MEET MY HUSBAND | Q&A: growing up poor, his TRUE feelings about minimalism, AMWF family life, & more

i'm kind of like exposing you here uh-oh describe to us what your life was like growing up poor in china that is a very very hard question i was allowed to use the kitchen the bathroom allowed oh man i'm getting teary-eyed it's thankfully so bad all right so what did you think of the questions that we got mr zen well i just got to see like 10 minutes ago it's quite a few questions you got there yeah we had a lot of good questions from you guys so we tried to take the most common questions but also pick some really fun ones to answer and of course we're going to talk about your story sure i think this has been the most requested video in the history of my channel which is kind of funny maybe i should just turn this into a mr zen appreciation channel like you can give suggestions on decluttering this is all stuff we need right absolutely and maybe fix things around the house oh my god okay squeaky okay super squeaky how do you feel about being so popular if you guys are excited about this video make sure to hit that like button and drop a t emoji down in the comment section below if you want more spill q a sessions like this in the future are you up for it sure okay we're gonna start by warming up with a few fun and easy questions and then get to the deep hard stuff later who does the most cooking oh that's a easy one it's definitely you you know mostly you really yeah yeah i mean he he does some cooking too like there are certain dishes that he just prepares very well like what what are your specialties i would say my specialties uh barbecue right so i'm the grill master real master for sure and a few uh authentic uh chinese chinese dishes you are you're simply a great cook i mean you know you can cook all kinds of cuisines you know all kinds of different dishes so yeah we have very lucky and i think that the next question goes along with that which is what do you eat in a week so i would say that we eat a lot of american cuisine and asian style cuisine but not a lot of german cuisine because i neither of us grew up cooking german cuisine the only thing i can make is shrimp noodle i don't even know if i'm saying that right how do you say it i'm not sure either if i can say it correctly maybe yeah maybe and i think you also use the rice cooker a lot and the blender a lot as well yeah i really i really like my rice cooker and my blender i did not like the instant pot i mentioned that in my fantasy self declutter video which you can check out after this one but like the instant pot just didn't do it for us but we use our rice cooker all the time yeah and now what i like the most about is when you steam you know with the rice cooker it makes it that's very very unique right i think i will say that since we met each other like i have definitely expanded into more exotic foods that i didn't have before like we have eaten sea cucumbers oxtail soup uh and ox tank as well yes there's all sorts of things that i never cooked with before that i do now what's great about living here is we can eat your mom's cooking at least once a week i'd say she sends us food like yeah yeah dumplings and uh all kinds of different dishes yeah okay the next question is what do you do for fun do you have any hobbies i like exercise i like to run i like biking occasionally playing soccer with my kids you've also become a bit of a plant daddy lately wouldn't you say like gotten slightly addicted to plants i i would say a little bit it's it's a lot of fun i've uh i have to say uh i'm just started you know gardening and it makes our balconies uh both balconies look so much nicer it does some greenery really makes it look nice i just have no idea how to keep plants alive i can keep children alive i can't keep plants alive trust me i do spend sometimes like an hour here an hour there to research it so it does take some time some learning i should get you a shirt that says plant daddy plant daddy's in i'll wear what are my hobbies i would say that the hobbies that i have actually really fit well into our life i always really liked languages and uh now i have to learn german and then also creatively like making things printables and graphic design and video editing uh i've had to learn all that for the youtube channel and found out that i really enjoy it so that's been a fun break so i guess those are my hobbies like your dream job what yeah they say that find what you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life right exactly it doesn't feel like work next question is what is your biggest pet peeve oh that's definitely our squeaky floor i mean look why it's uh you hear that every time you walk over it that's every day right yeah i mean we live in a 100 year old home so squeaky floors just kind of come with the territory there's not really much we can do about it somebody in my comment section actually called it reverse asmr because it's so grating on the nerves it's like nails on a chalkboard i would say that my pet peeve is littering i cannot stand it when people litter especially when you see people on the street and they're right like close to a trash can and they just throw it on the street and said that makes me so furious i could agree with that one as well i mean yeah the twin is absolutely unacceptable