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Tag: asian voices

  • Nail Artist Kim Truong Is In High Demand. And It’s By Design.

    Nail Artist Kim Truong Is In High Demand. And It’s By Design.

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    Kim Truong has held some of the most pampered hands on the planet. As a go-to nail artist for celebs such as Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Kerry Washington, and Dua Lipa (to name a few), she’s spent much of her career being an integral part of transforming people into their most glamorous selves. She also recently became an ambassador for Gitti, a vegan, eco-friendly nail polish brand out of Berlin that launched in the U.S. this summer.

    But as one of the first Vietnamese American celebrity manicurists, she is also an icon in her community.

    When I spoke with Truong, she was getting ready for a trip to Vietnam, where much of her extended family lives. And, although Troung is American, it’s not lost on her that she is still part of a cultural legacy that has become a racial trope in this country: the Asian nail tech.

    Growing up, we saw comedians rip on Vietnamese nail ladies all the time, laughing at the way manicurists would talk shit about their clueless clientele’s raggedy cuticles in a language that was presented as so foreign that it was part of the joke.

    There’s an actual theory as to why so many nail tech roles are filled by Vietnamese women. Tippi Hedren, a white Hollywood actor who volunteered at a Sacramento camp for Vietnam War refugees in 1975, helped 20 Vietnamese women become licensed nail technicians, NPR explains. Those nail technicians reportedly spread their skills through their communities and soon, Vietnamese immigrants began to open nail salons everywhere, offering prices that were accessible to middle-class Americans.

    When Truong’s family moved to the U.S., her mother became part of that movement by earning her nail license. At 18, Truong got her own license and paid her way through college by helping her mom out at her nail salon.

    But Truong had always seen doing nails as a means to an end; it was, after all, one of the jobs that allowed Vietnamese immigrants to survive and gain a financial footing in America for at least a generation. Troung knew that she wanted to pursue a different path, so she moved from Maryland to Los Angeles to attend dental school. “When I went to LA, the last thing I wanted to do was nails,” she says.

    But she needed to work while she was in school, and several restaurants and coffee shops that Truong applied to told her that she didn’t have enough experience. The only place that hired her was a nail salon in Hollywood, where she quickly became known for her talent — and where she was recommended to celebrities such as Kim Kardashian. And so, six months after graduating from dental school, Truong started down a path she thought she’d avoid: doing nails full-time.

    Truong has a quiet confidence that’s immediately palpable — and even comforting. It feels as if she trusts that fate will always lead her in the right direction. And her chill disposition and grounded energy are actually part of her success.

    “One time, Kelly Rowland told me, ‘I just love your voice,’’’ she said. She’s so treasured by celebrities that last year, Katy Perry flew Truong and her sister out to Capri for a Dolce & Gabbana shoot. “It’s rare that a celebrity brings their manicurist with them. For her to fight for us… I thought it was a really touching thing.”

    By creating intricate works of art on some of the world’s most visible people, Truong is literally helping shape the direction of our style culture. A single viral look on a celebrity can determine how the rest of us paint our nails for an entire season, whether it’s flowers on chrome on Kerry Washington’s nails or Hello Kitty figures on Truong herself, people are looking to her to get an idea of what’s going to be relevant next.

    As children of immigrants, many of us saw our parents work hard at jobs that were considered inferior because, in America, you’re only as good as the white imagination believes you to be. But there are Vietnamese nail ladies who work in both strip malls and celebrity spaces creating masterful art every day — the type that requires immense precision, patience and creativity. And they’re seldom recognized for their craft.

    Truong did for nails what Michelangelo did for church ceilings, by adorning and reimagining them as canvases. By elevating her art form, she is also elevating an entire group of people who have been the targets of xenophobic jokes. And her career is an example of the beauty and innovation that can come from knowing your worth as the child of immigrants.

    But Truong’s motivations appear to be simpler than all of that. “When I do people’s nails, I want them to love them and be happy,” she says. “And the thing with hair and makeup is they’ll get their makeup done, their hair done and that washes off. But nails can last for two weeks, you know, so you can be happy a little longer.”

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  • On Heat Eaters, Chef Esther Choi Is Reinventing Hot Girl Summer

    On Heat Eaters, Chef Esther Choi Is Reinventing Hot Girl Summer

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    A gentle blush creeps across chef Esther Choi’s cheeks as she takes her second bite of spicy tteokbokki at a restaurant in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. She remains mostly unfazed though, on this first episode of First We Feast’s new YouTube series “Heat Eaters.”

