Becky White on Building The Halfie Project, Holding the Weight of Other People's Stories, and the Farewells That Shaped Her
Interview by Mirae Lee & Harriet Kim
Some stories feel like memory; others feel like missing chapters. The Halfie Project sits at that intersection, gathering mixed Korean experiences and diasporic histories we hadn’t known to seek. Living in the North American “bubble,” I realized how unaware I’d been of the narratives unfolding elsewhere—from half-Korean, half-Egyptian experiences to North Korean communities in the United Kingdom to Mexican-Korean histories. The Halfie Project is more than an archive—it is a living record of departures, both chosen and forced, and the new beginnings that follow every emotional rupture.
At its center is Rebecca Rose White, known as Becky. Beyond the interviews, podcast, and research, she interprets Mean Girls Shakespeare-style, inhabits the heroines of K-pop Demon Hunters, and lends her voice to characters like Street Fighter’s Mai Shiranui. Being the creator of The Halfie Project is just one of the many roles she takes on, and we wanted to hear about her story: how her life experiences and the i-byeols she’s navigated—farewells to places, dreams, and chapters of her life—shaped her journey, her multi-hyphenated roles, and the way she carries the heavy, intimate stories of others. Through it all, we are reminded that we aren’t just defined by where we arrive, but by the courage it takes to leave certain versions of ourselves behind.
At its center is Rebecca Rose White, known as Becky. Beyond the interviews, podcast, and research, she interprets Mean Girls Shakespeare-style, inhabits the heroines of K-pop Demon Hunters, and lends her voice to characters like Street Fighter’s Mai Shiranui. Being the creator of The Halfie Project is just one of the many roles she takes on, and we wanted to hear about her story: how her life experiences and the i-byeols she’s navigated—farewells to places, dreams, and chapters of her life—shaped her journey, her multi-hyphenated roles, and the way she carries the heavy, intimate stories of others. Through it all, we are reminded that we aren’t just defined by where we arrive, but by the courage it takes to leave certain versions of ourselves behind.
Transcript
Mirae: Hi Becky, thank you for joining us.
Becky: Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's very lovely to chat with you guys again.
Mirae: Just to start off, can you introduce yourself and share a bit about what you do to our choa audience?
Becky: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Becky. My full name is Rebecca Rose White. But a lot of people in Korea know me simply as Becky. And I am a writer, a voice actor, a model. I've worked all areas of the industry, but what I might be known online is my work for The Halfie Project or 혼혈이야기, which is exploring the mixed Korean experience, ethnically and culturally, all over the world.
Mirae: The Halfie Project, that was also the reason why we reached out to you because it’s such an insightful platform that shares diverse experiences of the Korean diaspora which is also what we’re trying to do at choa. So it felt very fitting with our mission and also just all the content that you have whether it’s this one-minute Reel about Koreans in Mexico, or even these long-form interviews you do with other mixed Koreans, or the conversations that you have with your partner Cedric as well about both of your experiences. It felt like there’s just so much content and context as well to all of these pieces. And also probably a lot of effort and time put into all of this as well. So we’re always astounded, wow, there’s definitely a lot of thought and research in this.
So we’re very curious about what that process is. How do you really bring all of that together? Are there certain guiding points that you have in terms of how you want to approach your research? Is it something like, oh I’m interested in it, so I’m going to do it. Or it’s like, I think there’s something missing in the overall history of Korea or whatever discussions in the mainstream that you want to fill in those gaps. How do you get these stories? How do you find these stories?
Becky: That is such a great question. We get asked that a lot. I think it's a culmination of things, at least how we hit a certain topic. One, it's either something that we have been stewing over for a long time, especially when it comes to a little bit more personal issues or cultural things that we notice. When we start seeing that again and again, we take notice and we're like, you know what? We should talk about this. So we actually have this pending list of topics that we want to discuss. Either this could be handled in a document format or writing, photography, just our conversations. Is there someone we can interview? So sometimes it'll appear very organically. Other times it happens because people bring it to me.
I think The Halfie Project has hit a large enough audience that we get listener mail. We get people who write in, and they're like, Hey, my parents are actually, you know, they live in Samoa and my mother’s Korean, but my father's Samoan and I would really love for you guys to talk about the first missionaries who came, you know. We just get all kinds of amazing stories that they just come to us sometimes. When it came to the Zainichi, I can't even remember how I first discovered it, but this was way before I learned about Pachinko. So I may have been in Tokyo and this is where I first heard about it. And I was like, you know what? This is an interesting topic. Let's go deeply into it. And then later on Pachinko came out and then more people were interested in what we had to say about it. Yeah, so a lot of times I think there was definitely a period of growth during Halfie Project where that's all we were thinking about, 24/7, and these stories just kind of fell into our hands or we noticed it and we’d be like, why are there Koreans who are speaking Portuguese? Okay, what's the story? And I do feel like a lot of things fell into place for me through life.
Like my best friend from college is Koryo saram. At the time, I had no idea what Koryo saram was, but she and I were just best friends and I never even thought about it till later on where I was like, Oh my gosh, she’s Koryo saram. Or I had another roommate when I was at Yonsei, and my roommate was Brazilian Korean, and at that time too, I was like, Oh, well, yeah, that makes sense. There's Koreans everywhere. But then I realized later on, Oh, there's a whole immigration story behind all of this. So it's just been interesting to see the people who have come into my own life were sort of planting seeds along the way.
And so it's really just a lot of things that I noticed, constant observation and things that come to our own hands that people send to us. And then after that, we have to do all of the research and sometimes can be opinion pieces explaining our own experiences and our own thoughts about this and our own understanding. And then other times, we really have to deep dive and just find out as much accurate information as we can from accurate sources. And that's what takes a lot of time. So even though you say it's a one-minute Reel, it can literally be like a whole day of research and then writing and rewriting and rewriting because we got to fit it into the short period of time. So it's an effort of love, for sure, but it's so gratifying to see the end result when people are like, Wow, I didn't know this and we can be a reliable source on these cultural, historical things concerning the Korean diaspora.
Harriet: I feel like there is a certain point that a lot of us reach where we actually have the time and the capacity and the energy to actually think about some of these different migration stories and how each diasporic community has its own unique history, its own migration patterns, and I think with that in the context of our volume 5, there are so different ways of experiencing i-byeol, just like moving through the world as a Korean person. So it’s interesting to hear how you have met these different people over the course of your life that have really informed how you approach your work now. And I’m sure splitting your time between living in Seoul and New York, I imagine that kind of helps to broaden your scope in terms of the type of people that you meet, personal experiences that you can talk about.
This is kind of a two-part question where if you can talk a little bit more about your maybe certain life experiences or your travel schedule that helps you do the work that you do with The Halfie Project. And talking about your research process, given how much there is to talk about, how do you decide what to include versus what to leave out?
Becky: I think it depends on what format we're focusing on. Sometimes if we're doing an interview with a certain individual, we kind of shape the additional information that we find around them and their own story and what they have to say. And then when it comes to something that's purely research, like our quick Shorts, where it's just talking from beginning to end. Yeah, picking and choosing what to say can definitely be difficult. After a while you kind of get a feel for like this is the overarching story and this is a fact that we know is going to get people's mind, like they're going to be like, Oh, I want to learn more about that because there's no way we can put all the information in at once. And also the thing that really shapes our presentation, information that we give, we do always want to be rooted in compassion and also honesty. So that also dictates the way we present this information and what information we're going to give. And I try my best to keep my own opinion out of it. So that also helps when we're sharing information to keep it short and sweet, right? Yeah, I do feel like a lot of times I'm not satisfied, honestly. I'll be like, there is so much more I can fit in here, but I just have to be okay with accepting this is what I have and that people will look it up themselves later and a lot of people do. So we don't consider ourselves the all form of all knowledge to give to everybody. We just kind of consider it like the starting point, the introduction, just like, Guys, this exists and look into it. There's so much more.
Because I do feel Korean, the overall idea of Korean modern history, is very limited. When we talk about South Korea, we're always just saying, or Korea overall, not just splitting between North and South Korea. A lot of times, kind of in the mainstream mind, it started in Japanese colonization, and then that's where it began. And then up till today, and now we're so popular with K-Pop. So I feel like there's a lot of stuff that gets missed in between. There's a lot of people who immigrated prior to the Korean War. There's a lot of people who immigrated due to the Korean War, and a lot of people who, because of their immigration, brought Korea out of the depths of the Korean War. And those a lot of the times are the stories that are missed. So we really try to focus, I feel like, on those kind of stories that are outside of the mainstream mind.
The research can be hard to do, for sure. You got to sift through a lot of stuff, but I think I enjoy it, so that really helps. I enjoy the process myself and I really love to write and to pare down information in a biteable thing. Now when it comes to the travel schedule, yeah, you know, it's funny, just my whole life I travelled all over the place. I don’t know if I was looking for something personally, but I would always hit this point where I was just like, I just want to shake things up. I just want to shake things up. And I would just go places. I did so many crazy things. Sometimes I would not recommend it for anybody, but I would just, you know, just go. I would travel with these people and those people and go to this place and that place without a second thought. And that helped me meet so many kinds of people. And I think once you've gotten a taste of that, of realizing there's so much more than what's in your immediate range, it really does change the way you view people and the possibilities that exist. And that was kind of, I guess, my first mindset. You know, after that, I was very fortunate just with work to be able to travel a lot as well. So Halfie Project was kind of happening simultaneous with that. Oh, I'm in Thailand for a short bit. Okay, let's figure out what we can here. And there's so many things that we have lined up and information I've got stored in my brain. Like I want to talk about this later. I will talk about that later from experiences that happened years ago. So I really do feel Halfie Project is just, it’s really a culmination of my experiences and interests born out of my loneliness and desperation at the time. So it's a very interesting process. I got to say, I don't know if that answers your question perfectly or neatly, but yeah, that's probably the best I can say.
