Bestselling novelist R. O. Kwon joins us to explore Big Korean Energy in literature and how she writes her desire (and freedom) onto the page.  She shares what it was like growing up in a mostly Korean town in L.A., why Squid Game still feels astonishing, and the relationship between Koreanness, Christianity, and sexuality. Also: An extremely high stakes game of F*ck, Marry, K*ll. 

Follow along on our Substack for more things Big Korean Energy.

An Edited Transcript of Our Convo:

Rebecca: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Rebecca Lehrer.

Amy: I’m Amy Choi. And we are the Mash-Up Americans and we are so excited to have RO Kwon with us today. RO is a bestselling novelist. She is the author of the Incendiaries and Exhibit, also the editor of Kink. All of these books which explore faith loss, cults, art, sensuality, sex, and, um, I don’t know. I feel like…real being Koreanness.

Rebecca: A lot of being Koreanness. Welcome. It’s so, so great to have you.

RO: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so glad to be here with y’all.

Rebecca: So we’re in this kind of K moment where it feels like everything K is taking over and we’re pretty pumped about it. Everything is so Korean, a lot of Big Korean Energy and wondering, you know, what it is like for you to watch the culture in this particular inflection point.

RO: So I grew up in a part of LA where my town was majority Korean. My high school was majority Korean to such an extent that, and this was, you know, long before BTS, um, non-Koreans would take Korean at my public high school so that they could understand what the rest of us were talking about when we were talking shit in Korean.

Amy: My God. Wow. The way that I appreciate the whites or anybody else taking Korean classes so that they can understand what you were saying. I appreciate that.

Rebecca: To talk shit. Yeah, love. So you are saying, you’re like, yes, there’s an inflection point and you are like, I’ve been here.

RO: You know, in a, in a time of such chaos that has been a little calming, to be back in the world of, of my childhood and the, the world that my childhood predicted because it was, it wasn’t until junior high that I understood that Asian people were in the minority in the U.S. Um, that was around when I started reading the news, you know, and then, and I was so astonished. I hadn’t known that before.

Rebecca: Oh, I, I can say that also as a Jewish person in Los Angeles, in my community, I was like, yeah, of course. Like, you know, 40, it must be like what, 40% of the population. And that’s, you know, it’s just a…

Amy: Turns out that’s not true.

Rebecca: Uh, 2% of the U.S.

RO:  Mmmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Amy: Like, as you said, it makes you feel like what your childhood predicted. It’s like kind of come full circle. What has been a surprising moment for you? Or has there been like a pop culture moment where you’re like, oh yeah, we’re here.

RO: I feel like the Squid Game kind of took me by surprise. Um, I had the great pleasure of interviewing the director and some of the stars for Vanity Fair piece. And I don’t know. I, I just don’t think a TV show about people in a game being slaughtered, with Korean kid music. Um, just, just as this combination of elements turning into the most popular TV show for Netflix of all time, that really sort of took me, took me aback.

I don’t know if you feel this too. I’m, I’m always asking other Korean people, about this. I feel so much fear about letting other Korean people down in any way with my work, with my life. It’s kind of a very present fear on a daily basis. And every time I interview or talk to Korean artists, Korean people who are in the public eye at all.

I asked them and I asked the director of Squid Game about this, and his answer was, yeah, of course. Every single day I’m so worried. And on another one hand, it feels, it feels a little illogical to worry so much about, about bringing shame down upon Koreans, because that’s what the shame is. That’s what the fear is. And on the other hand, every single time I see a Korean person fuck up, um, the, the first thing I hear other Korean people say is, damn, this person is bringing shame down upon us.

Amy: It’s the rep sweats… It’s so hard. Oh yeah. We had this conversation with Phil Yu earlier and he was just like, when Kim Yuna won the gold, I was on the podium with her. Right. So it goes both ways.

RO:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amy: We did happen to work on Squid Game with Netflix for like 18 months. And also I was like, well, that was obviously my show. 

RO: Mm.

Amy: That was our people’s show. Right? And so I think there’s something also about like Korean collective identity that the, the fear and the pride are like completely codependent on each other, right? They’re like, they’re intermingled. But yeah, I feel that a lot and I, what we often talk about is like, especially both Rebecca and I are moms, is like, listen, am I really fighting every fucking tiger mom impulse in my body that I didn’t even know that I had until I became a mother? 

