513 - Why Can’t AI Replace Human Writers? - Ky Phong Paul Tran

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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Today I am with my dear friend, key phone, claw trend.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had to do that a few times to get that name right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Pulling I actually go way back.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We go back over 30 years, three decades.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We were both young Vietnamese Catholics, and we went to all these camps, like at Jai Han and Thin, at Odorado Park here, right by down the street here, you actually came by my restaurant Cygon Street in Westwood at UCLA, during the years that I had it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And throughout the years, we were running to each other at all these events.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I consider you a literary gangster, a writer,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Vietnamese American culturalists who can really talk about many things Vietnamese American and most recently the Ellie Times piece about the Fast and Furious.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for having me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a dream come true to be here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Bucket List item for me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, is that right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, just saying that, are you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no.
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[SPEAKER_01]: 500 episodes for me to get here, guys.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So funny.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you have actually been instrumental throughout the years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've come to you about my writing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't had the courage to finish yet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The question for me in the last few years is like, why, right, why am I writing?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's occupying my brain all the time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why should we learn how to write?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And why should I be writing?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why should anybody write?
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[SPEAKER_00]: when we have AI now, and as a writer yourself, as somebody who won the teacher of the year in 2024, and when we're gonna talk about that, but as somebody who teaches the craft of filmmaking of writing, why is this important that we as humans continue the legacy of writing?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I'm gonna pause.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I wanna just say the origin of me writing, like in my modern life, because I think it's really important to your answers,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Really get this really quick is a pretty classical Asian American story of how I became a writer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's that will hopefully answer your question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So in the early 2000s, I finished UCLA.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, early 2000 that finished UCLA.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I moved to the Bay Area and I was working in politics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I worked for a city council member.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then my brother was going to go to law school.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when you're a social science major, that's a pretty natural course.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, OK, I'm going to do this for a couple of years.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to go to law school and then finish some, finish some kind of practice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It just felt safe.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It felt like the right thing to do very conservative, traditional route to become this professional, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Especially as from me coming from a refugee family.
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[SPEAKER_01]: they didn't have a lot of money.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I was working there in a government building 9-11 happened.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it just changed my whole perspective on, you know, one day you could be in LSAT class like I was or one day you could be in a office building and then, you know, the next day it could be taken away from you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what do you really want to do with your life?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like, oh, what do I really want to do with my life?
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I want it to be a writer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've always known, since I was like 12 years old, and UCLA, I was in a theater group called LCC, and I wrote plays in that group, and I just always liked that feeling.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I got to stop you real quick.
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[SPEAKER_00]: LCC, legendary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Legendary, Randall Park, Ali Wong.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All these names, Christian Wong, Jenny Trangley, a lot of people you know, you know, all these big names in the Asian American media.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, doing new, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, came from this small club coming out of UCLA.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm, you know, you know, it's awe, it's awe inspiring.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because we just thought we were playing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it was probably maybe maybe that was the safe space for it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: other Asian American claims.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All these important creatives come from that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't come from a U.S. C club because you see a, you know, student club, it was mind blowing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I always liked that feeling of writing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then I did like high school journalism, but I never told anybody.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I actually wrote a play about that's one of my plays in LCC was about coming out, but the coming out was coming out as an artist too.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The character is Vietnamese parents.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to go to Alaska.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was kind of like telling right and I think in the play I don't want to go to law school.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to go to to get my MFA and then along the way I actually had another decision to make I was interested equal in like fine arts photography and creative writing
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then so I made that choice to study very traditionally.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think in this podcast, like I hopefully like young people, young people are interested in writing because I am a teacher.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I wanna give them the steps and also inspire them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I went to Community College in Oakland at Laney College.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna see my professor in a couple weeks, so we still keep it touch.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and I just did all of these writing programs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was in a Vietnamese artist collective in the Bay Area, Creni Street workshop.
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[SPEAKER_01]: These are like the traditional Asian-American training grounds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I got my MFA from UC Riverside.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead.
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[SPEAKER_00]: MFA first or MFA first though.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, fun fact, I actually have an MFA in Asian-American studies and an MFA.
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[SPEAKER_01]: in creative writing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's like a gap, but the first two degrees, you still like, I just went all the way through, and I was being fully honest.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I just like to be as transparent as possible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was not a great graduate student.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was really immature.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was one of those kids when your parents pushed you into school.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I graduated high school at 17.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I graduated.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I started graduate school when I was 21.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, I was just totally not equipped for grad school on the first time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, really immature.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm very thankful for the professors for bearing with me and I hope I've I've a tone for my sins back then because I was not a good graduate student I was I was a graduate student acting like an undergrad.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's interesting that you do the American Asian American studies first and then you get the MFA and the reason that's interesting to me is because I study this stuff I I love When crafts people who do their fine art their photography their painting their filmmaking
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[SPEAKER_00]: When they have this social justice background, like Asian American Studies, it round you out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's you, you nailed it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have been fascinated with my cohort and the graduates around me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, people would always say the same thing, like, what are you going to do with that, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'll give you some examples.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Ali Wong was the Asian-American Studies major.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She became a comic in a movie star.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's this guy named Jim Leah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He was the Asian-American Studies major.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He found a formula drift.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And now he's a president of the Long Beach Grand Prix.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So like the range of what you could do is it's just a lens and it's a very very social justice oriented lens, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's towards providing the regular things and the regular world with the emphasis on Asian Americans who don't have access and don't have all the resources to these things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about like why is college even important anymore?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because my brother and I We talked about that with the age of AI with the age of YouTube videos and you can really learn to do whatever you need to do So this goes back to your original question, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So in terms of why is writing important?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was trained this way, I believe in it as well, but writing is refined thinking.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when people say is writing important, just translated to say is thinking important.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's like, then answer is like a no brainer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when we say like, can the machine write, the machine can put words down.
