Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to
Speaker 1: plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question. Now, what the idea that I would
Speaker 1: ever take Asian food to school in my lunch? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that was like unfathomable. Today, my kids like
Speaker 1: they take noodles and seaweed packets, and so I saw
Speaker 1: us back. I think it's just so funny. They'd take
Speaker 1: him chee if I would let them. But it's just
Speaker 1: it has a very strong smell that would that might
Speaker 1: be a problem. It's that's my view where I would
Speaker 1: draw the line exactly. It's delicious, but you know it's
Speaker 1: just it's a very strong I feel if you said this,
Speaker 1: and it just made me, it partially made me so sad.
Speaker 1: A few of the people in the particular show that
Speaker 1: I saw saying not wanting to smell like Chinese food,
Speaker 1: Whereas to me, growing up, I knew it was like
Speaker 1: a happy time for my mom and I, you know,
Speaker 1: we were that meant we were going to be together
Speaker 1: and we were going to eat great food and it
Speaker 1: was so important. Like it's so funny how sense memory
Speaker 1: affects us differently. I love hearing you say that, Brooke,
Speaker 1: because it just goes to show, like what a part
Speaker 1: of American culture Chinese food has become. My guest today
Speaker 1: is award winning journalist and author Lee sa Ling. Lisa
Speaker 1: has been a leader in news for decades, covering stories
Speaker 1: for CNN, ABC, National Geographic. The list goes on. Her
Speaker 1: big break came when she was just twenty one and
Speaker 1: was sent to Afghanistan to cover its civil war. That
Speaker 1: experienced shaped her immensely, and she since dedicated her career
Speaker 1: to amplifying marginalized voices. I've watched an admiration as she's
Speaker 1: gone on to develop an incredible body of work, including
Speaker 1: This Is Life with Lisa Ling, which ran for nine
Speaker 1: seasons on CNN and take Out, a fascinating docuseries currently
Speaker 1: streaming on HBO Max. She's a true badass, and she's
Speaker 1: an incredible storyteller, and I'm so thrilled to share a
Speaker 1: conversation with all of you. So here is Lisa Ling.
Speaker 1: Lisa Ling, so happy to see her smiling face, to
Speaker 1: see you Brook. Now. I know more of you than
Speaker 1: I do know you personally, but in some weird way,
Speaker 1: I feel like we really do know each other. And
Speaker 1: that's one of the beauties of what you put out there.
Speaker 1: People think that they really know you. But I always
Speaker 1: love to ask guests because in my life I'm always
Speaker 1: slightly disappointed in how I'm introduced because it seems like
Speaker 1: it's produced to the lowest common denominator or something that
Speaker 1: I'm not really proud of or something. So how would
Speaker 1: you like to be introduced? Or who is Leaslay? What
Speaker 1: answer that question? We? Well, first of all, thank you
Speaker 1: for having me, and I feel the same about you.
Speaker 1: While we haven't spent much time together, you were part
Speaker 1: of my upbringing. I feel like we in some ways
Speaker 1: grew up together. I like to be introduced as a
Speaker 1: mother and a storyteller, journalist, a lover of eighties music
Speaker 1: and an eighties pop culture, which is why you were
Speaker 1: such a fixture of it for me and someone who
Speaker 1: is always trying to connect our fellow humans with one another.
Speaker 1: See that is beautiful and it is what you've done.
Speaker 1: And I love that you put mother first, which is
Speaker 1: so so interesting. Can we go back a little bit
Speaker 1: just to sort of talk about how you came to
Speaker 1: be and where you came from because your parents immigrated
Speaker 1: right to the US before you were born. Correct, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: they came at very different times. My father was ten
Speaker 1: when his family immigrated to the United States. His parents
Speaker 1: were highly educated people. My grandfather had an MBA from
Speaker 1: University of Colorado because he had studied in the United
Speaker 1: States a couple of decades before they actually immigrated, and
Speaker 1: my grandmother had a music degree from from cambrid in England.
