Mia Park on Hope, Ancestor Survival, and Creative Resource — EP54

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, we have special guest, Mia Park, who is a yoga teacher, writer, actress, music producer and event producer, and a volunteer. She shares her ancestries incredible story of escaping from North Korea to South Korea, the joys and challenges of acting, being nurse Beth on the show Chicago Med, the lessons of self in teaching prenatal yoga in jails, and how women can explore their relationship to being a leader.

Candice Wu 0:31

Hello and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, embodied healing, and self-love.

Candice Wu 0:45

My name is Candice Wu, and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist, sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:06

There is no sponsorship message today, but I do want to share a new dream class that I created which is on Skillshare. This is one of my passions is to explore dreams. I love, love dream work, and so, I created a dream class on how to remember your dreams, the basics about how to prepare yourself, create intentions around it and the tools you’ll need, as well as the key factor to remember your dreams when you wake up. This is the first class in a series of many that will dive into the juicy parts of Dreamwork, which is embodying the energy and the gifts, and wisdom that a dream brings you so that you can bring that into your life and feel even more whole. You can find this first class that’s about 35 minutes long on Skillshare at CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, the number 1.

Candice Wu 2:04

Right now, these classes offered for free, I’d love for you to just get a taste of it, and please leave me a review and share your feedback about what you thought about the class, and that helps to also share that work with other people who are looking for a class about remembering their dreams. If you sign up through the link that I’m sharing with you today, CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1, you can also get two months free of the premium subscription. I think that after two months, it’s about $10 to access a wide variety of classes and offerings that are on Skillshare.

Candice Wu 2:45

Happy New Year, everyone! How are you all doing? It’s great to have you here. I can’t believe it’s been practically one year of doing this podcast. I remember the first time I did it, I recorded it like three or four times, and I was scared in so many steps of the way, sharing certain things that I did, sharing really personal topics, even interviewing people, it’s just not always easy but looking back, it’s just gotten so much easier. I feel a lot freer in my ability to voice what I want to say and to feel genuine and doing so. Still, I feel like there’s a long way to go and in some places, but I’m celebrating how I’ve been able to transform over this year. If you haven’t done so already, it’s a great time to look back on last year and look at the celebrations, feel into the things that you’ve grown on and integrate those into your being so that there’s part of you.

Candice Wu 3:52

There’s a podcast right before the new year about ending the year with grace and embracing impermanence, integrating and cleansing the energy of last year. So, if you want to check that out, you can go to CandiceWu.com/endingtheyear. And as I feel into the celebration of this podcast, and my ability to voice things out into the world, I also feel into ease. Ease seems to be something that stayed with me for a while ever since I went to Thailand last year. Just the question of how can I bring more ease into my life? Not necessarily how can I choose the easy way even though that is part of it, because a lot of times, there’s just a simpler way to approach something, a more direct way than I’m used to or then my patterns have shown me, but also how to be in that state of ease, while moving through life, while working, while creating things, and when I think about ease, bring it into my body, my muscles soften and I can enjoy things. Are there places for you that you want to bring the energy of ease, or softening or feeling graceful?

Candice Wu 5:18

And if you have other intentions for yourself for the year, I invite you to tune into that now. There are states of being or themes, words that really bring a feeling to life for you. For me, it’s about revisiting that energy daily or as many times a day as I can remember, really moving from that place.

Candice Wu 5:46

It’s really fun to have Mia Park on the show today. She’s a friend of mine. We first met through Advanced Yoga Teacher Training through the Darshan System with Jim Kulackoski, and I remember at that time, just how unafraid she was of being herself, asserting herself exploring topics of yoga and life, and digging into the truth, and it’s actually the first time I also learned about chanting mantras while cooking, because she’d often bring some yummy, delicious meals, and offer them to us and shared that she would chant different mantras that brought peace to her body and infused into the food, and it was delicious. So, I loved that and kind of opened my eyes to how energy might work in different ways.

Candice Wu 6:43

I find to me as zest and energy for learning to be so contagious, and her care for others and determination to support Asian women, especially in theater, and in their lives, in general, is really inspiring. Mia is powered by hope and engagement, and as a Chicago based multidisciplinary artist, she shares her passion for discovery through acting, teaching yoga, writing, playing music, producing events and volunteering. She’s just involved in so many different facets of life that she’s well informed and engaged, and all of these. So, without further ado, here’s me.

Candice Wu 7:28

So, Mia, I click open your website, and I see you in this commercial and you’re like shooting some sort of laser gun, and your face is just this like feisty, sneaky, playful face, and when I saw that, I was like, “Yes, that’s exactly how I see Mia.”

Mia Park 7:51

Cool.

Candice Wu 7:51

So, I wanted to welcome you to the show, and just start with that and give you the chance to share. Oh, my gosh, you are so many different things in the world and you have so many talents. You’re a playwright, you’re a writer, you’re an actress, you’re a yoga teacher, you’re an activist, feminist. Well, what are you not? Might be my question.

Mia Park 8:15

This is nice, you’re so sweet. Thanks, Candice. I think what I’m not is a slow person who can focus on one thing.

Candice Wu 8:27

Isn’t that interesting?

Mia Park 8:28

Nahhh.

Candice Wu 8:29

You’re like a multitasker goddess.

Mia Park 8:33

Thanks. I don’t, thank you. I appreciate that. And I understand you’re saying that like as a way to compliment me and I honor that.

Candice Wu 8:40

Yeah.

Mia Park 8:41

But I’m in a place in my life where I wonder what it would be like if I wasn’t, because I’m saying though, drawn at so many, too many things, and I am, I have to say I, you know, I understand that I am good at most things that I want to do. I mean, not to say that I’m not, I can’t learn, believe me, I’ve got a lot to learn but I’m successful enough at most things that I attempt that I am encouraged by whatever level of success I achieve, to keep doing more, and I don’t know how healthy that is right now. The other side of that is that I am having fun.

Candice Wu 9:19

I can see that.

