Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 514 - Why Being "Mơ Hồ" (Ambiguous) Is an Artist's Greatest Superpower? - Minh H Phan

Transcript

514 - Why Being "Mơ Hồ" (Ambiguous) Is an Artist's Greatest Superpower? - Minh H Phan · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast today.
0:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I have men here.
0:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I can no longer actually address you by anything that we used before in other episodes, because we are actually moving this relationship.
0:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the relationship, or relationship it is relationship.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we?
0:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we're actually friends now.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: We've always been friends.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know.
0:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's okay.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: The quickest analogy is the whole prince.
0:31
[SPEAKER_00]: who is now called and he had a symbol right from this day on we shall not call her men anymore we shall call her the artist the symbol the symbol if we're being men the artist I could for me called man before anything out because princess like don't call me prince anymore I'm the but he was just doing that because the label issues and and everything
0:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say for me they equivalent that is I'd say I've been recently thinking about this because people really it's the elephant in the room and people be like
1:03
[SPEAKER_01]: People still have this thing, like, what does Chef mean to you?
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we call you Chef Man?
1:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, you can definitely call me Chef Man, but you know that needs, I call you the anti-Mid.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: The word Chef, and he's like, anti our sister or mom because for me, the word Chef is where you're in a place.
1:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, the word Chef is very military, right?
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very brigade system.
1:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a, it's very patriarchal, right?
1:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I am.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very, it's part of a system and I never, ever strive to be, what even when in my culinary career, I never strive to be a chef.
1:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been a cook.
1:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always identified as a cook, but for two years, I've non certain identify it.
1:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I was chef and it was during the COVID years, the two COVID years.
1:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, can we, can we just,
1:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the audience kind of know because this is important like this is somebody who's gotten a Michelin star This is no no small deal and to have that departure from the chef word and world is We're doing that right now.
2:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We you're feeling it's not a departure for me.
2:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
2:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm I've always news
2:12
[SPEAKER_01]: various different media to express what I have up here in my world building like in my ecosystem to transcend use that to interpret my ideas and share people and that's always been so it's the same thing right so I don't think that has ever changed either be sued or
2:35
[SPEAKER_01]: a sculpture.
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: These are just mediums.
2:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
2:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what that's why it's called a mediums.
2:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to ask you the next question, based on my own little experience.
2:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Recently, I typed into chat to BT, all of the things that I'm passionate about.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I'm worried that I'm a little bit too confused and spread out.
2:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it broke it down and said, no, don't be worried and confused.
2:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Your one obsession is this.
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not going to go to my obsession because this is not my about me.
2:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to know,
3:01
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a through line of your obsession in what you do.
3:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we're talking about.
3:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't matter what the medium is, your obsessed with something.
3:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I love humans.
3:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I love humanity.
3:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the marginal stories.
3:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really important to me.
3:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's marginal stories, right?
3:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I love things unseen.
3:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I love things.
3:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I love making decisions of what remains unseen.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, what gets shared.
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, I think the core of it is really,
3:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's humanity and then building at a very young age, and you and I can get you to this later.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And a very, very young age, I realized that everything, most things are a construct, right?
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And most things are perspectives.
3:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, it's a tool that I understand so well that I forget that it's a tool.
3:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And...
3:56
[SPEAKER_01]: When I use it so quickly and I coach switch and I filter it so quickly, I think getting, I'm certain to learn that.
4:01
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when I don't play well.
4:03
[SPEAKER_01]: People because people haven't caught up to the world that have built that I've constructed and then I'm like, wait, that construction works.
4:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas people, I think art, I don't give all the information about worlds.
4:14
[SPEAKER_01]: The construct seems awkward to them or not.
4:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not in on it, but we're all constructing.
4:24
[SPEAKER_01]: a media, a media, and it's just using something that people understand to connect with them to my construct and then to learn their construct, because for me, I'm really curious about people's construct, because someone's construct can give you
4:41
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of information about someone, where they've been, where they want to go, their history, their values, right?
4:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still beyond ethnographic and psychology.
4:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really about like this deep down motivation, right?
4:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have a
4:56
[SPEAKER_01]: so many insecurities that become strengths, right?
4:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my insecurity, because I'm always a loner, you know, I came here, you know, like so many, I've been given so many things that make me a weird aloneer, that I've had a practice, how to play well with others.
5:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also, my baseline is all like to be a well, but that's one of those comfortable, right?
5:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But I love connecting with people to share ideas.
5:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this has been in my blood as the Vietnamese,
5:24
[SPEAKER_01]: migrant from many generations, right, is we are constantly determining what we keep and when we assimilate.
5:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's never changed.
5:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't change in my parents.
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I care it with me.
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you know, it's epigenetic.
5:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like we have these things.
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think you and I talked about in previous episodes, like, what's that motivation and that stubbornness and what's
5:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's that, it's that epigenetic migrant way of what what what are you being colonized and what is the negative change and what do you tip that yourself and from me I'm constantly balancing that right like I think we've talked about this before like I don't I think the word
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, I would rather everyone think about an anti-communal practice to be decolonized in a way that can use in a lot of academic role in the Western world and ask other countries ask the victims to do the work.
6:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, why you asked the victims to do the work?
6:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you asking me to throw out my bag of me and my fur, or whatever else?
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just not the French, right?
6:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also the Americans, it's also the Chinese, it's also the Japanese.
6:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of it's a simulation between different clients, right?
6:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We Vietnam has flattened our own clients.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that we've done for a long time.
6:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, there's not that many in the gang.
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of people.
6:54
[SPEAKER_01]: People don't realize that the gang is not an ethnicity.
6:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It just means we're a city people.
6:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We're like planes people.
6:59
[SPEAKER_01]: right, but people use that term as we're, you know, our ethnicity's new king and I'm like, that's not really an ethnicity.
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just saying that you're not this other tribe, right?
7:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so having some of these deeper understanding is a construct and then for me, like, I think I really start figuring out like, okay, it's a construct.
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But exploitation of people is something that's really
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if we are going to decolonize, we're asking people to do that for themselves when it's not a choice for people right, but I said, but if we have a choice, the thing we should be doing is anti colonial practices is don't do the exploiting and that, you know, that has been done to others.
7:45
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many things to unpack here.
7:47
[SPEAKER_00]: There really is.
7:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's a chef journey, the title.
7:51
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the decolonization military.
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many things to unpack here and I'm trying to figure out which direction I'm about to take because we need to get here eventually.
8:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We will get here, but I think we need to build some context to our conversation six or seven years ago.
8:19
[SPEAKER_00]: As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking six or seven years ago, I would not be able to sit here and have this conversation with you, because I wouldn't have enough context to understand what the heck you just said.
8:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just in South Carolina with family.
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: wouldn't register a thing you said because they date white men, they live in white communities and their Vietnamese.
8:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And they need no more than you think.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps they may know a lot more than you think.
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: In other things, but not this context of what we're talking about.
8:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And feeling.
8:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
8:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Use the language.
8:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But they may understand more than us.
9:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We're privileged to have
9:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I see to change the way I view Brigade, Chef, hierarchy, patriarchy as I get warmer and warmer to the idea of
9:26
[SPEAKER_00]: basic equality, because I don't come from that world.
9:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I come from a very, like you said, very masculine, U.S. Marines, and I'm reverse engineering these, all of these things.
9:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Face, you know, that things.
9:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I think as an activist, I really want to move fast, but as a human being, I don't align with that all the time.
9:47
[SPEAKER_01]: As human being my baseline, is I would rather this reflection and have a conversation and touching each other as human levels more importantly.
9:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think we should discount and ask them that change without a lot of reflection and compassion.
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think the work that you do, you are moving the speed of light.
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean that, and I mean that any, I mean that in a very popular pop culture sense.
10:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, fair, and that's other people's, that's an external validation.
10:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, in the victim's pop world, it's going to be hard to catch up to what we're talking about, you know?
10:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't think about others catching up because I'm never going to be long.
10:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
10:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why as we get into this, the discussion that we're having is how do you get through entirely?
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't think entirely is a war, too.
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you get through the whole food world and leave it?
11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And be okay with like this next journey when it's so complicated for the rest of us to even understand like what you did I've always been that person so it's hard, but I think I've always been that person that has an inner Drive and motivation that's different because I've always been different right so for me external validation is only important
11:24
[SPEAKER_01]: when I want to make someone feel comfortable and I want to love and respect them, right?
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, like, my parents' extra validation in their comfort level is important to me.
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So I will construct things to make them feel good.
11:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I will construct things to make you feel good.
11:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But then when we get to know each other, you're like, minutes is to real weirdo.
11:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, yeah, that's why I am.
11:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very comfortable with that, right?
11:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't want you to have to
11:51
[SPEAKER_01]: As my parents are really, it's really hard to their complicated complex people, but they have a lot of confusion in them, especially my dad, right?
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so, you know, come, very, you know, very, very, like quarter of the family and order society's very important.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So at a young age, I learned that all the things that were my reality was not their reality, right?
12:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But I knew that the reality now so much to them, that it doesn't, yeah, do I fight it when I was young?
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but now like I'm like, there's no point in fighting it.
12:32
[SPEAKER_01]: They're good people.
12:33
[SPEAKER_01]: There's good things.
12:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a good person that they might not see, right?
12:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Because for them, like, you know, they're so Catholic that they're so calm about it, right?
12:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, vulnerable, man, I'm
12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, it's like they're very there's an order to that right and they and for them, they're like, well, it's just the way our answers have done it, but they don't the thing is they don't realize their holds, but when I look at it from like an observer and historian, I'm like, you don't you your fruit is not everyone's truth, right, but the for them.
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we're in a community thing with things so and then I would I can debate that all there.
13:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But what's the point right?
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a construct that's then happy gives them peace.
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So then I now that I know that I'm a little so I have to find construct that gets into my own piece.
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And my only weird on this right.
13:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I was young I dad's he literally said he's like my parents are like you can be weird.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can only be weird in this square box right now.
13:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
13:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You the minute you get out of that square box.
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You are going to act girl.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be like the oldest daughter.
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to like, you know, I can feed the me.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like lumbroom, you know, be the mirror, right?
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Lumbroom, you know, be the model, right?
13:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Lumbroom, check out M. Lumbroom, just a hole.
13:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's so many obligation.
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, like, I don't see it took me a long time, but I don't see anything wrong with it.
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, but you have to come at it at your own in your own way.
13:52
[SPEAKER_00]: See, and I think that the way the universe is organized from beginning of time to now is the artist like you.
14:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So forward thinking on the edge constantly of new ideas.
14:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And the people like your parents and my parents coming from tradition, coming from old conservative ways, these two things are constantly going to be clashing.
14:15
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what we do.
14:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that your parents and my parents are not that far from us.
14:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think my parents are that far from me.
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that they have to hold their space because so much in their life's to be shaken up.
14:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they are very, they think very differently and they know it.
14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: but they have to construct.
14:36
[SPEAKER_01]: They have to deal with, and they have to... Let's argue this.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to fight back on this.
14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you and I are very different from them.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
14:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They raise me.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: to allow me to be this person, but it had to be, you know, because the thing is, I think for them, like my dad, he knew from a young age, right?
14:58
[SPEAKER_01]: He, like, he, we were like, I was 9, and we were at that week, you know, her reaction date, right, or we went to the beach.
15:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I was 9, and, you know, we don't do beach.
15:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So a beach in, you know, this is on a California area.
15:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were fighting.
15:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And 9, I was always, you know, Vietnamese, them.
15:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, good now, you know, and then, you know, and then my dad was pulling you know, come on, you know, you're just a wild child, you know, and all these words that I know, because no, people don't even know word for wild child, I don't all of them, because they're funny.
15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so my mom, you know, like, I know all of them, because I've been called all of them, right, but my dad drew a line in the same.
15:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, why are you fighting with me?
15:35
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, can you understand why point of view?
15:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'd be like, dad, you're not catching up, you're too slow, you know, like thinking, you know, and I said, dad, this is like the reality.
15:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, so slow.
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he drew me a line at the same.
15:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he drew a line at the middle.
15:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do a line and he drew a line at the middle, and just, okay, you're right here.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You're very close to the middle.
15:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And, mole, I'm not close to the middle.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: mobile phone news, I don't want.
16:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Jin Chang, Kouzhao, you know, Ganchai, don't love it, you know, magic.
16:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, he's like, I had to go to all these things.
16:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, so it's not the middle.
16:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You look like we're meeting the middle.
16:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's American word.
16:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's meeting the middle.
16:18
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, but for you, you just want a dad who's American.
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, you are right there.
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, for me, I, how do I get there?
16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I had to go to all this.
16:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Forgive me.
16:32
[SPEAKER_01]: because my road is a lot different than worse.
16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So he knew, right?
16:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So in that moment, I'm like, oh my dad's not taking the same road.
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and he was moving on, I thought, I need some sound when you go, go and move on, go and move on, go and move on, go and move on, go and move on, go and move on, go and move on, go to history, right?
16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a nine year old.
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And my beat, that's my beat and he's the way it is because he's very deep conversation to my dad, right?
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And he explained really early on
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: that's what that's exactly what I'm saying.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not the same as them.
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We are not saying, but they gave us my parents.
17:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to speak for my kids.
17:11
[SPEAKER_01]: They gave me the privilege and the freedom to be who I am today because they let me fight and then they will still love.
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: like as much as good as I am and they're very, they're very, very much like, you know, to the max, right, you know, relay have to on, you know, nothing they had and go but it's on time.
