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Book Club: Crying in H-Mart · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never told you protection of I Heart Radio. So before
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: we get into this, one quick housekeeping note. By the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: end of May, we are here in Atlanta moving our office.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: You're moving out of Pont City Market, uh, and we
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: will start new journeys elsewhere, even though Samantha and I
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: are largely working from home. To be fair, I've never
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: had an office there. I would just sit at the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: main table and look around. And when someone asked me
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: if I wanted to desk, I just said, no, I
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: don't want people to see me. That's about right, That's
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: about all right. I have an office and it's chaotic.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Well it's a desk in an open space, which is
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: what we had. It's chaotic and I have to go
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: clear it out and it's causing some stress. But it'll
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: be fine. It'll be fine. But I mentioned it because
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: some of you very kind listeners occasionally send us things,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and we are moving our address. So if you are interested,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: it's never an obligation, but always a pleasure to receive
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: stuff from you all. If you if you'd like to
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: send us something, UH, just email us or contact us
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: somehow we'll get you the new address, which I'm still
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: not sure what it is, but we can find it. Yes,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know if any really knows exactly the address
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: because it's still being set up. It's true as a place,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: so who knows. Who knows if people keep asking, oh,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: where are you going to? My own? Especially? Do know?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I went over and looked at it, but it's obviously
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: being currently built for us. But the whole space is
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: definitely one of those uh, work, live, eat spaces. That
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: other thing. I think you said it something I don't know.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: You're not wrong. I'm sure that's been used somewhere. It's
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: got an enormous food all that's for sure. It's delicious,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I will say that. Okay, Well, if we ever make
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: it over there, I'm sure plenty of food will be had. Okay,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So just some quick housekeeping and now let us get
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: into this episode, which is a book club pick that
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: we are doing on Michelle is Honors book Crying in
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Smart and just right off the bat, this one has
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a lot to do with grief and loss of a parent,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: like a lot if that is something that you don't
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: want to hear about right now and totally understand it
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: is pretty intense. Also, as we're going to talk about,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: this was an interesting one for Samantha and I because
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: it was triggering for us in different ways. Yeah, so
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: there's stuff about identity in there, Um that was pretty
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: upsetting for you, and stuff about grief that was upsetting me.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It's a fantastic book, though, like, don't let that scare
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you away, but go in armed with the knowledge. It
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: gives you all the fields um auld say. And it
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: definitely is a somber note because she's so real, so
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: raw with it um and just bears it all essentially,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: including her relationship with her father and her relationship with
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: her Korean family and her mom. Obviously, it just kind
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of like the things that we've been going down recently,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: especially during this API Heritage Month, a lot of emotional
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: trauma and bonding and forgiveness with parents and children, specifically mothers.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of that theme happening in this one
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: as well. I guess it's forever like we we know,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: we know when it comes to mother daughter relationships, there's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: a whole different level in general and the expectations and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: then culturally what is placed on you. So yeah, definitely
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of real human, real raw emotions with death
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and grief on top of loss and kind of learning
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to forgive yourself and others. It's a whole thing. It's
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a whole It is a whole thing, indeed, and we
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: have a lot to say about it. The plot most
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: simply chronicles Michelle's relationship with her mother before and after
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: she dies of cancer in her fifties. And Michelle was
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: born in Seoul to an American father and Korean mother,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and they immigrated to Portland, Oregon when Michelle was a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: year old, and the relationship between Michelle and her mom
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: was complicated and full of misunderstandings. And only after her
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: mother's cancer diagnosis and death does Michelle fully realize how
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: much food, and specifically Korean food was her mother's way
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: of expressing love and kind of looking back on their
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: relationship and understanding it differently. Um and yeah, it's an
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: examination of grief, music, love, mother daughter relationships and identity.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And yes, food, lots of food, lots of cravings were
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: had and as a title, crying in h s Mart.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I have never been to h Mart despite many efforts
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and longing to go for many many years. But you
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: have right, so I'm just like any store that is
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: specific to a cultural group or ethnicity, they are located
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: in those areas. Um And for us, I'm sure because
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: h Mart is a national international market, hours are placed
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: into the heavily uh Asian immigration populations. So what we
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: called Bufford Highway has one and it's fairly new. Further
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: up there's a place called Sugar Loved Parkway that has
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a giant one as well. I think they have the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: super h martin it's huge. Essentially, these are I think
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: people everyone should know. These are Asian markets specialized with
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: all the foods that you cannot find typically in an
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: American grocery store. Um And yeah, it's been a whole
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: discovery and it's amazing. It is a trip down if
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: a different cultural lane. And we're gonna talk about it
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: in a minute. But for me, it was like, okay,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: is this reminiscent? Do I remember what these are? What
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: are these things? Are they familiar? And yeah I did
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: have moments of like okay, okay, this is familiar and
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a panic of course, but we'll talk about that in
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: a minute. And they are pristine, typically, they are pristine.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: The ones I've been to have been very pristine and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: very organized, and you go down and you can get
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: your gu and goji chung down that way fish sauce,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and this one took on the other side, and they
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: typically have a food hall um and I have found
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: my favorite Korean restaurant with two which I love this
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: description in the book where they talk about the Korean
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: women with the visors, because yes, that's exactly what they
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: are wearing, and because it's the pandemic to they typically
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: wear masks and gloves, rushing and yelling at people to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: come get their food. It's chaos and it's wonderful. But
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: have the best types of food. Honestly, probably some of
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the best Korean food I've ever had, just ordering it
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: at the market and leaving. They also have the kitchen
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: new Korean food, so the mochi donuts they have those there,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the Korean corn dogs, which are typically uh deep fried
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: with something on it. So I've had the ones with
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the potatoes, which is delicious with a hot dog and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the mazzarella cheese in it. And my partner with the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: other day, so there was one a little closer to
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: us and he got a hot dog and the Korean
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: woman was like, you want sugar and he was like,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know, and she's like, no, you do, you
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: want sugar? And so she added which is sounds a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Korean wave this is and she was like this is
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the Korean way and he's like, okay, okay, I got you. Yeah,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: let's do this. Uh And it was delicious. But yeah.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: So it is a wide array of an experience in
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: finding these different foods and things that you can't typically
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: find anywhere. I will say the things that you find
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: there are going to be cheaper then you find in
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: a regular grocery store. So if it's a specialty that
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: you can't find and you somehow get it at Publix,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be three or four times more. So.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: For example, I've gotten really into getting making bunchons and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: which is our Korean appetizers or Korean a small dishes
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: side dishes. And one of my favorites is, uh the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: bean sprout one. I made you try to taste it.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, taste this in the cucumber one, It's like, oh,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you must have this. Um. But like getting bean sprouts,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: actual bean sprouts, I can get like a pound to
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: three pounds uh, And for like, while getting a half
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: a pound of not really good quality at public was
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: like six bucks. So things like that, you're like, it's
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: worth going to this and getting all the different types
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of noodles that I love and like just pretty much
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: live off of. But yeah, it is. It is a feast,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: and I feel like I have to go and try
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: new things every time I go, try specific things. I
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: have been watching all the different TikTok's about people going
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to h Mart, and I'm finding my new favorites and
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: things that never actually tried to things that I have tried,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and learning how to use the products. So it's a
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: great experience. Uh we I go way too much, but yeah,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I'm excited because I'm actually moving a little sort to them.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: So yeah, but yeah, if you've never gone, take that
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: chance to experience a little different from the everyday culture
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of those who know it. Some people have been sending
