Never meet your heroes? Fie, we say. The magnificent author, editor, and queen of Queens Min Jin Lee joined Rebecca and Amy on stage at The Greene Space to kick off The Mash-Up Americans residency, and lucky for us she’s even more generous and staggeringly brilliant than we imagined. From discussing the power of authorship to sharing how being pleasant and difficult has helped her in life, we cover it all — and Amy secured a dinner invite, too. *fist pump*

I don’t write for myself…Like, of course, I’ve wanted to write the things that I wanted to read. But I also would like you to read it, which means that I need to think about your pleasure and your tolerance and your clarity. It’s like having dinner at my house. Like if you come to dinner at my house I will be thinking about sparkling water and flat. I will be thinking about olives and chips. And I want to close strong, so I’ll be thinking about dessert.

But I’m thinking about it. Because I’m thinking about your pleasure. So not just nourishment, that’s important. But it’s also about your pleasure. And I want you to remember things. I want you to have emotional responses to that evening. That was for dinner. So imagine what I’m thinking when I’m creating a book and because you’re giving me 20 hours of your life.

Min Jin Lee

Make sure to check out How To Be Like Min Jin Lee.

An Edited Transcript of Our Convo:

Rebecca Lehrer: Hi, this is Rebecca, and today we have a special episode. It was recorded live at the Green Space in New York City as part of our artist residency there. And it features the inimitable Min Chin Lee, author of Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires editor. And all around 10 out of 10 perfect Korean queen that she is. It was a beautiful, tender, open, thoughtful conversation and I’m so happy to share it with you now.

Amy S. Choi: Hi. I’m Amy Choi.

Rebecca Lehrer: Hi. And I’m Rebecca Lehrer and we’re The Mash-Up Americans.

Amy S. Choi: Yay. We are so excited to be here today. As the artist in residence at the Green Space, we are so, so, so excited. Because there’s nobody that we revere more than artists that we honor, that we want to aspire to be, that we aspire to be. And I think just the fact that we are here creating the story together with all of you tonight is just magic.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah, we’re here. We are here because being rooted in our traditions and looking to the future, examining what it means to be American today and creating what it means to be American today, that’s our art. And in this moment where it’s sometimes, sorry, it’s very tender right now, it sometimes feels like our humanity is being tested. We could not be more grateful to be here with you all creating this story. So thank you.

Amy S. Choi: We cry a lot.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah. It’s too much.

Amy S. Choi: We do a lot.

Rebecca Lehrer: I’m so sorry.

Amy S. Choi: We do a lot. We’re going to make a joke about crying, but it’s, we’re actually now just already doing it. So it’s, here we are.

Rebecca Lehrer: We’re dissociated backstage. We’ve been doing a lot of, it’s like a huge journey we’re on. Not even plant-based medicine just like us.

Amy S. Choi: No, but we-

Rebecca Lehrer: It’s just natural. That’s for another episode. So as I said, I’m incredibly tender right now in all the mashiest ways. As a Jew in the diaspora, and as a mother and as a child of immigrants and as a human, I’m feeling a lot of ancestral grief, kind of like at a cellular level, and pain and sorrow too, for all of humanity. But I’m also in need of people and community and all of you. And so this is kind of the opposite of the Internet for us and a lot of good healing. So I’m very happy to be here with you.

Amy S. Choi: I’m happy you’re here, too. Oh my God, it’s really good. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Rebecca Lehrer: So anyways, I’ll try not to cry again. Sorry about that.

Amy S. Choi: No, you can cry. We’ll cry. There’s a lot of tears to be had, but this is exactly also why we’re here. Why we do this work is that, I think what we have found is that, what is so healing and important and joyful and great for us. We have been lucky enough to find out that it is healing and joyful and great for our people. And that is everybody that is in here. And so we’re so happy that you’re here.

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, yeah. And speaking of dreams come true-

Amy S. Choi: Why did you put your mic so close all of a sudden?

Rebecca Lehrer: I just need everyone to know how close this dream is.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, my God.

Rebecca Lehrer: So our guest this evening is one of our heroines, author and queen of New York, Min Jin Lee. She has not only written my favorite book of all time other than Pride and Prejudice, she is a writer and former lawyer from Elmhurst, Queens by way of Seoul, Korea. She’s the author of the novels Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times bestseller. Min is the recipient of the 2022 Manhae Grand Prize for literature from South Korea. She’s the editor of the Best American Short Stories 2023, out next week.

Amy S. Choi: The first Korean American to do so.

Rebecca Lehrer: And only the third Asian American to do so. And she is also our fashion hero. So with that-

Amy S. Choi: The stress of figuring out what to wear next to Min Jin Lee…

Rebecca Lehrer: Like you wouldn’t be surprised that we’re all wearing jackets.

Amy S. Choi: No. That was a lot happening.

Rebecca Lehrer: You’re going to see. Anyways, so let’s welcome Min Jin Lee to the stage. All right.

Amy S. Choi: You’re here.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah, she’s here.

Min Jin Lee: I’m like, oh, I’m going to start crying too. Sorry.

Rebecca Lehrer: I did it. Sorry.

Min Jin Lee: I’m famous for crying. I’m always crying.

Rebecca Lehrer: Really?

Min Jin Lee: Constantly. And I actually did an event where this doctor approached me and said, “You know, you could take Paxil.”

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, excuse me.

Min Jin Lee: He meant it in a nice way. I read it, I mean, I heard it as criticism.

Rebecca Lehrer: Rude.

Min Jin Lee: I know he meant it in a nice way.

Amy S. Choi: I will welcome your tears any day.

Rebecca Lehrer: Also, of course, you heard it as criticism. You’re a model minority.

Min Jin Lee: Like, what an asshole.

Rebecca Lehrer: That’s how we hear everything.

Min Jin Lee: Wait, hang on. Good evening. Good evening everybody. Good evening. And also good evening, New York out there, on Charleston [inaudible 00:05:22].

Amy S. Choi: Well, so Min, you have inspired us in literally countless ways. We’re huge fans of your books, your writing, your style, your way of being in the world. And one of the things that you said to us recently that I think struck both of us, because it was such a clear definition of the way that you exist, is that-

Rebecca Lehrer: Just to be clear, when you said it, I cried. For context.

Amy S. Choi: Well, I think the question was, how do you deal with your rage? And you said, “I am pleasant and difficult.” And that was just like everything that we want to be able to be. We want to be pleasant, but we also want to make sure that we can make change that is often very difficult. So I just wanted, could you share a little bit about what that means for you?

Min Jin Lee: Well, I think I’m always upset. Because I’m from New York.

Amy S. Choi: And you’re Korean.

Min Jin Lee: And also I’m awake.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

Min Jin Lee: Right? I’m awake and I’m alert. And I think that if you’re half awake and you’re taking the subway, you should be upset.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah.

Min Jin Lee: The world is so unfair and people are so mean. And then there are also these moments of grace. So I keep thinking I can’t change everything, but I can change a couple of things. And so I have to be difficult, especially as an older person. I’m 54 and I feel very responsible for my young people. So my young people are here tonight and… Oh, hey… Students, researchers, people that I love and-

Amy S. Choi: People whose husbands are nervous to meet you.

