Kristina Wong

On this weeks’ episode we check in with artist, activist, comedian, actor, writer AND multiple award-winner Kristina Wong. We chat about life as a third generation Chinese-American, the inspiration behind her radical, thought-provoking shows, the lure of selling out, and the launch of her newest show, “Kristina Wong, Food Bank Influencer.” https://www.kristinawong.com

Kristina Wong is a Doris Duke Artist Award winner, Guggenheim Fellow and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Drama. She’s a performance artist, comedian, actor and writer whose original theater works have been presented internationally across North America, the UK, Hong Kong and Africa. She’s been a guest on late night shows on NBC, Comedy Central and FX. She’s been awarded artist residencies from MacDowell, San Diego Airport and Ojai Playwrights Festival. She is concurrently the Artist-in-Residence at ASU Gammage and the Kennedy Center Social Practice Resident until 2025. Her recent “Kristina Wong for Public Office” was simultaneously a real life stint as the elected Sub-district 5 representative of Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council and rally campaign show. She's created and directed original theater works with residents of LA's Skid Row, the Bus Riders Union, undocumented immigrants, and most recently the formerly incarcerated Asian Pacific Islanders members of API Rise. Kristina founded Auntie Sewing Squad, a national mutual aid network of volunteers that sewed cloth masks for vulnerable communities during the Covid pandemic. Their book “The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care and Racial Justice is published by the University of California Press. Her role in the Auntie Sewing Squad is the subject of “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord”— a New York Times Critics Pick that premiered off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop. The show won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Solo Performance. 

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Produced and Edited by Arts and Craft.
Theme Music: Sound Gallery by Dmitry Taras.

Transcript

I'm not wearing a mask right now because I am trying to protect myself not from the virus but from being the target of harassment and assault okay see it doesn't matter if I'm third generation Chinese American this is a mask I cannot take off she's a performance artist comedian actor and writer whose work tackles themes of race sex and privilege she was even a local elected official in La her reclaimed Show Kristina Wong sweat shop Overlord just finished a very long run and she's about to launch Kristina Wong food bank influencer this is you guessed it Kristina Wong my name is Nancy Magarill I'm a singer songwriter composer performer graphic and web designer and I'm Peter Michael Marino and I'm a writer producer Creator performer and educator we are new york-based artists you may or may not have heard of and we are here to introduce you to other artists you may or may not have heard of I just realized I'm I'm doing this podcast from the room that Kristina Wong has slept in many many times many a house guest I don't think you've ever had anybody over though oh that's getting a little personal no no no no no I've never no I've never gone come to my place in Chelsea no no no you haven't done that I feel like the last person who stayed at my place did that he's not staying here anymore he used four full rolls of toilet paper one box of tissues in three nights and was that him alone or was he did he do that with someone else there or you think I don't know it was really creepy when I came back to my apartment he was supposed to be gone and he wasn't gone because when I opened the door to my apartment like everything from my coffee table was all on the ground it looked like someone had broken in so I was like oh I'm going to find a dead body in my bedroom and uh no no dead body and then he showed up like an hour later looking bad and said he said yeah I'm so sorry I I ate some edibles last night and they were just really strong and I'm like by Edibles do you mean heroin yeah yeah what causes you to go through that much toilet paper uh going through a lot of toilet paper is something that Christina would be very concerned about because she's she wants to save the Earth yeah I'm always buying Pete toilet paper what kind of toilet paper I do recycle only by the way what do you do what kind of toilet whatever's nearest to Pete's Place I've done I I think I've done I've sprung for Whole Foods toilet paper before that's recycled yeah yeah maybe TJ's I think it makes sense that we're starting this conversation talking about toilet paper in a weird way uh we met in 2012 Edinburgh I tell everyone Peter Michael Marino was the best thing that came out of Edinburgh for me everything else was the waste of my time energy and soul and I mean it I got a with Peter everything was so mediocre about that experience and overwhelming and exhausting and ex tell us about the show that you were doing at that time I was doing a show called going green the Wong way I had a terrible manager at the time um going green the long way I call it one of my accidental pregnancy shows I have a few of them by by the way I was working on a totally different other show and then had done uh this guy Steve Silverman invited me to do a thing called slideshow where you get your digital photos or any images turned into Kodak Carousel slides and then you sort of narrate um through these slides and so mine was about how I ran a car on vegetable oil