Mia Park 9:20

Very, very lucky life. I feel really lucky for everything that I do. But I just wonder what it would be like to do one thing and do that deeply, just doesn’t happen. That’s okay.

Candice Wu 9:30

So, let’s backtrack a little, Mia. How, in a maybe a more lengthy story, I’m not sure, but how did you get to where you are now in your life? Where you are both, you know, all these things in your life? You’re acting? You’re on Chicago Med as nurse Beth, right?

Mia Park 9:48

Yes. Yes.

Candice Wu 9:50

You’re in Chicago still? Is that correct?

Mia Park 9:52

Yes.

Candice Wu 9:53

Yeah, and you teach your private clients teaching Yoga in group classes as well Yoga Nidra, and I know that you’re involved with Asian-American Theatre, and promoting other Asian Americans to be more involved. How did you get here in your life?

Mia Park 10:12

Oh, what a great question. Thanks. Um, I think I just redid my bio lines, and these things evolve, right? How we describe ourselves, who we are in relationship to ourselves, and my bio line, I think frames how I got here, I say, I define myself now as someone who is powered by hope and engagement. Throughout all the traumas that I’ve survived in my family, and then other kinds of like actions I’ve taken as adults, as an adult. I have always been driven by hope, and I’m very thankful for that, and I think that’s something that I may or may not be in control of, this has a lot to do, I think with karma and some scar, you know, the kind of like, life’s path the path that led me here, and also the predisposition, I enter this, this particular reality with.

Mia Park 11:09

So, there’s part of that that informs the level of hope I have, which is a lot. So, I certainly felt times of deep despair and hopelessness, but having kind of been present to myself through that, I think hope is what brought me to where I am, because I keep no matter how difficult or challenging things get, I haven’t connected to this underlying hope that whatever I’m experiencing is for an educational self-awareness, positive if you’re going to say positive and negative, positive experience of being alive, and the hope that this life is beneficial for myself and for others.

Mia Park 11:50

So, there’s a lot of hope there. So, I guess in the kind of chronological, tactile thing. So, I was born and raised in Philly, and both my parents are from Korea, and you and I were just talking, they’re actually not from what we think of as South Korea today or South Korea. My mother escaped from North Korea with her family, my father was born in Japan as a second class citizens. So, they actually both did not get to South Korea until they were about seven or eight years old as child refugees, already having survived World War Two, both of them and then additional trauma on top of that. So, they met…

Mia Park 12:23

…yeah, they met and married in the States, which is a little unusual, as opposed to coming over as a couple. So, I’m born and raised in Philly.

Candice Wu 12:23

Wow.

Candice Wu 12:30

Right.

Mia Park 12:31

My household growing up was absolutely chaotic. I went through a lot of pretty gnarly stuff growing up, and I’m very happy to have the wits about myself to be an adult who can look back and maintain hope and hopefulness, thinking about what family life was like for my five-unit family, particularly myself. And then, with my own kind of life to survive, despite everything that was going on in our crazy home, I maintained creative and escapism was a lot of what I went through. So, I think that it’s kind of again, what drives it is that karma is it nature or nurture, because I had a crazy home that I wanted to escape. So, I was an artist, which helped me escape what was happening. So, well, did I escaped what was happening, because I was an artist, you know, that type of thing.

Mia Park 13:27

So, as always, as in the fine arts, always creative, I always was into whatever was different. I always bumped the system. I didn’t like what group people were doing, but I grew up in church, which I found to be very beneficial because it connected me to this concept that there’s something outside of life than what was right in front of me, and it’s unfortunate to me, very, very unfortunate that coming from an indigenous ethnic culture that has its own spiritual background, because of the missionary work and the choices my family made, I go thinking a white man with a beard, not obtainable to me, by my own resources was the pinnacle of spirituality, and that I had to run to that guy for savior.

Mia Park 14:11

Sorry, but fuck that shit, you can delete that out later.

Candice Wu 14:16

Do you want me to?

Candice Wu 14:17

If you want, it’s up to you, you can keep it. But I, you know, I kind of rejected that from a young age because I thought this cannot possibly be the spiritual path that I’m supposed to be on right now. I just…

Candice Wu 14:28

Now, wait, are you saying that this is the spirituality that was brought to you because of your surroundings or your parents or both?

Mia Park 14:38

Both, my surroundings are Korean community and Philadelphia was really small growing up, and so, what we had was the church as our community. There was like, I don’t even think there was a Korean dry cleaner. There was like one Korean restaurant in all of Philadelphia, there was one Korean grocery store in all of Philadelphia, our community was small, this is what we were.

Candice Wu 14:56

Yeah.

Mia Park 14:57

And so, where we hung out with church, it was community. My father never went to church he was always an atheist. So, it’s really my mom. So, growing up with that way or rejected the kind of like, to this day still rejecting the cisgender white middle-aged your elder man in power. White man, I don’t know, I’m still, of course, had a little problem with that. Ironically, I think because I’m so conditioned to think that that white man is the prize, as far as being a woman of color growing up in a house of you know, with immigrants. My preference in partners has always been a white male American, for the most part.

Candice Wu 15:38

Isn’t that interesting, right?

Mia Park 15:39

Isn’t that interesting? I mean, I’ve certainly had relationships with other men that weren’t white or American, but pretty much that’s kind of been the prize for me, if I can, you know, somehow capture the attention of a white male in power, then I feel both safe and also accomplished at the same time, but at the same time, I reject God as a white man, you know, and that way so that’s that.

Candice Wu 16:02

Yeah.

Mia Park 16:02

I think that kind of like, rebellion of spirituality, yet longing for spirituality also set the tone for the choices I made. So, it was a crazy teenager, started playing rock drums and I was 19. So, I’ve been playing rock drums for decades now, which is pretty fun, and…

Candice Wu 16:20

I can just see you as a 19-year old like blasting on the drum.

Mia Park 16:24

Oh, so funny. Lose.

