In many Chinese sayings, “ten thousand” is used in a poetic sense to convey something infinite, vast, and unfathomable. For Shin Yu, the story of Asians in America is just that. In Ten Thousand Things, Shin Yu explores a collection of objects and artifacts that tell us something about Asian American life – from a second-hand novel to a blue suit worn by a congressman on January 6. Ten Thousand Things is a vibrant, diverse, and bittersweet celebration of Asian America … and a challenge for all of us to reimagine stories of the past and future.
Ten Thousand Things is created and hosted by Shin Yu Pai and produced by KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio in Seattle. Logo art by Eason Yang, with photography from Reva Keller. Original music by Tomo Nakayama.
Ten Thousand Things was named one of the Top 10 podcasts of 2023 so far by Mashable and has been featured on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, Pocket Casts and other apps. In 2023, we were recognized with two awards from the Asian American Podcasters Association and a silver from The Signal Awards.
From 2020-2022, I served as a correspondent for Town Hall Seattle’s In The Moment podcast interviewing such guests as Gary Copeland Lilley, Arthur Sze, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Robert Lashley, Ian Boyden, Yona Harvey, and more for my series Lyric World: Conversations with Contemporary Poets. My work was supported by The Windrose Fund.