Harriet: No, I think I really resonate with what you’re saying about how this project for you is like a culmination of the life that you lived up until that point and even now, and I think that’s also very true for me, and maybe for you too, Mirae, where choa was kind of like a culmination of all the things I was thinking about, all of the life that I had lived up until then, and also, similarly, like a desperation just to not have those thoughts exist in my own head. And then I also resonate with this sort of consuming nature of the work where you’re always kind of looking for opportunities to like, Oh, is this a good fit for the platform? And also that sort of development of almost intuition, I suppose, of like it feels a little bit more natural of how you sort of shape this experience in a way that feels okay to share with other people. I think it is a hard question to answer because it’s just like, I don’t know what to tell you, I had to live the life that I lived in order for this to come out.
Becky: To hop on to what you just said, I really do feel like some things work better because of who is handling it, and there is something to do with an individual's personality, characters, lived experiences, the way that they look, the way that they present, that can make some stories more effective or approachable than if someone else does it. I've always said this to Cedric, You know, I think it is because we are half Korean, we are able to broach a lot of these subjects and talk to a lot of people about very sensitive things. I think because they don't strongly associate us with American nationalism or Korean pride, or, you know, this or that. There's no, you look at us and there's no very strong, firm unconscious bias. Like, you're going to think this way about me. You're going to think that way about me.
And I really do think it has to do with our mixed backgrounds that we're able to approach a lot of these topics. So this is why Halfie project, it's just a culmination of me and our lived experiences. And you guys probably understand this too. There is something very effective about sitting down and thinking about it, because a lot of us have these feelings inside or like frustrations or anger, heartbreak, very immense emotions that sometimes are very vaguely defined. We don't know why we feel that way about a certain thing. Why does talking about this impact me so strongly? And when you force yourself to sit down and really lay it out, think, Oh, this is where it began, this is why it happened, and this is the effect. This is why I feel this way. It really helps you to just parse through this random big information, feeling, into something a little bit more understandable, which helps you understand yourself a little bit better. So Halfie Project maybe it's my therapy, I don't know. It's been therapeutic for sure.
Mirae: I think choa, as well. I definitely sympathize with what both of you are saying in terms of my feelings towards choa. What it has served me throughout the five years. But I mean, one thing that we struggle with, and I’m curious how you feel also with The Halfie Project, is that a lot of these topics that we talk about quite intimate, it’s very personal, very vulnerable for certain people. With The Halfie Project as well, there’s a lot of people sharing about their personal history, family history, and kind of the pain that they go through. Oftentimes very complex, as well. How do you balance that vulnerability with, I guess, the responsibility that you hold as the platform holder to make sure that you’re sharing these stories or representing these stories in the way that it should be? Yeah, I’m wondering if there’s any struggle with that for you.
Becky: Tthat I have to say is, that's probably the hardest thing and I feel the biggest burden about. Previously when Halfie Project was really taking off, there was a video that we had to take off of YouTube that I felt was so significant at the time. But it was, it was a woman. She's white American, but she was born and raised in the Unification Church, Moonies. And she was in one of those mass weddings with a Korean man. She had a mixed grandkid in Korea. They had a divorce. And then, you know, this is a big mix of cultural differences, cult, family issues, you know, ethnic ties. So it was really messy. But that was our first video that hit a million views. And I remember at the time being like, This is amazing. Like, wow, we got a million views. We're growing so much. And in that moment, this story, which was very personal to somebody and hugely impactful on her life to share it with us, to me was like numbers, right? Because this is so great for Halfie Project. Thanks to this, we can finally do more things that we really love to do. It's very shallow, but she and I are good friends. This is not a sad story ending, but she did have to say, Is there any way we can take this down? Like she's getting threats from church members and things like that. Yeah, and so I was like, Okay, absolutely. We took that down. It was a little crushing, but we did.
And then there was another time where we were in a podcast and we started the podcast because some people didn't want to show their faces when they were telling these stories because it is personal and we could change the names and those kind of things. Yeah, and that was another time I came face to face with the story where I was like, Okay, wow, she's really speaking to me out of pain and vulnerability and I am capitalizing on it. There is something to be said. There's a fine line between being a listening ear, an empathetic ear and always in the back of your mind, calculating a little bit, This will fit here well. I'm going to cut it like this. I think it’s just a necessary thing to have when you're doing a project like this. But that really also woke me up to the responsibility. Like, this is so heavy, right? I have quite a burden here to be empathetic and to maybe help people put their emotions into words, but also to protect them. It is not my job to reveal them to the entire world. That's not something that I have the power to do, nor should I have the right. So I do think a lot of it comes with good judgment. A lot of it came with learning. Like the person I had that podcast before, we're not tight anymore. And I do think it's because she spoke to me out of her vulnerability and I don't think I misused it. I really don't. But I think later on, she was still dealing with those feelings and it can just be hurtful to look at people that were part of your life at that time. So I completely understand. It's been a learning experience. Absolutely a learning curve. And this is why I do think when you talk about things that are really sensitive, it's important who's handling it, because you might have the best intentions in mind, but your audience doesn't, and you need to be wise enough to discern that. So again, I wish I could give you a clear answer, like you should never talk about this. But it doesn't work that way. Like you just kind of have to know. And also you yourself have to be wise enough to see is that person talking to me out of honesty? Sometimes people do share things because they want to hurt you, because they want to hurt Koreans, because they want to hurt their family. And it's just because it's coming out of their internal pain and you got to be wise enough to see that. So it is a very interesting space of almost, you know, psychology, and just understanding people. So there's a lot of power in your hands as editor.
Harriet: Yeah, it’s such a big responsibility to be able to hold these kind of things with other people. The Halfie Project is not just a platform for other people to share their stories. It’s also a place where you and Cedric can talk about your own personal experiences as well. And it’s clear how much Halfie Project influenced you as a person. And I’m curious how you as an individual and you as someone in relation with your partner and other people, how you sort of negotiate these boundaries? Are there sort of tangible things that you put in place in your process for the Project to be like this is what feels safe for me, for us, for the other person? Are there things that you do?
Becky: So let me split it up into a couple of things. So when it's him and me talking and doing a video together, I really do think it's just kind of like we're bouncing off of each other. He grew up very emotionally stable, so in a very emotionally stable home. With lots of love. So I do rely on him a lot when it comes to being like this is reasonable because sometimes I feel like I just have a different frame of reference of what is acceptable and not, you know, what is normal in a loving relationship and what is not. Because I just have a very different perspective through my own experiences. So in that regard, I rely on his judgment, but I think a lot of times he also relies on me. When I'm handling the interviews, I primarily cut those up and edit those, and I think we run it by each other just to have two eyes. But I also think he trusts me a lot in handling the emotional, difficult conversations just because I've had a lot of experience at this point. But we always bounce off of each other. I will say handling these things as a couple is so much easier than doing it before.
Before Cedric, I had a wonderful team, and I will credit them to the moon and back for getting The Halfie Project off. Amazing, amazing people. But we were really hobnobs. We were really like a motley crew. We had one guy, Korean adoptee from Norway, Korean American guy who just wanted to learn videography from California. One white man who accidentally got pregnant with this Korean girlfriend in New Zealand and now they're raising a half Korean child, and that's how he found us. We were looking for a podcast editor and he responded and we're like, So do you like podcasts? He's like, I have never edited. I don't listen to podcasts. It's like, Oh, are you an audio engineer? He's like, No, but I can learn. So, oh, so why are you here? And he's like, My kid is half Korean and I don't know what to do. So I'm actually here to learn from you. And I was hoping by editing your podcasts I would learn more information. We're like, Okay, you're part of the team, because they have a deeper meaning inside than just like, Oh, I just want to cut things up. But that team was amazing and everyone came from their own perspective, but they did always defer to me as the final. And sometimes it was hard to make decisions, right?
But Cedric is different, I think, because our perspectives are very similar in some way, very similar experiences. However, he's from a stable and loving home, and I think that really separates the ability to see like this is appropriate and this isn't. So It really helps when you have a partner who's on the same page. It's really, really helpful because you're not making decisions by yourself. Our quality improved a lot after he joined the team.
Harriet: I agree, doing choa has been only doable ‘cause Mirae and I are in partnership with this. And a lot of the times when I’m like, Oh, am I crazy for wanting to do this? And so, it helps to have someone else to carry the load.
Becky: It really does.
Harriet: Yeah. As you alluded to in your intro, The Halfie Project is not the only thing that you do. You also do a lot of other amazing things. And so I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about some of the other work that you do. And if that, in any way, shapes the way that you present different diasporic histories and stories, or if it’s just very, you try to compartmentalize the two things.