Mia Park 16:27

Yeah. So, somewhere in that being feeling lost and trying to find myself phase I ended up doing a ton of drugs, moved to Austin, Texas to form a band, but did way more drugs then started a bit, like I was out of my mind every day on drugs in Austin, and then to get out of that, I decided to move to Korea. We moved around so much growing up to because my dad’s just like not a balanced human being, and he kept making choices that made us move. So, I moved from Philly, moved on from Philly until Austin, Texas and then from Austin and move back to Philly for a little bit, and then I moved to Korea, South Korea, and I was there for a little over a year. Then I moved back to Philly because my father ended up going to prison the first time and I decided to come back to help my mom out. And then from there, I moved here to Chicago. Oh, yeah, we also moved to LA when I was a teenager because my dad was like we’re moving to LA. So, moved to LA and then after years, like we’re moving back to Philadelphia, so that was somewhere in the mix.

Mia Park 17:25

And then I’ve finished Chicago ever since I decided to come here to go to college outside of Chicago called Shimer College. It’s a great book school. So, I went from living in Korea to coming to a classical, like, dead white, European male classics way of learning like a Socratic method of learning. But that was beneficial to because it helped me discipline my squirrely mind into a framework of how I can discourse and interact with people kind of in a modified way, because before I would just be like a big ball of energy exploded all over.

Mia Park 17:58

So, then yeah, I just stay in Chicago since then, I got into cardio kickboxing because I grew up doing martial arts because my father was a martial arts master for a while. So, that was I grew up doing that. So, I started to merge this like desire for creative life, which was playing drums, and then I got into acting, and also the spiritual life that I got through growing up in church, and then this kind of physical life through kickboxing, and Shaolin Kung Fu. And they all kind of started to merge a little bit together, and then I am lucky, but I’m also super driven. So again, driven with that idea…

Candice Wu 18:34

Oh, really?

Mia Park 18:35

Yeah, right. With that hope, that thing of hope, just like, I wonder what this is, I am going to check that out. So, I wonder what acting’s like I’m going to get into acting. And like 18, almost 19 years later, here I am still acting professionally, and that a whole thing of the physical thing of like, I was actually doing teaching kickboxing, and there was a yoga class after kickboxing, and this was in 2000, the year 2000, or something, and I was like, “What is this yoga thing?” And that’s when I first started my physical yoga practice, and now I’m teaching yoga since 2006. So, I’ve been teaching since then. And then, of course, Yoga was a great pathway for me to involve myself on a spiritual path, and actually my spiritual path that was more of a Taoist work, and honestly, I both do Tai Chi, a Tai Chi practice and asana.

Mia Park 19:28

So, the physical, so it’s kind of both a yoga mind and yoga physical practice that I practice. So, I guess it’s kind of led me to where I am just like the fearlessness or maybe ignorance to just dive into whatever I want to, like respect for what holds me together and like being rule-abiding to an extent, but also super rebellious in like questioning what I’m doing and why.

Mia Park 19:55

So, I hope that helps.

Candice Wu 19:56

I can absolutely see that in you, and I, as I’m here to talk about your life story and your path, I’m hearing it with a whole different lens, in the context of your ancestry story, because your ancestry escaped to what was, I actually don’t know the conditions, but they left Korea and found a better life, and so that hope and that being rebellious and questioning things, and going for things maybe even blindly sounds so familiar to that story, and I would love for you to share that story with everyone listening.

Mia Park 20:35

Yeah, thanks. I think it’s an amazing story. As much as I have a lot of anger and work on forgiveness for my parents and kind of processing whatever residual effects I have from the household, we grew up in a very, very violent household, then I still am better able to put their actions into context thinking about their origin stories. So, my father was born and raised outside of Nagasaki, Japan, as a second class citizen, the Japanese for those who are not aware the Japanese colonized the peninsula of Korea and treated Koreans as a workforce as second class citizens. So, there were many, many, many thousands and thousands of Koreans that lived in Japan as laborers because the hope, the educational hope for their children was better in Japan, and also because there was work, there was money. Korea was very poor the time and I’m talking about the Korean Peninsula.

Mia Park 21:36

So, eventually Korean peninsula was divided after world war one actually, and the Chinese communist kind of have more of a hold of North Korea, and then the Japanese had South Korea colonized. So, this is what I’m understanding. So, my father was born and raised in Nagasaki, and actually survived the Nagasaki bombing towards the end of World War Two, he was seven, and because he was a second class citizen, and it saved their life and his family, because the Koreans lived on the outskirts of town, he sat in little shacks, and it was dirt paved roads, it wasn’t even sophisticated at all. Sometimes, the electricity, when he was outside playing any, they were used to planes being overhead, but he heard the planes. And he said, the ground shook, and then everything caught on fire at once. Including the ground people. Yeah. So, he ran.

Candice Wu 22:29

What an incredible sight that I can’t even imagine seeing that.

Mia Park 22:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 22:33

And experiencing that. So, he ran.

Mia Park 22:35

Yeah, he ran back to the house, the little Korean enclave, and then shortly after that, the Japanese are surrendered, and then they kicked out all of the Koreans. So, my grandfather took my dad. At that time, there was a family of five, his family, and they fled. So, my father did not arrive in South Korea until he was like seven. They had to redo all their paperwork. So, they were there and they settled in a town called Daegu, we’re outside of Daegu, actually. Interestingly, Daegu was the only major city that was not captured by the communists after the Americans came in through North Korea, I’m digressing now, so, anyway, families, basically my dad’s family is pretty safe, and they have been taken.

Mia Park 23:25

And then my mother was born and raised in North Korea, and because her father was going to be killed because he wouldn’t give up Christianity, the Christian God, my grandfather escaped and then my mom and some of her siblings escaped and then her grandparents and their siblings, I’m sorry, her grandparents and other my mom’s siblings escaped in three ways. They escaped from North Korea to South Korea. So, my mother didn’t come to South Korea until she was eight, and so, again, both of my parents survived in World War Two in North Korea, Japan respectively, and then surviving the trauma of escaping or fleeing from where they were landing in South Korea as children. So, already haven’t gone through all that trauma, right? And then surviving the Korean War. Oh, my gosh, I don’t think we have that long. Yeah. My dad, all over my dad was separated by people. He was, I think, 11 or 12 at that point, and his sister was 12 or 13, and the two of them having a pocketful of money that did nothing. They walked from soul. They’re actually in Seoul at the time, they walked from Seoul to Busan, they walked.

