Interview with Thanin Viriyaki, April 19, 2022
Dublin Core
Title
Interview with Thanin Viriyaki, April 19, 2022
Subject
Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Cooking, Thai
Photography of food
Asian grocer
Date
2022-04-19
Format
audio
Identifier
2021oh002_di_009
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Interviewer
Betsy Brody
Interviewee
Thanin Viriyaki
OHMS Object
OHMS Object Text
5.4 Interview with Thanin Viriyaki, April 19, 2022 2021oh002_di_009 01:49:20 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking, Thai Photography of food Asian grocer Thanin Viriyaki Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_viriyaki_thanin_20220419.m4a 1:|15(5)|30(7)|44(4)|58(6)|70(3)|84(3)|94(9)|107(15)|119(13)|135(6)|149(10)|162(1)|177(3)|189(6)|201(11)|214(1)|226(13)|244(5)|255(10)|266(13)|282(14)|298(3)|310(2)|323(12)|335(4)|346(8)|358(15)|373(9)|386(12)|404(2)|416(3)|426(11)|437(12)|448(6)|460(7)|472(7)|484(6)|497(1)|509(13)|522(8)|533(7)|546(9)|559(15)|572(10)|585(8)|598(10)|612(2)|622(9)|634(11)|646(1)|658(12)|674(1)|687(6)|701(7)|718(1)|734(7)|750(1)|762(14)|774(10)|785(6)|800(2)|810(9)|821(8)|832(13)|845(2)|858(3)|870(8)|882(9)|893(9)|906(4)|918(8)|931(6)|944(16)|955(7)|968(10)|983(10)|999(3)|1012(12)|1025(9)|1042(10)|1056(15)|1068(14)|1086(4)|1098(8)|1111(10)|1125(1)|1137(2)|1150(11)|1162(4)|1174(5)|1186(3)|1198(8)|1211(17)|1223(3)|1237(1)|1249(2)|1261(13)|1278(15)|1291(4)|1302(3)|1315(1)|1328(6)|1339(17)|1352(10)|1365(1)|1379(11)|1390(8)|1402(8)|1413(5) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/162897 Aviary audio 0 Introduction Asian American grocers ; Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Cooking, Thai ; Photography of food ; Texas--History 30 Moving to Texas from Thailand Asian restaurant ; Bangkok ; chef ; community ; cooking ; crab ; curry ; Dallas ; family run restaurant ; food ; Hainanese chicken ; Haltom City ; home cooking ; hospitality ; house party ; Houston ; Marissa's Restaurant ; palate ; recipes ; restauran ; seafood ; Texas ; Thai community ; Thai food ; Thai restaurant ; Thailand ; Trader Vic's ; western palate 609 Parallels between culinary arts and photography art ; chef ; cooking ; photography 1027 Asian community in Haltom City Asian community ; Asian grocery ; community center ; community hub ; country club ; discrimination ; exotic ; generation ; groceries ; Marissa's Restaurant ; meatball ; neighborhood ; neighbors ; newspaper ; palate ; racism ; stereotypes ; Thai community ; VCR ; vegetables ; videos ; Vietnam Plaza ; western palate 1401 Changes in the Asian community in North Texas Asian community ; connections ; Dallas ; discrimination ; hole in the wall ; Lao food ; Nalinh Market ; racism ; representation ; social media ; stereotypes ; Thai community ; Thai food ; western palate ; xenophobia ; Yelp 1785 Food and representation as a cultural bridge Anthony Bourdain ; bridge ; ethnic food ; Martin Yan ; racism ; representation ; stereotypes ; television ; TV ; western palate 2112 Reflections on " ; authenticity" ; and food Asian flavors ; Asian food ; authentic ; authenticity ; banh mi ; Dallas ; fast food ; French ; fusion ; innovation ; Ngon ; palate ; Panda Express ; Pei Wei ; price points ; Quoc Bao ; ramen ; social media ; street food ; Thai food ; tradition ; western palate 2798 Contrast between " ; fine dining" ; and " ; mom and pop" ; restaurants authentic ; authenticity ; barbecue ; Bon Appetit ; celebration ; COVID ; culture ; Dallas ; Donny Sirisavath ; educate ; education ; ethnic food ; fine dining ; hole in the wall ; Khao Noodle Shop ; labor ; mom and pop ; negative reviews ; palate ; pandemic ; price points ; ramen ; rent ; representation ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; Salt Bae ; social media ; western palate 3276 Growing up in family run restaurants/ Reflections on Asian and American identity American ; Americanized ; Asian restaurant ; banh mi ; chef ; family run restaurant ; fast food ; immigrant ; names ; Quoc Bao ; western palate 3961 Viriyaki starts a photography business art ; Asian community ; business ; culture ; photography ; University of North Texas ; weddings 4707 Getting involved in food photography Dallas Mavericks ; food ; photography ; restaurants 5081 Attending University of North Texas/ Changes in Asian community in North Texas art ; Asian community ; photography ; social media ; Thai community ; University of North Texas 5830 Thai community restaurants, parties, and social activities Dragon Boat Race ; house party ; music ; parties ; restaurants ; Thai community ; Thai food 6084 Thai family businesses in Haltom City generation ; ghost kitchens ; Laos ; meatball ; movie ; social media ; video 6359 History of Red Bull/ Thai connection Red Bull ; Thailand |00:00:00| Brody This is Betsy Brody. Today is April 19th, 2022. I am interviewing for the first time Mr Thanin Viriyaki. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and is part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Asian Dallas." ; Thank you for joining me today, and let' ; s just start out. Tell me where and when you were born. |00:00:32| Viriyaki I was born in Bangkok, Thailand. March 4th, 1980. I came here at three months old. My sister, who is older, she was born in Houston, where my parents met and they decided to go, have me in Thailand because they wanted to have my mom have more help after giving birth. So they went over there to utilize all the family support and then brought me back over here. |00:00:59| Brody At three months. |00:01:00| Viriyaki Correct? Yeah. |00:01:02| Brody What were your parents doing in Houston and then later in Dallas? |00:01:05| Viriyaki So my dad, he went to Sam Houston College and he got a degree in accounting. I remember my mom working at a hospital, at the cafeteria, at the hospital when I was young. Not sure what she was doing when they actually met, though. My dad eventually became a chef and worked for Trader Vic' ; s in Houston. And then eventually, when I was four, they, which is in 1984, they had an opportunity to buy a restaurant in Haltom City, a suburb of Fort Worth. And so they bought a restaurant and we moved from Houston all the way up here, and it was named Marissa' ; s Restaurant, which is the name of my sister. So you can see which one' ; s their favorite kid. Although I will say that I was like- my, my sister was dad' ; s favorite and I' ; m mom' ; s favorite. So, you know, dad being a chef, I guess he had the say, you know, what the new restaurant name was. |00:02:07| Brody So your dad studied accounting. What led him into becoming a chef? |00:02:12| Viriyaki Ah, I' ; m not exactly sure. That' ; s something I never asked him, but I will say that my grandfather, his dad, was a butcher in Thailand, had his own butcher shop. I think it' ; s just passion for cooking. You know, one thing I always remember vividly was him always wanting to cook for people and friends, and he would always have house parties. You know, many, many, many years later when I was an adult, I met an old friend of his and he told me like, " ; Oh, you know, we would always have parties at your dad' ; s house." ; I don' ; t know if he said my dad' ; s nickname or the house' ; s nickname was " ; The Village" ; in Thai because everyone would always crash there. They' ; d come over. And I do remember seeing all these old photographs of my parents' ; house in Houston, and it was just always party photos. Full of parties all the time. You know, so my parents are very, very social people, and I think my dad, with his love of cooking. I guess it was a way for him to sort of like, I guess, give joy and entertain his friends. |00:03:26| Brody What kind of things would he cook, what were the the things that you remember? |00:03:29| Viriyaki Oh man. Well, for me, I will say this. Being a big seafood lover, every time we go to an Asian market and like crabs were in season, I would always bother him to make crabs. And you know, it' ; s like seafood, so it' ; s expensive and it' ; s like kind of like a bit of a hassle to make and eat. So I' ; d be like, " ; Can I get some crabs? Can I get some crabs?" ; And it was fascinating to me because like, you know, for in a western society, how often are you going to get any kind of live animal, if you really think about that? Like what? How many even American families, if you' ; re not living in the country, are cooking anything like legit live, that could hurt you. Right? With little claws snipping at you. So I would always ask for crab, but there are so many dishes he would make. There' ; s like the Thai version of Hainanese chicken. You know, they call it a Kao Mun Gai, which so " ; kao" ; is rice, " ; mun" ; is oil, " ; gai" ; is chicken. So when you cook it, you cook the rice with the broth that you boiled the chicken in and then you put like ginger in there and you make this sort of like oily garlic and then mix that with the rice. So the rice like this...Kind of like chicken brothy, not wet because obviously the water cooks, cooks out, but you' ; ll have this like oil, slight oiliness to it. It' ; s kind of interesting. So you have a soup