In the summer of 2008, Chris Wang, a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy, stumbles his way through friendship, family, and identity. He slouches in and out of the house where he lives with his mother, sister, and grandmother, never truly knowing what he’s doing or where he’s trying to go. He runs around with his friends—new and old—never feeling like he fully belongs with either group. He attempts to get closer to his crush, Madi, but fumbles and ends up alienating her in the midst of his angst. He tries so hard, and fails equally hard.  This is the curse of adolescence—an overdramatic existential ennui where everything is simultaneously A Big Deal and Not A Big Deal At All—and Chris serves as a painfully authentic reminder of how much we also struggled when we were 13.  Young actor Izaac Wang plays Chris perfectly, capturing an earnest desperation that is both sympathetic and repulsive. “It’s funny,” Wang says. “My initial impression was that I didn’t really like the character very much at all. It really wasn’t because Sean [Wang] wrote a bad character or that the script was bad. It was mostly just because [the character] was insecure, you know?” Like many 13-year-olds, insecurity is Chris’s primary driving force. It’s evident in the way he carries himself, the way he looks down more than up, and the expression on his face when his crush Madi’s insipid little friend makes fun of his last name.  He never feels like enough. Not smart or accomplished enough for his mother to brag about to her acquaintances, not charming or man enough to woo Madi, and not sure enough of what it means to be Taiwanese-American. And at his quietest, most vulnerable moments, free from the posturing and performance of immature masculinity, Chris’s humanity shines.  I keep fucking everything up , he writes, depressed, to a rudimentary AI chatbot. Everyone hates me and I have no friends. It’s so easy to judge Chris throughout this film. We cringe, roll our eyes, and sigh at his behavior—right up until this moment, when all of his protective layers have been flayed to reveal the raw flesh beneath.  “I’ve never tried to book a dramatic lead role,” Wang says. “And specifically for a character that was a little bit more vulnerable than me, and a little bit more under-confident. [Chris] just had an urge to fit in, which I didn’t have at that time. I had to dig a little deeper into myself and realize that my younger self—my 13- to 14-year-old self—was actually just like Chris.” That’s what makes “Dìdi (弟弟)” (2024) such standout from other coming-of-age films. This isn’t a typical hero’s journey where the protagonist struggles a little, overcomes obstacles, defeats his enemies, and gets the girl. In this film, the hero struggles a lot , trips repeatedly over obstacles, turns his friends into enemies, and doesn’t even come close to getting the girl. Because Chris isn’t a hero and we shouldn’t expect him to be; he’s a 13-year-old boy trying to learn how he fits into society just like everyone else.  In giving Chris a little grace for his very normal teenage messiness, we give our past selves grace for our own messiness.  The end of the film signals a shift, subtle but tectonic. It’s not quite a new beginning, because Chris is not reinventing himself. Instead, he’s getting more comfortable with himself, holding his head higher and walking through high school halls with shoulders relaxed instead of slouched.  When asked about what Chris’s high school experience might be like, Izaac Wang answers, “He’d probably gain more confidence. He’d probably make more friends. But I feel like he would never, ever get a girlfriend.” Perhaps not. Or perhaps he will.  “Hopefully he’d get a haircut and get rid of his bowl cut,” Wang jokes. “Hopefully he increases his fashion sense a little bit.” But whatever choices Chris makes in high school and beyond, “I hope the number one thing that he takes away from this is to gain more self-confidence and be more proud of yourself and who you are.” “Dìdi (弟弟)” (2024) is now playing in select theaters, Everywhere August 16. Director: Sean Wang Writer: Sean Wang Cast: Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen, Zhang Li Hua, Mahaela Park Cover photo: Courtesy of Focus Features

