For Korean-Americans, according to the stereotype
anyway, it used to be that you
grew up to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer.
There were a specific set of rules and expectations.
Are you asking me to be in a porno?
Is that what you're asking me?
Thanks to some remarkably bad Koreans, though,
things are beginning to change.
I went to one year of law school and I walked out.
So you're a bad Korean.
Yeah, I'm a bad Korean.
Any final advice for somebody
who's actually about to marry a Korean woman?
Don't do it.
♪ ♪
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All I knew was that this town was going down,
and no one was showing up.
And so we as Koreans
figured that out really quickly.
There's a point where you and I
look at each other and say.
They're not coming.
They're not coming, Tony.
You know? Like, it's you and me.
Right. Right. The choppers
will not be here anytime soon.
You know? Yeah, I mean, so that's when all the
stuff started to go down.
Roy Choi is a second-generation Korean American.
He lives in Los Angeles.
He's the owner/operator of
four groundbreaking and much
loved food trucks, among the
first to harness the strange
and terrible powers of social
media to alert customers to
where to find delicious food.
This was the command post.
From here, you know, you could
look, and you could see if fires were going on.
When the Los Angeles riots happened in 1992,
Roy was 22 years old.
And this plaza's rooftop played
a central role for Koreans defending their town.
But let's back up a bit.
After the Immigration Act of
1965, thousands of Koreansof began arriving in L.A.
The first to arrive were mostly middle-class,
college-educated, hoping to make a lateral move
into American society.
But unless you had a medical or engineering degree,
that turned out to be tough.
They found work as merchants, store owners,
opened liquor stores, groceries, massage studios,
dry cleaners.
They did that in an area that was, as it's called,
underserved.
Where major chains feared to tread, where
others preferred to abandon, Koreans moved in.
So, 1992.
Four L.A. police officers
are on trial for what sure as
hell looked to me like a wildly
excessive and prolonged beating
of an unarmed Rodney King.
In April of that year, they were acquitted.
For me, it was a, "Holy shit, I
never saw that coming" moment. I
For African Americans, it
was a somewhat ruder surprise.
To say people were angry would be an understatement.
They don't represent the people no more.
South Central is that way.
So, you could almost feel it
like a tidal wave coming.
The L.A.P.D. were completely
unprepared for what happened next.
Everything you see right here, all this, was being
looted.
Chairs and rocks and everything
being thrown through walls.
If you go straight down Western, on Venice,
the whole plaza burned on fire.
We were calling 911 and there was no response.
Did cops come at all?
I was here all three days.
I didn't see any cops.
Well, where did they set up their front line?
Rodeo Drive.
Where did the forces of law and order set up their
perimeter?
Not here.
Koreatown was left to its own devices.
The official borders are
Third Street on the north end,
Olympic Boulevard to the south,
Vermont Avenue on the east,
and Western Avenue to the west.
That's three square miles left pretty much to burn
or fend for itself.
This rooftop quickly became the command post for
rapidly improvised Korean defense forces.
They armed themselves, set up crude but effective
command and control communication, and patrols.
We weren't going around just
slugging and-and capping people.
All that was happening was,
"Just don't break down my store."
Making sure our parents, our uncles, our families,
these stores, this town, stays alive.
58 people were killed.
Only a quarter of Korean-owned businesses survived,
either destroyed outright during the riots
or abandoned afterwards by
owners who felt the entire
underpinning of their contract
with America had shifted.
Yet today, Koreatown is bigger and better and
forever changed by what happened in 1992.
Dong Il Jang, however, is as unwaveringly old school
as you get.
Roy and I sit down with Roy Kim, whose grandfather
opened the place in 1978.
Like most Korean restaurants at the time,
you didn't mess with the original, ever.
And like most Korean father/son relationships,
you obeyed Dad's wishes no matter what.
My father put all this, you know, redwood in,
and all this cherry and all this.
But, to this day, I can't touch certain
things here.
I can see he doesn't let you change the uniforms
either.
Uh, no.
Yeah.
Well, he still controls the restaurant.
You just do the work.
I just do the work.
As a Korean, he knows.
We start with bonchon, all those delicious little
freebie plates of pickles,
preserves, kimchi, pickles,
a spicy squid snack or two.
