groundings - the choa podcast
By choa magazine
Jayci Lee on writing romance novels, the role of purity culture within Korean diasporas, and joy without shame
Featured on choa magazine Volume 4: Sex.
Jayci Lee writes poignant, sexy, and laugh-out-loud romance featuring Korean American main characters. She shares her journey from a career as a litigator to becoming a romance author, the role of faith in shaping perceptions of sex and romance within Korean diasporic communities, and the importance of embracing pleasure.
Originally published on January 2025.
Interview by Harriet Kim.
Audio Edited by Frances Kim.
groundings ep 10: reflections on the ordinariness of our lives as diasporic Korean women
Welcome to the final episode of groundings. In this episode, Ki-Sang looks back on the past season of groundings and offers her reflections on the process and importance of telling our own stories as Korean women in the diaspora.
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora. Support us at choamagazine.com/support
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 9: choa's Ashley An on coping with difference through conversations and reflections on faith
In a winding conversation that takes us through the past, present, and future, groundings introduces you to choa magazine’s newest member, Ashley An.
This intimate conversation explores how our identity is shaped by our hyphenated and immigrant experiences, our conversations with our mothers, and our relationships with God.
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 8: Artist Julia Chon on recognizing and archiving han (한) helped expand her communities
Through a conversation that flows through personal trauma, the amplification of Asian American perspectives, and intergenerational affirmation of identity, this episode explores Julia Chon, we get to know the person behind @kimchi.juice and @koreanarchives.
In this wide-spanning conversation with Ki-Sang and Harriet, Julia shares how her relationships with her family, strangers, and artist communities have shaped her career, her understanding of herself, and her understanding of what it means to be Korean.
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You can find Julia’s original artwork on Instagram @kimchi.juice and her archival work @koreanarchives.
Specific artworks mentioned in the episode include:
- ‘Halmeoni’, Julia’s first portrait of a Korean woman
- Julia’s Phillips100 Logo Reimagined
- ‘Crane Dancers’ mural for the Korean Cultural Center in Washington D.C.
Organizations, artists, and community members from the episode include:
- The Korean American Artist Collective (@kaacollective), their 한 (Han) exhibition and their 정 (Jeong) project
- Korean American Story (@koreanamericanstory) and their Legacy Project
- Kelly Towles (@kellytowles), the curator of DC Walls, an annual festival that occurs in October, and Peter Chang (@peterfranklinchang), the co-founder of the former No Kings Collective, the mentors that got Julia hooked on mural painting
- Maria Qamar (@hatecopy), Pakistani-Canadian Artist
- Sandra Sohee Chi Kim, an IDEA fellow at Stony Brook University and the founder of Asian American Justice + Innovation Lab (@aajil_org)
- Ann Kim (@annbkool), owner of Pizzeria Lola (@pizzerialola) in Minneapolis, MN
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 7: choa's Harriet Kim on creating art as a form of showing up in the world
We are re-introducing Harriet, the co-founder of choa magazine, in this week’s grounding. You may have heard her talk about choa magazine before, but this is the first time Harriet shares a deeper, more personal story about who she is, who her family is, and how she moves through the world.
In this episode, Ki-Sang and Mirae share an intimate conversation with Harriet about her family’s multi-decade and multi-generational history in so-called Toronto, her dream job as a kid, and her way of processing the world by helping others put out their own work and art.
For Ki-Sang and Mirae’s own episodes, check out episodes 3 and 5 of groundings 🌱
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You can find earlier interviews with Harriet and Mirae on our website at choamagazine.com.
Send us comments, questions, and feedback @choamagazine on Instagram or via email at podcast@choamagazine.com.
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 6: Nurse Hilary Hwu on how distance and food ground her relationships
An exploration into mixed-race Korean experiences, Harriet and Ki-Sang speak with Hilary Hwu, a Chinese-Korean neonatal intensive care nurse, for the sixth episode of groundings.
With an upbringing that thoroughly blurred the cultural lines of Korean, Chinese, Myanmarese, and Japanese influences, Hilary gives us a window into her transition into adulthood, as she moved across the continent to build a new community and career, while evolving her relationships with her parents and her own mental health.
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The episode mentions made in, a podcast that discusses pop-culture moments and current events through the lens of two female members of the Asian diaspora. The Asian Canadian Therapist Directory is available on our website, www.choamagazine.com.