Min Jin Lee: Right… Where is he? One of my former researchers got married, which is embarrassed for right now. But anyway, and I guess for me, I keep thinking I have to be difficult because I have to do the right thing. However I want it to happen, so I have to be pleasant. And I can be so fucking pleasant.

Amy S. Choi: You’re the most. But, okay. So-

Rebecca Lehrer: You also talked about a little, the idea of being hyper competent.

Min Jin Lee: Yeah.

Rebecca Lehrer: And how does that play in for you to being the first and bringing people up with you?

Min Jin Lee: Well, because of the way patriarchy works, because of the way white supremacy works, because of the way colonialism works-

Amy S. Choi: It’s such a fucking bummer.

Min Jin Lee: It’s such a fucking bummer if we don’t do things perfectly. So even though I am critical of this idea of being a model minority, and I am, I also notice that if we mess up, we mess up for other people. So I’m not interested in model minority-ism for me. I’ve already done that. I have a job. I’m okay. But I do notice that if I do something well, they will invite other Koreans. They will allow other Asian Americans to do things. And I actually say things like, “It wouldn’t be terrible if it’s not just me this year. They could have another Korean next year.” And they look at me like, “Ah.” Because sometimes you can’t-

Amy S. Choi: Got to check that box.

Min Jin Lee: And I’m like, “No, no, no, I’m not enough.” Because I don’t believe in tokenism. And I will say it in my difficult but with a smile.

Amy S. Choi: So I think one of the things that we admire so much about your work and that we always try and bring it to ours, is this idea of being deeply rooted in our traditions and knowing ourselves. And also using that to write a new future. The stories that we have are not static. The culture that we live in is not static. And that what we get to bring forward is something that we create. It’s not something necessarily that has already existed. And so, you have written so many different kinds of things, but when you’re writing fiction, what does fiction bring to you? Is writing fiction a way of telling a different kind of truth?

Min Jin Lee: Well, writing fiction is a way for me to imagine a new world. All I see is chaos around me. I see inequality, cruelty, and I’m trying to figure out, “Well, how do I make things better?” Very few things can I control a hundred percent. I can control what happens on my page. And I try very hard to create as much research as possible and then to create a narrative in which I’m envisioning a new world. If I’m just replicating what I see, that’s photography in a way. And I’m not trying to put down photography, that’s very hard to do, but I’m not keeping a record. I’m actually keeping a record and I’m imagining a new feature. And I do think that’s important. The other thing that’s really cool about writing, and I’m sure you guys have experienced, is that you become a different person after you finish writing something. So I’m always trying to tell my students, if you can learn something new about yourself in the process of this journey, then that’s when you know you won.

Amy S. Choi: It’s interesting because I think when we read Pachinko, we were like, “Oh, fuck. We wish that there was a pachinko for every single culture.” Like if we could get-

Rebecca Lehrer: Or just history classes. There was like, and this is where you actually read a beautiful history that takes you through this entire period, that’s exquisitely written and very humane.

Amy S. Choi: Yes. And just that it was such a service to us and to anybody who picks up this book to read it. And does it feel like a service to you? Do you write for your readers or do you write for yourself?

Min Jin Lee: I don’t write for myself. People often say that. I’ve heard so many famous writers say, “I write only for me.” I think, “Well, that’s a diary.”

I have probably lost a lot of friends right this second.

A lot of my friends who were writers have said this. And I always just think, “Well, that’s interesting.” Of course I wanted to write the things that I wanted to read, but I also would like you to read it, which means that I need to think about your pleasure and your tolerance and your clarity. And I always think of it like having dinner at my house. If you come to dinner at my house-

Amy S. Choi: I want to be invited.

Min Jin Lee: Okay.

Rebecca Lehrer: Just public peer pressure. Nothing better.

Amy S. Choi: It’s going to work, you guys. It’s going to work.

Min Jin Lee: I will be thinking about sparkling water and flat. I’ll be thinking about olives and chips. And I’ll be thinking about dessert. I want to close strong. So I’ll be thinking about dessert.

Amy S. Choi: Absolutely.

Min Jin Lee: But I’m thinking about it because I’m thinking about your pleasure.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yes.

Min Jin Lee: So not just nourishment. That’s important, but it’s also about your pleasure. And I want you to remember things. I want you to have emotional responses to that evening. That’s just for dinner. So imagine what I’m thinking when I’m creating a book. Because you’re giving me 20 hours of your life. I mean, if you buy a copy of one of my books at this point, I think I make a dollar and 22 cents. That’s it. I know… But-

Rebecca Lehrer: I think you made $3.66 right there.

Min Jin Lee: That’s exciting. That’s very good.

But more than that, you have given me 20 hours of your life and your attention. And I think that in the 21st century, to give somebody else 20 hours of your attention, that’s an incredible thing. So I better make it worthwhile. I do think that. And when I read shitty books, I get so irritated.

Amy S. Choi: Do you finish them?

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, I’m not going to name names because I bet you know her. But I recently read a book and Amy’s like, “Why don’t you stop?” And I was so angry for-

Amy S. Choi: You hate-read it.

Rebecca Lehrer: But then I felt that in order to officially say how much I hated it, I had to finish it.

Min Jin Lee: Right.

Rebecca Lehrer: Anyways, that’s how I also felt about The Fountainhead. Which we all know is a shitty book, so that’s different. But yes, I feel so angry about it. Why are you wasting my time?

Min Jin Lee: I know.

Amy S. Choi: Because they’re bad writers.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, but some people say they’re good. And I’m like, “Who are they? Why are they saying that?” Okay, sorry.

Min Jin Lee: No, I hear you.

Rebecca Lehrer: That is the opposite of how I felt about your books. Which I stayed up all night, unfortunately, reading for a full week and didn’t get any sleep and had to take my little children to school. But-

Amy S. Choi: Because a real journey.

Rebecca Lehrer: The best, the absolute best book ever.

Min Jin Lee: Thank you. I could leave right now.

Rebecca Lehrer: I’m trying to make you feel awkward now.

Min Jin Lee: Thank you.

Rebecca Lehrer: So we have some Korean questions, obviously, right?

Amy S. Choi: Do you want to ask them?

Rebecca Lehrer: You know I love to ask Korean questions.

Amy S. Choi: Okay. Ask Korean questions.

Min Jin Lee: Rebecca is Korean.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, you know what? I am an award-winning Asian-American podcaster.

Min Jin Lee: It’s true. It’s true. I have a certificate for you in my bag.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yes. And I don’t ever forget it. I think we’ve been thinking a lot about what it means when something is cool that is you, your identity and this sort of epic moment of Koreanness.

Min Jin Lee: That’s you and me.

Rebecca Lehrer: That’s you guys.

Amy S. Choi: That’s a lot of people in this room.

Rebecca Lehrer: And you’re going to see Eric Nam tonight, right?

Min Jin Lee: I am.

Rebecca Lehrer: And recently Steven Yeun was at the Busan Film Festival and he said the Korean Wave is deeply healing. What has been your experience of that? Connecting into this big pop culture moment of Koreanness globally? It doesn’t have to be healing.

Min Jin Lee: No, it’s funny. I like Steven.

Rebecca Lehrer: Pleasant and difficult.

