Jung Park, When the Fork in the Road Runs Parallel

 

122. Jung Park

SPEAKERS

Jung Park, Will Bachman

 

Will Bachman  00:39

Hello and welcome to the 92 report conversations with members of the Harvard and Radcliffe class of 1992 I’m your host, will Bachman, and I’m delighted to be here today with Jung Park. Jung, welcome to the show.

 

Jung Park  00:53

Thank you so much for having me So Jung,

 

Will Bachman  00:57

tell me about your journey since graduating from Harvard.

 

Jung Park  01:01

Yes, might be a little lengthy, but hopefully we’ll make it somewhat interesting. I just want to preface it by saying when I was at Harvard, I always sort of felt this internal and external battle between the two things that I was going to do educationally and in my life. So one area that I truly wanted to do was be an artist, that includes painting visual arts, but also acting. That was also one of my big secret passions. And then, of course, being the child of Korean immigrants, I was told I had three choices in life. One, I could be a doctor. Two, I could be a lawyer, or three, I could marry one of those. So as I embarked in Harvard, my Harvard journey, I wanted to concentrate in ves and do some acting, but I compromised with my parents and ended up concentrating English and American Literature and Language, which is wonderful, since I love writing. But throughout my time there, I was very conflicted about pursuing what I truly wanted to versus what was expected of me. And I think this theme has been reoccurring in my life, even somewhat up to this day, I was very fortunate in my end of my junior year at Harvard. I I did. I had done a play, non speaking role in a play for one of my classmates. And because of that, a casting director in Boston contacted me. They were doing an open call search for a very diverse group of kids to be in an ABC after school special, slash slash PBS special. It was very controversial, because it was going to feature, it was going to talk about kids with HIV and AIDS, which, back in 91 was very taboo, and they wanted to be very sensitive about this story they were writing and and creating. So they had a massive open call search. I ended up auditioning for it. Did my homework in the waiting room because I had no idea how to do on camera audition. But I was very fortunate, because I practiced acting all the time on camera acting came very naturally to me. The casting director loved me. Did a callback, did a read with the other perspective castmates, and I got picked. I was picked to be in that show, and we shot it at the end of the summer of my junior year around Boston. It was wonderful. And because of that, that particular acting job, I automatically became eligible to join the Screen Actors Guild, renowned sag AFTRA. So after that, I, of course, I fell in love with on camera acting, did a couple of other small projects. Then after a year at in Boston, went back to California, where I’m from, and I had a choice to continue acting, move to LA, continue acting, or go to law school. So I randomly auditioned for a talent agency in the San Diego area, and they loved me, said I was an amazing actress, signed me on, started sending me auditions to go to an LA at the same time, I found out I got admitted into law school. So not having the courage to pursue my own dream, artistic dream, I decided to go to law school and did my representation with the agency. Moved to Northern California and had some intellectually, very wonderful experiences helping people in need, doing a lot of advocacy, Public Interest Law at King Hall, which is UC Davis’ School of Law, ended up getting my license as a lawyer in 97 I believe 97 and the. Then at the same time in law school, feeling my calling to do any kind of artistic work, I started going to open mics to do stand up comedy in Sacramento, and that was really fun. So then I moved to the San Francisco area, worked in law firms by day, and did stand up comedy and improv comedy at night. Some of the characters I created were not very politically correct in our time and day, but they’re funny back in the aughts. And then around 2001 I decided to move down to