from the broth, which they' ; ll dash some white pepper on there and they' ; ll garnish it with cilantro, sometimes some cucumber. Usually it' ; s like cucumber sliced cold. Put that on the plate. You have the rice and then you have the cold chicken. So when they boil the chicken, what they' ; ll do is they' ; ll dunk in ice water so the fat like coagulates. So it' ; s like this cold chicken dish with the hot, warm soup and then oily rice, and then they' ; ll make this sauce. So that was a favorite mine. I actually wasn' ; t too big on curries myself, which my mother is always like teasing me about because she was like, " ; Your, your American friends love the curry. How come you don' ; t love the curry? You' ; re Thai, you should love the curry." ; So, but he would make a lot of curry like all the different curries you could, you know, basically do, he would make a lot of different colors. |00:05:51| Brody So Marissa' ; s Restaurant. What was, what kind of food was served there? Was it Thai food? And what was sort of the feeling in the restaurant? |00:06:01| Viriyaki From what I remember is Thai food. I know that back then in the 80s, a very common sentiment was we' ; d have to, we had to make it for the Westerners, right? And you' ; d have to adjust the palate a bit. If I' ; m correct, it usually means making the food sweeter. I don' ; t remember specifically what was on the menu because it was so long ago. I was like four years old. But I just, yeah, I remember it was long hours, and I think that' ; s one of the reasons why my parents eventually sold it. Because you' ; re there first thing in the morning. You' ; re there late at night. Very labor intensive. I remember my mother always talking about how one of the reasons they had to sell it was they just they just felt physically overwhelmed eventually over the years. And there was a story of when it was, I think, snowing and they' ; re like, " ; Oh, man. Let' ; s go in to work, it' ; s snowing." ; And they' ; d get there. And there' ; s people already lined up like already, waiting to eat, you know, like this, like kind of like kind of like, " ; Oh my gosh, we have all these people to serve can' ; t really take a break, you know?" ; So I remember as a kid going, " ; Why don' ; t you just shut down the store? You own the store." ; But I guess they sort of felt like obligated. You know, I think I think with a lot of immigrants, there' ; s this sense of not wanting the opportunity to slip away. Because you' ; re over here, you know, the " ; land of opportunity" ; and also sort of like this sense of duty, which my dad is, was definitely driven by. You know, he was just someone who' ; s like, " ; If it has to be done, we have to do it, you know?" ; And he wasn' ; t it wasn' ; t one to complain, which is, I think, a common characteristic of the, a lot of first generation Asians coming over where they didn' ; t really take things for granted. And there, they looked at America as " ; Hey, this as a place for us to do something to take advantage of these opportunities, you know, move, to move up." ; You know, so it' ; s a common theme, whether you' ; re Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, I see that a lot. You know where the older generation, just they, they, they didn' ; t complain. They were just like they they if anything, they they sort of they didn' ; t want to acknowledge weakness for better or worse, and they just wanted to push through, you know? And so, for good or bad, they were very resilient people and workhorses, you know. Which you know, the aspect of pushing through and ignoring any sort of like setbacks or weaknesses is, funny enough, now, in this day and age where people want to talk about things like mental health, that' ; s actually kind of a discussion now where it' ; s like, " ; Oh, you can' ; t bring that up to your parents because they' ; ll just be like, ' ; That' ; s weak, what are you talking about? There' ; s no such thing like, you' ; re sad. Just go, go, go to sleep or something, go eat something, you know?' ; " ; So, but yeah, so my dad was from that first generation where it' ; s like, " ; Hey, our job needs to be done, so we' ; re going to do it" ; and they would just do it. |00:09:10| Brody It also sounds like, based on what you were saying before that he had a pretty deep sense of hospitality. So I' ; m sure that combined with the work ethic and the reality of having people that were there to eat. |00:09:23| Viriyaki Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. So I think, yeah, yeah. Looking back on