uh I bought the car in 2008 is this right yeah and it caught on fire on the freeway oh my God a year and a half later or maybe did I buy no I bought in 2006 I think and I kind of find I have to review my line the onion rings were fantastic wait did it catch on fire because of the vegetable oil or is this pre vegetable oil okay so it was these hipsters and silver leg who had a business called Lovecraft biofuels at at the time I had a an old Buick that my parents left to me and someone hit it on the road while it was parked and and it was total so I had enough money to buy new car and I saw that this these these hipsters in Silver Lake were converting diesel Mercedes that were like from the80s uh some of them like mine had 250,000 miles on it already and convert needed to run a vegetable oil and we were in a war with Iraq with do remember this and and and I it just felt like I'm a hypocrite if if I'm against this war but still depending on the oil um that is making this you know War for oil happened and and and what uh preceded uh was this nightmare of how to find oil how to keep this 25-year-old car running had so many mechanical issues it turns out the the the the guy who started this thing was like this total drug addict who thought he was a car engineer the whole place is out of business now there was no shortage of lawsuits they're not even on the road anymore and so Steve Silverman invited me to do a slideshow and it was all about this totally terrible experiment and going green and uh it went over so well yet it was such an awful story about how I almost died in this stupid car which cost so much money um and and and then I began to look at my history and I had a whole series of stories of being a young environmentalist at like 11 or 12 years old I was in a science contest in middle school and I chose the topic of the environment and I realized oh my God I have a greater calling and this is the 90 early '90s right so this there weren't there were not even recycling bins there was no such thing as a vegetarian and yet I like you know but you know there there there are larger systems that need to happen for us like yes one person does their part but you know my tactic of activism was yelling at all the kids in middle school for using styrofoam and yet there was no other choice right just just just berading people constantly it was like taking my Chinese upbringing and then funneling it towards passive if not not passive aggressive like anger towards everybody and so anyway these are the stories in going green the Long Way suddenly I had a show and uh I had this terrible Hollywood manager I was with him for five years I never got a single audition or work he was a republican he dated only Asian women I was not one of them but that was really creepy every time I'd go meet a new girlfriend and and he was like go to well it all changed when you do Edinburg it all Chang and it didn't like I mean I did I met some amazing American artists it was an experience I got to see what it was like to tour uh overseas I learned you know what I don't really like these British people they're not my audience I like the way that Americans laugh um so I saw Pete's show Desperately Seeking the exit a solo show about how he wrote Desperately Seeking Susan the musical which premiered on the west end and was a flop and and what I got from it was all just the um what they say about the UK and America two two Nations that speak the same language but don't understand each other I think something like yes exactly right like like all these references to my show like one of my reviews said I was a very I was Californian that's not a compliment it's not a compliment from these people so anyway it's a good [ __ ] show and it got mixed reviews up there right and and for me it felt like I I felt like me touring going green the long way about me running a vegetable oil car just seemed it just wasn't trans ating to these Brits and and Europeans who who don't like have to deal with how I live in Los Angeles and nothing makes sense about our dependence on oil about our our public transportation is getting better but it's still a mess I never knew that that was the thing that that that's the thing that bonded us wait can I go back for a second yeah because I think there might be people listening that don't understand what Edinburgh is all about can you guys explain that a little bit of what what happened in Edinburgh and why why do artists every year go to Showcase their work in Edinburgh from what I understand there is a curated Festival uh called the Edinburgh theater Festival and then around it started The Fringe which is artists just putting themselves up I was part of The Fringe yeah it started after World War II it's been around and it it's a Marketplace it's a Marketplace there's like 3,500 shows performing the same show every day at the same time and then there are people who go to the Festival to pickup shows like six like Hannah gadsby like stomp like oh I didn't know Hannah Gatsby was at Edinburgh like flea bag um but you can count the number of hit shows that came out of Edinburgh on two hands um long running shows I'd say uh but it's really for me it's a place to experience what other artists are doing and that's exactly what you got out of it Christina was that yeah I watched 6 69 shows folks I like kept on track yeah you had a Morning Show so you had the whole the whole day yes so our tactic was instead of competing with the big comedians in the evening I came with a group from Cal arts and we used an old fencing studio and we had like students from