Speaker 1: But because they were Chinese, he couldn't get a job
Speaker 1: in finance and she couldn't get a job in the
Speaker 1: professional world, so they ended up doing odd jobs and
Speaker 1: eventually scraped together enough money to open a Chinese restaurant
Speaker 1: in Carmichael, California, which is a suburb of Sacramento. When
Speaker 1: neither of my grandparents even knew how to cook, but
Speaker 1: they realized that it was one of the only pathways
Speaker 1: to being able to kind of eke out some semblance
Speaker 1: of the American dream. And so I grew up in Carmichael, California,
Speaker 1: And at the time when my family settled there, there
Speaker 1: were no Asians. It was not a diverse community at all.
Speaker 1: But my family could settle there because they spoke perfect English.
Speaker 1: And was that difficult, Like, was it because it's all
Speaker 1: you've known, But behaviorally from other people, I've heard you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about it, it was. I was
Speaker 1: never physically harassed, and I was never I never felt
Speaker 1: discrimination from any of the adults. But the kids teased me.
Speaker 1: I mean there were kids who literally teased me every
Speaker 1: single day throughout middle school and high school. God, you know,
Speaker 1: I had more nicknames than any any other kid that
Speaker 1: I know. And it wasn't malicious. But when you're a
Speaker 1: kid who is different from everyone else and your differences
Speaker 1: are highlighted regularly, you know at that age when all
Speaker 1: you want to do is fit in, All you want
Speaker 1: to do is just be like everyone else accepted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those things are hard. Do you think it gave you
Speaker 1: a certain resilience to just forge ahead. For sure, I
Speaker 1: definitely think that it really drove me to one leave
Speaker 1: that area to seek out a place that was more diverse,
Speaker 1: but also to kind of proved to everyone else that
Speaker 1: I was going to be not only okay, but that
Speaker 1: I was going to survive through it and thrive. I
Speaker 1: imagine it also gave you a certain amount of empathy
Speaker 1: to provide a place for people to be heard. I
Speaker 1: do think Brooke that that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: over so many years, people have come to trust me,
Speaker 1: Because I do think that so many of the stories
Speaker 1: that I've worked on, you know, deal with people whose
Speaker 1: voices are rarely heard, who don't get an opportunity to
Speaker 1: speak out much and tell their own stories. And I
Speaker 1: do believe that my background and kind of going through
Speaker 1: similar kinds of things has allowed me to better understand people.
Speaker 1: I'm as guilty as anyone for having preconceived ideas about
Speaker 1: what someone's going to be like, what a community is
Speaker 1: going to be like, but I do really try hard
Speaker 1: in every experience that I have, in any every interview
Speaker 1: that I conduct, I think to myself, you know, put
Speaker 1: whatever a pans or judgments you have aside and really
Speaker 1: just have a human to human conversation with this person,
Speaker 1: irrespective of what you know he or she or they
Speaker 1: may have done or may be accused of. For this
Speaker 1: hour that we are sitting across from each other, just
Speaker 1: have a conversation and allow this person to share their
Speaker 1: hearts and their truth and their truth. I also think
Speaker 1: that in the same way that you say you're as
Speaker 1: guilty as everybody, I think so many people in this
Speaker 1: country are extremely guilty of lumping the entire Asian community
Speaker 1: in one place. For sure. And you yourself had your
Speaker 1: mother was Taiwanese, correct, My mom's Taiwanese and your father
Speaker 1: is Chinese. And did they share any of their cultural
Speaker 1: history as you were growing up? Did they teach you
Speaker 1: everything about it? They really didn't. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a very common thing among the children of a particularly
Speaker 1: immigrant Asians. You know, maybe it's because I'm part of it,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's a highly repressed culture, you know,
Speaker 1: which is why I think so many of us really
Speaker 1: carry so many layers of generational trauma that continues to
Speaker 1: go unresolved and really impact us for generations. You know,
Speaker 1: so many of our families went through you know, war
Speaker 1: and crisis and trauma. But you know, unless they were
Speaker 1: forced to confront it, they just kind of have buried it.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole sort of immigrating from distant lands
Speaker 1: to this country where they felt so unwelcomed, right where
Speaker 1: they were looked at as second class citizens, where they
Speaker 1: just had to had to survive. You know, it's mind
Speaker 1: boggling to me. So that's a long way of saying
Speaker 1: that my parents did not communicate a lot of those
Speaker 1: things that they went through in their past. But why
Speaker 1: I have become such an advocate for our community really
Speaker 1: addressing so many of these mental health issues that plague us.