LA and sorry. Separate from that in 2000 I opened my own law firm in San Francisco, right above the nut house, which I don’t know what that says about me, but it was really fun. I was right by the trolley cars on Geary and forth for any San Francisco people, you know what I’m talking about. And I took on because I was fearless. I took on a bunch of huge cases and had tremendous results. I helped a Vietnamese woman avoid deportation for a felony she committed, but had seen the light and turned around, and so I marched into the District Attorney’s Office, not knowing any better, but being sharp with my research and writing, and was able to convince him an error was made in her initial criminal case, which is a small loophole, very small loophole, and because of that, he agreed to re sentence her to under the maximum that causes triggers deportation of permanent residents, so she was able to stay in the US, build a good life, make up For her crime, literally, and she sent me a thank you letter many years later. So at the same time, my little Law Office above the nut house is blossoming with little advertising just because of word of mouth. And I had wonderful mentors in law. I had a bunch I was 30 at the time. I looked like I was 18, and I had 70 year old white guys who are very prominent in plaintiff side civil litigation as my mentors. We We got along so well, and they nominated me for the American ends of court up in the Bay Area, San Francisco area, which is basically a bunch of old white dude lawyers drinking red wine and eating steak and hobnobbing, and then me, it was really fun. So had a lot of cases. Got asked to be a to join a major law firm after they saw my comedy routine at one of our meetings, and I turned them down because I said, I don’t want to be a lawyer. I hate lawyers. They’re a bunch of a holes, but I like fighting for people. They thought that was really impressive from a young attorney, so they begged me to join them even more. And I said, No, thank you. At that time, I auditioned and got into a traveling theater program with Kaiser Permanente. Believe it or not, Kaiser has a traveling acting troupe, and the best part of it is you get health insurance. I mean, it is Kaiser. You might lose a leg when you go in for a cough, but, you know, it’s still health insurance for an actor. So I had a full time job in their traveling theater group, and I closed my law office because this was a full time acting job. It was really fun. We went to different high schools, continuation schools, and most touchingly, juvenile detention centers, and we performed an educational theater show. Most of these kids had never seen a live show in their lives, and afterwards, we did a counseling Q and A. We were trained to counsel students. And it was so heartwarming seeing these kids light up, seeing us perform, and getting the bug to they would ask us to take the mic, and some of them would just start performing on our little makeshift stage, and then we would do Q and A about everything from suicide to drug prevention to sexual issues that teenagers may face is very rewarding, tiring, but rewarding. And so after that, I caught the bug. I was still doing comedy, closed my law office, even though it’s doing quite well, and I moved back down to Southern California, Los Angeles, and I said, I’m gonna just really try to devote my time to my stand up, my sketch, my improv. I joined the second city La troop improv training program back when they had a branch in near the Comedy Store. And then I also worked at a law office, plaintiff side civil litigation law office. One of the partners was the brother of Cesar Chavez. And so we did a lot of work on behalf of farm workers and other vulnerable individuals that was intellectually quite rewarding, emotionally very draining, because defense attorneys love to gang up on a plaintiff side attorney who has the truth on their side. So that was quite interesting. Interesting. I enjoyed earning the nickname of pit bull. I loved this and one of my greatest pleasures. In fact, I think my my boss framed the the letter I had a particular jerk at a plaintiff’s law firm representing the doctor