Q: How did you meet?

S: We lived actually right around the corner from each other and one day she was riding her bike and I saw her, and I just had to say hi.

E: I was at College and he was on College at Parker, and he's been there for eight years.

S: No.

E: And I've been there for ten years.

S: A little longer actually.

E: A little longer and never...

S: We never saw each other until one day we just crossed paths.

E: And I said to him, where do you hang out? I said, do you drink coffee? And he's like, yeah, and I'm like, where do you hang? He's like, Cafe Strada, and I'm like, well, I do, too. Well, when are you there? You know, different hours. So it's sort of like, all those years, passed. Cooking was the first bond, I have to say, because we started talking about food, cause I was studying Thai cooking and he is a cook, and so we just started talking about cooking. And then we also started talking about fishing of all things. Cause he said, I grew up in Korea and Guam and I used to go spear fishing. And I said, oh, I went fishing a lot with my mama, but all river fishing. So we used to talk a lot about fishing. So, cooking, fishing, then we started talking about movies.

S: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

E: And he knew as much as -- and he was as big a film buff -- as I was, and had even had seen films and heard of films that I hadn't heard of. Even some films to this day where I go, wait a minute, is that a real film, I never heard of it.

S: Uh-huh.

E: And just real similar, I thought, feeling a desire for family. So we just connected on some really basic issues. And so what really won me over he... my grandmother who's my mama was very ill with cancer right at the beginning of our relationship and... I have to say it just made me go, yeah, this is the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with, just seeing him at the beginning of a romance come up to this small little farm town in Eastern Washington with me. And then what won my heart was him spending all day in the hot sun cleaning up the crabapples in my grandmother's yard. Even though it was pretty clear she was not going to live to ever see this yard again. There was something about that that was really incredible to me. That he said, oh, this yard needs some work, and he went out there, real quiet, and just worked all afternoon and then that night when I was so exhausted from caring for her, he said, why don't you get some sleep and I'll sit up with her. And he was in this phase of just like -- she'd go, I can't breathe, lie me down. And then you'd lie her down and she'd go, no, sit me up. And so we kept saying, instead of Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, we'd go, Lie Me Down, Sit Me Up! And we were just... he was just a source of humor for me in a really difficult time. And so I just thought oh, this is a great partner.

S: Well, I mean, to me it was very natural. I mean, from the first moment I kind of knew. I think it was cause we'd both been single for so long and such and we were very set in our own ways and things. So that nature and her... I think everything about it, from living a corner away from each other, everything just kind of fit in. And her strong feelings about her grandmother, which is her mama, and my mother was very important to me, and she took care of me, so it was that bond. And how she was so caring for her grandmother, when I went up with her to Washington. Putting her emotions -- going through all that, and it just brought me real close. It was just natural for me. I think it was very natural and it was just meant to be. I was born in Korea and then actually lived most of my younger days in Guam, from seven to 17. So culturally I'm very, kind of mixed up -- growing up in Korea, but only being there until I was seven-years-old. My family is very traditional, so that's the only part... cause most of my life, that I remember, is from Guam. All my childhood -- and for the longest time in Guam I tried to fit in and tried to not be as Korean -- trying to be more Guamanian. But still, you're Korean. You're Korean and got into a lot of fistfights, so I kind of deserve to be Korean. I kind of worked at being Korean. And then I came out here and it was just a whole new world. And I guess the diversity -- and since I was always in another culture in a sense -- when I came out here, the diversity of it, it just really drew me. And being Korean out here, it's definitely a lot easier than being Korean in Guam, you know.

Q: Your very traditional Korean family, have they embraced Ellen and your...?

S: Oh, as much as possible I guess. But no, it hasn't been the real warm embracing that I expected, but that's how it goes.

