I AM KOREAN AMERICAN

Own Words

I’m a halfie. But not half Caucasian. Half Korean and half Chinese. I’m like a hybrid. Like half human, half vampire….but i guess not as cool. I dunno which would be vampire….But it’s always cool to bump into others like me.

To my Korean friends, their parents say, “Oh its the Chinese boy.” To Chinese parents, i’m the “han-guo jai” (korean boy in canto)

I try to please both cultures but its pretty hard. I wish i learned the languages of both growing up, but I mostly grew up in a slightly more Korean household with my mom. I learned Korean through my super Korean grandmother. But once she passed away a looong time ago, my Korean began to fade.

I studied abroad for 9 weeks in Hangzhou, China in international called Zhejiang University. It was supposed to be an intensive Chinese course to catch us up on reading, writing, and speaking. Best experience by far in my life. Once I got back, I was prepared to show it off to my dad. I showed him my page long paper that I had written in Chinese. He kinda chuckled and that was that. My Chinese has been slipping away.

One thing is easy. I love the food! Korean and Chinese food. In fact all Asian cuisine kicks ass.

I was born in Northern Virginia and grew up there my whole life. Now, I’m living in CA to pursue acting and stunts.

One of my fondest memories as a child was watching Kung Fu movies and comedies with my pops. I always wanted to impress him and make him laugh like the movies we watched. I always had this mini-dream within me growing up, but didn’t know exactly what it was about.

So i learned Tae Kwon Do, got a blackbelt, did some wushu, learned a flip or two in gymnastics, took a few acting classes and then said F&$% it. I’m moving to CA to do this more seriously.

So here I am. Taking more acting classes. Trying to book a good manager. Auditioning for commercials and doing random student films. It’s pretty scary sometimes. But most of the time its fun.

One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t go through life trying to play things safe all the time. Sometimes you gotta trip and fall. It’s those experiences that truly teach you what life is worth living for. Gotta know the bad to know the good, otherwise you don’t know much at all and haven’t learned. Can’t let fear drive your life.

To all my great friends and my loving family, thank you all for keeping me moving.

Ok i’m getting tired of writing. This thing is pretty cool. If you read this, thank you and take care.