RO: Mm.

Amy: Yes. All the time. And I’m like, they can’t be mediocre. And then I was like, really All I wish for is a world in which Korean people could be mediocre.

RO: Mm.

Amy: Because I feel like, to me, that would mean then mean that like, oh, it’s okay. We don’t actually have to represent everybody so that our humanity is recognized so that we won’t be disappeared from the world.

Rebecca: Maybe everybody should be allowed to be mediocre, but we still want our kids to not be. Mm. Oops. Uh, I’m, I’m just putting little drops in here for my kids later when in therapy. Play pieces of me from the past. 

RO: [Laughs.]

Rebecca: We do wanna talk about your books, which have big broad ideas about so much religion, cults, pain, trauma, grief, and also. interpersonal relationships and how they play out there. That’s my sweet spot. Yeah. 

RO: Yeah.

Rebecca: You’ve said before that my work has to do with the way in which our bodies run into conflict with what our, we are told our bodies should want and be, and actually getting closer to being at home in one’s body. And I think that sort of describes in a lot of ways, our evolutions as women. You know, it’s such a beautiful way to describe what, alignment, like my therapist would describe. Like when you’re aligned, when you’re inside and outside, when your body and your self get to be aligned and you know, curious about how you’ve been thinking about this and for yourself in your writing, how writing about it has kind of helped you find your own alignment.

RO: Thank you for saying that. That means so much. So the way I, the sort of one sentence description I’ve given people of my most recent novel Exhibit has been, that it’s a novel exploring what, what you might give up to go after what you want most in the world. Um, and in Exhibit, of course, part of that does have to do with sexuality.

And while I was writing the book, um, and it’s, it, it hasn’t quite stopped yet, which, astonishes me because the book has been out for a little over a year at this point. It hasn’t really stopped at all in some ways. I experienced so much fear and panic while I was, and anxiety while I was writing the book. Um, I had sometimes daily panic attacks, sometimes multiple times a day. And it really had to do with the fact that I was writing about sexuality because, um, as, as I’m sure you all know, and you know, this is true for other women and people who present as women too, but in general, Korean women aren’t, we’re not supposed to indicate in public ever that we’ve ever thought about sexuality, let alone wanted sex. 

Rebecca: You want sex? I gotta go.

Amy: Just gotta bone it out. Yeah. No.

RO: Yeah. Like, we’re not, we’re not supposed to be sexual beings in the world at all. You know, all Korean children have been conceived immaculately. Um, and…

Rebecca: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

RO: And what I had for a sex talk when I was growing up was that I wasn’t allowed to sleep over at anyone’s house because good Korean girls don’t sleep outside of the house, ever. Even my cousin’s house, you know? Um, and, and so the messages I had going through my body as I was writing Exhibit included, especially it’s focusing on queer, kinky sexuality. Um, the messages I had going through my body were, and it sounds so hyperbolic, but, you know, panic and anxiety don’t respond very well to logic. The messages are run. They’re going to kill you. You’ve destroyed your hiding place. Um, I know that those messages kept my ancestors safe.

Amy: Mm-hmm.

RO: And I’ve, it’s been a years long process of, of trying to convince my body that what kept my ancestors safe, that in this realm that I don’t need to do this as much. But it has been very costly and yeah, I’m still, I’m still working through it because my body still thinks to some extent that I risked too much. and I can’t quite talk it down yet.

Amy: Yeah.

Rebecca: That you risk too much by publishing it.

RO: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That I showed too much, even though it’s fiction. Even though it’s fiction, even though it’s not autobiographical. 

Rebecca: Can you help me disentangle or understand better the relationship between the Korean part of that and the Christian part of that, or where they come together? And I’m curious, ’cause Amy did not grow up Christian, right? 

Amy: No.

Rebecca: Where the two meet. Or intertwine. And if that’s something that either of you have unpacked in your kind of understandings of your own bodies, sexuality and their relationship to shame.

Amy: Yes. 

RO:  That’s a great question. 