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[SPEAKER_01]: but can the machine put down original words?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, we know that because it's an amateur large language model, it is only calling, it is only taking from what's already been written.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And the whole premise of art and even commerce is new things.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're amalgamizing old things over and over, if nobody made anything new, the system would be like, it'd be like eating space food, and then you have to recycle,
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[SPEAKER_01]: you know, what happens after you eat, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how can it be original?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So to me, and also, like I said, you know, off camera, writing is between people, art is between people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you use the tool, like, is it really communicating with, is it between person to person?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't, I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, can it make a manual?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But is that the same as,
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[SPEAKER_01]: creative writing, sharing your emotions and expressing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't think so, but I'm not 100% anti-EI, but in the creative space, I don't think it's doing the same thing at all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a fine line, especially that I can film, you know, I teach film, you make film.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's like this great debate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some people say you should have extras, human extras, and then some people say, well, we just see GI of them in, and then it's like a back and forth, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you're an extra, you get this stage experience, and maybe you become a movie star later on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then the CGI people, but you save so much money and not bring down the people, you don't have to pay for this, and you can use it for other means, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know how that expresses itself in writing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But it won't always matter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Writing won't always matter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The arts won't always matter.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Even though a lot of times, like the experiences are the same, like they're for their time, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody, mom passed away in 1900.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's very sad, but it feels distant.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody's mom passes away in 2016.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You write about it and somebody you know or the context is the same and when they go to the same restaurants, it makes you feel seen and makes you feel less lonely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe that's the connection that the machines can do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When I think about machine writing and I think about the construction as a scaffold to get me to where I feel free to express what I'm trying to say.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the danger of that what I've been going through in the last few years when I write is that
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard for me to say, you know, I'm going to remove the scaffolding because the scaffolding is really beautiful.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's like kind of integral in the writing but composition.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say this because I'm in multiple writing groups for people who just like suffer for this and at least for the creative itself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We love that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, like, I want to do all the steps.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's like, oh, this thing's, you know, a lot of writers have been getting caught using AI.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's like major scandals last week, major scandals that haven't even come out yet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: People getting kicked out of programs, people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I was thinking myself, like, why would you want to skip that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's my own personality.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And what I mean by that is, if you're a cook, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like we both know Chef David.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you want to learn and be creative and try and experiment and then you mess up a bunch of times that you finally make this one good thing?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then on the hundredth try, you're so proud of yourself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to make the best thing on your first try?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know the first one.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You can't make the best thing on your first try.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But like,
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[SPEAKER_01]: cheating yourself of all that process, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to call it suffering, but the learning of it, it doesn't feel right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because that's the whole part of being an artist, is learning like trial and error.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we have a lose that as human beings, I think that's when we're going to be in hot water.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like we're always thinking about the product and the end, but like the steps of like, every time I make a discovery,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Shout out, I'm going to shout out Kathleen Lynch, who's my writing coach.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Our texture or my writing group, I'm like, I figured this out about my story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I figured this out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's so exciting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, nobody, nobody's excited.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited, you know?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like in my essay, the Crowley essay, like you know, you write it and then you add this line and you add that line and then later on this, like take this line out and you get so excited.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like why would you take that away from you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm being serious.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why would you take that away from yourself?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like okay, this end product and a lot of people read it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That was not the most exciting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm being honest, that was cool, professionally is cool, but like my two editors help me so much.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That was cool, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Showing my friends before I got published, that was cool.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be believing in it, believing in it a year ago, when nobody took the pitch.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm on fast-forward to the story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody took the pitch and I sat on it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, man, nobody wants the story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's a good story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I just kept thinking, fast in the furious, JDM cars.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have my new car.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how can I make this work?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody, and then I was like, I sent it out, nobody wanted it because it's too far away.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like a year from now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I thought a year ahead.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, is the anniversary of June 21st.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I sent the pitch July 2025.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then I sent it out again in March.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody wanted it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know anybody?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or did you just pulled?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and this is me being a salvage writer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This is not even, they're not cold emails.
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[SPEAKER_01]: These are emails to editors I've worked with.
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[SPEAKER_01]: people don't, because also because we're writing a, I'm trying to write about a world that like, the mainstream editors, they don't, they're not in this world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's my point is I want to shine a light on places you may not have been or seen, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's the beauty of this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But the fact that nobody believed in it and then it kind of picked up from there, like, like, I'll give you an example.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Say my dad.
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[SPEAKER_01]: was Patrick Schum, the owner of L.A. Times.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote this, he put it in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is that exciting?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not exciting at all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, it's automatic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why, getting things automatic is not exciting to me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that this organically bubbled up and here I am with you is, is, come on.
14:13.542 --> 14:16.364
[SPEAKER_01]: That, you know, AI this, you're going to AI this.
14:16.384 --> 14:20.686
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be with Kenneth because somebody randomly believed in my cruel essay.
14:20.786 --> 14:21.707
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's just,
14:24.584 --> 14:30.406
[SPEAKER_00]: And you told me about the serendipity of meeting, you know, Chris Strand over at Loose Agon and tell me about that.
14:30.466 --> 14:31.087
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us about it.
14:31.127 --> 14:40.690
[SPEAKER_01]: So my essay ends with this mechanic named Viet, who has a body shop, auto, auto mechanic shop is a little side gone.
14:41.510 --> 14:50.194
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was doing modifications on my car just because I wanted them, but also because I was writing the story and I was going to take my car to Karshos
14:51.674 --> 15:05.198
[SPEAKER_01]: like hang out with the car people and interview them and so um when I was at his shop in Garden Grove I was gonna grade papers that day but the office was closed and they're like hey two blocks over the coffee shop everybody swars by it.
15:06.079 --> 15:15.942
[SPEAKER_01]: That's okay I walk over there and I was grading papers and then um Chris and another woman pull up park right in front and they walk in
15:20.076 --> 15:21.416
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, hey, let me grab some coffee.
15:21.456 --> 15:27.359
[SPEAKER_01]: He sits down, and we talk, and then he's telling me, I was like, oh yeah, my car, what are you doing here?
15:27.379 --> 15:30.560
[SPEAKER_01]: My car's getting lowered at the shop.
15:30.580 --> 15:31.660
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, do you know who that is?
15:32.260 --> 15:36.442
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he told me his name, and then I Googled it, and then I was like, oh, wow.
15:37.382 --> 15:40.803
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like legit iconic racer, right?
15:40.823 --> 15:46.785
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just the first time I went, they're like, oh, they race, but that doesn't mean anything, but then they drop the names, right?
