First Indonesia COVID-19 Case Makes Amazing Moves to Coming Out Stronger – with Ratri Anindyajati

Today’s show is a little less business and more about Covid. It’s an interesting story of Ratri and her family as the first COVID cases in Indonesia. Experiencing the nightmare of getting Covid as well as how society treated them. It was an amazing conversation, Ratri openly shared about what her family went through and she used that to transform herself and came out stronger. Let’s tune in.

√ Ratri’s VIP Page
√ Ratri’s Instagram Account
√ SCMP article of this story

Thank you Ratri. I appreciate you sharing your experiences. You are really brave, putting yourself out there and becoming a stronger person. I wish you the best in the future.

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[00:00:00] Episode 311 of the Global From Asia podcast. It’s an interesting story of the first COVID case in Indonesia and the way society treats that. Let’s do this. Welcome to the Global From Asia podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice.

[00:00:27] And now your host, Michael Michelini. Well I’m having a fabulous Tuesday morning. It is a Tuesday morning show 10:00 AM. Hong Kong time. We try to get these shows out every single week up to episode 311 for you listeners. Some people that don’t listen a lot often to the show, or like, you’re just like having this conversation with, with me.

[00:00:55] I don’t even know who you are. So somebody told me the other day, I don’t know. I just kind of picture myself with some of the regular listeners I know. And, uh, You know, in your earbuds. I really appreciate that. And I hope the others enjoy our little preview. You know, just been my, my son is rollerblading.

[00:01:15] Now can’t believe this. And watching him fall, like, but he’s pretty good. He falls. And he gets back up, but even have butt pads, knee pads, hand pads, elbow pads, it’s like everything. And I had an argument with my wife and her Chinese family. Cause I said, when I was your age, I used to have some used skates that I had to borrow and then I didn’t have anything and I would get cut and scraped and fall.

[00:01:42] And you know, that rash, you know, you fell on the pavement. It would like, kind of like, I don’t know, you know, you might know what I’m talking about. I think Miles needs that. But I am overvoted here in the Chinese family. So anyway, this week show is an interesting one. I read about this in the South China morning post, SCMP.

[00:02:04] And it was pretty cool. I could get through to Ratri and she shared pretty openly. It was an amazing conversation, pretty long one too. So I hope you enjoy, she’s really, you know, an amazing artist and we really had a good connection and the conversation. And her and her sister, mom and her family just went through what already would have been a nightmare going through being, going through COVID, but the whole experience of the family.

[00:02:32] But then it also, somehow names got leaked, social media attacks. It’s a, it’s insane. So she’s really brave to be out there publicly. And she has a pretty good new mission in life. And like I was saying on previous shows, you know, Let’s use this nightmare to, uh, transform ourselves our businesses, our personal lives and more.

[00:02:54] So we have a little treat for you a little bit less business, more about this Covid and experienced being one of the first ones in the family and social media attacks and more solicit let’s tune in. Then after I’ll give you all an update about my COVID, post-COVID last couple of months after quarantine here in China, I’ve given you some updates, but I’ll kind of catch you up if you’re interested in my little personal updates, but let’s tune in into the interview.

[00:03:20] Do you enjoy what’s going on here at the Global From Asia podcasts, and you want to contribute more and get more in the scenes, behind the scenes of me and some of the guests and others in the, in the community. GFAVIP.com is the place to do just that. We have regular private calls, forums, online courses, special deals, as well as anything we can give you first or a special dibs course to our events when they do restart, I would love to see you on the inside.

[00:03:50] Application only GFAVIP.com. All right. Thank you everybody. For choosing to listen to another Global From Asia podcast, this one is a special edition. I would say I’m really happy to make this connection with rotary and raspberry as an artist. And, I think I can feel like we’re also artists here at the global media show and she’s.

[00:04:12] went through quite a, quite a huge transition in her, in her life, as well as many, many people listening,myself included. And I had was lucky enough to run across your article in South China morning post about your, you know, your, your being one of the first cases in Indonesia with COVID and now you’re, you’re coming out of that and coming out with a new, kind of like a new person and a new, a new way of thinking.

[00:04:38] Right. It’s great to have you on retreat. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So, yeah, just go through your bio really quickly. You’re a producer and a cultural manager with history and working, performing arts, global arts festivals, and nonprofit cultural organizations. You’d like to lead, produce and engage in local international collaboration as well as multilateral exchange and cooperation for arts and cultural projects for sustaining significance.