Becky: So Halfie Project kind of came out of that whole career experience as well. So I was always interested in acting, voice, acting, singing, modelling, writing. These were always things that came very naturally to me. Maybe not the modelling, but definitely writing and music and all of that. That was very, very natural to me. But growing up I was like, you know, I never was encouraged to view those skills as useful or amazing. I never considered myself as talented in any way. You know, when I hit college, I was like, I've wasted my life doing music and writing and acting. What a waste. I'm going to do something meaningful now. And I thought I was going to become like a nurse in war torn countries. I couldn't handle chemistry. I thought I was going to do law. My mom was like, You should be a lawyer. And it was just like, I don't think I could do this. I did take pre-law as a minor, but besides that. and then I was like, Oh, I'm going to do international relations. I'm going to be a diplomat because I'm good at speaking with people. And so that's what I studied, and I learned international relations and community development, anthropology. And I think that's kind of what's at the foundation for my interests and how I approached Halfie Project.
So after I graduated, I went to Korea while I was in Korea prior to that. But I also went afterwards because I was like, You know what? I want to join the UN. But there was this program that I remember asking like you needed a couple of years of experience and a country of interest. And I was like, I'm going to go to North Korea, but I can't go to North Korea, so let's go to South Korea. It's just so random, all these things. And I could get the gyopo visa. And my mom's Korean. I had family there. Make sense. So I went to Korea, did my thing, and this is kind of how I fell into modelling. I was like, there were some Korean models I really admired, and I just thought, you know what? I used to love this stuff. Like, I used to love modelling. I used to love acting and singing, and I haven't done it in years. None of these things that I loved and I'm actually good at, I haven't done it in years. Okay. If I'm going to do it, then I'm going to do my best. So I went to the top model agency, got signed with them, and I was working there, and this is where Halfie Project was born, because in the midst of doing something I thought I loved, I thought I was good at it. I experienced so much hardship, so much discrimination, so much just like really crumbling of my foundation of self. Like this is something I thought I liked, but this is horrible. I'm having a horrible time. Now, I understand it's difference between what I actually wanted to do and the social, you know, the culture there.
But that's how I started Halfie Project. I'm so lonely here. Is there anyone else who understands what this is like? Because I really felt a lot of this bias against me was because I was mixed Korean. And so Halfie project began. So I always associate Halfie Project intimately with the model agency where I was, which is just so weird to think of, right? Yeah. And so I left there. But as I did Halfie Project, I grew more confident in myself and my ability to speak and my ability to present and people actually wanting to hear from me. And so it kind of gave me the confidence to pursue commercial acting, modelling, voice acting, radio. I did all of that simultaneously as Halfie Project was growing. It's all kind of tied together, I think. And thanks to those experiences in front of the camera, my ability to write, I did radio, so you got to fit everything into a very specific timing. All of those things I think have helped me shape Halfie Project, so we get a lot of times people say, well, your presentation is really good, it looks so professional, your quality is so good, you must have a full on team. But nope. This point is just me and Cedric doing everything and I really, really think my experiences helped prepare me for that. Yeah, it's interesting to see my growth in private career, personal career and the growth of Halfie Project kind of happening at the same time.
Mirae: It’s like one informs the other.
Becky: Yeah.
Mirae: It’s really the skills and the knowledge that you’ve gained from all of these things suddenly all come together with this project.
Becky: It’s interesting. You know, in the midst of it, you don't think that in the midst of it, you're just like, I have to do this, right? You're just driven by something internally. But now that I could sit back and look at it a little bit, say, Oh wow, like I can see, you know, I can see how that all worked out together.
Harriet: I can see how your skills in these other areas helped with Halfie Project ‘cause I know this is, again, a skill you developed over time, but you are very natural and charming on camera, so I can see how these other areas have helped develop The Halfie Project. In another initial call, you mentioned that you’d like to keep The Halfie Project as independent, and you know, and get to it whenever you have the time. and having it live online so that people can find it whenever they need. I’m curious to hear more about what it means for you to be able to come back to it whenever you need it. ‘Cause it sounds like it’s been this constant rock that you can kind of always come back to. It’s not going to leave. Not going to go anywhere. Curious what it means for you to kind of tend to The Halfie Project as a way to kind of tend to yourself.
Becky: I think because I know it so well and I know myself so well, I can see my fingerprints all over this project. And I can also remember where I was at a certain time when I was doing that part. And, you know, sometimes I look at old interviews and I'll be like, Why did I ask that question? And I know it's because it was something inside of me that was bubbling out. It wasn't actually thoughtfully asked. It was because of my gut feeling and sometimes I'll regret it, sometimes I'll be like, Oh, that was a good question to ask. And so, you know, I can go back and sometimes appreciate myself and sometimes be like, I’m so embarrassed by you, but it's out there, whatever. That's just part of my existence.
I think it can fluctuate honestly. Sometimes I’d love to go back and be like, You know what? I’m going to set out a couple of interview questions to some people. There's some people waiting for me to get back to them. We're going to craft another interview, and let’s post that. Or I have something I really want to write like when my friend's mother passed away and I just felt in my heart like, I want to write something about, passing of that, like her passing, and it's just something I wanted to write and to put it out there. And I knew that it resonated with a lot of people. So a lot of it does sometimes I go back to it because I feel a strong need to write about something or approach somebody. And then other times I just let it sit because it can feel overwhelming. Sometimes I get really tired, honestly. Like I just look at all my emails, requests, people being like, Hey, I really want my story.
And when Halfie Project was in its major growth phase, it was driven by my internal anger and sadness. That's really what it was driven by. And so I was so intense because I needed to deal with this somehow and this is how I did it. Now, as years have gone by, Halfie Project has developed, I met Cedric. I've worked through so many things myself. That internal drive, that anger doesn't exist anymore. For the most part. So it can actually feel almost sometimes tiring. Like when I go back to think, I gotta do something with Halfie Project, and I'm like, Oh, like it's going to take a lot of effort from me. And I do almost feel, you know, sometimes I feel a little selfish, like I deserve to be happy, don't I? I don't want to be tired and angry and frustrated, that’s what drives my art and output. Now I want it to be driven out of joy and things that I love.
And so this is why it's kind of been a mental shift when it comes to dealing with Halfie Project. You know, a lot of the stories that we tell are very sad and burdensome, and sometimes I feel almost like I don't want to be sad and burdened. I want to be happy. I want to do my own thing. So I'm wondering if this is also just like a shift. I gotta understand, this responsibility still exists, but now just in a different way. So I think that's what's happening right now internally, at least with Halfie Project. So as you can see, there hasn't been a lot happening at the moment. It's still there, we still interact with people, still reach out and we'll get recognized in public and all of that. And I'm so thankful for it.
But I don't know if I have the internal whatever that machine was that was creating the output. I'm re-shifting a little bit. So we'll see what comes next. To be completely honest. Yeah, this is not a definitive like, this is what's going to happen, but I'm just sitting back and watching and figuring out. Okay, what's going to be the next iteration of Halfie Project?
Harriet: I think it can be really exciting being able to sit with that uncertainty being able to invite something new or different. I’m also excited for you.
Becky: Thanks. We’ll see what happens. I’m really taking a backseat. I’m just kind of like, We’ll see. We’ll let it go for some time.
Mirae: See what happens.
Becky: Yeah.
Mirae: So I’m thinking about our theme of i-byeol, and I think all of these really ties in quite well with how we’re envisioning this i-byeol, where just listening to your story, just your journey from, you wanted to go to UN and then you went into modelling, and then there’s acting, The Halfie Project came about, all of that journey that you had, and now like, how you’re feeling towards Halfie Project or where it is at currently. I’m sure there’s been so many partings as well, farewells that you also had to do. Not just with physical, tangible things, but I’m sure intangible, whatever was going on inside you, emotionally, mentally, with like the dreams you had, or whatever you wanted to do. But then with that, there’s always all these new things that come about. Quite interesting how there’s all these moments of closure but also beginning. I wonder if you have any particular i-byeol moment that really had a turning point in your creative journey or just like yourself in general navigating this world. If there was any particular moment for you.
Becky: Absolutely. I have been on a plane so many times, and I always felt like when I was flying between Korea and usually the US, you have this 14, 15 hour journey. And I always remember that feeling. Like up until the moment I was on the plane, I was just like, Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And then you're on the plane and suddenly I have nothing to do. And I would just sit and think and write. And sometimes I would cry and cry and cry and cry and cry because it was like I could finally let go of certain things or just be like, Okay, I said goodbye to that person. Or this is I could distinctly separate the chapters of my life by I'm on this plane now. That's the end of this, right? Because I would tell people or businesses or jobs like, Hey, I'm going to the US for a month or two. I'm not going to be available and something ends that way. And the plane was just kind of like it was just kind of a moment to process that. So I would associate a lot of times those flights with the ending of something.
I remember a couple of things like saying goodbye to my best friend from high school. She ended our relationship effectively, right? But she was my first Korean best friend, the Korean Korean best friend, and I distinctly remember us having a fight in the middle of the street. This is in Seoul when I was there for college and she didn't want to be my friend anymore. And I think it was that was when I had this recognition like, Oh, she's so different from me. Like she's going her Korean path and I can't follow her there because I'm not Korean like her. And I remember that was really a moment for me. We were just like in the street and she was so blasé and I was crying and I was like, Is it because I'm just your stupid American friend? And it is ‘cause I'm just not your Korean friend anymore, am I? Because in the US I was, but here I wasn't. And so that was a moment for me. I-byeol, and it was significant.
The other time was when I left the agency, the model agency, I had sacrificed so much to be there because this was my dream and it just was destroying me from the inside out, and the culture there, the society, the discrimination was destroying my self-confidence. And so I remember the day that I quit and I walked out and I looked at the building and I was like, This is it. This is the end of that nightmare. That was very significant for me because when Halfie Project then popped off.