15:46.845 --> 15:52.347
[SPEAKER_01]: Team wicked, the doctor, and then you Google these people and they're like,
15:53.340 --> 15:59.285
[SPEAKER_01]: the fastest, they really were the fastest, and they really were the most furious haunders in the world at the time.
15:59.805 --> 16:01.667
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, what a perfect ending.
16:01.687 --> 16:05.130
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like, I feel like the universe brought that to me.
16:05.330 --> 16:11.275
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, like, because I think it's the end, without that ending, that I don't think it's the... And you brought this name out.
16:12.253 --> 16:16.034
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because he was very shy about it when I mentioned it.
16:16.054 --> 16:17.295
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, oh, that was the old days.
16:17.315 --> 16:18.075
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the old days.
16:18.515 --> 16:23.057
[SPEAKER_01]: So definitely, if he wants to be in stories in the future, I would.
16:23.437 --> 16:32.500
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it actually kind of works cooler that way to know if they were like, but you also left out the woman that Chris Tran, her name is Professor Talha.
16:32.660 --> 16:32.840
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
16:33.200 --> 16:38.445
[SPEAKER_00]: Professor Taha has been on this podcast a few times and she's come out of the new book later in the year.
16:38.465 --> 16:40.487
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, um, Vala president.
16:40.507 --> 16:44.691
[SPEAKER_00]: Vala president, uh, another legendary, um, person.
16:44.711 --> 16:45.732
[SPEAKER_00]: And I told her as well.
16:45.792 --> 16:50.256
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a former Vala board member, former Viff community chair and stuff like that.
16:50.276 --> 16:54.299
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's crazy how things go come full circle.
16:54.479 --> 16:56.962
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that we're both fathers, right?
16:56.982 --> 16:58.063
[SPEAKER_00]: When we think about like,
16:59.470 --> 17:09.852
[SPEAKER_00]: the importance of thinking things through on paper and seeing the way these young kids consume content now.
17:10.592 --> 17:14.433
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like, it's kind of an erving for me.
17:14.993 --> 17:21.854
[SPEAKER_00]: When I think that, I don't know how your children are, but the ability to think deeper than they need to, is it even important for them anymore?
17:21.994 --> 17:25.334
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the answer is, gotta be yes, but there's a balance, right?
17:25.374 --> 17:27.655
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the balance that we try to have in our family,
17:29.515 --> 17:33.337
[SPEAKER_01]: we're not going to be able to stop them on YouTube or social media.
17:33.937 --> 17:35.457
[SPEAKER_01]: But there has to be amounts of that.
17:35.497 --> 17:37.298
[SPEAKER_01]: And in my house, everybody's a reader.
17:37.518 --> 17:38.819
[SPEAKER_01]: But my kids grew up readers.
17:38.979 --> 17:43.480
[SPEAKER_01]: I take them where every time we go on a family vacation, the first place we go is to a bookstore.
17:44.401 --> 17:46.161
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's culturally part of our family.
17:46.181 --> 17:47.062
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to libraries.
17:47.082 --> 17:48.942
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to literary events.
17:49.062 --> 17:50.583
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we go to museums.
17:50.883 --> 17:52.064
[SPEAKER_01]: So to balance that out.
17:52.084 --> 17:55.005
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think you can ever negate the electronics.
17:55.225 --> 17:57.506
[SPEAKER_01]: But they also love to read manga.
17:59.513 --> 18:07.695
[SPEAKER_01]: like I grew up living in the red comic books, I just think like you gotta find age-appropriate stuff, personality-appropriate stuff, and so it's a mix, right?
18:07.735 --> 18:18.758
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think if you do like, oh, you can only read and never watch TV, that's like, remember how our parents were, it's like, even with three channels we were watching, you know, addicted to, we would not watch.
18:19.618 --> 18:22.221
[SPEAKER_01]: those like more poviches and stuff like that.
18:22.241 --> 18:24.863
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, if you say, oh, there's trash now.
18:25.104 --> 18:29.288
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, we were watching trash back then too, or the judge shows or come on now.
18:29.328 --> 18:33.031
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, we weren't consuming like the good news back then.
18:33.172 --> 18:33.632
[SPEAKER_00]: So true.
18:34.092 --> 18:37.296
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I think about my kids now, I try to push them into like,
18:38.715 --> 18:57.900
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up at 13 driving delivery vans for my parents' business and at 15, I took a cross-country trip with two other guys from church who they couldn't drive at the time, and I mean, I mean, I'm not of a sort of legal to drive, but I drove 15 years old, drove in a cross, and I'm trying to like really calibrate that to how do I...
19:00.425 --> 19:09.252
[SPEAKER_00]: allow my children to do all these, I mean, street living, dangerous things that we kind of like, wouldn't know if it's never gonna happen.
19:09.332 --> 19:10.053
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't think so?
19:10.313 --> 19:14.397
[SPEAKER_01]: No, in the best way possible, we provide a more for our kids.
19:15.077 --> 19:16.558
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'll give you an example of a sentence.
19:16.578 --> 19:18.060
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the Vietnamese podcast.
19:18.620 --> 19:19.721
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up a shopboy.
19:20.301 --> 19:21.622
[SPEAKER_01]: My dad had a furniture store.
19:22.758 --> 19:29.101
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of my best memories, they will definitely be in some kind of story is being in the back of a furniture store.
19:29.181 --> 19:31.142
[SPEAKER_01]: Not the front, the front is the showroom, the back.
19:31.963 --> 19:35.224
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like a real parkour, real adventure.
19:35.604 --> 19:36.665
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was my summer camp.
19:37.305 --> 19:41.687
[SPEAKER_01]: So now that my, I have a different life, my kids go to summer camp.
19:41.968 --> 19:42.988
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think that's bad.
19:43.168 --> 19:44.669
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't, I don't think they have to nest it.
19:44.909 --> 19:50.312
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, are they going to have as much grid, texture, treats, toughness, and all that, you know, of course not.
19:51.865 --> 19:56.609
[SPEAKER_01]: but they're also gonna not have to worry about getting mugged, getting junk.
19:56.709 --> 19:57.450
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
19:57.510 --> 19:59.351
[SPEAKER_01]: Getting into fights at the park.
20:00.072 --> 20:03.274
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's like a lot of craziness that we grew up with, man.
20:03.294 --> 20:04.575
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, getting hit up.