[00:05:07] So that’s, that’s quite a bit of achievements you have there. So, would that cover it or do you want to add a little bit more about your background and what you do? Well, I, I dance a lot as I was little and I wanted to be a dancer, but then, we were living in Canada then in my early teenage life and thought that and then I could see like a path of being a dancer as a career, but then we moved back to Indonesia.

[00:05:41] And I learned that, here, and you know, naysayer, like it was, it’s still really difficult to, to live as a dancer professionally, but then I saw another side of, of the industry which is the management and the production side of it. And, that is really lacking that structure in Indonesia, in Indonesian performing arts scene.

[00:06:05] So then I decided that, that was, I was really interested in it, but also since I was little, because I was dancing a lot of, Indonesian traditional dancers, and I had the chance to perform many of our traditional dancers in Canada. And I saw the reaction of the Canadians and they were really appreciative of our culture.

[00:06:25] And since then, what’s in my mind was I wanted to promote and help the production and then the marketing of Indonesian arts and culture. And mainly the focus for me is through performing arts. And so just from, from, from that, having that dream as I was little. To be a cultural attache for Indonesia, I started working, at the Indonesian dance festival, which isn’t the only, the one and only international contemporary dance festival.

[00:06:57] And that’s how my career started as an arts manager. And now I become a producer and I produce a lot of work that has, how do you say like a social activism aspect to it? As part of the storytelling and I feel really happy when I can produce works and collaborating with people of different backgrounds, cultural and identity wise. And telling stories that would otherwise not be told or difficult to, to be told experiences of people coming from different backgrounds.

[00:07:35] And so, yeah, I’ve involved myself in different productions. I’m not really concerned now of the medium. So I’m into dance theater. I’m also a program manager of, the, you know, nation dance festival, but I also produce film. So what’s in it for me is not really the medium of the art, but the, but the, the story, what story is telling you. Which is, you know, I think storytelling is one of the most important things.

[00:08:06] In the modern world or anywhere, anytime in art or in business or in life. So it’s, it’s very important skill. So it’s really nice to get to know your Ratri. And of course, we’re diving into this, this traumatic story you went through recently. From what I read in the article, you know, you were one of the first, in Indonesia, right

[00:08:32] To be diagnosed or I dunno, tested for this, for the COVID. So how, how can you take us to that moment when it happened or what was feeling or. Yes, it was a really strange day. So it was March 2nd, 2020 and I had just returned to Indonesia for about two weeks. So my, my residency right now is actually in Vienna in Austria, and I came home to Jakarta for a holiday for a six week holiday to be with my family and friends.

[00:09:10] And then I actually started feeling unwell just three days after I landed in Jakarta. And I thought I was just catching a cold, like a flu, a normal flu and on top of it, that my jet lag was kicking in. So I felt extremely tired. I really just needed to get to bed that day, that afternoon and thinking that if I can take a few hours of nap, that I would wake up feeling fine again. But I woke up

[00:09:43] still not feeling fine. And I told my mother that day that I want to go to a doctor because in Vienna during the winter time in, since starting in December and January, I’ve caught the flu a few times and I didn’t want to risk catching another one in Jakarta while I’m on the short holiday. So we went to the doctor and I got myself checked.

[00:10:05] But at that time, I really only had like regular flu symptoms. So the doctor identified that I had throat, a slight throat inflammation. And then my, my body temperature was only about 37 degrees point something. So it wasn’t a major fever. But he gave me some medicines and just told me to take it and then to rest at home, which was what I did.

[00:10:34] But for the next five days, I was feeling constantly just weak and tired that I knew my head was telling me that I needed to, to rest in bed for a few days, which is what I did. And, and what I felt was I couldn’t really taste the food I was eating. So my body was just functioning, like, okay, I need to eat now three times a day, but I couldn’t really taste the food.

[00:11:02] And my body temperature was going, up and down between 36 to 37.5 degree Celsius maximum. So which, which is really nothing. In the, on the other hand, my sister started developing really bad, like some more severe symptoms. So she was coughing so much, she had really, really high fever and her body was like shivering a lot.