Skateboard wheels on asphalt and a mellow, pulsing instrumental ease us into “Sunflower Girl” (2023), a tender yet poignant coming-of-age short film. Rosie (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), the narrator and protagonist, is a girl on the cusp of teenhood, her pale yellow shirt a nod to her true name, Kui — which means sunflower.  Rosie has a crush on a boy in her neighborhood, which leads her to make some hasty decisions that she may or may not end up regretting in the long run. It’s this awkwardly desperate, gentle spirit of early adolescence that director Holly M. Kaplan taps into in her nostalgic short film.  “So, COVID happened, and I moved back home [to New York City],” Kaplan explains. “Being in my childhood neighborhood and everything, old stomping grounds and the school I went to…it was really desolate. The city was completely dead. So [I] was just doing these walks to go outside and by myself and just be in these old environments. That kind of sparked this idea, these memories I had.” “I was remembering all these people from school,” she continues. “All of these things kind of just started coming into my head, and that’s when I think the wheels started turning.” There’s a warm haze that blankets every shot of the film, bathing the screen in a vintage summer glow. It’s not just aesthetic; it’s a thin veil cast over the past that both softens the edges and intensifies the emotions. It’s evocative, luminous, and absolutely gorgeous. This visual poetry complements Rosie’s journey in a time when the character’s world seems both expansive and suffocating. “I owe it to working with my incredible DP, Michael Cong,” Kaplan says. “We ended up choosing an older camera with vintage lenses. It helped sell that look, that [the film] was nostalgic.” Beyond her age, Rosie’s identity contains another layer that the film makes space to examine. She’s a second-generation Chinese-American, lending a specificity to the character’s perspective and filtering how she moves through the world and the choices that she makes.  “I hope [this story] resonates with Asian-American femmes,” Kaplan says. “Or Asian diasporic people who have the experience of feeling like they are an outlier in their family. Sometimes it’s lonely to be [that] one person. You’re kind of going against the grain and you’re doing what you like. That’s really the whole story of the film. It’s okay to be human.” “Sunflower Girl” has been selected for and screened in film festivals worldwide, from India to Sweden to the U.K. and Canada, a promising triumph for Kaplan. “We’re finishing up our last year of festival [submissions],” she says. “We’re waiting to hear back. Hopefully it’ll get into even more and we’ll be all around the world and still in the U.S. and all that.” “I think this honestly just taught me to believe in myself,” Kaplan concludes. “That’s the biggest lesson, I think.” “Sunflower Girl” will be screening this June  in Singapore, Poland, and Canada.  About the filmmaker: Holly M. Kaplan is a Chinese-American filmmaker, born and raised in New York City. Inspired and driven by ties to her mixed Cantonese heritage, Holly is invested in bringing narratives about the Asian diaspora and diversity to the forefront. She earned her BA in Film & Media Arts at American University and completed a filmmaking program at FAMU International Prague, where she filmed her first short, “THE LESSON.” A former apprentice to the late Independent Director/Producer Ben Barenholtz, Holly served as Director’s Assistant to Executive Producer/Director Lisa Soper and Director Alex Pillai on “PRETTY LITTLE LIARS: ORIGINAL SIN” (HBO Max). In 2022, Holly was selected for NALIP’s Latino Lens: Narrative Short Film Incubator for Women of Color sponsored by Netflix to write, direct, and produce “SUNFLOWER GIRL.” About the film: When a 13-year-old Chinese-American girl has the opportunity to go skateboarding with her crush, it comes at the cost of abandoning her little sister. https://sunflowergirlfilm.com/ Cover photo: Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja as Rosie. Photo by Luna Cristales. Courtesy of NALIP.