20:06.497 --> 20:08.539
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know, it's a balance, right?
20:08.619 --> 20:09.820
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's no way they're gonna,
20:11.100 --> 20:20.843
[SPEAKER_01]: We want them to have that, but we want them to have that toughness, but I don't think we want them to be the environment that raised that toughness, because that environment's hard, and I'll be honest, like that environment's hard.
20:21.243 --> 20:25.345
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything you touch and do today revolves around writing.
20:25.765 --> 20:32.347
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything you do, everything you do, whether you're teaching high school students or teaching guys like me.
20:33.227 --> 20:35.728
[SPEAKER_00]: what to think when I'm like putting a book together.
20:36.889 --> 20:41.351
[SPEAKER_00]: You're thinking about writing for NLA Times piece.
20:42.131 --> 20:51.856
[SPEAKER_00]: You are also teaching young people how to think about what to write in an essay when they're applying for colleges and moving on in life.
20:52.537 --> 20:54.798
[SPEAKER_00]: What are some of the most important things that
20:56.278 --> 21:00.860
[SPEAKER_00]: Even as a 50-year-old or the same age, we're almost two months apart.
21:01.881 --> 21:03.561
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get it too.
21:03.641 --> 21:04.702
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get it.
21:05.122 --> 21:05.382
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
21:05.402 --> 21:08.904
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get it, right?
21:09.224 --> 21:18.608
[SPEAKER_00]: At our age when I think about what is important, you're actually thinking, you're actually helping young people think about why
21:21.247 --> 21:30.015
[SPEAKER_00]: There are certain things about the way we live that's so important to people who are reading our file, our application in life.
21:30.435 --> 21:42.225
[SPEAKER_00]: What is important about, so when I hear that you write and you teach and you guide young people to write their essays to get in the college, I try to think about,
21:43.426 --> 21:49.592
[SPEAKER_00]: What is so important these days that somebody on the other side who's reading this stuff is going to be like, I like that person.
21:49.612 --> 21:51.414
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like, there's a great question.
21:52.435 --> 21:54.937
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll say this.
21:55.958 --> 22:02.644
[SPEAKER_01]: In this world being used and I'm like a Vietnamese culturalist or, you know, a Vietnamese American culturalist.
22:02.684 --> 22:03.285
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say this.
22:03.806 --> 22:06.368
[SPEAKER_01]: The most important thing we can all be is to be a humanist.
22:07.609 --> 22:12.793
[SPEAKER_01]: to be interested in other people, to care about other people, care about yourself being interested in yourself, right?
22:13.353 --> 22:27.123
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, as cramudently as people say, I am at home at work, I do have a sincere fascination with people, right?
22:27.143 --> 22:31.967
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I want to know about their lives and I want to know what makes them tick and I want to know these experiences.
22:32.690 --> 22:39.656
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you say like, how do you show yourself in the writing, it has to come back like people say authenticity, right?
22:39.676 --> 22:41.338
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's a very generic term.
22:41.358 --> 22:45.081
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it is a true, but it's like you are authentic by sharing.
22:46.271 --> 22:53.917
[SPEAKER_01]: your very specific experiences, your emotion is when you went through that experience, your reflection on those experiences, right?
22:54.057 --> 23:05.426
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like to the craft barn is like how you control the language of it, like which words you use, simple lessons like Dictionary Kohl's tone, which is the words you choose creates the tone of your piece.
23:06.592 --> 23:12.959
[SPEAKER_01]: goes back to like the heart of like AP English class, that your audience, who is your intended audience, affects your tone.
23:13.500 --> 23:18.225
[SPEAKER_01]: So the way you talk and church to the priest is different from when you talk to your homeboys, when you're out drinking.
23:18.345 --> 23:20.087
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that's how you kind of like cater.
23:20.427 --> 23:24.051
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, when you write for like a general audience, like there's like a neutral tone.
23:24.892 --> 23:39.615
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but even like I feel like when I write, um, I got the greatest compliment from my, my writing teacher Susan straight, I mean, real famous novelist, she said, uh, after my, my cruel essay, she said, only you could have written that.
23:42.251 --> 23:43.872
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, what does that mean, right?
23:43.912 --> 23:45.032
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, first of all, it was a great compliment.
23:45.052 --> 23:45.652
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Susan.
23:45.672 --> 23:46.152
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
23:46.172 --> 23:54.214
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you share this sequence of stories that like, nobody else had to go in and paste it out.
23:54.294 --> 23:56.894
[SPEAKER_01]: And then obviously the luck with meeting bit.
23:58.015 --> 24:07.077
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I do want to just add like some background to that piece was like, like, since you're asking is, there's some cool background to the Corolla essay, which is,
24:09.214 --> 24:13.238
[SPEAKER_01]: One, my mom used to work on the street called Susanna, which is like right off the 710.
24:13.758 --> 24:20.784
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would go with her to work, and it would just be blown up, just skid marks and I knew what was happening there, right?
24:21.405 --> 24:25.368
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it turns out Susanna runs perpendicular to Maria Street.
24:26.129 --> 24:28.891
[SPEAKER_01]: And Maria Street is one of the legendary race streets.
24:29.511 --> 24:32.634
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was one of, even since I was like, a little kid I was like exposed to this.
24:34.316 --> 24:38.277
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so the little details that like add to the story, right?
24:38.297 --> 24:39.958
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you can't just be like, oh, I went to the races, right?
24:39.978 --> 24:42.839
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like, oh, my mom, like, as a child would take me.
24:42.859 --> 24:47.720
[SPEAKER_01]: The executive team in then, um, another, another fun fact that's not in the piece.
24:48.741 --> 24:55.243
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I made a documentary about import cars in college and my TA was just in the lead.
24:57.120 --> 25:01.022
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, and then, I'm saving these goodies for you.
25:01.082 --> 25:13.690
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, when my mom passed away in March, 2009, I remember being in my funeral clothes at Ralph's buying like a soda or something, because I was just like burned out.
25:14.570 --> 25:19.653
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's an import tuner magazine, and one of the fast and furious movies was coming out.
25:19.973 --> 25:23.955
[SPEAKER_01]: So whatever it was in 2009, I take it off the shelf while I'm waiting to check out.
25:27.596 --> 25:30.958
[SPEAKER_01]: and I got this comery to it and then he's they're like, did you have an import car?
