In season 2 of Like Us, Anna Yeon, Noè Harsel and Zione Walker-Nthenda are each inviting friends to the table for a chat about the important things in life. Then they share the interviews with each-other and regroup to unpack.
In this episode, Anna chats with Zainichi Korean actor Sohee Park (aka Soji Arai) who plays the role of Mozasu in Apple TV+'s Pachinko.
Zainichi means “residing in Japan”. It's a term that's used to refer to the ethnic Korean population that lives in Japan.
Second generation immigrants are the most exciting and the most complex, especially Zainichi. The first generation - they know their language, Korean language. They know their culture. Even though their name was taken by Imperial Japan. But the second generation Zainichi, their names are taken by their own parents. As soon as they were born, they have two different names, Korean name and Japanese name. And they don't know the reason, but they have to hide half of their identity.Sohee Park
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Transcript
We would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are broadcasting from, the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation, we pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We would also like to acknowledge all Traditional Owners from all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands you are listening from.
[music]
Like Us is Anna Yeon, Zione Walker-Nthenda and me Noè Harsel: a Japanese Jewish woman, a Korean woman and a Nigerian-Malawian woman chatting about our relationship with Australia and Australia’s relationship with us.
Noè Hey everyone, how are you all?
Zione Hi!
Anna Hello. How are we?
Noè Oh, you know what? Super good, because I'm actually really excited that Anna got this [interview], right?
Zione Okay, like I'm a little bit starstruck. Global celebrity, right?
Noè And I'm also a little bit starstruck. I am actually a little bit starstruck, Anna. Like, I am just before you do the whole intro, just before you do the intro,
because I am super starstruck, super, super, super starstruck, because of both the book, the TV show, the thing, all the thing. Okay, okay, go, Anna, go, just go, Anna!
Anna So, I was really lucky to interview Sohee Park. He's a Zainichi Korean actor.
Noè And Anna, do you want to “do the Zainichi”? What is a Zainichi?
Zione Yeah, for our audience.
Anna Yes, so [Zainichi] is Korean -Japanese who've lived in Japan for, I think, now four generations. And he plays one of the main characters of the TV series, Pachinko.
Noè Oh, big sigh.
Anna He plays, which we've talked about a lot in the first season, of course. So he plays the role of Mozasu. And before he had that sort of quite high profile role, he's been in the acting business in both Hollywood and Japan for quite a long time.
So he played the love interest, the Zainichi love interest, the late Brittany Murphy's character in "Roman Girl."
Noè Yes, he did.
Anna There's like a Rolling Stones magazine article about him. He made a splash in the theatre scene in Tokyo being directed by the late Bob Ackerman, who's a famous director who like directed Richard Gere and those big names. So he's… he's quite a celebrity.
Noè I'm sorry he's a big deal. He's a super big deal and I'm super excited and kind of like crushing and like love. I had to do a lot of Google images.
Zione I did. I did. I did have to go down the rabbit hole.
Noè I had to Google image while listening just so I could see his beautiful face.
Anna Awesome.
Noè Let's get into it.
Zione Super excited.
[music]
Anna Okay. Hi everyone. Today we are here with actor Sohee Park who plays the role of Mozasu in the drama Pachinko. We are actually recording this in Korea.
We're both in Korea.
Did you reflect on how you were fathered by your Zainichi like second generation man as you are now playing that character?
Sohee So my father was a journalist. He was working at Zainichi Newspaper Company and he was an activist, too for Zainichi rights.
Anna Wow.
Sohee Yeah. And most of the most of the Zainichi Korean use Japanese name, especially my generation, the third generation. But my parents gave me only Korean name. And you know, the kids are like at Japanese school. They, how do you say, they kid me?
Anna Tease.
Sohee They tease me?
Anna Yeah, yeah.
Sohee And you know, when we had a fight or some problem happened and my parents came to school and they really protected me from all of those things.
Anna Oh Wow. What heroes!
Sohee Yeah. And like I told you, the second generation immigrants are the most exciting and the most complex life because especially Zainichi. The first generation, they know their language, Korean language. They know their culture. Even though they are pretending to be, I mean, their name was taken by the Imperial Japan.
