Refugee policy, but the chancellor repeated the words she uttered years ago to get into office, we can do this. Its a a pleasurere to welcome r the, a Business Editor at berlin daily, who says the afd has peaked. The greatest danger for Angela Merkel is her own party. The opinion editor for a newspaper thinks merkel will have to deal with peoples concerns about her refugee policy. Otherwise, the upcoming federal election will be a disaster for her party. Have thea pleasure to reporter of the merkel elections for politico, who believes merkel could have seen it coming. For months, her critics have waited for an opportunity to undermine her position. Rathermedia are mostly steady, but they have been using rhetoric toagnerian describe this. The b beginning of ththe end foe gods and for the chancellor according to some. How serious is the result really . Is this truly some kind of watershed . It is serious. I do not know if it t is some kd of watershed, but it is ace. Ereus result the rightwing populist party from the start gets more than 20 and beats the party of the governing chancellor. This is serious. Just because one of 16 vendors in germany with not so many inhabitants in it, so it is more of a symbol, but it is a symbol. Ecause every party is losing gaining was the afd. Merkel is seen by most p peoples of thebolic figure refugee policy, if she likes it or not. She took credit for it and was praised for it by the United Nations secretarygeneral, the president of the United States, various magazines all over the world. Because sheunfair is governing in a grand coalition, but that is how it is. We will come back to if it is fair or not. Watershed . Has peaked. Afd they are looking pretty strong at the moment. Thats true. On the other hand, the refugee ic is at its peak, and is it is the only topic this party has. They do not have a program. They are only a party saying what they do not want and what they do not want is refugees. If everyone stops talking about refugees because other topics come up as being more important, i cannot see how the afd is poised to have more than 20 . I think that is the most they ever get. In east germany, they have usually 20 to 24 , but in the west, they usually have 1 12 to 15 and not more. For example, now there will be an election in berlin, and they saying they will have just 12 . As mentioned, this is an eastern state, a part of the formerer communist part of east germany. It is also very rural, sparsely populated, and it is also Angela Merkels home state. You were there. How representative is it for the rest of the country . I would say it is represented representative because the campaign was not about state issues. It was about federal issues, national issues. About refugees. Those are questions mainly being decided in berlin, not the state capital, and ill, the whole campaign was about those national issues. Terms of its size or population it is a small state, i think it was a very important election. Before we go on, let us perhaps take a closer look at or alternative for germany. Here is a short film. Negative Election Campaign drew lots of voters. They made it clear what they did not like. They spoke out against foreigners, who make up only of the population. They did best in tourist towns. Antimuslim sentiment is strong. People are concerned about burgers and bikinis burkas and burkinis. Antieu sentiments are also running high describing the feeling of fear that somehow without any concrete object, but the fear of change, and its true that merkel does not say why we will never had any more refugees, and i think that is because she cannot promise that there will not be any more refugees because the war in syria is going on. Dangeroust would be to say there will be no refugees and then they are coming. Want to come back if you do not mind. We have a little film about the chancellor, and i would like to come back just a bit later, but lets perhaps stay for a wild with the question of afd supporters and who they are. If i listen to your r descripti, it reminds me a lot of what we hear about Trump Supporters in the u. S. , and one of the isstions in the u. S. What the connection between those with these vague fears and the far right, the neonazi right, . Ich also exist in the u. S. What would you say is the case . Did actuallyparty used to have representation in parliament. It has been rather strong. Is that what we are seeing, a connection . I think there is a connection, and i think it is important to note this, but i think theres more. There are some who say around have some voters who right wing tendencies who were untapped so far, and they would not vote for the npd because they are stigmatized because they openly express neonazi tendencies. The afd was founded in 2013 as the skeptic party, lets not forget that. It had an image of the professors party because it was founded by economists, and this serves as a platform to kind of are, like, right wing extremists among them, but i think the large majority among afd voters are not far right extremists. They are far right voters who do st feel represented by Merkel Christian democrats anymore. Just a word on these figures who were quite big in the state and during the Election Campaign. They look like pretty cleancut, mainstream guys. I know you have met them. What are they really like . I would agree, a former radio host, well spoken, economist by training. He is very sort of soft spoken, but at the same time, he leaves no doubt about his ultraconservative stance, particularly when it comes to family issues. The other candidate represents the far right wing within the afd. I saw him at a Campaign Event in the state capitol. He was really brought into sort of cater to this far right potential of voters within the afd. When you look at ththe audience, there were not that many people ththere. 150 or 100 people, which is not much for a Campaign Event. You can see there were a lot of far right positions among those people in the audience. My impression was and this is very much what you earlier said the common denominator was that they were all against something. In particular, they were all against refugee policies, but there were some against what they call gender mainstreaming. When a woman says shes not ok with her kids being taught about homosexuality y in school. Others against russian sanctions. Im glad you mentioned russia because here is another fascinating fact we discovered while doing the research for this program. A survey by a renowned institutions many supporters of the afd trust putin more than merkel. What is going on their . I think what they really look for is a strong leader with nationalistic ideas. Hat is putin his program basically is russia first. Russia has to be strong. No foreigners in russia. Everything has to be russian, and he is a strong leader, and that is something they really of course,tive, but we also have to see that with east germany. If they were just looking for anrong leaders, even erdog from turkey, and they do not also in west germany, there is strong support for putin. Not only east german ties to russia i think it is interesting that percentagewise, they have not just gained many votes from the nonvoters, but also from the very left party because they are antiglobalist, antiamerican, prorussian. They even took over a lot of elements from the leftwing , so this is a combination of populist rightwing and leftwing motivations. Trusts im thinking of and leadership. Angela merkels popularity ratings,s, which were once seemingly unshakable, has been headed downward recently. Lets take a look. Of course the outcome of this poll is linked with our refugee policy. Im the party leader and thehe chancellor. You cannot divide the two, so im responsible. Hell, i believe we made the right decision. Still, i believe we made the right decision. A lot of voters disagree. Merkel has lost t control. She believes everyryone can just come here and do whatever they want. I believe Angela Merkels time is over. The latest polls indicate the chancellors popularity has dipped to a fiveyear low, and many of her Party Colleagues are a course correction. Has germany lost confidence in Angela Merkel. The Angela Merkel we saw at the beginning of that report was speaking from the g20, visibly humble, visibly concerned, and she said, for example, she takes responsibility and knows she has to demonstrate to people that the problems are being solved later in the week. She assured parliament that germany will remain germany despite the influx of refugees. You say that is not enough. What do you want to hehear her say . First of all, i d do not want to hear her say we will not take any refugees in. It is impossible to do with the syrian war going on, with all the turmoil in africa and so on. This is just impossible, but she that