Candice Wu 24:34

That’s a long way.

Mia Park 24:35

Oh my god, they were so hungry. They would run into people’s houses and like steel raw sweet potatoes or raw rice and just eat that and they walked all the way to Busan because they had other family in Busan. The war was in Seoul not Busan, so they had to go. And my dad said all the money in their pockets couldn’t get them on a boat, or a plane or anything. Like, I’m talking about transportation that wasn’t even available on a bus basically, or a train. It just wasn’t available, they couldn’t do it. So, then my mom ended up in Seoul, and here’s an interesting story. So, my mother and grandmother…

Candice Wu 25:13

Not this whole thing, not this whole thing, isn’t?

Mia Park 25:16

Yeah, I know, right, this…

Candice Wu 25:17

Right?

Mia Park 25:18

Well, you and I talked about this specific point, which is, I think is so fascinating. I don’t believe in coincidences, right? Like I believe in there being fate and a lesson and everything. So, my mother’s two younger sisters, and her grandmother and grandfather walked from their apple orchard in North Korea, they walked along the coast of the ocean, they actually walked in the ocean during the night and slept in the mountains during the daytime to escape from North Korea, and they gagged my two aunts because they were crying. So, they would hold them on their back and walk in the ocean up to their chins during the night, and then sleep in the mountains and like with these gagged children, un-gag them and feed them and then gag them again.

Candice Wu 26:07

Were they babies?

Mia Park 26:08

Yeah, they were children. They were under three years old and under.

Candice Wu 26:13

Wow.

Mia Park 26:13

And so, they made it, took them a month. Meanwhile, my mother had reunited miraculously with her father. So, my father, my mother’s siblings, except for the two younger and her parents were reunited. They had a house and Seoul, and their aunt who’s still alive, she’s a hundred, my great aunt was on the way to teach Sunday school, they’d already gotten into Seoul and when it was part of a church, and she just decided to take another way to Sunday school, and we have to remember this was before the war started but after World War Two, so people were poor and begging, and we’re all along the streets, everywhere.

Mia Park 26:54

So, my grandfather had an apple orchard and had like, smuggled enough money to where they could have a house. They have like a huge family, right. So, it was like a lot of people living in this little house, but at least they had a house. So, it’s not uncommon to have people like begging on the streets, and be we will say homeless and just all over. So, my aunt, you know, was walking to Sunday school down a new path, and she heard a baby wailing, and she thought, “Oh my gosh, that sounds like my niece. Only my niece has that particular wail.”

Candice Wu 27:26

Oh, my goodness.

Mia Park 27:27

She turned around and walked back, and she saw her parents squatting in the dirt road with her nieces begging for food and money, and she had walked right past her own parents begging, they were so dirty and so thin that she didn’t even recognize her mom and dad. And so she said, “Oh my gosh, Mom, Dad, it’s me.” They didn’t recognize her because you know, there are so many people walking by.

Candice Wu 27:56

Yeah.

Mia Park 27:56

So, there was a huge, beautiful reunion right there in the dirt road and them up and her nieces and walked back to the house, and this was my father’s sister. So, she’s was my father’s parent, I’m sorry, my grandfather sisters. It was my grandparents, my grandfather, his parents. So a huge reunion.

Candice Wu 28:12

So, this is incredible.

Mia Park 28:14

Incredible.

Candice Wu 28:14

It’s incredible.

Mia Park 28:15

All the children, my mother, and all her siblings are reunited, and my grandfather and grandmother were there, and my grandfather’s sister and my grandfather’s parents. So, basically, that part side of the family was all together.

Candice Wu 28:28

Wow.

Mia Park 28:30

Yeah.

Candice Wu 28:30

So, how many years had they gone? Or how much time had gone by?

Mia Park 28:34

Months, there had been months. Probably, my grandfather left months before the rest of them. So, the whole entire family as a unit together? I’m going to say maybe four or six months, maybe.

Candice Wu 28:45

Wow.

Mia Park 28:46

So, my mother reunited with her father, a couple of months after he had left and it took my great grandmother and aunts a month to walk down. So, you know, probably the whole thing six months or more.

Candice Wu 29:01

Wow.

Mia Park 29:01

I know, it’s hard to get the clue in because my parents are elderly, and a little more not as centered, and plus, they don’t like talking about this. But not talking about my mom, I guess. My mom will talk about it, but she doesn’t really remember. She will often say oh ask my uncle hell no more than me, and I asked my uncle and he’ll just go like, “Oh, that. I don’t know why they want to hear about that. You know, so it’s hard to kind of, being another Asian with… you know, I’m talking about there’s that lineage.

Candice Wu 29:24

Yeah.

Mia Park 29:28

Not wanting to talk about things which has to do with this whole kind of Confucius lineage, I think of just, you know, just being humble or not wanting to talk about your past too much sometimes.

Mia Park 29:37

So, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but that was a pretty interesting way that my mom’s family, my mom, and my dad ended up in South Korea.

Candice Wu 29:37

Right. Yeah.

Candice Wu 29:48

Wow. So, how does knowing your story, knowing your family story? How does that affect you or especially when you found this out?

Candice Wu 29:57

Well, I found it out in steps, which was thankful. So, it wasn’t just one huge reveal. And the older of my parents get the more they will talk about what happens, so, it’s a little more easy to process for me. How that reveals itself to me is that I realized that I come from tough people. I come from survivors. And so, I myself, I fancy myself a scrapper, meaning that I use all kinds of very creative, with the resources I draw from, in order to not only survive but thrive.

Candice Wu 30:36

Absolutely, I find you incredibly resourceful.