Or the time where I was working at the radio station and they fired me because they just didn't want to do our show anymore. The radio station in Korea is very turbulent, so it really had nothing to do with personal feelings or my team, but it was just like the uppers just decided, We just want something new. Get rid of them. So I remember doing my final farewell on air. It was live on air and we had people in the chatroom and Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is your last show. And I remember saying very specifically on air, I was like, We've had a great time, but if you really want to know what's happening next, follow me on The Halfie Project. Thanks. Goodbye. And that's how I ended up. I was in trouble with the station. I shouldn't have pitched my own thing, but I was like, You guys also handled this badly, so that was another like an i-byeol.
I think in my life when people ask me like, Oh, what's your happiest moment? I honestly can't think of a lot. I remember doing a lot and being very happy about a lot of things. But when people say your pinnacle happiest moment, I don't know. I can't think of too many. But when people think of farewell, moments you've said goodbye. Those really have stood out to me because I've said goodbye so much in my life, so much to people, to places, to experiences. And my life is really chopped up like this. So i-byeol is really significant for me. And I think this is why I understand that sadness and I think I understand that bitterness and also understand what it means to have to continue. So that's why I feel like I'm able to talk to people very well when it comes to The Halfie Project because a lot of things that we discuss on Halfie Project have to do with i-byeol, having to deal with a farewell, whether you wanted it or not, whether it was ripped from you or you gave it up.
So it's a very significant concept around my life and also around Halfie Project. So yeah, i-byeol, it's I don't know, maybe I like being sad about it, right? Because then I'm just like, Okay, like I acknowledge this is sad, but it's only thanks to a lot of those farewells in retrospect, I'm just like, Wow, that really benefited my life. That really was the right choice. I'm so glad that happened. Yeah, So I don't think i-byeol should ever be looked at with just distaste or anything. But, you know, in the end, I do think it will always benefit.
Mirae: As you’re explaining, I’m also thinking about all the i-byeols I’ve also gone through. There is that sadness, or that kind of uneasy feeling that exists inside you, but when you think about how your life came about after, maybe that happened for a reason, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing now. Or this happened because of that. We don’t always have to dwell in them, and just mull over them, and say, Oh, why did that happen to me? But maybe there is something hopeful that can come out of it.
Becky: Yes.
Mirae: It’s interesting to think about i-byeol in that way, because I think a lot of times it’s always farewell, sadness, anger, and then, that’s it.
Becky: Mhmm.
Mirae: Yeah.
Becky: I think there is a direct correlation between certain members of the Korean diaspora who succeed and those who don't. On a more individual basis sometimes, sometimes people who do well and people who just suffer their whole life because of internal change. And I really think a lot of it has to do with their inability to come to grips with the way their previous life ended. You know, I can think very clearly about Korean ahjummas from the first generation who moved to the US to escape the war, right, or to escape poverty. You can see those who went on to build a happy, fulfilled life and feel glad with their second chapter of their life in the US, like Cedric's parents, Cedric's mom.
And then other Korean ahjummas that I've met who just never could let go of the fact that their life ended previously. Who are unhappy. Nothing is as good as Korea. Because they just couldn't process. They had to say goodbye to their family for some reason or another, and they never got over it. And they lived in that anger and trauma forever. And that deals with han, that deals with the generational traumas, the things that get passed down to us. And I think it's tied to that. Can you process that grief and anger of saying goodbye so that you can move on to have a better life? So it's really important to be able to deal with i-byeol well.
Mirae: Since we’ve been talking a lot about i-byeol, what is something that you hope people carry with them when they encounter The Halfie Project? Was there something that you hoped people would feel when you first started The Halfie Project? And has that also changed throughout the years?
Becky: I think The Halfie Project was in a way for me to shape these thoughts and feelings that I carried for a long time by myself, shape it into words that are understandable so I could convey what this was to other people. And I think I was hoping for that understanding. I was hoping for someone to read that and be like, I understand. I just needed to say like, I get it. I also feel that way. And so this was my way of doing that.
So I kind of hope when people come across Halfie Project, if they feel the way that I feel or they felt those things, they are able to then find a way to put it into words so that they can communicate that with other people who are important to them in their lives to help make their life a little bit easier, a little bit better, build better relationships. Sometimes it might be with your parents, family members, the society around you. So being able to use those words that I struggled and agonized over so that other people can understand that to improve their own understanding and their own life and deal with their own cultural and emotional struggles. That was what I hoped for.
And then I think it's grown beyond that, even like it's kind of turned into an education thing. And sometimes people write to me and be like, Hey, I sent this article to my parents because there's so many things I'm trying to tell them that they just don't understand. And I felt like you put it into words, and so it kind of spread out a little bit more. Or the next generation of mixed Korean kids who are growing up in South Korea, their parents will find me and be like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to raise my kids in Korea. And sometimes we turn into that kind of resource.
So what do I hope for? I'm not even 100% sure. I hope it just kind of helps all of those people who find us. We're very niche. I don't think people just stumble onto Halfie Project. I think that they’re looking for something and I think they are able to find those things in Halfie Project, if they're already looking for help in certain arenas, cultural, societal, and their personal dealings with being mixed Korean. Yeah, so that's my aim to be a comfort to those who need it, to provide answers for those who want it, or looking for it, and to just facilitate conversation with people who need to talk about these things.
Mirae: So lastly, we have some rapid fire questions. So you can answer as short or long as you want.
So our first question is, which character that you’ve voiced has been your favourite?
Becky: Oh, gosh, let me think. I think probably my biggest one that had the most impact, fun things to do would have been Mai Shiranui. She's the fire-wielding ninja in Street Fighter 6 now in the Fatal Fury franchise. She has been so much fun to be the character to be the voice of because she also has a huge fan base as well. So there's kind of been a lot of things happening from that. It feels very real, like I'm interacting with real people over it. So it has kind of existed beyond just a character. I would have to say. Overall, it would definitely be Mai.
Mirae: Do people like, when they find out that you’re the voice actor of that character, do they really reach out to you because they’re big fans of the character or something?
Becky: Yeah, absolutely. I get emails asking for my autograph, for my photos. I went to a convention recently and people were just like, people love this character. And so by proxy, I get to appreciate some of that love too, which is really honouring. I look a lot like the character more than some voice actors might look like their characters, So I think there's also subconsciously some people like, Oh my gosh, she is Mai. So there's a little bit of that as well.
Mirae: Wow. Okay, so our next question is what’s your go-to Korean comfort food?
Becky: Oh, you know, so there was this spot in Hongdae that I used to go to all the time because it was open 24/7 seolleongtang with kkakdugi. Oh, my gosh, that was it. Just like really hot, good seolleongtang with this really good kkakdugi. Their kkakdugi was really good. And just bab, that was it. They were there 24/7. That used to be my spot. Like I would go there all the time. I loved it.
Mirae: Is it still there?
Becky: No, it closed down. It closed down shortly after COVID, which is crazy because that was the spot. So when I think about this really comforting, good food, I think about seolleongtang and kkakdugi. Man, that was it.
But at home, what do I make at home? Ramyeon is always, you know, it's a quick, easy one, something nice and hot. And I also really like making kimchi jjigae.
Mirae: Mhmm. It’s always…
Becky: Something hot.
Mirae: Hot soupy stuff. Since we’re talking about Hongdae and everything.
Becky: Yeah.
Mirae: Is there one place in Seoul that you would recommend people to visit, if they haven’t been there? Or in another city in Korea?
Becky: Oh if you haven't been to Nami Island… Nami Island is always fun to go to. I always say, I think wintertime Nami Island is really nice. Like there's so much, if there's a lot of snow, it can be really beautiful, and the lake will freeze over, which is gorgeous. Nami Island is very beautiful in all seasons.
I would say in Seoul though, I am very partial to Yeonnam-dong area, that’s where I lived. Also Yeonnam-dong, it’s Exit 3, Hongdae Station Exit 3. You walk out there, there’s Yeoncho Park. You can go left or right. And it used to be an old railroad track. And so it kind of follows along this. And there's a lot of very trendy cafes, and there used to be busking at night. People walk their dogs. It's really, really lovely. Sometimes people walk there, meerkats or raccoons, like you'll see all kinds of crazy stuff. But it's just, it's like a sophisticated, chic version of Hongdae’s party area. I've always loved it there. That was where I moved after leaving a previous relationship. And so to me it signified a very fresh start. And that's kind of where a lot of great things happened for me. So Yeonnam-dong, it’s just, it’s a very beautiful part of Seoul. Yeah, I know a lot of people talk about Euljiro. Euljiro is always cool. That's actually a good spot to check out, too, because it’s not only like cultural hotspots, but also there's a lot of history. And Euljiro Sijang, especially, I would love for it to survive the gentrification, so if people go and visit and just really appreciate the businesses there that have been there for a long time, that would be another thing.
Mirae: Okay, so our last question is, what’s your hidden talent that people don’t know about?
Becky: Oh, I don't know. I can do the splits. Maybe that’s a little talent. I used to be a gymnast when I was younger, and I maintained a lot of this flexibility. So even though I can't do like my back flips and stuff anymore, I am pretty flexible. I think that might surprise people. Yeah.
Mirae: Wow, I feel like you’ve done so many things just like listening to your story.