scenese voters like what we saw a year ago from hundred numbering be thousands and more, in a month will not be repeated. I mean, this is not a small decision, and it is regarded as her decision that she made and she was overwhelmed of the whole situation and people just want to be assured that it is like this will happen again, not without asking, not without representation, not without asking even the parliament to do these kinds of things, and that is what she refuses to do. Would it, do you think, really make a difference if she were to say words like that . You saw the campaign in mecklenburg. How can politicians who resist good argumentsnd visavis politicians who are populismilling to tap and anger and fear . I think my interpretation is that what were seeing right now , merkel losing popularity has to do with this contactt between conflict between policy on the one hand and politics on the other side. People withinof her party agree with it, she has done a lot of things since last year, implemented a lot of new asylumssigned laws, accelerated deportation, brought down the number of refugees arriving in the country. Her problems are politics. Her problem is how to communicate these things. The moment that a lot of people felt was kind of the straw that broke the camels back was her repeating the sentence we can do it. We will manage the situation, this summer when year later where a lot of people were asking why she was repeating this. A lot of people felt it might be accurate, might be true, might even reality, but why say that . People misunderstand statements like this as if she was not listening to their concerns, and i think this is exactly the sort that the afd is capitalizing on. Isnt that unfair . We say these voters want a strong leader. When she then utters a sentence meant to encourage, to build confidence, everybody is on her for that. Exactly. That is why i say this is above all a communication failure. I talked to a bunch of linguists , and they say in terms of political communication, it is so unfortunate because it has an unclear reference. It says we can do it, so what is it . Its being misappropriated,. Isused by her opponents i think the problem is completely different. The problem is she did everything there was to do, and then she has her own party always saying its not enough, we are failing. The bavarian branch of the conservative party continuously claim that nothing is being done despite the fact that everything is being done. What is the population supposed if those governing always claim that they themselves do not govern . Exactly. That party, if i can just we then a quote from it right here, leader, himself quite a populist figure, said himself this week that folks do not want the politics that religion is serving g up. His party is part of the govevernment. Exactly. Nothing you can do. That is something you cannot overcome. That is stronger than the chancellor. You have to understand theres two interpretations. Outside germany, nobody understand that we are discussing a phrase like we can do it. It is encouraging, gives you optimism. Interpretationnd is like no big deal. We can do it. It is diminishing the size of the problem. She shows she is not understanding how big the problems are. Lets just get away from the semantics for a moment and talk about the other parties and their contribution to the difffficulties that the chancelr is in. You said earlier perhaps it is not there to blame her, and the fact is both of her coalition parties, not only the junior sister party i in bavaria, but e are acting like they are not part of the government. We have heard social democrats also doing quite a bit of merkel bashing this week. Yes, they have found a new narrative. They are saying they supported her decision at year ago opening the waters and letting refugees in, but then she makes tremendous failures recognizing the size of the problem, and that is what went wrong. It both trying to have ways, to be on her side with her decision a year ago, but to distance from her in implementing all these refugees all these refugee policies. Lest we forget, we are entering Campaign Mode in this country. National elections are coming up next year, and with the christian social union, it is important to note that throughout six years of their party history, the most important thing is for them to. Old up their power in bavaria i think the problem really is that everyone thinks that one million refugees must be a big problem. That is something you also had said. She should acknowledge there is a big problem. It is not a big problem. You can see that. We have taken in one million , and nonetheless, the budget has a surplus. To be honest, we could have taken 2 million refugees and the in at would still be surplus. It is kind of weird everyone in germany thinks theres this big problem despite the fact that we can finance the refugees without raising taxes. The problem isk or what causes the tension here is financial. Just onehere are Million People from the orient, from syria, iraq, eritrea, places like this afghanistan and they are just strangers in a country like germany. This is the kind of beer. This is the fear you talked about. Before we run out of time, i would like to ask you because you mentioned the federal election. Our title asked how isolated is merkel. I would like to ask you briefly how you see the implications for the next elections and for merkels own political fate . Could it be she will not be standing for her party . She will run because there is no one else in the party who could become chancellor. Im pretty sure she will run for chancellor but also it would be impossible for the u. K. To. Ote to leave the eu in politics, everything is possible. And the state of the afd . The afd is here to stay. Here to stay, but merkel has a job explaining politics and policy and where the borders of humanity lie. Beginning of the end for merkel . No. Not now. Is diminished in power and influence, but she is still a very strong figure in european politics. That sounded like consensus. Many thanks to all of you for being with us today and many thanks to all of you for tuning in. See you soon. nnnnnnnooooo[[;oooc announcer this is a production of China Central television america. May who doesnt love a great story . So much can be learned, felt, and expressed through storytelling, but most importantly, stories can foster better understanding across cultural and social lines. Whether it be through film, song, or even comic books and Digital Media, stories that are able to truly reflect the Global Village in which we live can only help open up new horizons and shift perceptions for the better. This week on full frame, conversatitis with cultural storytellers who are spurring change. Im may lee in los angeles. Lets take it full frame. When you bring up eddie huangs name, a few things come to mind chef, hiphop fan, tv host, rebel, a storyteller. Eddie is a taiwanesechinese american author who wrote fresh off the boat, a bestselling memoir that inspired the hit american tv sitcom of the same name, which is all about eddies struggles growing up as a young boy trying to fit in in suburban florida. In the last few years, eddie has connected even more deeply witith his Chinese Culture and has chronicled the journey in his latest book, double cup love on the trail of family, food, and broken hearts in china. Eddie huhuang is here with me now. Eddie, great to have you here. Eddie thanks for having me. May its great to meet you. Eddie this is my favorite show to watch in hotels in china. May hey, man, we like to hear that. Thats awesome. I didnt pay him to say that, of course. Eddie no. I watch it at the w all the time. May do you . Eddie yeah. May im glad to hear youre a fan. Eddie hopefully, i get starwood points for saying that. May [laughs] ok. All right, lets talk about you now. Um, its only been 3 years, right, since you wrote fresh off the boat, that memoir . Eddie yeah. May and now, all of a sudden, youre coming out with a new book . Eddie yeah. May um, thats pretty quick to pump out a new book. What was the inspiration behind double cup love . Eddie yeah, it is. I remember when i wrotete the first one, there were people, before they read it, were like, why would you read a memoir from someone whos 29 years old . Well, read the book. Its good, you know . And it is very tough to write a memoir, but so much happened immediately after the launch of the first book. May ohh. Eddie my life totally changed, and i had to deal with it, and i was really. May in a good way or bad way . Eddie searching for myself once again. Its alwayswell, i dont think anything in life is either good or bad. Itsit just is. May yeah. Eddie right . It is, and, you know, its the yin and yang thing, but i dealt with it, because i shed a new