Min Jin Lee: And difficult. That was not really a flex. No, I like Steven. He’s a really good actor. And I don’t know why he said it’s healing for him, but I imagine that if you say something is healing for you, that means it was an injury, a source of injury. So we have to look at not the outcome but the source. So if you look at the source of the injury, that means that somebody did something to you. So when I meet Asians and Asian Americans who don’t like what they are or who they are or have been made to feel uncomfortable, I always ask, “Well, who did this to you? What happened?” And it’s important.

That said, for me, I think that in this moment of Hallyu cresting, I actually think it’s going to keep going. One of the things that I have been doing for the past 30 years is talking about how complex it is to be Korean. And to not make generalizations about who Koreans are and what they represent and why they are popular now.

I get this question all the time actually, from Koreans from the Peninsula, they always put a microphone and go, “Why do they like us now?” And I say, “Well, I don’t really think of it that way because they don’t really know us. Because they have to know you and me, and we’re all different.” And also, I’ve interviewed so many, many Koreans around the world, and I’ve heard very, very painful things. So most of the things that I hear are actually painful things. They’re not prideful things. So that makes me feel really sad.

Amy S. Choi: What makes you feel proud?

Min Jin Lee: I think our resilience in the light of so much oppression, so much difficulty. I think, when I think about the miracle of the Han, which is this whole idea that Korea was an incredibly poor country. And only in the past 40, 50 years, have you seen this rise, where young people are thinking Samsung is cool, which is interesting. I think what makes me feel really proud is the fact that even though things are really difficult, people are persisting. That fills me with pride. I always want to give more love to Korean people because I feel like they’re not loved enough. I really don’t think they’re loved enough. And when I meet individuals, especially young people, I always kind of think, “You’re really remarkable. Why do you not feel this way?” So that makes me feel really sad. So here you asked me what I was happy about and I gave you the sad answer.

Amy S. Choi: That was very Korean of you, Min.

Min Jin Lee: I know.

Amy S. Choi: So Korean. My God.

Well, you’re also a New Yorker.

Min Jin Lee: I am. I’m actually a very proud New Yorker.

Amy S. Choi: How does New York shape… I think we have an idea of how your Koreanness has shaped you. How does your New Yorkness shape you in your writing?

Min Jin Lee: Well, I don’t forget people in the corners of the room. I think when you’re in New Yorker, you are always aware of how many people it takes to make this thing happen. You live in such proximity to so many people who are different than you in terms of every choice, religion, sexuality, socioeconomic class, neighborhood, regionalism wishes. You can meet somebody who wants desperately to be a singer in New York, and you can meet somebody who wants desperately to be an architect in the same room, the same subway train. And you can also meet people who technically are supposed to hate each other, sitting next to each other talking about, “Hey, where did you get those shoes?” You know what I mean? And I think that’s what I love about New York.

Amy S. Choi: So you immigrated as child from Seoul to Queens. And Queens, I feel like is truly the-

Rebecca Lehrer: Mashiest.

Amy S. Choi: The mashiest place.

Min Jin Lee: The greatest borough in New York.

Amy S. Choi: Yes.

Rebecca Lehrer: Okay. Greatest. We got an Arsenio situation over there.

Amy S. Choi: Do you think that growing up in Queens in particular gave you that kind of diasporic experience or a sense of what it meant to have all these communities working in concert?

Min Jin Lee: Well, when you’re from Queens, you don’t really think of race so much as country and ethnicity. So you don’t think of White people or Black people. You think of-

Amy S. Choi: I was just going to say, do we have to think about White people?

Min Jin Lee: I mean, it’s not a bad thing or a good thing. It’s that you’re thinking, “Oh, he’s Irish or Italian and she’s Jamaican, or she’s Haitian.” Because that’s who your neighbors are.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yes.

Min Jin Lee: And it’s really nice. And if you meet somebody who’s Jewish, you don’t make these dumb statements because you’re going, “Well, there’s Ashkenazi, there’s Sephardic, there’s first generation, there’s fourth generation.” And you can be conservative. You could be Orthodox, you could be Reformed. And that just like, in second grade, you figure that out in New York, and it’s nice. It’s nice because you’re not going to be a jerk about it when other people are going through something. You’re going like, “Oh, where is she coming from? What is he thinking about?” And-

Amy S. Choi: That’s very human.

Min Jin Lee: It’s really, actually, it’s worked out really well in my favor. I don’t think I realized what a gift it is to have come from Queens until I left Queens and I went to Yale and New Haven, and I met people and they were, how should I say this nicely?

Rebecca Lehrer: You don’t have to. It doesn’t have to be nice.

Min Jin Lee: They were so used to their own way of seeing things, which was so simple. So you had all these really, really smart, attractive people, and they could be so simple. And that made me feel really sad. And they thought they were right. Because they were actually in some way, so much more fluent and cosmopolitan than I was. But then I thought, “Yeah, but you don’t know how to take the subway.”

Rebecca Lehrer: When you were in college, did you have that sense? I mean, this is another thing about Korean swagger. Did you come in there and be like, when you saw that, how long did it take you to sort of know, “No, that’s only your way. That’s not even…” Because that was the dominant culture, let’s say, of Yale.

Min Jin Lee: I think I had it because I am from Queens and because, I’m not sure if it’s the Korean part. I’m not sure.

Rebecca Lehrer: No, no. I’m just saying the sense of who you are.

Min Jin Lee: Yeah, who I am. And you know what? I was pushed around a lot of Yale. And the more you push me, the harder I get. I really will not back down. If I think you’re unfair, I will not back down. If I think that if you’re not nice, I will really not back down.

Rebecca Lehrer: I love to bully a bully.

Amy S. Choi: You’re so good at it.

Rebecca Lehrer: I love a bully bullier, too. We’re going to talk to Chani Nicholas about our astrology signs later, but this feels very good.

Amy S. Choi: Well, you also have said that you were a super-late bloomer.

Min Jin Lee: Yes.

Amy S. Choi: And can you tell our audience a little bit about what it was like growing up?

Min Jin Lee: Well, I was a late bloomer, not just professionally. I published my first book when I was 38 after starting to write it at 25.

Amy S. Choi: Took a long time.

Rebecca Lehrer: You’re doing okay.

Amy S. Choi: Yeah. Everybody here-

Rebecca Lehrer: You too might win a National Book Award.

Min Jin Lee: But I was also a late bloomer when it came to making friends. So even now I’m a little confused. I think because I’m a little spectrumy. I take people fairly literally when they say, “I wish for this.” Like, if Amy says, “I wish to come to your house for dinner,” I’m literally thinking, “Oh, I must invite Amy to do it.”

Rebecca Lehrer: This has absolutely been our goal.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, my God. [inaudible 00:23:04].

Rebecca Lehrer: Literally, yes

Min Jin Lee: Right. But then if she didn’t come-

Amy S. Choi: I will come. I’ll be there. What should I bring?

Rebecca Lehrer: But yes, but-

Min Jin Lee: If she didn’t come, a part of me would just think like, “Oh, you misread that social cue.”

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, interesting.

Min Jin Lee: So that’s what I mean by, because I have met so many, many-

Amy S. Choi: If I’m not there, it means I’m dead on the West Side Highway. There’s no other reason.

