Category: Film

My New Podcast Coming Soon: The Voices We Carry


Hey friends! I’m excited to announce I’m starting a podcast soon based on my book The Voices We Carry.

I know everyone’s got a podcast going these days. Mine is a solo broadcast: the goal is to champion your voices. Here’s a bit of what to expect.


1) Q&A. I’d love to engage with your questions about mental health, grief, loss, trauma, my doubts and depression, church, theology, race, politics, my chaplain work at the hospital and homeless shelter. About anything you’re going through. #AskMeAnything


Here’s my Q&A archive to see questions I’ve answered before (and I can answer again!)


2) Your stories. I’d love to share your stories on the podcast. Please feel free to share about a particular voice or message stuck in your head that you overcame (or didn’t). How did you find your voice through the process? I can keep you anonymous if you’d like.


3) Corrections. I will correct my old writings that I don’t agree with anymore. To criticize my old posts and ideas. To share where I totally missed it.


4) Challenges. I get it wrong, a lot. And I’d love to change my mind. I want to hear your disagreements. Not to fight, but to expand our voices together.


5) Reviews. Tell me about a movie or book or video or blog post or news article. I’ll watch or read, and we’ll discuss.


Please message me through Facebook, comment below, or email me at
thevoiceswecarry@gmail.com

Thank you, friends! Looking forward to it truly.
— J.S.

p.s. Our baby isn’t here yet, please send prayers!


Interviewed by Ben Amoah of The Auricle Podcast


I was interviewed by Ben Amoah of The Auricle Podcast. We talked about having a healthy skepticism for our beliefs, what brought me from atheism into faith, and my work as a hospital chaplain.

On Apple Podcast / iTunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-necessity-of-being-a-skeptic-ft-j-s-park/id1434506901?i=1000474189654

Why I Needed Parasite

The cast and crew of "Parasite," including Yang Jinmo, Han Jin Won, Kwak Sin Ae, Lee Ha Jun, Yang-kwon Moon, Song Kang Ho, Cho Yeo Jeong Lee Sun Kyun, and Bong Joon Ho arrive at the 92nd Academy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood. (Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times/TNS)


I saw Parasite / 기생충 in a packed theater with a diverse crowd. Looking around, I never could’ve imagined a day in the States when such an audience would watch a movie in my language, with my people, telling our stories.

It really meant a lot to me. I have to tell you why.

I remember in middle school when someone assaulted me while yelling “you ch_nk yellow belly.” Someone shoving me in a hallway telling me to go back to where I came from. Multiple times someone would squint their eyes, do their version of an Asian accent, pose at me like Bruce Lee, all while high-fiving each other. Having to endure that scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, being told it was “art.” Someone in my college history class telling me that Korea needed to be nuked, and “it doesn’t matter which one.” I remember when my dad’s business was spray-painted with a swastika. I remember inexplicable rage when some kid yelled “your dad killed my dad in the war,” and his dad picking him up later after he was sent to detention.

Art, music, film, books: these things have the power to take away our fear, our bigotry, our assumptions. They turn masses into individuals. They turn cartoons into real people. For someone like me, I have to prove daily I am a real person. For art to put my story into public consciousness is allowing me more room to breathe, to exist.

A part of me wishes a movie like Parasite could’ve been accepted earlier. Seeing a face like mine on a big screen has an immense affect on how we see each other. But more than that, a good story, like the one in Parasite, makes us more human. Hearing more stories makes us better, more whole, more gracious. We need diverse stories, and good ones.

During the movie, I looked around. Seeing so many faces enraptured by a powerful story, taken in by faces that looked like mine, I wept. Certainly I wept because the movie was incredible. But I wept feeling something I never had before: a kinship with strangers. Humanization. The image of the divine, seen and known.

After the movie ended, we all sat in our seats for a while. Collectively, our breath was taken away. And collectively, we were sharing breath. Maybe I’m making too much of a movie. I suppose it’s a silly thing to weep about. It only tells me how long I have been deprived of such connection. These stories, they’re important to tell.

— J.S.


This was posted on my Facebook here and Instagram here.