    Choi continues to scoop up more of the saucy deliciousness with her chopsticks while explaining to two friends the depth of the chili-based sauce used to coat the stir-fried rice cakes. The friends begin to sweat visibly. Choi fans her face. It’s too late now. They’ve all been seduced.

    Choi is your fearless guide on this thoughtful spinoff of “Hot Ones,” where we’re taken on a lip-searing flavor crawl through a different cultural enclave in every episode. She begins, of course, with the cuisine she knows intimately.

    While Choi is now at the precipice of what I like to affectionately call a gochujang-glazed empire, she started off helping out in her family’s kitchen as a kid. “I started young, eating spicy foods at like 4 or 5 years old,” Choi tells me, as we sip smoothies at a cafe back in New York. “I grew up making kimchi with my grandmother. For little kids, that’s spicy. So it’s something that was kind of built in.”

    She opened her first restaurant, Mŏkbar, in Brooklyn in 2014 and has been building from there. Eating at one of her restaurants is a transcendent experience, especially if you grew up embracing bold flavors like I did. I often daydream about the small bowls of kimchi that arrive at the table — daikon, cucumber and the classic napa cabbage — unabashedly glistening in a briney melange of spices. Each bite yields flavors that unfold second by second, underscored by a type of heat that unites every note of sweetness, tartness and umami.

    “Risk takers,” Choi says, when I ask her if there’s a “type” of person who loves spicy food. “It’s people who have that free spirit or are willing to try different things. I think you have to be a little fearless and kind of open your mind to it — and your body just kind of adjusts.”

    I get what Choi means here, but her words resonate on a deeper level. There’s something both beautiful and poignant about this fellow child of immigrants talking to me about taking risks and being brave. I flash back to my family’s little kitchen in New Jersey, where savory dinners of daal and rice were emphasized by glorious blobs of spicy mango achaar — the Indian version of kimchi, perhaps. My parents, tired from work and cooking and creating a world for my little brother and me that would allow us to dream bigger than they ever could, taught me how to love heat. But they also gave me a fearless heart and the taste for adventure.

    And so, while “Heat Eaters” is the fun, sweet cousin of the revolutionary “Hot Ones,” it occupies a different space. It’s an exploration of culture, customs and how what we eat is inevitably a reflection of who we are. Each episode, Choi tells me, uses spicy food as a vehicle through which we learn more about communities that might not be familiar to us. “I’m going to explore as many cultures as possible and as many spices as possible on this show,” she says. “This way, you’re just automatically learning about the culture even if that wasn’t the plan. We don’t want to force it on people. That’s not me and it’s not a stuffy show.”

    How could it be? “Hot Ones” viewers know from years of devouring the show that watching people squirm and sweat from consuming spicy food while trying to carry on a conversation is hilarious and somehow relatable. Plus, there’s an undeniable vulnerability to it. “It’s the bond that’s created by two people experiencing spicy food together,” she says. “That emotion is so real on camera because we’re actually eating and experiencing it together — and dying together. And I do think it breaks the ice.”

    Spices break barriers, people. The man wouldn’t have stumbled upon what’s now American soil if spices weren’t essential to humanity. But that’s a cultural story for another time.

    Ultimately, the appeal of “Heat Eaters” lies in Choi’s authentic reverence for food — and experiences, moments and people — that makes us feel especially alive. And she wants us all to participate. “Start mild. Or start where you can start,” she says to any chili newbies who want to start adding some heat to their plates. “Don’t try to get aggressive, because it’s going to turn you off to cooking or eating more spicy food. That’s not what it’s about — spices bring out all the other elements of the dish. Know what your body can tolerate and go slow.”

    This is sage advice, but anyone who watches the show will be tempted to get a little brave. And stomach lining be damned, I want that for all of us.

    “Heat Eaters” is produced by First We Feast, which shares a parent company, BuzzFeed Inc., with HuffPost.

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  • I’ve Been Told To Go Back Where I Came From. Here’s What I Wish I Could Explain.

    I’ve Been Told To Go Back Where I Came From. Here’s What I Wish I Could Explain.

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    A few weeks ago, during one of my regular visits back to Seoul, I stopped by the local mogyoktang for a routine deep-body scrub. I entered the bathhouse and went through standard protocol — disrobe, shower and soak.