this University in Wales who helped us Tech and it was a less expensive way to go than if I went totally by myself and it gave me a little bit of a team or a little bit of a sense of community but um the tactic was to go up at like 11: or 10:30 a.m. can't remember it was early 11 and serve free tea and scones and call it free breakfast and and then uh rather than just flyer the mile just make make friends in line and just hand out the flyer that way and people's memories are so short and they've been handed like 200 Flyers that you know it's It's Tricky so um that was the experience for me but that's why I also had all this time to watch shows I imagine it was also frustrating not in how much work it was and how few how little the audience was but it sounds like you were going there to to put your message out to the world right about uh yeah through you know through your story we were learning about saving the Earth which is a theme that comes up in lots of your uh writing and work and chats well the terrible creepy manager he um I guess he had just made me just convinced me that everything changes for you when you're there and those expectations I also was exhausted cuz I had done a run in LA and by the time I was like so tired by the time I finished LA and I had like two or three weeks to turn over to do Edinburgh and I was like oh my God I have to do this all over again and get an audience and so it was that and I think this strange expectation that oh sudden suddenly you just everyone sees you and you and you tore and I think I've had the same uh misunderstanding about how New York works like when you bring your show to New York and then you'll play New York right like we know I I finally got I know I finally got that experience in 2021 when I premiered you know a solo at New York Theater Workshop but all my New York experiences before that I think I just put way too much pressure on myself about like it's hard not to yeah because you put it's so expensive you're so broke most of the the time and so you're always like hedging all your bets this is it this is it this is it well that's actually one of the things we talk about a lot about when when we all think this is going to be the big one that's going to make it easier and with the work that you do because it's so specific and it's so geared towards activism which is what's so admirable I would think that it's even harder for you because you're you're up against that on top of everything else sure I mean I um activism I can't tell if it's a dirty anymore in the Arts like sometimes it is the word to get you funding and sometimes it's not Arty enough and uh sometimes it reeks for some audience as of I'm going to get screamed at for an hour so um yeah I don't which I don't know which you which you had not too long ago on your new show I'm so cute when I'm yelling I'm so cute when I'm yelling at people it's okay but like to me like what I consider activism is making culture for change like with with a different that to procure a different outcome in life that is more Equitable this is this is basically also how I explain feminism to most basic men I go it just means you want both sides to have equality they're like oh will they do the work no but like you know in principle they think they believe it right so yeah I guess for some people it looks like burning down police departments and flipping cars upside down and and for others it it seems like just being a nuisance but I would like to think that what I am doing is trying to change real life outcomes in the work that I do whether it's on stage or what what is often the research work that goes into doing a show which is usually a lived experience of of creating an activist act isn't it also a little bit uh double edged I guess in that you know you create this new piece that's you know has activism running through it and it's like do I want my audience to be activated and and do something about it or do I want this show to be the one that gets me on a sitcom I so when I look at going green the long way I think that was so tame like there's so many more radical things I could have said but like how do you separate the activism with the personal I mean come on I know you wait do you want to be on a sitcom of course of course I I I want to sell out so bad no one is buying but I don't I also don't know how to sell it to them you know and so obviously like I I I swear I've been selling out this whole time like just being real soft like that's why a lot of my shows get categories under comedy like I think that's the concession I'm making to make it easier to eat I think what easier for the audience to eat like I mean there are pieces where I could just be howling on stage and like look at this picture from a genocide like that would be so hard for someone to be like oh she should be in friends too you know like she you know like you know I I think I've tried to make it as as palatable as possible but you know at the end of the day I think the the moment I had many years ago even way before going green the long way is like do I want to spend my time doing like cutesy short films that aren't really about anything in the hopes that maybe I get someone sees it and thinks put me in a sitcom or take my power back and just make what I want and and so at the end of the day I have this thing I made you could see it I owned it and I did something of Purpose with my life right so I think I went with the ladder which is stuff that feels like it has purpose and and you know there are many years when I make a living touring I I tour to a lot of