Becky: Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived like a thousand lives. I really have done the whole fake it to you, make it. A lot of times, I learned it on the job, which is, you know, that's how it had happened so fast because you didn't do schooling or training for things. It was just like, Yeah, I can do that. And you just got to figure it out while you're doing it. So yeah, I think I was able to experience a lot of crazy things in my life. But I am very flexible. Long story short. Both I think physically and in my life.
Mirae: Thanks so much for sharing all of this. I think sometimes even when we’re hosting these interviews, I’m like, how comfortable are they in sharing all of these things, but I’m very thankful that you’ve opened up and share these things with us.
Becky: It was great. You guys have so many wonderful questions. I was very excited to talk with you guys. It’s a lot of work. You guys have put so much great work into this and it really shows, so I really appreciate being part of it. Thanks for asking me.
Mirae: Hi Becky, thank you for joining us.
Becky: Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's very lovely to chat with you guys again.
Mirae: Just to start off, can you introduce yourself and share a bit about what you do to our choa audience?
Becky: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Becky. My full name is Rebecca Rose White. But a lot of people in Korea know me simply as Becky. And I am a writer, a voice actor, a model. I've worked all areas of the industry, but what I might be known online is my work for The Halfie Project or 혼혈이야기, which is exploring the mixed Korean experience, ethnically and culturally, all over the world.
Mirae: The Halfie Project, that was also the reason why we reached out to you because it’s such an insightful platform that shares diverse experiences of the Korean diaspora which is also what we’re trying to do at choa. So it felt very fitting with our mission and also just all the content that you have whether it’s this one-minute Reel about Koreans in Mexico, or even these long-form interviews you do with other mixed Koreans, or the conversations that you have with your partner Cedric as well about both of your experiences. It felt like there’s just so much content and context as well to all of these pieces. And also probably a lot of effort and time put into all of this as well. So we’re always astounded, wow, there’s definitely a lot of thought and research in this.
So we’re very curious about what that process is. How do you really bring all of that together? Are there certain guiding points that you have in terms of how you want to approach your research? Is it something like, oh I’m interested in it, so I’m going to do it. Or it’s like, I think there’s something missing in the overall history of Korea or whatever discussions in the mainstream that you want to fill in those gaps. How do you get these stories? How do you find these stories?
Becky: That is such a great question. We get asked that a lot. I think it's a culmination of things, at least how we hit a certain topic. One, it's either something that we have been stewing over for a long time, especially when it comes to a little bit more personal issues or cultural things that we notice. When we start seeing that again and again, we take notice and we're like, you know what? We should talk about this. So we actually have this pending list of topics that we want to discuss. Either this could be handled in a document format or writing, photography, just our conversations. Is there someone we can interview? So sometimes it'll appear very organically. Other times it happens because people bring it to me.
I think The Halfie Project has hit a large enough audience that we get listener mail. We get people who write in, and they're like, Hey, my parents are actually, you know, they live in Samoa and my mother’s Korean, but my father's Samoan and I would really love for you guys to talk about the first missionaries who came, you know. We just get all kinds of amazing stories that they just come to us sometimes. When it came to the Zainichi, I can't even remember how I first discovered it, but this was way before I learned about Pachinko. So I may have been in Tokyo and this is where I first heard about it. And I was like, you know what? This is an interesting topic. Let's go deeply into it. And then later on Pachinko came out and then more people were interested in what we had to say about it. Yeah, so a lot of times I think there was definitely a period of growth during Halfie Project where that's all we were thinking about, 24/7, and these stories just kind of fell into our hands or we noticed it and we’d be like, why are there Koreans who are speaking Portuguese? Okay, what's the story? And I do feel like a lot of things fell into place for me through life.
Like my best friend from college is Koryo saram. At the time, I had no idea what Koryo saram was, but she and I were just best friends and I never even thought about it till later on where I was like, Oh my gosh, she’s Koryo saram. Or I had another roommate when I was at Yonsei, and my roommate was Brazilian Korean, and at that time too, I was like, Oh, well, yeah, that makes sense. There's Koreans everywhere. But then I realized later on, Oh, there's a whole immigration story behind all of this. So it's just been interesting to see the people who have come into my own life were sort of planting seeds along the way.
And so it's really just a lot of things that I noticed, constant observation and things that come to our own hands that people send to us. And then after that, we have to do all of the research and sometimes can be opinion pieces explaining our own experiences and our own thoughts about this and our own understanding. And then other times, we really have to deep dive and just find out as much accurate information as we can from accurate sources. And that's what takes a lot of time. So even though you say it's a one-minute Reel, it can literally be like a whole day of research and then writing and rewriting and rewriting because we got to fit it into the short period of time. So it's an effort of love, for sure, but it's so gratifying to see the end result when people are like, Wow, I didn't know this and we can be a reliable source on these cultural, historical things concerning the Korean diaspora.
Harriet: I feel like there is a certain point that a lot of us reach where we actually have the time and the capacity and the energy to actually think about some of these different migration stories and how each diasporic community has its own unique history, its own migration patterns, and I think with that in the context of our volume 5, there are so different ways of experiencing i-byeol, just like moving through the world as a Korean person. So it’s interesting to hear how you have met these different people over the course of your life that have really informed how you approach your work now. And I’m sure splitting your time between living in Seoul and New York, I imagine that kind of helps to broaden your scope in terms of the type of people that you meet, personal experiences that you can talk about.
This is kind of a two-part question where if you can talk a little bit more about your maybe certain life experiences or your travel schedule that helps you do the work that you do with The Halfie Project. And talking about your research process, given how much there is to talk about, how do you decide what to include versus what to leave out?
Becky: I think it depends on what format we're focusing on. Sometimes if we're doing an interview with a certain individual, we kind of shape the additional information that we find around them and their own story and what they have to say. And then when it comes to something that's purely research, like our quick Shorts, where it's just talking from beginning to end. Yeah, picking and choosing what to say can definitely be difficult. After a while you kind of get a feel for like this is the overarching story and this is a fact that we know is going to get people's mind, like they're going to be like, Oh, I want to learn more about that because there's no way we can put all the information in at once. And also the thing that really shapes our presentation, information that we give, we do always want to be rooted in compassion and also honesty. So that also dictates the way we present this information and what information we're going to give. And I try my best to keep my own opinion out of it. So that also helps when we're sharing information to keep it short and sweet, right? Yeah, I do feel like a lot of times I'm not satisfied, honestly. I'll be like, there is so much more I can fit in here, but I just have to be okay with accepting this is what I have and that people will look it up themselves later and a lot of people do. So we don't consider ourselves the all form of all knowledge to give to everybody. We just kind of consider it like the starting point, the introduction, just like, Guys, this exists and look into it. There's so much more.
Because I do feel Korean, the overall idea of Korean modern history, is very limited. When we talk about South Korea, we're always just saying, or Korea overall, not just splitting between North and South Korea. A lot of times, kind of in the mainstream mind, it started in Japanese colonization, and then that's where it began. And then up till today, and now we're so popular with K-Pop. So I feel like there's a lot of stuff that gets missed in between. There's a lot of people who immigrated prior to the Korean War. There's a lot of people who immigrated due to the Korean War, and a lot of people who, because of their immigration, brought Korea out of the depths of the Korean War. And those a lot of the times are the stories that are missed. So we really try to focus, I feel like, on those kind of stories that are outside of the mainstream mind.
The research can be hard to do, for sure. You got to sift through a lot of stuff, but I think I enjoy it, so that really helps. I enjoy the process myself and I really love to write and to pare down information in a biteable thing. Now when it comes to the travel schedule, yeah, you know, it's funny, just my whole life I travelled all over the place. I don’t know if I was looking for something personally, but I would always hit this point where I was just like, I just want to shake things up. I just want to shake things up. And I would just go places. I did so many crazy things. Sometimes I would not recommend it for anybody, but I would just, you know, just go. I would travel with these people and those people and go to this place and that place without a second thought. And that helped me meet so many kinds of people. And I think once you've gotten a taste of that, of realizing there's so much more than what's in your immediate range, it really does change the way you view people and the possibilities that exist. And that was kind of, I guess, my first mindset. You know, after that, I was very fortunate just with work to be able to travel a lot as well. So Halfie Project was kind of happening simultaneous with that. Oh, I'm in Thailand for a short bit. Okay, let's figure out what we can here. And there's so many things that we have lined up and information I've got stored in my brain. Like I want to talk about this later. I will talk about that later from experiences that happened years ago. So I really do feel Halfie Project is just, it’s really a culmination of my experiences and interests born out of my loneliness and desperation at the time. So it's a very interesting process. I got to say, I don't know if that answers your question perfectly or neatly, but yeah, that's probably the best I can say.
Harriet: No, I think I really resonate with what you’re saying about how this project for you is like a culmination of the life that you lived up until that point and even now, and I think that’s also very true for me, and maybe for you too, Mirae, where choa was kind of like a culmination of all the things I was thinking about, all of the life that I had lived up until then, and also, similarly, like a desperation just to not have those thoughts exist in my own head. And then I also resonate with this sort of consuming nature of the work where you’re always kind of looking for opportunities to like, Oh, is this a good fit for the platform? And also that sort of development of almost intuition, I suppose, of like it feels a little bit more natural of how you sort of shape this experience in a way that feels okay to share with other people. I think it is a hard question to answer because it’s just like, I don’t know what to tell you, I had to live the life that I lived in order for this to come out.
