The Korean Vegan’s Joanne Lee Molinaro joins us to talk about the cultural power and the politics of Korean joy. How can scarcity become abundance? Look to Korea! From budae jjigae to K-Beauty, Joanne traces her path from attorney to author, and why she believes Big Korean Energy isn’t just a trend, it’s a declaration power: If you love our food, love our people.

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

An Edited Transcript of Our Convo:

Rebecca: Hi, I’m Rebecca Lehrer.

Amy: Amy Choi. And we are The Mash-Up Americans.

Rebecca: And we are living a Big Korean Energy era.

Amy: Our BKE.

Rebecca: We are.

Amy: I love my BKE.

Rebecca: So, today we’re continuing to dig into the secret jang. Jang?

Amy: Jang. Jang.

Rebecca: Jang that makes Korean culture…perfect?

Amy: Uh, yeah, well I would argue so. And you know, there’s other things but we don’t need to talk about it. And that’s also a very Korean way.

We are so excited to have Joanne Lee Molinaro, aka the Korean Vegan, come join us today. Joanne is — we’ll get into this — one of my childhood friends from the Chicago suburbs.

She spent many years (you probably know her story) as an attorney, but today most people know her as the Korean Vegan.

Rebecca: And Joanne has totally revolutionized Korean home cooking and made it accessible for those who eat a plant-based diet. And we’re very grateful for that.

Joanne: Wow. I remember when Amy interviewed me when I first started the Korean Vegan, you have been part of my journey from day one. 

Amy: We looked back into like, the back end of WordPress was like, when was the first time? They were dated 2014. I was like…but we talked about it when we were still on Tumblr in 2013. Like, it’s fucking wild.

Rebecca: You were still at a law firm.

Joanne: I know. I was, I’ve been at one for a while. I just left last fall, so…

Amy: I wanna go way back in time because I think this is relevant to both mine and Joanne’s relationship to our Koreanness, which is the fact that we grew up in the Midwest and we had very different actual experiences because you were deep in a church community, I was not, even though we were like growing up right next to each other. But do you remember our Korean Korner?

Joanne: Yes, yes. It was you, me, Jennifer Kim and May B.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Joanne: Yeah.

Amy: Except May B…is Thai. But she is BTS Army. So she’s kind of an…

Joanne: Yeah, she’s kind of, yeah.

Rebecca: And also if there’s no other Thai people, she gets to…

Amy: She gets to be Korean. She gets to be…

Joanne: I mean, if she wants!

Amy: It was in our junior year in pre-Calc.

Joanne: Yes.

Amy: We called, we called ourselves a Korean Korner. Like all of my yearbook messages at year from you guys we’re like, remember the KK?

Rebecca: We love, we love to name a thing.

Joanne: Well, labeling is powerful. It’s powerful.

Rebecca: Uh, young women love to do it. And I do think Koreans…

Amy: Just like to do it. We like to be in a group. Yeah. We love an association.

Joanne: You know what it is? I think of like, you know, when your mom packs a dosirak, everything needs to be in its own clean contained case. And like, that’s kind of how we organize ourselves in social sex as well.

Rebecca: It’s so true. Yeah. 

So Joanne, I…just as a Korean-adjacent person…

Amy: A place of honor!

Rebecca: A place of honor. I feel the pride of this moment, this K moment where everything K is taking over the world. What is it like for you to watch the culture be at this kind of inflection point?

Joanne: Well, that’s such a great question, Rebecca and I, and I think that it’s been a series of incrementally larger inflection points. I feel like, as opposed to just one big one or different ones, right? We had BTS on a television commercial, you know, several years ago. That was a huge inflection point for me ’cause it, it made me realize how much of my life had been viewed through a white gaze without realizing it. Oh, wow. Like why should I be so weirded out that I’m seeing someone who looks like me on television? Like, it shouldn’t be weird, but it was very weird. And it was emotional. And then I think about kind of the explosion of Korean food, which is, you know, something that I partook in on TikTok. TikTok food, or, you know, FoodTok, was so much Korean food. You know, even budaejigae had a moment. There are so many iterations.

Amy: Which is not even the most delicious kind of jigae.

Rebecca: Which jigae is that?

Joanne: It’s not the prettiest one. It’s the one on my cover, but yeah.

Amy: It’s like army stew. Like with hot dogs.

