The Moth Podcast: AAPI Voices

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we’ll be sharing three stories from AAPI storytellers - which take place everywhere from a Korean Spa to a crisis hotline. This episode was hosted by Chloe Salmon. Storytellers: Helen Langley Wyss finds confidence at a jimjilbang. Hari Sanghvi resents the sound of his own voice, until he’s able to help someone in crisis. Wendy Suzuki studies memory as a doctor, and finds a new way of looking at her work when she’s confronted with her own father's memory loss. Podcast # 920

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  Welcome to The Moth. I'm Chloé Salmon, and on this episode, in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we'll be sharing three stories from AAPI storytellers who'll take us everywhere from a Korean spa to a crisis hotline. First up, we've got Helen Langley-West, who told this story at a story slam in Asheville, North Carolina, where the theme of the night was "Home." Here's Helen, live at The Moth.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  I should've known something was up when my mom opted out. I was on my first adult trip to Korea, my mother's homeland, and a friend had suggested that I had to go experience Jimjilbang. I said, "What is Jimjilbang?" "It is a Korean spa." I said, "That sounds awesome." And my mom said, "Count me out." All right, well, I get to Jimjilbang, and the first thing they do is separate the men from the women. There's a big sign over the women's door that says, "No entry to the male."

• 1:15Speaker 01

  I should've known something was up then. The second thing they do at Jimjilbang is remove all clothing.

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  All clothing. This was unlike any spa I had ever been to. No robe, no slippers, nothing. Well, they did give me a towel. It was the size of a kitchen hand towel. And I sort of did some quick calculations and figured out that I was not going to be able to cover anything with it, so I just sort of tossed it over my shoulder nonchalantly, like, "I do this all the time."

• 1:55Speaker 01

  The truth is, I did not do this all the time. For as long as I can remember, I have never felt comfortable at home in my body. As a kid, the other kids would tease me about being chubby Helen Bellin watermelon. I know, really creative, huh? I remember looking at my mother's Cosmopolitan magazines and thinking, "That's what a female body is supposed to look like." So later, all that insecurity was reinforced by boyfriends.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  I had a really toxic boyfriend in college who would actually pinch my love handles and say, "I thought you were gonna lose that." I know. The worst part about it was I would apologize to him and say, "Oh, I promise I'll try harder." I had a really long-term partner who used to drape a towel over my midsection so that he wouldn't have to look at certain parts of me while he was enjoying other parts. So, I know, it's awful. I'm so glad I'm grown up now.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Needless to say, by the time I made it to Korean Spa in my 40s, I was not feeling particularly body-confident. But I did my best. I was faking the swagger with the towel over my shoulder and after steaming and jacuzzi-ing with total strangers, totally naked. It was suggested to me that I try a scrub-down as part of my Jim Jeal-bang experience. So the scrub-down takes place behind a wall in the shower room. They have these massage tables set up, and behind each massage table is a middle-aged

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Korean woman in a black lace bra and panties. I don't know why.

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  They got to wear underwear.

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  But they were also wearing very stern expressions, so I did not ask questions. I just, I climbed up on the table. They were also wearing on their hands, these things that look like oven mitts, but with like scrubby sponge kind of surface, like the, like the hard side of a two-sided sponge that you use to get food bits off, you know, really dried on for days. So, I just did the best I could. I tried to listen to the instructions in Korean and tried to maneuver the way they wanted me to, uh, so that they could scrub places that had never been scrubbed before. And then every once in a while, without warning,

• 5:07Speaker 01

  the, the scrubber lady would take a bucket of warm water and just throw it on me. Just sort of slough off all the dead skin. It was, I know it sounds traumatic.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  But as the day went on, I was actually having fun. Um, I was enjoying myself. I was actually becoming a little more comfortable in my body, uh, in a state of undress. I noticed that the other women did not look like the women in Cosmopolitan magazine. And they were beautiful.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  By the end of the day, I was feeling happy and a little more free. Um, all of that was 12 years ago. These days, I am newly married to a wonderful man who values me, every inch of me.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  And more importantly, I am learning to value myself. And even though I still get dressed in a closet and I still wear big, baggy clothes, I do believe that Jim Jilbang Korean Spa Day did bring me one step closer to being at home in my skin. Thank you.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  That was Helen Langley-Whiss. Helen grew up straddling the cultures of her Korean mother and American father. Her lifelong journey with body confidence continues through yoga and dance, and she teaches zumba classes near Asheville. Helen's been back to Korea twice and never skips Jim Jilbang. I feel for Helen. When I was an intern at a nonprofit in New York during my last summer of college, the other two interns and I decided to go to Korean Spa one weekend. We were also unaware of the no clothes policy. Nothing like surprise nakedness with your kind of colleagues. Though, once I got over the awkwardness and made sure I was laser-focused on their faces at all times, it was a fun day. If you'd like to see a photo of Helen and her family enjoying the part of the spa where