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: us stuff from there for a while now, I think,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: or from an Asian specialty store, and thank you. But yeah,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: that it is a delight. It sounds wonderful, um, and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: there are great descriptions of it in the book that
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: sort of open it. So we wanted to read this
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a long quote so it starts Smart is a supermarket
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: chain that specializes in Asian food. The H stands for
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Hannah Room, a Korean phrase that roughly translate to one
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: armful of groceries. H Smart is where the parachute kids
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: flocked to find the brand of instant noodles that reminds
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: them of home. It's where Korean families by rice cakes
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: to make talk cook the beef and rice cakes soup
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that brings in the new year. Is the one place
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: where you can find a giant vat of peeled garlic,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: because it's the only place that truly understands how much
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: garlic you'll need for the kind of food your people eat. Yes,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: so much, so much garlic. H Martin is freedom from
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the single aisle ethnic section in regular grocery stores. They
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: don't prop goya beans, next two bottles of sarracha. Here. Instead,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you'll likely find me crying by the bonch on refrigerators,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: remembering the taste about Mom's soy sauce eggs and cold
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: radish soup, or in the freezer section holding a stack
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: of Dublin skins, thinking of all the hours that Mom
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and I spent in the kitchen table folding minced pork
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and chives into the thin dough, sobbing near the dry goods,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: asking myself, am I even Korean anymore? If there's no
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: one left to call and ask which brand of seaweed
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: we used to buy? Yeah, And I'm not gonna lie
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: that this whole moment when she talks about uh, not
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: feeling Korean anymore because she had no link to it
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: since her mother had passed away, that was That's kind
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of the feeling in general, like searching, googling, feeling the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: shame of googling brands because I don't know outside of
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the tastes and memories that I had as a child,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and trying to come back to it without falling out
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: with the trauma trigger and and getting into my identity
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: because I've talked about this before and I repeatedly talked
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: about it, and I think people will understand food sensory
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: is really heavy in our lives and it really brings
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: up a lot for us, whether it's a moment of
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: good or bad or comfort or any of those things.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Um and trying to readjust my emotional and mental state
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of being to trying to enjoy something that I don't
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: know if I'm allowed to enjoy it's a whole thing,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and going into stores and seeing myself as fake, afraid
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: that someone will see me, Like watching the Asian women
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: coming through Russialy get annoyed by me because I'm standing
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: in front of something that They're like, no, this is
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: this is what I need to getting into my way.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: They don't care. They pushed me out, and that's fine.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I love it. But that's exactly that panic of like,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: oh God, what am I doing here? Am I worthy
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of being here? Um? Because I can't identify with this
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: UM trying to re establish a connection and I know
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: she and I came about it in different forms, and
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Nicole Chung and I talked about it previously and trying
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to figure this out because she had finally made her
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: connection with her Korean family and they were teaching her
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: these things. UM, I still don't have that, and trying
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to figure that out at such a whole level. But
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the underestimated feeling I was like, oh, I'm overwhelmed. I
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: didn't realize I was going to be overwhelmed in a
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: store which for so many love and honestly, it's kind
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: of been not fetishized, but glamorized now because you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Asian food has become popular, and I'm glad for it
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: because I wanted to be popular because I feel like,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: finally I don't feel ashamed of trying to hide things,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and now I'm trying to claim it and I can't.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: So there's a whole different thing, but it is. It's
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: a it's a weird jiposition on trying to love something
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: when I hated it, when I denied it, and now
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I can't remember it and don't know if I'm worthy
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: of it. It's the whole thing. And so having that
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: feeling of panic, not necessarily of sobbing. Don't get me wrong,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I've come home sobbing and being triggered as a whole level.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And I actually had an experience. So I was talking
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: about h Mart and telling you about the wonderful cooking
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: of these women. They were so sweet, giggling because you know,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: it was such chaos, people were trying to get food.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: We came at the busiest time, thinking that it wasn't
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: going to be busy, and when I was getting my food,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: she was so nice. Never she never really spoke Korean
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to me, which I was grateful for because I was
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: panicked that she would and I would have to identify myself,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: which is also in the book as not being able
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: to speak Korean, that what I got to say come
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: to Amnida. I ran away before she could respond to
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: me because I was trying to do it, saying quickly,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: because I really felt that was a huge step for
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: me to even try any any type of Korean, because
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I have not spoken it since seven years old and
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I cannot remember for the life of me how to
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: speak it. But there's a level of panic of trying
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: to figure this out and still really hoping that I
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: could fake my way through it and not Ruin my moment,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I felt nice, I did do it. I ran away.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I sat down and told my partner, who was American
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that he was like, oh good, I was like, I
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: feel I was like, I don't know, i'velucked out, which
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: this is the way how I felt. Yeah. I mean,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: there's so much in this in this book, um that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: when I was reading it, I thought of you, because
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: you've told me these kinds of things before. But it
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: can be food can be uh such a powerful source
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: of memory that can be very triggering, and so it
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: makes sense to me like stores can be too. They
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: can have that like potential to be somewhere where you
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: can reconnect but also somewhere where you can get triggered.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah makes sense. Okay. Another big theme are probably the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: biggest theme. The heart of this, uh is the mother
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: daughter relationship, this kind of family relationship, and there's definitely
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of, Like I was kind of surprised, there
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: was a lot of like tough love and trying to
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: win guardians over. I guess I didn't think it was
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: gonna be this sounds like really ridiculous, but I thought
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it was going to be like her mother died and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: then kind of grappling with the thoughts and trying to
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: regain these memories and stuff. But it was much more
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: like long drawn out Yeah, it was painful. It was painful.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: It literally delves into the start of her diagnosis to
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the aftermath and playing every scene in between, and very
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: descriptive of her sickness at the time and how it
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: affected all of them, all of the family, and her
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: own drive and trying to be and we're gonna talk
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: about the perfect daughter, Yeah, exactly. So here's a quote
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: like many a kid trapped in a small city. I
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: felt bored and then suffocated. By the time I was
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: in high school, the desire for independence, trailing a convoy
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of insidious hormones had transformed me from a child who
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: couldn't bear to sleep without her mother into a teenager
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: who couldn't stand her touch. Every time she picked a
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: bottle of lint off my sweater, or pressed her hand
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: between my shoulder blades to keep me from slouching, rubbed
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: her fingers on my forehead to ward off wrinkles, it
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: felt like a hot iron puckering against my skin. Somehow,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: as if overnight every simple suggestion made me feel like
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I was overheating, and my resentment and sensitivity grew and
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: grew until they bubbled up and exploded, and that in
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: an instant, uncontrollably, I'd ripped my body away and scream
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: stopped touching me. Can't you ever leave me alone? Maybe
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I want rank goals, Maybe I want reminders that I've
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: lived my life, and I yeah, like you said, Samantha
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: is she's so honest and I really connected with After
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: you lose somebody, you start going through like a roll,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the decks of everything you've done, and especially as a kid,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: because it's hard for you to admit I was a teenager,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I was a kid. I was dealing with this stuff
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: when it was kind of bratty or whatever it was
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: in my case, like my grandparents, I was that. I
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't like this quite but I was almost embarrassed to
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: hang out with them and I don't really know why.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And then they died and I look back on that
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and I hate that. Okay, I hate that so much.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: But their their relationship did have a lot of tension
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and contention in arguments, high emotions in it. I mean,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I definitely remember being embarrassed around my mom for something,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but at the same time, uh, I also remember wishing
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: my parent was around more so they didn't come to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: my much. They didn't, and don't get me wrong, it
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't because they didn't want to. It's because they were busy.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I was one of four and things were happening very