yeah unacceptable this next question is my favorite question how did we meet can i tell the story absolutely so it was chinese new year and i was going to meet up with some friends i was with two of my guy friends and i walk into the lobby of this high rise that my other friend lived in and i see the hottest guy across the hall on his phone i thought oh my gosh wouldn't it be amazing if he was going to the same place but you know it's a high-rise in chicago like what are the chances that he's going to the exact same thing that i am so i go upstairs with my friends and guess who walks in the door a little bit later yeah this guy but i played it cool i was super cool and then later i totally zoned out because you were talking about wine like for an hour i saw that was interesting but okay it's interesting for you i didn't even like wine back then i like it now it's okay yeah what did you think of me when you saw me um yeah that you were very cute looking i was cute back then right yeah you were a great dancer as well afterwards we went to uh disco or what you call them just go how you call those places a club a club a club okay yeah that was a long time ago it was love at first sight at least for me yeah great what languages do you speak so obviously i speak english because i grew up in the united states yesterday [Music] uh legend has it that if you close your eyes and mr zen speaks deutsch you'll hear arnold schwarzenegger that's not that's what my uncle from the box says that's not true you speak english deutsch mandarin chinese and then you also speak a dialect of chinese yeah can you tell us more about that well it's just a dialect but a user system china has actually only one written language now this website says there's 302 living languages in china so let's compare if you say i don't know in mandarin it's but if you say it in your dialect it's very different it's like a completely different language yeah what is your favorite thing about each other i think this is a hard question that is a very very hard question because i like everything about you almost so i have to pick one it's easier to think of what you don't like and what bothers you than what you do like right yeah so if i have to pick really one i would say maybe uh your cheerfulness because it's very easy to get along with you yeah and uh i never feel judged oh my favorite thing about you i think that i like how you stand up for what you believe in no matter what even though if it might be an unpopular opinion or you know somebody might disagree you still stand up for what you believe yeah do what's right yeah do what's right exactly and i like that i like you what are the strengths and weaknesses of your marriage i would say uh we have uh same values right that's a big strength uh we both have very strong uh we both have strong moral fiber i knew you were gonna say moral fiber and i'm like that's so cheesy but it's true growing up i would see these t-shirts with sayings on them for like the different horoscopes and it's like mine always felt so boring because it's like dependable loyal and you're like that's so boring when you're younger but when you're older it feels like yeah i'm proud to be loyal i'm proud to have moral fiber totally what's the weakness then well i would say we we do have different uh ways of communicating would you agree yes if you have difficulty communicating in a marriage there's a book that really helped us it's called the five love languages and i will put a link for it down in the description box below but realizing that there are different styles of communication in love or just in relationships in general has really helped us my love language as defined in the book is words of affirmation and his is acts of service so like for you words are can be empty right they are important but i would say you know action speaks louder than words that's really his his motto and it's funny because i can look back towards the beginning of our relationship because i would say i love you maybe once a month i would get an i love you back and then it went down to like once a week and then now usually i get it every time but not always flashback i like you because i should know i should know exactly it's different communication styles mr zen what is your occupation i'm a cpa by education and i have been in corporate finance and compliance for the last 20 years i think that's another one of our strengths actually is we're always on the same page with money and budgeting i've actually got a really great budgeting printable that i can link down in the description box below for you that has helped us do a lot over the years we've met a lot of our money goals right absolutely i think everyone so i hope that in the future mr zen can maybe help me make some more budgeting printables and spreadsheets using his background as a cpa i think that could help a lot of people in the future because i have a lot of you asking questions about debt and budgeting a lot of the questions i paraphrase but i wanted to read this one directly i get the impression that mr zen is quite particular about his hair it's a very nice head of hair does he have any tips i can't believe how perceptive this person is that they picked up how particular you are about your hair because he is very particular about his hair aren't you oh