hey guys it's Jen in and this is ask Jen and Ben so today's topic is on interracial relationships
we just felt like it would be better for us to get things out in the open and have a really a
positive discussion about our experience and just sort of answer some of your questions
that you have about it so let's go ahead and hop right in yeah yeah I am korean-american
my parents immigrated from South Korea and what is your ethnic background white I think mostly
it was like German Irish further back down the generational line to give better contact
we were both born and raised in Kansas at the time Kansas was not a very diverse place that's
that's like the gist of where we both come from so when we first started dating I remember that
you were eating Joe John young do you remember I called it chocolate noodles cuz I just I had
no idea like why there's like a brown paste mine D we were 16 years old 16 yes not nearly
as cool Internet I think I was really scared of Korean food and it wasn't until I feel like when
we were married that I really got a sense of how to eat some things and knowing more what I would
like and what I might not like Jenn would tell me when we lived in Kansas she extraordinary tales
of Korean barbecue and how delicious it was and then we get to the like one place in Kansas and
it's like oh it tastes way better than this I promise for everything my mom makes is better
than the restaurants in Kent yeah but your stomach physically had to mature in a way maybe you took
about four or five years before your stomach like really started your loving Korean food
yeah and then once you visited Korea I think that's when he hit the level of like accepting
Korean food like to the level of a native Korean when I first started to get to know you your dad
was working a lot so I didn't see your dad as often because we're still in high school but
I saw your mom a lot and your mom is very happy friendly she's very conversational very fluent
in English she's very quick on her feet too so if she saw that maybe I didn't understand something
she was trying to say she would reword it or she would do something else to try to
help convey her message Oh in college he took elementary Korean and he did quite well I was
very impressed with him so he does have a little bit basis of knowing Korean and basic Korean words
and he can read Korean as well embarrassingly I also take the same class and aced it real easy
it wasn't a problem with my parents when we first started dating and they saw you for the first time
they were very happy that we were happy together they loved how academic you were how creative you
were my grandma would brag about Jenny to other relatives to like other people in the neighborhood
17 years old he also has three siblings and they all have been very warm and I was like friends
with all of them as well that being said I think more of our difficulties were on my side of the
family at first which I feel like now looking back and putting myself in Jen's mom's shoes you're in
a new country you have two daughters you're very proud of who are like very independent
smart talented people and then like I come in and I'm like I only like peanut butter and jelly I
don't know what is this like what is this Korean food I can understand if she was not completely
satisfied with her daughter's choice in a dating partner we were both not very impressive at 16
yes so the way that it was handled with me four years into me dating but my mom would keep saying
things like oh you know this auntie at church she has a son who's visiting from Korea he's gonna be
living here in the United States he's really cute and he's been going to church do you want to meet
him or constantly trying to hook me up with young Korean guys that were local and this was
very hurtful to me because like I said this was three to four years into me steadily dating the
same guy it's hard to not take that personally and really feel like she's very strongly objecting my
relationship maybe by the time it was about five years or so into us dating it was pretty obvious
to my parents that we were in a very very serious relationship we intended to stay together so in
that way I think my parents sort of accepted been the person and have been the outsider huge things
that helped is been really embracing my culture learning to eat like a Korean not just eating
Korean but like learning to understand that a Jenn's mom comes in and says I cut some fruit
would you like some it's not as great to be like no I just ate a whole pizza I'm not really that
hungry right now like she's not only wanting to feed me but she's also wanting me to feel at home
there's multiple things going on and I can see now why it would be rude to reject and you guys
this kind of cultural sensitivity takes years to develop oh yes the reason why Ben is at this
level is we started blending our cultures when we were 16 years old we're 33 and whether you're in
an interracial relationship are completely not that still happens because every family has its
own culture and once you decide to be together you're having to make a choice to compromise
your culture teach the other person where you come from and also learn where they're coming
from so that's an important lesson that can go for anybody no matter what the color of your skin is
if I have one regret for my wedding its that it was very difficult for me to be able to do
all of the Korean traditional things that I really wanted to do when we got married the
fact that it was in Kansas if we had gotten married here in LA there are so many places
available where you can get the traditional on books and the traditional costumes and props
and everything even now I'm sure it's easier in Kansas just because of the internet like
oh yeah the ability to order things to go on yell yes I have to plan it by hand okay
granted guys we're not that old it just fell oh yeah yeah yeah there was Amazon
was not doing like two-day delivery plus a lot of it was a cost issue if we're going to import
it from Los Angeles you know that would have been a lot more difficult then than it is now
you
and a lot of ways I think about Jen as my other half in terms of marriage and partnership and
that how I act as a person directly reflects sue she chose as her partner and so it's always very
important to me to try to be as empathetic as possible there was one time we were watching
the Super Bowl this Groupon ad came on and it was making fun of Tibetans and I remember
after I watched a commercial I was like well that was like a really tasteless commercial I
looked over and Jen was just like you mean like furious when we started talking about
it she was telling me how it made her feel and how it was just like completely disrespectful
and I think that was one of the biggest signs that there are things that even if it makes me
upset it could make somebody way more upset because they have way more of a history and
involvement it'd be even more personal to them even now when I see things I sort of interpret
as microaggressions a lot of times I'll just go to bed and I'll say hey you know like I get the
feeling that this is kinda racist and it makes me uncomfortable and I just need to talk this
out and we just have a really honest and kind of raw conversation about it to try to just figure
out fully like why we feel that way and how we should respond to it I don't mean like going
onto Twitter or whatever but just literally how we're processing that emotionally mentally
spiritually we're both not the kind of people who make relationships to gain something out