Rebecca Lehrer: She’ll abandon her family.

Min Jin Lee: Speaking of dead on the West Side Highway, I had a dinner party where David Chang was coming from Momofuku, and he actually got into a car accident on the West Side Highway.

Amy S. Choi: Okay. So that was a bad joke. I’m sorry.

Rebecca Lehrer: Sorry, David.

Min Jin Lee: He’s absolutely fine. It was absolutely fine. But it did happen. Literally, he called me. He’s like, “I was in a car accident with three other people.” That was terrifying.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, God.

Min Jin Lee: But I don’t like it when people aren’t sincere. And actually in New York, I have met so many charismatic, really intoxicatingly seductive people. And they say things and you’re going, “Really? Are you serious?” I don’t know. Sometimes I kind of think, “Oh, I guess that’s just the way of their being in the world.” So I don’t know.

Amy S. Choi: They would do better to be more pleasant and difficult.

Min Jin Lee: I think so, yeah.

Rebecca Lehrer: Here’s a question. So we’ve read that as a student, you hoarded syllabi from classes you weren’t taking.

Min Jin Lee: Yes.

Rebecca Lehrer: And we’ve talked with several people that we admire about how their ability to be humble as students is what makes a great life. What does being a student, what does it look like to maybe be a student for life? How are you learning regularly?

Min Jin Lee: Well, Henry James says that you should be a person on whom nothing is lost. So be a person on whom nothing is lost, which means that you are always paying attention. And one of the things that I really worry about Gen Z, the generation that I love the most, is they are really worried. They’re really anxious. Because they have taken this idea and they’re paying attention to everything.

So a part of me thinks, “Yes, be an eternal student,” but another part of me just goes, “That’s not important. It’s going to get better.” And I really worry about that. And I keep thinking, how can they, when they have a fire hose of information coming 24/7, which never stops. I remember reading a newspaper on paper, and I would read it and put it away and then walk on with my day. And there were decades in my life when I didn’t even have time to read the newspaper. And now you can’t escape it 24/7. So if you take this idea of being a person on whom nothing is lost, of being an eternal student, in some ways it can cause paralysis. So I really, really worry. And I try to figure out ways for kids to kind of go, “You know what? Can we just put down the phone?”

Rebecca Lehrer: Maybe it’s reading books.

Min Jin Lee: “For a couple of hours. Because I love you. Please put down the phone.”

Amy S. Choi: They could spend a $1.22 and get one of these guys.

Min Jin Lee: You could get your brain back.

Rebecca Lehrer: Read some Dostoyevsky.

Amy S. Choi: No, the Russians are beyond me.

Rebecca Lehrer: Crime and Punishment’s really good.

Min Jin Lee: Anna Karenina is so good.

Rebecca Lehrer: I was joking though that I was personally comparing Pachinko and Anna Karenina the other day. So never mind. But I was like, I just read Anna Karenina. And I’d be like, “Oh, they’re in the field again.” And I’d just like, “I know, I understand what we’re doing here.” And I now didn’t skip one word of Pachinko. So that’s one critic’s comparison of Min Jin Lee and Dostoyevsky.

Amy S. Choi: Well, we have-

Min Jin Lee: We have the same birthday.

Rebecca Lehrer: Really? My birthday’s the same as James Joyce a hundred years to the day, which may be-

Min Jin Lee: To which I say “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Rebecca Lehrer: That’s what I’m saying.

Min Jin Lee: Somebody got that.

Rebecca Lehrer: You can’t stop us from being…

Min Jin Lee: If you know, you know.

Rebecca Lehrer: You know?

Amy S. Choi: Oh, my God. Well, we have two more questions for you. One is, it actually has to do with everything that we were talking about here today. And I think Rebecca’s tenderness and what’s happening in the world, and just being able to understand today with what we understand from history. And the opening line of Pachinko is, “History has failed us, but no matter.” And what does that mean? What can we take from that today?

Min Jin Lee: I think that resistance is powerful. The willingness to love and to laugh and to remember, and to extend grace, to persist. That is a revolution. And the bad guys win when we despair. Despair is not enough.

So for me, when I think about history as failing us, because for, let’s think about what’s going on Azerbaijan right now with the Armenians, for example. We can consider what they’re going through and historians are going to dispute the interpretation of what’s going on. We can think about the Rohingya Muslims who are being expelled from their country, and we can agree or disagree. However, these are individuals who no longer have a home. If you look at what’s going on, the UNHCR will tell you that there are over, I think a hundred million displaced people right now in the world. So history is failing all of them. And how we’re going to remember what’s happening to them is one thing, but what they decide to do, how we get food and water to every single person. And I think the crisis of leadership has always been present. I think about that a lot. But I really am so inspired by resistance, the individual’s willingness to be kind, to be loving, to be forgiving, a crazy word. Because we’re not going to get anywhere unless we forgive each other.

Rebecca Lehrer: Some repentance and repair.

Min Jin Lee: And also truth telling, because isn’t that the insult of people who are asked to forgive? It’s without the truth. And I think that when I think about the Truth and Reconciliation Committee and the work they did. It started out with truth and then the reconciliation can occur.

Rebecca Lehrer: What’s your vision for Mash-Up America?

Min Jin Lee: The simple answer I want to say in the top note is a kind of joyfulness about our complexity. There’s so much joy in being mashed up, and I really wish that people would just recognize that the mashed-up American is the American, really. So just even that would bring me a sense of relief. Don’t you think you’d feel a relief?

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, also that maybe you would’ve defined the literal future of America.

Amy S. Choi: So yes, it feels good.

Min Jin Lee: But it’s today.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah, it is today.

Min Jin Lee: It’s today.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah.

Min Jin Lee: We’re here.

Amy S. Choi: We’re here. We’re resisting.

Min Jin Lee: And we’re not going away.

Rebecca Lehrer: You can’t stop me.

Min Jin Lee: I’m here.

Amy S. Choi: Well, okay.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, we have to get you to a K-pop concert today.

Min Jin Lee: You do. I love Eric Nam.

Rebecca Lehrer: I’ve been working on my heart fingers.

Min Jin Lee: This is what you’re supposed to do. It’s like, “Oh wait. Hang on. I brought you something.” You don’t know that one?

Rebecca Lehrer: Now I do.

Well, we are just so grateful to you for making this time and getting, now we’ll never let you go.

Min Jin Lee: I know.

Amy S. Choi: We weren’t supposed to stand and change the mics, but I got to do it.

Rebecca Lehrer: We’re going to say thank you. Thank you. And tell Eric-

Min Jin Lee: I love you guys.

Rebecca Lehrer: We love you.

Well, that show was truly a balm for our souls. Min Jin Lee, our new best friend. We are so grateful for your brilliance and your light. What a gift to all of us. Everybody go buy every single one of her books. Each one is the best thing we’ve ever read. Thank you to the Green Space for making us the artist in residence this year. Being the artist in residence at the Green Space at WNYC and WQXR has been an absolute joy and honor. Next week on the show, we have the extremely hilarious Lisa Traeger, a Russian-American mashup who guides us on how to tap into our baddest self. Sometimes being bad is so, so good. So stay tuned to catch the rest of the Ultimate Guide to a Mash-Up Life. We’ll have episodes every week all fall, and like and follow the Mash-Up Americans wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends. Love you.

