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Southern California is home to the largest community of Koreans outside of Korea.
One of the best-known Korean-Americans in the state is best-selling author and artist
Helie Lee. Our Hwang Ji-hye , currently in Los Angeles,
had the chance to meet with her. Ji-hye?
Mark, Yes, I had the chance to sit down with Helie and we had a nice chat about her experiences.
A mother of four-year-old twins,... Helie bursts with pride about her bicultural heritage.
Born in Seoul, Helie Lee was only four-years-old when her family moved to Montreal, Canada
in 1968. After a year, the family settled in Los Angeles
and since then, her journey in search of her roots started.
Helie's best-seller "Still Life with Rice" and "In the Absence of Sun" are also about
her family's experience in Korea from the 1930s, under Japan's colonial rule, through
the Korean War, and until the late 1990s.
"English was never something that I grasped or felt I had talents towards but it is ironically
the thing I became as an adult. And it's because of the stories of my family."
Helie says a sense of identity -- knowing where she comes from as a Korean -- made her
what she is today and will be tomorrow.
"And if you don't understand who you are you can't be present. If you can't be present,
there's no way you can envision the future. And I want to envision a future for myself,
I want to envision a future for my twins and I want to envision a future for my community
and so it is crucial that we
understand the metal of our back."
"On that note, you lived as a man for more than six months, tell me about your experience
as a man and why did you do that?"
"I thought men had it better, boys had it better and when I had the opportunity I decided
to experience that and to prove that what I was thinking was true.
No. The moment I did the transformation, I lived as a man for six-and-a-half months.
For the first month it was very fun, every new experience was very fun everything seemed
new everything tasted new, looked new but once I actually became absorbed to my male
character, I realized that
it's not always better on the other side of the fence."
As a male, Helie learnt there is an image of masculinity that men always have to carry
with them... and there are certain limitations that are not acknowledged by society.
Drawing on her experiences, Helie performed a one-woman show in Hollywood that was so
successful that it ran for six months, instead of the four week-run she had originally planned.
Helie hopes to contribute more to society by sharing her experiences.
She wants to be a humanitarian, a great mother, wife and daughter... and make the world...
and at the very least... her community a better place.
Guys?
Thank-you, Ji-hye. That was our Hwang Ji-hye reporting from Los Angeles on the life and
experiences of best-selling Korean-American author, Helie Lee.