TalKing of the Hill - Westie Side Story With Nina Matsumoto

Micah

I thought completely depressed bill was about played out by that point as well anyways (and I was a big fan of the multiple depressed bill focused episodes)

Bob Mackey

It's odd that it's one of the few status quo changes that didn't stick, but I'm guessing the showrunners for season 8 didn't think it was worth exploring.

Micah

Is the podcast pro or against Bill nailing Kahn's mom? (To continue my trend of accidentally only asking the classiest of questions)

Jesse Onland

Oh interesting. I got this from a Laotian person, and it looks like there's no 's' sound when the name of the country is rendered in Lao, but I guess the expectation for the English pronunciation is different.

nina matsumoto

I was admittedly a little hesitant about being on this one when asked because of my privilege of growing up in Vancouver, but ultimately decided that as a child of asian immigrants, I can at least say more about it (the topic of passive racism) than Bob and Henry, haha. Thank you.

nina matsumoto

I looked this up before the recording and it's a misconception. "-Laos (rhymes with blouse; final "s" is sounded) -- correct -Lao (rhymes with cow; final "s" is silent) -- widespread but incorrect -All other pronunciations, including "Lay-ose," are incorrect." This link goes into it in better detail <a href="https://www.tripsavvy.com/how-to-say-laos-3976795" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.tripsavvy.com/how-to-say-laos-3976795</a>

Jesse Onland

Heads up, "Laos" is pronounced like "lao"; the 's' is a remnant of French spelling.

kid presentable

nina was a perfect choice for this episode, having the insight of someone's lived experience enhances the podcast in the best way.

nina matsumoto

Aww thank you for the kind words!

Brock Hevenor

Nina has to be my favourite guest you guys have. She's so insightful

I grew up in Houston (specifically the suburb of Humble, which Mike Judge has cited as one of the towns Arlen is based on, and in fact we had a bar that eventually closed down where Judge drew Beavis and Butthead on a bathroom wall...still hate I never got to see it), and (a) “soda” is definitely the vernacular of choice, and saying “pop” will get you some strange looks, and (b) there is actually a substantial Laotian community in Houston being a bit more diverse than west Texas, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that led to the decision to include a Laotian family in the series. There is an annual Lao New Year festival in the city, and from what I’ve heard it is absolutely fantastic. I’ve had family bring me home food from the festivals and man is it delicious (and spicy as hell if you’re game for it)

Xaq Crabwise

O god, Nina’s ‘or like a more southern Alberta’ line and Hank and Bobby’s subsequent ‘uuuuumm’ really cracked me up. I grew up in Calgary (southern Alberta, very close to Montana) and now live in Vancouver. love it when Nina joins the podcast to represent your Canadian listeners, great show as always.

Zachary Adams

Also I have STRONG thoughts about charcoal vs wood smoke vs propane, as do all good Texans. We don't all have to be on the SAME side of the argument, but by God you'd better have an opinion!

Zachary Adams

I grew up in Arkansas and Texas calling it soda, for whatever that's worth. I grew up in a relatively integrated part of East Texas with a sizable Vietnamese immigrant population as well as whites, African Americans and Latinx folks, and then went to the big city for college, so when I first saw this episode I remember thinking the "ignorant redneck" bits were incredibly unrealistic because who hasn't heard of Laos and who really believes that dog stuff, right? It took a long time for me to realize both how much worse it could be AND how ignorant I was of a lot of passive racism around me.

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

Super interesting episode and was good to hear from Nina about some of the issues brought up by KotH It's refreshing to see pretty much every other episode of the show deal with issues in a progressive/ positive way

Sadie Carter

Calling all soda coke is mostly a Georgia/northern Florida thing. In the rest of Florida we just say soda.

Howard

We call it soda, people who call it coke are lazy

To Boldy Joe... Moore

Wait... Amy Wong WAS from Mars! What a weird coincidence. ^_^ (great show as usual, folks)