Announcer:

This podcast is a production of The Mash-Up Americans. It is executive produced by Amy S Choi, and Rebecca Leher. Senior editor and producer is Sarah Pellegrini. Production manager is Shelby Sandlin. Thanks to DJ Rob Swift for our theme song, Salsa Scratch. Additional Engineering Support by Pedro Raphael Rosado. Please make sure to follow and share this show with your friends.

Rebecca Lehrer: Hi, this is Rebecca, and today we have a special episode. It was recorded live at the Green Space in New York City as part of our artist residency there. And it features the inimitable Min Chin Lee, author of Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires editor. And all around 10 out of 10 perfect Korean queen that she is. It was a beautiful, tender, open, thoughtful conversation and I’m so happy to share it with you now.

Amy S. Choi: Hi. I’m Amy Choi.

Rebecca Lehrer: Hi. And I’m Rebecca Lehrer and we’re The Mash-Up Americans.

Amy S. Choi: Yay. We are so excited to be here today. As the artist in residence at the Green Space, we are so, so, so excited. Because there’s nobody that we revere more than artists that we honor, that we want to aspire to be, that we aspire to be. And I think just the fact that we are here creating the story together with all of you tonight is just magic.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah, we’re here. We are here because being rooted in our traditions and looking to the future, examining what it means to be American today and creating what it means to be American today, that’s our art. And in this moment where it’s sometimes, sorry, it’s very tender right now, it sometimes feels like our humanity is being tested. We could not be more grateful to be here with you all creating this story. So thank you.

Amy S. Choi: We cry a lot.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah. It’s too much.

Amy S. Choi: We do a lot.

Rebecca Lehrer: I’m so sorry.

Amy S. Choi: We do a lot. We’re going to make a joke about crying, but it’s, we’re actually now just already doing it. So it’s, here we are.

Rebecca Lehrer: We’re dissociated backstage. We’ve been doing a lot of, it’s like a huge journey we’re on. Not even plant-based medicine just like us.

Amy S. Choi: No, but we-

Rebecca Lehrer: It’s just natural. That’s for another episode. So as I said, I’m incredibly tender right now in all the mashiest ways. As a Jew in the diaspora, and as a mother and as a child of immigrants and as a human, I’m feeling a lot of ancestral grief, kind of like at a cellular level, and pain and sorrow too, for all of humanity. But I’m also in need of people and community and all of you. And so this is kind of the opposite of the Internet for us and a lot of good healing. So I’m very happy to be here with you.

Amy S. Choi: I’m happy you’re here, too. Oh my God, it’s really good. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Rebecca Lehrer: So anyways, I’ll try not to cry again. Sorry about that.

Amy S. Choi: No, you can cry. We’ll cry. There’s a lot of tears to be had, but this is exactly also why we’re here. Why we do this work is that, I think what we have found is that, what is so healing and important and joyful and great for us. We have been lucky enough to find out that it is healing and joyful and great for our people. And that is everybody that is in here. And so we’re so happy that you’re here.

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, yeah. And speaking of dreams come true-

Amy S. Choi: Why did you put your mic so close all of a sudden?

Rebecca Lehrer: I just need everyone to know how close this dream is.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, my God.

Rebecca Lehrer: So our guest this evening is one of our heroines, author and queen of New York, Min Jin Lee. She has not only written my favorite book of all time other than Pride and Prejudice, she is a writer and former lawyer from Elmhurst, Queens by way of Seoul, Korea. She’s the author of the novels Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times bestseller. Min is the recipient of the 2022 Manhae Grand Prize for literature from South Korea. She’s the editor of the Best American Short Stories 2023, out next week.

Amy S. Choi: The first Korean American to do so.

Rebecca Lehrer: And only the third Asian American to do so. And she is also our fashion hero. So with that-

Amy S. Choi: The stress of figuring out what to wear next to Min Jin Lee…

Rebecca Lehrer: Like you wouldn’t be surprised that we’re all wearing jackets.

Amy S. Choi: No. That was a lot happening.

Rebecca Lehrer: You’re going to see. Anyways, so let’s welcome Min Jin Lee to the stage. All right.

Amy S. Choi: You’re here.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah, she’s here.

Min Jin Lee: I’m like, oh, I’m going to start crying too. Sorry.

Rebecca Lehrer: I did it. Sorry.

Min Jin Lee: I’m famous for crying. I’m always crying.

Rebecca Lehrer: Really?

Min Jin Lee: Constantly. And I actually did an event where this doctor approached me and said, “You know, you could take Paxil.”

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, excuse me.

Min Jin Lee: He meant it in a nice way. I read it, I mean, I heard it as criticism.

Rebecca Lehrer: Rude.

Min Jin Lee: I know he meant it in a nice way.

Amy S. Choi: I will welcome your tears any day.

Rebecca Lehrer: Also, of course, you heard it as criticism. You’re a model minority.

Min Jin Lee: Like, what an asshole.

Rebecca Lehrer: That’s how we hear everything.

Min Jin Lee: Wait, hang on. Good evening. Good evening everybody. Good evening. And also good evening, New York out there, on Charleston [inaudible 00:05:22].

Amy S. Choi: Well, so Min, you have inspired us in literally countless ways. We’re huge fans of your books, your writing, your style, your way of being in the world. And one of the things that you said to us recently that I think struck both of us, because it was such a clear definition of the way that you exist, is that-

Rebecca Lehrer: Just to be clear, when you said it, I cried. For context.

Amy S. Choi: Well, I think the question was, how do you deal with your rage? And you said, “I am pleasant and difficult.” And that was just like everything that we want to be able to be. We want to be pleasant, but we also want to make sure that we can make change that is often very difficult. So I just wanted, could you share a little bit about what that means for you?

Min Jin Lee: Well, I think I’m always upset. Because I’m from New York.

Amy S. Choi: And you’re Korean.

Min Jin Lee: And also I’m awake.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

Min Jin Lee: Right? I’m awake and I’m alert. And I think that if you’re half awake and you’re taking the subway, you should be upset.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah.

Min Jin Lee: The world is so unfair and people are so mean. And then there are also these moments of grace. So I keep thinking I can’t change everything, but I can change a couple of things. And so I have to be difficult, especially as an older person. I’m 54 and I feel very responsible for my young people. So my young people are here tonight and… Oh, hey… Students, researchers, people that I love and-

Amy S. Choi: People whose husbands are nervous to meet you.

Min Jin Lee: Right… Where is he? One of my former researchers got married, which is embarrassed for right now. But anyway, and I guess for me, I keep thinking I have to be difficult because I have to do the right thing. However I want it to happen, so I have to be pleasant. And I can be so fucking pleasant.

Amy S. Choi: You’re the most. But, okay. So-

Rebecca Lehrer: You also talked about a little, the idea of being hyper competent.

Min Jin Lee: Yeah.

Rebecca Lehrer: And how does that play in for you to being the first and bringing people up with you?

Min Jin Lee: Well, because of the way patriarchy works, because of the way white supremacy works, because of the way colonialism works-

Amy S. Choi: It’s such a fucking bummer.