25:31.018 --> 25:31.819
[SPEAKER_01]: They asked just in this.
25:32.639 --> 25:34.961
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, no, he's like, how do you know about these cars?
25:35.301 --> 25:40.064
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, when I was at UCLA, some students in my class made a documentary about it.
25:40.084 --> 25:41.044
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, that's me.
25:41.645 --> 25:44.066
[SPEAKER_01]: That's me and I bought that import tuner right there off the shelf.
25:45.247 --> 25:45.447
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
25:46.148 --> 25:48.969
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's all these little, like, can you just like that's what makes the story.
25:48.989 --> 25:49.970
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you remember it, right?
25:49.990 --> 25:50.750
[SPEAKER_01]: You tell the story.
25:51.231 --> 25:52.571
[SPEAKER_01]: People remember stories, right?
25:52.612 --> 25:53.032
[SPEAKER_01]: This is our,
25:54.433 --> 25:58.296
[SPEAKER_01]: our anthropological origins, we love stories, we need stories.
25:58.356 --> 26:01.238
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're wired for stories, right?
26:01.278 --> 26:02.478
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not making this up by that.
26:02.498 --> 26:04.480
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like no chop ski and not like all that.
26:04.500 --> 26:04.860
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
26:05.160 --> 26:06.381
[SPEAKER_00]: This is ethnographic work.
26:06.781 --> 26:07.862
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we do, right?
26:09.703 --> 26:28.295
[SPEAKER_00]: major in anthropology at USC is I love this stuff I love just a connective tissue that you know talked about earlier that you know you're part of all these world world and your professors says or your mentor says this is only you this is only the the the the the finger print that you can do
26:29.216 --> 26:31.699
[SPEAKER_00]: that geophone plot trend can do.
26:31.919 --> 26:35.723
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just want to say, there's two versions of this essay.
26:36.323 --> 26:39.286
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the LA Times version, which is very truncated.
26:39.687 --> 26:45.492
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the original version, so shout out to Aaron and Jackie at Zocalo Public Square.
26:45.953 --> 26:48.355
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, a 1700 word version ever.
26:48.916 --> 26:52.700
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's got, in my personal opinion, just a lot more of the original.
26:53.300 --> 26:54.181
[SPEAKER_01]: tone spirit.
26:54.241 --> 27:10.735
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it's like way more like cheeky and funny and like in the early times really was trying to emphasize the Asian American perspective, which I actually and down for it, you know, took me a little bit of the shift away from more towards like because it covers Hollywood and stuff like that.
27:11.176 --> 27:13.738
[SPEAKER_01]: But the original title was like a love song from
27:15.079 --> 27:18.862
[SPEAKER_01]: which was really like a love song for the 90s, a love song for how we grew up.
27:19.042 --> 27:32.552
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we could, like if I, it's really special for me to talk about the 90s in the early 2000s, even when I met Kyla U last weekend at the book fair, we were talking about it as well, because we, we didn't know.
27:33.513 --> 27:35.674
[SPEAKER_01]: how exciting that time was for Asian Americans.
27:35.754 --> 27:37.995
[SPEAKER_01]: And I honestly thought it was going to last forever.
27:38.495 --> 27:42.237
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is still obviously a question.
27:42.397 --> 27:47.139
[SPEAKER_01]: But when import tuner ended and it folded, I think in 2014 or something like that.
27:47.299 --> 27:52.621
[SPEAKER_01]: So even the magazine, so you could tell that the audience was aging out, I guess.
27:53.361 --> 27:53.741
[SPEAKER_00]: cars.
27:54.102 --> 27:59.025
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you go to play basketball with all these 50 roles and in the parking.
27:59.346 --> 27:59.666
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
27:59.766 --> 28:02.608
[SPEAKER_00]: Lot there's cars of your cars.
28:02.628 --> 28:04.029
[SPEAKER_00]: They wanted when they were in their 20s.
28:04.109 --> 28:04.269
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:05.250 --> 28:05.410
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:05.430 --> 28:06.191
[SPEAKER_00]: It's crazy.
28:06.931 --> 28:20.161
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what I think about the future of literature and Vietnamese American pieces that
28:23.888 --> 28:28.803
[SPEAKER_00]: I am looking forward to the things that you're gonna put out.
28:29.762 --> 28:30.683
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
28:30.963 --> 28:33.244
[SPEAKER_00]: Really, really look forward to it.
28:33.264 --> 28:36.126
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to talk about it a little bit today.
28:36.166 --> 28:40.148
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you, are you down to talk about projects that they're not at the shelves yet?
28:40.648 --> 28:53.556
[SPEAKER_01]: So the big change in my writing path was in 2019, my writing group, or sorry, my short story group or novel group, we read some science fiction stories.
28:53.716 --> 28:55.697
[SPEAKER_01]: So we read a story by Ted Shiong.
28:57.636 --> 28:58.596
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I like this.
28:58.956 --> 29:07.738
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started reading more Ted Shiong and then I started reading like Ken Lou and Carmen Maria Machado and at the same time, there was anthology called Best American Science Fiction.
29:07.958 --> 29:08.779
[SPEAKER_01]: It had just come out.
29:09.059 --> 29:13.180
[SPEAKER_01]: So I read that story in 2019, but the anthologies came out in 2017.
29:13.240 --> 29:17.080
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like the top 20 short stories of that genre.
29:17.501 --> 29:19.481
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, well, like, could I do that?
29:19.661 --> 29:23.402
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, can I switch from like literary fiction to like writing like speculative fiction?
29:24.288 --> 29:26.650
[SPEAKER_01]: And then some of my stories you could tweak, right?
29:26.670 --> 29:29.032
[SPEAKER_01]: I've kind of adapted them to some of our original.
29:29.512 --> 29:34.176
[SPEAKER_01]: So my big project is I'm really proud to say, I am in the Clary on West novel writing workshop.
29:35.197 --> 29:38.800
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a worldwide workshop with, like,
29:39.566 --> 29:47.350
[SPEAKER_01]: longstanding in the speculative community, just so people will understand because they might not know what Clareon or Clareon West is.
29:47.370 --> 29:49.791
[SPEAKER_01]: What is speculative of science fiction fantasy?