Amy: But while you’re thinking, I just wanna say thank you so much for putting yourself through that, because I do think that people often don’t recognize how impossibly courageous and scary it is to be the first. And your books are gonna be the ones that like young Korean girls are gonna be like, it’s okay to wanna fuck, it’s okay to be kinky.

And it’s okay to realize that I have desire in my body, even if society is saying no, because look RO Kwon wrote this book, so I’ll cry myself, but I just want to say thank you. If that’s any sort of comfort in your back pocket, that’s what, what you are enduring with your anxiety in putting it out there is. That’s what other people get to receive from it.

RO: Um, you’re, you’re, you’re making me tear up. Thank you.

Amy: I’m tearing up too. Wow. I put on extra eyeliner so I could be more like RO and now I’m having to wipe it all off.

Rebecca: Let’s talk about Christians because I, it’s been coming up a lot in these convos.

Amy: To couch that: Christianity and how, at least in the, particularly in the diaspora, what being part of a Christian community, how that informed our Koreanness, because I was not part of a Christian community. I went to like Saturday school at a church, but kind of when my Saturday school days were over, our family ended its relationship. Like my parents have always been socially Christian. They would go to church because they were gonna hang out, but they were never believers. So it was just like a very, my Korean experience is, is completely divorced from a church experience. And I think a lot of Korean Americans kind of fall into two groups there.

RO: So I did grow up Christian. I was going to devote my life to God. That was my whole sort of life plan until, until I lost my faith right before college. And, was devastating in a way that, that still feels very hard to, to explain to people who haven’t experienced it. It was and is the pivotal loss of my life around which my life is organized. There’s a before and there’s an after. And I feel that in some ways all of my writing has to do with what it means to lose a whole understanding of the world, to lose, to lose, because I did at the time, I lost my whole community as well, because everyone I knew was not only Korean.

Um, I mean, not everybody was Korean, but most of my friends are Korean, but almost everybody was deeply Christian. And, there’s a grief that has never really lessened from that. Um, it, it, it just, it goes on and on and on. It colors, um, every aspect of, of being alive for me, because there used to be somebody who was omniscient and looked after you and…

Amy: Yeah.

RO: …was making sure everything was all right. So I didn’t used to be the anxious person that I am, you know? And I think a lot of people view leaving Christianity as, um, they think, oh, that must have been so liberating. But for me it was joy. Um, I loved it so much. I loved. I loved walking around imagining that everybody I met was also a child of God. Um, I was a much more patient person. but it just became impossible to believe in part because it didn’t, one of my objections that, that became stronger and stronger was it didn’t make sense to me that other people who believed other things, were condemned to hell for not believing what I did. That just did, it did not make sense. My brain could not make sense of it. And that that was sort of the wedge that broke open, um, that broke my faith. I don’t think I can disentangle what part…

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.

RO: What part of the, of the, of the terrible shame around everything having to do with my body comes from Christianity and what part comes from, comes from, um, comes from being Korean. I think it’s, I think maybe they’re just doubled.

Rebecca: You got the extra!

Amy: That’s just very Korean. 

Well, you know what I think is interesting about that…thinking about my own relationship to like my body and learning how to be at home in it or learning how to be at home in my own desire is that I actually think that I have never physically quite fit in with a lot of Korean people because I’m like five seven, big boobs. And I have been this shape and size since I was 14, so I was always like a foot taller than everybody else. My body was very normie by like general Western American standards, but among Korean people, I look different.

But that actually I think helps me because getting accustomed to feeling like a little bit awkward or uncomfortable or wrong in some ways in my body…once I had grappled with that, the idea of desire or other things being labeled as wrong, I was like, well, I know how to deal with that. I was always practiced at it because I was always a little bit on the edge of things, so I was just like, oh, Asian women in general, hypersexualized…you know, playing out different sorts of tropes and fantasies…

Rebecca: Oh, always opening the kimono.

Amy: Oh, just the kimonos just flapping open and flapping closed all the time, you know? But like, then it, I was like, well, I’m already different. So it felt okay to lean into desire as being different.