    But as soon as I opened the glass doors and stepped onto the dark concrete floor of the bathing area, I could feel all the ahjummas’ and halmonis’ eyes on me. I tried my best to ignore their stares and washed in the middle of the room quickly so I could submerge myself in one of the hot tubs, hiding my body from view.

    I love bath culture, but in South Korea, I always feel like I’m on display at the bathhouse because we’re completely naked and I’m the only one with tattoos.

    I relaxed and let the hot water expel all the nasty stuff that’s been building up since my last scrub. When it was my turn, I walked over to the body scrub area, where the ahjumma in her black bra and underwear dumped a bucket of hot water on the table before I plopped my body on top of it.

    She immediately started rubbing my body with a rough loofah, reaching crevices even my closest partners haven’t been privy to. I could see the dead layer of skin coming off.

    “Why would you do this to your perfect body?” she chastised as she scrubbed. “Now it’s ruined. This is such a waste. Promise me you won’t get any more.”

    South Korea is one of the few countries left in the world where tattoos are still illegal, and this ahjumma was just one of the older generation of Koreans who often look down on me for having them. I tried to laugh it off and not take it personally when this went on for the next 30 minutes. But it’s an example of one of the many cultural differences between me and my motherland. Even though I love her, she doesn’t always love me back.

    In America, which I’ve officially called home since age 3, I’m often told that I don’t belong. Like all Asian Americans, I hate the question “Where are you from?” because it’s almost always followed up with “No, where are you really from?”

    Most of us have also been told, at some point during our lives in America, to go back to “where you came from.” But I don’t fully belong there either.

    Even though my family and I immigrated to the States when I was just a toddler, I never lost my mother tongue, so communication isn’t an issue when I’m in Seoul. But sometimes I’m jealous of other gyopos — those who grew up in the United States, England, Germany, Argentina, Canada, wherever — who lost the language because they don’t have to overhear the things that I do from locals who presume I don’t understand.

    “Look at her — she looks homeless.”

    “What do your parents think about you?”

    “What is she wearing? She looks crazy.”

    “I can’t believe she walks around like that.”

    I didn’t return to Korea until I was 23 — a full two decades after I left. Upon arrival, I felt a wave of comfort similar to when I’m in Koreatown in Los Angeles. Finally, people who look like me.

    I assumed I would automatically be accepted as a fellow Korean, but in Korea, they immediately see me as an outsider. They can tell by the way I dress and how I look, and they hear it in my accent. You’re not like us. This was a jarring realization.

    In a hyper-collective, mono-ethnic, conservative culture where the status quo is celebrated, Koreans point out anything that looks different. In America, I am used to being othered because I am not white. But it’s a special kind of alienation to feel othered by your own people.

    Additionally, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, South Korea ranks first on a per capita basis, with 13.5 cosmetic procedures performed per 1,000 individuals. Many of those procedures attempt to conform to Korean beauty standards in which white facial features and skin are glorified. Even though I grew up in the United States and my style and identity are a blend of East meets West, my face will never be American enough for either country.

    With the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes and the recent mass shooting in North Texas, in which half the fatalities were of Asian descent and included a Korean American family, it’s hard to say which home I prefer. At least in South Korea, where even the police almost never carry guns, I rarely fear for my physical safety.

    But in South Korea, same-sex marriages are still illegal, mental health care is highly stigmatized despite one of the highest rates of suicide in the world and fatphobia is notoriously perpetuated — my family never hesitates to comment when I’ve gained a few pounds.

    Despite how much I love visiting, I choose not to live in Seoul. Even though there are pockets of the city with young, queer, tattooed, diverse and liberal folks, like the Itaewon and Hongdae districts, I don’t want to have to live my life in confined spaces to feel accepted — just like I don’t want to be limited to the 2.7-mile radius that is Koreatown in Los Angeles.

    When neither Asia nor America feel like home, Asian Americans of many different cultures have had to create our own distinct identity, as Asian Americans. We have different languages and traditions, but we are united in asking ourselves the same question I’ve asked myself for as long as I can remember: Where do I belong?

    This is what so many fail to understand about the unique loneliness of being Asian in America: We’re trapped between two worlds, but we will never fully belong in either.

    Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch.