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: quickly and they were very busy. My dad was constantly
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: gone to work. But I kind of wish I had
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: that embarrassment of them being present on things, uh, and
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: felt proud when they did come around. But at the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: same time, I definitely could see like overbearing and be
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: like no, no no, no, no no, nope, so I kind of
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: had the opposite. So it's definitely a different thing. But
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the regrets of like really wishing we could cherish it
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: more regrets and moving on it says. She says. My
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: mother looked at me as if I were a warm
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and unfamiliar spec eating away at all her efforts. This
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: was not the girl who clung to her sleeves in
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the grocery store. This was not the girl who begged
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: to sleep on the floor beside her bed with a
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: phone to my ear. I stared back her defiantly, but
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: when I heard a voice on the other end of
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the line, I panicked and hung up, so she tried
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: calling up, calling nine one one. At this point, my
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: mother took it as an opportunity to tackle me. She
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: grabbed me by the four arms for the first time.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: We were locked together, wrestling to pin each other to
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the carpet. I tried to find her off, but discovered
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: there was a physical place I would not go a strength.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I knew I had to overtake her, but could not
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: access I let her pin my wrist and climb on
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: top of my stomach. Why are you doing this to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: us after everything we've given you. How can you treat
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: us this way? She yelled, her tears and spit falling
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: onto my face. She smelled like olive oil, incidrus. Her
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: hands felt soft and slick, greased with cream. As they
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: pushed my wrist against the course carpet, The weight of
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: her on me began to ache like a bruise. My
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: father hovered over us, unsure of his place in it all,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: searching for a reason why kids like me could wind
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: up so miserable. I had an abortion after you because
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: you were such a terrible child. So yeah, this whole
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: passage is happening. When they finally erupted and screaming started happening,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and her mom was angry to the point that she
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: was trying to get physically violent it, as well as
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: trying to get her father involved to be physically violent.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: And when that kind of threatened, she called nine would one,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: then hung up um And then that was the last expression,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: which obviously haunted her. Mm hmmm, it's about the book,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: which was haunting it in every way for sure, kind
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: of like being told not nine parents never told me
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: that they didn't never that they wish they didn't adopt me.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: My family, my siblings did though, mm hmmm mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting that piece in there, because again,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: like you said, there's kind of a trend in Hollywood
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: right now, the similar thing where she the mother was
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: trying to make her daughter into something. It was like
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: putting all this focus onto her and it was sort
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of the like it wasn't working because that's not who
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: she was. Right. Here's another quote. Now, more than ever,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I wish desperately for a way to transfer pain, which
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I could prove to my mother just how much I
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: loved her, that I could just crawl into her hospital
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: cut and press my body close enough to absorb her burden.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It seemed only fair that life should present such an
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: opportunity to proof one's filial piety, That the months my
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: mother had been a vessel for me, her organs shifting
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and cramping together to make room for my existence, and
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the agony she'd endured upon my exit could be repaid
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: by carrying this pain in her place. The right of
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: an only daughter. Yeah, and that goes back to like
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: what we talked about with the dutiful daughter. Um, And
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: there's obviously intersectional layers to this too, kind of that pressure,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and I I felt that. And I've also just felt
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: like guilty for a new pain that I've caused. And
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: I've had this similar thing like how can I make
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: it up? I could never make it up. Um, but yeah,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I just resonated. Yeah. And then I wanted to include
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: this because then you get kind of get to see
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the how their relationship evolves. So this is the mother.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: You know what, I realized, I've just never met someone
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: like you, as if I were a stranger from another town,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: or an eccentric guest accompanying a mutual friend to a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: dinner party. It was a strange thought to hear from
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the mouth of the woman who had birds and raised me,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: with whom I shared at home for eighteen years, someone
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: who was half of me. My mother had struggled to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: understand me, just as I struggled to understand her. Thrown
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: as we were on opposite sides of a fault line generational, cultural, linguistic,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: we wandered lost without a reference point, each of us
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: unintelligible to the other's expectations. Until these past few years,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: when he had just begun to unlock the mystery carved
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the psychic space to accommodate each other, appreciate the differences
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: between us linger and our refracted commonalities. Then what would
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: have been the most fruitful years of understanding were cut
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: violently short, and I was left alone to decipher the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: secrets of inheritance without its key. Uh. I love that
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: take about the stranger because it's true no matter how
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: you raise someone and how you might know of the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: past and what they were and who they were and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the ins and outs, but when it comes down to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the adult version, which you can't control, no one can control,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: they are a separate person, that's separate being, And you
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: know that level of conversation of like, oh, it's nice
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to meet you again. Essentially, it's kind of that conversation
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and accepting that instead of trying to control that as
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: a whole different level. When you do, you do have
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a moment of like, Okay, I have to reframe how
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I think of you, and so this is how I
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: will interact with you. But yeah, it took distance to
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: get some to this point. Yeah, and I think that
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: it's natural for I say this as someone who's not
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: a parent, but to me, I feel like it's probably
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: natural too, because I fantasized about having children, but to
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: imagine how they're going to grow up. Right, there's a
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: part of that where you're like, oh, they're gonna go
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: do this and do this, and I'm gonna provide so
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: that they can do this. And then maybe they want
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: like totally not that thing. I'm sure could be hard.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that can definitely be hard to let go
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and accept for sure, right, um, and it goes on.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: She was my champion, She was my archive. She had
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: taken the utmost care to preserve the evidence of my
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: existence and growth, capturing me and images, saving all my
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: documents and possessions. She had all knowledge of my being
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: memorized the time I was born. My Unborn Cravings, the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: first book I read, the formation of every characteristic, every element,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and little victory. She observed me with unparalleled interest, inexhaustible devotion.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: So that's sort of the flip side, right. You know,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: when you get older, you realize you didn't know everything
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: about your parents or your guardians either. We've definitely talked
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: about that before, about the fact that we discovered things like, oh,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: this is what my parents were doing. This is kind
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of an insight of how they what they thought of me,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: or who they thought mad be um. I know. She
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: talks about the fact that her CD was found in
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: her mom's a player, as well as the fact that
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: her mom and she never really talked about that and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: that was a big point of contention between the two
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of them, but her mom was still proud and still
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: supported that, and it is it's not iced to see.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I think about that sometimes with my own childhood and like,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I don't have those things. I don't have any of
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: those memories for me, and I feel lost. I feel
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: like I've lost something in that. So when I hear it,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, jealousy, But it was still nice to see, like,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: because I'm sure my famorite my mother has kept much
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: as she could. A lot of it burned actually, but
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: she did do a scrap book for me just so
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: that she had that, and it's nice to see, Yeah,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: my mom did that to for for all of us,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and that for some reason. I mean, occasionally I get
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: more bid and I imagine, you know, sort of necessary,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: but imagine what's gonna happen after she dies, And I
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: keep thinking, like, if I find those books, it's gonna
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: rick meeting. Yeah, I mean, anytime when you go through
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: some one's things and the long memories m ordeal. It
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: is one thing we're not gonna go to in depth
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: in this, but I did what I've mentioned. UM. We
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: also get to see a lot of relationships with other
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: women on her mother's side of the family UM. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: we also get to see her friendships with other women,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and it was really nice. She had a good support
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: group UM and they had a system in place. There
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: was some drama, but it was there's a lot of
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: women involved with my caring for her in her life, right. Yeah.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of that had to do with