29:50.011 --> 29:50.932
[SPEAKER_01]: Science fiction fantasy.
29:50.952 --> 29:55.614
[SPEAKER_01]: So robots in space travel and magic and monsters, right?
29:56.314 --> 30:02.698
[SPEAKER_01]: I taught this short story to my students at the same time, can lose paper and monogery and the students
30:03.882 --> 30:05.743
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't just love it, it's our crying.
30:06.684 --> 30:08.145
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the last time you see literature.
30:08.666 --> 30:09.886
[SPEAKER_01]: So then I was like, oh, I like it.
30:09.906 --> 30:11.468
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some magic there.
30:11.488 --> 30:13.229
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to see if I can try to do that.
30:13.629 --> 30:15.570
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's like my audience.
30:15.891 --> 30:17.892
[SPEAKER_01]: What piece did the students cry?
30:17.912 --> 30:18.613
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to look at you.
30:18.633 --> 30:23.176
[SPEAKER_01]: And lose the paper, my nausea, and you could just look it up for a PDF of free online.
30:23.216 --> 30:23.296
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
30:25.088 --> 30:31.849
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was interested in seeing how I can incorporate those elements into like the Vietnamese diaspora, right?
30:32.489 --> 30:37.610
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't want to go into like the full, oh, actually, so back to Claryon.
30:37.630 --> 30:40.851
[SPEAKER_01]: Just so people know, because I had to like explain this to like my coworkers and stuff.
30:41.331 --> 30:43.451
[SPEAKER_01]: This is who's taught at Claryon or who's attending.
30:43.831 --> 30:46.752
[SPEAKER_01]: George R. Martin, Octavia, blah blah.
30:47.252 --> 30:51.593
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it's like, it's the, who's who of science fiction writing.
30:54.299 --> 30:57.061
[SPEAKER_01]: Stephen Graham Jones, Tenerrivade.
30:57.361 --> 30:59.263
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a big name, yeah.
30:59.744 --> 31:02.266
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like an incubator, right?
31:02.466 --> 31:06.850
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be like film independence incubator, sendances, laughs.
31:07.150 --> 31:12.194
[SPEAKER_01]: So my novel, in short, okay, this is my short pitch, is about where was?
31:13.497 --> 31:16.439
[SPEAKER_01]: during the Vietnam War, and I just leave it at the end.
31:16.479 --> 31:24.066
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot more to it, but it's a science fiction novel, super natural, kind of expiles it.
31:24.366 --> 31:28.329
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so it makes it me feel more free.
31:28.509 --> 31:29.970
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have a lot of fun.
31:30.591 --> 31:32.172
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still very character-based.
31:32.232 --> 31:35.975
[SPEAKER_01]: All the characters are based on historical figures.
31:36.015 --> 31:37.957
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold on, long as it.
31:38.457 --> 31:39.418
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in three acts.
31:39.478 --> 31:40.058
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it'd be like,
31:40.779 --> 31:43.783
[SPEAKER_00]: try to keep it like 220, like something like that.
31:43.964 --> 31:44.224
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
31:44.565 --> 31:45.846
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's like my big project.
31:46.487 --> 31:48.791
[SPEAKER_01]: The workshop goes from March until November.
31:49.652 --> 31:51.735
[SPEAKER_01]: So we should have a draft done by November.
31:51.755 --> 31:52.736
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so exciting.
31:52.776 --> 31:52.977
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
31:53.257 --> 31:57.042
[SPEAKER_01]: But also before that, when we were talking earlier, is
31:59.400 --> 32:04.705
[SPEAKER_01]: I have just regular literary ideas set in our world, the world that we grew up with.
32:05.205 --> 32:09.369
[SPEAKER_01]: And my other novel is a carnival, like a JDM import carnival.
32:09.730 --> 32:12.212
[SPEAKER_01]: The real pitch for that was the real fast in the furious.
32:12.452 --> 32:14.154
[SPEAKER_01]: That was before this article came out.
32:14.214 --> 32:23.202
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, because as I stated in the essay, a lot of people in the community, they didn't like that movie because at the time,
32:25.312 --> 32:27.813
[SPEAKER_01]: here, at least in Southern California, or California.
32:28.334 --> 32:31.495
[SPEAKER_01]: The only people in the majority of that scene was Asian Americans.
32:31.596 --> 32:37.259
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know by looking at the old videos, the old magazines, all the, the people that organized it, the parties that we went to.
32:37.699 --> 32:43.602
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when faster the furious comes out, literally like 11 years after the scene, or you know, like the scene is from the 90s, early 90s.
32:45.343 --> 32:49.467
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we don't have one character like be the hero or the main character.
32:49.487 --> 32:50.748
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.
32:50.788 --> 32:51.669
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel about that?
32:51.689 --> 32:52.570
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just to the end.
32:52.590 --> 32:53.331
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a title.
32:53.351 --> 32:54.372
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you're not the first movie.
32:54.392 --> 32:55.292
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't do the first movie.
32:55.393 --> 32:56.914
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I mean, the next.
32:57.094 --> 32:59.877
[SPEAKER_01]: But he can help after the first movie the stars were established.
33:00.707 --> 33:04.750
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so that once the established stars, that's a whole nother animal, that's a sequel.
33:04.810 --> 33:06.170
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when you start into print money.
33:06.551 --> 33:09.873
[SPEAKER_01]: But the number one is like this underground street racing movie.
33:10.233 --> 33:12.354
[SPEAKER_01]: And we all know it was a very diverse scene.
33:12.815 --> 33:14.816
[SPEAKER_01]: But who are the originators?
33:15.316 --> 33:16.377
[SPEAKER_01]: It's still without a doubt.
33:16.397 --> 33:17.497
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll go to the gray scene.
33:17.577 --> 33:18.458
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Asian Americans.
33:19.279 --> 33:21.580
[SPEAKER_01]: Oliver Wing, Shadow Oliver, wrote Cruising J.
33:21.600 --> 33:21.860
[SPEAKER_01]: Town.
33:22.280 --> 33:28.784
[SPEAKER_01]: There's photos from Cardina, from Venice High Year Books, with the car crews from the 70s and 80s.
33:31.035 --> 33:38.298
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, people want to do this historical revisionism, which is so strange to me, because people made fun.
