00:00Let's start from the beginning, and I mean the very beginning.
00:03Okay.
00:04Tell me a little bit about your childhood and growing up in Georgia, right?
00:07Yes.
00:08So I grew up not in the city either.
00:11I grew up in Georgia, which is already very much so the south, the Bible Belt, and north of the city.
00:19So I was—well, my family, and there was one other family that I knew that was Asian in, like, our whole entire town.
00:30Yeah.
00:30So it was incredibly, like, lonely and isolating, and it felt like I was getting bullied for bringing rice to school for lunch, and I hated that.
00:44So I never did it again after that, because I was, like, five when I, like, brought rice to lunch, and then everyone was like, ew, that's disgusting.
00:53Like, what is that?
00:54And so I just never did it again.
00:57Wait, they never had rice before?
00:58Right.
00:59Well, it was, like, rice and, like, borgoggi, which is, like, just, like, a Korean meat.
01:03Okay.
01:04And so it was just rice and meat, but everyone was like, oh, my God, that's disgusting.
01:07Like, what is that?
01:08Like, I bet you eat dogs, and, like, I bet that's, like, a chihuahua in there, and so on and so forth.
01:13And so I just never did that again.
01:15And then after that, I, like, really, really, really wanted to be blonde and blue-eyed.
01:20And I would beg my mom for, like, highlights at least or, like, contacts, and she constantly was just like, no, like, you're not getting that.
01:28You're seven.
01:30Like, if I'm not dying my seven-year-old's hair blonde, you're fine.
01:35You'll survive.
01:36But I wanted that for a long time until really, like, adulthood.
01:43And then once I reached adulthood, I was like, okay, I'm happy with being Asian.
01:49Yeah.
01:49Because then I came out here, too, and I was like, whoa, there's a lot of other Asians.
01:53Yeah.
01:53Yeah, I know.
01:54When you come to, like, a cosmopolitan city like L.A., there's all kinds of people here.
01:58My first concert out here, I literally looked at, like, around, and I was like, oh, my God, there's so many Asians here.
02:04And my friend goes, yeah, we're in L.A.
02:07And I was like, oh, my God, like, this is unheard of in Georgia.
02:11Well, in my part of Georgia.
02:13Right.
02:13So did you always feel, like, so isolated because you were Asian?
02:18Like, did that always, was that always present in, like, your everyday interactions?
02:23Or did it just surface sometimes?
02:25Well, there was always at least one other Asian, but usually only one.
02:30And sometimes that felt good because they were also, like, an Asian-American that understood.
02:36But sometimes it also felt even worse because then I felt not Asian enough.
02:42Like, I remember so vividly once I reached middle school that there was another Asian girl that I met, and her name was Karen, which is so funny.
02:50But she was like, oh, you don't speak Korean?
02:53And I was like, oh, like, I used to go to Korean school, and I, so I know a little bit.
02:59And she was like, oh, well, I've been fluent, you know, forever, and blah, blah, blah.
03:02And, like, now, so, like, I'm bilingual.
03:04And, yeah, so it can go either way.
03:06Wow, that's crazy where you didn't feel like you belonged in either world.
03:10Yeah.
03:10That's got to be really hard.
03:11It's probably still something that vexes me because I don't feel, like, American enough because of the way that I grew up.
03:19But I also don't feel Asian enough because I grew up in America.
03:22Right.
03:23And that's also just completely different than growing up in Asia.
03:27So how did that affect you?
03:29Like, as a kid, were you withdrawn?
03:31Like, did you overcompensate and try to be more American?
03:36Like, how were you?
03:37Yeah, I definitely tried to then fit in with all of the American kids.
03:41But then that all would just crumble when I would invite them over.
03:45And they would see, like, the food that we were eating or just seeing the fact that my grandparents also lived with us and, like, helped raise us.
03:54Because that's kind of, like, a Korean tradition is that the oldest son in the family will take care of the grandparents in their old age.
04:00So they lived with us and stuff.
04:02So it was, like, a lot of people in one house.
04:05It was eight people in a house.
04:09Wow.
04:09Yeah.
04:10Did you like that, though?
04:11I loved it.
04:12You liked growing up with a big family.
04:14Yeah.
04:14And I liked that if, like, my mom and dad weren't home, it's like I had second parents.
04:20Like, my grandparents were basically my second parents.
04:22I would rather, like, spend time with them than my parents, really, even.
04:27So I was always downstairs because my dad had completely, like, decked out our basement for them.
04:34And it was, like, a whole house down there.
04:37And I just had a blast.
04:38Like, they would let me ride my bike through it when it was still concrete.
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