who had committed egregious malpractice on my poor client’s deceased wife, he filed this frivolous, basically dismissal summary judgment motion, and basically told me I was not going to have any success. I should just give it up. And I told him, Well, I’ll see you in court, sir, which he didn’t like. And of course, he went apoplectic. He was so pissed off because in my paperwork that I filed, I requested sanctions against him, and I forget the certain amount, but I asked for one penny over the amount, that triggers a bar like complain against your attorney. And of course, I won. I won because I’m a word nerd. I do my research, I do my writing, and then he wouldn’t speak to me anymore. It was hilarious. Every time I was in the room and I tried to talk to him, and he was much older than me, he would tell my boss, I’m not going to talk to her, I’m not going to talk to her, which my boss now found very delightful. So anyway, so I was working at this plaintiff side law firm, doing a bunch of sketch stand up improv around town and getting some, you know, good feedback. People really like my material, but I decided I didn’t want to go on the road. I wanted to focus more on staying local and doing some acting. And then, of course, I decided I wanted to have a family. I wanted to really settle down. Met my husband around then, and then had my son. I have some wonderful stepsons as well. And I took time away from comedy. It’s just very difficult to go to a show and your little son is with my son. I remember one time he saw me speaking, and he said, That’s my mama. So yeah, that was cute. But then in 2012 I got tired of being a lawyer. As I said, I don’t like lawyers. I like helping people, but most lawyers are a bunch of unenlightened maybe it’s just in litigation, I don’t know, but they’re not pleasant people. So So around 2012 my husband and I opened a Speech and Debate Academy in Pasadena, California, and we had tremendous success right away, my husband had done forensics or speech and debate all through middle school, high school, college. I had been a public speaker and performer. I hadn’t outright done speech and debate, but I was very comfortable with the skill sets. And so our academy, we focused on being an educational sanctuary, helping kids be empowered and find their voice. We really love working with the kids, and we got students right away. And most of our students are East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, but we do have other backgrounds as well. My Academy is called Nova 42 and we’ve been around for now, gosh, 13 years, 13 years. We just went to the Harvard speech and debate tournament. Just got back from that, and I had not been back to Harvard in 30 some years. So that was interesting. We had six inches of snow. It was incredible. But anyway, so I have been coaching speech, running my business, and then the pandemic hit. Luckily, we were able to survive that with online classes. And during that time, I kept listening to this unhappiness of not being an artist, of not doing what I loved. I love coaching kids. It’s very fulfilling, but there’s still something missing for me. So when the pandemic hit, I had a lot more time at home, and I just randomly signed up for let me backtrack in right before the pandemic hit, I joined an acting class, which, for my age at the time, was terrifying to me, but I drove down to the valley, or the San Fernando Valley, went into the second class, and I loved it. I loved everything about it. I love the hobnobbing for coffee afterwards every I just soaked it all in. And then the pandemic hit. My teacher in that class had encouraged all of us to start Tiktok accounts. In fact, it was our homework. We had to open up a Tiktok account, learn what Tiktok was, and we had to post a video. He didn’t care what it was, but something performer related. And I had had this really stupid, stupid sketch idea that I developed in our sketch writing class. Set the Groundlings many years ago. I mean, it’s so dumb, but it’s basically a GPS that’s shipped in a Korean made car, and it’s an Asian GPS, so it tells you really effed up driving directions with the Korean accent.