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: connecting to our culture that she was afraid she was
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: going to lose and not be able to teach. We
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: know that the friend that she made in Japan who
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: helped her do the dishes UH meaning food cooking food
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: and came and supported her and got to control UM
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and felt the source of UH ownership over her a
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: little bit. And if it's familiar, there's a lot of
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Korean culture and that the women being the matriarch and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: taking over being an only meaning the sisters that they
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: had that they never had, or the sisters that it's
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: not close, So it's as a deep relationship and we've
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: seen it in any times when it comes to Asian conversations.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: We saw it and turning red as the aunts came in,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: not necessarily to be the mother's friend, but they are
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: as a crew. We saw it enjoy Luck Club, where
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the women really supported each other because it is a
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: very like male female gendered specifics and your trust the
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: people that are close to you and specifically your gender,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: all those things. So I feel like it was very
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: culturally along the lines of who she was and what
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: she missed. Yeah, yeah, I agreed. And then we wanted
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: to talk about adolescence, which is a pretty big theme
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: in here. It's sort of as we mentioned in one
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of the other quotes, when Michelle was younger, she was
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: really close with her mom, and then kind of adolescence
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: came in and they just kind of fractured. And she's
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: really open with high school depression, which I appreciated and
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: related to. Yep, I remember this. Here's a quote. She
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: doubled down morphing into a towering obelisk that shadowed my
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: every move. She needled me over my weight, the width
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of my eyeliner, at the state of my breakout and
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: my lack of commitment to the toners and exfolience she
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: ordered for me from QBC. Everything I wore was an argument.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to shut my bedroom door after school
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: when my friends would head to one another's houses for
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: weekday sleepovers. I was whisked away to extracurriculars, then stuck
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in the woods that left to grumble alone in my
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: room with the door left open. I think a lot
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: of us can to relate to this. I certainly could.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: My parents weren't disintense, but I had like you couldn't
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: close the door if I had a man a dude
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: over for sure, but sometimes my friends too. And I
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: didn't really have this makeup thing, but I had the
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: comments about my clothes and turned back around. So I
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: not really dealt with that necessarily because I did not dress.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I was always insecure my body, so I never dressed
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: in that way at any point in time. My mom
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: was very cautious on teaching me about makeup and such
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: because she didn't want me to wear too much makeup.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: So very conservative, very conservative. So if I law like
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: understood all that. When I did get concerned about my acne,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: she did take me to dermatologists like that's which is
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: surprising me now and stuff like that. But we did
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: have the drool about leaving the door. Ope. But no
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: matter what, So it wasn't because I really had boys over.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: That was not a thing for me. Um. But typically yeah,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: they at least cracked. I'm not sure if it was
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: for circulation or for privacy stuff. I'm not positive indeed. Well,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: here's where the music comes in. Into the vacuum of
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: my disinterest. Music rushed to fill the void. It cracked
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a fissure, splintered a vein through the already precarious and
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: widening rift between my mother and me. It would become
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a chasm that threatened to swallow his whole. Nothing was
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: as vital as music, the only comfort for my existential dread.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I spent my days downloading songs one at a time
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: off Lime Wire and getting into heated discussions on a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I AM about whether the Food Fighter's acoustic version of
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: ever Long was better than the original. I pocketed my
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: allowance and lunch money to spend exclusively on CDs from
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: House of Records, analyzing lyrics in the liner notes, obsessing
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: over interviews with the Champion specific Northwest Indie rock memorizing
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: the rosters of labels like K Records and Killer rock Stars,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: and plotting what concerts I'd attend. I threw this in
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: partly because of nostalgic, because black used all that. I
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: found my iPod recently and I just found other being discontinuous,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, this is a good day. What do
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I do with this? My partner looked at it, he
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: was like, this has a camera on and like, oh, yeah,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it has a camera on it. Oh. They were so
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: hard to maneuver, though. I would Yeah, I would love
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: to show it to a youth, uh and just watch
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: them trying to figure it out. Yeah. Actually, I think
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: we found a charger, so we're going to try to
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: charge mine. But yeah, trying to download songs. CD deals.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: We get CD for a penny and then you have
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: to subscribe, and you quickly unsubscribed, so you can just
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: get the one for the penny at a friend who
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: would burn these c ds and sell them illegally. You
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: did blue collar crime here? What is happening? I got
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: asked at a r a random person at a Zaxby's
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: once if I could if he could buy a CD
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: from me, and I was like oh, I've gone too far.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: I've got to shut this down. Strangers know about me.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: My friend did the same thing and he made a
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: lot of money, talked about how much you man. I
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, really, I would never I
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: was not that kid. I could not do it. Also,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't have a CD burner, so you know there's that, which,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: by the way, I found my partner had like Stax
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and Sack subsidis, I think former computers, but it's to
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: burn stuff. And I was like, do you need this anymore?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Does anybody? So I'll say, I know you will going on,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: she says, But nothing impacted me so profoundly as the
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: first time I got my hands on a DVD of
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Live at the Filmore. The front woman,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Karen Oh was the first icon of the music world
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I worshiped who looked like me. She was half Korean
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and half white, with an unrivaled showmanship that obliterated the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: docile Asian stereotype. She was famous for wild onstage antics,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: spitting water into the air, bounding across to the far
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: edges of the stage, and deep throwing a microphone before
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: last going it above her head by its cable a
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: gape at the image. I found myself in a strange
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: state of ambivalence, my first thought being how do I
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: get to do that? And my second if there's already
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: one Asian girl doing this, then there's no longer space
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: for me. Back then, I didn't know what scarcity mentality was.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: The dialogue surrounding representation in music was in its nascent stages,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and because I didn't personally know any other girls who
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: played music, I didn't know there were others like me
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: struggling with the same feelings. I didn't have the analogical
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: capacity to imagine a white boy in the same situation,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: watching a live DVD of say the Stooges and thinking,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: if there's our addie Iggy Pop, how could there possibly
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: be room for another white guy in music. Yeah, I'm
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: not gonna lie. Everything about that hit me. Everything about that.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: This is when I talked about I thought I wanted
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: to be an actor at a young time, and I'm like, well,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: they already have ABC. I think Lucy Lou was one
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of them, and I'm like, I can't be as cool
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: as her. Um, not realizing there's more than one, that
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: can be more than one Asian roles, but we see
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: it so often times, especially when it's whitewashed and cast
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: to white people looking kind of Asian. It is so
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: insulting because I'm like, wait, you really are saying there's
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: no room for Asian actors or Asian people to be upfront? Um,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: what is this? Like that whole like scarcity mentality and
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the fact that we're competing with each other, not uplifting
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: each other, and having whole casts and movies made about it.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: What about just Asian families that's not real because they
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: are only sidekicks and we can't see them as main
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: characters or being singers. No, you know, like having K
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: pop was big but still not as big as what
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: it is today. I feel like I know it was around,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: but it still wasn't taken seriously as rock or any like.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And and even let's just kind of that conversation about
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: pop music and being not as cool as rock or grunge,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: but having Asian people being representations for that, that's unheard of.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: That's unheard of. And when you see something you clean
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: to that identity. I went, oh my god, there's something
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: this looks kind of like you know what I talked
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: about Ben Like Beckham, we are not from the same country,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: we're not in the same ethnicity, but still I felt
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: a little scene because here is a brown Asian woman
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: taking on the main character role and not just the
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: psychic and I'm like, what and their families coming in
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to be main plot lines and having really deep understanding
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: interesting tradition and really having a depth to the character
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: and families. You're like, what, No, is that for real?