[00:11:34] And she also had diarrhea. So me and her, we went to a hospital finally together to get ourselves tested. We both got our, our blood tested as well, and both came out that we had some virus, virus infection. Viral infection in our blood, but nobody identified this as anything. So we came home and my doctor told me you’ll be fine.

[00:12:02] You’ve had the fever now for four or five days, take these medicines. And in two days it will be fine, which was exactly what happened to me within two days. I was fine. I was working, I was meeting friends. I was running around Jakarta. On the other hand, my sister stayed sick. By this time, she would already been in a state of fever for almost 10 days.

[00:12:26] And at that time also, my mother became sick. She had a fever for three days, but she had different symptoms than my sister. Anyway to cut it short I took them both to the hospital now, for my sister the second time, for my mother the first time. And my mother was diagnosed with Typhus and my sister with Bronchopneumonia, and immediately the doctor requested them to, to, to stay at the hospital, to be hospitalized and

[00:12:59] I went home. We didn’t think about anything. However, we have an aunt in Vienna who was my mother’s older sister. And by that time, Italy was already, I believe in a lockdown situation and Vienna was going to start their lockdown. So she was very concerned and she was the one who kept encouraging us for my sister Sita to request to get.

[00:13:28] The COVID-19 tests at the hospital. Cause my, my, my auntie kept saying, you know, if the two of you are infected with the Coronavirus, you will recover. You will be fine. But you need to take care of your mother because she’s older or, you know, she could be in a worse situation. So that’s what we did.

[00:13:49] And my sister was very active. She asked the doctor to get tested and our, our family, everybody encouraged us to. But the doctor said they don’t have the means and the capacity to do this. And then the next day, my sister was informed by a dance community in Malaysia because my sister is also an active dance and dance trainer in the, in Latin dance community.

[00:14:19] And they’re all in touch with each other. So the dance community in Malaysia informed the desk community in Jakarta that there had been someone who was in Jakarta and participated in a few, several dance events here, and then went home, went back to Malaysia and was confirmed with COVID-19 in Malaysia about a week and a half later.

[00:14:42] So that, that, it’s just a way to, to confirm that both my sister and I were in the same room a big, a big, it was a big restaurant where there was this social dance event with that person. Yeah. So then my sister informed the doctor about this event a week and a half before she was at the hospital and the doctor immediately acted seriously, like, he coordinated with the government run hospital to, how do you say to transfer my sister and my mother to that hospital, which is where then they got the swab test and that was it.

[00:15:28] And then the next day, the president around noon on March 2nd, announced that we have to confirm two for the first to confirm Coronavirus patients. And that was my mum, my mum and my sister. It was really a, how do you say, like, I think it would have been a normal, a rather normal news. Had it had we heard, first of all, by the doctors who were taking care of my mother and my sister.

[00:16:04] But later on the provincial government really leaked our identity and the address of our home. So within about an hour, journalists were hovering at our house wanting to cover this breaking news. So that was what made like our, our world just turned upside down and we were handling a lot of stress and coordination.

[00:16:33] Because they, my mother and my sister were the first two cases. And so the health departments of the provincial health department and the Jakarta health department and the federal ministry of health also were in contact with me actually specifically, because they were trying to figure out where I was and that I needed also to be taken to the hospital to get the swab test as well.

[00:16:58] Yeah, so it all went from there. Wow. That’s a whole story here. So it seems like he was a provincial, the media, like not the main, but like not the federal, not the main media nor the federal government. And then, yeah, I mean, I remember in the article. It was, you know, obviously it must’ve been horrible for you know, your, your, you and your family with, so the way the social media is these days, I don’t know if you’re comfortable sharing kind of how that filter, what was happening or your personal lives at that time or. Well actually, what made it

[00:17:41] worse was that there were pictures of me and my mother and then also my sister going around on WhatsApp groups. I don’t know if you’re familiar, but WhatsApp groups is a Stupor Tool of communication within Indonesians, within the Indonesian people. Um, so suddenly that day there was pictures going around.

[00:18:09] Uh, they, they mistaken me for my sister and this picture was blasted all over everybody’s WhatsApp group. So all my friends from decades ago, you know, received this, this message saying, this is like, it was something that said, this is the first two COVID-19 patients of Indonesia, blah, blah, blah. You know, we’re not, we didn’t really get a hold of what they were saying, but there was also another picture of my sister.