Rebecca: Oh yeah.

Joanne: And things like that. But I…

Rebecca: But actually what a Mash-Up story.

Joanne: It is, it is. It is a very, I mean, there’s a story…

Rebecca: It’s the story of Korea.

Joanne: It’s the story of Korea, but it’s also a story of, you know, whiteness in Korea, right? And what does that turn into? How do we re-own that, in this way? And also what does it mean for people who grew up in Korea at that time when, you know, you could die from starvation?

And then today, you know, I was, I posted on my Threads earlier this week. I always get so emotional when I see young people or non-Korean people covering Golden, the song on Demon Hunters. I mean, it just, especially when they get to the parts that’s Korean. Yeah. So you see these non-Korean people just singing their hearts out, these Korean words. 

And then the most emotional was when I saw these young Korean boys, I mean, they must have been maybe like eight or nine years old, and they’re doing a group cover of this song seamlessly, going [00:05:00] from English to Korean. And I, I almost started weeping because it reminded me so much of my childhood. I was like, this is what we all grew up having to do, juggle between Korean and English, and somehow trying to make not a big deal out of it. Right. Because we had to do that in so much more than our…

Rebecca: Yeah.

Amy: This is something that, like, we have talked about, you have written about for The Mash-Up Americans like a decade ago, but that you used to, and I think a lot of us, right, like we had like the lunchbox moment, right? Like a feeling of the stinky food thing or like having cultural shame around your food. And Kpop Demon Hunters, it’s the, the depths of the Koreanness of it is that it’s all about shame in the end. You know, it’s all about breaking free of our shame. What, how do you think that that emerged and do you think that there is, or I, I, I hope I start to observe like a more open Korean diaspora conversation around shame period…

Joanne: That’s a great question. Shame is a very difficult, difficult thing to shake. I think there are two kinds of shame and, and Maggie Kang, the creator of the show, she’s such a thoughtful, brilliant woman and everything about this, not, not the show, but the movie is very intentional, I feel like, and I think that the two kinds of shame that many children of diaspora deal with is the internalized shame. And some of that does come from the native country, you know, of Korea. And then there’s the externalized shame, which is, the colonizer shame…

Rebecca: Mm-hmm.

Joanne: Is what I would call it. Right? So I actually was writing the script for, my most recent video about how, um, my mom used to hide doenjang, kkaenip, and kimchi anytime non Korean friends would come over after school ’cause she was so nervous about them complaining about that smell. And so that is a form of both, right? It’s internalized because it’s my mother, a Korean woman making me ashamed of my own Korean food and culture. But that shame to her is external because she’s, you know, and I think understandably worried that non Korean people would criticize her because she got criticized for it.

Amy: Yeah. She’s trying to protect you.

Joanne: Exactly. And so we’re grappling with that sort of, without even realizing it, I think, and when you place that conversation of shame in today’s context, when you have people who they’re not necessarily afraid of being ashamed anymore or being embarrassed of their differences, they’re literally afraid they’re gonna be thrown into jail or detained or deported because of their differences…this notion of shame becomes much more urgent. Yeah. And the reclamation, again, of our ownership of those things that used to cause shame becomes again, so exigent because we now need to have a conversation that confronts both the internal and the external. Not just because we don’t wanna feel ashamed anymore, right? But because people’s lives are endangered by these differences.

Amy: I think that’s actually something that’s come up as like a thread in a lot of these conversations. You know, we are here celebrating Korean culture and like this abrasive Big Korean Energy and the roots of kind of like…look at me, I’m Korean, and planting our flag across the world when it comes to food, music, culture. This, it’s very intentional because it is about saying like, you can’t erase us anymore. You will never colonize us again. Like, if you see us as humans and you obsess about our celebrities and our food and our culture and our movies, there’s no way that this can happen to us again. Or at least that that feels like some of the source material.

Joanne: I completely agree. I do think that it is a, uh, signal, right? Yeah. To the world. Like, we will not be colonized again, we will not be invisible-ized. Don’t think that you’re going to thieve from us again, because I think that’s really what it is.

But when we kind of break things apart, what are the tools for real power and agency? Yes. Some of it is that messaging and that unwillingness to control over the things that we believe make us Korean. But there has to be some sort of political agency as well to guard against, you know, the green card holder from South Korea being deported or being detained.