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 5: choa's Mirae Lee on how she contributes to collective stories she doesn't share
Mirae, choa's co-founder, is this week’s guest on groundings.
You may have seen and enjoyed her writings, graphic designs, and as of late, her monthly recommendations, but this week's groundings episode explores the lesser known sides of this choa team member.
In a conversation with Ki-Sang and Harriet, Mirae shares her experience as an immigrant and diaspora member in both Toronto and in Singapore, how her work with diasporic artists and storytellers have shaped her own sense of identity, and why K-pop will always feel more like home than Western entertainment.
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 4: Author June Hur on shifting our diasporic roles from irrelevance to reimagined histories
June Hur is a Korean historical YA novelist whose novels that have been described as K-dramas in book form. She is the author of best-selling and award-winning books The Silence of Bones, The Forest of Stolen Girls, The Red Palace, and the upcoming A Crane Among Wolves.
In this episode of groundings, June and Ki-Sang discuss the pains of being an introvert in an extroverted world, the role of history in rooting us a collective identity, and the beauty and challenges of being a diasporic creative.
A Crane Among Wolves will be released in May 2024 and is available for pre-order. You can find June’s blog, pre-order her upcoming novel, and learn more about her existing books on junehur.com.
For more details about choa magazine’s call for submission for Volume 4: Sex, visit https://www.choamagazine.com/submissions.html. Deadline is March 31, 2024.
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 3: choa's Ki-Sang Yi on what it means that no one can pronounce her name
Welcome to our first deep dive into a choa member’s inner world. Ki-Sang’s been with choa magazine since 2021, but this is the first time she shares the story behind her name, her current pursuits, and her love-hate relationship with K-entertainment and K-beauty standards with our diasporic community.
Subscribe to groundings to catch Mirae and Harriet’s stories in upcoming episodes.
To catch up on choa magazine’s Jane’s Walk of Toronto’s Koreatown, check out the “jane’s walk ‘23” highlights on our Instagram @choamagazine.
For more details about choa magazine’s call for submission for Volume 4: Sex, visit https://www.choamagazine.com/submissions.html. Deadline is March 31, 2024.
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 2: Sonyo Kimchi's Jacquie Lee on how to make authentic kimchi throughout the generations
Jacquie Lee is a city planner in Toronto and the founder of Sonyo Kimchi. Jacquie started Sonyo Kimchi during the Covid-19 pandemic when she moved in with her grandparents to take care of them. In a conversation after a kimchi-making workshop in 2023, Harriet and Ki-Sang sit down with Jacquie to talk about her relationship with food prior to Sonyo Kimchi, the question of authenticity and intuition of food cultures, and the experiences we share as children of diaspora visiting Korea.
You can find Sonyo Kimchi on Instagram @sonyo_kimchi or go to sonyo.ca to sign up for upcoming workshops and order vegan, gluten-free kimchi across the GTA.
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groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
groundings ep 1: The choa team on building a community around our Korean identities
Welcome to groundings, a podcast project from choa magazine. In our first episode, we (re)introduce you to the team. Harriet, Mirae, and Ki-Sang reveal the origin story of choa magazine and discuss what being Korean means to them.
groundings, a storytelling project from choa magazine, takes a deep dive into the inner lives of women in the Korean diaspora.
Hosted by Ki-Sang Yi
Music by Haedeun Kim
Follow us on Instagram @choamagazine or visit our website choamagazine.com
choa chat #8: Interdisciplinary artist Emily Jung on the need for culturally-specific community care
Harriet chats with Emily about her visit to Arirang Age-friendly Community Centre, approaching the theme of aging in place as a form of capturing time, and ways people gravitate to communal spaces at all ages. Check out Emily’s piece “Korean seniors don’t care for Bingo” in choa magazine’s Volume 3: Aging in Place.
Resources:
If you are able, please consider supporting Arirang Age-Friendly Community Centre’s work, including their fundraising campaign for Rose of Sharon Long-term Care Centre, with a donation.
If you are curious about Adult Day Programs in your community, or other services for seniors, the guide to programs and services for seniors in Ontario can be downloaded here.
If you are based in Canada or the US and looking for some culturally specific mental health resources, please consider checking out our Resources page for Asian communities.