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, you know, all the traditions, yeah, like all the Proverbs, right?
17:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I know them all, right?
17:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I under, but so they keep these, they keep
17:48
[SPEAKER_01]: a primary thing in my family, I used to hate it, especially you have friends and like, dude, it's like them to fucking like, you know, like the, you know, on through those house.
17:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my parents were like, they're like, it's just the social order.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, it doesn't mean we don't love you.
18:01
[SPEAKER_01]: We just, that's the basic.
18:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a social order, right?
18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And for them, social order, because they don't have, because it's been so shaken up, that they're hanging onto the social order, right?
18:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's what they have, right?
18:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I question the way I do see things very similar to the way you see the world.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do.
18:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We do.
18:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We.
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost, it's almost identical.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this fight that we want to, it's not a fight, it's for me.
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a struggle.
18:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're very broke.
18:38
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot of ganginess.
18:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot of now in us, but for me, it's temporary.
18:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Because my basic, I don't know about your baseline, but my very baseline is mine.
18:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Very chill.
18:49
[SPEAKER_01]: My baseline is very, very young.
18:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Like mine.
18:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But you get hit, you're going to, yeah.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, into situations where we had a friend for our beliefs.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you have to admit now what they, you know?
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, but our baseline is we're always in our older in my older age, I'm very mad.
19:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, like, like, I try to be very chill.
19:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And I find myself a little nothing.
19:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh, that's because I'm insecure.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to hang on to something.
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The similarities is the life fork that we have is whether we, you know, we both share a huge background in food and entertainment in film and now an art.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, I'm so glad.
19:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, but what is driving that?
19:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I want to know.
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: What is driving that inside of us?
19:38
[SPEAKER_00]: He is more than that, really?
19:41
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, I think, well, insecurities, right?
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Always.
19:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like for me, the insecurity, for me, I'm always the insecurity of always being someone who's marginalized, it's my motivation in life.
19:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I was talking to somebody over the weekend about this.
20:00
[SPEAKER_00]: They were saying, if you had a lot of money, if you had a lot of success on that monetary corporate level, you wouldn't feel the way you do, because you wouldn't feel marginalized.
20:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, you're not right.
20:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, it's not right.
20:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not right.
20:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I told the person.
20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just a joke.
20:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is it?
20:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a joke.
20:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it?
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we make a choice.
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Because for us, the end is temporary.
20:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But it didn't make me think about it.
20:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't make me think about that time.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, wait, if I was comfortable,
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, no, I'm going to beat the knees because I get that thrown at me and then sometimes for half of a sudden believe it.
20:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you look at it.
20:41
[SPEAKER_00]: There we go.
20:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
20:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, oh, no.
20:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can't tell them that because me but fight late, say after now, you make no one.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:52
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:52
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:52
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:52
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:52
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: No one.
20:59
[SPEAKER_01]: No one
20:59
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of conversation happens in Vietnamese for me.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't happen in English for me.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It happens in Vietnamese because I always have to take a moment with in Vietnamese or someone who's criticizing in Vietnamese, right?
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Take.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't say, and you can't say, and you still have such basic language.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd be like, I'd be like, you know, I'll be very basic.
21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I have, I've developed a language, right?
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Where you have to be a lot more zigzag, and you have to be like, Ting, you know, I'm gonna talk now.
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very simple.
21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now, from doing that now, and you have to accept them for who they are.
21:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realize that those things are very important in the way of relationships with people.
21:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that's, and you have to be really confident of your and I'm very privileged that I can be confident, right?
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, like, get something that when people say that, they have a different their food, they're confident, it's based on things that are
22:07
[SPEAKER_01]: My confidence is based on humanity and do the work that continues that we can do from many, many, hundreds of generations of good generations, right?
22:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Materiality, it's always been there.
22:22
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's very temporary.
22:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You can have one generation that hasn't, and one generation that does, even within the same family of just material.
22:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But I still believe that the goodness is generational.
22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that's still very neat and easy about me, right?
22:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, got food, they like to go on, right?
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't believe that 100% fill your potty, but I do believe in a chronic voice, right?
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's part of the work, right?
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I am in my heart of heart, believe that God will give people a good, and we always have to return back to back.
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the minute we use hope in that, humanity is done.
23:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Humanity is a species, we will die off if we don't believe each other, right?
23:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We can be highly technical, but if we don't have the basis of what makes us human,
23:18
[SPEAKER_01]: for our own survival, then we're done.
23:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And our survival is not facing getting the most in winning.
23:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Our survival is our intelligence in a way of living in a community.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: When you compare anthropologically different species, you compare how they connect each other.
23:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, it's really important to think about how we can connect each other.
23:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the parting from food.
23:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And now moving on to art, it's a very individual thing.
23:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was gradual, because I wouldn't even have a front row seat to this, it's gradual, right?
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's always the same for me.
24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gradual.
24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's gradual for...
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at, yeah, an external thing, it's gradual.
24:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you, but as you get to know me, my entire life, I've been on that same word, okay?
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Same word, okay?
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll tell you some crazy story.
24:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And then five years later, you're like, you really meant that.
24:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I didn't like.
24:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And because people can't fathom it, right?
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, I'm like, yeah, because I have to go on to my next thing, you know, like he's...
24:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what I was saying in the beginning of the episode is that artists move a lot faster than the conservatives that of people.
24:40
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just the balance of nature of the world,
24:47
[SPEAKER_01]: as far as I think people who, I don't know if it's artists, I don't think you can categorize one particular group, but for me it's so important to, I need to get out, you know, it's for me it's so important to help expand understanding, it's very important, and any chance that I get
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: their thinking is a chance that I take because the thing is, I'm, if you think I'm weird now when I'm fast in my mind, I'm weird or a little disturbed, right?
25:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm always trying to line make room for myself in the future, make room for me in the future.
25:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like every day wake up and my practice is to how do I expand understanding for myself because I have to
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But I have to expand that for myself.
25:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I expand that for myself, it leads into how I deal with society.
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So hold it, right?
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, the one thing about getting older is you have a track record where you can be a lot of a lot of word or, and people will be like, okay, she's doing her, like, come on, they're not afraid.
26:04
[SPEAKER_01]: People are very afraid when you're different.
26:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I always knew that, right?
26:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been different everywhere.
26:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like the only Vietnamese kid in Los Angeles concert, right?
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, you know, like, I went to Vietnam and I was like the only fact kid.
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was like, I've always been the only thing.
26:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I excel at being the only thing, because by selling by the only thing, is you have to learn to be so comfortable?
26:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And confident.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And believe, it's later.
26:31
[SPEAKER_00]: How, how does it come later?
26:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You just can't be enough, and you're like, I'm asking for a friend.