skin, writing the old book. Ii got a monkey off my back, and i said a lot of things, and i think the first book is very reactionary. Its at times angry and defiant, but, like, its to be expected of someone whos an asian that grew up in america who a lot of people called black and was not allowed to just be himself. May yeah. Eddie and so i wrote that book as a reaction for a lot of other asian kids like me, and once i got it off my chest, i was, like, wow, i dont need to be a reaction anymore. Now i need to figure out how i really think if all these external factors didnt exist, and i started to wonder, what would my life be like if i lived in china and i was born in china . May yeah. Eddie right . So i went back to china, and i chronicled kind of this reversed migration, and i had also met a really, really cool girl in brooklyn at the time, and before i went back to china, i met her, but the trip was already planned, so its juggling, like, your love life, your identity in new york, china, and family, and going back to explore all these things. May so whatat did you learn about yourself and your identity going back to china . Eddie well, it affirmed a lot of what i already knew, which is that race is a social construct. The idea of chinese is different in china, in taiwan, in singapore, in new york, or l. A. , right . And the only really definition of it that matters is yours, and so i think every person, whether youre chinese or taiwanese or japanese or africanamerican or irish, you have to figure out what it means to you, what your history, your culture, your language, and all those things that go into this social construct, which is race, and you have to take control of it. Thisthis book is very much about how if you actually start to dig and you start to actually do the personal work, you realize that everything that was put in your head by somebody else or society and you u allowed it to defifine yos not real and that when you start to break it down, you can finally build yourself back up, because for a long time, i was just a reaction to the way i was treated in america and the things that people said, and this book is about owning it, developing, actually, my own identity that i believe in, that ive worked for and, like, talking about it. May so do youwhen you look at yourself now, do you see yourself as a chineseamerican, taiwaneseamerican, justor just you . I mean, whatwhat whatwhat are you now . Eddie you knowyou know, theyretheyve all affected me, right . Thei mean, i identify as a taiwanesechinesenew yorker that was, you know, touched by perverted orlando, you know . [both laugh] may thats great. Eddie so, yeah, orlandos kind of the funny uncle that touched me, so. May [laughs] oh, yeah. Eddie you know . May thats an interesting way to put it, eddie, yeah. Eddie yeah. May ok. Eddie you know . But i have toi have to give orlando credit, because if i hadnt been thrown in that washing machine, where, like, no one really understood who they were or what it was or what the hell suburbia was in the nineties, like, i had to figure it out for myself. It wasnt, like, youre born in a community with a lot of chineseamericans or taiwaneseamericans, and you can kind of define yourself by proxy. In orlando, i was the one kid, and then i had to figure out what it was about life in america, orlando, and everything in the world that spoke to me, and so ii thank orlando for that. May well, thats cool. Soso fresh off the boat, obobviously, youre saying it ws a waway that you shed some of te image and, you know, some of the stuff that you needed to get rid of, right . Eddie yeah. May um, what i find interesting, though, you know, as we know, theres the tv sitcom thats doing really well called fresh off the boat. Its inspired by your memoir. Its been 21 years since there was an asianamerican sitcom. The first one was margaret chos allamerican girl. It lasted one season. It did horribly. It was totally rejected by viewers. Do you think things have changed enough that in 21 years, now people are like, oh, yeah, we can see asians on tv. Thats pretty cool. Eddie youou know, ill tell you what it is. I dont think its the people that have changed, because even when i was growing up in orlando in the nineties, yes, people made fun of me. May right. Eddie but the friends i had that came to my house and ate my moms food, it is undeniable how good taiwanese beef noodle soup is. Undeniable. Every single kid, palestinian, white, nativeamerican, black, came to my crib, they ate that, and they were, like, wow, this is great. I want to know more. You know . And, yeah, my friends called me chinaman all through middle school, all through high school. It was like my nickname to call me china or chinaman or whatever, or kamikaze, but, you know what . I definitely believed they were genuinely interested in what i was doing. They didnt know how to express it, you know . People hadnt taught them how to deal with my culture. May right. Eddie but i think that people have a genuine interest in individuals, and so thethe problem for me is that i dont think networks give these things a chance, andand it goes into the whole oscars so white thing, is that you need to give people a chance to tell you u what they like, bubut if u keep giving them what theyve proven to like, youre never going to figure out anything else, and the thing is, is that if you work in hollywood, you see that when you go to do a pitch, your agent, whoever is working with you says, you need to make a comparison. You have to compare it to something thats proven that they already know sells and then tell them why this a new spin on that. May right, right. Eddie and then theyll buy it, because theyre riskaverse, but you know what . Like, true visionaries, real artists, they dont look at other people, theyre not reading other people. Theythey speak from the heart. Its a voice that is unstoppable, and ititsthe artistic process is the most beautiful thing, because, at least for me, it genuinely feels like its the hand of god. Do you know what i mean . Like, something is coming out of you. I dont even think i do it on my own. I think its like a human or universal spirit, and you cant stop it. May well, letyou know, with oscars, ii dont know if you saw the show, but im sure you heard about the backlash, right . There were two jokes that were made during the oscars that were derogatory towards asians, and everyones reaction in the Asian Community and nonasians, too, they were like, wait a minute. Why is this ok . Heres a show, it was all about the lack of diversity in hollywood, andbut its ok to make fun of asians . Eddie yeah, you know, thethe race conversation in america has always been binary. Its black, and its white, and nobody else, youou know, gets sa voice, or nobody else really matters in between, you know . Thats not how i think white people feel. Thats not how i think black people feel. That is the way that society has pitted us against ourselves, you know . Like, societety plays the barbarians a against each other. Thats what they do. Its the oldest trick in the book, but, you know, for me, im noti think 99 of what chris rock did that night was phenomenal. The way that he navigated africanamericas relationship with media, entertainment, race, everything, was masterful. I thought it was incredible. That joke about asians was terrible. Chris the result of tonights Academy Awards have been tabulated by the accountining firm of pricewaterhoususecooper. They sent us their most dedicateted, accurate, and hardwororking representatives. I want you to please welcome ming zhu, bao ling, and david moskowitz. Eddie and it just goes to show, someone asas brilliant as chris rock, that can understand black and white relations from his perspective, has a blind spot. May yeah. Eddie but im not trying to take another black man down. Like, its hard enough. Do you know what i mean . And its not that im holding him to a lower standard than i would a white person, but the thing is, is that, like, i think 99 of out of t the maybe 100 jokes he totd was fantastic, and he told one really bad one, and i want to know who wrote it, andand if he wrote it, then you know what . He should apologize. May shame on him, yeah. Eddie but it doesnt undercut centuries of conditioning, and to, like, blame him individually, i mean, hes kind of the wrong one. May but it does tell you that we still have some progress to be made, right . Eddie yeah, we got a lot. I mean, yeah. May obviously, yeah. Eddie if you needed that to tell you, though, like, come on, what have you been watching . May yeah. No, no, no. Eddie itsyeah, theres a lot of progress. May theres definitely a lot of progress that still needs to be made. Im curious, though. Eddie people, when i say im from taiwanwhen i say im taiwanese, people still think im from thailand. You