Mic On, Thoughts In Motion: Chris Jeng

When Chris Jeng left his job at Google and his life in the United States, he never imagined that he would open a completely new chapter, beginning a podcast and teaching English to listeners around Tokyo. While Jeng was a software engineer without formal background in media, a much greater love of teaching and a desire to help others pushed him to take a risk. What started as a hobby or an experiment became a tool to guide others on their own language journeys: the Kuli English Podcast.

Chris Jeng didn’t grow up in a big city like Tokyo, but rather in the quiet town of Ponca City, Oklahoma. At the age of 18, he left the Midwest to attend university in California as well as to pursue a professional career. Although Jeng has spent 28 out of 30 years of his life in the United States, he describes always feeling drawn to Asia—particularly Japan and Taiwan. “I always thought Japanese was a cool language,” he says, explaining what sparked his interest in the country. “Or Taiwan because my parents are from there.”

Despite dreaming of living in Asia since his childhood, Jeng had always been hesitant to leave his comfortable life in the United States. After graduating from UC Berkeley, he began working as a software engineer at Google—a career that Jeng describes as being a good job and well-paid. Thus, when faced with the decision of pursuing his dreams to live in Asia, Jeng felt as though leaving his life in California behind would mean giving up a great thing.  “I was really hesitant,” he recalls. “Whenever I talked to my friends, they would always tell me, ‘No, don’t quit your job and move there.’” So as much as Jeng wanted to live abroad, he listened and stayed.

Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and, like much of the world, Jeng found himself confined to his home during lockdown. While quarantine was certainly a stressful and uncertain time, it also unexpectedly gave Jeng the chance to reflect and think deeply about his life. “After COVID there was something that changed within me,” he explains. “I was finally like ‘I have to go do the stuff I really want to do.’” So, despite some of the well-meaning concerns of his friends and family, Jeng made the big decision: he quit his job at Google and moved to Japan. “I knew that deep inside me I really wanted to do this thing that makes no money,” he laughs.

Jeng’s cross-continental movie to Japan gave him a newfound freedom, no longer binding him to a conventional career path. Instead, he wanted to dedicate himself to something that could genuinely help people: an English-learning podcast.

“I think the podcast comes from a deeper itch to make something to help people,” explains Jeng. As a longtime software engineer for the multinational corporation Google, Jeng played a very different role in the company versus as his own podcast host. As a software engineer, Jeng describes the gist of his job as “making stuff that helped the company make more money”—a very different goal than that of his own podcast.

Teaching had always been something that Jeng enjoyed, but when he moved to Japan, he didn’t have a clear idea of where that would lead. “At first it was just a hobby,” he says about the podcast. “And then it became a bigger thing.” While studying Japanese himself, Jeng tried nearly every language-learning tactic from language schools to social events to conversational practice. However, the most effective method that Jeng found was indeed the most simple: listening to a podcast. “I could just sit at home and listen and it didn’t take any energy,” he says.

His own experience sparked the idea of his own English-language podcast specifically for intermediate non-native English language learners, who actually often get overlooked. “There’s a lot out there for beginners,” he says. “But it’s really straightforward textbook stuff that honestly takes more effort to pay attention.” Jeng wanted to offer something casual yet engaging enough that it didn’t require effort to “study.” “I just wanted to make an intermediate podcast for anyone who might be in the same situation I was in,” Jeng explains. Whether you’re doing chores or simply just being “a potato” at home, the Kuli English Podcast is meant to be a low-effort, low-pressure way to improve your English.

Wanting to truly aid English language learners, Jeng puts extensive effort into making his episodes both entertaining but understandable. Oftentimes, they feature exciting personal anecdotes or cultural explanations that are not only exciting or comedic, but also digestible and not overly complicated. Especially to guide non-native English speakers, Jeng goes through a comprehensive process ensuring that his episodes are the highest quality. “I try to tell everything in a way that is easier to understand,” Jeng explains. As part of his process, he changes his phrasing and avoids hard words using one modern piece of technology: ChatGPT. “I ask ChatGPT, ‘Can you point out which parts of this are hard to understand?’” Jeng explains. “And it will tell me ‘I don’t understand this part’ so I’ll go and fix it.”

Despite having released over a dozen episodes, Jeng still rarely knows what he’s going to talk about until just a few days before recording. “Most weeks, I have no idea what I'm gonna talk about,” he laughs. But luckily for Jeng, inspiration can strike unexpectedly—even just days before an episode. Ideas often come from a memorable moment, an old story from his childhood, or even inspiration from another podcast. “Usually some experience happens, and then I think, ‘Oh, maybe this would be a good thing to talk about.’” However, even when planning to speak about a specific event, recording a story is not always a linear process, oftentimes greatly changing along the way. For example, even when planning to speak about a specific experience, Jeng’s episode might still transform mid-process into something completely different. One draft might even be scrapped entirely. While at the moment he tends to gravitate towards personal anecdotes from his own life, he jokes that by episode 30, he may run out of childhood stories and need to get creative.