No bonchon?
No meal.
And you know what this restaurant has that a lot of
restaurants are going away from?
Is the, um... is the chair-less rooms.
You don't do the-the feet under?
Knees forward, feet under?
All the-the tea ceremonies.
Straight ahead?
Oh, no can do.
That was punishment for Koreans.
Yeah.
That's a punishment.
And with the book over your head.
Oh, for hours.
What would a crime be?
What got you into that, uh, position?
Yeah, I mean, it could be
as-as minimal as a 94 on the test.
Korean parents?
Well, let's just say they veer towards the strict.
Moms and Dads were not, shall we say, conflicted
about corporal punishment.
I love that you both immediately recognize this.
Oh, this is the roast gui.
This is what we're known...
It's thinly sliced rib-eye, marbled rib-eye.
Oh, it's beautiful.
Roast gui.
Thin-sliced rib-eye.
And bulgogi.
Thinly-sliced, fat-marbled
beef, barbecued table-side.
For us Koreans, it's kind of
funny that barbecue has become
the gateway to our food, though.
Hey, it could be worse.
It could be worse, yeah.
At least it's delicious.
It's delicious and we're like, "Okay, this is the-
this is the portal."
We're cool with that.
Then there's kimchi bulgogi bokkeumbap.
Basically kimchi fried rice.
But it fries into the pan like paella.
So many great rice dishes where that outer layer of
crispy stuff is just the best.
The tableside cooking.
I think people overlook that a lot. You know,
this is like crepes suzette, filleting a Dover sole.
Oh man, that's just ridiculously delicious.
Will you be doing this in 20 years?
It won't change.
If we did change tonight, I would get a complaint.
And you'd have to talk to your dad.
Oh, yeah.
That's-that's a problem.
What do you do if you're a locavore in L.A.?
You look around.
What's local and delicious, artisanal and authentic,
and as iconically L.A.
as it gets?
If you're Roy Choi, you see tacos.
And with Kogi Truck, Roy Choi brought one of the
first great mutation mash-ups
of Korean and Mexican to the people.
What started as one truck became four trucks and
three brick-and-mortar restaurants to go with them.
For me, Kogi was always one truck in my mind.
But then the lines got big, you know?
And it evolved.
Hola, Herlindo.
Roy trained at the Culinary Institute of America
and interned at Le Bernardin in New York City.
He runs his trucks like you'd
expect of someone with that background.
Within our food media landscape, we've romanticized
certain compositions of what a great chef and
a-and-and a great kitchen are supposed to look and
smell and feel like.
But just because those are
beautiful doesn't mean that this is not beautiful.
For me, I don't see mustard
plants and sheep grazing.
I see barbed wire and telephone poles,
and I see puddles.
And, you know, all of that stuff contribute to the
flavor of the food.
So, it's truly what I call a terroir, you know, uh,
a regional food.
Okay, gracias.
And they're off.
Every lunch shift and every evening,
the trucks' locations are sent out over Twitter.
The locations change every day.
And people flock quicklyry day.
To find them, as the lines can get long.
Very long.
I took a run with Roy as he made his nightly rounds.
So, how often do you make the full circuit
between all of your, uh, various enterprises?
Twice a day, every day,
unless I'm doing something crazy like this.
So it's kind of like I have
a-a huge Las Vegas hotel, but the hallways are the
streets.
First stop: Chego, a rice bowl place in the
Palms neighborhood.
These are my guys right here.
Hola!
Hey, Chef.
Kimchi spam, classic.
Yeah, this is the menu right here.
A big bowl of rice with meat,
vegetables, and lots of flavor,
for less than 10 bucks.
Good deal.
But it's funny to hear you're so sentimental
about the business of feeding people.
It's a trippy state of romanticism,
like I'm very hard-assed, too.
Like, you pack your own shit.
You get what you get.
If you complain, I take the food out of your hands.
I give you your money back.
But within those rules, there's a lot of love,
and there's-there's a lot of care.
Across town in Venice is A-Frame,
Roy's first brick-and-mortar.
This used to be an IHOP, so everything's...
Oh, yeah?
Yeah, everything's really narrow.
Ah, hence the, uh, the shape.
It's heavily influenced by
local takes on Hawaiianed by cooking, not that you'd
necessarily notice.