You know, these things are happening every single day. Now, that is also a symptom of real power on the other side. So when we talk about we will not be colonized again…okay, yes, I get that you want your kimbap to look authentic, but is that really the kernel of political agency that we need right now?

Amy: Like, what does it mean to be celebrating a culture or embracing it or pushing forward a culture when you’re like, but we are all being disappeared?

Joanne: Yeah. That is the central question. I think it is an opportunity. Right. It, it’s a wonderful opportunity. My whole thing these days is, if you love our food, love our people. Yeah. Very, very simple.

Rebecca: You mean when I saw the ICE agents at the taco place near my house?

Amy: Oh, I hope they all peed in their tacos.

Rebecca: I was just like, I just, you can’t have, you can’t like off duty like Yelp the best tacos in Northeast LA after we’ve stolen our friends and family. 

Joanne: How dare they?

Rebecca: Like you don’t get tacos. You don’t get to have tacos. Like, that’s all, no, get outta here.

Joanne: A hundred percent. I was like, you know when cucumber salad went super viral last year? I was like, okay, every single one of these influencers who capitalized off of Korean food.

Amy: Mm-hmm.

Joanne: Where are you right now when Korean Americans are getting stolen and thefted and deported? I wanna know where they are because you profited heavily and handsomely off of Korean cuisine. And that’s what I say, where is the love for the people who gave that to you? Yeah. Where is that?

Rebecca: The work that you do. I mean, it’s so magical because what you’ve done is do what we always hoped, which is like be deeply rooted and then making something future thinking. It’s new. You know, we don’t even have to have an authentic conversation ’cause it’s like we are getting less interested in that as, you know, we’re like, it’s authentic if we do it.

Joanne: If you’re the author of it.

Rebecca: And also we are the authors as first gen Americans or as hyphen Americans of whatever it is that we’re doing. And that’s what’s kind of exciting about it. 

Amy: When we say everything feels so Korean or is like infused with Koreanness, I also want to bring that in your face. Fucking energy punch you in the face, gochujang, whatever, into our politics. Like that feels like the best place now to be like, oh, do you wanna tear down democracy? Have you looked at Korea? And like what they do when they do a political protest, like, let’s do that instead of being focused on like getting our next banana milk latte.

Joanne: Well, it’s very similar to let’s eat with our hands as opposed to using a fork and knife with everything. That’s kind of the energy that I feel like is sometimes lacking in our politics here, which is…I wanna get my hands in it. I wanna get like everything in it. And, you know, kind of what you describe with regard to the way, um, political activism manifests in Korea and it being so in your face. Well, it’s because they’ve had so much…

Amy: To do.

Joanne: I mean, well, not just that, but like, their history, their very recent history. I mean, they had to deal with a freaking military coup and a dictatorship. They’ve had to deal with exiled leaders. They’ve had to deal with children being killed on the streets. I mean, they witnessed this, you know, and like that sort of horror is still written in the minds of many people alive. And I just don’t think that kind of trauma has settled over the American consciousness. I mean, we saw January 6th, but apparently for most people that was, uh, okay.

Amy: One of the most offensive things. And that, I mean, I don’t even know if that’s fair to say ’cause there’s so many offensive things that you can read or that just are indignities that are happening in the world. But when like you’re, I’ll be on Bluesky and there’ll be something like about some new horror that has happened in the American government or in politics or American society, and they’re like, what are we, like North Korea? And I’m like, yeah, bitch. Yeah. What about your ideas of American exceptionalism thought that you were gonna be so different from El Salvador, you know, like we are here…

Rebecca: But we’re all storytellers. And America loves to be black and white, so it’s like, this is a good guy and this is a bad guy. That’s a, that’s a, and we are just not doing that. Right? But I do think that the story is shifting and the stories we were told are not the stories that are happening. The dissonance is very hard. 

Joanne: The dissonance is traumatizing actually. Yeah. I think we grew up with a very rosy understanding of democracy, multiculturalism, the melting pot, all of those wonderful buzzwords that, you know, we learned growing up. And I think, you know, one of the positives and possibly the, the cost of the Internet is we’re having the scales feel back and we’re seeing, that some of these stories just are, are not true. We’re never true. Right. And may never be true if we don’t, like you said, do something about taking control of the situation.

Amy: Right. And this is part of like why we love your work and we love talking to you, is that like what we as Mash-Up is always trying to do is embrace the fear and the unknown of creating a new future.