colleges and it made it really hard for my agents to send me un auditions because I wouldn't be able to shoot or you know work it and and some agents I would meet with would say well you'd have to stop touring and I was like it felt like a big gamble because I was barely getting auditions as it was would they suddenly show up more I'd be I'd be at the mercy of somebody else writing these roles and it's like do I want to work a waitress job and every so often book two lines on a TV show and that and that is my that's my voice in life right and be AP political so I'm not scary to people and take that risk or just put out there [ __ ] I believe in and you know for me the biggest challenge is just how to make it easy to eat for an audience so that's so it's not you know like if I am chastising them it's a very Charming comic way of of screaming at my audience where they're like ah look at her yelling us not like [ __ ] we're scared and now we're how many dead bodies is she gonna show us you know so I was going to say you read my mind because I was thinking like I I just put it together now oh wow like I would normally be avoiding and activist because I feel like they're shoving it down my throat or they're just a downer you know or that's they're just singularly focused on just the one thing and I think well aren't there other things and you are so not like that like it's incredible that you oh thanks you know we talk about deep things and important things but it's not like your whole personality and also your shows are always fun I mean you're great at poking fun at yourself I mean I think that's the best way to do activist art it's sort of like what Hannah Gatsby is doing as well like I was watching the Clips that you sent me and the piece on the food bank and I was so enjoying it because it was fun and it was interesting and it was profound at the same time and that personally for me is the best kind of art and I also want to just step back for a second and say I don't think there's anything wrong with pursuing that kind of work that you love and then also trying to get on a sitcom and something else because the audience needs to eat and digest what we're giving but we also need to eat now I know you get funded somehow and I want to talk about that a little bit because it seems like you've been very successful at that but I think that understanding that artists need to make a living so we can do both we can do our activist pieces and the things that make that fulfill us artistically and then also as you say sell out which is just get paid well on a sitcom or do something a movie or something that you could be really good at and there's nothing wrong with that well you can also reframe the sellout as oh now I have a my platform is a little more visible so I can share my message you know to Chelsea Handler you know what I mean like I can sneak it in in in the conversation about you know sex or whatever else you know we would expect from a standup comic uh show although now she's well she's actually a good example of someone who really just started out with you know making fun of real house lives and now she is 100% on board with having a strong political view and changing people's minds and uh yeah she had a yeah she had a turn I don't follow her to a te but I I just remember she was kind of this privileged white comedian and that that when I felt like she did refer to other people of color it felt like they were not human right like these jokes about were the jokes was it her or someone else jokes about sleeping with black men and probably her I don't remember that that that she has come full circle not so much full circle but she's um she's she's she's realized how to use her powers for good yeah yeah where did yours where did your where did this activism come from and couldn't just have happened when you were 11 but where and you you said something about like coming from a Chinese family is that a part of Chinese culture is being activists or no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no um I mean for some for some families depending like what wave you came over or what your family believes in that would be or like what they had to fight in my case my grandparents were the first generation to come to America they were running from communism my great-grandfather was I think a Statesman and uh and had property and was and and basically I guess gu they got ran out um um because of Communism and and so very much the tactic like even now I have family members who like don't talk about don't talk about what your grandfather used to do for a living great-grandfather used to do don't talk like there's so much like be quiet someone's gonna come get get us and there there's also at my grandmother's funeral we were looking at my aunt's uh Tombstone and my cousin was like reading a Chinese character she married someone whose last name is Lao and my that's never the last name that my grandmother or my my aunt used and uh she's like that says Lao that's how she's able to recognize it and and uh and my mother's cousin is like yeah you're LA's you're you've been using a paper Sun name this whole time oh wow so there's all sorts of yeah there's all sorts of creative paperwork that was done to get Chinese people of my grandparents generation over here and a lot of secret keeping around it and I think for me being constantly told to not talk about it not bring stuff up uh was um sort of the just like I push push push deep inside me and it either comes out in me acting out in anger which sometimes happens or figuring how to channel something