it, it was sort of like, what do we like to do? I like to cook. Hang out. Be social. All right. Well, this is the path. Let' ; s make a restaurant. You know, so which, funny enough for me, now, being a photographer, it kind of was the same path of where I was sort of, be very interested in art and visual arts. And then I would take photos for art. And then later on, after doing for years, eventually thought, " ; You know what, I should probably make this my job. Like I, I love this too much to like ignore that, right?" ; So it' ; s kind of funny, like there' ; s some parallels there to what they did and what I did. |00:10:08| Brody Yeah. I mean, tell me about the parallels that you see between your work as a photographer and what your parents were doing running the restaurant. |00:10:17| Viriyaki So, yeah, I have this theory of how photography and the culinary arts sort of like have these interesting parallels. So both are a combination of several elements. So like if I cook you a dish, it' ; s not just like the flavor...the end result, the flavor isn' ; t just who' ; s the cook, it isn' ; t just the recipe, isn' ; t just the tools, isn' ; t just the ingredients or whatever. Photography is kind of the same. It' ; s not just photography, not just the model, not just location, not just the wardrobe, not just the lighting used, it' ; s everything coming together, right? So, it' ; s kind of interesting how you can take one element out of that, of either, and it completely alters the end result. And also, I feel that it' ; s, both are sort of like this collaborative nature because even if you' ; re just a chef, you know, someone else probably grew the crops, someone else probably grew the meat, someone else probably made that bread, someone else probably made the tools. So it' ; s like there' ; s so many moving parts of both things that also culminate into something unique. So no matter if you' ; re trying to remake a dish, there might be some slight variation if you go somewhere else and make it right, you know. And same thing with photography, I might want to replicate and look, can I go somewhere else that' ; s going to be slightly different? That' ; s sort of the fun and the challenge of it. I think even how lighting effects an object is very similar, how the temperature of meat, or I' ; m sorry, the temperature of fire can affect, say, a piece of meat in a sense that if you have harsh, strong lighting, you' ; ll get this sort of uneven kind of effect or one part' ; s blown out and you have this dark shadow. And then if you have softer lighting, you' ; ll get softer shadows and more gradual kind of tones of the, of dark to light. And similar to how you sear a steak where you have this intense heat and you have this uneven cooked meat. If you slow cook it, it will be more even. So I think that' ; s kind of interesting how there' ; s parallels like that, you know, and I almost kind of feel like this funny connection to my dad in a way because he had his craft, I had my craft and are different, but they' ; re similar in those aspects, you know. So I think about that a lot and how we were different people, but we sort of like had like these similarities and what we gravitated to, if that even makes sense. |00:12:46| Brody Yeah, of course. So, you know, a lot about food. I understand you' ; re a food photographer as well as a photographer of human subjects. Tell me how you got into that. |00:13:00| Viriyaki Well, at first I was just doing regular fine art in school or just I would always draw, always draw and always paint. I remember one of my earliest recollections was, man, I think it was maybe kindergarten, and our task was to paint something for our mom for Mother' ; s Day. And my painting was this entire poster board just covered-the whole thing' ; s covered- of dinosaurs. And I' ; m just like, " ; Mom, look what I made for you." ; Yeah, of course. It' ; s like my thing, dinosaurs. It' ; s kind of funny. So I was always just drawing stuff. I remember there' ; d be a family camera and I was...I would like pose my G.I. Joes and Transformers toys, and I would just like, set them up, take pictures of them. So it' ; s almost like I had this, like, I don' ; t know, like cinematographer' ; s mind, already composing shots, and I would just take pictures of all kinds of random stuff, which my mother would always be kind of critical of at the time going like, " ; Why are you? Why are you taking so many pictures like, why do you need to take so many pictures?" ; And I just always gravitated to art, and I was always