i have very straight and stiff hair so it's a little bit difficult to style right so i get my hair cut every four weeks i use a styling cream and i use a very strong hairspray to stick to stick my level four out of five actually so it's very strong yeah loosen it in place right here you never wear a hat i never wear hats because it's then you know after we glue it again yeah but that's pretty much it it's low maintenance but particular a particular way i love everything about your minimalist home except that horrible plastic tree you know which one they're talking about right yeah absolutely that one right yeah that's bamboo since your husband is chinese i would like his opinion on having an artificial plant doesn't he think it gives bad chi i don't know about batshi i mean it's not negative it's not blocking anything it's not blocking anything again why it doesn't you know generate negative feelings for any any negative energy you know based on the research that i did it actually says that dead and dying plants around your home are worse for feng shui than having an artificial plant but maybe now that you're mr plant daddy you can make me a nice uh you know help me keep a nice live tree in the corner instead of this thing you look at it online and it looks good it looks like a real tree and then you get it and there's like glue strings hanging off of it and it's so fake uh that was definitely a purchase that i'm slightly regretting yeah let's make it go and put a wheel plant down a real nice one was marissa's decluttering hard on you quite the opposite i was actually a light years ahead of melissa in terms of it's true you know minimalism but i'm glad you took the steps it made a world of difference in our life and i did everything right all the decluttering all the selling because it was it was always fine it was literally all my i had nothing i know so i did it all yeah and it took me five years yeah but i did it when you have more life experience and you just have more things it's gonna take you longer and it's okay right absolutely and it benefits the whole family right it wasn't just you know for yourself was for the whole family right right the kids especially i think we've seen a big difference a huge difference getting rid of all of that physical baggage also helps me work through a lot of the emotional baggage that comes with you know losing so many family members in such a short period of time and oh man i'm getting teary-eyed yeah i do that in all my videos um i notice you a lot better though yeah i feel like i am a lot better yeah absolutely and look uh you know i really appreciate it you know i can say that over and over uh you know come home to a clean house without clutter you know all over it's wonderful right it's just so much more relaxing so much more relaxing it is all right so now we're finally to the part where you share your life story so describe to us what your life was like growing up poor in china i grew up in a small mountain village in china the town had about 100 people we lived in a small stone house with two rooms in total about 30 square meters i would say my siblings and me and my parents seven people slept in one room yeah and our living room and our kitchen was combined so actually open concept old style we did not have electricity we did not have one water war toilet in the house so every morning my mom or my dad had to carry water with two big uh the bucket buckets yeah on the shoulder right from the rivers up into the mountain and the two buckets would be all the water we use for the day right for seven people you know for washing for cooking for drinking and you have to not only bring the buckets of water but also heat a fire yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you use firewood to cook but in fact there weren't even a lot of firewood you know to find firewoods and burn right to cook your meal and etc and speaking of meals you didn't eat rice well we did eat some rice but you know we couldn't you know afford to eat you know two meals or three meals a day rice right so right we had to basically uh mix rice with rotten you know sweet potatoes you know dry sweet potatoes right so rice was like a luxury actually and you ate meat only once a year meat definitely once a year i remember the first time that i realized how poor mr zinn actually was when we were beginning dating and it was when you told me the story about the rotten banana you know i never tasted fruit that you know that tasty way yeah so i got the the rotten banana from my uh grandmom she treasured that wasn't banana herself very very much but she was afraid to eat it right because it was just she didn't she didn't want to eat it because it was so precious that she said why but then eventually she realized it's gonna what if nobody eats it so she gave it to me was it like totally black by the time you ate it it was level seven or whatever but then you said it was the sweetest it was the most wonderful tasty fruit ever so yeah but i i would say overall i had a very fun childhood growing up in the mountains basically the whole mountain was my playground i would go with other kids uh you know to lead the water buffalos into the mountains to grace and with white actually on them despite the their size they're actually very gentle giants are very smart so even though you