 

Will Bachman  15:16

This is, this is an open show, right? This, just show where we’re we’re completely experimental here. Do you, do you want to do some of your material here? Yeah,

 

Jung Park  15:27

it was. So what I did was I basically this, you could do it if you Yeah, I, what I did was I filmed myself in my car with my just my phone camera, and then my son helped me film it. And then I filmed the G GPS talking to me, and, you know, saying stuff like, in a 400 feet you’re going to see stop a sign driving straight through. Don’t stop straight through. So we filmed that. I did the audio voiceover. I edited it, I posted it on my new tick tock account, and it, it went somewhat viral for for, you know, just a regular person, I got 181,000 views, and all these likes and all these people joining. So I did a second one. I did a third one. I got a couple of comments that said, this is so racist. I said, but it’s about my people, and you obviously have not seen my moms in my academy driving in my parking lot who hit my car. But anyway, enough of that. So, so I did a couple more videos, and I did a couple of other more educational videos, and then I submitted I learned how to use Instagram, and Instagram Live, set up an account, and this talent agent at the time was sponsoring a talent showcase online on Instagram Live. So I decided, what the heck I’ve got time I miss acting. I’ll do it. So I signed up. She notified me I was one of the actors selected, and I did a dramatic monolog. And it was funny because she she told me, Oh, I thought you’re going to do something comedic. And I said, Oops, my bad. But as a result, a manager saw me. She thought I was very talented, and she ended up representing me. And through her, I got a new theatrical agent and commercial agent, and then I ended up doing a bunch of co star roles, just small roles, but on big projects, like American Crime Story, impeachment, Grey’s Anatomy, good trouble and and then ambulance, that movie, Michael Bay’s movie, ambulance. So that was pretty rewarding. Then I did a couple of commercials, but the big thing to come out of that was my our then manager ended up also representing my son. His name is Liam Kyle. My son is just destined to be a performer. The moment he signed on, he ended up booking a Netflix movie with Adam sandwich production company. It’s called home team, and it’s about, it’s a true story of Sean Payton during the year he got banned from the NFL, and then he ended up coaching his son’s Pee Wee football Middle School team. Okay, my son plays one of the hapless middle school football team players in that movie they shot on location during the pandemic for for nine weeks in Louisiana. Then he immediately went on to a Nickelodeon Paramount plus show, the remake of Fairly Odd Parents, as you can say, see, I’m blatantly plugging my son. And then he did an Apple TV plus TV show, and then his probably most consistently well known role is he was in both seasons of the Santa Clauses with Tim Allen on Disney plus, and he plays the cranky old man elf. So a lot of people enjoy that. In fact, one of the the alumni Director of the National Speech and Debate Association when we went to Nationals. She, she and her kids are big fans of his, so that was fun. She, she got a picture with him, and We gave her a headshot, and then she gave us VIP seating for awards. That was such a nerd fun, yay. And so I manage my son. I’m also his acting coach. He’s been doing speech and debate since second grade. He’s 16 now, and he goes to a performing arts school, but it’s been very rewarding being coaching him and seeing him thrive. And then with my own career, I’ve started to get really into I dropped my theatrical agent, and I’ve been really focusing on writing my own scripts and developing my own content, just to sort of elevate my unique voice and not audition for the Vietnamese nail salon. Lady who speaks Vietnamese, when I told my agent, I don’t, first of all, I’m not Vietnamese. I don’t speak any Vietnamese, and she said, Oh, just, you know, just fake it. Which I thought was kind of disrespectful to Vietnamese people. So, yeah, that’s my current journey. I run my speech and debate Academy. I am still going out on auditions, mostly commercial auditions. Right now. I’m writing several scripts, oh, and I joined, I took a class, and I joined Harvard wood, which is a wonderful organization of Harvard alums in the industry, in the Hollywood industry, so Laura, who’s one of the people that runs it, they’re just the loveliest people. I did a writing class with them, and a couple of other events. And I think it’s a wonderful if anyone you know is in the LA area, or even not LA but is interesting connecting with alums who are doing writing, etc, or want to go to very interesting webinars. Harvard Wood is a wonderful organization for alums. So, yeah, I’ve been doing that. I’m getting a director certificate through UCLA Extension right now, working in a couple of silly short films. I wrote a I was feeling very old, very old. I’m sure many people in our class are starting to feel old. I just turned 55 although my students are very kind to me, tell me I look much younger. So I just wrote a short story when I was feeling particularly old about an old Asian Tiger Mom visited by mysterious pigeon and what happens towards the end of her life. And that short story, which I wrote completely from the heart, ended up doing pretty well in a couple of writing competitions. So I think I’m going to rewrite it as a short film script and just act in it myself, because I can do big shield lady really well, and she lives in a cluttered, 40 quarters house, so perfect. I don’t have to clean up my dining room or just shoot it there. The only issue I have is I need to find a damn pigeon. I look so crazy because I was filming pigeons every location I’m at just to see how they move or what I could do. And I think I’ll just have to have to end up calling someone who, who rents out pigeons for, you know, TV or film see how much they cost. Because I just need a pigeon to land on my shoulder and then look at me very broodingly when no pun intended, the pigeon is the co star. It’s very key for this short, magical realism short story I have Anyway, tell

 

Will Bachman  22:36

us about some of your comedy bits and some of the sort of topics that you, that you’ve covered,

 