Speaker 1: When I started at the View with Barbara Walters, she
Speaker 1: took me to lunch one day and started asking me
Speaker 1: questions about my mom and my mom and dad divorced
Speaker 1: when I was seven and she moved to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I was still in northern California, And when Barbara Walters
Speaker 1: started asking me those questions, I broke down. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's just she has a knack for just making people
Speaker 1: cry in an instant, like this is all true. But
Speaker 1: I became emotionally because the truth was I didn't really
Speaker 1: know anything about my mom's past. I just knew that
Speaker 1: I harbored some resentment for her because of the divorce
Speaker 1: and because she moved, And so that compelled me to
Speaker 1: get myself into therapy and to start having conversations with
Speaker 1: my mom, where I even took her back to Taiwan
Speaker 1: and man Brooke. That was such a hard trip because
Speaker 1: she thought that she was closing the book on so
Speaker 1: many of the things that she experienced as a young
Speaker 1: person in Taiwan, which were really dark and ugly. But
Speaker 1: that action of taking her to confront those things and
Speaker 1: then talking about them and understanding her really allowed me
Speaker 1: a deeper level of understanding of what she went through.
Speaker 1: And eventually, although it took a lot of work, all
Speaker 1: those feelings of resentment and abandonment just dissipated because I
Speaker 1: better understood why she did the things that she did.
Speaker 1: How did she feel at the end of it? Was
Speaker 1: she thankful or was she she regret it? I think
Speaker 1: she was so thankful. Again, as hard as it was,
Speaker 1: I saw her in a different light, you know, like
Speaker 1: I developed a kind of respect for her that I
Speaker 1: can honestly say I didn't really have. Were you were
Speaker 1: able to forgive her? Oh? Yeah? It was the first step.
Speaker 1: I mean, this has been a process, Brook and you know,
Speaker 1: plant medicines have even contributed to this, to the process
Speaker 1: as well. Right, that's a whole other way story. I
Speaker 1: wish I could I'm the worst, but it was a huge,
Speaker 1: huge first step, and I think both of us realized
Speaker 1: that it was a path that we had to continue
Speaker 1: to walk on. How did your dad react to that?
Speaker 1: You know, I think my dad, because my mom's the
Speaker 1: one who left, has just always been bitter, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know, he's a very idiosyncratic person. And as
Speaker 1: much as I love him, I mean, he was my
Speaker 1: first love. I couldn't be buried to my dad. He's
Speaker 1: very a tough guy. And again like that that also,
Speaker 1: my parents are such different people. They really should have
Speaker 1: never been together in the first place. They kind of had,
Speaker 1: you know, what amounted to like an arranged marriage. And
Speaker 1: so I think that I've forgiven my mom for leaving
Speaker 1: my dad because I know how my dad has been.
Speaker 1: But what what what I did with my mom has
Speaker 1: really been pivotal. And I channel this in my work
Speaker 1: a lot, because people share with me things that they
Speaker 1: may have never shared with their closest friends or family members,
Speaker 1: And so often when I'm engaged in conversation with people,
Speaker 1: they often go back to something that happened in their
Speaker 1: own childhood, right that led them onto the path where
Speaker 1: they are today. And one of the questions that very
Speaker 1: often comes up when I talk to people who I
Speaker 1: don't know may be incarcerated, or you know, we're self medicating,
Speaker 1: or you know, started to pursue sex work for example.
Speaker 1: You know, I often in the end ask them like,
Speaker 1: what would seven year old Jason think about what you're
Speaker 1: doing now? Well, what do you think that seven year
Speaker 1: old Lisa would think about that trip and her life?
