Storytelling x Identity

When I turned 25, I had a “quarter-life identity crisis” and moved to China to explore my diasporic roots.

Two months in, I sat down with Brendan Davis, host of the podcast Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom, to reflect on my reasons for making the leap — and reckon with the surprising biases and narratives I was discovering I had internalized about being Asian too.

This conversation would lay the groundwork for future community engagement. 20 months later, we partnered with the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to host a storytelling panel for U.N. International Migrants Day, facilitating dialogue between locals and expats about their diverse migration experiences.

big fish in the middle kingdom podcast

#047: Storytelling & Identity | Chrislyn Choo

Host: Brendan Davis. Published here on April 25, 2018.

This week’s guest is Chrislyn Choo. Chrislyn is a storyteller, which takes shape in the form of writing, photojournalism, video, and in her daily life. She’s young but already highly accomplished, with a degree in Neuroscience from Duke University and a regional Emmy-award for her work documenting the harvesting of clean energy from pickle water - which I had no idea was even a thing! She’s also a curious inquirer of different cultures and a dedicated student of the nature of identity. Chrislyn is on a still-evolving identity reclamation project of her own, currently on a mission to discover the parts of herself that have strong roots in China, and we had a really fast but thought-provoking conversation ranging from identity issues to dealing with the effects of generational trauma, and more.

What’s funny is that what was planned as essentially a mentoring meeting turned into an impromptu interview request. I first met Chrislyn at the EO event that I posted a recording of last week, and was struck by just how present and engaged she was in serious issues, but with a sense of humor and perspective that seemed pretty unique to me. As far as having her on the show, as we started talking in our meeting yesterday I realized that she’s on a unique China adventure herself, and I thought her story would be relatable to a lot of people now, and to more and more as people like her - Americans and other foreigners who are ethnically part of the Chinese diaspora returns home to rediscover their Asian roots - so I was very happy to invite her to share it here. Enjoy.