• 7:36Speaker 00

  they were allowed to wear pajamas, we'll have a photo of that on our website at themoth.org/extras. Up next, someone finds their voice, literally. Harry Sangvi told this story at a Seattle Grand Slam, where the theme of the night was occasional magic. Just as a note, this story mentions the existence of suicide. Here's Harry, live at the mall.

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  I'm 19 years old and calling into a sports radio show to talk to one of my football heroes on my hometown Buffalo Bills. I'm taping the call because I am so excited to be on the radio and I want all my friends to hear. After the conversation, the player says to me, "Thanks for calling into the program, ma'am."

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Horrified, I say, "I'm not a ma'am." He corrects himself by saying, "Oh, sorry, man." Rather than that deep husky voice that makes your knees buckle, I was blessed with this high-pitched, nasally voice like I overdosed on nitrous oxide. I have always detested my voice. And a few years ago, I spent a ton of money on dental work, which actually made my voice deeper by reducing the gaps between my teeth. But until age 40, I basically sounded like one of those talking dolls. I tried online dating, which was great because you can't hear voice through typing.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  And it would start out great until that first phone call. I remember going back and forth, email for days with this wonderful woman. And in the first phone call, she says, "Well, you sound like a kid." No, no, I'm not.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  She says, "Okay, well, do you even like women? You sound gay." Nope, I'm not gay. I'm not a small child. And I'm not a gay small child either.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  When I graduated from college with a psychology degree, I was thrilled to get my very first job at a crisis center. The only problem was that some of the work involved taking phone calls on a hotline. And my calls would go something like this. "Hi, you've reached the crisis line. This is Harry." Harry? That's a guy's name. And the callers would think that I was lying to them about my gender. My supervisor took me aside and said that I was confusing the callers. And I felt like I'm the one in crisis. I mean, where is the crisis hotline that a straight guy with a problem with a high voice can call?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  I thought, maybe I should switch careers, something that doesn't have to do with voice, like mathematics or an accountant. Or how about a mime? That's in high demand. But one thing I was absolutely sure of, there was absolutely nothing redeeming about this voice. One day, I'm on the crisis line and I receive a really serious call from a 15-year-old girl named Kelly, who has despondent and has a bottle of pills next to her. And my supervisor is listening intently, ready to possibly trace the call and send an ambulance if she needs help.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  And Kelly goes on to tell me that she's come out as gay and her family doesn't understand. So I'm doing everything that I'm trained to do. I'm listening so sympathetically. I'm asking about her feelings. But I become speechless when she asks me, "Harry, you're gay too, right?" And here we go again. The situation gets brought around to my issue and I don't know what to say. If I tell her I'm gay, that's absolutely the best thing for the call and keeping the connection going, but I'd be lying. If I say I'm not gay, then what if she feels alienated and thinks that I don't understand?

• 12:02Speaker 02

  So I decide to tell her the truth. "Kelly, I'm not gay, but I do understand what it's like to feel judged for something you feel you can't change. And I have felt unaccepted and unloved my life, but because of my voice." And we end up having this very deep 45-minute conversation. And she tells me, she's the very first person to tell me she actually likes my voice because she felt that it was very caring and we both felt good. And it really struck me that this thing, that I have been so ashamed of,

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  I've hid my voice for my entire life, but the one time I unapologetically revealed it, it might have helped save someone's life. Thank you.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Harry Sangby is from California and loves all kinds of animals, especially cats. He participated in the Moth shows a few years ago and remembers the warm friendships, kind producers and encouraging atmosphere. After the break, we'll hear about an important memory. Be back in a moment.