Every dish designed to be eaten with the hands.
What's good?
The baby back ribs are air-dried, braised,
then breaded and fried.
Lean cod tacos treated like shawarma.
Beer can crackling chicken:
it's brined, rotisseried, then air-dried like
Peking duck, then fried.
Meanwhile, not too far away, on Sawtelle,
a Kogi truck pulls up, stops, reverses back to the
corner.
Before the awning is even up,
there's already a line.
Hungry people have been waiting
in cars or around the corner ever since the Twitter
announcement 30 minutes ago.
Yeah, this is just.
I feel guilty.
I'm jumping the line, right?
Wow. What's the longest line
you've ever had at one of these things?
600.
600 people for one truck?
Yeah.
The Kogi taco:
double-caramelized Korean
barbecue short rib on fresh
corn tortilla, salsa roja,
cilantro-onion-lime relish, and
a Napa cabbage/romaine slaw ind
a chili-soy vinaigrette.
Oh, yeah.
The-the rep for Kogi is that we go everywhere.
We go to every single corner
of the county and the city.
We're not just going to the hip areas.
What about fantastically... Uh, what about Bel Air?
Can you pull up, like, on a corner in a residential
area in Bel Air?
Yeah, yeah. We go.
What happens then?
Do you get rousted?
Or...?
No, no, they come out in the Versace robe and, uh.
That I gotta see.
Yeah, yeah.
Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills, uh, lunch is crazy.
Why should you be excited about food trucks?
Because they allow creative chefs like Roy,
without a lot of money, to start creating and
selling their stuff, introducing themselves to
the world, without having to gather up
a million dollars or credulous partners.
And they're affordable.
They're democratic.
And they are faster, better,
and infinitely preferable to fast food like the king
and the clown and the colonel.
Stereotyping?
Coming... Look, how do I put this?
Good Korean kids grow up to be doctors,
lawyers, or engineers, goes the story.
There are expectations.
But what if you're a bad Korean?
What if you were Korean American and you just
didn't give a...?
What if you looked around, asked yourself,
"Who am I?
Who am I supposed to be?
Where do I fit in society?"
and were unsatisfied with the
answers you were getting?
What if you were an insanely
talented artist and a small
startup company called Facebook
asked you to do some murals in their offices,
and they paid you in stock,
and you became ridiculously wealthy
and you still didn't give a...?
Well, then, you might be David Choe.
Hi.
I'm Dave Choe.
Be like me.
Is that an AK piñata?
That is an AK-47 piñata.
Wow.
So, I mean, this place is in
downtown L.A., so I try to have
as many weapons, like, hidden throughout.
I got ninja swords and ninja stars and stuff.
You need. you need a puppy, man.
You need a puppy.
I do need a puppy.
I'm going to paint you today.
Is that cool?
Yeah, sure.
All right, so, just sit.
Sit?
Right there. And. sorry.
Don't usually paint this early in the morning.
Okay.
I'm going to go more expressionistic,
if you don't mind.
I want to know... you were on record, you said,
you know, uh, young people,
uh, looking to follow your road to success,
your advice is, whatever you do,
don't date a Korean girl.
Oh, okay.
I try to be open-minded about things, right?
But, well, I'm racist.
You know, uh, for me, I've given it a sh-shot.
And then I end up in a situation where I feel like
I'm dating my mom.
So, what characteristics, uh,
in common were-were-were-w... Overbearing.
Uh, jealous. Unreasonable.
Like, unrealistic about life.
Demanding. Like, it's...
I mean, I could go on and on.
But also, the men, too.
Like, if you're a woman, I wouldn't never recommend
dating a Korean guy.
For the very few women out
there that are into Asian guys,
if you are going to go that
route, definitely go Chinese.
Yeah, come check it out.
Oh, yeah.
Whoa, awesome.
Wow.
I don't know;
what do you think?
Dude. I'm honored.
I've never had my portrait done before.
Thank you, man.
Hey, man.
You're welcome.
And this shit going to be worth some money on eBay
for sure.
Now I'm definitely ready for Sizzler.
Nice.
Standing tall and prominent
amongst the many Asian and
Central American restaurants in the community,
one place holds an unexpectedly
cherished position in the
collective memories of many second-generation Korean
Americans.