Mia Park 30:39

Thanks, and that has to do with my own traumatic upbringing, but also the way my parents were raised, and the way this trauma they survived, and the way I was raised with them, you know, we did things like if we wouldn’t buy scotch tape, this is an example. Instead of buying scotch tape, we would use Korean sticky rice to seal gifts when we wrap them to save money.

Candice Wu 31:00

Oh, wow.

Mia Park 31:02

Like that’s what I’m talking about scratch.

Candice Wu 31:04

That’s awesome.

Mia Park 31:05

Yeah, I mean that’s also like my mom saying growing up with like, what’s sticky tape? Like, what is that? Right? But it’s also like, we’ve got rice. Why am I spending money on? Why am I spending 59 cents on scotch tape? There’s rice, this will work.

Mia Park 31:21

So, that’s how we give all the gifts to my friends. It’s like sticky rice, like all the birthday, and I look in hindsight and I go like, “Oh my god, how embarrassing.” Like a part of me at some point. I hope my American friends don’t realize this is put together with rice. Right now, I look back and I’m like, that’s awesome.

Candice Wu 31:21

Right.

Mia Park 31:38

Sticky rice, every gift.

Candice Wu 31:40

It’s brilliant.

Mia Park 31:41

You know, anyway, yeah, forget hair gel, just smashed up some sticky rice, anything that needs binding, sticky rice is your solution.

Candice Wu 31:48

And if you’re hungry, you know, you can have a little dessert.

Mia Park 31:51

Your gift wrap. That’s all I gotta say.

Candice Wu 31:53

Yeah. If you must.

Mia Park 31:55

If you must.

Candice Wu 31:56

Well, it’s reminding me of the story of, sorry, remind me who it is that but eating the money in order to bring it over?

Mia Park 32:05

Oh, that’s another part of the story, that’s right.

Candice Wu 32:08

I love that part.

Mia Park 32:08

Yeah, thanks. So, my great grandmother, my mother’s father’s mother, my mother’s grandmother. After they…

Candice Wu 32:14

Mother’s grandmother.

Mia Park 32:15

Yeah, mother’s grandmother. After they had survived and ended up in Seoul. This was before the start of the Korean War. My mom would wake up and her grandmother would just be gone, and be gone for like, three to five weeks at a time. And they’re like, “Where’s the Where’s grandmother? Oh, my gosh, did she died? Did she run away” What happened?“ And then my great grandmother would just show up and be like, ”Oh, here’s some gold and some coins, by the way.”

Mia Park 32:15

And they were like, “What?”. And so, before they fled North Korea, my grandfather’s family buried gold and coins, and they were poor and starving in South Korea at this point. There were so many kids, lucky they had a house but they were struggling, and so, actually the first time I great grandmother walked back to North Korea and walked back to South Korea because she thought who’s gonna bother little Korean lady, she put the stuff from the hair because all Korean women had long hair and they put it in buns and they would like put a little pin in their hair, to push the hid it in her hair. But she got caught, and they made her take out, take it out of her hair.

Mia Park 33:21

So, then the third time, and I don’t know where that happened, I’m not clear whether that happened the end of the first time or the second time. She still had, she would hide it under clothing. So, she did still managed to sneak some things over, she was like folded over in her clothes and then you know even though they caught it her hair. So, I know at least the third time she walked up and over she would eat the money, and jewel, the gold and poop it out, and the last time. You want to talk about tough stock I come from. The third time she escaped from North Korea, she was quiet, and according to my mom, my grandmother, my great grandmother was thrown into a cell stripped naked and she had to play dead. And so, they beat her, they kicked her and she just pretended she was dead, and then they threw her body into a pit of bodies nude.

Candice Wu 34:09

Oh, my goodness.

Mia Park 34:10

And at nightfall, she had to climb out of this pit of bodies and made it back to South Korea still eating and pooping out his gold chunks and coins. And so…

Candice Wu 34:24

She is so tough like that is incredible.

Mia Park 34:26

Are you kidding? Right?

Candice Wu 34:28

That’s the stuff you see in the movies, right?

Mia Park 34:30

It is. I do have her pictures on my wall. I look at them every day. And still, so, the last time she came back, they were like, “Stop, can you just stop going to North Korea?”

Candice Wu 34:49

Which is probably why she would just disappear, right? People probably would not want her…

Mia Park 34:54

My mom would wake up and she’d be gone like three times for a month. But actually, also the last time she came back, the war broke out, and so, she didn’t leave after that. But all those efforts were short-lived because with the war they were still so poor, my father, my grandfather would go to the Red Cross and take all the clothes that were donated, and my mom and her sisters and my grandmother, and all the women would lend the clothes with a needle and they would pull thread from the clothes that needed fixing and then, remend it with its own thread, and then sell the clothes on the street to try to make money.

Mia Park 35:37

So, that’s kind of, yeah, that was how they, oh my gosh, and then the communist push down, and so they had the free Seoul and lived in a cave, and then the Americans invaded and then, and landed with MacArthur and then push it back up, so, then they had to move again, and then the North Koreans push down again. So, they had to move again, and then the battle line kept pushing north, south, north, south, north-south and the 30th parallel, where it was at the beginning of the war anyway. So, nothing landmass was gained. So, my parents, my mom ended up in Seoul, finally, after I have to flee going back, fleeing, and going back. And my father like I said, eventually after Seoul, they landed in Pusan, and then Pusan was taken over, and then they ended up in Daegu where he calls his hometown now.

Candice Wu 36:28

Wow.

Mia Park 36:29

Yah.

Candice Wu 36:32

What an incredible story.

Mia Park 36:33

Yeah, thanks.

Candice Wu 36:34

And those are just pieces I know.

Mia Park 36:36

Yeah, pretty intense stuff. So, I come from tough stock. That being said, I come from tough stock that isn’t always very sensitive, and I constantly working at my sensitivity. I find sensitivity in my Tai Chi practice that I have not found with Asana but it’s my trajectory is becoming more subtle because I started out with like, hardcore martial arts, then I went to Tachyon, which is a Korean form of hard martial art. Then I went to a slightly softer form of martial art, Kung Fu, which required a little bit more subtlety with this more soft form.