On screen, the Kuli English Podcast is perfectly polished and smooth, but in order to reach that state for listeners, an extensive behind-the-scenes process is required. Since beginning his podcast in April, Jeng’s behind-the-scenes process has greatly changed and evolved to better meet both his and his listeners’ needs and wants. “What I used to do was prepare the whole script, proofread it a lot, and then record it,” Jeng recalls. However, over time, he discovered that writing everything out beforehand wasn’t necessarily the most efficient approach, especially when he wanted to venture to interesting stories that were off-script. Today, the Kuli English Podcast utilizes a more spontaneous method that entails talking directly into the mic without a script, allowing Jeng’s thoughts to flow more freely and naturally. After speaking into a microphone and recording his speech, Jeng’s audio is then transcribed into English by a website and put into ChatGPT to remove filler words and anything that requires editing. This process leaves Jeng with a rough draft of his speech where he can then rewrite the story to his liking, shaping it into something more cohesive. Rather than memorizing the full episode, he structures it into five-minute segments when recording. “I always say, ‘Okay, let’s take a short little music break,’ and then I walk off and drink some water,” Jeng explains. “I go for however long I want and then come back, and then when I edit it, I cut that out so it’s like you never saw me disappear,” he laughs.

As for the future of the podcast, Jeng has a few ideas in the works. A common trend for podcasts at the moment is having guest speakers, which is something that Jeng is also interested in. “I would love to have guests,” he says. “But it’s hard to have guests that match what I want,” he follows. Jeng explains that while he has in fact tried recording episodes with other people, they have not always fit the content of the Kuli English podcast. Whether it be guests who end up talking too much about their own accomplishments or veering off too much from the intended conversation, it has admittedly been more difficult than it sounds. Still, he hasn’t completely abandoned the idea of finding a podcast guest who not only speaks fluent English, but also in an accessible way for listening. “I have a plan,” Jeng says. “I want to get a button that says ‘What?’ when you push it.” The ‘What?’ button that Jeng plans on adding to guest episodes is not just comedic, but will hopefully act as an external presence to make a guest slow down and remember that the podcast is supposed to be easy to understand. “Maybe I’ll get a ‘Nani?’ button instead,” he chuckles. “That might be even better.”

When asked about the biggest challenge of running the podcast, Jeng admits that running it all alone can be difficult. Jeng explains that it’s not the work itself which is actually very enjoyable. “This is probably my favorite job I’ve had,” Jeng says. He adds that his only other two jobs have been a software engineer and a cashier at a place called Vietnam Village (a restaurant that sells Chinese food and is owned by Koreans). The real difficulty lies not in the work, he says, but not having a second opinion to consult throughout the process. “Sometimes I’ll think, ‘Oh, this will be funny,’” he describes. “And then an hour later I look at it again and think, ‘What was I thinking?’” Without someone to “sanity-check” his ideas, Jeng occasionally finds himself second-guessing things or going days without talking to anyone. “I guess there’s this kind of muscle that’s like, ‘What would my coworker say if I did this?’” he mentions. “ But I don't have a coworker, so I don't have that muscle.” Jeng admits that it can be a little bit lonely, but mentions that meeting up with friends every now and then or even hanging out with the local curry shop owner is something he greatly enjoys.

On the other hand, the most rewarding part of running the Kuli English Podcast—the freedom to create something meaningful without external pressure—is something that Jeng greatly enjoys. “I’m kind of in this weird situation where I don’t really have a particular goal with the podcast,” he says. “I just want to make it and I want to help people.” Rather than stressing about monetization or followers, Jeng focuses his energy towards guiding non-native English language learners towards their goals. “If [the podcast] doesn’t grow quickly or make money, that’s something I’m completely fine with,” he says. “The point of the podcast was not to make money.” Jeng values sincerity far more than any number of followers, simply wanting listeners who like the podcast to continue listening to it and learning from it. He appreciates when friends subscribe, but values the emotional support more. “Support is just the emotional thing,” he adds. What matters most is that listeners feel connected and that they truly want to listen.

For Jeng, creative work isn’t about being perfect, but rather about experimenting. “The first time you do something, it’s probably gonna suck,” he laughs. “But if you like it enough, you’ll just naturally keep doing it.” Jeng notes that life will often offer many reasons holding you back from doing something you enjoy, but that should never be a reason not to experiment.” I committed to working as a software engineer, and it was hard to switch because there are always reasons why you shouldn’t do something,” he says, explaining his own story. “But I think the right thing to do is experiment with it. Experiment with it, and then make sure that you like it.” His advice to anyone with an idea is to simply try it, and follow it if you enjoy it—after all, that’s what brought him to Japan and to the Kuli English Podcast.

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