I am personally unfamiliar with the Sizzler brand.
Oh, I know it by name, but never have I managed to
actually cross its doors.
After you.
Oh, thank you.
Wow.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing good, thank you.
How about yourself?
I'm doing fantastic.
I got my Sizzler outfit on.
So, here's the thing.
You can get, like, a steak and
then add the salad bar with it.
Right.
You get the best bang for your buck.
Or you can just get the salad bar.
I'm gonna have a little bit of steak.
I am gonna go traditional and
just get just the salad bar.
And just the salad bar only.
Yeah. Thank you.
You can have a seat anywhere you like.
Terrific. Thanks.
Excellent.
Oh, yeah.
Pouring for your elders.
Oh, now you're getting all Korean on me.
Yeah. Super embarrassed right
now, because we're in Koreatown
and I'm taking you to eat at
Sizzler, which, for a lot of
Koreans, is the best food in Koreatown. Um.
So, if you were eating non-Korean, this was it?
We never ate out, ever.
And if we did, it was McDonald's.
And if it was a birthday and a special celebration,
you wanted to kick it up a notch and go a little bit
more special, then it was Sizzler.
This is a judgment-free zone,
where there are no mistakes,
a world to explore incongruous
combinations without shame or guilt,
free of criticism from snarkologists,
because there are no snarkologists at Sizzler.
Obviously here's all the accouterments for making a
nice nacho, taco salad. Here... Right.
All the stuff for the.
Pasta.
Pasta, spaghetti, whatever.
The move is you get a hard taco
shell and you put meatballs in
it. This is Italian/Mexican
dining, and you make a meatball
taco. And there's nowhere else
in the world where you can have
this. You put three meatballs in
the taco, some guacamole, and
then you put all this nacho
cheese, all this other stuff.
Oh, I-I know what I'm doing.
I'm going for the full South of
the Border experience here.
All right.
Well, there you go.
Oh, no, no.
I'm not kidding around here.
Oh, yeah, now we're talking, my friend.
It's a little bit nicer than I remember.
There it is.
That's the best bread that you can get,
so you tell me if you like that.
Oh, now, wait a minute.
Are you saying that the
cheese toast is complimentary?
It's complimentary.
And once we found that out,
we would order stacks of it.
So, it was our favorite part of Sizzler.
And we were like, "We need to
figure out how to manufacture this at home."
So, were you good Sizzler customers, your family?
Do you think they were happy
to see you when you come in?
I mean.
Um.
I love this dish, man.
I might-I might, uh... when I go back, I might have
to have a meatball taco.
Um, so, we didn't we, like,
gooched the system a little bit,
but not like completely abused it.
There would be the guilt
associated with we never eat out,
but now we're going out to
eat, so you better... eat.
You got to put down at least three plates.
So, what'd you think of the bread?
It's delicious.
Yeah. It's the best.
Oh, I totally get why this would be a wonderland.
Yeah, everything's really good.
For you, Sizzler, a happy place, still.
Lots of memories.
It's satisfying.
We need more of this cheese bread.
Something Dave Choe and Roy Choi have in common is
that they may be Korean American, but they are also
very much creatures of L.A.
And what is L.A.?
L.A. is Mexican, Central American,
Filipino, Vietnamese, Thai, Samoan, Bangladeshi.
Everybody who's left their mark
continues to shape the town,
determine its character.
K-Town exists right upside its Latino neighbors, and
I guess it's natural that both Choe and Choi
identify very much with Mexican street culture.
Few things embody that particularly Southern
California Latino street
culture more than low-riding.
Estevan Oriol is a photographer.
Go on the other side of that pole.
Chronicler of everything iconic at the crossroads of
hip-hop, design, tattooing, fashion, and low-riding.
The old timers, they used to cut the coils or
put bricks or sandbags in their
trunk to make them lower.
And then around the '70s is when it got popular.
Why these particular models of cars?
It's pretty much always been, uh, late '50s,
all the way through the '60s, and into the '70s.
And then the '80s came up.
They started bringing in the
Cadillacs and the Regals.
The most classic, well-known car
for low-riding probably is the '64 Impala.
How many Korean low-riders are there?
There's a few Asian ones
sprinkled in the other clubs.