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  • Chef Brandon Jew Is Redefining Asian Tradition In The Most Delicious Way

    Chef Brandon Jew Is Redefining Asian Tradition In The Most Delicious Way

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    On a surface level, Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco has everything you’d expect of a Michelin-starred restaurant: elaborate plating, an immaculately curated Instagram presence and a revolving tasting menu. At the helm of the kitchen and its vibes is executive chef Brandon Jew, who, like many of his peers, is navigating culinary expression through his blended, Asian American identity. Specifically, he wants to rejigger the space that contemporary Chinese cuisine occupies in the American food zeitgeist.

    The menu at Mr. Jiu’s (a reflection of Jew’s overall cooking ethos, it seems) is both innovative and reverent of San Francisco’s old Chinatown, bejeweled with slightly remixed Cantonese-style dishes meant for sharing, as well as a tasting section that leans a bit more adventurous. He never strays too far from home, though — his choices feel cohesive and cozy.

    For those in the East Asian diaspora, sharing a meal is quintessential to forming and nurturing bonds. Food is sometimes a unique type of love language that rescues us from having to be unnecessarily sentimental, even borderline uncomfortable. The word “love” in Mandarin, for example, carries a lot of weight — and for many of us, asking someone if they’ve eaten yet is an easier way to express it.

    Jew is at the helm of Mister Jiu’s kitchen and its vibes.

    There’s love in community, too, which has become crucial during the uptick in anti-Asian rhetoric and racist crime. This need to band together and seek comfort in the familiar was the impetus for Jew’s most recent event, a Chinese banquet-style dinner for artists and other prominent community members in the Bay Area. It’s his hope that through the gathering, which he called the Golden Generation dinner, the larger AAPI community and its allies can foster support and strategy to combat anti-Asian violence.

    A little context for why simply coming together in this way can be a radical act of resistance: Too often and for a number of reasons, many Asian Americans have avoided getting deeply involved in U.S. sociopolitics. It’s a broad assessment, but it’s linked to the fact that many immigrant families have been too focused on adapting and assimilating into American life to worry about high-level politics. Many Asian immigrant elders believe that keeping a low profile and taking up less space will ensure easier survival. Another harsh reality is that most American politicians and cultural activists have simply ignored Asian communities until fairly recently, even in places like the Bay Area, which is full of people of Asian descent.

    For those in the Asian diaspora, sharing a meal is quintessential to forming and nurturing bonds.
    For those in the Asian diaspora, sharing a meal is quintessential to forming and nurturing bonds.

    And so, coming together to eat, talk and celebrate is the joyful form of advocacy that Jew has been craving. Some of the esteemed guests in attendance at the Golden Generation dinner included contemporary artist So Youn Lee, “Beef” actor Young Mazino, and journalists Mariecar Mendoza, Tim Chan and Dion Lim.

    Anti-Asian violence reached a peak nearly three years ago, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Asian Americans are still vulnerable to racially charged hate crimes, especially in San Francisco.

    “The violence that was happening within our communities in the Bay Area was upsetting and disheartening, but it also brought us together,” Jew says. “We want to continue using that momentum we’ve created in our communities, and continue to have forums where we come together, celebrate each other and have a place to check in with each other and strengthen our connections.” Through this demonstration of organized community building, Golden Generation itself becomes political — a sign that silence and isolation are things of the past.

    For people in the AAPI community, simply coming together is a radical act of resistance.
    For people in the AAPI community, simply coming together is a radical act of resistance.

    This shift brings an intentionality to Jew’s style of cooking and organizing, but he has always hoped his culinary pursuits can fundamentally change how Chinese food is perceived. His career took him from his training in Italy to working in Shanghai, and then in 2008 to San Francisco, where he initially experienced some pushback to this type of reimagining of Chinese fare, even in one of the most Asian and progressive regions of the country. “I was determined to open a Chinese restaurant, but it was tough at the time,” he says. “People did not understand what I was trying to do.”

    Jew’s story sounds painfully similar to the initial reaction that San Francisco residents had toward Chinese restaurateurs in the mid-1800s, when Chinese people were still seen as shady undesirables in America. And even though this experience happened literal centuries ago — and under entirely different circumstances — it goes to show that America is not the infinitely compassionate melting pot we were promised. It’s probably for the best: We shouldn’t have to “melt” into anything to thrive together.

    Chinese food continues to play an integral role in bridging the gaps between AAPI communities, and there’s more work of all types to be done. It just so happens that in some spaces, that work is warming, satisfying and ripe with unspoken affection.

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  • I Am Chinese And Transgender. Stop Trying To Push American Gender Norms On Me.

    I Am Chinese And Transgender. Stop Trying To Push American Gender Norms On Me.

