Editing The Pen Addict 530/transcript (section)

== CY introduces himself and his online presence. ==


'''CY:''' Sure. So I'll just do my intro. Hello, my name is CY. You can find me on my website at tokyostationpens.com, on Instagram at tokyostationpens, and on Twitter at tokyostationmnh. And I think we might have had a conversation about this before, but let's just get it on air. I think it's very difficult, you know, me having grown up in Asia. So I was born in Taiwan, but I was raised in Hong Kong. And it's difficult to really live a life without stationary here, which is something that I hadn't realized until I actually moved to the US. But, you know, the kind of premium stationary, I guess, like a Pilot G2 or, you know, your Sarasa's or your Muji, all of those are pretty readily available and pretty common in everybody's pen cases. So I wouldn't say that I was particularly a, you know, stationary enthusiast. I mean, I like stationary, but then, you know, so did everybody else. But I remember that when we were younger, we used to have these mechanical pen cases. And these mechanical pen cases were, well, and of course, they're all from Japan, but usually on the outside, they had some, you know, cartoon character or what have you. And then there are these buttons. And then inside the pen case, there are different rigid compartments. So there's one for your eraser, your pencils, your pens, leads, blah, blah, blah, blah. They even have like pencil sharpeners. And then you press the button and those compartments kind of shoot out because there's a spring. And so we used to use these pencil cases or pen cases. We'd shoot out these compartments, but instead we'd put our eraser in front of the compartments. So we, you know, try to hit each other with the erasers. So that was fun. Yeah. So that was probably my first really distinct, oh, you know, I'm using my tools in a way that probably was not intended, but everybody did it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly. So like when we talked about before, you and I, like you mentioned, we actually talked on the, I have a pen addict members podcast called Friend of the Show. So, but like we talked about like stationary where you grew up just is, it's like part of daily life. Like in the U.S., it's like, okay, we have McDonald's. It's just part of everyone assumes like everyone has a McDonald's. It's like everyone, you don't realize that, oh, other people don't have a McDonald's around the corner or something like that. It's just part of your life. So when did it become, you know, later in life, like a real thing, like as you're starting to get, as you're starting to like share things online, write about pens. And I want to talk about like the order of events as far as blogging, podcasting, Instagram and all that. When did that change happen and why did it happen?

'''CY:''' You know, let me, I know this is not the question you asked, but let me backtrack just a little bit onto, you know, how I got into, let's say, fountain pens specifically, because I think that's, that's quite important to the overall story. Okay. So, you know, as a kid growing up, you know, watching these movies and especially these, you know, period dramas, everybody's using these quill pens, these fountain pens. And I'm like, wow, that's, that's so cool. And so I always, I thought I wanted to have a fountain pen. And at that time I was maybe about like, you know, 12, 13, 14. And I really wanted a Lamy Safari. And you've had Patrick Ng on the show before. And I think he works at City Super, right? As the stationary merchandiser. So I have these distinct memories of going to City Super, seeing these massive Lamy displays. And, you know, they have the, the pens kind of diagonally placed into, into those displays. And I said, wow, I really want a Lamy Safari, but I don't know if I can pay 10 bucks for, for a pen. So one year I was, I was sent off to handwriting camp. We have those here. Okay. That's a whole discussion right there. Yeah. So I was sent off to this handwriting camp in, in China. And it turns out in China, people learn how to handwrite with fountain pens. And I remember hating these pens because none of them would fill. Like they would write, but they wouldn't fill. And they're all those bladder squeeze ones. Yeah. But yeah, so, so they weren't very good. Kind of forgot about it for a while. And then when I moved to France for university in, in Europe, as you're aware, um, many countries in Europe still require the use of fountain pens in, uh, especially grade school. And so one of my Swiss friends had, uh, had a fountain pen and I said, uh, well, may I try using it? Um, and she said, no, uh, and I, you know, there's this myth about, uh, if you let somebody use your fountain pen, they're gonna, um, the fountain pen is gonna, you know, change its properties and it's gonna, you know, go out of alignment because your fountain pen has a kind of learned to be with you. Right. So, so, so she gave me this, this myth and I said, okay, fine. Um, so I went to the supermarket, spent about five euros and bought myself a pack of three pilot petites. And then I tried them and I was like, wow, they're, they're incredible. So smooth. I can write so quickly with them. Uh, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, invest in a good pen. So, so I went to the pen store and, um, and then I got a Parker sonnet and then, you know, I brought it back home, went to class with it, started using this Parker sonnet and it was terrible. So fibers got, got stuck in, in the tines. It was, you know, wooden, right? Hard starting dry. I don't know how you can hard start and dry. Um, and so like, like, uh, a normal person, what I did was, okay, um, let me go back and buy another one. Just in case, you know, just in case it's a user error. So I went back, bought another one and, um, lo and behold, it was, uh, it was rubbish. So, uh, eventually I, uh, I bought a few more pens. I think I bought a kit pen at one point. And then that summer I worked an internship at a law firm and using the money that I earned at the law firm, I bought myself an absolutely crazy deal of a Mont Blanc. So I bought a Mont Blanc 145. And I bought it in the already discontinued burgundy color. And then I thought to myself, well, uh, you know, I'm at the apex of writing instruments. Now I have a Mont Blanc. So I guess that's it. My journey's come to an end.