more productive so I want to know like where that flip happened where all of a sudden you went okay I've got to deal with this and I want to talk about this and create art about it I loved uh doing theater in high school because I and and that was not I was not making my own show I didn't even know what I do now existed then um I just I thought it was that pretty conventional is you audition for a part that someone else writes for the most part all the plays in high school were for White characters and you were just sort of at the mercy of an open-minded casting system that could see you as the Irish land lady or see you as you know the grandmother of a character played by a black actor you know but I like that it allowed me to be somebody else because I felt like the world read me as a quiet kind of harmless almost invisible person I I have this memory specifically of coming late to my math class and I had a pass and I handed the pass to my math teacher Mr seagull and he's like oh Christina Wong's not here today and I was like I'm Christina Wong I'm your student I'm the student oh my God I I mean but like like like I was his student and he didn't even recognize me like that's how invisible I was right and so it I I I think there was a lot around my identity I had just been taught to repress like this is just the system and the more you can pass as white the more you'll be rewarded as an actor as a human being right like like these are kind of things that were sort of um not it's just very much said indirectly and and very clear uh it's why my name is Christina Wong and not a Chinese name right and so it wasn't until I got to to college I went to UCLA and in my mind there was a bunch of Chinese Americans like me who whose Grand you know who didn't really speak Chinese because their grandparents were the first generation over and it was like oh wow look at all these agents and then they were a lot of them were very politicized and and I didn't even know what Asian-American studies was I was like how is this a thing what are we studying we just what is there to study right like and and just to have sort of a a both a political language and a history and a sociological framework to think about you know how my identity came to be where so much like self-loathing and resentment came from all those moments that I had dismissed where someone said something to me because of how they read who I was because of my race and gender first and not who I was and I just suddenly became super enraged and like oh my God and and uh wanted to like I'm going to show everybody and I didn't have know how to direct it and and there was a whole culture then of the 90s in College of um spoken word and people really really angry poems directed to people who weren't in the room yeah and and great poems yeah they were great poems but it was also like why aren't we directing this to the people in the room you know like and and so so combination of witnessing all this and realizing how much Freer I felt when I made I I joined an Asian-American Theater Company on campus and and I was in Peter sers who's a Opera director I was in one of his classes making performance art and realizing how much better I felt making my own work versus trying to go to therapy where you basically monologue so um so I don't know I it was that and it was seen sort of the artists that were finding their way to campus as guest now I'm that artist at Miss C and well the fact that you sought them out is pretty cool I never sought those people out which is why I don't do what you do well somewhere like like Tim Miller you know he's this queer solo artist who would uh who notoriously I guess when he was younger would would often take his clothes off on stage and talk about his queer body and so I ended up becoming an English major with a double major in World arts and cultures and I chose that instead of a theater major because at the time you could only throw your undergrad degree completely into theater and nothing else which is crazy like like give people a backup plan here you know like right especially if it's theater yeah yeah but it was also like I don't didn't like the idea of competing like that was what I already didn't like about doing theater in high school was the audition process and competing I hate it and Counting lines and going I'm here to do two lines and yeah and um and now you count lines going why did I write all this for myself and I and and I yeah it was through this other kind of framework of understanding what theater could be as a a lens of social critique because so many of these plays we did they weren't really about anything deep like right so yeah just had this crazy idea I'd be like these artists that visit these colleges because they seem so happy when I would see them they'd be like getting a drink with their colleague on campus I didn't realize how you know difficult to sustain this is for so long and when I look at Pete I'm like okay me and Pete were like in this Live Theater some form keep making stuff keep making it happen but yeah I just had this very naive idea that instead of paying a therapist to listen to me talk about my problems that I would get an audience to pay me listen to me talk about my problems and and and because it felt so cathartic whenever I performed that might as well get paid that would be the ultimate validation and also because I felt like when I saw solo work what I liked about it is like it's not the kind of work you have to audition and get someone else's approval to do you make it it's weird if you're disabled if you are