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And having that what kind of how it kind of
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: shocks you into the reality of like, oh, okay, maybe
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: mm hmmm. And that's something we've talked about before that
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: holds scarcity mentality and how bad it is UM another
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: thing we wanted to talk about. This was just something
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I found interesting that was throughout the book is sort
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: of this focus on appearances that her mother had UM.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: So here's a quote. She was obsessed with appearances and
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: spent hours watching QVC. She phoned in orders for cleansing conditioners,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: specialty toothpaste, and jars of caviar oil, scrubs, serums, moisturizers, toners,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and anti aging creams. She believed in QBC products with
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: the zeal of a conspiracy theorist. If you question, the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: legitimacy of a product she'd abrupt, and self defense. My
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: mom was wholeheartedly convinced that super small toothpaste made our
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: teeth five shades whiter, and Dr Denise's beautiful complexion three
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: P skincare kit shaved ten years off our faces. Her
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: bathroom counter was an then full of glass pots and
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: tinted jars. She dipped, dabbed, rubbed, padded, and smoothed onto
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: her face religiously, following a tin steps skin care regiment
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: that included a microcurrent wand for electrocuting wrinkles. Every night.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: From the hall, I could hear the clapping of her
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: palms against her cheeks and the hum of pulsing electricity
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: supposedly tightening her pores as she zipped and zapped, then
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: applied layer after a layer of cream. You know, I
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: think this is universal everybody just trying to be younger
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: and that appearance and being very concerned about that in general.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know, We're gonna talk about hair, and we've
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: talked about I've talked about my own concerns about hair.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: This is a whole different level, but like truly feeling
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: like that's how worth and we need to keep it
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: somehow and that if we will do whatever we can. Also,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: my mom is a huge fan of QBC. I think
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: still really yeah. Every now and then I'll get something
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: like this is from QVC and then she's like, okay,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: it was a deal, and I'm like, why, thank you.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: I don't want Marie Osmond's whatever new cooking Muten sold.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: This is Um, I'm just kidding. But yeah, like I
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: definitely say that. But q became an American like phenomenon.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Is that the way it really became a new way
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of buying. I guess it was a precursor to online buying. Yeah, yeah,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: And I think, yeah, again, this is interesting to me
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: because of the sometimes you have to step back and
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: think about, oh, yeah, I do this kind of painful
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: beauty regiment or I do this really long beauty regimen
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: because we do feel like that is our worth and
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: we're told that is our worth. Um, and uh, I
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: don't know. I just kind of stuck out to me
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: because when my dad got sick, she was doing this
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: before he got she got sick, but um, my dad
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: got sick, he started buying things like this too. Yeah,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: and I remember it makes sense, but I remember kind
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: of being like, oh, you know, we have all these
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: different types of toothpaste and skin creams and all this stuff. Yeah,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: it's the thing for sure, and yeah we go on.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: In retrospect, I should have been able to hold up
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: this information to my mother's obsession with beauty, to her
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: affection for brand labels and all the hours she spent
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: on skincare, and recognized the source of her attitude a
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: legitimate cultural difference, rather than a caprice of her own
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: superficial nagging. Like food, beauty was an integral part of
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: her culture. Nowadays, South Korea has the highest rate of
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: cosmetic surgery and the world, with an estimated one in
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: three women in their twenties having undergone some type of procedure,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: and the seeds of that circumstance run deep in the
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: language and the mores of the country. Every time I
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: ate well or a bowed correctly to my elders, my
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: relatives would say, I go yapp ail, yeah, b ale
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: or pretty was frequently employed as a synonym for good
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: or well behavior, and this fusion of moral aesthetic approval
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: was an early introduction to the valid of beauty and
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: the rewards it had in store. Um. Yeah, and it's true,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: like we know that South Korea has some of the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: highest amounts of cosmetic products as well, to the point
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: that it's so popular in the US at this point
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: in time, and some of the high selling products in
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: most of the cosmetic stores like Sephora and Alta, and
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it kind of like, hey, this is the South Korean product,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you should use it because it gives it gives it
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit of validity. And I'm not gonna lie.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I definitely got caught up in them, like, oh, let
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: me see what this one is about. Does it have bleached?
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I will not use it. A lot of products have
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: bleached in it because you know, lighter skin colorism is
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: a thing, and that's part of that. Yeah. Yeah. And
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: again this is sort of another example of her learning
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: more about her mother and why it was important and
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: it was really painful to watch her mother lose that
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: through illness, and yet she does lose a lot of
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: her hair. Um, just when it was so important to her.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: And speaking of this brings us to the grief portion,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: which is a big theme. It is throughout. It starts
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and doesn't stop. Um. And I did relate so much
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: to a bunch of this, especially the guilts, like I said,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: of looking back at everything you did, Um, the desperation
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: to be better, uh, to to make up, to make
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: the relationship work, UM, to tell stories like there's a
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: part where she's Michelle's telling her mother like remember when
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: we did trying to cheer her up, And that's the
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: last thing I did. Me and my dad did as
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: because I was trying to cheer him up, wanting to
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: get married before they die. I did consider it, and
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: then I was like, oh, that's a terrible idea. It
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: worked out okay for her, but it wouldn't have for me. Um.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Always uh, trying to find something to look forward to.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: So for instance, we would plan we planned this trip
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: to to Fino, Canada, which you always wanted to go to.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: We kind of did that to like kind of give him,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: you know, something to look forward to. So I keep fighting.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: UM And yeah, definitely discovering stuff after they've died, like
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: physical stuff, but also just stuff about them in their
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: past that you didn't know and you're kind of shocked
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: you didn't know. And then like all the medical equipment
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: in the house, the medical bed in the house, and
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know trying to help them, and it's it's
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: just hard because you know they don't want to ask
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: for your help, but they need it. And this is
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: my case and also the case that was here. But
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: that's how I felt. Yeah, okay, here's a quote. Sometimes
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: why I grieve. It feels as though I've been left
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: alone in a room with no doors. Every time I
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: remember that my mother is dead, it feels like I'm
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: colliding with a wall that won't give. There's no escape,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: just a hard service that I keep ramming into over
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and over, a reminder of the mutable reality that I
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: will never see her again. And I feel like that's
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: such a great description because that's I often feel like
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: for me. It's like if you take a bat and
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: you swing it as hard as you can it against
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: a hard service and it reverberates back. That's how it
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: feels like for me. And I love this connection with
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: food because I've told you before a lot of times,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: I'll like boiled eggs for some reason. It's a big one.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: He loved boiled eggs, and they'll just stick with you.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: And her whole thing is about that. Yeah again, Yeah,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: aligning with it with comfort and a tradition and skill.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Also home, it's it's, it's a home. Uh, and she
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: goes on. I screamed to her in her language and
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: my mother tongue, my first word, hoping she'd hear her
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: little girl calling, and like the quintessential mother who suddenly
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: filled with enough other worldly strength to lift the car
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: and save her trapped child, she'd come back from me.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: She'd wait for just a moment, opened her eyes and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: tell me goodbye, impart something anything to help me move forward,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: to let me know it all work out. Above all.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: I wanted so desperately for her last words not to
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: be pain anything at all, but that. H uh, here's
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: another one. Overwhelmed by wretchedness, I had to pause to
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: let it set all. I was not prepared for this.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: No one has prepared me for this. Why must I
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: feel it? Why must I have this memory? They were
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: just going to put her in a bag like trash
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: to be removed. They were just going to burn her.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: And yeah, that's oh gosh. I think about that a
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: lot because it's so painful, Like there's so many things
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: that are so you look back and you up those
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: beautiful memories and happy memories, and then you have that right,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: and it's hard and when else the last memories that
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: you have the most recent one, so it's etched in
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: you for so long because you tried to hold on