Song Credit: Another girl, 김현정, 공유마당, 자유이용
choa chat #7: Photographer Jennifer Lee on aging, sisterhood, and dependency
Harriet chats with Jennifer about her Great Aunts creating a shared space to grow old in the intense energy of New York City and putting in the labour to document the everyday moments. Check out Jennifer’s piece “New York Grandmas” in choa magazine’s Volume 3: Aging in Place.
Song Credit: Another girl, 김현정, 공유마당, 자유이용
choa chat #6: Creative technologist Lily Jeon on what it means to live in house plant time
Mirae chats with Lily about aging alongside house plants, viewing the world through the perspective of “tree supremacy,” and the intricate hands-on process of her paper diorama. Check out Lily’s piece “Living in House Plant Time” in choa magazine’s Volume 3: Aging in Place.
Song Credit: Another girl, 김현정, 공유마당, 자유이용
choa chat #5: Photographer Juliana Sohn on what it means to memorialize our deceased
Harriet chats with Juliana about end-of-life rituals, death, and family history, her approach to photographing legacy portraits, and the cultural practice of jesa. Check out Juliana’s piece “We are all going to die” in choa magazine’s Volume 3: Aging in Place.
Song Credit: Another girl, 김현정, 공유마당, 자유이용
choa chat #4: Justice-oriented therapist Ji-Youn Kim on jip-bab as a form of repair after rupture
Harriet chats with Ji-Youn about what jip-bab means to her, contextualizing her rage and grief, and discomfort with bringing ancestral practices to stolen land. This chat was recorded before publishing Grace Gittelman’s piece “Don’t Get Your Hand Stuck in the Kimchi Jar” and its theme of grief. Check out Grace’s piece in choa magazine’s Volume 2: 집밥 — JIP-BAB.
Song Credit: Another girl, 김현정, 공유마당, 자유이용
choa chat #3: Illustrator Subin Yang on cooking as an artistic inspiration
Mirae chats with Subin on jip-bab as an intimate yet communal sharing, food as an artistic exploration, and cooking as the best gift of care. Check out Subin’s illustration for the cover of choa magazine’s Volume 2: 집밥 — JIP-BAB.
Song Credit: Another girl, 김현정, 공유마당, 자유이용
choa chat #2: Writer Michelle Kim & Illustrator Sena Kwon on their halmonis as an inspiration
Harriet chats with Michelle and Sena on their first impressions of each other’s piece, Korean food cravings and sentiments behind them, and what kind of halmoni they wish to be in the future. Check out Michelle and Sena’s “Welcome Home” on choa magazine’s Volume 2: 집밥 — JIP-BAB.
Originally published on IGTV on December 2021.
Song Credit: Another girl, 김현정, 공유마당, 자유이용
Kristyn Leach on Incorporating Community Care, Seed Saving, and Peasant-led Movements in Her Farming
Featured on choa magazine Volume 2: 집밥 — JIP-BAB.
The connection to farming is obvious when thinking about jip-bab and the systems that allow us to enjoy it, but we often forget the labour and care. Kristyn Leach, a seed saver and farmer of Namu Farm, shares about her practice of infusing community care, global and Korean socio-politics history, and peasant-led movements in her practice.
Originally published on August 2021.
Interview by Harriet Kim.
Audio Edited by Seungwoo of giant doma.
choa chat #1: Artist Cat Lamora on mokyoktang, communal spaces, and vulnerability
Harriet and Mirae chats with paper artist Cat Lamora on their inspiration behind recreating a symbolic communal space, first steamy mokyoktang experiences, and why a space like this could feel uncomfortable coming from the west. Check out Cat’s “We Bathe Here” installation and text on choa magazine’s Volume 1: 물 — WATER.
Originally published as IGTV on November 2020.
Song Credit: Another girl, 김현정, 공유마당, 자유이용
Esther Kim on Navigating Finances and Public Education in the Climate Crisis
Featured on choa magazine Volume 1: 물 — WATER.
The conversation around the pandemic is so intertwined with the climate crisis, which has magnified our realities. One of the challenges Esther Kim, a financial professional and public school teacher, highlights is the accommodations (or the lack thereof) for peoples with disabilities and how often it gets pushed out as an afterthought. She shares ways we can support each other while navigating finances in times of uncertainty.
Originally published on August 2020.
Interview by Harriet Kim.
Audio Edited by Seungwoo of giant doma.