gay if you're miss you know like whatever is happening it is so specific to you and that's what makes it so special and and in ways it felt like there were no rules like I hated like classes that that were like make your own work okay bring in writing and I'm like no I bring in movement and gestures and like I don't just sit in sit alone at a computer right on a page and you know like I'm much more interdisciplinary like I'm very l Mama you know what I'm saying you're very l Mama well let's just let's talk about what l Mama is because the listeners may not know Nancy you're being me this week I love it know I'm usually the like let's dig deeper so l Mama which I only got to visit later in my 20s but it was Infamous was experimental theater space where the word now is devised right but that didn't exist then and I was like I don't know how to describe this but it's not a straight play and it's work that's interdisciplinary there's movement maybe there's a script so our equivalent here in La was highways performance space and I basically would Usher the shows there and for free and that was like my graduate school I just watching all these bhau dancers and and um naked performance artists and immersive experiences and stuff never seen anything like this before and I just was like this is it this is this is so much better than scripted plays and it's weird because only in the last few years have I've kind of come back to the scripted play and and um and honestly in these last two years since becoming a piter finalist like I hard core watch a lot of plays now but for a while I was only watching weird [ __ ] because it was free cheap you could just walk in like I wasn't good at like I got to go to The Ticket Master and go buy a ticket you know you are really good about seeing theater like you come to New York on a pretty regular basis either for meetings or for shows and you always plan ahead and go to see lots of shows and by the way I am going to see yellow face thanks to your recation I so want to see that I heard it was fantastic going I'm going on Wednesday I'm seeing yellow face in the afternoon and I'm seeing big gay jamere that night oh god oh that's so great is that the same group that did Titanic Titanic yes that's right yeah read same writer and they've got Margo Robbie as the producer uh so this little tiny show playing at the Orum theater uh is now featured in The New York Times and on CNN so get not surprised Margo Robbie on your side but something about like she saw titanique just you know as a regular person and this the Creator singer saw her in the audience and was like oh my God and then she wrote to her and said thanks for coming to my show and then she said what else are you working on she was like well I'm working on this movie it's about someone who gets trapped in a musical and that was the end and then Margot Robbie contacted her shortly after Barbie became everything wait is that what this big gay jeree is about it's not someone trapped in a musical uh so then Margo said let me know what you need I want to produce the show and that's that's what's happening which is really Co well that's schmig adun also if you guys have haven't seen shodon it's hilarious and it's also Christina Wong's new show she is trapped in her own musical while talking about food banks interestingly enough Jesus is that the theme of it is that that you're trapped in a musical well metaphorically metaphorically she has written might be trapped more than me you've written yourself a musical without knowing it I wrote myself a musical without knowing it yeah so funny because it was not the format at all I thought this was going to take and most shows I get really ambitious I'm like it's going to be an immersive experience it's and that's usually when I have no script and I go oh that's okay the set will the set will do the work and the audience will be the actor but yeah it's a it's Christina Wong food bank influencer and um I don't know how to start the story because I didn't talk at all about my last show but basically in 2019 I became introduced to a non-traditional food bank in my neighborhood which i' had passed all the time and it just looked look kind of like this messy Warehouse Discount Store and I walked in one day and it turns out it was I didn't even know until after I left and had to look it up online it was a food bank that acts like a store where you buy the donations for very cheap or you volunteer for them and you get an excessive amount of food uh and so much of it is so that the shame that you would normally feel of going to a pantry or a food bank where you're rationed out how many items you can get you just feel as abundance so I couldn't stop talking about this place I had no personality anymore and you know I lived for this food bank in the pandemic because there was no excitement really I mean there was the wrong kind of excitement all during the pandemic that was mostly just like what tragic terrible thing will befall us today um but like seeing what kind of crazy giveaways were at the food bank was like the most exciting thing and and I became really excited about sharing it and researching emergency food and everything just suddenly felt so possible because I was running a mutual Aid sewing group for masks and so a lot of the stuff from this food bank anded up going to um the Navajo Nation and all these other communities that we were already getting masks to and so when ASU gamage located in Tempe Arizona asked me to spend three years with them and work on a new piece I was like you are in the same state as the