But the second generation Zainichi, their names are taken by their own parents.
Anna Whoa, that's kind of deep.
Sohee As soon as they were born, they have two different names, Korean name and Japanese name. And they don't know the reason, but they have to hide half of their identity.
Anna It's so funny. Not funny, haha funny, but like ironic funny about how you, you pointed out very clearly how in the first generation, it's the Japanese government. It's kind of the oppressor during that work. But by the second generation, like Korean Zainichi themselves find they are playing that role of depriving and taking away that really important part of their own identity.
Sohee Yeah, in the family.
Anna But your father like went against the grain of that.
Sohee Yeah, true. Yes.
Anna Because when, I mean, obviously, I love the book, Pachinko, and read both the English and the Korean translated version of the book because I loved it so much.
And for me, the character you play was Mozasu, in some ways, he is the ultimate survivor of the discrimination and this kind of oppressive dynamic; and he just takes all he has and makes the best out of the situation. In doing so, like being an owner of a pachinko parlour, for example.
Even though it's not like a “prestigious job”, he gains, you know, power, he gains material wealth and looks after his family with that wealth and makes sure that his son and the rest of the family kind of benefits from how hard he has worked and this prosperity that he managed to create for his family. And in that sense, I felt a lot of strength in Mozasu, the character, and I wonder, like, did you tap into, like, how you were fathered to play some of that strength?
Maybe I'm putting words in your mouth and I want to kind of… Like, I have such an imagination of, like, what this character is about because I got so invested into the story. So I don't want to project my interpretation of the character and how you play it as an actor, but you can tell us how you interpreted the character and whether you found inspiration from your own father.
Sohee Yeah. Mosesu, like you said, is the big pillar of this family. He is a guardian of the big family. And My own father is a little more like Noah. [The] intelligent one. So Moses is appearing to be less intelligent one, like they're making like - how do you say like not school…
Anna Not school…Yeah, not book smart. Yeah, not book smart, but rather street smart. Yeah.
Sohee The interesting thing is Zainichi society, the intellectual ones when they get older you know, they might not have money and they, you know, they take themselves away from Zainichi society. I don't know [why].
Yeah, but the Moses kind of street smart, who make money and you know those types when they were young, they don't much care about Zainichi society, but when they get older they can afford finally to think about what Zainichi or who Zainichi people is. So it's just yeah, there's an interesting like, you know, crossroad I've seen.
Anna Because I feel like that showed in the book as well the story about how like maybe there wasn't a promise of that sense of like leadership for Mozasu as a boy, but when he grew to be a man and a father, that he found himself kind of playing that role.
And that's why to me anyway, he is the ultimate survivor because he not only just copes with the situation of Zainichi being discriminated, but he kind of surpasses that situation to create something and be… build strength for himself his family and the community community. So yeah.
I remember you and I talking about the book and how initially I was like, "Noah is my favourite character."
Sohee That's what I was gonna say now.
Anna You didn't like that very much and you asked me to re-read the book, which I did, which I did. I was, I did what I was told and I probably [in] rereading it, especially in the Korean translation version, found a different layer to Mozasu strength and that character's particular charm.
Sohee Yeah. I myself is, I'm the third generation, so like, I'm like Solomon, but I can't identify much with him because Solomon was educated in an American school in Japan and then, you know, Columbia or Yale or you know, a university in America.
I wanted to be educated in America, but I had no chance anyway.
Anna But you're now an American citizen.
Sohee I know, yeah, somehow, somehow the road… lead me...
Anna To the promised land.
Sohee The Promised Land…
Anna We say that we're the spoonful of irony here.
Sohee Yeah, true. To the promised land with no promise (laughs).
But yeah, I understand Mozasu and Noah very much. Yeah, if I see me and my older friends, yeah, there are Mozasu- type and Noah- type and hmm…
Anna Which one is Sohee?
Sohee Both, actually. I'm a blood type AB (laughing). I don't know if Australian people are talking about blood type.
Anna I think that's actually a really Japanese thing…
Sohee Yeah, it’s big in Japan..