[00:18:37] Somebody actually took her profile picture on her WhatsApp awhile ago and she was performing a Brazilian dance performance, meaning that, you know, what is that those costumes called? I can’t remember now, but it’s rather revealing for the standard of Indonesian culture. So they, somebody blasted that picture with some language I’m insinuating that this is the.

[00:19:10] the first COVID-19 patient, along with her mother and they are both hired dancers who often dance with foreigners, you know, like this kind of language. Yes. And this went all over Indonesia. I’m sure. And. You know, later on, we hear about it from our friends or from our family. And they all, you know, immediately defended us.

[00:19:34] Like, this is not right, that you do this, you know, things like this happen outside of our knowledge. But of course we receive that, that captured picture and with, um, with the, with the, with the slurring language, like it came back to us. So that’s what made it, made everything worse. Yeah, I can imagine this might be even worse than the actual virus or the hospitalization.

[00:20:00] Yeah, because I’m like, as soon as my mother and my sister were transferred to the, the government run hospital that is designated to take care of COVID-19, their clinical condition was actually improving already. They were already on their way to recovery. My sister’s cough was much better already, but then as soon as all this came down, it really hit her, um, mentally and emotionally.

[00:20:33] I mean, of course, first of all, And that she felt really, she felt a big level of guilt because she thought, you know, she was labeled as the number one patient and it’s as if she is the one who brought the virus in Indonesia and then infected my mother, and then later on me as well. But that’s not, that’s not how it is actually.

[00:20:58] And so on top of feeling the guilt, and then she also felt really stressed out that she feels her identity and her profession was attacked, us being dancers. And I mean, I think this is, this has a lot to do with our social cultural background and history of Indonesian society. I mean, we keep thinking that if we were men, that the backlash from the netizens and, and from the public would not be this way.

[00:21:27] And then on top of it, they, they are attacking like the stigma came to us, people who are saying dance is a sin and dancing is a foreign culture, which you all brought to Indonesia. That’s why you became sick and then dance is a sin because you are touching each other’s bodies, this is not Indonesian culture.

[00:21:55] You are all satanic women. For example, you know, we receive these.

[00:22:01]What was your question now? I think I lost it. I don’t know getting through this. And of course just the medical part was, seems like it wasn’t as bad as this whole meeting the media or this. No. Yeah, of course. We had the fear, you know, like we had the, the fear of the unknown about this COVID-19 disease and the coronavirus, because.

[00:22:29] Obviously it’s something that even, you know, the medical sector is still researching every day back then there was even until today, right? There are still new developments, new things that they’re learning about it. And then there is no vaccine yet. So there was also that fear, but I think had we not been also attacked by these other aspects of stigmatizing and the social media attack.

[00:22:57] I don’t think it, I don’t think the stress would have been that as high as what we had. Okay. So I have the date March 2nd, I guess when, when this started, how long was, you know, kind of like what’s the timeframe we’re talking about for, I guess the recovery, maybe this public response, or is it like. This.

[00:23:24] So yeah, March 2nd was when everything happened and then March 4th, I was then isolated as well. And then my sister and I were discharged from the hospital on March 13. And then my mother was in this discharge on March 16th. And we, we were invited by the ministry of health to do like some kind of like a press conference.

[00:23:57] We didn’t know to what extent that would have done, but after we did that, we were, we were given a chance for each of us to, to speak to the public and the media. And we chose to do, you know, to send positive news, positive, how do you say yeah, just a positive attitude and then, yeah, maybe you’ve heard about that.

[00:24:25] So, and then after that, the second wave came because then these people who, they didn’t believe that we were actually sick and they, they accused us of being, um, Jokowi’s and the sitting cabinets tool for political campaigns. So like that we were politicized and they accused us of getting paid by the government for doing this, that it was a set up that all hired actresses.

[00:24:58] How much money did we receive that we were the president’s pullers? I’m sorry, our prostitutes. Um, Yeah. So I’ll, I’ll have that happen. And, and that they, a lot of people blame me and my sister on our social media for everything that happened in their life or their wedding being canceled, or them being, you know, not having a job for corona

[00:25:24] To reach Indonesia, um, for, yeah, for bringing the virus to the whole of Indonesia. And I didn’t, I was not aware, because I was abroad, but I was not aware that there had been a message by somebody from the, the minister of health are people in the government body saying that the corona will never reach Indonesia.