Speaker 1: I mean, if I could talk to seven year old Lisa,
Speaker 1: whose parents were going through that divorce that was so
Speaker 1: traumatizing for me that you know, used to keep me
Speaker 1: up crying in bed, you know, regularly, I would just
Speaker 1: tell her it's going to be okay, that that that
Speaker 1: her parents were such different people, and that in some
Speaker 1: cases it might be better for the two of them
Speaker 1: to not be together, that you could experience them as
Speaker 1: independent individuals, that they didn't need to be together in
Speaker 1: order for them and for you to feel like you
Speaker 1: have a happy life. It doesn't appear that you relied
Speaker 1: on anybody else to move yourself forward. You go to college,
Speaker 1: but you leave, you leave before you graduate, which is
Speaker 1: so risky to take your first job. How did you
Speaker 1: find the courage to that? What was the reaction by
Speaker 1: your parents or your peers and family? Right, my my
Speaker 1: Asian parents, who were all about you know, education, which
Speaker 1: is why they were right right, right, You know, my
Speaker 1: parents were actually very understanding because I had a job
Speaker 1: that was a kinder graduate school. I mean, I would
Speaker 1: never encourage anyone to drop out of college for just
Speaker 1: any job. But I had a job that was sending
Speaker 1: me all over the world to cover stories that were,
Speaker 1: you know, we're making headline news, the civil war in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: the democracy movement throughout China, throughout Iran, even drug wars
Speaker 1: throughout South America, the Russian referendum elections. So and you're
Speaker 1: twenty one. I was in my early twenties. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: my nineteens, really like, what path did you have to take?
Speaker 1: Because that's unheard enough to put a twenty one year
Speaker 1: old in Afghanistan in both places and expect that a
Speaker 1: they won't be traumatized, but be that they will have
Speaker 1: the wherewithal to stay focused and get through it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was really lucky. I auditioned for a show that
Speaker 1: was seen in middle schools and high schools across the
Speaker 1: country called Channel one News, and because it was as
Speaker 1: a show that was seen in schools, they hired young
Speaker 1: looking correspondence to cover and deliver the news. So Anderson Cooper,
Speaker 1: before he was totally gray, was one of my colleagues
Speaker 1: at Channel one, and they would with regularity send us
Speaker 1: into the world. And you know, when I went to Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: I went with the Red Cross, you know, which, as
Speaker 1: you know, as a highly reputable NGO. And back then,
Speaker 1: when you traveled with NGOs, the likelihood of something happening
Speaker 1: would be far less than had you not gone in
Speaker 1: with them. So I felt pretty secure. And the world
Speaker 1: was a different place too, it really was. I don't
Speaker 1: think that Americans had the same kinds of targets on
Speaker 1: our backs at the time. And for me, I've just
Speaker 1: I've always been a kid who just was insatiably curious,
Speaker 1: who never had a chance to really see much of
Speaker 1: the world because I didn't have the money to do so.
Speaker 1: So that chance to travel to distant locations and communicate
Speaker 1: what I was seeing was so incredible, an eye opening,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you had multiple experiences, but was there
Speaker 1: anyone one thing that happened during those years in that
Speaker 1: time that just stood out to you. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'll keep this short, but you mentioned Afghanistan or
Speaker 1: I mentioned Afghanistan. I mean that trip when I was
Speaker 1: twenty one. I was a sophomore at the University of
Speaker 1: Southern California, and you know, Afghanistan was a place that
Speaker 1: I couldn't even identify on a map at that time,
Speaker 1: and most of the people in my world couldn't identify
Speaker 1: it either, and I probably still can't well exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And when we landed and I was immediately surrounded by
Speaker 1: young boys who were armed to the teeth carrying weapons
Speaker 1: that were larger than they were, what I saw was
Speaker 1: so just shocked me to the core. And coming back
Speaker 1: from that experience, I tried to engage my friends and
Speaker 1: my colleagues about what I'd just seen there, and no
Speaker 1: one had any clue that this scene existed in the world,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that the United States was so deeply
Speaker 1: embedded in Afghanistan, and that in fact, those very weapons
Speaker 1: that some of those boys may have been carrying could
Speaker 1: have been paid for by our country, by the United States.
Speaker 1: For me that at that moment, I realized, like I
Speaker 1: need to be Like, this is what I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing, is being out there, you know, whether it
Speaker 1: was around the world or somewhere in my own backyard,
Speaker 1: but communicating what I was seeing to a larger audience.
Speaker 1: And you weren't even further. You wrote a book, correct
Speaker 1: with your sister. Can you take me through a little
Speaker 1: bit of that, because I was horrified when I heard
Speaker 1: what had happened to her. Yeah. So in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, my sister was working for an organization, a
Speaker 1: news organization that al Gore was affiliated with, and they
Speaker 1: were working on a story about the refugee crisis and
Speaker 1: people who would risk their lives to escape from North
Speaker 1: Korea finally to make it into China where they were
Speaker 1: often exploited and forced into sex, slavery and other horrific conditions.