Becky: To hop on to what you just said, I really do feel like some things work better because of who is handling it, and there is something to do with an individual's personality, characters, lived experiences, the way that they look, the way that they present, that can make some stories more effective or approachable than if someone else does it. I've always said this to Cedric, You know, I think it is because we are half Korean, we are able to broach a lot of these subjects and talk to a lot of people about very sensitive things. I think because they don't strongly associate us with American nationalism or Korean pride, or, you know, this or that. There's no, you look at us and there's no very strong, firm unconscious bias. Like, you're going to think this way about me. You're going to think that way about me.
And I really do think it has to do with our mixed backgrounds that we're able to approach a lot of these topics. So this is why Halfie project, it's just a culmination of me and our lived experiences. And you guys probably understand this too. There is something very effective about sitting down and thinking about it, because a lot of us have these feelings inside or like frustrations or anger, heartbreak, very immense emotions that sometimes are very vaguely defined. We don't know why we feel that way about a certain thing. Why does talking about this impact me so strongly? And when you force yourself to sit down and really lay it out, think, Oh, this is where it began, this is why it happened, and this is the effect. This is why I feel this way. It really helps you to just parse through this random big information, feeling, into something a little bit more understandable, which helps you understand yourself a little bit better. So Halfie Project maybe it's my therapy, I don't know. It's been therapeutic for sure.
Mirae: I think choa, as well. I definitely sympathize with what both of you are saying in terms of my feelings towards choa. What it has served me throughout the five years. But I mean, one thing that we struggle with, and I’m curious how you feel also with The Halfie Project, is that a lot of these topics that we talk about quite intimate, it’s very personal, very vulnerable for certain people. With The Halfie Project as well, there’s a lot of people sharing about their personal history, family history, and kind of the pain that they go through. Oftentimes very complex, as well. How do you balance that vulnerability with, I guess, the responsibility that you hold as the platform holder to make sure that you’re sharing these stories or representing these stories in the way that it should be? Yeah, I’m wondering if there’s any struggle with that for you.
Becky: Tthat I have to say is, that's probably the hardest thing and I feel the biggest burden about. Previously when Halfie Project was really taking off, there was a video that we had to take off of YouTube that I felt was so significant at the time. But it was, it was a woman. She's white American, but she was born and raised in the Unification Church, Moonies. And she was in one of those mass weddings with a Korean man. She had a mixed grandkid in Korea. They had a divorce. And then, you know, this is a big mix of cultural differences, cult, family issues, you know, ethnic ties. So it was really messy. But that was our first video that hit a million views. And I remember at the time being like, This is amazing. Like, wow, we got a million views. We're growing so much. And in that moment, this story, which was very personal to somebody and hugely impactful on her life to share it with us, to me was like numbers, right? Because this is so great for Halfie Project. Thanks to this, we can finally do more things that we really love to do. It's very shallow, but she and I are good friends. This is not a sad story ending, but she did have to say, Is there any way we can take this down? Like she's getting threats from church members and things like that. Yeah, and so I was like, Okay, absolutely. We took that down. It was a little crushing, but we did.
And then there was another time where we were in a podcast and we started the podcast because some people didn't want to show their faces when they were telling these stories because it is personal and we could change the names and those kind of things. Yeah, and that was another time I came face to face with the story where I was like, Okay, wow, she's really speaking to me out of pain and vulnerability and I am capitalizing on it. There is something to be said. There's a fine line between being a listening ear, an empathetic ear and always in the back of your mind, calculating a little bit, This will fit here well. I'm going to cut it like this. I think it’s just a necessary thing to have when you're doing a project like this. But that really also woke me up to the responsibility. Like, this is so heavy, right? I have quite a burden here to be empathetic and to maybe help people put their emotions into words, but also to protect them. It is not my job to reveal them to the entire world. That's not something that I have the power to do, nor should I have the right. So I do think a lot of it comes with good judgment. A lot of it came with learning. Like the person I had that podcast before, we're not tight anymore. And I do think it's because she spoke to me out of her vulnerability and I don't think I misused it. I really don't. But I think later on, she was still dealing with those feelings and it can just be hurtful to look at people that were part of your life at that time. So I completely understand. It's been a learning experience. Absolutely a learning curve. And this is why I do think when you talk about things that are really sensitive, it's important who's handling it, because you might have the best intentions in mind, but your audience doesn't, and you need to be wise enough to discern that. So again, I wish I could give you a clear answer, like you should never talk about this. But it doesn't work that way. Like you just kind of have to know. And also you yourself have to be wise enough to see is that person talking to me out of honesty? Sometimes people do share things because they want to hurt you, because they want to hurt Koreans, because they want to hurt their family. And it's just because it's coming out of their internal pain and you got to be wise enough to see that. So it is a very interesting space of almost, you know, psychology, and just understanding people. So there's a lot of power in your hands as editor.
Harriet: Yeah, it’s such a big responsibility to be able to hold these kind of things with other people. The Halfie Project is not just a platform for other people to share their stories. It’s also a place where you and Cedric can talk about your own personal experiences as well. And it’s clear how much Halfie Project influenced you as a person. And I’m curious how you as an individual and you as someone in relation with your partner and other people, how you sort of negotiate these boundaries? Are there sort of tangible things that you put in place in your process for the Project to be like this is what feels safe for me, for us, for the other person? Are there things that you do?
Becky: So let me split it up into a couple of things. So when it's him and me talking and doing a video together, I really do think it's just kind of like we're bouncing off of each other. He grew up very emotionally stable, so in a very emotionally stable home. With lots of love. So I do rely on him a lot when it comes to being like this is reasonable because sometimes I feel like I just have a different frame of reference of what is acceptable and not, you know, what is normal in a loving relationship and what is not. Because I just have a very different perspective through my own experiences. So in that regard, I rely on his judgment, but I think a lot of times he also relies on me. When I'm handling the interviews, I primarily cut those up and edit those, and I think we run it by each other just to have two eyes. But I also think he trusts me a lot in handling the emotional, difficult conversations just because I've had a lot of experience at this point. But we always bounce off of each other. I will say handling these things as a couple is so much easier than doing it before.
Before Cedric, I had a wonderful team, and I will credit them to the moon and back for getting The Halfie Project off. Amazing, amazing people. But we were really hobnobs. We were really like a motley crew. We had one guy, Korean adoptee from Norway, Korean American guy who just wanted to learn videography from California. One white man who accidentally got pregnant with this Korean girlfriend in New Zealand and now they're raising a half Korean child, and that's how he found us. We were looking for a podcast editor and he responded and we're like, So do you like podcasts? He's like, I have never edited. I don't listen to podcasts. It's like, Oh, are you an audio engineer? He's like, No, but I can learn. So, oh, so why are you here? And he's like, My kid is half Korean and I don't know what to do. So I'm actually here to learn from you. And I was hoping by editing your podcasts I would learn more information. We're like, Okay, you're part of the team, because they have a deeper meaning inside than just like, Oh, I just want to cut things up. But that team was amazing and everyone came from their own perspective, but they did always defer to me as the final. And sometimes it was hard to make decisions, right?
But Cedric is different, I think, because our perspectives are very similar in some way, very similar experiences. However, he's from a stable and loving home, and I think that really separates the ability to see like this is appropriate and this isn't. So It really helps when you have a partner who's on the same page. It's really, really helpful because you're not making decisions by yourself. Our quality improved a lot after he joined the team.
Harriet: I agree, doing choa has been only doable ‘cause Mirae and I are in partnership with this. And a lot of the times when I’m like, Oh, am I crazy for wanting to do this? And so, it helps to have someone else to carry the load.
Becky: It really does.
Harriet: Yeah. As you alluded to in your intro, The Halfie Project is not the only thing that you do. You also do a lot of other amazing things. And so I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about some of the other work that you do. And if that, in any way, shapes the way that you present different diasporic histories and stories, or if it’s just very, you try to compartmentalize the two things.
Becky: So Halfie Project kind of came out of that whole career experience as well. So I was always interested in acting, voice, acting, singing, modelling, writing. These were always things that came very naturally to me. Maybe not the modelling, but definitely writing and music and all of that. That was very, very natural to me. But growing up I was like, you know, I never was encouraged to view those skills as useful or amazing. I never considered myself as talented in any way. You know, when I hit college, I was like, I've wasted my life doing music and writing and acting. What a waste. I'm going to do something meaningful now. And I thought I was going to become like a nurse in war torn countries. I couldn't handle chemistry. I thought I was going to do law. My mom was like, You should be a lawyer. And it was just like, I don't think I could do this. I did take pre-law as a minor, but besides that. and then I was like, Oh, I'm going to do international relations. I'm going to be a diplomat because I'm good at speaking with people. And so that's what I studied, and I learned international relations and community development, anthropology. And I think that's kind of what's at the foundation for my interests and how I approached Halfie Project.
So after I graduated, I went to Korea while I was in Korea prior to that. But I also went afterwards because I was like, You know what? I want to join the UN. But there was this program that I remember asking like you needed a couple of years of experience and a country of interest. And I was like, I'm going to go to North Korea, but I can't go to North Korea, so let's go to South Korea. It's just so random, all these things. And I could get the gyopo visa. And my mom's Korean. I had family there. Make sense. So I went to Korea, did my thing, and this is kind of how I fell into modelling. I was like, there were some Korean models I really admired, and I just thought, you know what? I used to love this stuff. Like, I used to love modelling. I used to love acting and singing, and I haven't done it in years. None of these things that I loved and I'm actually good at, I haven't done it in years. Okay. If I'm going to do it, then I'm going to do my best. So I went to the top model agency, got signed with them, and I was working there, and this is where Halfie Project was born, because in the midst of doing something I thought I loved, I thought I was good at it. I experienced so much hardship, so much discrimination, so much just like really crumbling of my foundation of self. Like this is something I thought I liked, but this is horrible. I'm having a horrible time. Now, I understand it's difference between what I actually wanted to do and the social, you know, the culture there.