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: and then we didn't mention earlier that she also has
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: the experience of her aunt and her grandmother dying as well,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and talking about seeing the cremation ceremony that happens in
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: South Korea which I didn't know about and the trauma
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: of that, so she kind of is alluding to that
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: picture of her mother as well. Yeah, this is where
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: I say it is heavy, it is raw, and it
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: is unapologetic and just being honest about her experience. Uh yeah,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: it crushes your heart a little bit because you if
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: you've ever felt any loss, you understand. But if you've
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: felt the loss of a parent, did it go so
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: much deeper? Um And the reality of the rawness to
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: that or a partner or a sister, like when you
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: have that closest of someone and losing that it is
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: it is a part of you and legitimately feeling that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you have lost a part of you m hm. And
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: the things that they have expected to do, especially as
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: the only child who was kind of a caretaker to
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the father, the things that she was responsible for. Yeah,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I know that if my when my parents die, and
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: if I'm still here, my sibling so a still here,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: I won't be the one that handles all of that
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: most likely, and I'm very grateful to that because my
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: older siblings will probably have handled that, or my my
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: remaining parent if they with one should stay alive. So yeah,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, that's the whole dutiful daughter
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: thing we talked about again, because it'll be me for
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: my mom for sure. Right, Okay, let's talk about food
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: because that's huge throughout. Let's take a little breathe there,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: even though that's not necessarily breathe there in this book,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I did get a lot of craving. The
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: food descriptions were amazing. And yeah, that this idea of
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: throughout that of food as a connection to identity, of
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: connection to people to culture, um, bonding over food and
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: food being this powerful nostalgia factor or this powerful memory thing.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: And how like when her mother was sick she started
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: to try to make these foods and learn how to
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: make these foods and have that connection, um, and then
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: continuing to do that after she died. But also, as
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you've said, can't be triggering, right for sure. I trying
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: to remind myself of specific foods because I have pictures
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: and taste sensories that I'm like, I don't know what
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: it's called, so desperately trying to look at up. That's
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: what I've been doing for the past ten years. Um,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about man Chi in just a minute,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: who is a Korean cook and YouTube a person, but
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: like she's kind of become an icon for people trying
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: to figure the stuff out. Um and I have I've
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: used some of our recipes, but yeah, and he's been
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: a part of mine. Like I'm gonna make him teaching
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: today and you're gonna eat it. She's like, Okaret, thanks, Um,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: bunch on, and we've done the eggs and like trying,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Like hearing her describe these foods, I'm like, yeah, that's
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: what I want to know, and at least knowing it
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: feels like a small victory even though it's unfamiliar. Um,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: the noodles we talked about. Jappaghetti is something that I
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: tried to remember the entirety of my childhood and only
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: discovered again last year. Like it's it's that maybe two
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: years ago, but it is. It also took me that
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: long to be okay with it, um, to to want
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to find it, because there's a lot of confusing emotions, trauma, guilt, uh, lost,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: all of these things that happened for me. Because those
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: are the things that I do remember. I guess my
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: body remembers more so than outside of those trauma moments
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: of like oh my god, this is too familiar, I'm scared. Um.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it definitely does hold to that. But also, yeah,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I really want to hold to the culture because all
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the culture individual cultures may have this, but specifically like
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Southern specifically like Korean Asian cultures, there is ceremony within
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: these foods. Uh the way uh people who know their
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: foods and styles, they can't describe to you how to
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: do it. And it's quite variat and you're like, where
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: are the measurements? But you know, that's that is a
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: home to them. It is a second language to them,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: and that's why they don't have that um. And speaking
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: of let's let's get into her words. I wonder how
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: many people at h Mark missed their families, how many
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: are thinking of them as they bring their trace back
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: from the different stalls if they're eating to feel connected,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: to celebrate these people through food, which ones aren't able
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: to fly back home this year or for the past
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: ten years, which ones are like me, missing the people
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: who are gone from their lives forever. I did the
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: same thing. Actually, I looked around and I wondered if
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: anybody was having similar experiences as I was, trying these
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: foods um and to be grounded, while like grounded to
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the point that I'm not triggered to eating these foods
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: in public, like really wondering do people know I'm faking
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: this like all these things? Also, do people know that
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to find myself again doing this in a
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: public space. Yes, it's tabled with many of people around
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: me scoring about trying to eat their hot dogs or
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: mochi uh donuts, which are good, they sound delicious. Uh.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Here's another quote. I remember these things clearly because that
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: was how my mother loved you, not through white eyes
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtal observations of what
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: brought you joy pocketed away to make you feel comforted
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: and cared for without even realizing it. She remembered, if
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: you liked your stews with extra broth, if you were
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: sensitive to spice, if you hated tomatoes, if you didn't
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: eat seafood, if you have a large appetite. She remembered
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: which bunch on side dish you emptied first, so the
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: next time you were over, it'd be set with a
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: heaping double portion, served alongside the various other preferences that
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: made you you. I love that. Yeah, my mom's and
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: I like that too, um, and I like I have
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: a post it note I keep of I call it
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: my food profiles. If people mentioned they like something, Okay,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: make a note. Yeah, but it is I know so
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: many people who do show their love this way, um,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: through feeding people and thinking of these things. But I
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: just love that idea of talking that I might do that.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I think you might. It's all good. I laugh about
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the five. But I try to feed people to make
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: me make them like me, not necessarily cooking for them
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: though actually rarely cook. So and he's been able to
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: taste my cooking because we've been around enough. But yeah,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: that's not necessarily the thing I do. I try to
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: organize and feed you. I'll find jeez to feed you,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: damn it. Um it would go on, it says I
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: tried to explain to not Me how much it meant
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: to me to share food with her, to hear these stories,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: how I've been trying to reconnect with memories of my
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: mother through food. How Kay had made me feel like
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: I wasn't a Korean. What I was searching for when
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I cooked Don John Gay and jud on my own,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: the psychological undoing of what I felt had been my
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: failures as a caretaker, the preservation of a culture that
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: once felt so ingrained at me, but now it felt threatened.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: But I couldn't find the right words, and the sentences
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: were too long and complicated for any translation app so
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: I quit halfway through and just reached for our hand,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: and the two of us went on sloping the cold
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: noodles from the tart icy beef broth Um. Yeah. I
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: love that scene because her her nummy who it was like,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: you made this, It's kind of been shocked. She was
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: very proud to be able to share it. Andy Okay
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: had been the character who kind of came in, swept
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: in and took care of her, and instead of teaching,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: she just overtook. But there was an obvious complication in
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: their relationship that I don't know if we'll ever know Um.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know she addresses it in a different book
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: or not. But yeah, there's something to be like. I
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: don't know when I make these Korean foods if it's
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: actually this name. Actually just had another comtecher gay for
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the first time and I was like, Okay, I feel
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: like I'm pretty close. I felt pretty proud Um, but wanting.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: But it would be petrified to have a Korean person
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: try and tell me how badly I did or how
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: American americanized it is, and that would make me sad.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: It would make me really sad. But wish I could
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: have someone to teach me, truly teach me what these
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: are to you even experience that. I actually have a
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: giant fear of going into Korean restaurants because there's a family, big,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: discriminatory community against Um, whitewashed as they call him Asians,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of other names that they called this
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: insulting Um, and I don't want that. The anxiety of that,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: I make my partner go in and get things and
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: not going You're going Um, because I'm scared to death
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: of the reactions of the disappointment when they find out