Min Jin Lee: It’s such a fucking bummer if we don’t do things perfectly. So even though I am critical of this idea of being a model minority, and I am, I also notice that if we mess up, we mess up for other people. So I’m not interested in model minority-ism for me. I’ve already done that. I have a job. I’m okay. But I do notice that if I do something well, they will invite other Koreans. They will allow other Asian Americans to do things. And I actually say things like, “It wouldn’t be terrible if it’s not just me this year. They could have another Korean next year.” And they look at me like, “Ah.” Because sometimes you can’t-

Amy S. Choi: Got to check that box.

Min Jin Lee: And I’m like, “No, no, no, I’m not enough.” Because I don’t believe in tokenism. And I will say it in my difficult but with a smile.

Amy S. Choi: So I think one of the things that we admire so much about your work and that we always try and bring it to ours, is this idea of being deeply rooted in our traditions and knowing ourselves. And also using that to write a new future. The stories that we have are not static. The culture that we live in is not static. And that what we get to bring forward is something that we create. It’s not something necessarily that has already existed. And so, you have written so many different kinds of things, but when you’re writing fiction, what does fiction bring to you? Is writing fiction a way of telling a different kind of truth?

Min Jin Lee: Well, writing fiction is a way for me to imagine a new world. All I see is chaos around me. I see inequality, cruelty, and I’m trying to figure out, “Well, how do I make things better?” Very few things can I control a hundred percent. I can control what happens on my page. And I try very hard to create as much research as possible and then to create a narrative in which I’m envisioning a new world. If I’m just replicating what I see, that’s photography in a way. And I’m not trying to put down photography, that’s very hard to do, but I’m not keeping a record. I’m actually keeping a record and I’m imagining a new feature. And I do think that’s important. The other thing that’s really cool about writing, and I’m sure you guys have experienced, is that you become a different person after you finish writing something. So I’m always trying to tell my students, if you can learn something new about yourself in the process of this journey, then that’s when you know you won.

Amy S. Choi: It’s interesting because I think when we read Pachinko, we were like, “Oh, fuck. We wish that there was a pachinko for every single culture.” Like if we could get-

Rebecca Lehrer: Or just history classes. There was like, and this is where you actually read a beautiful history that takes you through this entire period, that’s exquisitely written and very humane.

Amy S. Choi: Yes. And just that it was such a service to us and to anybody who picks up this book to read it. And does it feel like a service to you? Do you write for your readers or do you write for yourself?

Min Jin Lee: I don’t write for myself. People often say that. I’ve heard so many famous writers say, “I write only for me.” I think, “Well, that’s a diary.”

I have probably lost a lot of friends right this second.

A lot of my friends who were writers have said this. And I always just think, “Well, that’s interesting.” Of course I wanted to write the things that I wanted to read, but I also would like you to read it, which means that I need to think about your pleasure and your tolerance and your clarity. And I always think of it like having dinner at my house. If you come to dinner at my house-

Amy S. Choi: I want to be invited.

Min Jin Lee: Okay.

Rebecca Lehrer: Just public peer pressure. Nothing better.

Amy S. Choi: It’s going to work, you guys. It’s going to work.

Min Jin Lee: I will be thinking about sparkling water and flat. I’ll be thinking about olives and chips. And I’ll be thinking about dessert. I want to close strong. So I’ll be thinking about dessert.

Amy S. Choi: Absolutely.

Min Jin Lee: But I’m thinking about it because I’m thinking about your pleasure.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yes.

Min Jin Lee: So not just nourishment. That’s important, but it’s also about your pleasure. And I want you to remember things. I want you to have emotional responses to that evening. That’s just for dinner. So imagine what I’m thinking when I’m creating a book. Because you’re giving me 20 hours of your life. I mean, if you buy a copy of one of my books at this point, I think I make a dollar and 22 cents. That’s it. I know… But-

Rebecca Lehrer: I think you made $3.66 right there.

Min Jin Lee: That’s exciting. That’s very good.

But more than that, you have given me 20 hours of your life and your attention. And I think that in the 21st century, to give somebody else 20 hours of your attention, that’s an incredible thing. So I better make it worthwhile. I do think that. And when I read shitty books, I get so irritated.

Amy S. Choi: Do you finish them?

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, I’m not going to name names because I bet you know her. But I recently read a book and Amy’s like, “Why don’t you stop?” And I was so angry for-

Amy S. Choi: You hate-read it.

Rebecca Lehrer: But then I felt that in order to officially say how much I hated it, I had to finish it.

Min Jin Lee: Right.

Rebecca Lehrer: Anyways, that’s how I also felt about The Fountainhead. Which we all know is a shitty book, so that’s different. But yes, I feel so angry about it. Why are you wasting my time?

Min Jin Lee: I know.

Amy S. Choi: Because they’re bad writers.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, but some people say they’re good. And I’m like, “Who are they? Why are they saying that?” Okay, sorry.

Min Jin Lee: No, I hear you.

Rebecca Lehrer: That is the opposite of how I felt about your books. Which I stayed up all night, unfortunately, reading for a full week and didn’t get any sleep and had to take my little children to school. But-

Amy S. Choi: Because a real journey.

Rebecca Lehrer: The best, the absolute best book ever.

Min Jin Lee: Thank you. I could leave right now.

Rebecca Lehrer: I’m trying to make you feel awkward now.

Min Jin Lee: Thank you.

Rebecca Lehrer: So we have some Korean questions, obviously, right?

Amy S. Choi: Do you want to ask them?

Rebecca Lehrer: You know I love to ask Korean questions.

Amy S. Choi: Okay. Ask Korean questions.

Min Jin Lee: Rebecca is Korean.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, you know what? I am an award-winning Asian-American podcaster.

Min Jin Lee: It’s true. It’s true. I have a certificate for you in my bag.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yes. And I don’t ever forget it. I think we’ve been thinking a lot about what it means when something is cool that is you, your identity and this sort of epic moment of Koreanness.

Min Jin Lee: That’s you and me.

Rebecca Lehrer: That’s you guys.

Amy S. Choi: That’s a lot of people in this room.

Rebecca Lehrer: And you’re going to see Eric Nam tonight, right?

Min Jin Lee: I am.

Rebecca Lehrer: And recently Steven Yeun was at the Busan Film Festival and he said the Korean Wave is deeply healing. What has been your experience of that? Connecting into this big pop culture moment of Koreanness globally? It doesn’t have to be healing.

Min Jin Lee: No, it’s funny. I like Steven.

Rebecca Lehrer: Pleasant and difficult.

Min Jin Lee: And difficult. That was not really a flex. No, I like Steven. He’s a really good actor. And I don’t know why he said it’s healing for him, but I imagine that if you say something is healing for you, that means it was an injury, a source of injury. So we have to look at not the outcome but the source. So if you look at the source of the injury, that means that somebody did something to you. So when I meet Asians and Asian Americans who don’t like what they are or who they are or have been made to feel uncomfortable, I always ask, “Well, who did this to you? What happened?” And it’s important.

That said, for me, I think that in this moment of Hallyu cresting, I actually think it’s going to keep going. One of the things that I have been doing for the past 30 years is talking about how complex it is to be Korean. And to not make generalizations about who Koreans are and what they represent and why they are popular now.