And I think part of it is being like, okay, shit. That story, maybe that did require some revision, not like the kind of disappearance of history that is happening in the government right now. Yeah. But like, oh, right, okay. I can see this with like a different frame or a different clarity and this is like the new future. I wanna write what I think is really exciting and what I hope that, like, exploring kind of how like our diaspora cultures influence and create a new culture here is that we just, we remember that we get to imagine the world we wanna live in, and then we take steps to do it. 

Rebecca: And you have done this beautiful work, especially around kind of plant-based stuff and thinking about, and thinking about how you’ve just approached being like, no, it, this can look different. I’m curious for you about even like trying to approximate a taste. The difference between like trying to make something taste like it did in the non-vegan version versus, no, this is a new thing that I’m making. Right? Uh, I’m curious how that’s evolved in your work.

Joanne: I think that there are certain kind of beautiful iconically Korean foods and flavors that I will always endeavor to replicate, if not just for educational purposes. I, again, and you know, I don’t wanna devolve into a conversation about authenticity, but it does hurt my heart when I see sauerkraut masquerading as kimchi at the local health food store like that. That makes me crazy. Um, like, it’s not even red. Like, what is this?

Amy: My husband has a thing where he says…

Rebecca: I do love sauerkraut though.

Joanne: Red. Yeah, exactly. Immediately the color is a big giveaway, you know, unless it’s big kimchi, it should be red. There are some things that have to be in there. Otherwise, why use words at all, you know?

So that’s why when I make my kimchi, I use a vegan fish sauce. And that vegan fish sauce is one of the recipes I’m most proud of because I did really try to replicate the taste of the fish sauce. I remembered eating, you know, when I made my kimchi and things like that before I went vegan.

But that is a very limited situation. I, for the most part, I’m less interested in giving an identical, you know, visceral reaction to a, one of my vegan takes to a non-vegan. I mean, I know that that’s helpful for a lot of people who are trying to replace some of their, you know, meat centric dishes with non-meat dishes.

But I also think that one of the beautiful things about any cuisine, whether it’s Korean cuisine, French cuisine, Italian cuisine, you know, uh, Middle Eastern cuisine, whatever it is, it’s just trying a bunch of different new things, mashing it together, see what you create. Delicious is such a wonderfully generous word.

Yeah. It doesn’t need to apply to the five things you have on rotation at home. It can be so many different things. And that’s exciting is what can I create today that I haven’t made before that still deserves the word delicious. Right.

Amy: Well, we wanna also talk about beauty.

Rebecca: We are really interested in your beauty line.

Amy: Yeah. And how all of these principles that you have just described, how do they transition into beauty and like what we’re putting on our faces?

Joanne: Korean Vegan Beauty was started simply to answer a problem. The problem I had when I went vegan was, okay, I still need to eat Korean food. So I, you know, started the Korean Vegan and I’ve written many recipes since then that are vegan adaptations of my traditional Korean favorites. And I also really want to continue using K beauty products, which at the time was not K Beauty. It was just our beauty. You know who, you know all those, right? It was just what we used, but I realized.

I don’t know that they’re cruelty free and vegan. Now you see an explosion of that. Yeah. But at that time, there was really no certainty around it. I really did not believe the Korean ajummas who were like, oh yeah, yeah, it’s vegan. I don’t think you know what that means.

Rebecca: Oh no. Definitely. It’s like when I, oh, absolutely. It’s like when Spain, yeah, in Spain, they’ll be like, oh yeah, this is, no, it’s, it’s vegetarian. It’s chicken and cheese. And you’re like, okay. I don’t think you know what those words are, and I respect that because it’s not pork, but…

Joanne: Yeah.

Rebecca: Yeah. They’re like, is that your church right there? I’m like, no, I’m a Jew. And it’s not called a church.

Joanne: Semantics?

Rebecca: Yeah. Sometimes they matter.

Joanne: So that’s why I wanted to create, I actually didn’t think of creating my own, I just got tired of waiting. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, I’ll just do my own. And you know, we’re starting very small with just an all in one skin cream and a shampoo. And the shampoo is mostly because. I have a lot of hair and I’m very proud of my hair.

Rebecca: Um, this is a good line of questioning. Okay. Because that’s really, oh, thank you for bringing this. Well, we have a lot, we have pain, we have shame, and we also have pride here. I have a question for you. I have a question.