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: who I am like what I am essentially and feeling
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: fake but wanting to be a part of that culture.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: It's the whole thing for sure. Yeah, and I have
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: heard again, I heard you talk about this and go
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: through this and struggle with this. And one of the
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: things that I read in this book that I was like, oh, yeah,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Samantha has told me about this too, was Michelle talked
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: about finding this community online and watching these cooking videos
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: to help teach herself. I mentioned monkey before. Uh, and
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: she is a big creator that has several cookbooks that
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of us adoptees, a lot of Koreans have
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: really just lashed onto as if she is our aunt
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: or our sister who is helping us to to learn
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: our culture again. Um. And it's not that her foods
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: are simple or not that can they can get complicated,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: but it just feels accessible. I guess, um it's pretty.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: She is seemingly kind and encouraging in her video So
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: she started YouTube videos like she has I did that
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: can teacher gay from her recipe specifically online, which has
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: like a five star review essentially like four point nine
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: stars from like thirty thousand reviewers. She's huge as in fact,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: on Reddit. There's a whole monkey appreciation page. It's really
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: cute and I went through and looked at it. There
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: is a TikToker that I follow who had a similar idea, like,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: not at the same time, but like, I wanted to
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: try to kind of relay my experience in searching my
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: identity through cooking. But she does it through mon Chese
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: cookbook and does a recipe a day, talks about a
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: frustrations and our growth, and she's got a bring big
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: following and just about trying to find herself and teaching
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: her culture to her own children, a culture she doesn't
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: think that she knows well enough, but really like loving
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: and embracing this cookbook. Um, and yeah, that's kind of
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the significance of who this woman is. She has become
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the unofficially uh sister, I guess, unofficial sister to so
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: many of us who's just trying to find someone to
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: accept us. I have her cookbook and I have used
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: it a couple of times, and I'm really excited about
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: jumping in. But yeah, it's a huge part of obviously
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the culture in itself and learning the recipes and understanding
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: the recipes and just trying to find your identity. And
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: this is seem she is the most successible thus far
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: that I have seen um And seems like someone who
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: wants to spread that love rather than not as use
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: one of the fews again, use measurements, yes, which Michelle
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: also mentioned the lack of measurements and a lot of recipes.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that brings us to our final theme we
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: want to talk about, which we've been touching on throughout,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: but identity um And we've already talked about language barriers
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: and identity finding identities through food, but we want to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: include some quotes. We don't talk about it. There's never
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: so much as a knowing look. We sit here in silence,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: eating our lunch, but I know we are all here
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: for the same reason. We're all searching for a piece
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: of our home or a piece of ourselves. We look
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: for a taste of it in the food we order,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: in the ingredients we buy. Then we separate, we bring
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: in the hall back to our dorm rooms or suburban kitchens,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: and we recreate the dish that couldn't be made without
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: our journey. I just love that. I love the description
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: of all the different types of people there and why
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: they might be there and getting all these ingredients and
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: trying to recreate it right. Um, and it goes on.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Within five years, I lost both my aunt and my
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: mother to cancer. So I go to h Mark. I'm
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: just I'm not just on the hunt for cuttle fish
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: and three bunchets of scallions for a book. I'm searching
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: for memories. I'm collecting the evidence that kore that the
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Korean half of my identity didn't die when they died. Yeah. Absolutely, again,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: I think I talked about that. Just sitting there staring
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: and trying to remember, honestly, for me, what I think
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I know and don't know. Try to sit there and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: read the Korean words. So uh, if you've heard me
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: struggling with some of the Korean words when it's written
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: in English, I can't pronounce it. So I had to
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: go see the Korean written away because I did learn
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: some of the Korean uh fonetic an alphabet, so that's
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: the only way I can do it, and that's kind
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: of the familiar. I will sit there and she talks
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: about this in the language portion sounded out and trying
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: to remember, and then when I say it out loud,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's the American version of this, and
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's good, super I think that is
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: one of those littlem like Okay, I got this one,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: but that's how I do it, to the point that
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: someone hadn't seen me do it. Then they're like, are
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: you just making things up? I like, no, no, no,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I really do know the pronunciations, and this is the
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: only way I can read it, saying it out woud
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: and I can't pronounce it because like I will see
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: it written out in English, and because of the fanatics,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: it's different. People may put different letters for different uh
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: of the Korean alphabet, so when it flips like that,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know it. As I'm like, oh, I see
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: it in Korea. I'm like, okay, see what they're trying
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: to say. But it's a whole whole thing of sitting
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: there and trying to read what I'm saying and trying
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: to figure out if I understand or this seems familiar
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: for me. I thought with the candies, which I didn't
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: have much of, but there was some pies and things
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: that I'm like, I know what that one is. I
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: need that Yeah, And I really uh. I loved the
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: scene where um It was a specific scene that happened
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: now more than one occasion. But when Michelle and her
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: mom would go visit their family in Korea, Uh, they
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: would wake up in the middle of night, kind of
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: like jet lagged or whatever, and sneak food, Korean food
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: out of the refrigerator and just giggle and laugh and
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: enjoy it together, which is something they never would do
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: in the US. I just really liked that kind of
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: bonding scene between them, right um and going on. I
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: didn't have the tools then to question the beginnings of
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: my complicated desire for whiteness. In Eugene, I was one
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: of just a few mixed race kids at my school,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: and most people thought of me as Asian. I felt
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: awkward and undesirable, and no one ever complimented my parents
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: and soul. Most Koreans assumed I was Caucasian until my
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: mother stood beside me. They could see the half of
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: her refused to me, and I made sense suddenly, my
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: quote exotic look. It wasn't something to be celebrated. H Yeah, obviously,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: I absolutely I was one. No, I was one of
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: two Asian people that existed there, and it wasn't until
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I think of fourth grade that when she moved to
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: there her and her parents, who her mom was Filipino
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: and her dad was white. I never had another Asian person,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: and even still I desperately because everything I knew was
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: why I didn't have family that was Asian. So that
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: was absolutely a no no. UM being other very quickly
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: uh and tokenized. Still, let's be honest, it's the thing
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: my wish as In fact, oddly enough, therapy session recently,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: which was pretty traumatic, I'm not gonna lie, UM talked
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: about I forget that I'm Asian until I look into
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: the mirror and I had to readjust my face. That
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: makes sense, like I look like me, but I kind
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: of forget that I'm Asi, and I say that often,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: and that used to be a thing as if, like
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: when people would say that to me, Oh yeah, I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: don't even stink of uzation realizing how micro aggressive that is, UM,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: and then thinking that that's a compliment. Why I sought
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: out to be white, and how I ended up hating
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: the way I looked and wishing I could be anything
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: else but this, and even to the point like I
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: really wish I was half white at the very least
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: so that I could be passing, which is such an
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: absurd UH conversation now as an adult, and I still
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: have already done with it. Obviously I had a therapy
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: session about it, but yeah, trying to figure that out
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: and to come to terms with what that is. And
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: then again because I feel like I am absolutely Korean
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: by looks when I if I were to go to Korea,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: which I'm petrified of ever doing, that I will be
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: seeing as fake and um the anxiety as being that way,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: feeling lost, which I've always been mothered by both UH cultures.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: It feels it feels yeah, tiresome and hurtful. Yeah, I
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: can see that. I can see that. Um, well, here's
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: another quote that's also tiresome and hurtful. After Jim class,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: and when I was still reeling from the shame of
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: my fall from athletic grace, a girl from my class
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: confronted me in the bathroom with what would become a
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: familiar line of questioning, Are you Chinese? No, are you Japanese?