I get this question all the time actually, from Koreans from the Peninsula, they always put a microphone and go, “Why do they like us now?” And I say, “Well, I don’t really think of it that way because they don’t really know us. Because they have to know you and me, and we’re all different.” And also, I’ve interviewed so many, many Koreans around the world, and I’ve heard very, very painful things. So most of the things that I hear are actually painful things. They’re not prideful things. So that makes me feel really sad.

Amy S. Choi: What makes you feel proud?

Min Jin Lee: I think our resilience in the light of so much oppression, so much difficulty. I think, when I think about the miracle of the Han, which is this whole idea that Korea was an incredibly poor country. And only in the past 40, 50 years, have you seen this rise, where young people are thinking Samsung is cool, which is interesting. I think what makes me feel really proud is the fact that even though things are really difficult, people are persisting. That fills me with pride. I always want to give more love to Korean people because I feel like they’re not loved enough. I really don’t think they’re loved enough. And when I meet individuals, especially young people, I always kind of think, “You’re really remarkable. Why do you not feel this way?” So that makes me feel really sad. So here you asked me what I was happy about and I gave you the sad answer.

Amy S. Choi: That was very Korean of you, Min.

Min Jin Lee: I know.

Amy S. Choi: So Korean. My God.

Well, you’re also a New Yorker.

Min Jin Lee: I am. I’m actually a very proud New Yorker.

Amy S. Choi: How does New York shape… I think we have an idea of how your Koreanness has shaped you. How does your New Yorkness shape you in your writing?

Min Jin Lee: Well, I don’t forget people in the corners of the room. I think when you’re in New Yorker, you are always aware of how many people it takes to make this thing happen. You live in such proximity to so many people who are different than you in terms of every choice, religion, sexuality, socioeconomic class, neighborhood, regionalism wishes. You can meet somebody who wants desperately to be a singer in New York, and you can meet somebody who wants desperately to be an architect in the same room, the same subway train. And you can also meet people who technically are supposed to hate each other, sitting next to each other talking about, “Hey, where did you get those shoes?” You know what I mean? And I think that’s what I love about New York.

Amy S. Choi: So you immigrated as child from Seoul to Queens. And Queens, I feel like is truly the-

Rebecca Lehrer: Mashiest.

Amy S. Choi: The mashiest place.

Min Jin Lee: The greatest borough in New York.

Amy S. Choi: Yes.

Rebecca Lehrer: Okay. Greatest. We got an Arsenio situation over there.

Amy S. Choi: Do you think that growing up in Queens in particular gave you that kind of diasporic experience or a sense of what it meant to have all these communities working in concert?

Min Jin Lee: Well, when you’re from Queens, you don’t really think of race so much as country and ethnicity. So you don’t think of White people or Black people. You think of-

Amy S. Choi: I was just going to say, do we have to think about White people?

Min Jin Lee: I mean, it’s not a bad thing or a good thing. It’s that you’re thinking, “Oh, he’s Irish or Italian and she’s Jamaican, or she’s Haitian.” Because that’s who your neighbors are.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yes.

Min Jin Lee: And it’s really nice. And if you meet somebody who’s Jewish, you don’t make these dumb statements because you’re going, “Well, there’s Ashkenazi, there’s Sephardic, there’s first generation, there’s fourth generation.” And you can be conservative. You could be Orthodox, you could be Reformed. And that just like, in second grade, you figure that out in New York, and it’s nice. It’s nice because you’re not going to be a jerk about it when other people are going through something. You’re going like, “Oh, where is she coming from? What is he thinking about?” And-

Amy S. Choi: That’s very human.

Min Jin Lee: It’s really, actually, it’s worked out really well in my favor. I don’t think I realized what a gift it is to have come from Queens until I left Queens and I went to Yale and New Haven, and I met people and they were, how should I say this nicely?

Rebecca Lehrer: You don’t have to. It doesn’t have to be nice.

Min Jin Lee: They were so used to their own way of seeing things, which was so simple. So you had all these really, really smart, attractive people, and they could be so simple. And that made me feel really sad. And they thought they were right. Because they were actually in some way, so much more fluent and cosmopolitan than I was. But then I thought, “Yeah, but you don’t know how to take the subway.”

Rebecca Lehrer: When you were in college, did you have that sense? I mean, this is another thing about Korean swagger. Did you come in there and be like, when you saw that, how long did it take you to sort of know, “No, that’s only your way. That’s not even…” Because that was the dominant culture, let’s say, of Yale.

Min Jin Lee: I think I had it because I am from Queens and because, I’m not sure if it’s the Korean part. I’m not sure.

Rebecca Lehrer: No, no. I’m just saying the sense of who you are.

Min Jin Lee: Yeah, who I am. And you know what? I was pushed around a lot of Yale. And the more you push me, the harder I get. I really will not back down. If I think you’re unfair, I will not back down. If I think that if you’re not nice, I will really not back down.

Rebecca Lehrer: I love to bully a bully.

Amy S. Choi: You’re so good at it.

Rebecca Lehrer: I love a bully bullier, too. We’re going to talk to Chani Nicholas about our astrology signs later, but this feels very good.

Amy S. Choi: Well, you also have said that you were a super-late bloomer.

Min Jin Lee: Yes.

Amy S. Choi: And can you tell our audience a little bit about what it was like growing up?

Min Jin Lee: Well, I was a late bloomer, not just professionally. I published my first book when I was 38 after starting to write it at 25.

Amy S. Choi: Took a long time.

Rebecca Lehrer: You’re doing okay.

Amy S. Choi: Yeah. Everybody here-

Rebecca Lehrer: You too might win a National Book Award.

Min Jin Lee: But I was also a late bloomer when it came to making friends. So even now I’m a little confused. I think because I’m a little spectrumy. I take people fairly literally when they say, “I wish for this.” Like, if Amy says, “I wish to come to your house for dinner,” I’m literally thinking, “Oh, I must invite Amy to do it.”

Rebecca Lehrer: This has absolutely been our goal.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, my God. [inaudible 00:23:04].

Rebecca Lehrer: Literally, yes

Min Jin Lee: Right. But then if she didn’t come-

Amy S. Choi: I will come. I’ll be there. What should I bring?

Rebecca Lehrer: But yes, but-

Min Jin Lee: If she didn’t come, a part of me would just think like, “Oh, you misread that social cue.”

Rebecca Lehrer: Oh, interesting.

Min Jin Lee: So that’s what I mean by, because I have met so many, many-

Amy S. Choi: If I’m not there, it means I’m dead on the West Side Highway. There’s no other reason.

Rebecca Lehrer: She’ll abandon her family.

Min Jin Lee: Speaking of dead on the West Side Highway, I had a dinner party where David Chang was coming from Momofuku, and he actually got into a car accident on the West Side Highway.

Amy S. Choi: Okay. So that was a bad joke. I’m sorry.

Rebecca Lehrer: Sorry, David.

Min Jin Lee: He’s absolutely fine. It was absolutely fine. But it did happen. Literally, he called me. He’s like, “I was in a car accident with three other people.” That was terrifying.

Amy S. Choi: Oh, God.