of someone else I think in that sense it was a culture shock to both of us when I started
posting things on the internet and getting this kind of negative rhetoric from people
for the first time because our friends never said anything about us being an interracial
relationship I think we were aware of it because of the cultural things we had to go through but we
didn't think of ourselves as being like bucking a cultural norm yeah we just liked each other
to have people just assume that about you and not only just assume that about you but like really
say horrible demeaning crass sexualized fetishize things it's honestly a developing of a next level
of patience and compassion that a lot of people out there who aren't a minority never have to
face I think on a personal level it sucks that you and I have both put so much effort into almost 17
years now and having somebody just taking like a snap judgment of like looking at us and being
like oh she's trying to buy into white privilege or like oh he has yellow fever it takes everything
about our soulmate connectiveness like utopia okay my relationship is so perfect so perfect
in all honesty it takes a lot of the stuff that we really hold dear and puts it into this like
really negative uncomfortable space it's just like why do we have to defend ourselves I mean at the
end of the day you can't speak for others you can only speak for yourself as an interracial couple
we have an obligation to be seen as people and not just a category people deserve to have that
kind of compassion for each other and that's what we should practice with everyone we come across
you know judge them for who they are not who you assume they are before you get to know them
I think we plan to raise them exactly how we've formulated our life in the
past ten years of marriage and a blend of cultures understanding what makes gen gen
what makes them been but also having them be happy and comfortable with both sides I
think our tactic is more just to have an open conversation always be sensitive about it and
if there's a culture clash that comes up talk about it and to really share those talks with
our children as they grow up and if they are confused about something or feel uncomfortable
or discriminated against or have that racism or whatever it is hear them out and let them
know that their feelings are valid there's no reason they should push that away or feel
like they're not being heard we want to do that by really going into all of the facets of our
culture you know just really exposing them to Korean culture and American culture and
all of the things that entails so that they can learn to have a broader sense of what's normal
well it's funny because we've already started to raise Aria bilingually like the words she's
learning in Korean been also I'm also learning earlier when Jim mentioned that I took Korean
class like it made me understand like the Korean alphabet how things are pronounced how words
flows together and so when Ari gets taught a new word it's really easy for me grasp on and
learn because she repeats it like 90 billion times and the more I will say it the more she
catches on to it is really good pronunciation for Korean too because I'm very picky about that she
is very picky especially because we do live in a much more diverse area my hope is that she'll be
able to grow up with a little more comfort for having a cultural mixture than I was growing up
in an area that was very very different than my home culture we both come from Christian
backgrounds and so when it came to things with morals and religion and spirituality we already
agreed on a lot of that so even though we were so culturally different the fact that we both
have the same spiritual beliefs made up are a lot of cultural gaps for people who have
different religions and religious backgrounds I think the main things is to just have a lot of
respect for the other person try to get to know more about their beliefs their backgrounds and
the kind of people they are when you have more of a broad picture of why that person is the way they
are it helps a lot when you're trying to come to compromises or when there's conflicts it's
important to respect their beliefs their opinions their likes because that's why they're the person
that you're attracted to growing up with them and learning about them more that's something that can
help you guys grow together versus feeling like because there is this different belief system
with you both that it's something that's going to push you apart sometime in your relationship
the way to bridge that gap is to really humble yourself and come to them from a place of being
more open-minded and open-hearted everybody has a full story and everybody has a full reasoning for
why they feel a certain way but I mean there's the old saying of kill them with kindness our
dishes and sometimes kindness means trying to go out of your way to understand what they consider
to be love learning their love language is it like if she really likes flowers you could bring
her flowers if she likes food you can offer to cook for them for a dinner one night I think
that before you can just verbally come to an agreement sometimes it takes more of showing
them that you're making a concerted effort and that you have a lot of respect and compassion for
them I think that was actually what changed a lot of the relationship with your mom and
myself like the more Korean that I spoke the more that I tried to like eat dishes that she
had cooked and the more that I went with you to like family events and stuff like that the
more effort that I put in she started to say things to me like how she felt like I was her
son and will go on grocery store trips together because we're both the cooks when they see us
like pushing the cart or like picking out squid or something I think that you know they'll come
up and ask her in Korean like oh who is that and she'll be like this is my son and she'll
be like with a big smile and she like give me a hug but yeah she likes to brag on him yeah
so instead of standing up it's about standing down and being very generous because that will
get you to a place where you feel much more comfortable versus trying to feel like you
need to defend yourself because they're being attacked or that you need to be heard right
Kurian for us sometimes if we feel like the world is at odds with us we're choosing us as our family
and we stand by each other okay it is more so now than it used yes I think in my high school there
was one adopted Korean girl and then one Korean guy who moved during the school year and hated
it because there weren't other Korean people out of the graduating class of or yeah there you go
diversity to know this was a hard topic give me a high five yes we are here for each other
thank you guys so much for making through this very controversial difficult but important to
talk about topic if you guys felt like this was a meaningful conversation or if it just
gave you a little more insight then feel free to hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to
the channel if you want to see more Ashton and big yeah and if you guys have ideas for topics
you want us to talk about in future videos let me know that down in the comments below or if
you're a part of an interracial relationship or I've had an interracial relationship in
the past let me know your story because I think it's really important to just see and hear more
real experiences from humans not robots please robots do not comment or puppies or puppies I mean
interracial puppies are pretty cool we love you guys yeah we will see you in the next video Hey