know what i mean . Likike, theres a lolot of progress to be made. May well, you know, people still say, where are you from . And then ill say, oh, im from ohio, originally. No, where are you really from . Right . So theres still that. Eddie yeah, just sayask me what my race is. Do you what i mean . Like, ill tell you what my race is. Im not ashamed of it. May right, right. Eddie but where im from, this is actually where im from. May exactly, exactly. Eddie you know . May im curious. Your love of hiphiphop and black culture, where did thatwhere does that come from, and what is it about that culture and that music that you gravitate towards . Eddie well, itits just that because race is binary. When you grew up in america, you only saw white or black people on television. There was an asian person on television. It was long duk dong, saturday afternoon after wwf, and he was, like, riding a unicycle, a stationary bike e next to a girl that he had the hots for, you know, and i was just like, asians are emasculated. Were basically paralyzed in the media. Were not allowed to be whole individuals, and neither are black people or latino people or gay people or women. Do you know what i mean . Andand so the thing is, though, i felt like black people laid a lot of the groundwork for civil rights for us to start to understand what was happening to us because it happened to them, and ii gravitated towards it. I related to it, and even as a, like, 5yearold kid, i would justi would watch black movies, i would listen to black music, i would watch the athletes, listen to what they said. I loved charles barkley. I modeled so much of myself after charles barkley. May did you really . Eddie yeah, he was literally one of my biggest role models. May charles barkley, for those of you who dont know, nba superstar, yeah. Eddie yeah, because he wouldnt let people define him as a fat guy, as some country dude from alabama. Like, he spoke up for himself, and so, you know, i just saw lots of black people in america sticking up for r themselves and what they believed in, and they were kind of the only people that we were allowed to see do it. May yeah. I hate to say this because imaybe if i say it, im feeding in to the stereotype, but im going to say it anyway. The stereotype of asians is that werewe dont speak out, were not vocal, were the silent majorityminority, and, you know, we just kind of do our thing, right . Eddie yeah. May so itsits refreshing, but, also, i think its sometimes shocking for people when they see someone like you whos just going to say whatever he feels like saying. Eddie yeah, i speak at colleges a lot, and asian kids literally ask me, what made you think you could do this . Whatwhat gives you the confidence do this . Why can you do this . And i was just like, because i knew i needed to. Like, i felt a duty to myself, my grandparents, everybody, because when people call you a chink in school or people push you down or people want to fight you, youre like, you know w what . My parents didnt come to amamerica for r this. May thats right. Eddie anand this is not t whoi am. May thats right. Eddie im not the bottom of the barrel, and i refuse to let you think that. And so, like, i stuck up for myself, my family, and everybody else that i know that gets that same treatment. May that gets put down. Listen, man, i mean, i did, too, right . Eddie but i really think that individuals want to do the right thing. May they do. Eddie you know, i meet people from all walks of life, different races. They meet you on a personal level, they care about you. They want to do right by you. Theyll start to ask you, hey, what should i call you . What should i do . And, you know, its almost weird to say or teach them, but you have to do it, right . May yeah. Eddie and i think the thing thats really to blame is that society continues to proliferate this idea of race as, like, a reality, that like because of this skin, you do that, and because of that skin, you do that, but its not true. These are characteristics that have been attached like socially and politically through hundreds of years, but theyre not real, and thats everything that the second book is about. Its, like, to break the chains of race as a social construct. May and what do you find out . What did you find out by writing this book . Did yoyou get an answer . Eddie yeah, of course. May for yourself . Yeah . Eddie yeah, of course. Yeah, but you got to read the book. Yeah. May ok, thats a good way to pitch it, yeah, ok. Eddie yeah, otherwise, what am i selling here . Ha ha ha may well, letlet me ask you this, thenlet me ask you this, because thisthe book was about your journey back to your identity, you know, your roots. Its also about love, right . Eddie yeah. Yeah. May and trying to figure out what that means to you and. Eddie because thats the thing that is the most difficult to do with all of these stereotypes swirling. Like, love, whenwhen youre in an interracial relationship, everything becomes a crucible, because now youre living with people from a different race, and, like, it may be easy y to o to dinner with people that are from a different walk of life than you and enjoy them for 2 or 3 hours and go home and be like, you know, that was really nice. I learned a lot from them. Im not going to see them for 3 months. Do you know what i mean . You do it 4 times a year, and youre like, no, i really understand these people now, but when you are engaged to somebody or youre in a relationship, like, their family is now your family, and when youre in that crucible and when its that close, thats when your beliefs and values really start to get tested. May yeah. Eddie you know . May for you, though, goinggoing back to chinai know you convinced your two brothers to come with you, right . Eddie yeah, and you know what, my Middle Brother now lives in chengdu. U. May oh, ok. Eddie he loved it so much. The trip did so much for him. He now w lives in chengdu. May really . Eddie e he owns a r restaurant called papas Fried Chicken in chengdu. May no kidding. Eddie yeah, he opened a Fried Chicken spot in chengdu. May is it doing well . Eddie doing really well. Hes great. May wow. Eddie his Fried Chickens awesome. May well, ok. So food runs in your family, clearly . Eddie yeah. May i mean, you know, food is such a part of asian culture, anyway, Chinese Culture, for sure. For you to be a chef, i mean, was that part of the plan for you, or did you just sort of decide that. Eddie no, my parents did not want me to be a chef. May ok. Eddie they did not want me to. May because they were restaurateurs. Eddie yeah. May yeah, so they did not want you to go in the food business. Eddie no, hemy dad in college wanted me to run his restaurant, but once i got out of that, i went to law school. He wanted me to be a lawyer, and then i wanted to open a restaurant, and he kind of. May did you want to go to law school . Eddie um, ii felt like it was a good thing for me to go to law school. It was not something i genuinely wanted to do, but i had run into the troublei had run into trouble with the law, and i was trying to go to a lot of mfa programs. I wanted to make movies, and i wanted to write books, but, um, i had to check the box because was a felon in americanot a feloni wasvery complicated. May [laughs] ok. Eddie i pleadi plead nolo contendere. So its a withhold of adjudication. Its a very, like, purgatory in the legal field. May oh, wow, ok. Eddie but there was a case. It was, like, selfdefense, but then we didnt want to go to court, we plead out, right . So when i was applying to schools, i had to check the box, like, yes, i have a criminal record, right . And then i said, you know, i think if i go to law school, and i behave myself for 3 years, prove myself, do well in law school, then maybe people will look at me like a, you know, a good person, right . Theyll give me another chance. I needed a second chance, and i felt like going to law school, getting that piece of paper, and saying, hey, i can accomplish these things intellectually, and i behave myself. Like, i need a second chance. So thats why i went to law school. May oh, wow. So its not really that you wanted to maybe practice law perer se, its. Eddie i never wanted to practice law. I was interested in social justice, though. May right. Eddie very interested in social justice, and once i got there, i was like, you know what, if i got to work in constitutional law or intellectual property law, i would do this, because i think those are the two most interesting fields, but, um, you know, ii won this fellowship, i got placed at a big firm, and then they had me doing, you know, corporate law, and i was may i cannot see you doing that, eddie. Eddie no, nobody can. I got out in 6 months, you know. May you did . Ok. Eddie i was, like, giving myself haircuts