Anna …of like trying to predict or like to prescribe a sense of personality depending on blood type. That's so Asian!
Sohee I've been told oh yeah blood type AB, a two -faced person…
Anna I actually heard there's a lot of creatives who are of the AB type.
Sohee True. Yeah, yeah.
Anna Thank you so much for speaking so candidly about something actually quite personal about your family and your father, I appreciate that.
I actually also wanted to talk about how, I mean Sohee Park: you are an actor you're a Zainichi man and Pachinko is this very famous project that you're currently part of but you were a theatre actor in Japan and you did lots of movies in Hollywood before Pachinko. So, who is Sohee Park the actor before and after Pachinko? I wanted [you] to talk a little bit about that.
Sohee Before I didn't even know that I would want to be an actor. Right before I graduated from university I decided to be an actor. I wanted to be a poet.
Anna Oh so you always had that sort of creative desire in you.
Sohee Yeah. Because the second-generation Zainichi Koreans they couldn't work at big corporations, because of some kind of discrimination. My generation, you know one year older or two year older (than me), [these] friends, they started to work at the Japanese corporations, but I was thinking that was kind of boring.
I thought I preferred my father's generation’s, you know, adventure. The entrepreneur’s mind.
Anna That's actually fascinating because that [first] generation probably had a lot of restrictions and entrepreneurship, maybe, was [only] an option within that context of constraint - but you actually thought that was more exciting.
Sohee Yeah Yeah, yeah. Lots of successful businessmen like SoftBank Masayoshi Son, he's big in the world. And also there are so many great sports players, baseball players and singers and actors and lawyers. So I wanted to do some kind of entrepreneurial business.
Anna And also be a poet (laughs).
Sohee Well, I was already, you know, I was already smart enough to not… you know, I can't make money as a poet. Not even [big] money, just… life.
Anna So then you decided hey, I'll be an actor.
Sohee It's something like, I mean, yeah, something entrepreneurial and then… Acting came up to my mind. I was lucky. The second year of my career, I mean after two years I decided to be an actor, I became a professional. And then yeah, I keep working.
But yeah from now on I… now global Koreans sort of know my face and my name, hopefully. So I'm trying to develop, I am developing this idea of a documentary called Actor Sohee Park Walking Around the Koreatowns in the World.
[music]
Sohee Actually I've been thinking of this idea for [since] 15 years ago…
Anna Wow…
Sohee Now people listen to me. So I think now it's the chance to realise this idea.
Anna What made you think of this project 15 years ago?
Sohee Well, first of all I like to travel. Also I became friendly with Koreans who were born and grew up in outside of Korea - the fascinating history they have [like] lifestyle and you know. So, oh it's not only Zainichi…
Anna [You had] that realisation that, there's others like you…
Sohee Right…
Anna …around the world.
Sohee Yes. So I became curious about them.
Anna And now is the time.
Sohee Now is the time.
Anna Wow, that sounds like a super exciting next project for you.
Sohee Thank you.
Anna Is there anything you want to pursue, like, in film and movies or theatre as an actor? Like you have this great project in mind for yourself as a Zainichi man, as an overseas Korean. But how about in your actor career?
Sohee Now after COVID era we don’t have to go to the casting office to audition.
Now we can audition for any projects by videotaping ourselves.
Anna Oh right!
Sohee So I can live wherever I want. I mean actors in Australia, the same thing. I'm sure they know. So I want to maybe work in Japan and in Korea, in London, you know. And also I want to produce my own movie. I can’t say the idea.
Anna It's a secret. But you want to be behind the camera as well as in front of the camera.
Sohee Yeah yeah.
Anna I've got to say, for an Asian Australian [like me] who kind of look to the US or even the UK when it comes to like Asians in mainstream theatre and movie - the entertainment scene- what you see for yourself in the future, not only what you've already achieved but how you see yourself in the future, that seems really kind of big and exciting and aspirational, maybe, for Asian Australians because the scene for us is so much smaller.
So I think a lot of Asian Australians still kind of think about like, yes, they make a start in Australia, but to become big they sort of have to go to the US or the UK and that's the big break.