Speaker 1: And as they're reporting on the border, they hired a fixer,
Speaker 1: and we all hire fixers when we travel overseas, people
Speaker 1: who have worked with press before to help them sort
Speaker 1: of navigate the area. And when they were there, the
Speaker 1: fixer led them over the border, and I don't even
Speaker 1: think my sister and her colleagues really even realized that
Speaker 1: they were over the border. And suddenly they heard shouting
Speaker 1: and people running toward them, and they ran back into China,
Speaker 1: and North Korean soldiers crossed over the border and violently
Speaker 1: dragged my sister in her colleague back into North Korea,
Speaker 1: where where they would stay for five months and be
Speaker 1: held in captivity and eventually sentenced by the North Korean
Speaker 1: government to twelve years hard labor. And it required former
Speaker 1: President Clinton to go over and negotiate the release of
Speaker 1: my sister in her colleague. And even when I talk
Speaker 1: about it, it's like, oh, my god, I cannot believe
Speaker 1: that actually happened. Did you have any communication with her
Speaker 1: during that horrific time. Well, she was able to make
Speaker 1: five calls during her five month captivity. Five months may
Speaker 1: not sound like a lot, but when your sister is
Speaker 1: inside the most reclusive, isolated country on Earth, you know,
Speaker 1: one of our number one adversaries, it's terrifying. One day,
Speaker 1: you know, even yeah, I mean even you know, if
Speaker 1: you're locked up in the most hardcore prison in the
Speaker 1: United States, you can at least communicate or have visiting hours.
Speaker 1: But you know, I didn't know that she had been
Speaker 1: beaten with a rifle butt until after she had been
Speaker 1: released from captivity. There was so much that we just
Speaker 1: didn't know about her time there until she was released.
Speaker 1: But I think all of my years of reporting and
Speaker 1: developing connections with people really culminated in this moment. Anyone
Speaker 1: in this situation would have done anything that they could
Speaker 1: to have their their sibling released, And it was just
Speaker 1: a crazy time surreal. Did your focus an approach to
Speaker 1: reporting change in any way? You know? I it certainly has.
Speaker 1: For my sister. She is far less inclined to want
Speaker 1: to do international work, especially you know, to conflict zones.
Speaker 1: For me, because I have young kids as well, let's
Speaker 1: just say I will still go, but I definitely take
Speaker 1: security far more seriously. But I also brook feel like
Speaker 1: because that story that she was reporting on was prevented
Speaker 1: from being told, it's actually even made me more defiant
Speaker 1: about wanting to tell those untold stories, about the conveying
Speaker 1: the importance of telling those stories and really supporting journalists
Speaker 1: who take these enormous risks in order for us to
Speaker 1: be able to consume, you know, incredibly important information. I
Speaker 1: do feel that many women, so many women, especially women
Speaker 1: of color, women over forty, you know, they've had to
Speaker 1: sort of fight to take space and be heard or
Speaker 1: have a voice or bring those stories. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: think that you've had to fight in anyway to get
Speaker 1: those opportunities? Definitely, I definitely believe that. Or I feel
Speaker 1: grateful that I've been able to stay in this business
Speaker 1: as long as I have and have shows that have
Speaker 1: carried my name on them for as many years as
Speaker 1: I have. But that doesn't mean that I haven't dealt
Speaker 1: with my share of discrimination in the workplace. And I
Speaker 1: can speak for myself. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: speak on behalf of all Asian women, but I know
Speaker 1: I have not been the best advocate for myself because
Speaker 1: I never really saw that modeled for me. You know,
Speaker 1: Asian women, you know, demanding their worth or taking up space,
Speaker 1: and it's taking a lot of work, I think for
Speaker 1: so many of us to dislodge those feelings and feel
Speaker 1: confident and comfortable taking up the space that we deserve
Speaker 1: to take up absolutely and learning how to advocate for yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean, did you when when you are feeling those things,
Speaker 1: are feeling that that being in that position. Did you
Speaker 1: talk to your bosses, did you complain to anybody? Did
Speaker 1: you have any path? Well, I've I've I've always, you know,
Speaker 1: because of this business, you have to have them. You know.