Crazy Male Asians: Stories Matter


With the release of Crazy Rich Asians, here’s my most popular post from last year: On the “Ugly Asian Male” stereotype, and why Asian-American males are considered the least attractive people and the least likely to be a lead.

– Ugly Asian Male: On Being the Least Attractive Guy in the Room

I was surprised this post got any traction at all. Often when I talk about anything Asian, people glaze over and tune out. “You’re smart, you have it easy, you work hard, you people are privileged too,” I always hear, as if my only say in the matter is to be grateful and bow all the time. And I know that “diversity” is not an issue everybody wants to hear because it’s been used as a guilt-sledgehammer. So I rarely talk about it here.

But these things do matter to me. I learned quickly as a young Korean-American that my life was a second-class existence. I was a prop, the comic relief, the third acquaintance. I wish I had any sort of Hollywood hero to aspire to.

Asian males in American media are often emasculated hair-dyed plot devices, mute kung fu experts, evil villains, or the computer guy in a chair. It’s almost impossible to name the last time an Asian male was the romantic interest in any American movie. Even Mulan​ was the only animated Disney movie where the romantic leads didn’t kiss. I guess an Asian male having that sort of energy was too weird.

That’s all fine, I suppose, but the power of mainstream art has a way of drawing boxes around our perception of others, including the perception of self. I suffocated in this box for too long. And God forbid we have actual dreams, hopes, insecurities, and backstories like everyone else.

With recent shows like Kim’s Convenience​, Fresh off the Boat​, and Ugly Delicious​, it’s great to see we’re slowly chipping away at old conventions. I’m not sure that Asian-Americans are going to have the “one huge hit that will change everything.” If that happens, I’m all for it. I’m also all for working modestly towards the horizon, like we’ve always done. I hope you will hear us. Our stories are worth sharing. Here’s to breaking boxes.

— J.S.

At the Hospital.


Hey friends, a couple weeks ago, I was in the ER. Not as a chaplain, but as a patient. I’m okay today, but wow—what an experience. It was both awful and affirming.

I was at work (so fortunately, already at the hospital) and had lost my balance and gotten feverish and was shaking like crazy. It all happened pretty quickly: I went from high-fiving fellow chaplains to hugging the wall with a 101 fever.

I was given a bunch of tests: a blood draw, X-ray, CT scan, a long Q-tip that went as far up my nose as possible, a rectal exam, and 350 ccs of rectal contrast. It was all pretty invasive and embarrassing stuff. The loss of autonomy is remarkably fast and total. I was half-naked under my gown. To use the restroom, I had to call for the nurse to disconnect my IV and oximeter. I didn’t have my toothbrush or phone charger; not a big deal, but things I’ve taken for granted. I’ve seen this sort of thing hundreds of times with patients, but of course, it’s a whole other thing to switch places.

The nurses and doctors were incredible with how gentle they were. They narrated every step of each procedure. They maintained my privacy. They kept me updated with total clarity. And when I returned to work later that week, no one made it weird. Well, I did, for the guy who inserted the rectal fluid. I blurted out, “I’m glad it was you!”—and immediately regretted my decision.

The most important learning for me was the value of chaplains. Two of them were with me. It was a huge difference having a chaplain in the room, and the impact stayed. Sometimes I’ve wondered about what I do and what it actually means for people, but I get it now. The power of presence, of a connection to the divine, is so crucial in crisis. To have someone pray for you when you’re that vulnerable is like nothing else, like the breaking of bread right out the oven, like warm water over cold tired hands, like the first gleam of light in a darkened tunnel. I’m so grateful for my fellow chaplains. Thank God for them. I can’t believe I get to do what I do.

The tests, by the way, came up just fine. A temporary body glitch, or I need to take better care of myself, or I’m just getting old. Like they say, even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. We all get there.

It was pretty scary, but I’m certain my experience isn’t nearly as hard or harsh as many others who have gone to the hospital. I think, at the very least, I have a tiny glimpse of what it’s like to be the one looking up from the hospital bed. Thank you to those who prayed and for those who will. I’m feeling much, much better today.
— J.S.


Photo by Images Catalog, CC0 1.0

Ugly Asian Male: On Being the Least Attractive Guy in the Room

Statistically, I’m the least attractive person in the dating scene. Alongside black women, the Asian-American male is considered the most ugly and undesirable person in the room.