E: Well, coming from a mixed family and my families were very divided all my life. There was the black family and the white family. You get used to it. It's like when SunHui first came up to Washington state to be with my grandmother, I remember there were a couple of people who were like -- oh, you know Ellen's involved with that Chinaman. And you're like -- that's right. You forget that African-Americans have these attitudes. I would go, wait a second. Chinaman! First of all he's Korean, but why are you saying Chinaman? So I would hear that and my father was sort of like -- well, what's he do, he's a Korean, a cook. And I'm going, it's interesting the different attitudes that people have. But my grandmother, she was the only one that mattered to me and she fell in love with him. So that was it. It didn't matter to me how anyone else felt or anything. That was the most important thing for me. And I think that was also a real bond for us, too. It's just like when you come from families that are like -- from him trying to fit in in Guam and me coming to Berkeley and like... or trying to fit in in Washington once I knew that I was half-white -- you start to find strength in just being an individual and saying, okay, I'm kind of a floater. I know my heritage and I love my heritage, but at the same time I kind of float. I don't have to be so attached to any one identity. I can make my own life. And that's why I love our daughter. I go, wow, she is the real American to me.

S: That's right.

E: I mean, she's a child of the world. Not to even try to use those cliches, but, I go, no, my daughter's a child of the world. All she needs is a little bit of Latin American thrown in there, and I don't know, maybe that's somewhere in there, and we don't even know. But I just look at her and go, that's fantastic. And she'll know all those things.

Q: We talked about all the kinds of outside forces, society and stereotypes and your families and all the outside stuff that brings to bear upon your relationship and your family, and yet somehow you've transcended that. You've made it work for you and for your daughter. What is it that you do...?

E: Well, I'll just say one of the things for me, one of the things that I loved about SunHui from the beginning, since I was doing theater and I was touring a lot, he's a person who knows what he wants his family doing. He said, we're going to have dinner and breakfast together everyday. He said, I don't want you going all over the place, blah, blah, if we're going to be a family. And I thought that really makes sense. And so I think that first there's a real commitment that the family comes before anything. Before anything. Before...

S: Uh-huh.

E: Before work, before anything. And so for me it's like there are certain things that are just really sacred. And that doesn't mean that both our work doesn't take us away at different times, but we don't do that consistently. That's an exception. We make the exceptions for work, but we don't make exceptions for family. And I think that's what makes us really strong, that there's no work that either one of us takes without discussing it with the other person. Really discussing it -- saying, well, here's the pros, here's the cons, what do you think? Let's sleep on it, let's talk about it. I mean, even this. We talked about it. And I think that that's really important. And I think it's going to be... it's already had a great effect on our daughter that, you know, she sees us shop together. Sometimes, if he has a particular gig -- when she was really tiny he got a gig doing a dinner for eight, and he said why don't you help me? And we were all in the kitchen, I'm holding the baby and we're passing her back and forth and I'm helping, and so I think that's the thing that we've just made family really, really important. And I know it's real important for me. I know it is for him, but I know, just speaking as, what my soul really needs, this has been really important for me to go like -- wow, this is what I've been wanting all my life, a family. You know.

Q: There's a lot in the world that would split you apart. What is it that keeps you together?

S: Well, I love her very dearly, but I think more than anything is the fact that she is very flexible about the idea of family. We're a lot more strict about getting our family together. There's certain things that we just won't do to get away from splitting up the family. We'll always have our dinners together, and there's only a few times where... as she said, it's very much an exception if the family doesn't have our meals together. And I grew up with food, in a household, a Korean household, where food was very important and where dinners were so... almost to an extreme. Everything hot and where my mother spent the whole day doing it and just [watching] Dad. I always thought, growing up, I mean, when I look back on things that's what I remember the most -- family sharing meals. So I just kept with that and she obliged me in keeping with that. And I told her from that day, I said, you know, we do, we've got to share our meals. It's so important. We met through food, that was our first bond, and I think it keeps us together.

E: Yeah, and there's a lot of things too... we both read a lot and share ideas in terms of literature. So that was real important to me, too, to be involved with someone who likes to read, and also who likes to be silly. Our household... we were saying, gee, they want to film us walking in the park, it's too bad they can't come back where we're all lying on the dining room table and sitting blowing bubbles and just being nuts. That's also it. We're being very calm right now, but I like it too, that our household is just goofy. Like SunIm will put on the Playtex yellow rubber gloves and she'll walk through the house going, arh, arh. SunHui will run in the corner and be cowering, no, no, don't touch me. Just that level of silliness, where I go, boy, this is great that we can be this goofy. Just goofy.