More Asians, more more Koreans than 15 years ago?
We're seeing a crossover with the food.
Right.
Uh... For the most part, things are starting to get
a lot more open.
If you're asking, I think
there's going to be a lot more
Asian/Hispanic mixed babies coming up in the future.
I ain't mad at that.
Ideal low-riding, is about getting appreciated by
the people who best appreciate
the traditions and techniques, the getting it right.
For that, you head to East L.A.
The most famous, notorious street in L.A. is,
uh, Whittier Boulevard,
because of the history of it.
And then Crenshaw Boulevard and South Central.
So, that's gonna be your most critical audience?
And, uh, mo- and at the same most appreciative?
Yeah, the ones that you want
to see your car, you know?
It's a slow-moving piece of
art. And you treat the car like
a piece of art, acutely aware of the dangers: cops,
for whom you are a target;
potholes;
other cars.
In East L.A., you see people ooh and ah.
You see expressions change
from, "Who the... is that?"
to, "Nice ride."
That was, like, a full-fledged gang member.
Yeah.
You know, giving us, like, props, giving us respect,
you know?
First you build a car for yourself.
But at the same time you're
building it for the streets, you know?
You're building it for the people.
You want them to appreciate it.
Within the borders of Koreatown,
it's not just Koreans.
There are new arrivals every day.
There is, in fact, an official Little Bangladesh
right in the middle of K-town.
Oh, man, this is all so.
It smells so good in here.
Uh, yeah, this is going to work.
So you're not short of options around here.
Nah. You can get tacos across the street,
Korean bibimbap right next door,
and then get goat stew.
You can pray to Mohammed or Buddha.
A tiny mosque next door where
services are held five times a day.
Just talking to a guy in the parking lot who said,
"This is the first Little Bangladesh in America."
Yeah.
And that just happened, like, two years ago.
Like, we went to sleep, we woke up,
and it was Little Bangladesh.
Here at Sawada, step right in to some curried goat,
samosas, tandoori chicken.
Oh, yeah, and this:
Lahori fish curry, with no small amount of chilies.
It's such fragrant, aromatic, delicious food.
This is really good.
What good food are you likely
to find within the confines of Koreatown?
We have El Salvadoran and Guatemalan all around.
Koreans all throughout.
Pakistani and Bangladesh food.
Yeah, Oaxaca takes over all of Eighth Street.
Why Oaxaca? Just that's the way it worked out?
Mm hmm.
Well, you know how it goes.
Yeah.
One guy showed up.
Yeah.
Filipino fast food just behind us.
Mm hmm.
And then a bunch of riff-raffs in between.
Yeah. Well, Filipinos oughta
be very proud of their food.
Mm hmm.
Underrepresented.
I think they're going through
kind of what we went through,
where the glass hasn't been
broken yet to-to translate it
but still keep the core and soul of it.
But it tastes delicious.
A few blocks over, the iconic Filipino fast food
chain Jollibee's.
Laugh all you want, but ask any Filipino.
They love this drive-through
mutation for specialties like
this fried Spam sandwich thing.
But it's the desserts where it gets really crazy.
Decisions, decisions.
Here we go.
Uh, we'll take one Aloha burger and then one Spam
little big bite.
All right. Anything else?
Uh, let's do a Halo halo, and that's it. All right.
Oh, look at that.
What is what-what is that?
That's a halo halo.
Oh, yeah, halo halo.
Dig deep and you hit delicious stratas of red beans,
white beans, and chickpeas,
cubes of red and green Jell-O, young white coconut,
shaved ice- and is that flan?
It makes no goddamn sense at all.
I love it.
Part of every Pinoy Filipino's life, halo halo.
Nutsy, man.
I got to take a picture of that.
It's oddly beautiful.
All right.
You know I'm getting a bite
of that little what is it?
A little.
It's a little big bite.
Little big bite.
Favorite thing in the world.
No, don't say that.
That's actually... I like that.
It's good, right?
Aloha. I mean, it just sounds magical.
Is there, like, pineapple in there or something?
Yes. Hence the "aloha."
That's a very tasty burger.
Nice char.
Asian fast food.
It's fast food, but it's made by like it
was just a single family owned restaurant.
What family made this?
Yeah, maybe.