• 13:19Speaker 03

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• 15:19Speaker 00

  Welcome back. Our final story is a favorite from the archive from Wendy Suzuki. She told this at a New York City main stage. Here's Wendy, live at the Moth.

• 15:33Speaker 04

  Good evening, everybody. So excited to be here. Long before I ever wanted to be a neuroscientist, I wanted to be a Broadway star. I thought the people that could sing and dance and act all at the same time were the most talented people in the world. But you have to remember that I came from a very serious Japanese-American family. My grandfather came from Japan in 1910, and he started the largest Japanese-language school in all of the West Coast. So our family was serious about education. We were very pleasant, very polite, but never overly affectionate.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  So you can think of us like a Japanese-American version of Downton Abbey, without the accent, the servants, or the real estate. That was us. So despite those early Broadway dreams, I quickly and easily fell into a life of total science geekdom. And after a while, I decided to follow those science geekdom dreams to UC Berkeley, my family's alma mater. And so Mom and Dad packed me up in the car and drove me to UC Berkeley. And again, Downton Abbey. We didn't hug, we just waved goodbye. Bye, Mom and Dad. And soon after I arrived at UC Berkeley, I found the perfect outlet for my science geekiness.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  And that was a class that I took at UC Berkeley called "The Brain and Its Potential", taught by Marion Diamond. I'll never forget that very first day of class. She looked like a 50s Hollywood movie star. She had blond, bouffant hair. She was wearing a beautiful skirt and blouse with a crisp, white lab coat covering it. And not only that, she had a hat box with her in front of that classroom. And what she did, she slowly opened that lid, and very carefully, she pulled out a real, human brain.

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  I had never seen one before in my life. And she told us that what she was holding in her hands was the most complex structure known to mankind. This is a structure that defined our personalities and allows us to go from laughing to crying in one minute. Or one second. Not only that, she told us one of the most amazing things about the brain is that it could change in response to the environment. That is, the environment could change the brain's anatomy, physiology, and function. And that was called brain plasticity. And when she said that, that's the moment I realized that I wanted to be a neuroscientist. Now, during this time in college, I was your typical,

• 18:21Speaker 04

  "I don't need your help, Mom and Dad. I can do everything on my own." And despite the fact that I only lived an hour away, I only went home at Christmas, and we only kind of called each other, I only called them at most once every three months. I was busy. I was busy learning how to be a neuroscientist. There's a lot to learn. And one form of brain plasticity that I became fascinated with was memory. How did the brain allow us to take a sensory perception and let us remember that for 20, 30, 40 years, a whole lifetime? I studied the anatomy of the brain areas important for memory. I studied the physiology of the patterns of neural activity.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  I wanted to understand the neural code underlying memory function. I became an expert in long-term memory and fascinated with all those mechanistic details. But then, one day, I was sitting at my breakfast table, and I know it was a Wednesday morning because I was reading the Wednesday food section of The New York Times, which is my very favorite section. And I was excited to see an article about Thomas Keller. And he's the famous chef that owns Per Se and the French Laundry. And I was really looking forward to an article about special butter or unusual speckled eggs that he uses in his dishes. But I was really surprised to find

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  a very touching article about his relationship with his father that happened late in life, and they got very close. And in the end, the father died of a tragic car accident. And I was almost in tears at this point. But then... They described a quote that Thomas Keller gave. And what she said, "At the end of the day, all we really have is our memories." And I realized at that moment that I'd spent so much time focusing on the mechanisms and the mechanics and the anatomy of memory, that I hadn't really given a lot of thought to how deep and emotional memories were in our lives.

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  Well, sometime later, I got a call from my mother. And she told me that my dad wasn't feeling well. And not only that, that when he was driving around, he couldn't remember how to get to the 7-Eleven, where he had been buying his morning coffee for the last 30 years. That was very scary. And so, the first thing I did is I called my colleagues at Stanford University and got him the best neurologist that I could find. But during all of this process, I couldn't help but feel so guilty. I was an expert on long-term memory. I knew everything about the anatomy and physiology.

• 21:11Speaker 04

  But I couldn't do one thing to cure my father's memory problems. Well, during this time, my relationship with my parents had gotten closer. I would call them religiously every Sunday. I would first talk to my mom, and then I'd talk to my dad. But I knew after this happened, that I wanted to shake things up. I wanted to change the culture of my family. And, you know, we knew, my brother and I always knew that my parents loved us. Despite the fact that we never said those three words to each other as adults. "I love you." Remember, this is Downton Abbey, not Brady Bunch.