And you've done maybe a little bit of that from starting out in Japan and going to Hollywood. So if you could kind of give any advice or reflection to Asian Australians in the movie, film industry, what would it be?
Sohee Well, advice. I want to have advice [to give]. I mean...
Anna You are a role model!
Sohee OK, well, so Asian -Australian actors, they already speak English. Much bigger chance they have [than me]. Also, I don't know about their culture much, try to write about their life. Sounds interesting.
Yeah, you know, Japan is a small country too. They don't even speak, you know, I still don't speak English very well.
Anna Your English is perfectly fine.
Sohee Thank you. But what I was going to say is, Japan has a lot of contents, you know, samurai or, you know, like, ninja or anime. So that's where I am lucky in Hollywood.
Anna So do you think Asian Australians should, like… the world doesn't know much about our stories, I suppose.
Sohee Yeah, but they know who they are.
Anna That's so true.
Sohee Bring your own story to Hollywood. They must have unique life, unique history, and unique, you know, like, programs, issues.
I want to know about them, and I'm sure Americans, the world wants to know about them.
Anna Yeah. Well, that sounds like a really good “new miracle”, the next miracle for a lot of Asian Australians to aspire to who are in the creative industries; to create our own stories and become the actors and the directors that create the stories for the world to see.
Is there anything else you want the Australian audience to know about you, about the projects you're involved in? This is your chance.
Sohee Well... You know, lots of great theatre actors came from Australia. I respect, you know, Cate Blanchett, Hugh Jackman, and many, many, many actors I respect.
You know, they came from Australia. And they, pretty much, they are all from theatre.
Anna Yeah, that's true.
Sohee I am from theatre, too. Tokyo theatre world is huge.
Anna I think Cate Blanchett, like, went to either the same university as me in Melbourne or, like, have at least done a play in the Union Theatre in Melbourne University campus. Because I also did one play.
Sohee Which play?
Anna It was "Vagina Monologue" at the Union Theatre. And when I was doing that play, everybody was like, "Do you know this is the theatre that Cate Blanchett once was? We're sharing the same stage”. I don't know whether that story is true or not, but we believed it. (laughs)
Sohee Did you memorise the lines or are you just read?
Anna Of course, we memorised the lines!
Sohee Yeah, people say, "Oh, being an actor, "memorising the line seems so hard, how can you do it?" But the memorising the line is the easiest job for us. We have much more to do.
Yeah, so I am planning to do theatre back in Tokyo again. I've been talking about my actor friends and producer friends, and yeah, I'm planning it.
Anna Well, we'll follow more of the exciting things that you get up to, so thank you so much for making the time to talk to us. And hope to catch you again after your many more miracles in the future.
Sohee Thank you, thank you for having me.
[Music]
Noè Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. I don't even know what to say, but oh my gosh. You know what I loved about this interview so much, guys, is the fact that this is a super-duper megastar. Yeah, right, a megastar. And it was a beautiful and really intimate personal interview.
Zione Yeah, it was.
Noè I mean, I just, I loved that. Like, I got to know this person a lot.
Zione Absolutely, yeah. There were no walls.
Anna He was very generous, wasn't he, sharing that personal story?
Noè It was really personal.
Zione Yeah, and I could hear him pausing, thinking, reflecting and wanting to be very, very honest in his responses to you and to the audience. And I really appreciated that. And I'm very, very interested.
So I'm a terrible person, right? So I knew when Pachinko the book came out, wanted to read it. Now, the series has come out and I haven't watched it.
Noè Ahhhhh…..
Zione So I know, I know, there's a lot of FOMO, FOMO. I will get there, I will get there.
Anna Noè can't handle that.
Zione This is terrible.
Noè I'm not handling this.
Zione I know, I know, I know.
Noè In fact, you know what? I'm actually gonna leave the room.
Zione I know the friendship is coming to an end.
Noè I feel like we should pause this…for you to watch it and then come back. Anna, do we need to have an intervention here? (laughing)
Anna Well, as long as Zione says Mozasu is her favourite character, I think..