Maybe-maybe not your family.
The Jetsons.
You know?
You like it?
It's actually very tasty.
Every single thing you like here.
Wow. There's so much I don't know.
It's true, Dad.
We all look the same.
I love it.
He may be a Korean gone bad,
but Dave Choe still tries,
best he can, to be a good son.
He bought them this house in
Los Feliz and visits for family meals often.
In fact, when we first met,
sensing it had been a long time
without a true home-cooked time
meal, he invited me to dinner with them.
So, guests are not unusual.
Jane Cho is an amazing cook.
It's going to be very delicious.
Mom? Dad?
Look who's here.
Hello.
Mom, Tony's here.
Can you smell something?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
Yeah, all the good stuff's coming.
Maybe somebody going to hire me later.
Okay, which ones are you?
Are you the eldest?
I'm the middle.
I'm the suicidal pirate.
Oh, already signs of trouble appear.
My older brother is the hip-hop Santa, and my...
He was the oldest.
Right.
He'd beat me up.
I'd beat him up.
And then he would just cry.
I'll show you my dad's painting.
Hey, Dad?
Yeah?
Hey, come over here for a second.
When did you paint this, Dad?
30 years ago?
Uh, '73. 1973.
Every Christmas, he unrolls it, um, and just,
like, Scotch tapes it to the wall.
And my Mom's the artist in the family now.
So, this is a family of artists.
The Choe's are devout
Christians, which is not unusual
in the Korean community.
But they are unusual in that
they're both artists of a sort.
Jane treats the house like an ongoing art project,
drawing sunglasses on family pictures,
stapling angels to Dave's paintings that have hung
in the White House, getting crazy with the glue gun,
adorning wreaths with Happy Meal
toys, sticker-bombing the kitchen with birds, cows,
spaceships piloted by her three boys.
She is relentlessly, energetically, and inarguably
creative.
She brainwashed me.
From the time we were kids, she'd-she was like,
"You're the best artist in the world.
You're the best artist in the world."
You are.
Oh, thanks.
But now she's telling me she's going to be the best
artist in the world.
So, she's very competitive.
She said she's gonna destroy me.
Awesome.
Food is ready.
So, do you want to explain what everything is, Mom?
The food I prepared tonight
is a very common Korean food.
Which is a beef ribs, uh, stew.
The kimchi's looking fresh.
Yeah, the kimchi's fresh.
Today is, uh, chestnut rice.
No one has this kind of rice.
It's a special rice.
Special rice for Tony, you know.
And then stuffed peppers.
Oh, that's David's favorite.
Chung po mook:
seaweed and jellied mung bean.
Vermicelli noodles with shitake mushrooms
and vegetables.
Avocado egg rolls, fried squid, and shrimps.
Potato pancake.
Often at the Cho house there's
a few Mexican dishes sprinkled in as well.
It is always a great meal, I can tell you that.
Thanks, Mom.
This is delicious.
This is awesome.
It is indeed. Thank you.
I love it.
During the riots of '92, Jim and Jane Choe worked as
real estate agents and property managers.
So the destruction in Koreatown
had a direct impact on their lives.
The Chos watched from home
as the chaos unfolded on TV.
After the riots, Jim Choe wrote a letter
to the editor that published in the L.A. Times.
I am extremely angry with the LAPD
for their outrageous action.
While the cops let looters
run wild and rape our city, they somehow had time to
bother Korean shop owners guarding their stores.
How can the owner of a business
just sit back and watch his
life be burned to the ground?
David would have a different reaction.
My brother stole a car, and we went into, like,
all the neighborhoods and
then quickly realized it wasn't, like, about race.
It was just about people stealing stuff.
And-but we were out looting.
We were causing chaos.
And, you know, I don't think we got anything good.
I think I got a TV stand.
Was it life-changing for you?
It's like you grow up and
you things are explained to you.
Like, here's the police.
They're not doing anything they're supposed to do.
There's just, like, normal men
and women of society just, like,
acting like animals.
And I was like, "Oh, everything I've,
like, been taught and-and
learned my whole life is just
disintegrating before my eyes."
But, in the end, we're-you
know, from great disasters come great things, right?
I mean, Koreatown burned down.
But it's like we own L.A. now.