• 21:51Speaker 04

  And so, I realized that I wanted to start saying these words, "I love you," to my parents. But it was a little bit weird. We'd never said it before, so I couldn't just suddenly start saying it. I realized that on one of our Sunday calls, I would actually have to ask them, "Would it be okay if we started saying this?" Which is very, very awkward. I'm an adult. I have to ask my parents permission to say "I love you." But that's what I had to do. And I was feeling very uncomfortable about this. And I realized I was feeling more than uncomfortable. I was feeling scared. Because I was worried that they would say, "No, I'm not comfortable saying that. I really don't want to say that." And that would make me feel so bad.

• 22:36Speaker 04

  But I knew the only way to find out what they would say is to ask them. So I gathered up all my courage and I called mom on Sunday night. And my mantra was, "Keep it light." So, "Talk to mom and dad. How you doing? Here's my week. How was your week?" And sometimes during the conversation, I said, "Hey, mom. You know, we never say 'I love you.' What do you think about the idea of starting to say that when we talk to each other? What do you think?" And she paused. And my stomach went from down here, all the way up to my throat. And she paused.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  And then she said, "I think that's a great idea." And I went, "Oh, thank God." Okay, so, we finished up our conversation. But then the tension started rising again. Because it's one thing to agree to say "I love you." And it's another thing to actually say "I love you." So we both knew we were getting to that part of the conversation where we had to say it to each other. And we were kind of circling each other, not sure what to do. And it was my responsibility. I was the one with the idea.

• 23:57Speaker 04

  I took the bull by the horns and I said, "Okay, like, get ready. I love you." And she said, "I love you too." And we both went, "Oh, my God. Thank God, that's over."

• 24:16Speaker 04

  It was so hard, but we made it through. We made it through. And because that went so successfully, I wasn't worried about my dad at all. I knew he would say yes. I asked my dad, he said yes. We did our awkward "I love yous", and the phone call was over. That was so great. But I have to say that after I got off that call, I broke down in tears. It was so emotional to actually have said that. And it was so emotional to know that I I had actually changed the culture of my family that night. So, the next week, I called, and you'll be happy to know that my "I love you" with my mom got ever so much less awkward that next week. So, we're doing really well.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  We're working it out. And then I started talking to my dad, and I realized that he might not remember that we hadn't made this agreement last week, so I was ready to remind him. But, you know something?

• 25:16Speaker 04

  That week, he said "I love you" first. And he said, he has said "I love you" first every single week after that. And you have to remember that my dad, sometimes, he can't quite remember whether I'm visiting for Thanksgiving or Christmas. But somehow, he was able to make this memory work. And guess what? I know why, because I'm a neuroscientist. And I know, I know that emotional resonance is helpful for memories. It really pushes those memories into our long-term memories. So, the beautiful emotion of his daughter asking him whether she can say "I love you" to him,

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  it beat dementia and allowed him to form a new memory. And you can be sure that I will keep that memory for the rest of my life. And now that is why I study memory.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  That was Wendy Suzuki. Dr. Suzuki is dean at the College of Arts and Science and professor of neural science at New York University. Her research focuses on how our brains retain long-term memories and the effects of exercise on our cognitive abilities. That's it for this episode. If listening to these stories has given you the confidence to tell your own, why not get up on stage at one of our Moth Story Slams? They happen throughout the year and all over the world. To find one near you, visit themoth.org/events. Thank you to our storytellers for sharing with us and to you for listening. And to all, happy AAPI Heritage Month. We hope you'll join us next time.

• 27:04Speaker 05

  Chloe Salmon is a director at The Moth. Her favorite Moth moments come on show days, when the cardio is done, the house lights go down, and the magic settles in. Wendy Suzuki's story was directed by Meg Bowles, and Harry Songvi's story was coached by Michelle Jalowski. This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Sollinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jennifer Hickson, Kate Tellers, Marina Kluchay, Suzanne Rust, Leigh Anne Gully, and Patricia Orenya. The Moth Podcast is presented by Odyssey. Special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Reese Dennis. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers.

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  For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.