Zione Mozasu is my favourite character.
Noè Lots of heart emojis going across the screen right now.
Zione I'm so interested in his journey as a Zainichi actor and his story, his personal story with his father being a bit of an activist, and so on. What the context is for Zainichi in Japan and then also for him moving outside, right?
Noè Like that’s a big question.
Zione A lot of people wouldn't know about it. I only know about it because I lived in Japan briefly and had Zainichi sports teachers.
Anna That’s interesting.
Zione Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our PE teachers were all Zainichi.
Noè That's like so random, but super interesting.
Zione Is it, so random? It was an international school. Does that make a difference?
Noè No, no, fabulous, it's so fabulous.
Zione But yeah, so there's that.
Anna I love how we have this common kind of that [connection], Zione can talk about Japan and also Noè can talk about Japan. I have a Zainichi friend, like, it's all global.
Zione It's all connected.
Noè Had you seen Ramen Girl?
Zione No, I hadn't. But when I did my rabbit hole Google search, I saw the poster come up and you know, obviously it's the late Brittany Murphy…
Noè I mean, that was amazing, just as a slight segue - and I know you have a thing you're gonna say- but Ramen Girl was just amazing in the sense of there are very... and even today, I'll be honest.
Zione Even today, I thought so!
Noè …very few love stories about a white girl and an Asian male.
Zione A lead Asian male.
Noè And I think, when was Ramen Girl made? Was that in the '90s?
Zione 2006.
Noè 2000s?
Zione Early 2000s.
Noè Right, so that's 20, almost 20 years ago. I mean, to have that happen that's intense.
Zione Yeah, it would have been very, very... It's still rare. It would have been rarer, still. Even though he said that he can feel a lot of momentum in the industry now, right?
Noè Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
Anna It was ahead of its time.
Noè Super ahead of its time. I mean, like, I just, yeah, he just, I mean, that was just all incredible, how much he's done and seen in the changing of an industry, right?
Zione Yeah, definitely, definitely. And been part of and led in many ways.
Noè I mean, I, sorry to interrupt you, but because I have, and I've got the mic.
ALL laughs
Zione Sorry, not sorry.
Noè Sorry, not sorry, but I am, as you well know, obsessed with names, and I'm super interested in his name. And the whole fact that his parents had that courage to keep his Korean name, right?
Zione So, but tell us, because there is a thing, right? With Zainichi having a Korean name and a Japanese name, and that being a requirement, can you tell us a little bit about that?
Anna Oh, actually, I don't know enough about sort of some of the policies and stuff like that to know whether it's a requirement, but what…
Noè But it seems like it was a convention, right?
Zione Yes, maybe that's the word, convention.
Anna But what he said about how, you know, first it was the Japanese government, actually, that didn't allow Zainichi Koreans to have Korean names in Japan. But then after the government, it was actually the parents.
Zione Second generation.
Anna Who deprived their children of their Korean names and how he, he was quite, you know, an anomaly. His parents were rare in that they instilled pride and how it's been such a valuable thing for him to be proud of his identity. That really, it kind of, yeah, my heart just kind of went, ooh.
Noè Such an act of rebellion.
Zione It is, it is.
Noè It's a political act, almost, I mean.
Zione Yeah, it is, 100%.
Anna And such courage, such courage, and in some ways, such foresight. Because once you become that force of depriving your family of that richness of connection to culture, we're actually like depriving ourselves and kind of leads to self -sabotage in some way.
Noè Yeah, it's an act of colonisation.
Zione I was just gonna say, it's an act of colonisation. Like it's a global thing, right? So the colonisers do their thing and then the second generation or others continue and take on that role, right? That's actually the process. And while we're talking about it as a deprivation, I'm sure that for those parents, they were seeing it as survival. That this is the way to survive in this environment is to take on those needs…
Noè To assimilate.
Zione To assimilate, exactly.
Noè And also, you know, there is still, I mean, there is still a legacy of Koreans not being treated the same as Japanese citizens, even if they've lived there for many,
many generations. I mean, Pachinko is [not only] a story, but a legacy to that.