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: I shook my head, well, what are you? Then? I
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: wanted to inform her there are more than two countries
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: that made up the Asian continent, but I was too
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: confounded to answer there was something in my face that
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: other people deciphered as a thing displaced from its origin,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: like I was some kind of alien or exotic fruit.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: What are you? Then was the last thing I wanted
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: to be asked at twelve, because it established that I
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: stuck out, that I was unrecognizable, that I didn't belong.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Until then, I'd always been proud of being half Korean,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: but suddenly I feared it had become my defining feature,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: and so I began to efface it. Right. Yeah, obviously
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: I her saying that term what are you? M M,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I got that. I get that still. I got that
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: from adults as a kid, so it's kind of like, wow,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: that's really insulting. You can't say that in a different way. UM.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: But being constantly asked where are you from? Where you're from? Really? No?
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Really you have? Your English is really good and I'm
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: saying here going okay, but yeah, being asked what I am?
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: That was definitely one of those moments of trying to
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: and just again this is where I've talked about it previously,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: of just trying to blend in or disappear altogether. Um,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: And why we talk about the assimilation thing being unhealthy
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: and moving on. He says, when my peers started dating,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: I developed a complex that the only reason someone would
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: like me was if they had yellow fever and if
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: they didn't like me. I tortured myself over whether it
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: was because of the crew jokes boys in my class
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: would make about Asians having sideways pussies and loving you
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: long time. Yeah. Um, all of those are very familiar.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: I've heard it all my life, all my life until
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: recently at my jobs. Yeah, nothing new, And trying to
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: to really go beyond it. There's a new talk, and
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: I don't it's a new level of prejudice towards Asian
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: women by Asian men, saying that Asian women complain about
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: being fetishized, but then they date white people, white men.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: So do you really hate it that much? It's such
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: a slave in the face. Uh. And and I really
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: and this was recently seen and I really want to
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: be like, you know, women have been killed, pushed and
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: like murdered and hurt and violated because they're Asian, right
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: that this is not the This is not the flex
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: you think it is. This is not the insult. And
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: people and so many people agreeing with him, it was
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: it was it's scary of that, like, okay, you really
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: you really devalue women in such a way that this
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: is what you see. Okay, and then you're double down
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: on it saying that, But it's true, is it? Um?
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: Being fetishized and having a partner that's not within the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: same ethnicity doesn't have anything to do with each other. Honestly,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: women who and we talked about this so often fetishism
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: means sexualization, which often leads to violence and or some
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: type of ownership, and that needs to be the conversation.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: But yet it talks about women's choices. But okay, and this,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: this kind of rhetoric is exactly that point, Um, and
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I can't understand how it's not. But anyway, So going on,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: she says, what a cruel twist of fate. I thought,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: my face reddening as I fought back the tears. I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: had spent my adolescence trying to blend in with my
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: peers in suburban America, and had come of age feeling
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: like my belongings with something to prove, something that was
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: always in the hands of other people to be given
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: and never my own to take to decide which side
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: I was on, whom I was allowed to align with.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: I could never be of both worlds, only half in
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: and half out, waiting to be ejected at will by
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: someone with a greater claim than mes, someone full, someone whole.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: For a long time, I had tried to belong in America,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: wanted and wished for it more than anything. But in
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: that moment, all I wanted was to be accepted as
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: a Korean by two people who refused to claim me.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: You are not one of us, case seemed to say,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: and you will never really understand what is what it
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: is she needs, no matter how perfect you try to be.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: And yeah, that's not seeing where her Kay and her
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: mom connect on a different level. Um yeah, and again
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: that's that sums a lot of my fields perfectly. Uh
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: and never being part of any any culture and never
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: being accepted and can be easily pushed out by those
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: who hold those standards better than me. Yeah, yeah, again,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: there's so much I was reading this. I was like,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: oh that I heard Samantha say this. I heard this,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Um okay, Well you wanted to end on one last quote.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: I had thought fermentation was controlled death. Left alone ahead
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: of cabbage moles and decomposes, it becomes rotten inedible, but
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: when brine instored, the course of his decay is altered.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Sugars are broken down to produce lactic acid, which protects
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: it from spoiling. Carbon dioxide is released in the brine,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: acidifies it, ages its color and texture, transmute its flavor,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: becomes tartar, more pungent. It exists in time and transforms,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: so it is not quite controlled death because it enjoys
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: a new life altogether. The memories I had stored I
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: could not let fester, could not let trauma infiltrate and
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: spread to spoil and render them useless. They were moments
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: in my gut and in my jeans, and I had
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: to seize it, foster it so it did not die
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: in me. I just loved that. I thought that was
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: so eloquent and really tying together that the food connection
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: and the culture and the grief and finding new life
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: and memories and carrying them on and keeping them with you,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: I will say, And it really doesn't have the same thing.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: But I feel like my ultimate accomplishment will be making
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: a good that kimchi, and I'm scared to even try. Yeah,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: it's yeah, I understand. It's like we need that. We
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: gotta get you the refrigerator, the right pots thing. Yeah,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: well you know, Samantha. You can keep us posted if
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: you want to know pressure. Um. But this book was
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: really lovely and highly recommend it again going prepared. It's
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: not an easy read necessarily, but it is beautiful and
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: really moving um and absolutely worth checking out. And in
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: the meantime, if you have any suggestions for our next
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: book club, we would love to get them, and you
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: can emails at stuff and your mom Stuff that I
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: Hurt Me dot com. You can find us on Twitter
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcasts, or Instagram and Stuff I've Never
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Told You Things. It's always to our super producer Christine.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you Tina, and thanks to you for listening Stuff
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: under told the direction of I Heart Radio More podcast,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio Zio, heard you app Apple Podcast or
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: red you listen to your favorite shows