drawing and painting, and eventually I got a camera in I believe 10th grade in high school. So I could have specific pictures of specific objects, specific angles to then go and draw. So I wasn' ; t great at necessarily drawing from memory, but I needed like reference material and I would just use that camera to capture all kinds of random things, you know, like, " ; Hey, oh I' ; ll tell my friends, hey, hold your hands this way" ; and I' ; ll use like a regular table lamp to like light a certain way and shoot that, draw. So that' ; s what got me initially into photography. And then I started doing some experimental things with the photography where we' ; d like scratch it with like razor blades and do- put like fire on it or like rub ink on it or put Clorox on. So we were like trying some really interesting things like some of the artists I was influenced by at the time was...One was Dave McKean, who did the cover for the Sandman comic books, which, that series is apparently about to be made on Netflix and then Mark Romanek. If I' ; m saying that name, right? He did the videos for Nine Inch Nails, and you just had this sort of like grungy texture to them. That was interesting, you know? So at the time, the stuff that I was, the art that I was into was a lot of like surrealistic stuff, kind of more dark art kind of looking and stuff. And the stuff kind of just appealed me in that because it' ; s so surreal. Like, you know, that was sort of like for me, my escape was just making art. You know, it' ; s like being like, you know, the loser in high school, antisocial and sort of like, " ; I' ; m just going to hole in my room and hole up in my room and make this art." ; And so just listen to music, make art and I think about it now, with all the kids having so many amazing toys and video games to really distract themselves with and to be able to play online with your friends, like, you know, I think about that now and how I probably wouldn' ; t have developed some of those skills because I' ; d be too busy having fun doing, you know, all this other stuff, you know? So for me, it was like being isolated gave me, you know, I had to seek refuge in the art, which luckily for me, became like a career later on, you know, so I think about that too. And how like how like I think about like, how is that going to affect the future generations if they' ; re constantly having to, you know, get or what would be the term, like constant feedback or constant rewards, you know, like the Tik Tok apps and stuff like that? Not to say like, not to sound like some what they call a " ; boomer" ; and be like, " ; Oh my God, Tik Tok' ; s bad." ; You know, I love scrolling and looking at all that stuff too, like memes or whatever. But I wonder, just like, what' ; s the big picture that like 10, 20 years from now and how that would make the kids today develop as well. So it' ; s kind of interesting . |00:17:05| Brody That is interesting. Going back to the restaurant, you mentioned that they sold it. What...How long was it open? Do you remember when it closed? |00:17:15| Viriyaki Oh man, I gotta think about this. I could be wrong. My sister has the better memory, which is like, that' ; s why I usually say that' ; s why I take pictures. They last longer. I feel like it was roughly four years or so. I feel like around four years. And then my dad, he went on to work at Ridglea Country Club in Fort Worth. |00:17:43| Brody What was Haltom City like when you had the restaurant and who were the customers that typically were there? |00:17:49| Viriyaki So there wasn' ; t a lot of Asians around there that much. I will say down the street, there was another Thai family that owned a meatball factory and then further down that same street, there was another Thai family that owned a VHS rental place called Movies Unlimited. And so that was kind of like our little clique was the kids from both of those stores. We hang out each other' ; s stores and play, and our parents would be friends. So most of the time, I just remember it being largely like a Western clientele, you know, which again, kind of going back to how they cooked was we' ; d have to they' ; d have to make it where the palate of the Westerners could accept our " ; exotic" ; food, you know, so back then, like, you know, just without YouTube and all this stuff to teach people what things are to open their minds like, you' ; d have to kind of get lucky that someone would even want to give you a chance, right? You know, to, for them to expand their palate like that. So there weren' ; t too many Thai