Amy: I can’t wait to hear what comes out of your mouth.

Rebecca: Is your Korean hair? Like, what? ‘Cause I, in to my mind, it’s just an extraordinary part of Koreanness. It’s just like some, just starting from a baby.

Joanne: Mm-hmm. There’s a lot.

Rebecca: So much, a stunning, uh, like…

Joanne: Mane?

Rebecca: Mane, ugh. So much gorgeous, thick black hair.

Amy: Oh. Both of my children came out and we were like, whoa. Yeah. Wow. Look at…

Rebecca: Korean. And then so hair just feels so, so important. And then also, uh, what is a Korean face? Oh, okay. So let’s talk about hair. Let’s start with hair.

Amy: Let’s start with hair. I would love to learn about your shampoo because I did not know that my hair felt like so much a part of my identity and my koreanness until I hit my forties and I started having some hair loss and I was like, who am…what is happening to me?

Joanne: Yeah. You know, women who lose their hair, like it is really emotional for them. And I actually got a review from an email from a customer who just bought the shampoo, has been using it, and she says, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten emotional over shampoo. Really? And she’s like, I’m perimenopausal and I’m struggling with hair loss. 

They got emotional because they had noticed after a few days that the amount of hair that they would collect out of the drain was so much less that they noticed that there was only two or three hairs. Whereas before they were picking it up by clumps.

Amy: Oh. I was like, I don’t have extensions, but it looks like I’m pulling extensions. Chunks of hair. Right. Yeah. 

Joanne: And she said, I noticed that there was only one or two hairs in there. And she said she got emotional at that thing. And she’s like, your shampoo literally works!

Amy: I was like, I just need to, I need somebody else to see this. Like, and I sent it to all my girlfriends and I was like, I got a bundle out. Yeah. And again, I don’t wear extensions. Maybe I’ll start, but I was like, am I sick? do I have an autoimmune disease? Like, what is happening? Is it a for like the thousands of dollars I spend a year on like Nutriful and the, and the, and the scalp massages and the things. And when we were in Seoul, I was like, do I have time to get like a, a, like a laser? And I was like, what is this vanity? Like, what is happening here?

Joanne: Yeah. And even if you call it vanity, it’s not the vanity that people associate with, you know, super silly, idiotic people, right? We’re talking about vain as in yes, I’m thinking of myself and who I am, you know, and, and my identity. And I think hair is definitely a part of it.

All of our beauty rituals are a part of that, you know? I think having, you know, whatever kind of hair, ’cause I do think Korean hair is not a monolith. Just like, um, you know, some Korean women.

Rebecca: A lot of volume…

Joanne: There’s definitely volume.

Rebecca: Even the…

Amy: The height. The height. Height!

Joanne: No, there is a lot of height, but some women have very coarse hair. Yeah. Yeah. And some like mine are much finer. My, I have so much fricking hair and it used to be a source of immense frustration. Right. Um, but now I’m like actually very grateful. I’m like, I can afford to lose clumps of hair.

Amy: Yeah.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Joanne: But I do think like whatever it is that we do for ourselves, you know, when you ask the question, like bringing all of the ethos of the Korean Vegan into the beauty line, it is about healing and it is about inner beauty.

It is about doing those things that allow our inner beauty to really peek through all of these facades we’re forced to wear. But it’s also about inclusion. It’s also about being sensitive to the fact that not all skins are created equal. Not all hairs are the same. None of us are monoliths, right? So how do we create product lines that feel inclusive to as many people as we can possibly serve in our community?

Rebecca: K Beauty is so innovative, but it’s also like really rooted in tradition. Right. it’s herbal remedies, fermented foods, acupuncture, inside out health philosophy, like all this is…

Joanne: Inside out philosophy, yes.

Rebecca: Very Korean. Right. Um, and so, curious for you, in your trips to Korea and actually sort of thinking through developing a product, what are you the most excited about? And like when things you’re observing that feel rooted, but then getting to me be made new?