grew up poor you didn't feel like you were poor well not at all i think my parents did a fantastic job i mean they always made sure that we had you know that our stomach was filled first before they asked and we didn't know it and then how were you able to get out of china and move to germany that's a very long story you know the short elevator speech would be uh you know my grandfather first came to germany in the 1960s and my dad and his brothers and sisters follow then we follow my dad and finally my mom my younger sister so basically your grandfather came first and then he kind of brought everyone one by one over so you guys were without your dad for a long time yeah and then for a few years and then you moved to germany and things were still pretty hard when you were here in the beginning right as as a kid you don't you know feel that you don't notice a lot right but for my parents it was very tough why i mean they didn't speak the language we didn't have money right and we had to you know create a life for ourselves here we did what no german compete with us which was starting a chinese restaurant again why as a child the good singers you don't really notice these things but for instance i had only one pair of shoes and one pair of socks why and uh it's thankfully so bad because i i had sweaty feet i did not want to go to uh my classmates house even on an invitation because you were embarrassed to take your shoes i was embarrassed yeah yeah because you stink just so bad i'm kind of like exposing you here but a lot of you guys ask me in the comment section is like what makes people hold on to things so that's why you hold on to sucks you have what 40 pairs of socks it's difficult to overcome these circumstances of the past but then things slowly got better and better and you were able to you went to school here obviously you learned german then you moved to the u.s and went to school oh which brings us to why were you living in a shed in california well uh you know that was the beginning of the journey really uh you know previously i was staying at someone else's place i didn't like and one of my classmates told me there was his neighbor had a place had a place a shed in the backyard with no toilet no kitchen yeah but i was uh you know i was allowed to use the kitchen the bathroom allowed and you paid three hundred dollars 350. 350 dollars back what year was that that was in 1997. uh i'm gonna look up the conversion rate and see i think that's something like 500. i i don't know i feel like you were really taken advantage of i don't know i i think they were very nice and uh good people i mean i had a good time so you don't have any hard feelings about this no not at all not at all i don't talk to them anymore but i would still if i could okay i think somebody started construction i just want to say if you guys hear some noises that's not like us farting somebody's drilling in the background so i swear coming from poverty did you feel drawn to excess when your family immigrated to germany and then you went to the u.s i would say we were never going to uh materialism our excess is more like spending time with family eating too much that's perhaps true we like good food we like to eat we like to get together but in terms of you know excess and in the sense of materialism not so not even today i mean no no really not experiences over things absolutely experience should be always valid above material goods in my opinion when you look back on your childhood you don't remember the things that you had right you remembered the things that you did exactly the moment and the people i think this is the last question that we have time for and this person asks what goals do you hope to accomplish in the next five years that's a really good question yeah that's like an interview question it is right i would say total financial freedom and retirement that's a good goal i actually got him on board with the fire movement the financial independence retire early movement i was the first one to tell you about that right maybe yeah i would love to retire you in two years and then i just keep working on my youtube channel how about that sounds good yeah i mean it's a plan pinky promise he left me hanging yeah i hope that in two years i'll be able to have a conversation fluently in german we need to become fluent in german if we're going to live here yeah and travel more right definitely travel more see other parts of europe well i had a lot of fun answering these questions with you today if you enjoy content related to minimalism decluttering and financial minimalism subscribe to my channel so that you can catch the next round thanks so much for watching take care bye bye you

Channel: A to Zen Life

Views: 260,628

Keywords: husband q, husband q&a, husband q and a, meet my husband, husband tag, q & a, how we met, meet my husband q&a, amwf, amwf family, chinese husband, how we met chinese, how i met my husband, interracial couple, interracial marriage, marissa zen, family minimalism, extreme decluttering, extreme minimalism, minimalist family, minimalist, minimalism, family q&a, minimalist mom, minimalist family of 4, multicultural marriage, frugal living, frugal minimalist, minimalist living

Id: R5ORjuGK1Fk

Length: 24min 15sec (1455 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 25 2021