[00:25:48] You know, this is kind of language so that we took the backlash because of that added to it that happened before. Yeah. I have friends in Indonesia and they also said, Oh, it’s not hit us yet. I remember it was like, Seem like, yeah, January, February, people were just saying it’s, it’s not, uh, it’s not here.

[00:26:09] It’s, we’re safe, uh, friends there. And, um, but I seem like all over the world, people are reacting similarly, I would say, I don’t know if you’re gonna agree. I think this is probably happens to similar people too, as you think in that situation in different locations maybe, or. Even in the case of Indonesia, that there are other people actually, I mean, like maybe somebody in Canada or Italy or Spain, maybe if they were identified as the first, I wonder if they went through similar, I’m not sure.

[00:26:44] Yeah.  Well, the thing is when, when this whole attack happened and we were in isolation rooms, in the hospital because I, okay. We were all angry and we were all upset and confused and also fearful, the three of us. And, and in that extent, also my family, my father, his wife, you know, my uncle, my aunts, my cousins.

[00:27:14] We were all so confused with what’s going on because immediately some friends of ours were saying that we might be politicized by any side of the government. We don’t know who you know is this, these are just hearsays. But of course we were confused. Like how, how could it be us? You know, like Indonesia is the fourth biggest, most populated.

[00:27:42] Country. Like, it’s a huge nation and why, how did it, how did it happen to us out of everybody? Yeah, this is what we kept thinking. That’s the worst. Yeah. As you guys were identified, I don’t know if I don’t know that in any other country that. Yeah. the identities leaked.

[00:28:04] Yeah. And so when, when this backlash and the attacks by the netizens happen, I clearly saw the impact to my, my sister. That her health condition became worse or cough became worse. And all of our, actually our blood pressures were so high haven’t we have never had it that high in our entire life because usually we have low blood pressure, the three of us.

[00:28:28] And so I felt like, okay, it’s not helping anyone. If, if I’m, I’m just angry and upset and expressing, you know, my anger towards my, or within my family, because I was like I said, I had the least symptoms and by the time I was isolated, I felt like I was a healthy person, but staying at the hospital.

[00:28:53] So I was a carrier of the virus, but I, I no longer have the symptoms. So I decided to do like something like that positive campaign through my Instagram account for this. Yeah. I was really non-active Instagram account. I’ve never even created Instagram stories before. But because I was just so sick of the, of the distorted media reporting incorrectly about us and our situation, and then on top of it just strangers thinking and judging us thinking like they know us.

[00:29:34] So I started a positive campaign basically just to report to my followers who are mainly my family and friends at the time, how we were doing. And what’s actually, we are doing, being, doing our isolation because the word isolation is also,  it’s rather a scary word, right? Like you think someone who’s isolated at the hospital is someone who is.

[00:30:01] Just laying there, like who can no longer do anything, you know, almost near, near death or some, something like this. Right. So I was like, I wanted to just send a message that it’s not like that actually, like isolation is not as bad as people think. And, and I was always updating our clinical conditions also, but somehow that.

[00:30:24] Went viral because my friends then started sharing to their friends and then, you know, it’s like a domino effect. And then I started getting responses from people I don’t know, encouraging me to keep telling, and updating our stories through Instagram because they feel like they needed the positive message and the encouraging message that.

[00:30:49] We can recover from COVID-19 that this is really not, not as deadly as people think. So after awhile, just to answer your question as you know, we’ve, we’ve also received a lot of requests by the media for interviews and the whole time when the, when the negative comments took place, I encourage my sister to not respond but just keep the positive level, you know, as high as we could and to not give them more power.

[00:31:29] Over us. Right. And one day we were interviewed by a media covering Southeast Asia, or, I mean the whole of Asia. And I asked the reporter, the reporter I, we used to at the beginning, we used to always tell people we do not want to talk about the stigma and the backlash from the net. And because of that reason, we don’t want to give them the power and the energy and the time to talk about them.

[00:31:54] And we want to keep, you know, sending the positive news and encouraging all levels of the society that’s handling the COVID-19. And then that day we were interviewed by, by this woman and I, and, and I asked her, well, actually, you know, The stigma has been happening really badly towards us and I was just curious, like, because since she covered, you know, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other Asian countries, have you, have you heard, or have you seen the same thing happening to us?