Min Jin Lee: But I don’t like it when people aren’t sincere. And actually in New York, I have met so many charismatic, really intoxicatingly seductive people. And they say things and you’re going, “Really? Are you serious?” I don’t know. Sometimes I kind of think, “Oh, I guess that’s just the way of their being in the world.” So I don’t know.

Amy S. Choi: They would do better to be more pleasant and difficult.

Min Jin Lee: I think so, yeah.

Rebecca Lehrer: Here’s a question. So we’ve read that as a student, you hoarded syllabi from classes you weren’t taking.

Min Jin Lee: Yes.

Rebecca Lehrer: And we’ve talked with several people that we admire about how their ability to be humble as students is what makes a great life. What does being a student, what does it look like to maybe be a student for life? How are you learning regularly?

Min Jin Lee: Well, Henry James says that you should be a person on whom nothing is lost. So be a person on whom nothing is lost, which means that you are always paying attention. And one of the things that I really worry about Gen Z, the generation that I love the most, is they are really worried. They’re really anxious. Because they have taken this idea and they’re paying attention to everything.

So a part of me thinks, “Yes, be an eternal student,” but another part of me just goes, “That’s not important. It’s going to get better.” And I really worry about that. And I keep thinking, how can they, when they have a fire hose of information coming 24/7, which never stops. I remember reading a newspaper on paper, and I would read it and put it away and then walk on with my day. And there were decades in my life when I didn’t even have time to read the newspaper. And now you can’t escape it 24/7. So if you take this idea of being a person on whom nothing is lost, of being an eternal student, in some ways it can cause paralysis. So I really, really worry. And I try to figure out ways for kids to kind of go, “You know what? Can we just put down the phone?”

Rebecca Lehrer: Maybe it’s reading books.

Min Jin Lee: “For a couple of hours. Because I love you. Please put down the phone.”

Amy S. Choi: They could spend a $1.22 and get one of these guys.

Min Jin Lee: You could get your brain back.

Rebecca Lehrer: Read some Dostoyevsky.

Amy S. Choi: No, the Russians are beyond me.

Rebecca Lehrer: Crime and Punishment’s really good.

Min Jin Lee: Anna Karenina is so good.

Rebecca Lehrer: I was joking though that I was personally comparing Pachinko and Anna Karenina the other day. So never mind. But I was like, I just read Anna Karenina. And I’d be like, “Oh, they’re in the field again.” And I’d just like, “I know, I understand what we’re doing here.” And I now didn’t skip one word of Pachinko. So that’s one critic’s comparison of Min Jin Lee and Dostoyevsky.

Amy S. Choi: Well, we have-

Min Jin Lee: We have the same birthday.

Rebecca Lehrer: Really? My birthday’s the same as James Joyce a hundred years to the day, which may be-

Min Jin Lee: To which I say “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”

Rebecca Lehrer: That’s what I’m saying.

Min Jin Lee: Somebody got that.

Rebecca Lehrer: You can’t stop us from being…

Min Jin Lee: If you know, you know.

Rebecca Lehrer: You know?

Amy S. Choi: Oh, my God. Well, we have two more questions for you. One is, it actually has to do with everything that we were talking about here today. And I think Rebecca’s tenderness and what’s happening in the world, and just being able to understand today with what we understand from history. And the opening line of Pachinko is, “History has failed us, but no matter.” And what does that mean? What can we take from that today?

Min Jin Lee: I think that resistance is powerful. The willingness to love and to laugh and to remember, and to extend grace, to persist. That is a revolution. And the bad guys win when we despair. Despair is not enough.

So for me, when I think about history as failing us, because for, let’s think about what’s going on Azerbaijan right now with the Armenians, for example. We can consider what they’re going through and historians are going to dispute the interpretation of what’s going on. We can think about the Rohingya Muslims who are being expelled from their country, and we can agree or disagree. However, these are individuals who no longer have a home. If you look at what’s going on, the UNHCR will tell you that there are over, I think a hundred million displaced people right now in the world. So history is failing all of them. And how we’re going to remember what’s happening to them is one thing, but what they decide to do, how we get food and water to every single person. And I think the crisis of leadership has always been present. I think about that a lot. But I really am so inspired by resistance, the individual’s willingness to be kind, to be loving, to be forgiving, a crazy word. Because we’re not going to get anywhere unless we forgive each other.

Rebecca Lehrer: Some repentance and repair.

Min Jin Lee: And also truth telling, because isn’t that the insult of people who are asked to forgive? It’s without the truth. And I think that when I think about the Truth and Reconciliation Committee and the work they did. It started out with truth and then the reconciliation can occur.

Rebecca Lehrer: What’s your vision for Mash-Up America?

Min Jin Lee: The simple answer I want to say in the top note is a kind of joyfulness about our complexity. There’s so much joy in being mashed up, and I really wish that people would just recognize that the mashed-up American is the American, really. So just even that would bring me a sense of relief. Don’t you think you’d feel a relief?

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, also that maybe you would’ve defined the literal future of America.

Amy S. Choi: So yes, it feels good.

Min Jin Lee: But it’s today.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah, it is today.

Min Jin Lee: It’s today.

Rebecca Lehrer: Yeah.

Min Jin Lee: We’re here.

Amy S. Choi: We’re here. We’re resisting.

Min Jin Lee: And we’re not going away.

Rebecca Lehrer: You can’t stop me.

Min Jin Lee: I’m here.

Amy S. Choi: Well, okay.

Rebecca Lehrer: Well, we have to get you to a K-pop concert today.

Min Jin Lee: You do. I love Eric Nam.

Rebecca Lehrer: I’ve been working on my heart fingers.

Min Jin Lee: This is what you’re supposed to do. It’s like, “Oh wait. Hang on. I brought you something.” You don’t know that one?

Rebecca Lehrer: Now I do. Well, we are just so grateful to you for making this time and getting, now we’ll never let you go.

Min Jin Lee: I know.

Amy S. Choi: We weren’t supposed to stand and change the mics, but I got to do it.

Rebecca Lehrer: We’re going to say thank you. Thank you. And tell Eric-

Min Jin Lee: I love you guys.

Rebecca Lehrer: We love you. Well, that show was truly a balm for our souls. Min Jin Lee, our new best friend. We are so grateful for your brilliance and your light. What a gift to all of us. Everybody go buy every single one of her books. Each one is the best thing we’ve ever read. Thank you to the Green Space for making us the artist in residence this year. Being the artist in residence at the Green Space at WNYC and WQXR has been an absolute joy and honor. Next week on the show, we have the extremely hilarious Lisa Traeger, a Russian-American mashup who guides us on how to tap into our baddest self. Sometimes being bad is so, so good. So stay tuned to catch the rest of the Ultimate Guide to a Mash-Up Life. We’ll have episodes every week all fall, and like and follow the Mash-Up Americans wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends. Love you.

CREDITS

This podcast is a production of The Mash-Up Americans. It is executive produced by Amy S. Choi and Rebecca Lehrer. Senior editor and producer is Sara Pellegrini. Production manager is Shelby Sandlin. Thanks to DJ Rob Swift for our theme song, Salsa Scratch. Additional engineering support by Pedro Rafael Rosado. Please make sure to follow and share this show with your friends. Bye.