Speaker 1: I have great agents who are who are bulldogs, quite honestly,
Speaker 1: and they've even said to me, Lisa, let us negotiate
Speaker 1: your contract because we know that you would do it
Speaker 1: for free. And I just let them because it's the truth,
Speaker 1: because I'm not good at negotiating. I'm not good about,
Speaker 1: you know, recognizing my own worth. I do the work
Speaker 1: that I do because I'm deeply passionate about it, and
Speaker 1: I feel so fortunate to be able to do it.
Speaker 1: But I have not, I've really suffered from kind of
Speaker 1: you know, recognizing my worth. And so after a particular
Speaker 1: incident many years ago, when I was told that at
Speaker 1: TCA the Television Criticismiation, my show was going to be
Speaker 1: extended for another year, but that this white male, this
Speaker 1: white male, and this white male, we're going to have
Speaker 1: their contracts extended for an additional year, so two years total.
Speaker 1: I was sort of flummixed because my show performed similarly,
Speaker 1: if not better than some of those white males I
Speaker 1: called my agent, and I said, will you please tell
Speaker 1: the network that if anyone at TCA asks me why
Speaker 1: I didn't why I was the only one who wasn't
Speaker 1: getting her contract extended for two additional years, I will
Speaker 1: respond by saying, well, maybe it's because I'm not white
Speaker 1: and male enough. And immediately thereafter I got a call
Speaker 1: saying that my contract was also going to be extended
Speaker 1: for two years. And I hated doing that, brook, but
Speaker 1: I realized that I had to do it, not just
Speaker 1: for me, but for every woman, an Asian woman who
Speaker 1: would come after me like I had to do this.
Speaker 1: I had to take a stand on behalf of all
Speaker 1: those other women who who didn't also have models for
Speaker 1: standing up for ourselves. What advice would you give women
Speaker 1: who don't have a team of people around them, I
Speaker 1: would say, start to find you find your women, allies
Speaker 1: out there, women who who are in the workplace. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we've gotten really good at being independent and
Speaker 1: feeling like we need to do everything on our own,
Speaker 1: but it's so important to find a community of like
Speaker 1: minded individuals who can help you figure out ways to
Speaker 1: advocate for yourself. You know, find those people that you
Speaker 1: can bounce ideas off of who can empower you, look
Speaker 1: for people who can mentor you or from whom you
Speaker 1: think you can learn something and also be that person
Speaker 1: for someone else. And that's a very important message because
Speaker 1: I think we can learn from those who have learned
Speaker 1: already how to advocate for themselves. I mean, it starts
Speaker 1: this sort of community of women who are really genuinely
Speaker 1: lifting each other up and who are not afraid of
Speaker 1: someone else's success, as if that's a threat. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was the show you were talking about,
Speaker 1: but this is Life, which we've all loved and watched
Speaker 1: for so long, that went nine seasons, Yes, nine, come
Speaker 1: on that. I know, it's incredible, It's incredible. My colleague
Speaker 1: was like, Friends ran for nine seasons. Friends are Seinfeld
Speaker 1: one of them? Yeah, what was it like to finish
Speaker 1: that show. I'll be honest with you, I was really
Speaker 1: really sad because they're really don't I don't know. To me,
Speaker 1: there's no other show like it, you know, that really
Speaker 1: embeds and really tries to foster a deeper understanding of
Speaker 1: our fellow humans. But at the same time, Brooke, I mean,
Speaker 1: I couldn't be proud of the work that We've done,
Speaker 1: and there are other things that I want to do
Speaker 1: as well. You know, I'm not I'm not done. And
Speaker 1: even though I've reached middle age, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: just starting. I mean, you haven't wasted any time. Let's
Speaker 1: just put it that way. You've gone and this is
Speaker 1: great for your daughter in particular, to see is that
Speaker 1: you keep going. But take Out is a food travel
Speaker 1: docu series and it's on HBO Max, and you explore
Speaker 1: the Asian food scene sort of in the US. If
Speaker 1: there's so much, so many different I didn't know, and
Speaker 1: I've traveled, but I haven't, but I was so ignorant
Speaker 1: to so many different foods and cultures. And what struck
Speaker 1: me is how in touch you became with your own
Speaker 1: Asian history and pride and culture. That was almost it
Speaker 1: was enhanced. Yes, your trip to Taiwan, I'm sure, but
Speaker 1: even this show is able to do that and it
Speaker 1: gets emotional. Well, yeah, this show really it's about Asian
Speaker 1: American history. I mean really, it's about all of our history,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like Asian American history is
Speaker 1: American history. You know these stories of Japanese internment right
Speaker 1: of you know, the first settlers Filipino settlers in the
Speaker 1: Bayous of Louisiana who brought shrimp into the American diet.