navoo nation they asked me about making them a food bank I'm going to make a food bank I'm going to show a college show crong food bank influencer I did not make anybody a food bank as it turns out that's a lot of work it's a forever commitment and and and it's a Band-Aid for larger systemic ISS issue so I am happy at least that the direction I'm headed in with this show is pointed towards thinking about issues of food Justice shame what a food desert is how bureaucratic Emergency Food Systems can be and why is it that we keep going after hunger by throwing food at it and not anti-poverty policy wow does that make sense yeah yeah but I believe you always posted at the end of the year how much money you spent on food that year yeah that was that's where it started give us an example of how much money you would spend on food in a year for yourself before 2020 I never tracked it but I'm sure it was in the thousands right right and and then eating out much more but then when you started tracking it it was like under $300 a year right yeah under $50 a month so that was under $600 a year and and that was initially when I leapt into this in 2019 not even thinking it was a show it was because I you know we so exhausted in from the years 2016 to 2020 hm wonder why um I couldn't I couldn't take more plot I could not I could not take my life couldn't take more plot and I was like I just watching unboxing videos and watching people go this is how I'm going to feed my family on $4 dollars today you know and like it was actually really fascinating to watch like this like some of it was out of necessity or they were just constantly on budgets and and it was really cool how creative they were and and made me I have I was I was developing a really [ __ ] up relationship with food because I'm on tour I come I I just don't I just wasn't good at meal planning so I come home and all the food be rotten or I buy too much but when I was watching these people like really budget I was like it was initially was just me trying to be like these influencers that I had seen on YouTube right and then which is why the show wastle big influencer right because I because I was like wow I can do unboxing videos I can make all the low plot level stuff that I keep watching during these depressing times what is unboxing unboxing is uh it's just basically people get something and they don't know what it is or haven't seen it yet and they open it up for the camera so maybe they buy a mystery box on eBay and they'll read the description to the camera and then they open the box and then they react to it a lot of kids do it it's like kids opening a new toy and showing us oh this is how it's packaged and this is how you put it together and this is how it doesn't work oh okay the appeal is like Christmas like watching people open their presents over and over again and I was really into watching people buy like Mystery Pets and just open up the pallets right and I was like I got into that for a while like oh I'm gonna buy mystery palet of clothes and then I was like what the [ __ ] am I gonna do with all these like elastic waist twill pants that I got that I got stuck with but like anyway so that and that strange detail is sort of what led me to just looking at grocery stores differently because it was like I just began to think man maybe I'm not good at food or maybe food that's expired like every time I just eat expired food I go God I failed God I'm such a loser now I now I just eat expired food and I'm just alive it's fine I just didn't understand how how much I feared food after a while just thought oh this is someone else's job to cook this because obviously I'm not good at taking care of this it's like I'm getting I'm getting over my fear like I have some plants and there a bunch that are dead and I'm still watering them you know I'm like live live oh my God I just had this vision of your next show is going to be about how like you lived off the land for a year in a mud hut that you made out of recycled tires and Coca-Cola cans no we're not doing that I know I sound like oh I'm dreading this but actually that sounds really good I want to know about what it's like to be in the running for a pullet surprise yeah that's pretty impressive this is like a question I've never asked anybody let me let me tell you about uh the first time I applied was for the 2016 Pulitzer and my friend Brian Feldman who's friends with you Pete was like you know you can just apply for it and we pulled it up on the web and we were like $75 and you can apply to be a you can be a Pulitzer Contender like just being close to that name felt crazy and so uh this is so you this is so both of you you don't know the story you don't know this story I don't know I don't think I know the story but it's so Brian and so you continue so Brian is a very conceptual performance artist and his entry was something called dishwasher which was just a set of directions and it's basically a piece that he's done at Fringe festivals all over the country in people's homes where you basically you buy a ticket there's only one ticket available and he shows up at your house he washes your dishes and it could take up to an hour and the idea is maybe you have like some friends over you some some food out before he shows up and then he you just hand him a m some material to read to cold read and he reads a monologue the phone book it could be the entire I think he did the entirety of The Vagina Monologues once and then he asks so am I a better dishwasher or actor and then he takes that answer and Records it so it was a two-page