Tonight I had an epiphany. Tonight is the premiere of FRESH OFF THE BOAT on ABC. AB fuckin' C. The network television station with millions of eyeballs--that ABC. It's crazy! There was a huge viewing party at the Circle NYC (typically an exclusive nightclub turned into a viewing room with over 1000 people in the house). It was crazy! There were many moments tonight where the idea of "this is just the beginning" was reiterated. And when Eddie Huang said he hopes this show will inspire others to tell their stories, I lost my shit. I teared up a bit. And when Jeff Yang in the end said that this is not about Eddie's life and about the community, I was like hell to the fuckin yeah!
To put everything into perspective, this is the 2nd time in American history where an Asian American family is featured. The first time was 20 years ago with Margaret Cho's ALL AMERICAN GIRL. 20 fuckin' years ago. That's a really long time. And for this show to come on, the term historic is an underestimated statement.
In a day and age when multi-culti or colorblindness is constantly preached, people need to realize this is a HUGE deal for the Asian American community. And hopefully this is only the beginning.
A lot of thoughts passed through my mind tonight. Most of it was damn; but a lot of other times was: how can I get there? This is and has always been in the back of my mind. I need to re-evaluate what I do, and I've been thinking about this for quite some time, but I'm seriously thinking about discontinuing the Cantonese Lessons part of the YouTube channel. Maybe it'd be a space where I reflect about my acting career (yes, career!).
I need to focus and not let the outside noise drown out what I really want. I really want to fuckin tell stories through acting and write more stories about the Asian American experience. I really want to tell stories I can be proud of. So this means, I do less of other stuff. And I am cool with that.
I guess my whole intention with starting the channel is to be able to express myself and do something that can benefit others. But the hardest part is to find people who are interested in Cantonese Lessons. Has it been done before? Maybe. With a fuckin gong sound that gets my blood boiling out of the left field. I was trying hard to make it cool and to find people who will care.
Maybe it was the wrong platform. I tried many times, and this time, I'm finally hanging up the hat. I can't say that I never tried. I'll take a moment to take in all this and realize it's okay to try and fall. The only thing is, now when I stand up, I know what I want more than I did before. And that makes it all worth it. I learned a lot about myself through doing this YouTube thing. And I can say that I'm fuckin proud of myself. That's always been the hardest for me, to be at peace with myself. Heck, I still didn't show #mommalei the video, so shit. I'll show her tomorrow morning when she is at work. When she doesn't have to confront me and my decisions of what I want to do with my life. Someday she will come around.
So I'll be blogging once a week instead about acting. I hope you'll still continue to support this journey.
The takeaway: never stop the hustle or never stop dreaming.