Speaker 1: You know, these are all stories that we all own,
Speaker 1: right And for me, I think there was always this
Speaker 1: sort of separation between being Asian and being American. But
Speaker 1: it was really this realization that Asian Americans are kind
Speaker 1: of its own culture. You know, being an American is
Speaker 1: a distinctive identity undo itself. I am no more Asian
Speaker 1: than I am American. Like it's a combination of all
Speaker 1: these things. And just to be able to produce a
Speaker 1: show about these buried stories and histories, stories that I
Speaker 1: may have been ashamed of growing up because I was
Speaker 1: so insecure about my Asian identity and really ashamed of
Speaker 1: Asian food. Like the idea that I would I would
Speaker 1: ever take Asian food to school in my lunch, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that was like unfathomable. Today, my kids like
Speaker 1: they take noodles and seaweed packets and so I sauce back.
Speaker 1: I like, it's just so funny. They take kim chee
Speaker 1: if I would let them. But it's just it has
Speaker 1: a very strong smell that would that might be a problem.
Speaker 1: It's odorous, that might be where I would draw the
Speaker 1: line exactly, it's delicious, but you know it's just you know,
Speaker 1: strong smell. You also, a few of you said this,
Speaker 1: and it just made me. It partially made me so
Speaker 1: sad a few of the people in the particular show
Speaker 1: that I saw saying not wanting to smell like Chinese food.
Speaker 1: Whereas to me growing up, that was a happy time
Speaker 1: for my mom and I, you know, we were that
Speaker 1: meant that just meant we were going to be together
Speaker 1: and we were going to eat great food and it
Speaker 1: was so important. Like it's so funny how sense memory
Speaker 1: affects us differently. I love hearing you say that broke
Speaker 1: because it just goes to show like what a part
Speaker 1: of American culture Chinese food has become. The show is
Speaker 1: called Nawa And I always just would like to touch
Speaker 1: upon a pivotal moment in your life that you've experienced
Speaker 1: where you've had to really ask the question, now, what
Speaker 1: and how did you go forward? Well, I mean I
Speaker 1: have been sort of asking that lately. You know, when
Speaker 1: my show ended, I mean I was doing a show
Speaker 1: for nine seasons, that's nine years, and before that, my
Speaker 1: show on Oprah's network own that was five seasons, so
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about fourteen years of my life,
Speaker 1: and so when that ended, you know, that's a question
Speaker 1: that I still have been asking. I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: in my heart of hearts, I'm just beginning and there's
Speaker 1: so many things left to do and so many stories
Speaker 1: that need to be told. But figuring out, like what
Speaker 1: pat what kind of platform? What you know, how to
Speaker 1: go about telling these kinds of stories, you know, just
Speaker 1: given that I have been so sort of entrenched in
Speaker 1: a particular style, a particular method of storytelling. So I'm
Speaker 1: kind of going through that now, and I but I
Speaker 1: feel fortunate that I have, throughout my life in career
Speaker 1: kind of stood for something and that I like to
Speaker 1: think that I still have a kind of credibility that
Speaker 1: will allow me to continue telling similar kinds of stories
Speaker 1: that have depth and meaning and that my kids will
Speaker 1: be proud of. That was the amazing Lisa Ling. If
Speaker 1: you want to hear more from her, go watch Take
Speaker 1: Out with Lisa Ling, streaming now on HBO Max. Do
Speaker 1: you have a guess that you'd like to hear on
Speaker 1: the show, Head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a comment. Oh,
Speaker 1: while you're at it, please Please don't forget to rate
Speaker 1: and review the show. It helps me learn and it
Speaker 1: helps new listeners follow us. Thanks for listening now, What
Speaker 1: with Brookshields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our lead producer
Speaker 1: and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and editing
Speaker 1: by Darby Masters and Abou Zafar. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.