Jung Park  22:41

yeah, you know, I grew up for a long time in the Mexican border in a little town called Calexico. I think Trump actually visited it a few years ago. But Calexico is in the the desert. It’s near Yuma, and my parents owned a store or two, literally right next to the border crossing on First Street. So right before I left for Harvard, I actually spoke English with a mild Mexican accent, because I had grown up in Calexico since fourth grade, and front went straight from Calexico to Harvard. It was quite a cultural shock, and I still remember some of my classmates in Greeno would tell me, Oh, you have such an interesting accent. Did you go to a Swiss boarding school because they couldn’t place? And I said, Oh, my God, no, I don’t know why you’re saying that was a weird Korean I was more Latina than Korean, so a lot of my stand up comedy I wrote in my early years, dealt with being both being Korean, but growing up in a Mexican American border town and feeling more Latina than Korean. I actually joined La Raza at Harvard, and my my dorm mate at the time, thought it’d be funny to tell the president of La Raza, that I was half Mexican, that my name was Jung Park Torres. And then it got to be one of those situations where the the joke went to it carried on too long. Then I felt really bad. I didn’t know how to admit to him that it was just initially a joke. His name is Raul, if you ever hear this, sorry, Raul, but at towards, I think, the second semester, he asked me to run for officer for something, and I could my guilt. I just couldn’t handle I said, Raul, I’ve got to tell you something. I’m not actually half Mexican. I did grow up in Calexico. I am fluent in Spanish, but I’m not actually half Mexican. He was so mad at me, I think he told me, you know, you’re still a friend, but you’re not a sister anymore, which is kind of rude when you think about it. But at the time, I was like, I understand, you know. But so I have one joke, where, where? This is a true story. I was in the Mission District in San Francisco, so my joke. Is, you know, oh, I went to this Mexican restaurant, I ordered a burrito, and the woman behind the counter said unborito, but I said pinchy gringa. And I, which means, you know, a burrito for that fucking white girl. And I remember saying what she called me a pinchy gringa, which means fucking white girl, not pinchy chinita, which means freaking chink girl. I made it. It’s so stupid things like that. And then I talk a lot about my family. My dad would always make us he was paranoid that everybody was a shoplifter. So we had the horrible job after school of always following our customers around, watching them. And so one of my jokes is based on that, how we had this 9898 Cent Store, because my dad was too cheap to franchise the extra penny. And he would tell me all the time, you know, you see dead beach over there. She always steal from me. You follow her and you watch her hand. Okay, you watch her fucking hand. I got so tired of following my mom around that summer. That’s my stupid joke. I got a lot of jokes like that. I remember I did this Latin comedy showcase one time over at the Ice House in Pasadena, right here, where I live, near Pasadena. My Academy is in Pasadena, and I remember I just killed. They love me. They love me. They thought it was so funny. And one of the ways I would get out on stage was I would get out and I bow, really stereotypically Asian, just bow, and then pause and then just say, hola, hola Ketan, get on. They just love that. That was so funny. But I really enjoyed my stand up. I’ve been thinking about writing some new material and maybe just trying it out on America’s Got Talent or something, but comedy and doing comedy being on stage. I love that. The last time I was on stage was I was asked to participate in a staged play reading over in San Santa, Barbara, and it was for the it was a Jewish Arts Council group, and was a fundraiser, which I thought was wonderful. So we performed this at a theater up there in Santa Barbara, and it was so fun. It’s really fun. I love being on stage. And yeah, that is my crazy life so far.

 

Will Bachman  27:35

Tell us about any courses or professors that you had at Harvard that continue to resonate with you. Yeah,

 

Jung Park  27:41

you know I, I was accepted at the time. The head of the English department was Phil Fisher. I don’t know if anyone who concentrated in English will remember him, but he was quite an interesting man. I can’t remember if his accent was actually Mid Atlantic. Mock British or not, but I noticed several of the professors there would suddenly develop a British accent out of nowhere. You know, I guess it was just fancier. And he was offering a special graduate seminar. And the class, the seminar, literally was, we were only going to read the first few pages of different novels, only the first few pages, and we were going to close read them. We’re going to deconstruct, close read them. And at the time, I was just deep, deep into the whole analytical stuff theory, close reading of different novels, texts and etc, you know, I’d roam around the Charles River my coat and look really angst ridden. I was really into it. I almost went to graduate school and got thought about getting a PhD, but so I thought his seminar sounded fascinating, and he warned us ahead of time that very few undergrads would be accepted. So this is exactly what he said. So at precisely, and I forgot what time, but he was like, at precisely 12pm you shall leave a sample of your writing in a box in front of my door. I will review those essays, and I will place on them a note that says, accepted or not. You can retrieve those, and you will find out. So I was like, okay, by the I don’t know if you remember, but at the time, I got kind of gotten used to the fact that if you ever want to do anything at Harvard, you have to audition or apply for it pretty much. Yeah, so I was used to that with the fiction writing seminars that I’d done. So I picked my best analytical writing essay that, I think my graduate student, guy, I forgot what you call him, for our, our little subgroup, he give me an eight, an A plus on it. So I submitted that, and then I got eagerly, went and got my thing, and I saw I was accepted. So that was pretty because, you know what’s validation? It’s not external. So I got into that seminar. I actually really, really enjoyed it. We just studied. We went so in depth on the first few pages and what it means about different themes and things in the larger work. And I had always been a word nerd, always loved reading, and I just I enjoyed it way more than I should. So that seminar and what I learned from it, and even I teach things that I learned from my English classes, to this day, I still teach it to my students, because they have to do a lot of research and writing for a memorized speeches. I also used to teach some writing, and would use those skills, but I would say that seminar made a huge impact on me as a word nerd,