Take it from Steve Harvey, who won’t eat what he can’t pronounce:

“‘Excuse me, do you like Asian men?’ No thank you. I don’t even like Chinese food. It don’t stay with you no time. I don’t eat what I can’t pronounce.’”

Eddie Huang, creator of the groundbreaking Asian-American sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, responded to Steve Harvey in The New York Times:

“[Every] Asian-American man knows what the dominant culture has to say about us. We count good, we bow well, we are technologically proficient, we’re naturally subordinate, our male anatomy is the size of a thumb drive and we could never in a thousand millenniums be a threat to steal your girl.”

Asian-American men, like me, know the score. That is, we don’t count at all.

Hollywood won’t bank on me. Think: When was the last time you saw an Asian male kiss a non-Asian female in a movie or TV show? Or when was the last time an Asian-American male was the desired person in a romantic comedy? And more specifically, when where they not Kung Fu practitioners or computer geniuses? I can only think of two examples: Steven Yeun as Glenn from The Walking Dead and John Cho as Harold from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. So it takes either a zombie apocalypse or the munchies to see a fully breathing Asian male lead, or a Photoshop campaign #StarringJohnCho for an Asian protagonist with actual thoughts in his head.

It’s so rare to see a three-dimensional Asian male character, with actual hopes and dreams, that Steven Yeun remarks in GQ Magazine:

GQ Magazine: When you look back on your long tenure on The Walking Dead, what makes you proudest?

Steven Yeun: Honestly, the privilege that I had to play an Asian-American character that didn’t have to apologize at all for being Asian, or even acknowledge that he was Asian. Obviously, you’re going to address it. It’s real. It’s a thing. I am Asian, and Glenn is Asian. But I was very honored to be able to play somebody that showed multiple sides, and showed depth, and showed a way to relate to everyone. It was quite an honor, in that regard. This didn’t exist when I was a kid. I didn’t get to see Glenn. I didn’t get to see a fully formed Asian-American person on my television, where you could say, “That dude just belongs here.” Kids, growing up now, can see this show and see a face that they recognize. And go, “Oh my god. That’s my face too.”

Growing up, I never had that, either. I can’t help but think of this scene from the biopic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, in which Bruce Lee watches the controversial Asian stereotype played by Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s to a theater filled with derisive laughter. This moment with Bruce Lee is most likely fictional, but the weight of it is not lost on us:

This was a powerful moment for me as a kid, because I grew up with the same sort of mocking laughter, whether it was watching Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with my white neighbors, or being assailed by the Bruce Lee wail in the local grocery store. I knew they were laughing at me, and not with.

Continue reading “Ugly Asian Male: On Being the Least Attractive Guy in the Room” →

Movies That Christians Should Watch: The Shawshank Redemption

andyred

Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Columbia Pictures

Summary:
Andy Dufresne is sent to prison for the murder of his wife and her extramarital lover. He is soon indoctrinated in a savage world of bargaining, machismo, corruption, and despair. But Andy is a silent unassailable force who through intellect and his child-like innocence gains favor with both the guards and the prisoners. He befriends Red, a longtime inmate, who berates hope but believes in Andy, and together they forge a bond that survives the decades.

Starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, Gil Bellows. Directed by Frank Darabont.

Questionable Content:
Graphic violence, quick visuals of a sex scene, language, implied prison rape, a vivid murder, and several suicides.

Why You Should See It:

Adapted from a short story by Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption is one of the best American films ever made. It did poorly at the box office and wasn’t well received, but picked up steam on VHS and is now a beloved, timeless classic. Only three years ago, it managed to fill 151 hours of basic cable television in a year, tying with Scarface and second to Mrs. Doubtfire, and still paying residuals to its principal actors and crew.

The movie works because we like Andy Dufresne. He’s perfectly imperfect. Some movies manipulate the audience into rooting for the main character by throwing all sorts of contrivances at him (see The Pursuit of Happiness or Patch Adams), but Andy must do his sincere best in a broken system that does not allow for hopeful men like him.