Mia Park 37:11

Then from there, I went to, I guess, cardio kickboxing, which had like, not a lot of subtlety at all, actually. But then anyway to tell yoga Asana, which got me in my body in a strong way, but also to listen to more subtly. And then from yoga Asana, I’m now doing Tai Chi, and I’m in a four-year yoga therapy training. So, personal practices actually more therapeutic, which I believe that all yoga Asana has an opportunity to be, and my personal practice that is actually this Tai Chi, long and short form, which, to me right now is so subtle. And so, the subtlety, like the scrappiness is still is bad being balanced more with the level of subtlety that I think is just like, it’s working for me. I’m more sustainable. Yeah, I’m sustainable.

Candice Wu 37:55

Well, and it yeah, and it sounds like the trauma and the survivor physiology is coming out of the system, like not just yours, but your ancestry, if that makes any sense or no?

Mia Park 38:09

It does make a huge bunch of sense. So it’s interesting when we think about family ancestry, and we think about the lineage, I have this kind of like, difficult blessing that my family, my lineal trauma is very clearly indicated in two parts of my body, my left shoulder and my left hip, and what how that translates to me immediately is that one of the ways my father would abuse me is that he would sit on the end of the bed with his legs spread, and I would have to stand between his knees at the edge of his legs, in Korean martial art, in Korean salute fashion, because my father was in their Korean army. So, he beat us militarily, and so he had a collection of sticks, and depending on whatever I had done, would be the base on the weight of the stick, and so I would stand at the edge of his knees, and he would beat me in my left thigh and my left arm, and my left side of my face with the stick.

Mia Park 39:14

And so, it was really like, in the military-style was to do it in the same place, and he always did it where you couldn’t see it. So, if I wore a short-sleeve shirt, you can see how to bruise on the top of my arm. You know, he would do it on my thigh at my hips, I have to wear shorts, and Jim you couldn’t see the bruise, and he never hit me in the face, he not poked me in my face and hit me so that I wouldn’t ever have a face bruise. And so, I think that that has to do with why I have this like perennially, like chronically tight left shoulder, and which is more del with, actually, and then like hip area. But that is that being said, from one of the ways my father would beat me, it’s this, this pain that I have in my body, almost all the time, time is tied to the female lineage. It’s directly tied to the female history lineage I have. And when I can, when I am deeply in touch with that part of trauma and healing, this part of my body relaxes.

Mia Park 40:17

The other fascinating thing is that when I was abused as a child, there are different levels of frozen younger Mia, also embodied in this physical pain. So, when I pause and listen to the pain and the tightness, I try to listen very deeply to whatever age little Mia that is that I’m listening to and what she needs. Oftentimes, it’s just being held, and the exercise definitely helps, but when I’m healing a little stages of little Mia, I feel this matriarchal, historical, long, long, long lineage, including my father side of the family matriarchal, was long, long, long lineage of like a relief, a sigh, a collective sigh, whenever I can get it to release a little bit, but the messed up thing is that, yeah, the mess up thing is that there is so much immediate trauma that me as a woman and young woman survived, my mother and my father, sister, and mother survived, and then their female sides going back and back and back.

Mia Park 41:25

But I have an older sister who survived her own levels of trauma. You know, Candice, there’s a whole lot of just the female energy, trauma legacy in my body, and it’s in me more than anyone else that I know of in my family, on both sides, and I don’t feel like I’m this special chosen one, just for whatever reason that I think I’m the one that’s most sensitive to it and the one that’s agreeing to listen to it more. I’m not going to get surgery, I’m not going to go on meds for it I’m already doing to the jury of, to the degree of how I can hold space myself, right? And I think I’m only one that’s it, embracing it, and that’s why I’m feeling that girl.

Candice Wu 42:03

Absolutely. There’s a space for you to heal it. And it seems like the soul of your family, there’s an innate understanding of that through you.

Mia Park 42:12

Yeah.

Candice Wu 42:13

Which can be, you know, a huge gift or a huge burden, different times different things, I would imagine.

Mia Park 42:19

At, yeah, different times different things, and at the same time, the same thing.

Candice Wu 42:22

Yeah, well, and you know, when you said about the pain here, and you’re hitting your shoulder, is that is, it sounds like it’s kind of perpetual in ways or its layers of it, and as you spoke about that, I just thought about, I thought about your great-grandma, who was going to get the money and pretended to play dead, right? And it feels so similar to that in a way, to me, where, if you know you’re going to get hit, your body’s going to just build up the armor and brace yourself.

Mia Park 43:02

Yeah, great point.

Candice Wu 43:05

So, in a big way that sounds like it might have helped you. Your body helped you in that way.

Mia Park 43:10

Interesting. Yeah, my body I blessed this, I’m so grateful and thankful for this very, very strong body. I mean, it’s definitely been through a lot, and in my adult years, whether it’s like current karma or past karma, karma or like choices, I survived the choices I made, all the above, I had six surgeries in two and a half years. One on each knee and four have been oral. So, definitely, if we want to get settled esoteric, you know, knees and legs have to do with going forward in life, and supporting you that way to trajectory and, you know, having knee surgeries might suggest that there’s this like, “Am I going forward in a mindful way? Am I going forward it, you know, to quick, do I need to slow down? I know…

Candice Wu 43:56

Grounding.

Mia Park 43:57

…grounding, right and the speed and the oral thing has to do a lot with speech, and you know, representation in that way of speaking and digesting the saliva and teeth of the first part of the digestion system. You know, which has to do with processing in that way. So, I get that there’s a lot of subtle and very deeply connected effects to this physical body having all these surgeries. So, I try to go between the plans from growth to settle, because knowing I can get to settle and lose the physical connection. I’m trying to stick in the physical realm of how my surgeries are helping this body, which connects to my shoulder and hip, which connects I know back to this matriarchal, spiritual kind of like burden/gift I have. So, if that makes sense, I’m translating the physical growth into this pain to heal all of it. So, the pain’s very, very helpful.