Joanne: When I was in Korea in 2019, I actually visited, uh, a Buddhist temple and I got to meet with Jeong Kwan. She’s in Chef’s Table, and one of the biggest memories I have is she showed me her garden where she, you know, picks the herbs and the greens that she fills the table with, and she showed me everything. We use every little bit of this plant, none of it goes to waste. We will soak it, we’ll dry it, we’ll mash it, we’ll, you know, rip it, whatever it is. And all of these plants were sort of imperfect. She’s like, we don’t use pesticides here. Obviously we share with nature, we share with the bugs, we share with the rabbits, we share with the squirrels. If that means that this leaf is gonna be full of holes, so be it, we’re still not gonna let it waste. Right? And when I think of Korean Vegan beauty and the products that we launch, when I think about bakuchiol, which is, you know, our hero ingredient that comes from a plant, right? 

Rebecca: The way that in kids’ products, like I, I kept being like, we should be buying calendula futures. Like when I had, when I had babies and like every baby bath product would be like, calendula. I was like…

Joanne: Yeah. I mean like there will always be that and there will always be a commodification of those things because that’s what makes money and money drives so much of these conversations. But to me, I always, you know, when we’re talking to our R&D team and we’re talking to our scientists, we’re always like, let’s get back to plants and nature as much as possible, because those are the rituals that served Korean women a thousand years ago.

Amy: That’s actually something that’s really interesting is that again. Nothing used to be K before. It just was.

Joanne: Totally.

Amy: And so like this exhibit, I don’t know if you got to see it, it was traveling around. Um, I went to go see it.

Rebecca: The Hallyu exhibit. 

Amy: I saw it and it was, you know, like what is remarkable is that at American institutions, it is the first time that anybody has ever recognized that Korean culture is anything. And so it’s like very survey and felt, you know, in some ways very superficial. But also what they had was like, they would have face masks listing ginseng, and then they’d be like a millennia ago, people in this region of the world use ginseng on their faces, you know? Yeah. It’s like, it’s all, it’s, it’s nothing. It’s everything old is new again. And a way of like, as you do honor what already is, and like just remembering that this is ours, this is us. And like, oh look, now you get to share it.

Rebecca: It’s also a resourcefulness. I was saying this ’cause I kept joking, I went camping. Um, and I don’t do that. I’m like, I don’t camp, I don’t sleep in a tent, but I’m, when you describe that resourcefulness, I’m like, oh, we are so, I’m, so, I could, I could MacGyver anything…I could make you a meal out of, and it would be beautiful and delicious. And I do think it’s a very mashy quality and describing that just, just to really be like, this is what we have in front of us that makes sense that to this climate or this place and, and therefore what are we doing with it and what are we experimenting with to learn what its best uses are and then use every bit of it.

Joanne: I think that’s a very Korean philosophy. And I, I’m sure it applies to many, many different cultures, but that resourcefulness, that’s how we came up with kimchi, right? That’s how we came up with kimchi jigae. That’s how we came up with kimchi bokkeumbap and that’s how we come up with kimchi jeon. It’s like we are using the length and duration of our fermented foods for every last drop because that’s what we have available to us. We are a poor country. We do not have the ability at that time to buy the things that we need. So we find it where we are and we make it last for as long as we can.

Amy: And I also though I love…I love this idea of sharing and that the resourcefulness, because a lot of this comes from scarcity, but it is a transformation of scarcity into abundance. Right? And then you’re like, oh, we have so many options here, and we can create a new future with new things. Just with what we have. We actually don’t need to go out and reach and like, be so rapacious with our land because hey, let’s just use this like bitten up leaf and we we can still use it.

Joanne: Yes, absolutely. And, and it doesn’t need to be perfect and doesn’t need to be something that you, you know, put in a little frame or, you know, in a video. I, I think that…

Amy: But you know what, uh, the pursuit of perfection, Big Korean Energy.

Joanne: That is, that is Big Korean Energy, but it’s like, also like, how do we define perfection? You know? You know, like that conversation is always ongoing. And, and also, like I said, there are always dimensions to these things that we attribute to any culture, Korean culture or, you know, and, but I do think historically Buddhism has played such an enormous role in the way that we view ideas about waste and resourcefulness, reusing as much as we can, drawing from the earth as opposed to buying and bringing new things. I think that’s just a very big part of us. 

But I love what you said about, you know, reframing this discussion as one of abundance. I mean, that’s why I chose budaejigae as the cover of my next book was, well, that dish was born out of the worst kind of scarcity that, you know, Korea has had in its recent history and now I am putting it on the cover of a vegan book. Like, it’s like very…

Amy: It will become a New York Times bestseller…

Rebecca: Of course it will.