'''CY:''' Um, and it did, it did for, for, um, for almost seven years. I, I used that one pen exclusively and I used one ink exclusively too. I used lavender purple exclusively. Oh, well that, that's a pretty good choice. It is. It is. It is. Uh, you know, the burgundy and the, and the, and the, the purple, I thought that went pretty well. And, and that ink at that time was dark enough that if you use it on, um, kind of like copy paper or just regular paper, it looked almost like it was black. So I did, I never got any, you know, comments about it from my teacher or, um, you know, I would use this to, you know, sign those immigration forms at the airport. Um, so, so I used that for, for exclusively for seven years. Um, and then I moved to Japan. I bought a Naginata Togi. Um, and because you could at that time, just pick them up, uh, off the ground. Um, I went to this Merz and Pen Fair. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I went there. Um, I bought some inks. I bought this pen. It's like $200 or something. Um, and I was like, this is too thick for me. Back to the Mont Blanc I go. Um, and that was, yeah, that was, that was pretty much my fountain pen adventure. And then what happened is about four or five years ago, I think almost five years ago, I went on a, uh, Christmas vacation, winter vacation, uh, with my girlfriend and we went to Kyoto and I discovered this thing called Yahoo auctions. Oh no. Have you heard of Yahoo auctions before? Uh, only through this certain podcast that I listened to. Yes. So, so Yahoo auctions is kind of like our version of eBay.

'''CY:''' And, um, and then I was scrolling through these Yahoo auctions and I realized, I said, wow, I can buy a Mont Blanc for $50. You know, it's just $50. Why not? So, so I, I bought a, bought a Mont Blanc there. Um, it was a Mont Blanc Generations and, um, it arrived and the section was cracked. Um, and so I said, no problem. It's only 50 bucks. I'll just go buy another one and swap out the parts because I'm a genius.

'''CY:''' So I bought like three more and all of the sections were cracked in the exact same spot.

'''CY:''' But then I, I had already been hooked, you know, uh, I had already been, um, enticed into this world of secondhand, um, fountain pens. And then now to more directly answer your question. Um, when I was about to leave my, I used to work at a company, um, that dealt deeply within the social media space. And I was about to move from this company to a more traditional, uh, retail company. And I thought to myself, you know what? I'd really like to keep up to date with social media trends. Um, I'd really like to, you know, become a practitioner and really just in case I want to move back to this kind of a job, I would be able to say something right about being able to keep up. So, so that's when I started Tokyo Station Pens. Gotcha. And I think it was, um, I want to say the October of 2018.