It's, like, half of L.A.
Now it's Korean culture.
K-pop and Psy all over the world
influence, you know?
The filmmakers.
All the-all the top, uh, Korean filmmakers are in
Hollywood.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Korean, uh, culture.
What about me?
Yeah, you.
Artists, right.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Except you.
Sorry.
Sorry, David.
It's incredible.
Today, I went into all the ways...
Different ways you guys used
to beat us when we were kids.
The stress positions, like, you know.
Yeah, but what.
All the Korean punishments.
What's remarkable to me is that every kid.
Right.
I mean, all Korean kids.
Yeah, all Korean kids.
The same position.
Holding-you either hold a book.
Oh, yeah.
That's the way we learn from
the generation to generation.
We don't know why.
To take a peek into the dark
heart of the Korean psyche,
maybe it helps to get familiar with Han.
It's a concept that, for non-Koreans,
can be difficult to fully grasp.
All right.
You want it? Here we go.
Han denotes a collective feeling of oppression and
isolation in the face of overwhelming odds.
It connotes aspects of lament
and unavenged injustice.
Wow.
In some occasions, anthropologists have recognized
Han as cultural-specific medical condition.
Someone who dies of Han is... Right.
Is said to have died of
It's a heartburn.
Wow. I mean, the-uh, it's been described to
me in a way that made it sound benign.
That-this is a burning, uh,
sense of injustice, besiegement,
and-and desire for revenge.
The Han is the reason why, like, we are who we are.
But it's also the same reason
why I won't marry a Korean woman.
No. You never know.
No, I know, Mom.
He's cute.
Main drag of K-Town.
Another mini mall among many.
Karaoke?
No.
This is the best dumpling spot in town.
My mom would just order all
these dumplings and just, like,
leave 'em on my door, 'cause,
uh, she's not allowed in my house. And then...
I just said, uh, "Where are you getting these?"
You know, my mom likes to withhold information.
So, I finally got it out of her.
Myung In Dumplings, where they serve a mix
between Korean and Chinese.
Each plate handmade to order, my friends.
Opened in 2007 on Olympic Boulevard,
it's run by Yu Jin, a Korean by way of
Shenyang Province in China.
Been coming here for about two years now.
Uh huh?
There's no one ever in here.
Every time I've ever come
in-and, uh, I don't understand how they're open.
They're the best dumplings I've ever had.
Maybe people just get 'em to go.
Right.
They all look like buttholes, actually.
But... Kind of. Yeah, pre-prolapse.
Wang mandu.
King dumpling.
Thick dough, stuffed to the gills with pork,
kimchi, and vegetables.
Precisely made, weighed, and crimped.
Steamed until soft.
Eat.
Wow.
That's nearly the size of your head.
Yeah, you know, it's like pizza.
I'll eat 'em cold, too.
Right.
Save two and have 'em for dinner.
And mandu.
Smaller, with thinner dumpling skins,
served with red chili paste.
Those are the dessert ones.
Those got red bean in it.
Oh, God. Wow.
Oh, these are delicious.
These are just, like, so huge.
Go for it.
So, would this be classically post-drinking food or
pre-drinking food?
Lay down a base of absorbent material?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of bread here.
But I've already drank.
I'm just, uh, falling under peer pressure right now.
I'll be one of the cool guys, so.
I like this place already.
Good signage. It's important.
Yeah. The sign's awesome.
If that sign does not sing to you,
then we cannot be friends.
Mari, hi.
Hi, David. How are you?
This is my Uncle Tony.
This is Mari.
How you doing?
This is, uh, Harry Kim, aka Guam Cruise.
Here's more Koreans right here.
Here's more Koreans.
Some friends of Cho seem to favor this place.
They are a thirsty and diverse bunch.
I'm asking everybody:
stress position as a child?
Did you have to do the, uh, knees forward?
Oh, you know about this.
It went right into it.
Stress positions?
Oh, we did that.
You did that? See?
There's this.
There's this, too.
The speed with which they assume the position.
You had to hold a bucket over your head with water.
Water? Wow.
What if your arms get tired?
They make you do it again
another 45 minutes to an hour, you know?
The whole thing is doing it again.
Look, I'm not Korean.
I'm not Asian.
I'm a white boy from the suburb.