Tim Thornton is an adoptee, and identifies as a Korean-American adoptee (KAD). After becoming more curious about his Korean heritage, he discovered he was eligible for South Korean citizenship and decided to apply at the Seattle Embassy. The Universal Asian spoke to Tim to learn more about his KAD story, his experience applying for citizenship, and how he got in touch with his Korean roots. Tim’s origin story begins in 1953 when he was born as a Korean war orphan, who was adopted at 5 ½ years old to parents in Washington. It was here that he grew up in what Tim calls a “white bubble.” As a result, he said, “Most of my whole life, I didn’t really have any curiosity about my Korean roots because, looking back, a lot of it was because I thought I would never know.” It wasn’t until he was in his late 40s that he became curious and “tried to contact the orphanage in Seoul.” The orphanage revealed that all of Tim’s records were given to his adoptive parents, and so he stopped pursuing his journey to find out more about his Korean heritage. However, it was when his wife encouraged him to get a DNA test that he decided to have another go at seeking his Korean roots. “The DNA results didn’t show anything on my Korean side, but they did find my biological father, who passed away about 10 years ago,” Tim shared. From there, he discovered that he has six biological sisters on his father’s side, living on the East coast. “We’re all pretty close now. We have a lot of chats and FaceTimes and other ways to talk, and we visited them,” he said. While he is happy to have met his biological sisters, he still holds, what he calls “this really strong desire that just keeps snowballing” to find more information about his Korean heritage. This strong passion of his started when he joined the Air Force at 23. Being stationed in the Philippines meant he often saw military personnel and their families from Thailand, Japan, and Korea, which enabled him to get to “know more and more [about] Asian culture from that.” His desire to tune into his Asian roots grows “stronger [with] the more information I get, the more excited I get about trying to find the rest of the story.” This led to Tim finding out about South Korean citizenship, which he learned about from various Korean Adoptee Facebook groups. “[I saw] some links to stories, so I started following the stories. Then, I started researching myself, and then I contacted the Korean consulate,” he explained. For many, this may be a daunting process, yet for Tim it was the opposite. He said, “It’s not near as complicated as I thought [it would be].” Instead, the hardest part was “getting somebody to get the papers supplied translated into Korean.” Otherwise, this is something that Tim encourages other adoptees to pursue in the hopes that it may help them to get in touch with their Korean roots. He tries to “encourage the ones that are thinking about going [to Korea]. Sometimes it’s good just to get the information and know, because parents at my age level or generation aren’t around forever.” While he recognizes that not everyone wants to pursue their background, for those that do, he shared: “You have a clock that you might regret later if you waited too long,” and he encourages folk to use different resources to find out about their heritage. For Tim, Facebook groups have served as a lifeline for him to find a lead in regards to his family. Networking with other adoptees so that they can share their stories and give advice to each other has also helped him, which is something he didn’t always have. “I would say there was [a] lack of support for me growing up, [but] with the addition of social media…it’s helped a lot because the Facebook group is how I connected with 325KAMRA,” he said. 325KAMRA (Korean American Mixed Race Adoptees) is an organization that helps adoptees search for their families through DNA tests, which is something Tim used to help him find his biological siblings. The organization has also been instrumental in highlighting KAD stories, as Tim was part of a book by 325KAMRA that sheds light on adoptees. “I helped just write my story only, and then we had people that were brought together in that book,” he explained. Tim contributed to "Together At Last: Stories of Adoption and Reunion in the Age of DNA" so that he could “give back, because [325KAMRA] were so instrumental in helping me find everything I never would have done without them,” and is happy to be a part of the book. Though he has been able to find some of his biological family, he is still keen to search for his Korean mother, which he has a lead on. A friend of Tim’s took his records back to Korea who, via various online genealogy groups, was able to reach out to various members of the Woo clans and one of them said, “He [Tim] is one of ours.” Excited that he may have a paper trail of his family, Tim hopes to pursue that by visiting Korea in October. Tim will collaborating with us in the event "Korean Citizenship Restoration with Tim Thornton" that will be held on May 26, 2021. Click here for details to register to join this free event.

< Back Heather Lewis Contributor Heather Lewis, or 노 영 미 as her biological sisters have named her, was born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in the U.S. at six months old. Heather has had many professions: waitress, ballroom dance instructor, middle school English teacher, and her current role in operations. She has a master’s in English, a master’s in Critical Studies of Teaching English, and a master’s in business administration. She is a proud KAD (Korean ADoptee) and likes to explore identity through writing. She loves being married to “fake Dave Grohl” and raising her only daughter. Despite still not knowing her birthday, she’s sure she is a Capricorn. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lewie73

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< Back Cynthia Landesburg Contributor Born in Busan, South Korea, Cynthia spent seven weeks with her birth family and the next four months in an orphanage and foster home before being flown to Washington, D.C., to her Jewish adoptive family as an #importedAsian. As a recovering perfectionist and overachiever, she left her legal career in favor of caring for her two sons, both adopted from Korea, and her biological daughter. She currently spends her day homeschooling her sons, chasing her baby daughter around the house, and spoiling her dog with a lot of walks to clear her head. And in the moments in between, she writes. Cynthia looks forward to exploring issues around parenting, adoption as an adoptee, and the overall adoptee experience. You can find more of her writing at her website, www.adoptionsquared.com .