But that's how I started Halfie Project. I'm so lonely here. Is there anyone else who understands what this is like? Because I really felt a lot of this bias against me was because I was mixed Korean. And so Halfie project began. So I always associate Halfie Project intimately with the model agency where I was, which is just so weird to think of, right? Yeah. And so I left there. But as I did Halfie Project, I grew more confident in myself and my ability to speak and my ability to present and people actually wanting to hear from me. And so it kind of gave me the confidence to pursue commercial acting, modelling, voice acting, radio. I did all of that simultaneously as Halfie Project was growing. It's all kind of tied together, I think. And thanks to those experiences in front of the camera, my ability to write, I did radio, so you got to fit everything into a very specific timing. All of those things I think have helped me shape Halfie Project, so we get a lot of times people say, well, your presentation is really good, it looks so professional, your quality is so good, you must have a full on team. But nope. This point is just me and Cedric doing everything and I really, really think my experiences helped prepare me for that. Yeah, it's interesting to see my growth in private career, personal career and the growth of Halfie Project kind of happening at the same time.
Mirae: It’s like one informs the other.
Becky: Yeah.
Mirae: It’s really the skills and the knowledge that you’ve gained from all of these things suddenly all come together with this project.
Becky: It’s interesting. You know, in the midst of it, you don't think that in the midst of it, you're just like, I have to do this, right? You're just driven by something internally. But now that I could sit back and look at it a little bit, say, Oh wow, like I can see, you know, I can see how that all worked out together.
Harriet: I can see how your skills in these other areas helped with Halfie Project ‘cause I know this is, again, a skill you developed over time, but you are very natural and charming on camera, so I can see how these other areas have helped develop The Halfie Project. In another initial call, you mentioned that you’d like to keep The Halfie Project as independent, and you know, and get to it whenever you have the time. and having it live online so that people can find it whenever they need. I’m curious to hear more about what it means for you to be able to come back to it whenever you need it. ‘Cause it sounds like it’s been this constant rock that you can kind of always come back to. It’s not going to leave. Not going to go anywhere. Curious what it means for you to kind of tend to The Halfie Project as a way to kind of tend to yourself.
Becky: I think because I know it so well and I know myself so well, I can see my fingerprints all over this project. And I can also remember where I was at a certain time when I was doing that part. And, you know, sometimes I look at old interviews and I'll be like, Why did I ask that question? And I know it's because it was something inside of me that was bubbling out. It wasn't actually thoughtfully asked. It was because of my gut feeling and sometimes I'll regret it, sometimes I'll be like, Oh, that was a good question to ask. And so, you know, I can go back and sometimes appreciate myself and sometimes be like, I’m so embarrassed by you, but it's out there, whatever. That's just part of my existence.
I think it can fluctuate honestly. Sometimes I’d love to go back and be like, You know what? I’m going to set out a couple of interview questions to some people. There's some people waiting for me to get back to them. We're going to craft another interview, and let’s post that. Or I have something I really want to write like when my friend's mother passed away and I just felt in my heart like, I want to write something about, passing of that, like her passing, and it's just something I wanted to write and to put it out there. And I knew that it resonated with a lot of people. So a lot of it does sometimes I go back to it because I feel a strong need to write about something or approach somebody. And then other times I just let it sit because it can feel overwhelming. Sometimes I get really tired, honestly. Like I just look at all my emails, requests, people being like, Hey, I really want my story.
And when Halfie Project was in its major growth phase, it was driven by my internal anger and sadness. That's really what it was driven by. And so I was so intense because I needed to deal with this somehow and this is how I did it. Now, as years have gone by, Halfie Project has developed, I met Cedric. I've worked through so many things myself. That internal drive, that anger doesn't exist anymore. For the most part. So it can actually feel almost sometimes tiring. Like when I go back to think, I gotta do something with Halfie Project, and I'm like, Oh, like it's going to take a lot of effort from me. And I do almost feel, you know, sometimes I feel a little selfish, like I deserve to be happy, don't I? I don't want to be tired and angry and frustrated, that’s what drives my art and output. Now I want it to be driven out of joy and things that I love.
And so this is why it's kind of been a mental shift when it comes to dealing with Halfie Project. You know, a lot of the stories that we tell are very sad and burdensome, and sometimes I feel almost like I don't want to be sad and burdened. I want to be happy. I want to do my own thing. So I'm wondering if this is also just like a shift. I gotta understand, this responsibility still exists, but now just in a different way. So I think that's what's happening right now internally, at least with Halfie Project. So as you can see, there hasn't been a lot happening at the moment. It's still there, we still interact with people, still reach out and we'll get recognized in public and all of that. And I'm so thankful for it.
But I don't know if I have the internal whatever that machine was that was creating the output. I'm re-shifting a little bit. So we'll see what comes next. To be completely honest. Yeah, this is not a definitive like, this is what's going to happen, but I'm just sitting back and watching and figuring out. Okay, what's going to be the next iteration of Halfie Project?
Harriet: I think it can be really exciting being able to sit with that uncertainty being able to invite something new or different. I’m also excited for you.
Becky: Thanks. We’ll see what happens. I’m really taking a backseat. I’m just kind of like, We’ll see. We’ll let it go for some time.
Mirae: See what happens.
Becky: Yeah.
Mirae: So I’m thinking about our theme of i-byeol, and I think all of these really ties in quite well with how we’re envisioning this i-byeol, where just listening to your story, just your journey from, you wanted to go to UN and then you went into modelling, and then there’s acting, The Halfie Project came about, all of that journey that you had, and now like, how you’re feeling towards Halfie Project or where it is at currently. I’m sure there’s been so many partings as well, farewells that you also had to do. Not just with physical, tangible things, but I’m sure intangible, whatever was going on inside you, emotionally, mentally, with like the dreams you had, or whatever you wanted to do. But then with that, there’s always all these new things that come about. Quite interesting how there’s all these moments of closure but also beginning. I wonder if you have any particular i-byeol moment that really had a turning point in your creative journey or just like yourself in general navigating this world. If there was any particular moment for you.
Becky: Absolutely. I have been on a plane so many times, and I always felt like when I was flying between Korea and usually the US, you have this 14, 15 hour journey. And I always remember that feeling. Like up until the moment I was on the plane, I was just like, Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And then you're on the plane and suddenly I have nothing to do. And I would just sit and think and write. And sometimes I would cry and cry and cry and cry and cry because it was like I could finally let go of certain things or just be like, Okay, I said goodbye to that person. Or this is I could distinctly separate the chapters of my life by I'm on this plane now. That's the end of this, right? Because I would tell people or businesses or jobs like, Hey, I'm going to the US for a month or two. I'm not going to be available and something ends that way. And the plane was just kind of like it was just kind of a moment to process that. So I would associate a lot of times those flights with the ending of something.
I remember a couple of things like saying goodbye to my best friend from high school. She ended our relationship effectively, right? But she was my first Korean best friend, the Korean Korean best friend, and I distinctly remember us having a fight in the middle of the street. This is in Seoul when I was there for college and she didn't want to be my friend anymore. And I think it was that was when I had this recognition like, Oh, she's so different from me. Like she's going her Korean path and I can't follow her there because I'm not Korean like her. And I remember that was really a moment for me. We were just like in the street and she was so blasé and I was crying and I was like, Is it because I'm just your stupid American friend? And it is ‘cause I'm just not your Korean friend anymore, am I? Because in the US I was, but here I wasn't. And so that was a moment for me. I-byeol, and it was significant.
The other time was when I left the agency, the model agency, I had sacrificed so much to be there because this was my dream and it just was destroying me from the inside out, and the culture there, the society, the discrimination was destroying my self-confidence. And so I remember the day that I quit and I walked out and I looked at the building and I was like, This is it. This is the end of that nightmare. That was very significant for me because when Halfie Project then popped off.
Or the time where I was working at the radio station and they fired me because they just didn't want to do our show anymore. The radio station in Korea is very turbulent, so it really had nothing to do with personal feelings or my team, but it was just like the uppers just decided, We just want something new. Get rid of them. So I remember doing my final farewell on air. It was live on air and we had people in the chatroom and Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is your last show. And I remember saying very specifically on air, I was like, We've had a great time, but if you really want to know what's happening next, follow me on The Halfie Project. Thanks. Goodbye. And that's how I ended up. I was in trouble with the station. I shouldn't have pitched my own thing, but I was like, You guys also handled this badly, so that was another like an i-byeol.
I think in my life when people ask me like, Oh, what's your happiest moment? I honestly can't think of a lot. I remember doing a lot and being very happy about a lot of things. But when people say your pinnacle happiest moment, I don't know. I can't think of too many. But when people think of farewell, moments you've said goodbye. Those really have stood out to me because I've said goodbye so much in my life, so much to people, to places, to experiences. And my life is really chopped up like this. So i-byeol is really significant for me. And I think this is why I understand that sadness and I think I understand that bitterness and also understand what it means to have to continue. So that's why I feel like I'm able to talk to people very well when it comes to The Halfie Project because a lot of things that we discuss on Halfie Project have to do with i-byeol, having to deal with a farewell, whether you wanted it or not, whether it was ripped from you or you gave it up.