[00:32:28] happens also to other cultures COVID-19 patients and all the other Asian countries. And she was like, no, I’m completely like my, she wasn’t my mind is like she, she cannot even comprehend why this is happening only in Indonesia.

[00:32:48] Yeah. I mean, you’re in Hong Kong. You probably have. Oh, so heard other stories. Yeah. Technically I’m in China today, but I’m in, yeah, I know. I have a Hong Kong number, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’ve heard of other cases, but I haven’t heard such a horrible like medicine attack on the individuals. It seems. I don’t know.

[00:33:12] Yeah. Just also not come across. That seems horrible. Already have to deal with being, you know, going through this horrible experience and medical treatments or whatever is involved in, and also to have your personal life invaded with random people, venting to you about their weddings and jobs. It’s great.

[00:33:33] Yeah. It’s funny in a way. So after that, I suggested to my family, you know, Hey, actually, we actually should talk about this because is this an unusual phenomenon? Like why we should be asking this question? Like why? And so, yeah, so then after that, we, we started being more comfortable, just, I mean, it is our truth anyway.

[00:34:00] So we talked about it. Like I am talking with you right now when you agreed to share with us and our listeners. Yeah. So, so yeah, I’m really happy. One year of course, open to sharing with us and others and, and using this to inspire people and encourage people, which is also really why I was happy to reach out to you and.

[00:34:20] What are some encouragement? I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know how it is in Indonesia, but even in China, Hong Kong, I mean US, like everybody’s still locked down. We’re in May, May, right almost getting into June. It’ll probably be June when the show goes live. So I don’t know, like, seems like the rest of the day.

[00:34:35] I feel like rest of this year, we might be in a similar type. So, yeah. What have you been kind of telling people around mindsets or ways to deal with this? Yeah. So what the message I’ve developed from my experiences in the past, in these past two months is that. In times of hardship, we can decide to think and act positively or negatively.

[00:35:03] And then from then, from there, you can, you know, figure out what to do. And I, I, I always, I do my best to, you know, choose having a positive mindset and attitude because that’s the only way we can control our, you know, our we can only control our reactions or what life throws at us. And so I hope that people will [00:35:30] also, you know, think, choose to have a positive mindset and attitude towards this hard time that everybody is going through.

[00:35:38] And I always try to remind myself that we’re all on the same boat. Like we’re all going through this together and not only nationally, but also globally. And also, that I also believe that somehow the universe is telling us to have this little pause. You know, I call it little because we are such a, you know, our life is long and at this time we’ve been forced to take a break and to pass and, you know, to work from home, to stay home and.

[00:36:14] Try to have distance because by having it’s really weird because by having distance, we save ourselves and people we love and that hopefully at the end of this, you know, the nature will be healthier and we have a better relationship as well with, with the nature and our surrounding. And yeah, I have that light at the end of the tunnel, I guess I was, but I was also, I also, I forgot to add the positive mindset and attitude is I think it’s specific to the condition in Indonesia because there so much, so many hoax news going around.

[00:36:54] And fear-mongering about what this disease is. And lots of people, in Indonesia might not have the same access to, to knowledge and to data as other people, you know, because of our education, economical gap. So, yeah, that’s why I think this positivity mindset message messaging is super important. Awesome.

[00:37:18] Yeah, that’s really important. So I think not just Indonesia, but everywhere that needs that, I mean, some people just in their own bubbles, on social media, their own friends, they only hear what they want to hear or what’s in their close circle of somewhat like fake or not true. Or at least I hope it. Yeah.

[00:37:39] I mean, I’m sure you’re doing great. I hope it hope you can reach even more people. Hope we can help you here too. Okay, Ratri, this is fascinating. I think it’s a great, maybe just the last way. If, if there’s a weak link to your Instagram, if you’d like, or any kind of websites or things that people could read, I’ll link to the South China morning post article, I found you with for people to read this story.

[00:38:03] There’s anything. I mean, I’m mainly, I’m mostly active on my Instagram these days, I have a, so my ID. Yeah. It’s like at RatriatIndia and then I’m also on Facebook but I haven’t been really updating anything there. Um, mostly on Instagram so people can find me there. Perfect.

