on ask questions and get facts and act on that I mean you know in my business career and and socially you know you only learn by mistakes you know because anybody that doesn't admit to having made any mistakes I don't have much confidence in in anything else they're going to tell me so get involved participate in whatever makes you comfortable whether it be social political philanthropy the Chinese are starting to gear up a little bit more in the area of gifting and and you know to help other organizations achieve different things actually during the award ceremony the big thing was the COVID response what the community the Asian community did from all the fundraising and and even the business people the Chinese chambers so I got involved with that a little less serving for each other should be taken down and I think community should be how is it going to affect our community and our life and our kids needs to be put in the forefront rather than be the tendency for a lot of individuals that are trying to better themselves to self-serving so that that's that's one of the biggest things I would like to see change within some of the Asian communities thank you very much Greg good advice and good comments thank you for your time Greg is our great pleasure to interview you and to be on our show and today we have Greg you CEO and publisher of China Insight recipient of Asian Pacific Leadership Award for his outstanding contribution to Asian American affairs thank you again Greg to be on the show and I look forward to you radio next issue of China Insight and I wish you a very happy week and look forward to reconnect thank you for those kind words good luck bye thank you thank you aloha thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii.com Mahalo