So it's a very significant concept around my life and also around Halfie Project. So yeah, i-byeol, it's I don't know, maybe I like being sad about it, right? Because then I'm just like, Okay, like I acknowledge this is sad, but it's only thanks to a lot of those farewells in retrospect, I'm just like, Wow, that really benefited my life. That really was the right choice. I'm so glad that happened. Yeah, So I don't think i-byeol should ever be looked at with just distaste or anything. But, you know, in the end, I do think it will always benefit.
Mirae: As you’re explaining, I’m also thinking about all the i-byeols I’ve also gone through. There is that sadness, or that kind of uneasy feeling that exists inside you, but when you think about how your life came about after, maybe that happened for a reason, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing now. Or this happened because of that. We don’t always have to dwell in them, and just mull over them, and say, Oh, why did that happen to me? But maybe there is something hopeful that can come out of it.
Becky: Yes.
Mirae: It’s interesting to think about i-byeol in that way, because I think a lot of times it’s always farewell, sadness, anger, and then, that’s it.
Becky: Mhmm.
Mirae: Yeah.
Becky: I think there is a direct correlation between certain members of the Korean diaspora who succeed and those who don't. On a more individual basis sometimes, sometimes people who do well and people who just suffer their whole life because of internal change. And I really think a lot of it has to do with their inability to come to grips with the way their previous life ended. You know, I can think very clearly about Korean ahjummas from the first generation who moved to the US to escape the war, right, or to escape poverty. You can see those who went on to build a happy, fulfilled life and feel glad with their second chapter of their life in the US, like Cedric's parents, Cedric's mom.
And then other Korean ahjummas that I've met who just never could let go of the fact that their life ended previously. Who are unhappy. Nothing is as good as Korea. Because they just couldn't process. They had to say goodbye to their family for some reason or another, and they never got over it. And they lived in that anger and trauma forever. And that deals with han, that deals with the generational traumas, the things that get passed down to us. And I think it's tied to that. Can you process that grief and anger of saying goodbye so that you can move on to have a better life? So it's really important to be able to deal with i-byeol well.
Mirae: Since we’ve been talking a lot about i-byeol, what is something that you hope people carry with them when they encounter The Halfie Project? Was there something that you hoped people would feel when you first started The Halfie Project? And has that also changed throughout the years?
Becky: I think The Halfie Project was in a way for me to shape these thoughts and feelings that I carried for a long time by myself, shape it into words that are understandable so I could convey what this was to other people. And I think I was hoping for that understanding. I was hoping for someone to read that and be like, I understand. I just needed to say like, I get it. I also feel that way. And so this was my way of doing that.
So I kind of hope when people come across Halfie Project, if they feel the way that I feel or they felt those things, they are able to then find a way to put it into words so that they can communicate that with other people who are important to them in their lives to help make their life a little bit easier, a little bit better, build better relationships. Sometimes it might be with your parents, family members, the society around you. So being able to use those words that I struggled and agonized over so that other people can understand that to improve their own understanding and their own life and deal with their own cultural and emotional struggles. That was what I hoped for.
And then I think it's grown beyond that, even like it's kind of turned into an education thing. And sometimes people write to me and be like, Hey, I sent this article to my parents because there's so many things I'm trying to tell them that they just don't understand. And I felt like you put it into words, and so it kind of spread out a little bit more. Or the next generation of mixed Korean kids who are growing up in South Korea, their parents will find me and be like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to raise my kids in Korea. And sometimes we turn into that kind of resource.
So what do I hope for? I'm not even 100% sure. I hope it just kind of helps all of those people who find us. We're very niche. I don't think people just stumble onto Halfie Project. I think that they’re looking for something and I think they are able to find those things in Halfie Project, if they're already looking for help in certain arenas, cultural, societal, and their personal dealings with being mixed Korean. Yeah, so that's my aim to be a comfort to those who need it, to provide answers for those who want it, or looking for it, and to just facilitate conversation with people who need to talk about these things.
Mirae: So lastly, we have some rapid fire questions. So you can answer as short or long as you want.
So our first question is, which character that you’ve voiced has been your favourite?
Becky: Oh, gosh, let me think. I think probably my biggest one that had the most impact, fun things to do would have been Mai Shiranui. She's the fire-wielding ninja in Street Fighter 6 now in the Fatal Fury franchise. She has been so much fun to be the character to be the voice of because she also has a huge fan base as well. So there's kind of been a lot of things happening from that. It feels very real, like I'm interacting with real people over it. So it has kind of existed beyond just a character. I would have to say. Overall, it would definitely be Mai.
Mirae: Do people like, when they find out that you’re the voice actor of that character, do they really reach out to you because they’re big fans of the character or something?
Becky: Yeah, absolutely. I get emails asking for my autograph, for my photos. I went to a convention recently and people were just like, people love this character. And so by proxy, I get to appreciate some of that love too, which is really honouring. I look a lot like the character more than some voice actors might look like their characters, So I think there's also subconsciously some people like, Oh my gosh, she is Mai. So there's a little bit of that as well.
Mirae: Wow. Okay, so our next question is what’s your go-to Korean comfort food?
Becky: Oh, you know, so there was this spot in Hongdae that I used to go to all the time because it was open 24/7 seolleongtang with kkakdugi. Oh, my gosh, that was it. Just like really hot, good seolleongtang with this really good kkakdugi. Their kkakdugi was really good. And just bab, that was it. They were there 24/7. That used to be my spot. Like I would go there all the time. I loved it.
Mirae: Is it still there?
Becky: No, it closed down. It closed down shortly after COVID, which is crazy because that was the spot. So when I think about this really comforting, good food, I think about seolleongtang and kkakdugi. Man, that was it.
But at home, what do I make at home? Ramyeon is always, you know, it's a quick, easy one, something nice and hot. And I also really like making kimchi jjigae.
Mirae: Mhmm. It’s always…
Becky: Something hot.
Mirae: Hot soupy stuff. Since we’re talking about Hongdae and everything.
Becky: Yeah.
Mirae: Is there one place in Seoul that you would recommend people to visit, if they haven’t been there? Or in another city in Korea?
Becky: Oh if you haven't been to Nami Island… Nami Island is always fun to go to. I always say, I think wintertime Nami Island is really nice. Like there's so much, if there's a lot of snow, it can be really beautiful, and the lake will freeze over, which is gorgeous. Nami Island is very beautiful in all seasons.
I would say in Seoul though, I am very partial to Yeonnam-dong area, that’s where I lived. Also Yeonnam-dong, it’s Exit 3, Hongdae Station Exit 3. You walk out there, there’s Yeoncho Park. You can go left or right. And it used to be an old railroad track. And so it kind of follows along this. And there's a lot of very trendy cafes, and there used to be busking at night. People walk their dogs. It's really, really lovely. Sometimes people walk there, meerkats or raccoons, like you'll see all kinds of crazy stuff. But it's just, it's like a sophisticated, chic version of Hongdae’s party area. I've always loved it there. That was where I moved after leaving a previous relationship. And so to me it signified a very fresh start. And that's kind of where a lot of great things happened for me. So Yeonnam-dong, it’s just, it’s a very beautiful part of Seoul. Yeah, I know a lot of people talk about Euljiro. Euljiro is always cool. That's actually a good spot to check out, too, because it’s not only like cultural hotspots, but also there's a lot of history. And Euljiro Sijang, especially, I would love for it to survive the gentrification, so if people go and visit and just really appreciate the businesses there that have been there for a long time, that would be another thing.
Mirae: Okay, so our last question is, what’s your hidden talent that people don’t know about?
Becky: Oh, I don't know. I can do the splits. Maybe that’s a little talent. I used to be a gymnast when I was younger, and I maintained a lot of this flexibility. So even though I can't do like my back flips and stuff anymore, I am pretty flexible. I think that might surprise people. Yeah.
Mirae: Wow, I feel like you’ve done so many things just like listening to your story.
Becky: Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived like a thousand lives. I really have done the whole fake it to you, make it. A lot of times, I learned it on the job, which is, you know, that's how it had happened so fast because you didn't do schooling or training for things. It was just like, Yeah, I can do that. And you just got to figure it out while you're doing it. So yeah, I think I was able to experience a lot of crazy things in my life. But I am very flexible. Long story short. Both I think physically and in my life.
Mirae: Thanks so much for sharing all of this. I think sometimes even when we’re hosting these interviews, I’m like, how comfortable are they in sharing all of these things, but I’m very thankful that you’ve opened up and share these things with us.
Becky: It was great. You guys have so many wonderful questions. I was very excited to talk with you guys. It’s a lot of work. You guys have put so much great work into this and it really shows, so I really appreciate being part of it. Thanks for asking me.
Becky White has been a radio DJ, EDM singer, translator, magazine editor and fashion model — all experiences that she draws upon in the many facets of her work. A biracial Korean-American, she grew up as a military kid and has split her life between the United States and South Korea. Her experiences as a mixed Korean in Korea led her to create The Halfie Project 혼혈이야기, through which she explores mixed Korean identity, both culturally and ethnically, around the world, through multiple mediums including photography, writing, film and interviews. After meeting her husband, Cedric, in Seoul, they decided to relocate to NYC where currently Becky works as an actress and voice talent. | IG @rebeccarose.official, @thehalfieproject
