My Story
When I was a toddler during the late 80s in South Korea, I thought the long, skinny antenna on our radio was a microphone. I would pull it out, position it towards my mouth and sing, mimic DJs, and voice my own made-up stories. I was a shy child with a penchant for a wild imagination, and the antenna was the bridge to a private world where I could say anything.
Right after the 1988 Seoul Olympics, my father enrolled in a Ph.D program in America and my family relocated to West Virginia for several years. I learned English and found my way in a completely unfamiliar place through music and stories. My greatest influences were Whitney Houston, Lionel Richie, Abba, Carpenters, Simon and Garfunkel, Rachmaninoff, and EVERY SINGLE Disney film. Listening to their music and watching those movies, singing every verse and reciting every line made me fall in love with melodies, expression, and the exquisitely chosen words with an external and internal rhythm. As soon as I learned to read English, I also discovered the world of books. I had a bearded English teacher named Mr. Vidovich. He took our class to the library every day and encouraged us to explore each section. With every book we read he always asked, “What would you choose to do, if you were them?” It was a question that put us right into the character’s shoes - one which had infinite answers. My antenna expanded, along with my sense of belonging.
I returned to Korea as a pre-teen. Through an amalgamation of fate, luck, and naïve conviction, I debuted as a solo recording artist at the age of 16 in the nascent K-pop industry of the late 90s. I brought my love of stories with me to studios and sets. My producers supported my stubborn insistence to include songs that sounded more like a Disney animation theme in an otherwise pop album. In my very first professional performance of my career as I opened for a famous rock band, I performed “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from the musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, to the uneasiness of my team and the bewilderment of the band’s fans. (At least it was a rock musical.) I had my repertoire of hit K-pop songs throughout my career but also became known for my renditions of “Part of Your World” and “Reflection” - songs by animation heroines uncertain about themselves and their unconventional paths, who would nonetheless continue their adventures with fierce determination. It wasn’t just the music that spoke to me, but the human story at the core that drew me in.
When I took a hiatus from my music career to study and practice law in the US, I discovered an even stronger connection to stories. Poring over complicated contracts and undergoing laborious fact-finding, I realized I was on the same expedition to understand people and their intentions, to decipher underlying desire and make sense of how they translate into acts, and ultimately to craft a coherent story within a set of facts and an even more complex cast of characters. These stories were not fiction, but real. Every line on my corporate resume was an opportunity to gather themes to infuse into the stories I would create. It was a perspective that saved my sanity more than once.
I always felt a special fondness for narratives connected to youth - a time when everything feels possible, when fear and disappointment are coupled with a natural elasticity to bounce back. Perhaps it is the purity of adolescence that allows me to hope despite all the pain in the world.
With time I’ve come to realize that good stories are ageless. ‘Try to see the world from a child’s viewpoint’, they say. But that viewpoint is not so different from that of an adult. Children want to be liked for who they are. They get hurt and get back up. They want to be given the chance to do what they love, to attempt something, be allowed to fail, and through that process, evolve. That is what we still want as adults. The stories that have stood the test of time explore the joy and heartache of a kind of love, whether it is towards another person, a craft, or yourself, no matter what age.
I hope that this studio will grow into a place where through its stories, children can be curious, feel understood and challenged, and continuously enter new rooms inside of themselves. A place where they can speak quietly into their internal antennas and find a signal. A place where all of us who hold a piece of our inner child within can find our own unique answers to the question, “What would you choose to do, if you were them?”
Thank you for joining us.
With gratitude,
Soeun