Continue reading “Movies That Christians Should Watch: The Shawshank Redemption” →

Movies That Christians Should Watch: The Truman Show


The Truman Show (1998)
Paramount Pictures

Summary:
Truman Burbank, in one of Jim Carrey’s finest performances, is a nice guy with a nice wife, the nice house, job, and neighbors — but it’s all been staged for Truman. He’s the center of a global reality show in which he’s the only one who doesn’t know. From birth, he’s been raised on an engineered island with hired actors and millions of hidden cameras. If you think I’ve given away the big secret, this is only the start of the movie. Truman’s world slowly unravels when he finds clues that reveal the seams. He knows something is wrong; we find he has probably known it his whole life. He must decide whether to discover his reality or stay content on his perfect island.

Also starring Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, and Natascha McElhone. Directed by Peter Weir.

Questionable Content:
Some suggestions of sex, an unethical premise, and a scene of a man nearly dying.

Why You Should See It (Some Spoilers Ahead):

Continue reading “Movies That Christians Should Watch: The Truman Show” →

A Video of My Wedding.


A short video of our wedding at the Rusty Pelican in Tampa, FL. Wedding photos here and engagement photos here. We just had our one year anniversary. I also proposed two years ago on Valentine’s Day. Quite an adventure, it’s been.
— J.S.


Christians: You’re Allowed To Fail, But Don’t Be Mediocre

An open letter to Christian artists and creative minds.


The Christian subculture tends to celebrate mediocrity because we think it’s Christian to be “nice” even when something sucks.

I mean like, hey man, that’s my kid playing Noah up there in the annual performance of “The Loving Wrath of Jehovah.”  Never mind the boat is a rusty shopping cart.

Suburban churches have an extremely high tolerance for bad sermons, bad Christmas plays, bad drama skits, bad music, and all-around poor production values.

We lower our standards with an almost forceful resentment, as if having approval in God gives us permission to be cheap and shoddy.

Most Christianized media is a safe, sanitized, bubble-fringe ghetto that appeals to certain mindless demographics which will eat up anything labeled “for the Kingdom.”

But as the great DC Talk once said, “If it’s Christian, it ought to be better.”

Continue reading “Christians: You’re Allowed To Fail, But Don’t Be Mediocre” →

5 Reasons Why Hershel From The Walking Dead Is My Favorite Christian On TV

Nearly every Christian on TV and in movies is portrayed to be an extreme bigot, a closet prodigal, or a gun-toting uptight neo-con Republican. A good screenwriter can manage to squeeze all three in one.

Christians do deserve some of the criticism. In the 1980s, we over-reached our grasp by trying to politicize “Christian morality” in every platform, and we now live in the backlash of trying too hard to force the church into the state. In the 1990s, there was a “Christianese” version of everything, from Testa-Mints to Bibleman to Xtreme Youth Group Pizza Night to the Holy Land Experience theme park. Either we’re getting good stuff like Lecrae and Switchfoot, or we’re getting awful stuff like a tame Nic Cage in Left Behind and yet another Westboro picketing.

For every time that Christians call foul on how they’re portrayed in the media, I always have to say that we’re not helping our case either. It’s true that the media sensationalizes the worst of us: but we’re giving them great material.

So it always surprises me to see a multi-dimensional Christian in the entertainment media, who’s not a dichotomous banner-waver but a modest down-to-earth father, who happens to be a Christian. Hershel from The Walking Dead has some of the familiar tropes we’ve come to expect — a sage-like advice dispenser, has too-perfect Bible verses for the situation, owns an actual farm — but there’s a deep world-weariness and bemusement in his mannerisms that brings a depth we never see in screen-written Christians.

On a show that’s been panned for uneven writing, false motivations, and some bad dialogue (Things-And-Stuff Rick), Hershel’s character arc is one of the best on the show, and one of the best in any show period.

Here are five reasons why Hershel Greene is my favorite Christian on TV.

[Some spoilers follow, especially for #5.]

Continue reading “5 Reasons Why Hershel From The Walking Dead Is My Favorite Christian On TV” →

Grace Enough For Your Past Self: God Working In Spite Of Screw-Ups

There’s a time when you screw up and everyone knows it and you try to hide it: but God can still explode the consequences with His grace. That’s why it’s grace.