 

Will Bachman  30:50

what’s what’s an example of a lesson from that that you have kept you know something for for our listeners here, for me, about the first couple pages of a novel, what you would be looking for.

 

Jung Park  31:02

This is a general tip, but you’d be surprised how many students don’t do this. And this applies to also film analysis. But one thing I always tell students is that read your let’s say you get a book. You’re assigned a book for class, even though you don’t want to hear this advice. Kids read the book first through, through and through, just for the enjoyment following the plot your first reaction to it take a day or so, and then read it again, thinking from the point of view of the writer, the creator of the thing, and start writing down anything you notice that just strikes you as Interesting or odd, and after you look at your notes, find the pattern. Because I’m very obsessed with pattern recognition, and I find that pattern recognition is really the key to success in life. I had no background in training kids in things such as humorous interpretation or informative speaking, which are two events in speech, in the world of speech. But I simply watched the national winners. I figured out the pattern. And then, of course, I viewed that with some of my own tips and tricks and my students, you know, I had a middle school national champion I coach my first year, and many of my kids are the top in informative in the country. And it isn’t even hard for me. It’s just a matter of it’s a combination of your left and right brain, where look at the template, look at the structure, now apply your own unique artistic magic, and you’ll always be successful. That’s my theory. So I always tell people watch the movie one time to enjoy it your first reaction, etc. Then watch it once twice, three times again, and start taking apart, deconstruct the technique, right? You can even write down the shots. If you’re you’re interested in the what the cinematographer, camera, person or director, did you just write down anything you notice, and then look for the patterns. And from that you can derive some really fascinating theories, or you can actually deconstruct what was the original intent of that writer or filmmaker, right, screenwriter. So for example, if people, let’s say they start noticing the role of candlelight, or even light in general. In a Hemingway short story, once they deconstruct it, they’ll realize, oh, wow, this is very symbolic. You know, here it got this is just hypothetical, but let’s say, in a short story you notice that, then you start noticing the writer placed it, and then the candle slowly went out. Oh, I see this is symbolic of life ending this one character, etcetera, etcetera. So that was one of the biggest skills that I don’t see being taught much at all, just taking the time to read and then reread it as the writer would, and deconstruct it, take it apart in reverse, and then look at what you have. And when you think about that second or third instance, when you’re looking at how they built it, you can actually see a lot of themes, a lot of patterns, what was important to the writer or creator. And it’s very, very educational if you’re interested in being a writer yourself. So when I talk creative writing to students, I would have them deconstruct stories they loved, and I would help them see what was underneath their favorite story. And then how could they recreate that pattern, but with their own unique voice or plot, etc?

 

Will Bachman  34:38

Young for listeners who want to find out about your academy that you run, or find you on Tiktok to see some of your comedy routines or Instagram, where are, what are? Where can people find you online? Yes,

 

Jung Park  34:53

so they can find me on Instagram and Tiktok. My handle on both is at. Moments with Jung. So m, O, m, e n, t, s, w, i, t, h, j, U, N, G, moments with Jung is my handle, both on tick tock and on Instagram. I’m one of the few people my age that doesn’t really use Facebook that much, so I don’t even I don’t find me on Facebook. I probably won’t respond to you, but my academy website is www dot Nova, 40 twodotcom, N, O, V, A, 40 twodotcom that’s also a way to reach me, and then I do have a whole link tree profile. You can find all my websites on that. So if you go to link tree and you search up my name, Jung Park, you’ll probably find my profile, which has all the links to all my social media and websites.

 

Will Bachman  35:53

Amazing. Jung, thank you so much for joining today. Yeah,

 

Jung Park  35:57

thank you for having me. You.