at the law firm and goofing around, so, yeah. May ok, ok, but you gave it a go at least. Eddie yeah, i gave it a go. May but then you found your passion for food and cooking, and obviously thats done well for you. Eddie i always loved food, andand the thing was i would cook Chinese New Year at my crib, and people would come over. People would eat the food, and then i did this food network show, and then, you know, people at the network and my friends were like, dude, you really should sell this. This is a travesty if you dont sell this food. People should be able to experience this. May wow. Eddie and thats why i opened baohaus. May no kidding. Whats your fafavorite dish to m make . Eddie redccooked pork. May yeah . Eddie yeah, redcooked pork is my favorite, hong shao rou. May really . Eddie yeah. May isdoes it just make people swoon . Eddie yeah, yeah. Its good. I thinki thihink i make the best redcocooked pork. K. May rigight on. Eddie yeah. May well, eddie, it was such a pleasure talking to you. Eddie thank you. May thank you so much. Eddie yeah, i appreciate it. May for coming on the show. Eddie yeah. May hey, and good luck with the book and all of your other projects that youre working on. Eddie yeah, i hope you read it. May soyeah, illill see you soon, and ill let you know. Eddie definitely. Thank you. May all right. Ok. Well, well, coming up next, comic heroes with a cultural impact. Well be right back. Young kids often have an incredible imagination that helps them create incredible characters and stories inside their heads, but then they grow up, and that free spirit fades, but not gene yang. He never let his love of superheroes, animation, and storytelling dissipate. In fact, he made it into a stellar career. Gene is a renowned comic and graphic novel author who has written for iconic series such as avatar the last airbender and superman. Today he is one ofof the mosost respected writes in the industry. His first graphic novel, americican born chinese, was the first ever graphic novel to be named a finalist for the National Book award, and it was the only graphic novel ever to win the coveted printz award in 2007. An advocate for using comics and graphic novels as learning tools,s, hes rrrrently prpromog his s educational platformrm, reading without walls, which encourages kids to read outside of their comfort zone. Gene yang joins me now to tell us much more about his great work. Welcome to the show, gene. Gene thank you. Thank you for having me. May wow. Gene im excited to be here. May i mean, talk about a list of achievements. Congratulations on all of that. Gene thank you. Itsits been kind of crazy. Its been nuts. May its kind of crazy, but its great because youre doing what you absolutely love doing. Gene yeah, ii thinkyou know, when i started making comics in n fifth grade, i used to hang out with my best friend jeremy kuniyoshi. We would be at the lunch tables making up stories. Id do all the pencils, he did all the inks, and if you were to tell me then that all of this stuff would happen to me, ii dont think i wouldve believed you. May i know. So it was just innocent kids just doodling, right . Gene yeah, yeah, it really was. It was fun. I mean, we were very serious about it, but it was a lot of fun. May right, right. So i always have to ask, you know, asianamericansfellow asianamericans that go into fields that arent the conventional fields, right, because we have asianamericanor asian immigrant parents, right . They all expect us to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, right . Gene yeah, thats thethats the chinese trinity doctor, lawyer, engineer. Gene koreans too, right . Soso i i wonder what your parents thought about you going into graphic novels. Gene mymy mom was a little more u understananding. Shes always had some interest in the arts. My dad is a pretty typical immigrant dad. May ok, conservative. Gene so hehe was very into doctor, lawyer, engineer. In fact, right before i went to college, he sat me down, and we had this conversation. He said, you know, you need to major in something practical, meaning medicine or law or engineering. May right, chemistry and all that, yeah. Gene and as long as you get that degree in something practical, you can do whatever you with your life, and i wont say a thing. So i did. Ii majored in computer science. Its also because i do lovei do love coding, but i majored in computer science. After that, i became a Software Developer. I worked as a Software Developer for two years. During that two years, he didnt say anything, and then i left my Software Development job to s start concentrating on comics and also to start teaching high school, and he didnt say anything because he promised he wouldnt. May still didnt say any . Ooh. Gene but every few months, i would get this little envelope in the mail from him, and this envelope, it wouldnt have a letter or anything. It would just have newspaper clippings. It would be, like, one ads from Apple Computer oror google. May thats hilarious. Gene oror it would be like an article comparing teacher salaries to programmer salaries. May oh, no gene every few months, id get one. May so subtle. Gene yeah, so subtle. Its so my dad, too. May but they must be so proud now, obviously. Gene yeah, yeah, andand the turning point for my dad at least was right after american born chinese came out in 2006, a chinese language newspaper came andand did an interview with me and featured me onon theirlike in their living section, you know . May oh, wow. Gene andand when i went to visit him after that happened, he actually had that article clipped out and laminated. May oh, my goodness. Gene and thats when those little envelopes stopped. May thats amazing. That is amazing. So lets talk about, you know, thethe storytelling part of what you do, because thatits not justpeople sometimes think of graphic novels, oh, its just a bunch of, you know, pictures and cartoons and things like that, but there is storytrue storytelling in graphic novels, right . Gene yeah, ii think in america, for a really long time, when people thought of comic books and graphic novels, they thought of only one genre. They thought of superheroes, right . Maybe some funny animals, but it was mostly superheroes. May right. Gene andand i think its only within the last 10, 20, 30 years thatthat things have really shifted that people havehave started realizing that graphic novels are justtheyre almost a container, and theyre a container that can contain any kind of story that you want to tell. May right, right. When you write your graphic novels and you come up with your stories, i would imagine that a part of you is in some of these stories, or at least somehow you can relate to these characters. Gene ii think thats true of every writer. I think every writer, no matter how fantastical your story, you do pull heavily from your own life. You know, thats part of the research that you do, is you just go through your memories and figure out what you can use. May and what about american born chinese . Because that was such as huge hit, got such accolades, obviously. For you, what was that about for you to do that t story . Gene when i started american born chinese, i had been doing comics and graphic novels for about 5 years,s, and it alwaysi had multiple protagonists that were asianamerican, but their Cultural Heritage never played a big part in the story, so i wanted to do some kind of a story where that was the focus, where it was about Cultural Heritage, it was about the asianamerican experience, and thats what american born chinese was. There are 3 different storylines. The first one is about the monkey king, whos not my character. Hes like this really famous. May chinese fable, yeah. Gene yep. The second one, i pulled heavily from my own life. Its a fictional story about a young chineseamerican boy growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, but that, i pulled heavily from my own junior high experiences to tell. May right. Yeah. Gene junior high was a little rough, right . I think its rough for everybody. May ilisten, gene, you and i, im sure have lots of stories about how rough it was to be an outsider. So when you were writing this and then you got the reception that you did to the book, were you surprised that. Gene i was shocked. May yeah, you were shocked, ok. Gene absolutely, yeah. I mean, its crazy. When i started inin comics, it was the mid to late nineties. At that timei dont know if you remember, but Marvel Comics had declared bankruptcy. May yes. Gene and comics in general in america were just not doing very well. May they were dying, right. Gene yeah. Ii would go to these comic book conventions with my friends, andand some of the days at those conventions, there would be more exhibitors than there were attendees, which is the exact