Candice Wu 45:00

Yeah, right. It sounds like in a way it’s keeping you connected with the physical.

Mia Park 45:06

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:07

Connected with the body. Yeah.

Mia Park 45:09

No choice.

Candice Wu 45:10

Right.

Candice Wu 45:12

Well, let’s switch gears here. I have some fun questions for you. Hope these are fun. What’s it like to teach yoga in the jails?

Mia Park 45:18

Oh, I love teaching yoga and Cook County Jail. I teach prenatal yoga. So,…

Candice Wu 45:24

Oh, you do?

Mia Park 45:25

Yeah, I’ve been teaching prenatal yoga and Cook County jail for eight years, and because of where we are, I don’t always see the same women twice because they volunteer to take the yoga class, and also sometimes they either get released or they get sentenced, then they moved to the person. So, I, that’s one sad thing for me because I don’t get to see them often enough. You know, I go once a month. So, I don’t know if they had their baby, did they have their baby.

Mia Park 45:51

It’s also interesting, very fulfilling for me to connect with these women who made choices. They all make choices, and we make choices, and I feel like we we’re whole our own type of jail like we’re all in our own type of hell. So, they’re being in jail is the physical manifestation of whatever jail I put myself into the choices I made. So, working with him is like a practice on working with me in a way, and also…

Candice Wu 46:17

Yeah.

Mia Park 46:18

…I think it’s good to give these women coping techniques that I really hope that they can take away with them. So, I keep it super simple, and I keep it super applicable. Like, let’s practice deep breathing. As rewarding for me to see these women breathe deeply, and it’s a dialogue, like I love how you appreciate the amalgam of this conversation. I try to make our practice an amalgam, I welcome feedback. I pause for Q and A with them, and I try to gently insist on them giving feedback just to verbalize. I do feel calmer after 10 deep breaths like, great. So, I keep my jail yoga very simple, so that they can learn something to take away with them and then rewarding for me.

Candice Wu 47:01

That’s wonderful, and I love how you use that reflection for yourself of like, what working on yourself and what, where are you caged or what jail are you in?

Mia Park 47:15

Yeah.

Candice Wu 47:16

I love that experience. So, what’s the lesson with nurse Beth? Do you see it that way?

Mia Park 47:22

I do. It’s so funny. Like, I try to find some kind of codified thing, I’m like, okay, what’s the acting? How does that tie in with the spiritual work?

Candice Wu 47:32

Yeah.

Mia Park 47:33

And my codifying like, my binding one overall kind of mission statement with everything is that I seek self-awareness, and my choices also encouraged self-awareness in myself and others. So, for the nurse Beth, for me as an actress, oh my god, for sure. Like, I’ve done I think 25 episodes or more. So, believe me, I’m like, understand the character and I know what it’s like to be on this set. I still sometimes get nervous, and I feel like I overact and I go through this process of self-judgment, and I go through this like, “Why do I do this? I’m an awful person, I suck. Why am I even bothering?” And any kind of self-criticism is an opportunity to really think why I asked myself why am I feeling that way? Me, acting on this TV show does that more for me than anything else in my life right now.

Candice Wu 48:33

Wow.

Mia Park 48:34

For me, acting period is the biggest opportunities for self-reflection because I still judge myself so heavily. So, and that access for my own personal growth, that’s why I’m doing it, and honestly a part of the written I believe, I am lucky. Like I paid off my car, I bought a condo, a lot of my monetary lifeline is this NBC TV show and I am so thankful and grateful. So, another…

Candice Wu 48:57

Wonderful.

Mia Park 48:57

Yeah. Another part of my activism, my enjoyment, and activism with being on the show is a representation. So, I am in activism for Asian-American representation in the Chicago theater scene, and I got to start out specific. So, I actively do things like I produce, I promote Asian-Americans to write plays, I put together a whole series at Chicago’s best theaters Victory Gardens, Steppenwolf, and the Goodman to read these plays that are directed by and written by local Asian-American theatre talent, because we need to tell our stories, even if the story is about an African-American family, we even have the story is about, like reading a book in outer space, it’s still an Asian-American playwright, filtering the universe through their lens.

Mia Park 49:46

And so, my way of living my activism is being on that TV show 25 times is being the best actress I can be, so, they call me back 250 more times. That’s like saying, “Hey, I could be anybody. But guess what, I don’t have to be the majority person to be here, I’m just going to be me. I’m going to be an Asian American, middle-aged woman, who’s a nurse.” And honestly, truth be told, that reflects life. There are a lot of Asian-American middle-aged women who are nurses, not on TV, though. But my little bit of represent, every time I do an acting job on stage, even if it’s a voiceover job, or on camera on a commercial, I’m bringing my whole self, that’s how I’m presenting to the world to that, very consciously.

Candice Wu 50:38

Yeah, I think that goes back to engagement.

Mia Park 50:40

Yeah.

Candice Wu 50:41

As you said, you really try to show up.

Mia Park 50:44

Yeah, I tried to.

Candice Wu 50:45

That’s extremely powerful. And speaking of that, of power and showing up, what is your thought about at the moment, about how women can really step into leadership in their own leadership?

Mia Park 51:01

Well, I think the answer to every question is twofold. The general answer to every question is it depends, and but really, really, really the answer to really every every every question, I think that is, who are you in relationship to what the question is? You know, so, if a woman wants to become more of a leader, who is she in relationship to herself as a leader? And how she discovers that is through all the techniques that you and I practice and teach is tools of self-awareness, meditation, journaling, the basic sleep, well drink enough water, all these things. So, if a woman can get to know herself better, and you can even frame that in, like, the business model of success, like what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? That’s great, that’s still a degree of self-knowledge. Knowing, a woman knowing who she is, and why she wants to bring her whole self to the table of leadership is the first way that she can step into a role of leadership.