Joanne: Let’s knock on wood. 

Amy: Abundance.

Rebecca: I think it’s really beautiful and exciting and I think what we are the most interested in again, is this like…you’re Korean Americans. This is getting, this is a whole different thing and it gets to be its own thing. We don’t have to recreate. We get to, we get to learn from it. We wanna play a game, but I, before we go to the game, I need you both to describe Korea face. Because this has come up in every conversation. We talked to Tommy Craggs, who’s a sports writer and he, we described it as, it’s like on one hand there’s Hines Ward, then in the middle there’s him, and then the other is David Chang. But they all kind of have the…

Amy: Same thing.

Rebecca: Face. They do.

Joanne: They do. 

Rebecca: Yeah. 

Joanne: Oh my God.

Rebecca: Yeah. So, uh…

Joanne: Yes. There’s definitely coherence there.

Rebecca: I proudly made that connection. But now I, as the only non-Korean here, I do need the Koreans to describe what is Korean face.

Amy: So it’s the moon pie. A little, there’s a moon pie and there’s a lot of sculpting and contouring that can happen that makes a Korean face generally narrower, which is, you know, there’s a lot of ways to do that.

But I would say part of a Korean face is the moon pie. Part of it is the high cheekbones. Yeah. Right. And then the nose bridge, although that’s kind of like the Asian thing in general, but like, wow. When I went into the fucking Gentle Monster store in Gangnam and I was like, every single pair of these glasses fits my face and looks perfect. And I was like…

Joanne: Felt so seen.

Amy: Oh my God. I was like, this is how sunglasses can be. Yeah. That’s my description of Korean face.

Rebecca: Okay.

Joanne: I would say that’s a very good description of Korean face, especially the high cheekbones. I think that’s a, yeah, a dead giveaway. I also think that we have strong jaws that are being literally sculpted out of existence, uh, at all these plastic surgery places. And, and so we, I think we definitely have a strong jaw that many women either get rid of or they, um, Botox out of. So I do think we have that. I do think that our eyes are, you know, we have monolids. Um, so we don’t have that so you can see it, but that’s very across the spectrum.

Amy: What’s so interesting is that my daughter, who my kids are very, their faces are both very Asian. My daughter looks just like me, but it’s like, it’s like a puzzle they slotted in Gabe’s eyes, where Alejo looks just like Gabe, but slotted in my eyes. And my daughter Fina like I had bought all these like YA books or picture books that really turns out were for me. There’s a classic one called Eyes that Kiss in the Corners. And it’s about like young Asian girls being proud of their monolids. And she is fucking sad that she does not have eyes that kiss in the corners like me.

Joanne: Aw. 

Amy: Because it turns out that she doesn’t have them. Isn’t that…?

Joanne: That is like such a weird, surreal, like lovely…

Amy: Right? Isn’t that?

Rebecca: I mean these things, that’s also why nothing is monolithic, but nothing is ever stuck. Things evolve and just as one of the very confusing and amazing things about being diasporic peoples, about being Americans, about being Mash-Ups, is that we’re actually, you know, we are 40, 50 years in, or 80, whatever, into a different cultural life experience. Yeah. Like the kids are the, they’re, it looks different. Yeah. They get, and their anxiety, they’re gonna have different things to talk about in therapy, is what I’m saying. 

Um, okay. So we wanna play a game though. Okay. And it’s called Food or Face. And we’re gonna quiz you on whether these Korean items are meant for food, face, or both?

Joanne: Oh God. I’m gonna suck at this. Oh my God.

Rebecca: And just say face or food, that’s all you gotta do.

Joanne: Wait, what? Or both?

Rebecca: Or both. Or both. Okay. Okay. Uh, snail mucin.

Joanne: Uh, face.

Amy: Pond loach.

Joanne: Pond loach would be face.

Amy: Food.

Joanne: Oh, wow. 

Amy: Ginseng.

Joanne: Both.

Amy: Yam root extract.

Joanne: Uh, face.

Amy: Um, licorice. Correct. By the way,

Rebecca: Correct. Correct. Correct on licorice.

Joanne: Both.

Rebecca: Ding! Tiger grass.

Joanne: Hmm. Uh, tiger grass. Food.

Rebecca: We say face, but I’m gonna say why not both?