opposite of how it is now, right . May now its crazy. Gene now its crazy, yeah, but back then, people just thought it was a dying art form. So to go from a situation like that to now, where, you know, theres a New York Times bestsellers list thats focused on graphics novels, comic book conventions sell out months before theyre held. Itsits amazing. May yeah. Gene so the way i pictured my life was, i thought i would just Teach High School fulltime, and i would always just do comics on the side. May wow. Wow. But you never thought itd be turned just like [indistinct] gene no, this is. May and then getting these awards. Gene its been kind of crazy, yeah. May all these awards, and then now yourewhat is it, the National Ambassador for young peoples literature. You were appointed by the library of cocongress. Gene yeah, that wasthat was a crazy thing. May thats huge. Gene it was, like, one of the fanciest thihings ive ever been a part of. Itit happened this past january. I flew out to the library of congress. They gave me this super fancy medal. It wasit was a lot of fun, butbut i really do feel lucky to be involv in comicscs, you know, whenwhen im involved in comics, like, in this era. May what is itwhat is it about graphic novels that makes it different from other types of illustrations and comic books . Gene well, ii do think, you know, graphic novels are just one of many different ways that we can tell stories, and there are certain stories that just work better as graphic novels than they do in any other medium. For me, my attraction comes from a pretty logical place. Like, i think i fell in love with graphic novels, and then i thought about why i fell in love, right . But one of the things i appreciate the most is this inner play that you have between the visuals and the words. That relationship that the pictures andand the words can have can be really, really complex, and you canas a creator, you can really play with that complexity. As a reader, i think it gives your mind a little bit something more to hang on to. May mmm. You wewere once quoted saying, living a life without art, living a life without stories is a smaller life. Gene yeah, i think it is. I think it is. I mean, i just think k storytellingng is so fundamental to the human experience. Itswewe constantly tell stories about ourselves in our own heads. You know, we understand other people through stories. So iii think itsi think its actually almost impossible to live as a human being without interactive stories. May right, right. Its a way to exchange culture, social issues, you know, and the environment, i mean, all sorts of ways that you can understand each other, right, through storytelling . Gene yeah, yeah. May but heres my question, though. In this day and age of social media, where all kids are on their smartphones or their ipads or whatever, and theyre justtheir Attention Span is getting shorter and shorter, do you worry that, you know, this new generation is not going to be reading as much and theyre not going be as interested in stories . Gene yeah. I mean, im 42 years old, so i do worry about myself. I worry that my own worries are rooted in my old manness, you know . May youre not that old, gene, come on. Gene sobutbut i doi do think about it. You know, i do think about how kids these days are growing up in ain a much noisier world, and that noise isnt cecessarily babad. Its justtheres may but theres a lot of distractioions. Gene theres a lot morere competing. Yeah, theres a lot more competing for their attention, and i do think, for books, especially, you need that quiet place, you know, andand. May and that focus. Gene andand that focus, and i think its really good for you. I mean, theyve even done research about it, right . Like, being able to sit down quietly with a book for an extended period of time is good for your brain, its good for your spirit, andand i thinkat least t with t the kids that ie met, they understand that. Theythey get, like, if theyve s sat down and ththeyve read a booook for a half an hour or an hour or whatever, they know the difference e that it makes inin themselves, in their own interior life. May they experience it. Gene so ii dont necessarilyi feel hopefuli feel hopeful that this new generation has that same value for stories. May well, your platform, reading without walls, i mean, thats all about encouraging kids to read, but beyond that, youre trying to get them to read outlike, i said before, outside their comfort zones. Gene yeah. Yeah. May so tell me about what youre trying to accomplish there. Gene well, thethehe National Ambassadorship was established in 2008. Every term runs for two years, and every ambassador is encouraged to come up with a platform, something that they want to focus on. I had a meeting with the library of congress and with the Childrens Book council last year, at the end of last year, and we camame up with this platform of reading without walls. What we mean by that is essentially what you said. We want kids to read outside theirtheir comfort zones. Essentially, we want kids to explore the world through books. Exploration is such an important part ofof growing up, and books are such a great way of exploring, you know . Specifically we want them to do 3 things. Number one, we want them to pick out b books wit people on the cover that dont necessarily look or live like them. Second, we wanant them to pick out books about topics that they might find intimidating. So for me, you know, i grew up as kind of a nerd. I dont know if you can tell, but i was kind of a nerd. May no. Gene i was not into sports at all, and i was especially not into basketball. Every time i played basketball, i got hurt. May but youre so tall. Gene i know. That was the thing. That was thelike, but height doesnt come with coordination, right . May ok, thats true. Gene those two things are not genetically linked. May thats true. Gene so basketball has always been an intimidating topic for me, and i ended up getting interested in basketball in part because of books, because i read these amazing books abouout basketball, and finally, we want kids to explore readadg in different formatsts. So for a kid whwhos nevever tried a grgc novel, we wawant them to t try a graphic novel. May right, righght. Gene and for a kid who only reads graphic novels, i want them to try prose books or books in verse. May great goals, all 3 of them. All right, gene, thank you so much for coming in. Youre doing great stuff. Gene thank you for having me. This was fun. May well, from graphic novels to music, innovators like gene are making an impact. Mamak khadem is a great example. Shes an iranianamerican songstress whose unique sound blends ancient persian poetry with bold musical risk taking. Shes been called one of the wonders of world trance music, but as full frame contributor Sandra Hughes found out, mamak khadem would like to be remembered as a cultural nomad who uses her art to bridge traditions and tell a new story of cultural diversity. [mamak and saman singingng] sandra she is a teachcher and a singer, plucking at thee heartstrings of f her homemelas Classical Music. Mamak smile. Cheeks up. Smile. I was born in tehran, iran, and my p parents arere both irirani, and i grew up in iran and came to United States in 19end of 1976. Sandra she always thought she would go back to iran someday, but a revolution kept mamak khadem in the United States. Mamamak i wanteted to do sometg that connected me to my culture, so i chose the iraranian Classical Music, the trtraditional mumusic. Sandra but o one can s say tht she e sticks to trtradition. [mamak and man singing in foreign language] mamak i started with a group called axiom of choice. We wanted to take our traditional music but kind of, like, put our own understanding and impression on it, and so thethe classicalthe traditional music became a basis for our work. However, you know, we went outside of, likewe went beyond the tradition. [singing in foreign language] sandra she has traveleled the World Learning about her persian roots and adopting sounds from other places along the way. Mamak its a crosscultural itsitits rooted in traditional music. It is about bringing some of the very beautifuful melodies frorom the villages, from the different regional music of iran, puputting it i into some d of form that is more available for the noniranian together with the iranian second generation, Third Generation thats accessible to them. [singing in foreign language] saman its the singing, and its what shes singing. The messages are about love. Theyre about integration. Theres something about this music thats so incredibly soulful and gets me back in touch h th my own n culture. [laughter and chatter] sandra on the eve of nowruz, the persian new year that is celebrated on the first day of spring, khadem dines with