restaurants around back then. I mean, just thinking about. Like...I can' ; t even remember where my parents really even got their groceries at that time until later on when Haltom City got Vietnam Plaza. You know, I feel like that was the first like real grocery store we had was Vietnam Plaza in Haltom City. Before then, you would get little bits of groceries from one of the local like mini marts that were nearby. And those little places were kind of interesting in that they were sort of like the community centers for a lot of us. You' ; d bump into a lot of friends there inadvertently because you' ; re there to buy food or you' ; d rent videos from them because what they would do is they' ; d get these videos from overseas of these novellas and they would have this wall of VHS recorders, VCRs I mean, and they' ; d all hook up and they would make like, I don' ; t know, let' ; s say, 20, 30 copies of one tape that they' ; d get overseas and they' ; d rent out for a dollar. So every week you be like, " ; Oh, what' ; s the next episode? You got that episode?" ; You' ; d go back. So that' ; s where they would get their groceries from. It' ; s like they get their entertainment. I know my dad would get like newspapers there. He' ; s my dad was always interested in reading the news because again, no internet back then, right? Yeah, it' ; s like the internet, at least like commercially like wasn' ; t a thing. So that' ; s the only way for him to sort of keep abreast of like things like politics over there, which is he was very interested in, you know, so that was like our link to, you know, the homeland, essentially. |00:20:33| Brody So these were like, like a basically small grocery store that had like staples of rice, maybe? What other types of things might they have had? And then the videos and then the newspapers and things like that? Yeah. And you had one in Haltom City. |00:20:53| Viriyaki Correct. Correct. I forgot the name of it, but I believe it' ; s still there. I think it' ; s still there. I could be wrong, but I believe it' ; s still there. |00:21:02| Brody And you mentioned that it was sort of like a link to, you know, for especially the first generation to what was going on back in Thailand and things like that. Do you remember spending a lot of time in those stores, kind of hanging out? |00:21:15| Viriyaki Yeah, I mean, we' ; d go there multiple times per week, you know? So because like, you know, as far as like, your, where you source your goods from for the restaurant like that, that was like the place. There' ; s really no other option. You know, they kind of had a monopoly, you know, so I remember we' ; d have to go over there to get...what was that? I can' ; t. I can' ; t remember. Some vegetable. You know, it' ; s like if they don' ; t have it like, well, can' ; t make it. It' ; s not in. And it' ; s like, where else can you go? Whereas here you might go, " ; OK, let' ; s go down the street, go to Walmart, go to Target, go to, you know, Kroger or something." ; But over there is sort of like, this is the only place. Funny enough, kind of a similar situation. I went to Santa Fe, I think, to do an engagement shoot and there was one pho restaurant even around that area. And I was with the bride and groom, who are Vietnamese, and we' ; re just kind of joking like " ; They have a monopoly." ; Like, like, there' ; s no competition and you' ; re like, " ; Where do they get their groceries from?" ; So that was sort of like our situation too at the time was like... I can' ; t, I can' ; t even remember another Thai restaurant near us at that time. You know, so back then too, when my dad would cook for me and I' ; d take food to school like he' ; d get people going, " ; What are you? What are you eating? What is that? You know, like fried rice, what?" ; You know? So now it' ; s interesting seeing people go like, " ; Oh my god, Pad Thai, that' ; s amazing. Thai tea, it' ; s amazing, you know?" ; So it' ; s interesting seeing the palate and how it' ; s evolved. You think about the torture you basically went through back in the day of people not knowing what you ate and then also having to deal with any stereotypes or prejudices of those dishes from people who didn' ; t know better too. So it' ; s interesting seeing what it is now. |00:23:21| Brody Yeah. Let' ; s talk about that. Like the... What, what changes have you seen in, you know, in the time that you' ; ve been in in Texas since you were very young in the Asian community, in North Texas and in the connections between the Asian community and