hi, i’m yasmin!

I was born and raised in Toronto. Growing up, I loved performing and always dreamed of making my mark in this world. My older sister, Amanda and I would pretend we were in the Miss Chinese Hong Kong Pageant with Amanda playing the MC and me being a contestant. When she’d announce the winners from 2nd runner up, 1st runner up to finally the winner. The suspense would kill me and I’d cry when she finally announced that *surprise* I WON… (It was just the two of us playing). Safe to say, I was and still am a drama queen.

When I turned 10, I landed my first acting role in a short film, Banana Bruises. I had so much fun and told myself this is what I wanted to do FOREVER.

When I graduated university in 2019, I found myself lost and struggling as I saw all my friends find stable jobs and seeming like they all had their shit together. I was having a tough time finding a job that would allow me to continue pursuing my passion, while providing some sort of financial stability. Then… the pandemic hit. With the lockdown, it gave me some time to breathe and really think about what I wanted to do, rather than what I thought I “needed” to do. I started a clothing company called Fan Pan Society (Fǎnpàn means “rebel” in Chinese). My message was really trying to say rebel against expectations from yourself and others, and kind of say fuck it and fuck you to anyone who tells you who or what you should be doing. From that, I started a blog where I transcribed conversations I would have with strangers from Facebook about their experiences of how they “rebelled” and followed their dreams (super cheesy, I know). The clothing company didn’t work out, but the conversations I had with people always stuck with me. I loved listening to people’s stories and feeling so inspired by others who decided to pursue their passion rather than succumb to what someone else expected them to do, and learning how they made it to the other side.

Long story short, I ended up getting a full-time job that allows me to act (yay!), but the conversations I had and the idea of building a community of people who understood the struggles we go through, specifically as Asians, never went away.

So, that’s how NOT A DLE was born. A podcast where I chat with Asian trailblazers who are redefining what success looks like. I hope you get inspired, learn a little bit, and realize you got this too!