her iranian friends and gets ready to share her message of crosscultural dialogue while celebrating her iranian heritage. [mamak singing in foreign language] khadem is the headliner of the Los Angeles County museum of arts 2016 nowruz celebration sponsored by the farhang foundation. Khadems audiences are by no means all iranian, but her music is about much more than the lyrics derived from the poetry of legendary persian poets like rumi and hafez. She considers herself a performing pioneer who is breaking barriers on stage and around the world. [mamak singing in foreign language] [cheering] sandra do i need to know farsi to get you when im watchihing your performance . Mamak i hope e no. My intensnsions are for anyone to e able to pick up the feelings and the expressions, rather than the language. I really want to be able toto connect toto the people outside of my own culture. Sandra a connection she hopes the next generation of iranianamerican artists will work to make even deeper. For full frame, this is Sandra Hughes in los angeles. [mamak singing in foreign language] may and well be right back with a look at how Digital Media is helping to shape cultural stories. Well, the 2016 Academy Awards may go down as the most contentious and controversial ever as calls for greater diversity in hollywood grow louder and louder. Now, according to a new university of Southern California report on diversity in media, more than half of all filmed tv and streaming shows surveyed failed to portray one speaking or named asian role on screen. Thats enough to make you want to scream, right . Well, not for philip fung and julia lam. They are channeling any and all frustrations into making a difference through a3, their nonprofit group, which fosters and supports asianamerican artists in american entertainment media. A. Both jula lam and philip fung join me now from San Francisco to tell us more about their mission. Hey, guys. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Julia hey, thanks for having us. Philip good morning. May well, listen,n, you just heard what i said about the Academy Awards. You know, it was all about the lack of diversity in hollywood, but whats worse is that asians are pretty much invisible when it comes to the numbers. Your thoughts on whats going in hollywood . Julia yeah, so, i mean, i think its overall a funnel problem, um, if that make sense. So, i mean, in order to have authentic asianamerican stories onscreen, you need to have it through the entire funnel, so that means the screenwriters need to be able to authentically createwrite stories for asianamericans. The casting director needs to be able to see an actor and be able to cast them atin that role, regardless of what race they are, and the directors need to be able to embrace that experience, as well. So you really need to see it inall through hollywood andin order to see more diversity on screen. Philip and also its not really a new problem. I meanan, this has been going on for years. Only 1 of all lead actoracting roles go to asians, and, you know, they make up 5 to 10 of the population. Latinos, the same way, as well. Um, you know, only one out of every 20 lead roles out there are given tototo the asianamericans. So itits a really bad number toto begin with. May well, ok, so lets talk about why you guys decided to start a3, and its Asian American artists foundation, right . Julia yes, thats right. May youyoure both with facebook, so, you know, youre relatively successful, whatever. Um, so but whyso why did you decide to do this . Why did you decide to start this foundation . Philip so, i think, like, we wereyou know, wewe bototh came fromyou know, after we came out of facebook, we spent onea very long time there. I was one of the first engineers. Julie was one ofone of the First Partnership people at facebook. We spent, like, 8 or 9 years there, came out, and then were saying, hey, weve done pretty well for ourselves. Whatyou know, whatwhat are some problems that we see that we want to achieve next . And, you know, both of us, you know, grew up in the u. S. , and we just never saw any, you know, any people of color on tv and, you know, its been like that since the eighties and nineties all the way up to today, and, you know, it hasnt changed at all, and we want to make sure that we can kind of make a difference in that, andand theyou know, since we have been relatively successful, we want to help with that, and after talking to a lot of, you know, a greata big group of our network, wewe actually found out that a lot of people are interested in this issue. They just dont want to talk about it, i think. May and you do have some programs, right, at a3 that cultivate that . I think you have something called the sundance fellowship. Tell me about what that program is about. Philip yeah, so sundance fellowship it, like, goes back to, like, you know, 2, 3 years ago when we started the foundation. We wanted to find a way to make an impact, and we talked to a lot of ceos, talked to a lot of people in the film industry, as well, and everyone agrees that, you know, theretheres kind of two ways that asians areare kind of making a big impact. One is in, like, film and, you know, more outwardly. Like, the bigger impact right now is really in digital, in youtube and things like that, but in the traditional film sense, therestheres beenits been really hard for asianamericans to do really well, and so we talked to a lot of, um, you know, entrepreneurs, a lot of filmmakers, and they all said, hey, why dont you start the cream of the crop . If you can get intoif a filmmaker can get into the sundance film festival, theytheyve kindtheyve kind of got it made. Theyve kind of had a big leg up in their career, and we were like, ok, letslets talk to the executive director at sundance and see what we can do to o kind of foster that, ad after kind of going through all that, we kind of came up with thinking about, you know, whywhy dont we come up with a asianamerican fellowship at sundance . May heres my question, though. One of the biggest problems is that its the Decision Makers at the top. Its the executives at the studio who are green lighting projects. They are the ones who say theyre going to make something or theyre going to buy something or not, and if that doesnt change, it doesnt matter how many stories are being made, right, how many films are being made . If theyre not going to be distributed, theyre just not going to see the light of day. So isits a structural problem, too, isnt it, whenen t comes to the power of howhow hollywood is structured . Julia so i think the exciting thing about this is with the rise of Digital Media, you have this opportunity for more stories to more segments. So youre right. In hollywood specifically, there is one decision maker, and theyre trying to create content that can appease a broader audience, and the guy in Middle America may or may not be interested in, you know, content that is more diversely focused. So, you know, they have to make hard decisions there, and, you know, iim sure thatsthats difficult, but, you know, really, therestheres a lot of segments around that, you know, like, were talking about asianamericans today, but, you know, i mean, even the latino segment, females, lots of other groups, as well, where theyre just not getting as much play on mainstream media, but, again, i think with the rise of Digital Mediayoutube, hulu, netflix, amazonyoure seeing that there is again thisthis audience that really wants more diverse content, more diverse storytelling, and you see, like, thepeople that look like them on camera, as well. Philip if you have an oscars where, you know, theyre touttheyre touting diversity, and then you could still throw w in a major asian joke in there, and no one really cares, i mean, its may right. Philip itsitsis its really showing that the mainstream kind of traditional media is really lagging behind. May yeah. Julia and, i mean, in the last few years, though, there has been thisthis switch where, you knowi mean, fresh off the boat, i mean, clearly is one of the first asianamerican sitcoms in the last 2020 years. May y well, julia, i i was goig to julia but you also see may i was actually going to bring up fresh off the boat because itat least thats an example. Julia yes. Absolutelyly. May of mainstream show, right, of a mainstream show that cacane seen by a broaoader audience,d the statatistics show the demographics of the audience is actually pretty widespread. So its not only asians watching ththat show. Its across the board. D. So thats a proven concept right there. Julia yeah. I mean, i think thati think in the last 20 years, you know, weve seen a lot of change. You know, weiwe dont see as many roles as we would like in, you know, asianamericans in leads, you know, again, 1 right now, but you