33:38.318 --> 33:39.999
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you, people made fun of those cars.
33:40.039 --> 33:41.520
[SPEAKER_01]: Those cars were not cool.
33:41.720 --> 33:43.361
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right, they were not cool.
33:43.381 --> 33:44.601
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're not cool.
33:44.661 --> 33:50.324
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know, like, there's like a pre-fast in the furious and a post-fast in the furious.
33:50.704 --> 33:51.485
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do I feel?
33:52.045 --> 33:54.046
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that story's still not told.
33:54.466 --> 33:57.888
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't wait to do it in novel form at least, because like this thing,
34:00.627 --> 34:11.697
[SPEAKER_01]: It deserves to be told, is like a real, there's a real, again, special world that the Asian-American world of the 90s, the flyer parties, like, like,
34:13.047 --> 34:15.429
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think it like we were so complex.
34:15.469 --> 34:20.892
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was saying like, you don't understand, like there was bad kids back then, that was straight-ase.
34:21.293 --> 34:23.694
[SPEAKER_01]: There was kids in gangs, with straight-ase.
34:24.115 --> 34:31.520
[SPEAKER_01]: There's kids, you know, like selling drugs, you know, like doing all the regulatory, and then going off to like, like, Berkeley, right?
34:31.560 --> 34:34.362
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that's what's fascinating to me is like they figured out how to do both.
34:34.702 --> 34:36.103
[SPEAKER_01]: We know the same people.
34:36.903 --> 34:37.084
[SPEAKER_01]: And...
34:38.184 --> 34:39.445
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very Vietnamese story.
34:39.465 --> 34:40.006
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just gonna tell it.
34:40.026 --> 34:40.967
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a Vietnamese podcast.
34:41.027 --> 34:51.715
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom would be like, you're so bad, why don't you be like so-and-so, and I'd be like, do you know what so-and-so does?
34:52.176 --> 35:01.083
[SPEAKER_01]: I know so-and-so, these kids jump out the window and go to motel parties, and I'm like, but I'm not a snitch, and I'll just sit there like,
35:04.171 --> 35:08.394
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd just be out like playing basketball and my mom was so hard on me.
35:08.654 --> 35:14.478
[SPEAKER_01]: But I remember the name she was naming would all be like a worst kid like that looked so angelic.
35:14.639 --> 35:16.040
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the smoke screen.
35:16.360 --> 35:19.082
[SPEAKER_00]: There was four of us that were in a party crew.
35:19.262 --> 35:22.004
[SPEAKER_00]: Me and my brother and then another set of brothers Scott and son.
35:22.504 --> 35:24.566
[SPEAKER_00]: And we formed a party crew called Trilogy.
35:25.286 --> 35:26.107
[SPEAKER_00]: And we did that for a while.
35:26.127 --> 35:27.148
[SPEAKER_01]: That's ironic, there's four of them.
35:27.568 --> 35:27.988
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
35:29.429 --> 35:53.525
[SPEAKER_00]: always one guy missing yeah he's okay so we form this party crew and all of us were like really good students both my brother and I weren't the military um but we were literally dealing with like gangs that were shooting a parties and selling drugs at these parties and we all had to live a double life in the 90s because you knew you had to do
35:53.985 --> 35:57.448
[SPEAKER_00]: the grades and do well in life.
35:57.808 --> 36:10.419
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, all this other stuff was growing, you know, the streets scene was so, I feel like my kids or our kids generation are gonna be losing on in this world, you know?
36:10.799 --> 36:11.680
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
36:11.820 --> 36:16.904
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, texture would be one word for texture, texture would be one word for it, but it's also,
36:19.117 --> 36:20.918
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're trying to protect it.
36:20.938 --> 36:23.139
[SPEAKER_01]: We're probably, probably, over the time.
36:23.719 --> 36:24.439
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't do that.
36:24.719 --> 36:25.220
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't do that.
36:25.320 --> 36:25.820
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't do that.
36:25.960 --> 36:27.500
[SPEAKER_00]: I curse it for my kids.
36:28.241 --> 36:33.103
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to see things that people protect their kids from seeing.
36:33.123 --> 36:35.244
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that you should be seeing that stuff, right?
36:35.984 --> 36:37.025
[SPEAKER_00]: You should be seeing it.
36:37.426 --> 36:40.009
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you should grow up, age appropriate.
36:40.110 --> 36:42.413
[SPEAKER_01]: So whatever you think is age appropriate for the kid, right?
36:42.433 --> 36:43.574
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that they're, should be.
36:43.734 --> 36:44.896
[SPEAKER_00]: You think our parents were like it.
36:45.136 --> 36:46.618
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that put me behind the steering wheel.
36:46.678 --> 36:48.541
[SPEAKER_00]: I was tall enough to like, hit the gas.
36:48.561 --> 36:49.762
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was not age appropriate.
36:49.782 --> 36:52.226
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, but I think that that's a very,
36:54.155 --> 36:54.676
[SPEAKER_00]: Vietnamese.
36:54.736 --> 36:55.516
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to say it.
36:55.656 --> 36:56.417
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to say it.
36:56.457 --> 36:57.638
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's different.
36:57.678 --> 36:58.299
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just different.
36:58.579 --> 36:59.060
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, good.
36:59.680 --> 37:08.549
[SPEAKER_01]: No, just like my favorite story is this like like this is across all cultures is like you would go to a family party, right?
37:09.770 --> 37:09.910
[SPEAKER_01]: And
37:11.270 --> 37:13.412
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you go to a family party, the kids want to go to sleep.
37:13.452 --> 37:14.773
[SPEAKER_01]: The family leaves the party now.
37:15.033 --> 37:15.414
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
37:16.034 --> 37:17.575
[SPEAKER_01]: Back then, you go to a family party.
37:17.856 --> 37:18.536
[SPEAKER_01]: The kids want to go to sleep.
37:18.556 --> 37:19.217
[SPEAKER_01]: You go just go to school.