[00:38:32] All right, Ratri. Thank you so much for your time. And you’re so busy. Appreciate this a lot. No worries. It was nice to meet you. Thanks for being with me as well. Loadpipe.com has been going on for over a couple of months. Now, thank you for those that have supported and worked out some of the bumps in the road with us on the sourcing of the masks and the PPE, all this COVID nightmare.

[00:38:56] We are working on going into an open beta. You can check out some of the products and we are working on regularly giving you factory direct and special opportunities to buy products from China and Def hopefully other parts of the world too, but we’re here in China directly. Thank you. And appreciate your support in advance.

[00:39:17] Thank you, Ratri. You really appreciate. She’s really brave. You know, she did that and she’s been putting herself out there and hopefully things seem to have died down with a personal attacks to her and her family on social media. I mean, that, that, I can’t imagine. You’re already trying to deal with this.

[00:39:34] Catastrophe in your life and your family, and she’s supposed to be in Europe and she’s stuck here and go through all that. So she seems like she was already a strong person, but she seems like she’s even a stronger person. And I wish her the best in the future. So I said in the intro, I would share my experiences, you know, I’ve I just had an interesting call with a friend in Seattle.

[00:40:03] He’s like, Oh, how’s China. You know, we’re all going crazy here in the US just stuck in our house. He’s just got to get out of here. What happens once people start getting out and I shared on my video blog at Mikesblog.com. If he want to see my videos, more personal stuff, but what happened was you know, people stop wearing masks, honestly.

[00:40:28] But you know, the most annoying thing [00:40:30] is, is scanning. I got a scan my QR I know I, we chat to enter a mall to enter taxis to, uh, you know, this whole big data. I mean, China really has everything. Oh. And last week show got deleted on China internet. Didn’t like that national security law, I guess I would have expected that.

[00:40:51] I hope they don’t delete this one. I dunno. I don’t think this one’s bad, but, eh, yeah. I mean that’s, and then nobody, nobody here, you know, I’m the only foreigner, so all that, all the Chinese people just feel like it’s, it’s fine to just give up your identity, your location, you know, your, your history, because it’s the government protects you.

[00:41:11] Sure, I do understand there positive intentions, but at the same time, maybe see American in me, but. You know, they, you know, maybe it’s too many of those action movies, but they could take information and use it against you. And then how do you even know? You know, if it’s a, I don’t know, how do you even know prove anything, right.

[00:41:34] They could just say, Oh, we found this on you. And. It’s just a tough one, but let’s, let’s, you know, say for me, I’ve been, you know, I rented a new apartment. Might’ve said this on previous episodes, but I’m in a six month contract here at Shenyang, China Dong Bei, North, East, North of China until the middle of November.

[00:41:55] But you know, rent’s 2000 RMB. So that’s, that’s, nothing really. And. You know, grinding away at Loadpipe, grinding away because our content team, you know, we’re doing some great projects with some other people doing their websites and their content building out our own site websites, of course this content and, uh, just enjoy creating.

[00:42:21] So I’m basically just grinding away. I’m feeling like I’m still in a quarantine, even though I’m not, I, I might’ve mentioned, you know, I have my, our apartment. Finally, I moved out of the in-laws. I was standing in a sofa for like, Oh, over a month, maybe one and a half. And I, uh, finally couldn’t take it.

[00:42:38] Cause I don’t think we’re going back to Thailand this year. So we just had to rent, an apartment in that same complex. So, you know, I just literally came back from dinner with the grandparents and it left the kids with them to watch some TV. And I came upstairs to our place to record this intro for you.

[00:42:56] And just kind of what we do is morning grind. I teach the kids in the afternoons and then after, you know, evening dinner. And then I kind of do some, do some core content like this and some other updates. So it’s been a I think all of us spent, what a crazy year. Just let that sink in. If you’re still hanging out with me here in this interview, this recording.

[00:43:23] Okay. Let’s just think about that. I saw, I don’t know, is it this year or is it this decade? You know, we had Laurence Brahm talk about it, you know, are we going to Shambala Shangri laws? It’s like a whole new, like, change of. The world I’m going gonna, I’m going to leave it up to you to think about, put a couple of dramatic pauses in this one, but let’s really just reflect on who we are, you know?

[00:43:53] Alright. See you next week. To get more info about running an international business please visit our website www.globalfromasia.com. That’s www.globalfromasia.com. Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.