26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the confidence comes from you being beaten up every day and they're like, oh, you fucking you are either going to assimilate or you're born with such a little hot belly that you're like, you know, I've been to assimilate it before it's a tool assimilation is a tool.
26:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I never got thrashed around as much as the last year.
26:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause the bigger you get, the more exposed you are and people are like hearing your ideas and shit, you're gonna get thrashed around like they're gonna, and that's hard.
27:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's external.
27:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard, but it's external, but inside.
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such a cliche, but inside you.
27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: find out who you are because inside you, if you have existential crisis, you will, you can't deal with existential crisis with existential answers.
27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to deal with existential crisis with very deep internal reflection, right?
27:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you get that opportunity to have internal reflection,
27:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Take it.
27:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You become a hero.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Are ya?
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Take it.
27:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you can, you know, choose what the world says isn't easy way.
27:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy.
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, do what your parents say.
27:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not easy.
27:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do what other people in my world say, every time I release something that is... For them, it's not easy for people like me.
27:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Because for me, like, when I am under pressure of others, it feels unliverated.
28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Unliverated.
28:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's numb, you know.
28:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't feel, you know, if I have to, it's uncomfortable.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But your mother and not my, you know, it's like, oh, you know, I want to look for my, you know, for like my, and how do I get mock, you know, how do I really look for this?
28:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's really important for certain people.
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people, they don't see it as, they don't get uncomfortable, but for me, I think I have, in my blood that colonization or exploitation has lived so long in my blood that the minute I can feel it, I'm like,
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm being pressured and I don't like it and I can and I see it in my parents every day my dad if you hit his ego
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: people quit a job.
28:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like back back when he was young, and maturity, you realize, oh, that uncomfortableness is temporary.
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, that comfortableness is temporary, right?
28:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh, it's because I have to real line something.
28:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it's as easy as, oh, you know what that person's not for me.
29:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes you're like, oh, that job's not for me.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, just a real alignment.
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And now you, but you don't have that strength, a real alignment because you have no proof that it's going to work out.
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Where's from me?
29:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I have proof that you can quit a job.
29:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I have so much proof that you can quit a job.
29:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I prove that you can walk away with something that doesn't feel right.
29:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, you can walk away from a Michelin restaurant.
29:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you,
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I try to do that, take the hardest road.
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But the hardest road, what people think is hard and throw this easy for me, because then I'm like, oh, then I get to make the rules.
29:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I knew at a young age that I can construct those rules because anyone who criticizes those constructions, I can easily say, well, you don't know what the fan looks like.
30:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Where I was like, if you're doing something, people know the end, they know what it looks like.
30:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to start building it for you.
30:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, why do I want to wrap them in on the act?
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So how did you make that transition from food to the journey that you're on now?
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think for me, I guess it's not.
30:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's an external looking transition, but for me, I'm so driven by my internal self that
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the time, the medium wasn't working for me anymore.
30:39
[SPEAKER_01]: The medium wasn't working for me.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I, food has always been, I love food.
30:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love it as a medium.
30:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the techniques.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the materials, the best materials in the world.
30:52
[SPEAKER_01]: The best anthropological studies, the best histories.
30:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's wonderful.
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: The one thing that doesn't align with me.
31:00
[SPEAKER_01]: is me being chef.
31:02
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing that doesn't align with me because being chef means holding up a system that was needed during COVID because people were lost.
31:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was lost.
31:12
[SPEAKER_01]: They wanted a mom.
31:14
[SPEAKER_01]: They got a boss that is a chef.
31:17
[SPEAKER_01]: They got someone who,
31:19
[SPEAKER_01]: When you are in war, that's why most some jazirs feel about COVID, when you're in distress, you don't want to the thing that's most comforting in my memory.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I played that role.
31:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I played the role of a chef, of a mom, of a leader of someone who's like can hold and, you know, very confidently hold away.
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I have that discipline.
31:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I can do it.
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's not my baseline, right?
31:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not my baseline.
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That's shut.
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: That kind of shifts not my baseline.
31:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That's operations.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That's brigade.
31:49
[SPEAKER_01]: That's discipline.
31:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not my baseline.
31:52
[SPEAKER_01]: My baseline is no hierarchy.
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's equal.
31:56
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my baseline.
31:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So why would I upkeep something that I if it was COVID again?
32:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I would probably do it again.
32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But did you know going into the
32:07
[SPEAKER_00]: before COVID that that's the system and the hierarchy and the patriarchy.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Elf, if I'm willing to change it, I'm going to change it, right?
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at my restaurants, all women, all non-higharchy, like you know, you don't mean the only reason people call me chef, I said, the word chef to me is like the word mom, it's like man.
32:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're the middle of like everyone coming at you, only called chef when it's an emergency.
32:33
[SPEAKER_01]: when you're like, man, I need help.
32:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt, what's going on?
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Same thing, equivalent to me.
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: When people say chef, it's equivalent.
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: My ears are perfect.
32:41
[SPEAKER_01]: When in the, you know, if I'm walking around people's chef, something's wrong, or people need my attention.
32:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the equivalent, that's always the way it is.
32:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But unfortunately, people wanted something, when people wanted someone to fix their problems for them,
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a different person, right?
33:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a mom plus in a professional world.
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You kind of have to start drawing lines.
33:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's different discipline, right?
33:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Because my discipline is so different than other people's discipline, right?
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Disciplining?
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about not discipline the study, and the work, but discipline meaning the strict discipline.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like something you do every day, and that kind of discipline people want it.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why people want what's going on in the government right now.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: People want that.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to be told what to do.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: They want it to be told to predict the future, and they want all these things that's high expectation of what to do.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, I'm like, I can do that, and not, but it's a temporary thing, it's not a permanent thing.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Being permanent in that for me makes you, makes you, you know, makes you the kernel, makes you the chef.
33:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not me, but it's a great skill to have, but one is at war.
34:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am not, I would rather be not go to war, but if I went to war, I would probably put that hat on
34:09
[SPEAKER_01]: because I've been there.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been, I know how feels to put all your heads together.
34:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you miss it?
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
34:19
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a tool.
34:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like that path.
34:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That thing's yucky.
34:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That kind of power is yucky.
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, I'm like a monk.
34:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'd rather be like, you know, a monk.
34:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd back to me, he's like, you do you.
34:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I will help you.
34:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my baseline.
34:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm a very good leader when you put me in that situation, but I don't like it because it makes me not the human want to be, but it's my blood, you know, it's that thing has a lot of
34:57
[SPEAKER_00]: but you can do it, you know.
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's in me.
34:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have to face it.
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to face, you know, that violence, right?
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when we ocean boon and I talked on our... We love, yeah, he loves him and me.
35:10
[SPEAKER_00]: He makes more shortest.
35:11
[SPEAKER_00]: He loves the UFC.
35:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
35:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And so surprising.
35:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But he can list all of the fighters or the top fighters.
35:18
[SPEAKER_00]: He can list their styles.
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: He can really get into the discussion of the art side of the violence.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's inside of us, yeah, it's inside of us.
35:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But all of us, we're trying to eradicate it.
35:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's an, it's epigenetically programming.
35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in us, right?
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like for me, like, I, you know, like if you touch anything that I love, you will know.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But I will hopefully have done the meditation so I can be compassionate with you.
35:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, it's really important to always study that compassion.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Because as a young kid, in America, there's a lot of ethics studies.
35:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's gun violence.
35:59
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one that we always talk about as a kid.
36:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, well, I don't believe in owning again 90% of the country disagreed with me, 60% of the country disagreed with me.
36:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And they said, what if your mom got shot?
36:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's shot.
36:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you get shot?
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you get shot?
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, man.
36:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you men's get killed?
36:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But what if my mom didn't get shot because there's no guns?
36:26
[SPEAKER_01]: right, perhaps right, so we go back and forth, right?
36:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And then but my human will I get upset absolutely, but I've processed a long time how I can make peace with that.
36:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can process that.
36:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I can process other middle things.
36:40
[SPEAKER_01]: If someone makes me upset, I'm like, oh, for me, I take it upon myself, because I'm like a little mom, right, where I'm like, oh, why am I uncomfortable with this person's violence?
36:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's their, it's unjust.
36:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm working, but for me to blame to make them be more just, it's not going to work.
36:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to do the work.
36:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they have to come to their justice in their own way, right?
37:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we move on to Gunn or Gunn, I want to ask you about this idea of
37:15
[SPEAKER_00]: craftsmanship versus vision within the creative arts, right?
37:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I've kind of noticed throughout the years is when I look at artists, chefs, filmmakers, directors, actors, there's two components that have, but I'm just breaking down very binary.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like, this is my jam.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm breaking it down
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: very, it's a binary conversation between craftsmanship and actual vision or expression.
37:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the discussion that's going on in contemporary art.
37:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a constant conversation, right?
37:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a constant conversation that I play with for me in more academically in the performance art, performance art, performance art, performance art, right?
38:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Forming arts is you are very good at this craft.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do any other people's work.
38:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And performance art, what is more intervention, using different ways, different means, right?
38:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I,
38:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I start most places as a person intervening and person very conceptual.
38:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my work.
38:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm much stronger as a conceptual word artist, but my working with my hands over and over again
38:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have to take that and I can't, right?
38:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very, it's really funny.
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we can touch upon this.
38:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So the last three years, I started a body of work called ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma,
39:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Mat mat is a whole conchway way of being right.
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You do things in the garden.
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It flows right, but it's also the expectation that our culture has in women.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, Mat mat, you know, Mat mat.
39:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you don't disrupt the system and be good on the eyes.
39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's good on the eyes, means.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, you know, like, don't, you know, don't be a weirdo.
39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's very important and you go from not to not.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So it both of those things can are playing with that.
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's an intervention, right?
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's like clearly in for me, clearly in the conceptual well, right?
39:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Music in a Western concept.
39:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I think conceptual art, the way the world is understanding it now, I live in the Western world.
40:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a very Western concept, right?
40:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And then performing arts.
40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's performance art.
40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like these intervention in these ways of conceptual stopping the way we think, thinking differently.
40:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's performing arts.
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Performing arts is you can do it.
40:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You perform it.
40:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell you, perfect.
40:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So that for me is a really good example.
40:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then from emerged to too,
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: then that's where I am, because I feel like the repetition and the learning of the craft comes when you iterate, right?
40:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like for me, click those in great example, painting, and it's like whatever it is, you're really from the materials, I don't care about, I had to explain this to someone, like I don't really care about objects that much, I really care about the materials that take me through.
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: In my art, right?
40:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you say objects is like, uh, you don't paint drafts, you don't paint basketballs, you don't paint a car.
40:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's what you're saying.
40:58
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean by objects?
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I, whatever is in my hands, I study the technique, and I study the materials, and I have a vision for what it's supposed to be.
41:07
[SPEAKER_01]: The minute it becomes a thing, this thing, and that I pass on to people, it's out of my hands.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They're making
41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is not an option, it is a subject.
41:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people could say, oh, it's a scarf with words on it.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not my intention.
41:26
[SPEAKER_00]: What is your intention?
41:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Why intention is unquying, okay, Jim, okay?
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And my, the type of hate I'm used, the type of technique I've learned, the dying of this story of this indigo die now smells, right?
41:40
[SPEAKER_01]: The fabric and the weaving of this, right?
41:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That's important.
41:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But the concept of me carrying this on my back is the concept.
41:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me about it.
41:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me about it.
41:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You're carrying this in your back.
41:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, my not not is there's a trip take of it, right?
41:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like so I'm still having trouble explain it.
42:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's easier when I'm looking at it.
42:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's started off at its core level.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: The first iteration was called mom's garden.
42:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, like, a garden is my flat, right?
42:16
[SPEAKER_01]: But my garden is for gone matma, right?
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just completed the idea of it, right?
42:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Because for me, like, when I won, but I got my second Michelin, um, number one, you know, like my parents like, you know, like, when I win something, my parents are like, so,
42:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not really proud of it, but you know that are the diffusive.
42:39
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, oh, not that.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they're like, you're so crazy.
42:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, like, whatever.
42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, like, you know, like, I don't, like, people are really excited about these things.
42:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Not like they're just not.
42:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not what they're value is.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Or at least they don't show it to me, right?
42:53
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just like, like, you crazy kid, like...
42:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, they're like showing you off to their friends and they're, they are.
43:00
[SPEAKER_00]: They, I'm just, all of you these guys are like, I think they do.
43:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what they talk about me, because I think people are like, I'm like, my mom may have come up with me, you know, like that's her, that's her business, right?
43:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, you know, like, but it's layered though.
43:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I've come to my mom feel like, you know, my home, you know, my name is Dave, right?
43:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the, the, right?
43:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're like, oh, and, you know, you know, you know, my dad's like, you know, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
43:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And my dad's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
43:51
[SPEAKER_00]: cool on, right?
43:53
[SPEAKER_01]: In American care, it's like nothing will make, you know, we'll make them that time.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's fine.
43:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.
43:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But my dad.
44:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when I got, I was like a Michelin, you know, Christmas dinner, you know, my brother, said, hey, man, you know, I can't believe you got another Michelin.
44:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Like how do you do it, you know, like your crazy sis, you know, it's like, you know, I'm not right.
44:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's my thing.
44:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, as I shouldn't have gotten it because I was, I didn't have a restaurant.
44:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like both of my missions, I didn't have a restaurant.
44:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I totally plunked the system right, and I broke the system.
44:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Both pop ups.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like the books just are installations, right?