Rebecca: That’s interesting. You know, we can’t disentangle so many things. Yeah. And it is just an experience and so much of it might be cultural and is personal also. Right. To your point, you’re like, well, I already don’t fit this, so I’m just gonna do whatever I’m doing. It’s interesting ’cause I think of Koreanness also just as, just…as a Korean…

Amy: As a Korean adjacent…

Rebecca: As a Korean adjacent, as a non…the joy and intensity in which eating happens. Do you know what I mean? Or like the, it’s like so visceral. It’s so physical, it’s so embodied. Right.

Amy: I think so.

Rebecca: And I’m, it’s, so again, like the, the ways things like you like be fetishized but actually be told not to be sexual on your own terms, like these kind of constant pushing and pulling of.

Amy: Polarities.

Rebecca: Of like different ideas is so, I don’t know. It’s like…

Amy: That also feels very Korean.

RO: Food is of course so delicious and, and we eat with, with, with great joy. Um, and, you know, if I think of a dinner table with my Korean elders, immediately, what I’m thinking of also is all the rules and all the things that I can fuck up, and the points of etiquette and…if I commit a faux pas at the dinner table in some way, then I have shown that I have been raised badly by my parents, and thus I have brought down shame upon my ancestors and probably all Koreans once again.

Amy: Every single one of us, I can feel it. It like just tremors a little bit. When, um, you use your chopsticks wrong, that’s, that’s what’s happening. 

RO: [Laughs.]

Amy: This hits on a really like big point I wanna talk to you about because I think a, it like speaks to the deep pride and collective culture of, of being like, well, I won the Olympics. I just won the Nobel Prize because another Korean person did; pared with the “every Korean person in the world is gonna know that I am a loser” because I committed this faux pas at the dinner table. Right. It’s like both of those things are existing at the same time. You talk a lot about your ancestors or like your elders. And wanting to do them proud and also that like what kept them alive is no longer serving you right now. The essential premise of The Mash-Up Americans is that we are here to celebrate our roots and to use our imaginations to create a new kind of future.

And so what is our relationship to like our ancestors when like, maybe sometimes they fucking led us astray or like they did things wrong and you’re like, I gotta do things different. YUou have spoken about drawing on the rage of Korean women of the past and being like, this is gonna keep me fueled and going forward into the future. And I’m like, yes. Yes, resentment.

Rebecca: Resentment, it’s my superpower.

Amy: And then also like, oh God, like how much Lexapro can a person take because my anxiety and rage is like getting really high right now. And so how do you think about, you know, especially in this moment again of like, could it be any more Korean that the biggest movie on Netflix – which is this joyous celebration of pop culture and music – and ultimately the movie is about shame and breaking our ties to our ancestors? How do you kind of this as a creator of culture in America? Your relationship to your ancestry and your actual ancestors, like, how do you wanna shift that? How do you think about it playing out in your life now?

RO: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. As y’all have touched on, I, I think so much about how our bodies aren’t wrong, you know, um, as June Jordan said, wrong is not my name. Um, and, uh, there’s so much pain and there’s so much sorrow that comes from living at war with our bodies. I do believe so strongly that the more we can move away from…from the strictures that have been imposed upon us, the better off we are and the, and the less pain we’re likely to inflict on other people by passing along these strictures that do not serve us. 

Alexander Chee wrote this beautiful essay, about the 40 year period when Korea was colonized. There was a massive attempt to wipe out, wipe out Korean culture, you know, to wipe out our names, and then when colonization ended, there was a countrywide campaign to relearn how to be Korean. And I think that’s where, that’s where so much of the terror comes from. Um, and so much of the pressure because there were people who had forgotten what the flag looked like, um, had no longer knew how to write in Korean. And I know other, a lot of other people have said that that’s part of where this massive pressure comes from.

So the director of Squid Game, as y’all probably know, he says there’s so much pressure inside Korea. To export, export, export. So it doesn’t, it’s almost as though having something be, um, all over the place in Korea. Sure, that’s fine. But we need to get it out of here. We need to make sure that Western world knew, knows. And, and also we’re all, we all carry this trauma of, because there’s, you know, part of how Korea’s colonization went forth, um, people had no idea who we were. And so it feels as though Koreans are helping out on making sure that that never happens again. So that’s also what I, I think drives this, this need to, so for instance, K-pop Demon Hunters, I was saying to a relative that it says second most watched show on Netflix. And they said, of course. They said, what’s number one? Why isn’t it number one? That pressure is so hard.

