VIBErations Episode 37 - Jake Johnson

VIBErations podcast Ep 37 Jake Johnson at VIBE Book & Music Shop in Mui Wo on Lantau Island in HK on 26th January 2022

BIO

Like many people, Jacob Johnson was born. As a toddler, he was moved from a rural area of middle Tennessee to Memphis where he spent most of his youth. While spending his teenage years endeavouring to avoid living up to his scholastic potential, he began working in the food service industry as a line cook at a corporate chain restaurant. After an unmotivated, perfunctory stint in university, he decided that he may as well go to culinary school and acquire a broader range of skills to accompany the unhealthy sleeping habits and functional alcoholism the restaurant industry had already given him.

Around this time, he met Matilda who would become his wife - while playing fighting games at a shopping mall arcade. Their idiosyncrasies were surprisingly compatible and they were married a few years later. After buying a small home and beginning to establish a respectable rut, they realized they were bored and wanted to try living somewhere entirely different. As Matilda still had permanent residence in Hong Kong from her childhood, they decided they would move here - with no plan whatsoever. Both ended up finding work in schools and spent the next 7 years traveling non-stop during every holiday and long weekend.

After a brief stint back in the States, Jake rediscovered an old hobby he'd picked up as a teenager and started making beef jerky. After a year or two of using his friends as guinea pigs to improve recipes, the birth of his first son prompted a somewhat irrational decision to leave the security of his job to spend more time with his family and pay the bills with beef snacks. After renovating a small location in Mui Wo to begin building Lantau Jerky, Jake and Matilda decided to start cooking a few simple comfort foods from southern cuisine on weekends to make a little extra to pay the rent. Thanks to the overwhelming support of the Lantau community, this little side hustle grew to become Southside.

10 Questions….

1. Favourite book or author? – Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson

2. Favourite musical artist? - 'Wish you were here' by Pink Floyd/ 'Boston' by Boston / 'Ten' by Pearl Jam

3. Preferred drink? – Mint Julip or hot toddy or Whiskey & water

4. Life motto? – …from 'Time enough for Love' by Robert Heinlein

5. Favourite HK walk? – Walk between Yau Ma Tei & Sham Shui Po…

6. Favourite HK restaurant? – Mama Lala Sham Shui Po - Sichuan food

7. Faced with a python whilst walking up to the Peak, what would you do? – Carry on walking

8. Best advice you were given? – Don't be Beholden

9. Finish this sentence… I live in Hong Kong because… The diversity

10. Favourite area of Hong Kong? – Mui Wo!