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever you want to call it, I didn't have a restaurant, which is, you know, Michelin, hopefully they don't take it up, but it's okay, they can.
44:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But my dad said,
44:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then my dad got really upset, but my brother said it, and my dad got really upset.
44:41
[SPEAKER_01]: My dad's like, I don't know why you have to do any of the stuff because, you know, if they can give it to you, they can take it away.
44:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was really upset.
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I made me really upset.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, Dad, why did you say that?
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean they're going to take it away?
44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, he doesn't.
44:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, you know, it's really just said.
45:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, if you know anything about Michelin,
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, actually, I'm cutting to the chase, but you know, since he was very disapproving.
45:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I thought, I'm like, I thought it was hard to be a turkey.
45:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I think of James got it, you know, my brother, then you'd be supporting him and he goes, come to find you, buddy.
45:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I said, it's because I'm a girl and you don't want me to take up space and he goes, you take up a lot of space.
45:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and he's like, you know, who like, go get files and you know, you always take a fall of space, you know?
45:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, and he's like, you don't do that, right?
45:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm like, oh, so pretty.
45:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Characters.
45:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We fought and then we didn't speak for a few months and then, you know, I made peace with that he made peace with it and forgot about it and then I worked on it.
45:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, why is he so upset about this, Michelin right on like whatever and I said, oh, he probably doesn't think I deserve it and then I'm like, I don't think I deserve it because my mom's a better cook, you know, and like everything I know is for my mom's garden, like, you know, so I did this project based on my mom's garden based on what.
46:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was more deserving of the Michelin than me.
46:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started, you know, I'm like, I want to, because it's such a burden of me, I'm going to give away the garden.
46:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was on this trajectory to give away my Michelin by giving away my mom's garden.
46:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, I'm like, you know, I'm like, I'm going to make mom's garden so awesome and everyone share my mom's garden.
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanted to do this whole project.
46:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And then to wrap this thing, I'm like, oh, it's really about the Michelin, right?
46:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm like, oh, you know, I'm like,
46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it is, but it's the mission of things really messing me out.
46:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So I set, I squatted and I'm just going to feed people by squatting.
46:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, you know, like, I did a full performance of squatting.
46:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, you know, this is, this is going to be like the performance of a, I fed people like Joe, right?
46:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you fed people who are squatting.
46:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I was squatting and they're standing, you know?
46:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, so you are squatting?
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Just my little job every day, you know, like this, you know, like, you know, I'm like, good at it.
46:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a little chubby, you know, and I'm not leading me so little jobs very hard for me.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but I'm like, you know, I'm not, so I did all these things.
47:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And the point is, like, throughout the whole course of, like, that's the first one.
47:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was invited to, you know, want to work with food forward.
47:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that space allowed me that must be bomb building factories.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So it kind of allowed me to start thinking about food and bonds.
47:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And then while I was doing that, I talked to my dad and I said, Dad, why are you so mad?
47:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd maybe don't want to participate in that system, he goes, if you've ever smelled Galsu, maybe you should reconsider.
47:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, if you've ever smelled rubber, you would know that what Michigan used to like it.
47:36
[SPEAKER_00]: In the understanding of the history of rubber in Vietnam in Donai, in Lomkaten, all of these plantations, and who is borderline slavery with the French did to the people?
47:48
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
47:48
[SPEAKER_00]: The line of slavery.
47:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Great of slavery.
47:51
[SPEAKER_01]: a harmonization.
47:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It is one of the very first major examples of why they took his plan from South America and brought it all the way to Vietnam for labor.
48:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so, and that's, so they can sell more, and then they started mission guides and they can sell more tires so they can
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I started going down that road.
48:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, okay, this is really more of a research.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, okay, that was right.
48:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, while I participate in this.
48:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So the work, the second, so the first round was military colonization, food, mom's carbon.
48:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I revisited industrial food, right?
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Like in my parents,
48:35
[SPEAKER_01]: ended up in Indian town gap in Pennsylvania.
48:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I revisited what food that they were given.
48:41
[SPEAKER_01]: As refugees, right?
48:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And because I'm working with food form, I guess you fetch fruits and vegetables versus my parents who got industrial cheese in Spain.
48:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And
48:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Jello, I'll package foods, right?
48:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's almost undignified, but they give you as a refugee or someone who gets government food in between, right?
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of revisit food and how policies are made and how we, as a mayor, and you know how America still holds food as people prisoners because of that food.
49:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So that food vote was your first
49:22
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you know what, I never even thought about it that way.
49:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I just did the work and I kept doing the work.
49:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it was performance.
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought that I was just doing installations.
49:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even think I changed the language.
49:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just doing it.
49:37
[SPEAKER_01]: From food to food still, right?
49:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think changing the context, the context of it, right?
49:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was really lucky.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I met a woman, a scholar, and Elizabeth McQueen.
49:47
[SPEAKER_01]: who pointed my workout as armed.
49:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we started going down that work and I'm like, yeah, it's actually that's what I do.
49:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, but how is this new?
49:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Because she was the world doesn't see this the same way you do.
49:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh, and she's like, I really think you should start telling people that this is the way you see things.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I want to always see this.
50:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So we started tracking back the work I did, right?
50:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, you saw a good fire in one of, even.
50:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The relationship.
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's the one and she's like, good fires clearly at performance and clearly in art piece.
50:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you not call it that I'm like, well, because I did in front of people every night 40 people, you know, nine.
50:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did the math and I performed good fire eight thousand times plus.
50:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw you do it at the hammer too.
50:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, they have my name.
50:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Hammer and here in your studio, we did it for one of our East films project.
50:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have performed this thing eight thousand, over eight thousand times.
50:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Think of every night, you know, in front of, you know, you know, 20 times a night, you know, 40 people in the restaurant.
50:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and in the thing that I built, and then I think I've always looked up because of my film and my art background.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I always thought of my working that way.
50:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, integrated.
50:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is the way I've always thought about it.
50:59
[SPEAKER_01]: She goes, I don't think people think about it this way.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I think they do.
51:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we start having this really great conversation.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, do you think food is performance?
51:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, actually, yes.
51:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, 100%.
51:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Every night, you don't think those chefs are performing.
51:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, that's normal.
51:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Going on and telling people what they eat and giving them all this backstripping, like, that's not normal.
51:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, I'm like, it is a performance.
51:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, but it's not unusual.
51:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I said,
51:25
[SPEAKER_01]: coming from my family, my mom performs, has you performed the role of how to be a mom?
51:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You think mom wants to cook that many people and learn a bit now, learn a bit now, you go to the military, learn a bit now, that's performance, that's not, there's a construct.
51:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You are performing that.
51:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started developing language for it, right?
51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm like, OK, if that's performance, then what's performance?
51:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Art.
51:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh, performance art is like, for me, the first few times you do it conceptually, and you're intervening something.
51:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, oh, this is it.
51:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Because for me, the concept is so important, right?
52:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's performance art.
52:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Because performance art is the intervention for me, it's the intervention of that part, right?
52:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Makes it performance art.
52:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Makes you perform a diff.
52:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, someone, the word performative and performance are very close.
52:16
[SPEAKER_01]: The first time you post Black Lives Matter and you really don't know what it means, that's performative, but you have a chance to make it a part of who you are, you practice it, then you start believing it.
52:28
[SPEAKER_01]: The hundred times you post that, if you've researched it, don't it, right?
52:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It becomes who you are, it becomes a ritual,
52:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is like that.
52:38
[SPEAKER_01]: The first time that performance is performance or it's not getting blocked, right?
52:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And Vietnamese, we don't have that differentiation, right?
52:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, in Vietnamese, I'm still asking my dad a lot.
52:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, what's the difference?
52:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Performance aren't performing out to you.
52:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know this thing.
52:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, one is like, yeah, it's blocked, right?
52:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, like, one is like the crash to get to and it's like more of the crash attempt, right?
52:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And but they don't have the work for conceptual.
53:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, and then I said, what about me, dad?
53:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the crazy thing he goes,
53:05
[SPEAKER_01]: that he's really fast.
53:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Take on a million, you know, me and Joey, and I'm a nine.
53:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, it's a crazy storyteller.
53:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, no dad, it's like more conceptual.
53:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so I have these really great conversations with him.
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm so lucky that I'm a dad that will entertain me.
53:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, entertain these conversations, right?
53:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like real language.
53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to look at the current situation Vietnam and see what their language is, right?
53:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think
53:29
[SPEAKER_01]: for Vietnamese Americans, we tend to lean on the English at the Western words that we know.
53:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So conceptually, I do want to dig more into this than the Vietnamese word, right?
53:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But I, for me, my, I'm so lucky that I get to mean mode to, right?
53:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, my cheek, we don't have sound because I'm like, however you understand it, is your way.
53:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I don't put sound because I'm like,
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: He only knew how my mom would hit and I love that race and I love people to be in that place.
54:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I find my mom, you know, like become chak chak chan.
54:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That means me kaw, me kaw, kaw, kaw, kaw, it's a Thai boy.
54:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're not sure,
54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: you have the opportunity for change.
54:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a great place to be, right?
54:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so people always like, they're like, my energy, like, don't you care like, no, my caring is people have more ideas.
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That's more important than my own idea.
54:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a true artist.
54:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but we all are.
54:32
[SPEAKER_00]: We all are, but it's to the degree of how much courage do you have to practice.
54:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But every day like this, Kenny, I'm 50 something years old and I've been this person every single day.
54:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I have convinced everyone in my life that the way I am is acceptable.
54:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so now I think about this question all the time.
54:54
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to be participating in this reincarnation matrix because how are you allowed to be born and be that way?
55:05
[SPEAKER_00]: and then there's like other artists who don't have the courage to just be in practice.
55:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's like artists who are just constantly grinding away at the, there's like levels to all of this, right?
55:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, that I do believe in reincarnation, right?
55:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe in, that's what, you know, because you can't see, you don't know it.
55:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have words for it, you feel it.
55:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You feel it, you know?
55:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause like, and people invita me shamanistic ways, they know.
55:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you know, not as young, you know, my, my pair, I walked down the street and I was like, young, I came across too.
55:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so, you know, like in my little village or whatever, people are like, you know, like, just like, you know, they predict who you are at a young age.
55:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's either.
55:50
[SPEAKER_01]: self-fulfilling prophecy or there's some truth to it.
55:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's in between, right?
55:55
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was really young, you know, really young, my path, you know, I walked around the street and people were like, oh, give me an eye and have a side, right?
56:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it gets repeated.
56:06
[SPEAKER_01]: True or not, it gets repeated.
56:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Because once your parents believe that, they let you run with it, right?
56:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I had a sister who was died, who died at birth, still birth, right?
56:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Two years old and they, still birth, right?
56:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So my parents were so devastated that they had a second child.
56:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They were so lucky.
56:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And then people couldn't go into a lucky they were.
56:26
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, this child's gonna be like insane.
56:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they're like, this child is insane.
56:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's a person of her own.
56:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So they have to accept that fate, right?
56:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And so...
56:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do people say that, right?
56:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I said, Mom, why did they say that?
56:39
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom be like, I'm Catholic.
56:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe in this stuff, right?
56:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But then she'd be like, but you can't lie now.
56:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you know?
56:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I mean, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like,
57:00
[SPEAKER_01]: the rules of superstition.
57:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
57:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think it's wrong.
57:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's as many thousands of years of a world belief in history, right?
57:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and I really trust that.
57:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, it's not wrong.
57:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not right.
57:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not correct for another community.
57:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the things that takes a whole zeitgeist to believe that and then you start.
57:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But then I'm like, if you can change that, then maybe you can refer to it.
57:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you can.
57:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all constructs.
57:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all constructs.
57:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you can be like, oh, you know, you know, because, like, for me, like, you know, like, you know, people, I'm lucky, right?
57:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, I'm like, they name him in.
57:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, it's like, it's in the books, you know, like, very strong, right?
57:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But my second part, my name's Wayne.
57:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Darth Indian, right when is Indian, right?
57:41
[SPEAKER_01]: My first name and pride is strong and you know like intellectual, brainy young, light, light, right?
57:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I said first when like the dark, the opposite, right?
57:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing is I always went by me and right and at whom I'm feeling like Neppy, like little, right?
57:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like I have all these things that I can construct when fall upon and I'm very lucky that I have a very supportive parents who let me construct these things.
58:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to ask about two final things, which is so much, and we have a time.
58:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
58:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
58:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fine.
58:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know two things.
58:17
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, we're going to talk about garden and what that means and what this installation is about.
58:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And then how do people get to experience it?
58:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, okay, so not much.
58:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So the second iteration was at Monetti Shrem Museum at UC Davis.
58:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got its federal residency with the same scholar Elizabeth McQueen on the Colorado.
58:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did it for the 50th anniversary of the remembrance of the false icon.
58:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
58:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, that part was leaning into, I developed three sculptures that are over there.
58:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm looking at the sculpture at three different sculptures and then a performance.
58:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that's when I started building the whole mom's garden.
58:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I gained because it became a pressure.
58:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So I gained my mom's full garden with the seeds, right?
59:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would put all the, so I put all my mom's seeds in here.
59:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when it was
59:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So, like all the different kinds of, well, they are, you know, all of us in our garden.
59:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I gave it all to Davis, you know, and I said, and my concept, I'm like, if we were to have war again, what would people keep?
59:28
[SPEAKER_01]: They keep two things.
59:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Here are the key seeds.
59:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Seeds and language.
59:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, so my, I have, it was never, it's everywhere.
59:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what the boat, right?
59:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh, so there's Proverbs everywhere, but it comes out because I'm like, because the new generation and whoever reads it, number one people, if it looks like this, people think it's just a packing list somewhere, or cargo, they don't know what it means.
59:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, it's something I protect.
59:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, it's good that people don't know.
59:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like something that I'm still discovering to myself, so that intention.
59:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the second thing is it's how much you and I think like I said much is like a strength for me like not always being wrong or people thinking you're wrong, it's such a strength like it's such a huge strength for me because you know I'm when I got a bit numb, you know people like, oh God, I thought I'm going to heal and you're my salad and I love that space because it makes them expand.
1:00:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, then then that I would be like, oh, you know, you know, you like, as he like gives me a chance to learn and it gives me a chance.
1:00:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they'll like give a chance.
1:00:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We're like, what I'm so generous and they're belief.
1:00:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're like, you know, you know, then I give a chance to get my story.
1:00:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that is how I love that interaction.
1:00:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I love how do we get to now thinking about fast food forward and thinking about gang and thinking about all the other stuff that you've been to.
1:00:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, wait, there's a lot going on show was at the high desert test site.
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so
1:00:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that was when, that's, I should say that photo of me in the desert.
1:00:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
1:01:16
[SPEAKER_01]: My work gets exhibited, and then it gets pulled away, and I tell people, but I don't really do a great job at explaining or marketing.
1:01:27
[SPEAKER_00]: What about social media?
1:01:28
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we find you?
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I am also social media.
1:01:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait, so your brand doesn't?
1:01:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm honest, but I'm not really active.
1:01:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I just repose what other people you pose for me.
1:01:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, my practice is there.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not the point where
1:01:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I think connecting with people is much slower, you know, because I don't have to brand it to I don't sell it because I'm excited people brand to sell to get more legibility and for me I'm like go for understanding from reflection so you don't need that you know it's like this is more reflective and it's longer so do I need to get back to that short form.
1:02:06
[SPEAKER_01]: branding in and out, you know, because it's like sometimes if I have other circumstances, I will use that as a tool.
1:02:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a tool.
1:02:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But my baseline is more about the work is the work, right?
1:02:18
[SPEAKER_01]: The work is this, the work is talking, the work is doing, the work is using my hands, the work is thinking through things.
1:02:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And then one day maybe I'll write more about it when, you know, when the time is right.
1:02:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it turned me like one of the things about me,
1:02:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Timing.
1:02:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Timing.
1:02:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Timing is everything, right?
1:02:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Timing space is everything, right?
1:02:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, like, I really believe in Timing.
1:02:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Timing.
1:02:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Divine timing, yeah.
1:02:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very good at it.
1:02:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very good at it.
1:02:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, that's for me.
1:02:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Like,
1:02:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I've told you this before me, I come quite high, oh man, can they need an early day?
1:02:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Meinging them, be more productive.
1:02:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not your time.
1:02:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So do something productive for your time and go help people, go discover new skills, and then grow and learn, and then your time comes to connect with people.
1:03:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So me, tell you, this means connect with people, right?
1:03:06
[SPEAKER_01]: The time will come from you to connect with people.
1:03:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, I'd rather connect like this than to a bigger public, like what's the point of it?
1:03:14
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the point of connecting to a bigger public
1:03:17
[SPEAKER_00]: for that kind of change, that kind of deeper conversation.
1:03:21
[SPEAKER_01]: They will want it, and then they'll find it.
1:03:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so, and I'm okay with that.
1:03:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's slower, it's much more tough.
1:03:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, thank you so much for today.
1:03:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I am inspired as I am constantly trying to evolve and become more experienced, more art in my life, and the creative process.
1:03:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we talk about that a little?
1:03:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:03:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I did think that's my one thing that I is different than when we first met is I have always been an artist, but now I'm really on this kick when I was at Geek, where I was talk and we talked about it.
1:03:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:03:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Really let's kick that I think our community needs more.
1:04:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.
1:04:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
1:04:13
[SPEAKER_01]: more expansion we do understanding, the more it is better, right?
1:04:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, I'm really excited about this interconnection.
1:04:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I was talking to a non-mode camera, but this connection of like Vietnamese Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans.
1:04:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's very exciting to me, but there's a lot of work and art.
1:04:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And the way of us talking is not always going to be effective.
1:04:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But us seeing experiencing something, see, I think it's going to be really important, right?
1:04:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when people are on the high line in New York, they're going to see this big Buddhist statue.
1:04:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, done, yeah.
1:04:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Fun Andrew, yeah, and that is an experience, right?
1:04:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so
1:04:59
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, lit up by that thought that that is a Vietnamese person that has that Buddhist statue and so visibly globally.
1:05:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot, I think that we will, you know, we need more of that.
1:05:14
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more, and I also think that we finally have more, um,
1:05:19
[SPEAKER_01]: We finally are out of that kind of scarcity, like in the scarcity we have, there's still a lot of scarcity in our community and we could be really thoughtful about that and always share and make sure that everyone's okay, I still think that's our responsibility, but I think for the most part us, our, you know, our generation, we're out of like immediate scarcity.
1:05:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got to unlocks like you know, so they're not.
1:05:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have time to think and having time to think things, time to express ourselves and time to leave something for others to an next generation.
1:05:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, like I think about leaving,
1:05:57
[SPEAKER_01]: something for the next generation all the time and you know I think about like what message when I was doing the Manetti Shrem show and I still think that this a lot is what is I think there's a lot of missing gaps in our history as a Vietnamese community and I think about how do I fill those gaps and writing history is not my thing but sharing
1:06:24
[SPEAKER_01]: talking about things uncomfortable like violence is really anymore.
1:06:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know that we all experience violence.
1:06:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, you know, and how do we how do we take away the blame and make things more just facts?
1:06:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:06:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And just we have this happen.
1:06:41
[SPEAKER_01]: These are things that happen.
1:06:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all responsible and none of us responsible.
1:06:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But what we are responsible is for a future.
1:06:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And from
1:06:52
[SPEAKER_01]: who have Vietnamese in their blood, and what the future is for them, and it would make me very sad if they didn't have the spirit of being Vietnamese and the language that United shared the last hour if they didn't have a comprehension of that.
1:07:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's really important for me, you know, and then I love Vietnamese prophets, you know, and I want, but I want more
1:07:20
[SPEAKER_01]: meaning his language, but I also love my version of it, which is very, you know, like the less binary.
1:07:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I've been thank you so much once again.
1:07:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me anyone any good advice.
1:07:33
[SPEAKER_00]: When I, we're not here for advice, we're here for the stories.
1:07:36
[SPEAKER_00]: We're here to archive the mind of a creative, a wonderful creative.
1:07:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so, such an honor.