Mia Park 52:04

The second one is it depends. It depends on what you can leverage. I have a yoga client whom I adore, we’re very close. She happens to be born into wealth and made wealth as an adult. She’s a young adult, she’s a senior now. So, she’s in every position to step into leadership, but because he happens to have the finances, she’s not really in a position of leadership, she chooses to donate money to organizations, that means a lot to her. And she’s very generous with the way she donates. So, her form of leadership is leveraging the wealth that she inherited and made, and so, she doesn’t want to be in a position of responsibility of leadership, but she’s considered a leader in the philanthropy world. You know, what I mean? So, it really depends.

Candice Wu 52:54

Absolutely. Right.

Mia Park 52:55

That being said, her and I got into my car, we drove all the way out to the far West suburbs to canvas and knock on doors for Lauren Underwood, who flipped an Illinois US Congress seat.

Candice Wu 53:10

That’s awesome.

Mia Park 53:11

So, I’m driving out there two hours West with my like, almost eighty-year-old yoga client. So, in a way, that’s her displaying leadership in the way that she could.

Candice Wu 53:24

Yeah.

Mia Park 53:24

You know, so again, it really depends on that, it depends.

Candice Wu 53:28

Well, and I think part of what you’re saying, at least as I’m hearing it is, there are so many ways we can display leadership or be a leader in ourselves.

Mia Park 53:38

Yeah.

Candice Wu 53:39

And part of it is about noticing what it is that is your new unique way? And what are you already doing?

Mia Park 53:45

Exactly. Knowing you know, why you, who you are in relationship to being a leader? So, being clear about intention, I don’t so much of our actions, if based and intention can be so some substantial, sustainable and like, just get more done, like why you want to be a leader, who you are, who you think you are, and who you are in the form of leadership. That, yes, you need to take knowing your strengths are as a leader.

Candice Wu 54:11

Yeah. Thank you.

Mia Park 54:13

Oh, my gosh, for having me.

Candice Wu 54:16

It’s been wonderful to have you. Is there anything else you want to share today before we go?

Mia Park 54:20

Yeah, Candice, you’re awesome woman, you keep doing what you’re doing. You are so at the same time professional and just have your act together, everything from your lovely graphics, to your messaging, to your scheduling, your professionalism with that. But what you’re being professional with is so beautiful and spiritual, and can be this esoteric thing that somebody can run away with, but you are practical, you are grounded, and you’re completely authentic, and so, thank you for all the great work that you’re doing.

Candice Wu 54:53

Og, my gosh. Thank you.

Mia Park 54:54

So true. I like looking at your newsletters, and I’m like, where, how does she got the time to do all this and where in the world is she right now, on a plane. I was like, you go. What is she doing? It’s amazing.

Candice Wu 55:09

It was like, I gotta do my newsletter by Friday, and I’m flying, so, here goes.

Mia Park 55:14

Here it goes. Love it, love it.

Candice Wu 55:16

Thank you so much, Mia. You are just brilliant out there in the world, and I think you are starting a podcast of your own?

Mia Park 55:23

I am, soon, soon. Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:24

The experiment of Living, is that right?

Mia Park 55:26

Yeah, The Experiment of Living.

Candice Wu 55:27

Oh, I cannot wait. I cannot wait.

Mia Park 55:30

I’d love to have you on some time, too.

Candice Wu 55:32

Oh, I would love to, I would love to. We’ll put a plug in for that when it shows up.

Mia Park 55:38

Thanks.

Candice Wu 55:40

Thank you so much. Take care.

Mia Park 55:42

You take care, Candice.

Candice Wu 55:44

Thank you so much, Mia, for being on the show. I learned a lot and had fun in the discovery of learning more of who she is and her ancestry. It was really fun, and thank you all out there for listening. If you want a taste of Mia’s work, I would recommend checking out her Yoga classes or Yoga Nidra classes as well. And later this week, if you want a little experience with her, you can tune into this meditation that she will offer on tuning into breath and being, feeling it to the curiosity of the life-giving force of breath. You can learn more about Mia and get engaged with the things that she offers, the things that she’s promoting in her world through MiaPark.com.

Candice Wu 56:33

And wishing you all a lovely and healthy New Year. I hope this was a lovely start of the year for you in thinking about your own ancestry story, your own resilience, and how you’d like to move in the world. I hope that you tune in again, next week we’re talking about ritual and how to create some meaningful rituals that support you in feeling like yourself this year.

Candice Wu 56:58

See you next time on the Embody Podcast

Candice Wu 0:00

Today, we have podcast guest, Mia Park, offering a meditation on tuning into breath and being, feeling into the alchemy of life-giving breath and listening to the body in a deep way. So, take five minutes and tune in with her in this lovely meditation. Mia is multicolored and multifaceted, and you can find her story and her ancestry story at CandiceWu.com/mia.

Mia Park 0:34

Let’s practice a simple and elegant meditation focusing on the breath. So, ideally, you’re sitting tall with the spine, upright. Feel free to sit in a chair if you need to or if you need to lie down, feel free to do that. Let’s breathe in and out of the nostrils, and feel the weight of the breath, moving in and out of the nose. Feel the volume of breath, feeling the gentle pressure in the nostrils from the breath, moving in and out.

If your mind starts to wander, just focus back on the breath. Gently guide your awareness back to the breath, moving in and out of the nostrils, listening deeply how the body is affected by a gentle, slow observation of the breath moving in and out of the nostrils.

Being curious about this life-giving force, this alchemy that transforms air into life-giving breath, as the breath moves in and out of the nostrils, and in and out of the body.

And now, shift your intention towards listening towards the body, practicing a deep listening of what’s happening in the physical body as you sit or lay still and focus on your breathing, noticing the heartbeat impulse, noticing the weight of the body on whatever you’re sitting or resting on, noticing the effects of focusing on the breath, practicing a deep listening of the body in stillness.

You may continue to listen deeply to the body, breathing, as long as you’d like. When you feel ready to come back to the waking world, listen again for the heartbeat and pulse in the body. Listen for a tingling, fullness, and war on the hands and feet in the body. You can taste saliva in the mouth, sense for sounds. Notice light between the eyelids as you slowly deepen the breath and gently bridge back into the waking world.