But I noticed something over time in my K-Town
adventure.
Similar anecdotes, you might say.
You know, they've done this quite a bit.
So they came up with a new one.
I was very aware that all my
Korean friends-no matter how
creative or successful-seem
strangely haunted by something.
But I never knew this.
How do you do it?
Oh, the... It goes up the ass like this,
and then-it's like opening up
a umbrella inside someone.
You do this to your friends?
Or college.
They think it's hilarious.
And adults do that shit to each other.
What the hell that's about, I can only guess.
Cheers... Cheers.
Koreans gone bad.
You're Korean now, officially.
Pretty much any Korean you meet anywhere,
you can take it for granted they like food,
that they're passionate about
food, particularly their food,
which of all the immigrant
cuisines has probably been messed with the least.
Unlike many other new arrivals,
Koreans seem to have been the
most unwilling to accommodate Western tastes,
Maybe that's why it took us so
much time to love the stuff.
Beverly Tofu House, like so many of K-Town's
finer establishments, is tucked away in the corner
of a strip mall.
This is one of my favorite spots.
This is where I've been coming for almost 20 years.
This is a soup that's just,
like-it's kind of Korean, but its really more L.A.,
and so.
So this is not a direct transplant from Korea?
It became what we're about to have here in L.A.
Interesting.
They're different because of
the ingredients we couldn't find.
Right.
But never thinking about
pleasing the American palate,
just to make ourselves happy.
Soondubu is the thing to get.
A fiery, tongue-searing,
ass-burning tofu soup that'll
make you forget every bad thing
you ever thought about tofu.
A spicy, spicy red broth and tofu are the base.
We're talking soft tofu here, with the texture of,
like, burrata.
From there, you got a handful of variations.
But the most common is with
kimchi and a bit of everything.
Beef, oysters, mussels, clams.
Oh, and tableside?
They crack an egg in there.
Wow.
Right in there. Cool.
That looks completely awesome.
Well, we-we better wait for this to cool,
I'm guessing?
Yeah.
So, how do we eat this?
We just spoon it over rice?
Uh, yeah, yeah, spoon it over rice.
Mix it in.
Mm. That's good.
Mm.
Yeah, all tofu should be spicy,
by my way of thinking.
It's so good.
Yeah. It's really good.
Koreans can well remember
when nobody was interested in
their food. was interested in Now it's confusingly
au courant.
Must be strange for the owners,
who've just been doing what
they've been doing for years.
Like, for example, like, us sitting here like this,
the questions a lot of people
are asking me in Korean, like,
I'm telling them we're filming,
you know, we're trying to show a piece of Koreatown.
The-the number one question is they're not mad
or vindictive is, "Why?"
It's still, "Why?"
Like, why.
Why would we be interested?
Why would you waste your time?
There's other things to do.
It's an extraordinarily
beautiful and delicious thing.
But, see, that's the thing,
is the beauty is just already a given.
It's already a part of the fabric.
So it's like, you know, why congratulate you?
You know?
There's no reason to congratulate you,
because this is like what we do.
That sounds awful, honestly.
That sounds, like, totally joy.
It's, like, totally joyless.
Yeah.
Uh, what do your parents want you to be when
you grow up?
For me, a doctor or lawyer.
Right. You're obviously not a doctor or a lawyer.
Did you finish college?
I finished college and I went
to one year of law school and I walked out.
Right. So, you're a bad Korean.
Yeah, I'm a bad Korean.
If I was a mediocre accountant,
it'd be better than being a top chef.
Uh, according to who?
According to Korean culture.
Right.
According to Korean uncles and aunts.
And it's just-it doesn't register that
that is a profession.
You know?
I wouldn't have to explain
myself if I just said I was a CPA.
Right.
Never. You know, That's-that's. ..that's weird...
I know. You still got some 'splaining to do.
Still. To just get it across that I... that I cook,
and that there was this
phenomenon that happened on the
streets of L.A. that changed
and opened up Korean culture to-to the world.
What does it mean to be Korean American?
Does one create one's own world?
I don't know that I'm any
smarter about that now than
when I first came to K-Town
in the middle of the night and discovered a strange
and fabulous and delicious
slice of America I'd never known was there.
But I'm trying to figure it out.
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