I mean, it's interesting that, but can I be… I mean, I don't know why, but does he not have a Japanese, because I also know him via a Japanese name, right?
So how has that, that wasn't given to him by his parents? Did he take on this name? Am I incorrect? Like Sojiarai?
Noè Sohee Park is his Korean name, but he's also known by Sojiarai.
Anna Yeah, that's right, that's right. So he goes by two names. He did tell me at one point how, yeah, you kind of need that Japanese name for people to relate, for the industry to relate to him as a Japanese speaking kind of actor.
Because, you know, he says about Pachinko how it's really rare for him to get a Zainichi character to play. So often he, you know, like plays a samurai role or a Japanese speaking role. To have a name like Sohee Park and be auditioning for a samurai role it's a bit of a disconnect.
It's that thing about names; that significance, not only for him, his family and his community but for someone like myself who shares the diaspora Korean identity but [I] don't know much about Japanese culture to be honest and I don’t speak Japanese. Him having a Korean name helps me relate to him..
Noè Yeah, that’s interesting.
Anna From one Korean heritage person to another. And we actually like…
My family, my brother was like, “how do you know this guy?” Like, what is a normal person like you..
Zione How did your worlds collide? according to George Costanza…
Anna And funnily enough it was we were brought together in a big networking kind of thing by the Korean government - and it's one of their strategies for soft power to bring Korean diaspora like a kind of second generation in leadership roles together. So we formed a friendship in a bond that way and there's like a big community of us that even though we are brought together by this government initiative after spending time together - because some of our life experiences are so similar in pattern and in dynamics - we kind of become like siblings and family very quickly.
Noè That's fascinating actually. That's really interesting.
Zione I've gone down another tangent in my mind about this diaspora but also that the government plays a role in sort of bringing it together. And when I was looking at the different diaspora is sort of Korean diaspora communities obviously we're talking about Zainichi here particularly because of Sohee Park but then there's the… I didn't know this term existed Kor-merican, right? For Korean Americans. And I didn't even know that there was a Russian-Korean diaspora community.
Anna Yeah, it's huge.
Zione Kor-walski? I'd never heard that. So that was also interesting. And then there's the Chinese version as well. That context of second, third, fourth generation and how you continue to maintain culture after so long.
Noè But what is Sohee…
Anna Sorry, we're all like too excited. But what I learned through like talking to Sohee was the bigness of being Korean and how it's not just narrow kind of closed-in sort of experience. That [rather] it is very rich and very global. And how I have so much to learn about other Korean diasporic experiences. But also how he has taken the arts…
Zione … a kind of vehicle.
Anna Yeah, as an entrepreneur. Like he didn't chase the more traditional, less risky kind of scholarly or whatever, kind of those “safe” kind of options. But as third gen, he wanted to take it bigger and acting was his chosen platform. Which is why he wants to kind of go and visit Koreatowns around the world and connect to that bigger world, that bigger experience of being a [member of the] Korean diaspora.
Zione - Yeah, really, really love, love, love that notion. And so curious to hear back from him again about what his experience is visiting all the different “Koreas” around the world.
Anna Are you inviting him back if we have another season, Zione?
ZIone Yes, and I think this time he should come to Australia and we need to meet him in person. And we will be on our best behaviour.
Noè I'm happy to do that. Happy day.
Anna Are we gonna go to the airport with those platcards?
Noè I would do that for sure. You know that.
Anna So fan- girling.
Noè All right, well, that was amazing. Thank you so much. And I think that he has so many messages for everyone in this, and including the fact that we should all be telling our own stories.
Zione Yes!
Anna That was quite powerful. Hollywood, you should be listening to us!
Noè Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you, that was amazing.
Anna Thanks so much.
Thanks for listening to Like Us and SBS Audio Podcast. You can find more episodes at sbs .com .au /likeus and follow us in the SBS Audio app or wherever you get your podcast. Your hosts are me, Noè Harsel, Anna Yeon, Zione Walker-Nthenda. We are produced and engineered by Michael Burrows at Tomato Studios with support from the podcast team at SBS Audio.
