Hometown Tola Marts

Dr. Zihong Guo, engineering and technical marketing professional, discusses growing up in "Double Dragon Village" outside of Xiantao in Hubei Province, China not far from the provincial capital of Wuhan, a name that you may have heard about in the news recently. Zihong and I talk about what he learned growing up on a commune farm, what life was like before email and social media, the benefits of *not* being the oldest son, the changes to China in the last 30 years as he's lived over here in America, moving to the Eastside after attending the University of Washington, being a Chinese-American in the time of COVID, and our shared appreciate for the 2019 Lulu Wang film "The Farewell." And Zihong shares how his appreciation for family and society have grown from his time in both cultures.

Tola interviews King County Executive Dow Constantine, the leader of the sixteenth largest municipality in America. Dow has lived his whole life in Seattle, and talks about life before Microsoft and Nirvanna, the Seattle Freeze, finding love at a college radio station, preserving the arts in Seattle, raising the next generation of music fans, and where to find the best Thai food in his home neighborhood of West Seattle.

Host Tola Marts starts close to home in his first podcast, interviewing his uncle Mark Bromberg about growing up in Elmira, New York, experiencing college in the 1970s at the University of Syracuse, and then waking up one day to find himself in Atlanta, Georgia.