description of this performance and then I turned in my show The Long Street Journal and my mother got so into it my mother was like cuz she'd only seen the Long Street Journal all year and so she's like you could totally win you totally get this I could tell my friends that you were a p that my daughter's a Pulitzer winner and I'm like it's going to go to Hamilton no no you don't know that you don't know that so anyway so when it's announced the the pulitzers are put on by Columbia College it was their 100th year uh I managed to get a press pass because I was in New York and it's only open for the press and it's also live streams in New York and I wrote an essay for NBC Asian America about this whole thing um but no one knew you know a contender is also in the audience and my my my then partner uh was filming me react to not winning it and not being a finalist and and uh Brian was in Orlando texting me turned to the right and he was screenshotting me in the audience at this announcement and uh and I prepared three speeches one was the acceptance speech if I won one was a concession speech and one was a speech I was a finalist and so I stood outside and live stream delivered three speeches all three speeches um you two and then I wrote I wrote an essay about how the first Asian-American woman to get a to win a poern drama was not me so fast forward to uh 2022 I get a I'm going to go eat with Glenn from the food bank and some people in Chinatown in LA and uh Brian text good luck and I'm like on what he's like they're announcing the pollers I'm like shut up and I'm like not going I do anything come on like I'm like I'm a solo show I'm from La I have no master's degree like why and uh and my phone starts blowing up at lunch congrats Pulitzer finalist and I ran out of the restaurant screaming I basically couldn't focus the rest of the week are you like an ambassador now tell me about that yeah I'm wondering what what that means no I'm not in a bad I I mean I won't shut up about it it's just a fancier title shuts people up you know like yeah well it's very impressive and it's not just it's not just the Pulitzer you've won a Doris Duke award a Daris Duke artist award a go fellow which is pretty huge thank you you know are you a are you able through any of these to be able art to be yes yes modesty no no yeah um I yes I I I would like to say that for now I think I'm finally somewhat catching up with having a healthier what call it just means for many years it was yeah I saw I've seen you like still acting like you're waiting for your next $10 from your box office payout even after you received the the funding like it's still in you and to to you know not like you're not going on like extravagant trips you're not um listen I still put the toilet paper from the hotel room in mycase I still just your DNA I still am using every coupon I have you know I'm saying like I you can't you can't take you could take the struggle off the artist but you can't take I don't know what I'm [Music]

saying was it my heart stirring message my vision for making Korea Town a safe haven for all immigrants my mission to protect the most vulnerable it was all that but it was especially my ability to pass as Korean I mean what I learned from being an elected official which we didn't even get into is love I int int but it's hysterical that you did that we're all different versions of performance artists all the time and and that and running a campaign you know it was neighborhood was a nothing office but but running that office trying to act like I knew what I was doing in meetings trying to like be tough to developers at meetings it was all the same and did you do it as performance art or were you actually really trying to run I really was trying to run and the impetus was in 2016 H what happened in 2016 I just I just didn't know what satire what my role in as a satire maker was anymore and it felt like Artisan politicians had switched Ops so like the moment I had is I just woke up one day and I think I don't know was the Paris Accord some executive order that Trump signed and I was just like Jesus like he was because he was just signing non-stop executive orders remember and I was just like [ __ ] I'm just gonna run for office and then I went that's it that's the piece I'm going to run for office research how to run it and the show will look like a campaign rally and I didn't know what I was going to run for I went through this big deep this is a lot of different shows I go okay and very quickly was like it's very expensive to run even a joke campaign in any kind of major political office in a city like Los Los Angeles like do I want to burn thousands of dollars and lots of time ultimately no I want to be making my work as an artist so I found myself well my friend okay basically Alex Jones was trolling me for my kids web series radical gram school I went to my neighbor Angie's house this is before I ran for office and uh she gave me something to eat saw I was upset she it was in edible was a Marana edible I woke up I got so high and when I woke up I was uh filed to run for a local election with her and so goes the story oh that's hilarious Christina does Christina does not do I'm not good I mean back then you definitely did you never did any mind altering anything no not I think that's the theme of this uh and the moral of this podcast is no Edibles don't don't do Edibles don't do Edibles hey thanks for checking us out links to today's guests can be found in the show notes don't forget to subscribe like us rate US and tell all your friends about arts and craft