(melancholy music)
- Yeah, my name is Dan Chung.
I was born in Korea.
Seoul, Korea in 1977
which makes me 42 years old at this moment.
I have three kids and a beautiful wife
and a proud Chicagoan.
My dad told me this story the moment
that he decided to leave Korea.
He worked at the central Korean bank,
a really good, prestigious job.
And there was no reason for him to leave.
They had some parade, some military parade
down one of the big streets in Seoul
which happened to be right in front of his office.
And back in the 70s, Korea's government
was very militaristic.
A lot like North Korea.
A lot more like North Korea than it is today.
So they wanted a perfect pageant down this street
and no windows could be open,
but it was the summer time.
One of his managers got so tired of it.
It was so hot, his employees were trying to work
and he opened a window.
And I guess someone from the army saw it,
came up the building, found the manager,
he took responsibility and the manager disappeared
for like a week.
And my dad told me that when the manager came back,
he obviously had been tortured for opening a window,
and he said this guy was never the same after that.
He just lost a couple marbles.
He wasn't able to work for very long after that.
And he said, "That was my breaking point."
He said, "I don't care about my position in society,
I do not want to live in a country that would do that
to its own citizens over a window."
That's sort of my dad.
And I think (laughing) I think my dad like kind of
bred that in me, like this distrust for authority.
He liked being independent, he's fiercely independent.
And I think that rubbed off on me.
I don't work for a corporation.
I've never done well in structures
and I wasn't a very good student.
My parents were very hands off.
My sister, she was like the perfect student.
She figured out how to fill out her college applications,
study for the SATs on her own.
And I think my parents sort of expected me to do the same,
to figure it out on my own.
I wasn't that type at the time
and I was doing really bad in school.
Like in beginning of middle school,
like fifth and sixth grade,
I would never do my homework.
I would always be in trouble at school
and after awhile people would call me "king"
"king of detention"
and my parents never said anything to me.
They never pressured me, but I feel like in that situation
as a parent, you should say something to your kid.
You should say, "Hey well what's the problem?
How can I help?"
So yeah, I mean for better or for worse
they allowed me to screw up and I had to fix it on my own.
And that has made me who I am
for better or for worse.
I like that I have had to figure things out the hard way,
but that I ultimately did figure it out.
For work I run an organization
that helps North Korean refugees.
We've been doing this for almost 17 years.
When they cross into China,
these people are oppressed and we've had to figure out a way
to help these people outside of the rule of China,
outside of the law.
Like we're breaking the law technically in China.
I mean right on the border of North Korea
we wanted to like potentially invest
in a farm that was right on the border.
We thought maybe it'll help refugees get across.
Some of our donors, here in the US are farmers.
I called one of them and said,
"We're thinking about doing this."
He was like, "Okay do something for me Dan.
Get some soil and bring it back here
and I'll do a soil test.
That'll tell you how fertile that land is, right?"
I was like, "Okay fine."
So as I was doing this, I was gathering soil,
I look up and I was surrounded by eight Chinese soldiers
with machine guns pointed at me.
So they asked me, "Are you a journalist?"
They were worried that I was doing some sort of nuclear test
because right over the border of that region
was where North Korea tests all their weapons underground.
And in the city in China where we were at
you can, it's like an earthquake whenever North Korea
does this sort of thing.
They've done like four or five.
Anyway, they had just done that.
I didn't plan my trip around this
and yet I found myself there.
I was gathering soil and this offended these people
and so I had my hands up and oh my goodness,
I was so scared.
I was like, "I am not going to see my family
for a really, really long time.
This is really, really bad."
And they're like, "Do you have a notebook
or computer on you?"
I said, "No."
And then they searched the car I was in
and I remembered as they were searching my car,
I had brought my laptop with me.
And so they're like, "You don't have a laptop?"
And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I totally forgot I brought it.
I swear I'm not lying to you."
"Open up your laptop.
Show us your pictures."
'Cause again they thought I was a journalist
and I had this one (laughing) one file
with pictures of my kids.
I opened that up, I showed them pictures of my kids
like playing with their toys.
And like, "Okay you can go."
And every bit of information about the refugees
that we help, was in that computer.
Every single thing.
And so, you know when I get caught,
if I ever got caught,
I'd just be slapped on the wrist.
Maybe a little prison time.
You know, I was panicking when I was thinking
that I'd be jailed for a long time.
But, you know I'd be sent home eventually.
The US has so much sway over China.
But if those refugees' information
were to get out, it would have been their life
and that blood would have been on my hands.
So yeah, it was (laughing) a crazy story
and a crazy thing that happened
and again think about how I grew up
and the deafening silence of my parents
as I was struggling in school
and all these things and yet perhaps
that was an asset to me.
Perhaps that did me some good.
And I think my parents do regret it.
They, I think they have told me as such,
but perhaps that has made me who I am.
When I was like 13 years old,
we moved to Indianapolis.
Indianapolis has a really large African American community.
So it was like 50% African American, 50% white,
and 0% Korean.
That's when I really felt like a minority.
I was getting bullied a lot.
Ugh, it was bad, it was bad.
This one time, it was the last day of eighth grade
and I was like in health class.
And you know we were just counting the hours
'til the end of school.
And these two girls started ganging up on me.
I don't remember, I probably provoked it somehow,
but they started ganging up on me.
And they shoved me to the ground.
It was just two of them.
But because it was two of them,
I couldn't really stand up.
Then they were like, "There's a chink in the room.
Everyone, hey there's a chink.
Blah, blah, blah."
And it was humiliating because it was girls,
first of all (laughing) and then I looked over
at the teacher to see if she'd do anything.
Mrs. Patton is her name.
I hope you're watching.
And she looked at me and just,
it was an act of aggression.
She never liked me, 'cause I wasn't a good student.
She looked at me and she looked away.
And she let these girls humiliate me like that.
And I'm honestly to this day,
I'm thankful for this experience.
Not just that one experience,
but just the experience of being such a micro minority.
And that is at an early age,
I learned to fight back with my mouth.
And I learned to
cut tension with humor.
Fighting back didn't always have to involve violence
because there was no way I would physically be able
to fight back.
I had to fight back another way
and it was with my mouth.
I started going to school there
in like the seventh grade actually,
in the middle of seventh grade.
And by the end of junior high,
I was voted funniest in my class
and my parents never said anything (laughing).
They let me go through that and I had to figure it out.
Oh my goodness.
That's such a theme isn't it?
You know we are a Christian family.
I hope my kids, to impart my faith to them,
but I also understand that it's up to them too,
to decide.
I can't force them to believe what I believe.
I,
oh my gosh
I am my parents.
This is so crazy.
So I don't care if my kids become doctors or lawyers.
If that's what they want to do, then great.
I want them to be able to,
number one relate to other people.
To be able to walk up to someone and have a conversation
with them and have a good conversation
and be engaged, and not be afraid of people, right?
And to be curious about other peoples' lives.
That is so important to us, that they're curious
about other people and I think
that is a very Christian thing,
about loving your neighbor.
Well how are you going to love your neighbor
unless you like try to get to know them, right?
You can't do that unless you have some social skills, right?
So yeah, I want them to be able to relate to people.
I think that is a very, very, very important thing for us.
Yeah, honestly, I don't have these grand ambitions
for my kids.
Like I'm so not a tiger dad.
I want my kids to just be well rounded,
well adjusted human beings who know that they're loved
and yeah, who know how to figure it out (laughing).
My name is Daniel Chung
and this is my Korean American story.
(melancholy music)