If you don’t think so, there’s this book called the Bible which talks about a cross where Jesus paid for that so you wouldn’t have to. True story.

It means you can stop hiding from yourself and let go of what people say about you.

Recently a megachurch pastor took down his entire backlog of sermon podcasts because of his “growth” in doctrinal knowledge. Any sermons before a certain time period were apparently no longer a reflection of his current beliefs.

In a few years, will this pastor continue to delete old sermons? Will any of his sermons today still stand up to future scrutiny? Does this mean that anyone who attended his church in the past did not grow from those deleted sermons? Wasn’t God working then too?

A popular Christian blogger recently tore apart a popular Christian book on marriage by a megachurch pastor. The blogger remarked that she found it atrocious the pastor admitted to severe marriage problems: because the timing implies that this pastor was still preaching while he was living in sin.

But by this blogger’s logic, this would disqualify every single pastor ever from preaching or serving, much less being saved by God’s grace. Sin is sin, large or small. Is there really no value in this pastor’s book or ministry or life? If all our secrets are displayed for everyone to see, does this instantly cancel every good thing we have ever done?

If we’re limiting God’s graciousness to our own human ideas of fairness, then every one of us should have burst into flames at birth. Absolutely no one is worthy to merit God’s favor: but here we are, Christian or not, meriting the breath to breathe and thoughts to think and lives to live, and Christian or not, we are still under the same God with the same standard who offers the same grace.

Anything we ever get to do of worth is by the grace of God alone. God works in spite of the mixed mess of our motives and in the midst of our secret double lives. No human sees the full scope of this: we can only plead for the grace.

I’m glad a pastor has the humility to confess his old sermons are probably not orthodox anymore, and I’m also bothered by a pastor who has confessed that he was preaching on marriage while his own marriage was failing. But both of these thoughts can quickly ignore the God who has grace enough to cover our errors, shortcomings, imperfections, and screw-ups.

None of us get it right every time — but we can still be a vehicle for God’s perfect work. None of us completely understand the fullness of God’s nature or His Word — but we can still know Him, experience Him, hear from Him. None of us are ever so far from the sovereign hand of God that He can’t rescue us from a life of destruction — or else we are diminishing the soul-punching uppercut-power of God’s interrupting grace.

He can and does cover the worst of us, not because we deserve it, but exactly because we cannot.

Continue reading “Grace Enough For Your Past Self: God Working In Spite Of Screw-Ups” →

Movies That Christians Should Watch: Apollo 13


Apollo 13 (1995)
Universal Pictures

Summary:
**Some spoilers ahead.**

Three men are sent into space by NASA in 1970 when the space industry begins to lose its luster, and suddenly an expedition to the moon becomes a rescue mission back to earth. The journey is cut short when faulty equipment explodes and these three men, with the resourcefulness of the control center on the ground, use everything at their disposal to make it safely home.

Starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, and Gary Sinise. Directed by Ron Howard.

Questionable Content:
Intense scenes of distress and anxiety in a spaceshuttle, plenty of well-deserved yelling, some coarse language, and a woman taking a shower loses her wedding ring (no nudity).

Why You Should See It:
The indelible words of Astronaut Jim Lovell are embedded in our culture: Houston, we have a problem. The problem is more or less a mechanical failure that would hardly make sense to ordinary laymen, but the film slows down to present these historic trials piece by agonizing piece: leaking oxygen, low battery, rising CO2 levels, freezing temperatures, possible heat damage and disintegration, and a horrifying scene where the broken shuttle must make a perfectly timed burst for 39 seconds in one direction.

We know they survived in the true story, but it doesn’t make the movie any less tense. The flight director Gene Kranz, played by a brilliant Ed Harris in the best performance of the movie, passionately breaks down each problem with the crew like a math puzzle: except the stakes are human lives. Hope drives them to relentless measures. No one sleeps. You’ll never hear “insurmountable odds” quite the same way again.

Continue reading “Movies That Christians Should Watch: Apollo 13” →

Quote: Reward



God never calls us to sacrifice as an end in itself, but only through sacrifice on the way to great joy. On the other side of the seeming loss and denial is always reward and pleasure so deep and so intense that it’s almost impossible to call what you gave up a sacrifice at all.

— Joshua Harris


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