A Quote by B. D. Wong
If I were to limit myself to the opportunities that were presented playing only Chinese-American parts, I would be virtually without a career.
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Growing up I was a total movie-holic, but I always wanted to play the role that Clark Gable was playing or Spencer Tracy was playing. I was really never interested in the parts that women were playing. I found the parts that guys were playing were so much more interesting.
Three or four years ago, I got really caught up in the movies people were making, the opportunities they were getting, and I was looking at them with bitterness. As soon as I decided that their career was their career and mine was mine and I would have to serve myself, my attitude changed. I'm as normal as you can be in these circumstances.
I would like to have opportunities in my career to do parts that people would remember - either the whole character or certain moments that they personally could really connect to or were really affected by it deeply.
The Chinese, on the other hand, were in the position of having an American military spy plane on a Chinese military base and they had their own internal problems to deal with. At first, the Chinese weren't all that belligerent. They were just stalling to get their own bureaucracy in line.
I would like to study Judaism. I feel that my own Jewish education was really quite superficial from a certain point of view. Although I think the values were very clear and were presented very clearly, there's - there were aspects of the whole tradition that were not emphasized. And, you know, I've come to those areas myself as I've grown older. But I would like to go deeper.
Many Chinese criticize me not only on Baidu but on Facebook. Some say, do you think Chinese authorities were stupid enough not to realize you were a North Korean defector? If they read my book, they'd understand. I did my best to escape. I think it's all a miracle. It's not because Chinese policemen were stupid enough to believe my fake story.
If it were not for people who stepped forward and gave me opportunities at a time when I had not proved myself at all, believe me, I would not have a career.
The story of our band is that we were this relentless touring band in those early years. We were leaving day jobs and going off on the road and having fun and seeing the country for the first time. We were playing Chinese restaurants and basements and record stores and houses. We were crashing on floors and it was all new and exciting. It was like a vacation. It didn't feel like work. I couldn't wait to go on tour back then. I would be sitting at my day job or my apartment, just itching to go. There were so many adventures that were about to happen.
We first became conscious of the plane publicly on a Monday. I thought then by the weekend it would be done. But then the Chinese military, the defense minister made a statement saying that if there was no apology from the United States, the Chinese military and the Chinese people would never understand. No reference to the government or the Communist Party, and that obviously presented an internal problem to the Chinese leadership, which was travelling at that moment.
Right after September 11, 2001, there weren't really any blogs in China, but there were a lot of Chinese chatrooms - and there were a lot of conversations in which Chinese netizens were saying things like, 'served them right.' That was definitely not the official Chinese government policy - which condemned the terrorists.
Therefore, if one were to consider that there was virtually no possibility of success through the US-Japan negotiations, the military and economic pressures would only force Japan into further crisis if time were allowed to pass in vain.
The Boxer Rebellion is a war that was fought on Chinese soil in the year 1900. The Europeans, the Japanese and their Chinese Christian allies were on one side. On the other were poor, starving, illiterate Chinese teenagers whom the Europeans referred to as the Boxers.
We had Chinese artists that would put in elements for the Chinese audience like the calligraphy actually means something so the audience when they read it they'll understand. So there were definitely little things we were able to do that specifically leveraged the artists' talents.
I would not call my family 'traditional Chinese.' We were more what I would term the Colonial Chinese.
I've had a fantastic career playing great parts. In many ways, the colour of my skin has been an asset because I've been asked to play certain roles as a result. I don't apologise for playing them anymore than Robert de Niro is sorry for playing American-Italians.
My career was quite unusual, so my main advice to someone interested in a career similar to my own is to remain open to change and new opportunities. I like to tell students that the jobs I took after my Ph.D. were not in existence only a few years before.
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