Rebecca: This is why we’re starting a bar. A bar called Koreans and Jews. Ks and Js. 

RO: [Laughs.]

Rebecca: Same pressure.

RO: Right. Of course. This is a pressure that, that other people know as well.

Rebecca: I feel that you only get to, ugh, sorry. You feel like you only get to exist when…you’re the best version.

RO: Mmmm.

Rebecca: And you can see when you’re not, how people treat you. Yeah. And it’s really fucked up.

Amy: It’s really fucked up.

Rebecca: It’s like, and, and we, it’s just in our DNA to be in that fear.

Amy: Ks and Js, in addition to the best cocktail bar ever.

RO: [Laughs.]

Rebecca: Ooh. So fun.

Amy: Also, it’s about people that are, have faced extinction, right? Like that’s really what we’re talking about. And so it’s like, what is a way for, to export and to make sure that it never happens again, is being like, you cannot ignore us because we will implant ourselves. And you will fall in love with our food and our movies and our this and our that.

Rebecca: But also how do you not have to take responsibility for everything that every K or J does? And that’s another thing. Right? I want to sort of disentangle and understand and, and let go of some of the stuff. I think this is our work and it’s very hard to do. 

RO: Yeah.

Amy: We are both mothers, but I think RO, you are mothering a generation of thinkers and people, and readers. There’s a saying that’s always like, you know, make your kids proud, not your parents. Right? Like, live your life to make your kids proud, not your parents. Good luck. It’s a very K and J fraught, uh, approach. But that’s why I feel like it’s important to say it out loud. And so I think, you know, like you think a lot about your relationship to your ancestors. Can you leave us with some thoughts about what kind of ancestor you wanna be?

RO: Oh, wow. I love that. Um, okay. You know, something I do when I’m extra miserable about the state of the world is I love reading about quantum physics, but those essays that are for lay people, not for scientists, because I love reading about how, you know, time is a construct. Our time isn’t real.

Rebecca: She’s on acid when she does it.

RO: Or mere blips, et cetera. 

But, you know, there’s a, there’s an idea that what happens in the future in so far as, as there is a future according to physicists, um, can affect the past. And so I love to think about the possibility that what we do now can perhaps also touch and affect and maybe even, um, provide more freedom to the past.

It doesn’t, maybe it doesn’t have to be an either or, you know? So I do try to think about that when I’m in the depths of panic attack number 9,873. Whatever idea one might have of ancestors staring down and at you and judging you, there have to also be ancestors who are saying, hell yeah. Go forth. You know, and, and we can, and of course we what we can try to do that for. Yeah. For, for people who come after us as well.

Rebecca: Also tell the painful part of the story, not just the brushed over one. Yeah. You know, so that people, your children or the future can understand, oh, they went through this. They went through stuff too, not, you know.

Amy: Yeah. It’s a way of honoring the truth.

RO: Yeah.

Rebecca: That’s right.

Amy: Actually saying it. Well, on that note, wow. Everybody cried. We cried. I smeared my RO Kwon specialty eyeliner. There’s a lot happening right now, but what we are going to do now is play a game.

Rebecca: We have a couple.

Amy: This is K*ll F*ck Marry, Big Korean Energy Edition. We’re going to give you three names and you let us know what you feel about them. 

Rebecca: Korean American actors, round one. Greta Lee, Steven Yeun, and John Cho.

RO: Oh, dear God. Wait, I need to kill off one of these. This feels, this feels…

Rebecca: This is just a game.

RO: Damn. Okay. Well, I mean, uh, marry John Cho obviously, um, I think right? Just, uh, he’s been, he’s been, he’s been…

Amy: He’s everybody’s husband.

Rebecca: Yeah, sure.

RO: Let’s just say I’ll fuck Greta Lee and, um, and Steven Yeun, let’s say kill because I know there’ll be a sort of network of arms waiting to receive him when he, when he gets shoved off the cliff.

Amy: Yes. It was just like the Walking Dead. It’ll be the greatest injustice of the world, and I one hundred percent would’ve gone the same route.