are seeing asianamericans at least on camera, at least, like, you know, here and there as a character, still not as much screen time, but, again, theyre there, theyre present, and so i think it finally set the scene for a sitcom to finally make it, and then i think that theyve done a great job throughout the entire process, you know, from, again, the screenwriters, you know, being a diverse set of screenwriters, to casting directors to the directors, to try to create something thats really authentic to the asian culture but thatat also appeals to a broader audience, and i think fresh off the boat is a fantastic example of that, and i hope to see many more. May hey, julia, phil, i love the fact that youre doing this, and good luck to you, and well definitely keep in touch and see if there are improvements to come alolo. Hopefully, there will be, so thanks so much, guys. Julia thank you. Philip thank you. Julia thanks for having us. Philip thanks for having us. May well, well be right back with this weeks full frame closeup. Stay right there. Finally this week, a multicultural story that spurs a different kind of change, the kind you find in your pocket. Washington d. C. Commuters bombarded with a noise of loud trains and the hectic pace of life in the Nations Capital are now being soothed by a more pleasant sound, a mesmerizing countertenor. Hisham breedlove often performs at the entrance of train stations where hehe accepts donations of appreciation. Hisham grew up in zimbabwe where he perfected his voice at a young age. In zimbabwe, opera music is revered. Hisham hopes to foster that same appreciation for the art in the u. S. By giving people the opportunity to experience it where they least expect it, on a busy street in the middle of rush hour. [operatic singing] hisham music is not an endangered species. Classical music opera is no longer an endangered species. Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue well, when im singing out on the metro, i cant even describe thethe gift that you get from having someone come up to you and tell you, you know, ii dont have a dollar today, but i just want tell you you made my day, and you justyou really touched my soul, and im so grateful for that. [indistinct singing] it made me become a far more humble person. It made me respect human beings and respect thethe trials and tribulations that they a all experirience, because we all experience them. Zimbabwe, we were colonized by the british, and south africa had portions o of it that were colonized by the british, as well, and, you know, the german flemish. The part of the world that still today appreciate and value Classical Music as if it were a precious jewel. You know, it was a standard in the Education System that you take up two hobbies. I chose piano and choir. Maybe 3 to 4 months of being in the choir, my choir director pointed me out of the choir, and she insisted that i do a solo because we had competitions coming up. This is my very first certificate ever. That was thethe budbuddings of my career as a solo singer, and my parents signed me up at the Zimbabwe College of music to take private voice lessons. [choir singing in foreign language] this world renowned boys choir, the Drakensberg Boys Choir School that was located in the mountains of the drakenensberg in southfrfrica, after every tour, they were auditioning, and after the auditions, they sent all the other fafamilies home and pulled my mom and dad asidede, and they asked if it would be possible if they could possibly actually just leave me right now, and they would provide all my uniforms and everything. [choir singing in foreign language] i had no idea ththat one day id bebeent alone on my own atat 17 years old to america with two suitcases and good luck, you know. I had a really toughtough beginning. You k know, i came from a school where i was a semicelebrity to now being an ant in an ant hill in the United States of america, and it was verya very daunting feeling, i will not lie. I struggled for my firstst two years. I had a lot of folks that took advantage of me because of my innocence and humbleness. [indistinct singing] i chose the metro originally because it was a suggestion from my mom, andbut then i realized that, you know, not only was it a venue to help out with p paying a couple of my bills, but i realized that, you know, it was a venue that i was able to practice, i was able to promote myself, touch peoples lives, and have them touch my life. Man nice. Nice. Valerie we definitely know that our child is gifted and has a gift from god. Woman yeah. Valerie we definitely do know that. I know its for you. I know this is for you. I know its for you, and were behind you a hundred percent. We have nothing but admiration for you. Hisham yes, mama. Valerie thank you. Hisham [indistinct singing] the reason i got into Washington Adventist University was because a gentleman came up to me one day and said, you have a fantastic voice, and i think youd go far at my school, and i attended the school, and they offered me a full ride. [indistinct singing] i am a countertenor, and countertenor is a male voice range that derived from the early, early centuries where they had what we call castratocastrati singers. [indistinct singing] deborah he has a verya very unique voice, and he also isisis made for the stage. So among the students ive had, one does not get a countertenor very often. Come in how are you, honey . Hisham good. How are you . Deborah good to see you. So when you encounter one, it isits really quite a pleasure. Hisham yes, im back in d. C. , and as you can hear in my voice, [indistinct] 100 . Deborah yeah, you dont sound good. Yeah. Hisham ive been singining at 100 miles an hour,r, not necessarily for the moneney, but just primarily to promote myself. Deborah well, i suppose thats whatthats what keeps you going. Of course, you have all the regulars. They probably miss you. Hisham yes, they do. Deborah after being gone for a couple of years. Hisham oh, my gosh. Yes, they do. [indistinct singing] maria you are like an angel coming up the metro, and ii will probably cry every time i hear you sing for as long as i hear you sing. Hisham awesome. Nice of you. For all the yearsover the years. Maria yes. Hisham from the beginning. Maria yes. Hisham you know, i remember. Maria and then i didnt see you for about two years, and i was at pentagon city, and i was in a hurry, and i was having a bad day, and i heard your voice coming out from the metro. I just wept. I was like so amazing to see you again. Hisham thank you. Maria i cant believe that everybody that passes by him doesnt either stop and listen for a while or give him some money. Hisham [singing] maria and anyone who is fortunate enough to hear him sing, it should change their day. Hisham [indistinct singing] ave Maria Deborah i would love to see him really now take all the skills that t hes worked so had for in the last 10 years a and really put them together in a nice package and go out and audition for people away from the metro, but really in a professional situation. The world needs to hear him. Man oh, man, thats awesome sound. Awesome sound. Hisham [indistinct singing] valerie whether youre selling computers, whether youre selling eggs, whether youre singing in ain a subway. Woman uhhuh. Valerie as long as you do it well. Woman what he loves. Hes doing what he loves. Valerie and you do what you love, and youre happy in your heart, youre happy for it. Thats all i say. Hisham i didnt give up, and thats one of my main mantras in life, dont give up and keep pushing forward. Once youve achieved greatness, try and double it, you know. May hes so talented. Well, thats it for this week. Join the conversation with us on social media. We are cctv america a on twitter, facebook, and youtube, and now you can watch full frame on our new mobile app, available worldwide on any smartphone for free. Get the latest News Headlines and connect to us on facebook, twitter, youtube, and weibo. Search cctv america on your app store to download today, and, of course, all of our interviews can still be found online at cctvamerica. Com, and let us know what youd like us to take full frame next. Simply email us at fullframe cctvamerica. Com. Until then, im may lee in los angeles. Well see you next time. x x x r ococococc hello, im john cleese, and i hope you will join me for a unique experience global spirit, the first internal travel series, with fantastic conversations and film segments exploring the most urgent,t, exisistential, philosophical, and spipiritual issuess of the 21st century. So, settle back, take a slow, deep breath, as we join oour trusted guide and host, phil coususineau, on n this fascinating episode of global spirit, the first internal travel series
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