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    As a Chinese American woman who used to be the eldest son of a Chinese family, I was taught from a young age that sons carry the responsibility of continuing the family lineage. This patriarchal idea of family preservation is directly tied to the philosophy of Confucianism, one of the most influential Chinese schools of thought. Thankfully, my parents never put that type of pressure on me because they didn’t subscribe to gender roles as strongly as some of their peers.

    Sure, my mother took a while to start referring to me as her daughter. But three years later, in 2022, calling me her daughter in Chinese and using she/her pronouns in English comes naturally to her. Even today, though, I don’t care how she genders me as long as it implies that I’m her child. But white Americans and many second-generation Americans of color have given me a lot of unsolicited advise about how I should interact with my family and interpret my Chinese sensibilities when it comes to transgender discourse.

    Four years ago, I wrote an article about my coming-out experience with my mother. I discussed how I navigated my transgender and Chinese identity when talking with her. During the drafting process, the editor I was working with suggested that I gave my mother too much “leniency” when it came to my family acknowledging my new gender identity. I went along with it, but looking back, I realize that the article had one too many influences from American notions of transgender discourse than I would have liked.

    Today, when I share the article with white or assimilated transgender friends and acquaintances, I’m met with hostility — many are shocked and upset that I didn’t consider my mother to be transphobic, ignoring the fact that my mother now proudly calls me her daughter. People’s sentiments usually include comments such as “if they don’t immediately accept you, it’s transphobic.” I have tried explaining that for many Chinese families, being born a son carries weights predetermined upon birth, and these beliefs are intrinsic to the Chinese cultural experience. It’s deep-rooted, multifaceted and definitely not as black-and-white as “my mother is transphobic,” “my mother is an ally” or “Chinese culture is intrinsically transphobic.”

    That being said, I’m not defending patriarchal practices. I simply understand that cultural context affects the way people process a new gender identity. And while my mother has never said she misses her son or felt like she lost a son, I’m sure, deep down, a tiny sliver of that exists, and that’s OK with me. The relationship she has with my gender has never tempted me to discard the relationship or threaten to do so, as I feel the larger non-Chinese community would hope or suggest. There is no perfect mother-daughter relationship, and it’s not someone else’s place to tell me how I should feel about my mother.

    In recent months, I’ve begun reexamining the broader conversations I’ve had with my non-Chinese transgender friends about how my culture affects how I move through the world as a trans person. And I’ve grown increasingly exhausted with the implication that if I don’t adopt a white or “American” trans identity, I’m somehow living wrong.

    Whether we want to recognize it or not, in the American transgender community, whiteness is the default. But this doesn’t mean that white transness is the only way to be trans.

    In my world, Chinese acquaintances who occasionally misgender me by accident are not transphobic. Spoken Mandarin Chinese doesn’t have pronouns; “he” and “she” are both pronounced “tá,” but in written Chinese, “he” is written as 他 while “she” is written as 她, with the particle determining whether the character is meant for male or female individuals. For non-native English speakers, memorizing gendered pronouns (which exist in multiple Western languages, including French, English, and Spanish) can be challenging.

    While my mother has never said she misses her son or felt like she lost a son, I’m sure, deep down, a tiny sliver of that exists, and that’s OK with me.

    Yet another example is when I talk to white trans people about the concept of “passing” and how I feel more comfortable passing than being visibly transgender, they’re quick to label me as self-hating. What these individuals refuse to acknowledge, though, is that it’s hard enough being Asian in white professional and social spaces already; I don’t need my marginalized gender identity to be another obstacle to my moving through life as easily as possible.

    Ultimately, I have often felt pressured to disassociate myself from my Chinese community to be accepted by white trans people and trans people of color who want their trans identity to align with Western sensibilities. This isn’t in the true queer spirit of “being who you are” — it’s judgmental and ignorant.

    We need more nuanced conversations around intersectionality. One of my favorite examples to bring up is intersectional feminism in America. In a country that has women of all cultures, races and identities, how can we even remotely say that all our experiences of being femme are the same? How can a white woman say that she understands a Black woman’s day-to-day experiences, or how can an Asian woman say she understands an Indigenous woman’s full life experience?

    But just because there isn’t a one-size-fits-all method to practice feminism doesn’t mean we should force all women to adhere to one type of feminism out of convenience. And the same goes for transgender discourse. And until I see changes happen, white trans America is not for me.

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