Rebecca: Yeah. Agreed. 10 outta 10. Uh, okay. Go.

Amy: Actors round two. Sandra Oh. Daniel Dae Kim. Margaret Cho.

Rebecca: This is the Gen X edition.

RO: Damn. Damn. Um, you know, one of my first book events for Exhibit was with Margaret Cho, and, um, and she was so fabulous. And I, I’ve just never been more grateful for a slight language barrier in my entire life. Um, like Margaret Cho at some point was talking, she was saying it’s so ridiculous that people think people who are sexually submissive are weak. Watch me fisting someone and say that I’m weak. And I felt terrified. I looked at my father and…

Rebecca: Yeah. Those are all words he didn’t understand.

RO: He was gently confused at first, and then, and then he smiled, approvingly, and I realized that he thought we were talking about fist fighting. Um, and you know, he…

Amy: Thank God. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.

RO: So yeah, Margaret Cho definitely marry. Great person to have at your side. Um. And, uh, again, this is, this is terrible. Okay. Uh, let’s say Sandra Oh, fuck. And once again, Daniel, kill Daniel because once again, hoards of adoring fans will catch him at the bottom of the cliff.

Rebecca: I love, I love that. 

Amy: Slice ’em open with his jawline.

Rebecca: Okay. Do the Korean, uh, directors, you wanna do those?

Amy: Oh, sure. This one I think is harder for me, but I do have answers. Bong Joon-ho. Park Chan-wook. Lee Chang-dong.

RO: Damn. This one’s hard.

Amy: I’m gonna tell you, based on their movies, I would f*ck Park Chan-wook. And I don’t know what that says about me because often when I watch his movies I feel like I need to bleach my brain. But if we’re gonna go there, just go.

RO: I’ll say, marry Bong Joon-ho only because he’s, he seems to crack a lot of jokes in his interviews and, um, you know, someone who can make you laugh when you’re getting married, that feels important. I’m with you. I would’ve also said somehow the energy, I would’ve said f*ck Park Chan-wook. But, um, but I also feel like, I also feel like if you did try to kill him, he would also survive. And then it would turn into an epic, a revenge epic.

Amy: All of a sudden you’d be an Old Boy and that would be a problem. So we’re not gonna try and kill him.

RO: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, I’m just gonna vote for that with kill, because that would, um, that would then end up with a, with a really interesting story and a great zombie movie.

Rebecca: I’m gonna keep thinking about how quantum physics, about how we’re changing the past, how we’re impacting it now, symbolically what that can mean for us, especially as. I think your work, as you described in this moment, even your grief around your faith in Christianity is something that as Americans we’re all grieving some story, and faith we had in a system that we thought was a certain way and may not be. And that’s a deep, deep grieving that we’re all having to do.

Even if so many beautiful things come from it, like your work and the rest of your life after your loss of faith, It’s something there for us to learn from. So thank you for sharing all of that with us.

Amy: Thank you, RO. We love you.

RO: Thank you for having me. I loved talking with y’all. This was so wonderful. Y’all are wonderful.

Amy:  You just heard our conversation with novelist RO Kwon. Her novel Exhibit is out now in paperback. 

Rebecca: Visit RO-Kwon.com for her writing, upcoming events, and more.

Amy: Next time on The Mash-Up Americans, Tommy Craggs, my buddy from college, another proud alum of the Daily Northwestern, another Midwestern Korean, and a longtime journalist and editor.

We speak with Tommy about his experience as a sports fan and how Koreans do fandom. We’ll also get into, uh, fraught Korean histories — FKH — and celebrate this big Korean energy moment at the same time. It’s a hell of a lot.

Rebecca: There’s also a whole lot more Big Korean Energy on our Substack. So subscribe at mashupamericans.substack.com for extras from this series, weekly news from around the world, and more. Bye!

Amy: Bye!

CREDITS

This podcast is a production of The Mash-Up Americans. It is executive produced by Amy S. Choi and Rebecca Lehrer. Senior producer is Mia Warren. Development producer is Donna Suh. Production manager is Shelby Sandlin. Mixing and mastering by Kojin Tashiro. Thanks to DJ Rob Swift for our theme song, Salsa Scratch. Please make sure to follow and share the show with your friends.