37:19.237 --> 37:19.497
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:19.517 --> 37:19.817
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:19.837 --> 37:20.198
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:20.218 --> 37:20.498
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:20.958 --> 37:21.259
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:21.279 --> 37:21.559
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:21.579 --> 37:21.999
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:22.019 --> 37:22.279
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:22.299 --> 37:22.760
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:22.800 --> 37:23.260
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:23.280 --> 37:23.961
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:24.001 --> 37:24.461
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:24.481 --> 37:24.942
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:24.962 --> 37:25.362
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:25.382 --> 37:25.762
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:25.782 --> 37:26.143
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:26.163 --> 37:26.483
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:26.503 --> 37:26.803
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:26.823 --> 37:27.164
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:27.184 --> 37:28.445
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:28.485 --> 37:29.486
[SPEAKER_01]: Go to school.
37:38.641 --> 37:48.928
[SPEAKER_01]: He had girlfriends, and so we're at the house, and I fall asleep, like underneath the table, there's something in the, in their den.
37:48.968 --> 37:51.409
[SPEAKER_01]: But the den is cleared out, and they're doing Chacha.
37:51.429 --> 37:55.032
[SPEAKER_01]: I wake up, everybody's been drinking, all the aunties and uncles are doing Chacha.
37:55.432 --> 37:57.233
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's like the booted side of my family.
37:57.794 --> 38:01.256
[SPEAKER_01]: My Catholic side would never do that, you know, and I see them, like,
38:01.456 --> 38:10.924
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, I'd never seen Vietnamese people elders having fun and drinking and dancing, and it really was really meaningful to me to like see that side.
38:10.944 --> 38:14.548
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were never really show you that side, unless you like fell asleep underneath the table.
38:14.628 --> 38:16.609
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I don't say this is so cool.
38:16.629 --> 38:20.433
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it really changed my perspective of like who we are.
38:20.853 --> 38:24.877
[SPEAKER_01]: Like cause I never would see that on like my parents side cause they're so like traditional.
38:27.718 --> 38:36.265
[SPEAKER_01]: And it also relates to this other story, like I like to share as I had gone to like a rave, like Avalan, I think, right?
38:36.745 --> 38:36.945
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
38:37.005 --> 38:37.806
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are dark days.
38:37.986 --> 38:39.187
[SPEAKER_00]: Avalan's dark clothes.
38:39.267 --> 38:41.729
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I, you know, we're downstairs.
38:41.749 --> 38:43.090
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a DJ we wanted to see.
38:43.110 --> 38:49.374
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, but I went upstairs and upstairs is like, is, is rough.
38:50.175 --> 38:54.458
[SPEAKER_01]: It was all like our aunties and uncles, like 50, 60 years old.
38:58.325 --> 39:00.726
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't, I didn't want to be judgmental at all.
39:00.746 --> 39:03.528
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just thinking, like, these people live really hard lives.
39:03.768 --> 39:05.549
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they're not living their dream.
39:05.769 --> 39:06.830
[SPEAKER_01]: This is like, they're party.
39:07.050 --> 39:08.110
[SPEAKER_01]: They have really hard jobs.
39:08.130 --> 39:12.433
[SPEAKER_01]: They probably work some, like, you know, not know what they hate, whatever.
39:12.473 --> 39:14.354
[SPEAKER_01]: And they got to blow off their steam.
39:14.454 --> 39:22.378
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was a little scary, but it was just like, oh, like, these are the dimensions of us that we, and unless we tell these stories, right?
39:22.418 --> 39:24.819
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not always positive, but like, they make us real.
39:26.620 --> 39:30.581
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's like, one of our responsibilities for sure.
39:31.441 --> 39:38.462
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul, my dream is when guests come on that this is like my living room.
39:38.682 --> 39:38.942
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
39:39.882 --> 39:44.243
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want my friends to come back all the time for sure.
39:44.303 --> 39:48.404
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you have these big, it doesn't even have to be big.
39:48.424 --> 39:50.644
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have these like monumental things that happen in your life,
39:55.226 --> 40:04.190
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, let's get back on and, you know, once a year twice a year, we get back on and we should, you know, we should, you know, we should produce and can I give you at least one heads up then, please.
40:04.210 --> 40:05.490
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's July.
40:07.296 --> 40:18.619
[SPEAKER_01]: This October, 1226, I'm gonna have exhibit at the Long Beach Main Library, the Billie Jean King Library, the Arts Council of Long Beach named me a professional artist fellow.
40:19.399 --> 40:21.880
[SPEAKER_01]: It's mostly visual artists, but I got it for the literary arts.
40:22.460 --> 40:24.920
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but they're gonna give me gallery space.
40:25.160 --> 40:31.442
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm working on an exhibit that incorporates writing, multimedia, storytelling photos.
40:32.282 --> 40:34.723
[SPEAKER_01]: So it might be my only ever gallery opening.
40:34.743 --> 40:35.483
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just wanted to say,
40:36.083 --> 40:39.026
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, if you could come to the opening or come and just see the exhibit, it's myself and the other fellows.
40:39.106 --> 40:40.788
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's seven of us in total, um, that's going to be really great.
40:40.808 --> 40:51.479
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll put it in the, um, the description, um, like as soon as the, uh, whatever the, really, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh uh, uh uh, uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh
40:51.479 --> 40:52.040
[SPEAKER_00]: these days.
40:52.300 --> 40:54.282
[SPEAKER_00]: We can always update that description.
40:54.662 --> 41:04.851
[SPEAKER_00]: Exciting, you know, it's after, you know, 30 some years of knowing each other, you know, getting a chance to sit here and discuss all this stuff.
41:04.891 --> 41:06.813
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, you're such an honor.
41:06.913 --> 41:07.734
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an honor.
41:07.994 --> 41:09.876
[SPEAKER_01]: I finally, I finally did it.
41:09.896 --> 41:11.357
[SPEAKER_01]: I finally cracked the Vietnamese.
41:12.018 --> 41:14.900
[SPEAKER_01]: only took me 500 13 episodes.
41:15.460 --> 41:16.540
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for coming on today.
41:17.221 --> 41:22.283
[SPEAKER_00]: We, I'm sure we'll talk very soon once you're a book hits the shelves next year.
41:22.303 --> 41:25.845
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, hopefully I'll sell it next year.
41:25.865 --> 41:26.506
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, everybody.
41:26.746 --> 41:27.146
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
41:27.783 --> 41:30.185
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
41:30.645 --> 41:37.590
[SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie and Crystal Tran.
41:38.350 --> 41:42.673
[SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.