Amy: Centella Asiatica.

Joanne: I, I don’t know.

Rebecca: Yeah. Mugwort.

Joanne: Mugwort is both.

Amy: Rice water.

Joanne: Both.

Rebecca: Ding. How do you say that?

Amy: Propolis. Propolis.

Rebecca: Propolis. Propolis.

Amy: Propolis.

Joanne: I have no idea what that is. So I’m gonna go with face.

Rebecca: Yeah. Tree sap and beeswax.

Amy: Although I have been sprayed in the throat with propolis sprays, so I feel like it can be both. Although I don’t, I don’t think you eat it.

Rebecca: It’s…

Amy: Like healing whatever.

Rebecca: Green tea. 

Joanne: Both. 

Rebecca: Okay, great. You win.

Joanne: Ah, yay. 

Rebecca: We’re gonna play another game really quick. And it’s called Korean or Not. And we’re just gonna say a name or a thing and you…

Amy: Based on vibes. 

Rebecca: Based on vibes. Mm-hmm. Julia Child.

Joanne: Korean.

Rebecca: Rihanna.

Joanne: Korean.

Rebecca: Ottolenghi.

Joanne: Not.

Rebecca: Mascara.

Joanne: Very Korean. 

Amy: Contour.

Joanne: Very Korean. 

Amy: Bobbi Brown.

Joanne: Very Korean. 

Rebecca: Jamie Oliver.

Joanne: Sorry, Jamie. No, no. Not.

Rebecca: Anthony Bourdain.

Joanne: Very, are you kidding me?

Amy: Ultimate in Korean! 

Joanne: Yeah, I mean he’s basically Korean.

Rebecca: That’s what I’m saying. That hair!

Joanne: Get some makgeolli down here with him. Yeah.

Rebecca: Okay. You win Korean or Not.

Joanne: Yay. I can just give you my nighttime skincare routine.

Rebecca: I would like that. Oh, whoa. A blessing. Okay. This is Joanne’s nighttime skincare routine.

Amy: Yes.

Joanne: I, I do wear makeup a little bit more than I used to. And when you wear makeup, you have to do the double cleanse. So double cleanse means you use an oil-based cleanser to melt off that makeup. So I use right now Haru Haru, which is a vegan Korean beauty brand.

Amy: I did not know they were vegan!

Joanne: Yes, they’re all vegan and cruelty free.

Amy: I can give also to vegan food, which is that I use a lot of Haru Haru products. And I didn’t know.

Joanne: I love it. It leaves my face so, so soft. But once you go in with the oil to cleanse your makeup, you have to go in with a water-based, uh, cleanser. Otherwise it’s gonna get too oily. So then I use a water-based cleanser. I’m using Glow Recipe avocado cleanser, which I really, really love. It’s soft, it’s gentle. I’ve tried other things that’s too abrasive for my skin. So I do that. And then afterwards is when I use a toner. Okay. Or an sometimes an exfoliating toner. And what that does is it really tightens up your pores. So that’s really what’s meant to do. And it’s also meant to get rid of any residual dirt that your cleansers did not get. And then after that, you gotta go in with a serum. So right now I’m using Peach and Lily’s glass skin serum, which I really like. It’s very gentle and it makes my face just so like, ready for your moisturizer, which is the last thing that I put on my face. I use the Korean Vegan, all in one skincare moisturizer. It’s super hydrating. And I gotta tell you, I wake up in the morning and I’m like, I don’t wanna wash my face. My face has so much beautiful product on it right now, and it feels so amazing. I’ll put my SPF, go for a run, and then I’ll wash my face. So that’s what I do every night.

Rebecca: Thank you so much for coming on our show.

Joanne: I had so much fun. This is the best!

Amy: That was our conversation with our dear friend Joanne Lee Molinaro. I will always remember our Korean Korner and her latest book is The Korean Vegan Homemade. You can sample more Food or Face with Joanne at koreanveganbeauty.com. 

Rebecca: And soon on the Mash-Up Americans. A little bonus episode. Food writer Matthew Kang waxes poetic about Korean coffee trends.

Amy: Pyongyang Naengmyeon. Gochujang everything!

Rebecca: All the jangs!

Amy: And we’ll talk about what authenticity means in the era of global Mash-Up domination, BKE, till the end.

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

Amy: Bye. 

Rebecca: 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.