others? |00:23:43| Viriyaki Man. Well, for one, there' ; s a lot more of us. I' ; ll say that. That' ; s something that my mom always brings up too. She' ; ll be like, " ; Oh man, you weren' ; t that many of us back then." ; I remember even just when I, you know, we were living in Fort Worth at the time, came over to Dallas. I came up here to...There was a bowling tournament that for I think, like the Thai, like Commerce Association, something like that. And it' ; s full of all these Thai people, this entire bowling alley, like 20 something lanes. I just remember remarking to a friend, " ; I didn' ; t know this many Thai people existed up here. That' ; s crazy." ; You know, but it was like a bigger city, so it just, it made more sense that they would be over there rather than Fort Worth. But yeah, just the fact that there' ; s more of us, you know, it kind of logistically opens up so many doors of like options of food that are businesses, just so many resources in general and support, you know, so like just just for instance, like, let' ; s say you open up and no one knows what you' ; re making there or who you are, maybe at least the initial group of your, your people, so to speak, can at least support it in the early days until it gets going. You know, I remember just as an example, there was a restaurant called, is a restaurant called Nalinh in Irving. So this place was kind of like that little mart near my parents' ; place where they would sell groceries and kitchenware something like that. Really tiny hole in the wall, and they had two tables and four stools. So the you know, the joke was if you brought more than one friend, somebody was standing. Right? Two stools per table and in their corner had like a tiny little kitchen. And we would go over there and eat lunch. And it was awesome. And I remember going back years later and it was like, not just Thai and Laos people. It was like, you know, all kinds of people, Hispanics, Caucasians, you know, it' ; s kind of like, wow. So I remember asking them, like, " ; Hey, how did these people find you?" ; They' ; re like, " ; Oh yeah, we asked somebody that and we asked a customer that. How do you find us?" ; They said, we found you on Yelp and you know, you' ; re talking to in Thai and you' ; re like, " ; What' ; s, what' ; s Yelp?" ; So they didn' ; t even know, you know, I mean? So it' ; s kind of interesting how things have organically grown to where people now seek out this food. Whereas before it was like, hopefully someone even knows what we' ; re making. But now people are actively looking for it, seeking it out. And it' ; s really sort of been, I don' ; t know, like validating like, " ; Yeah, I told you, all this stuff was delicious!" ; You know, because like, you grow up being kind of teased about it, you know, like, " ; Oh, that looks weird. It smells weird." ; I remember my cousin had this jelly, lychee jelly like snack. Like you buy these tubs that had the screw on lid with the handle, and it' ; s full of these plastic sealed jellies with a chunk of lychee in it. He brought it to school and someone, someone made a remark like, " ; Oh, what is that? Is that dog meat?" ; You know? And it' ; s like, " ; No, dude, it' ; s, it' ; s a fruit. It' ; s like, you should try it." ; And the guys was like, " ; No, no, I think that' ; s dog meat." ; You' ; re like, really? That' ; s the stuff you had to deal with. And you know, so it' ; s great now. It' ; s great now seeing, you know, people being so much more receptive to our cuisine and, you know, just, just all kinds of Asian cuisine. I think it makes just life in general better, honestly, just to have this kind of variety, right? |00:27:33| Brody Why do you think people are more receptive now than they were back when you were growing up? |00:27:41| Viriyaki Well, you know, I think just being around different types of people, you become, I think, more open minded to them. So it' ; s just like if you had someone like a friend of yours recommend something, you' ; re much more willing to try to take their advice for anything, right? So I think just having more and more Asians around sort of just opened people' ; s eyes up, honestly for them to go, " ; Oh, what' ; s that?" ; So it' ; s sort of like this proliferation of taste, if that even makes sense, you know, so it' ; s just you hanging out with this person of this culture, you might- they' ; re going to consume something and you' ; re going to go, " ; What is that?" ; And the fact that you' ; re friends with them, your tastes are similar, you know, and not just food, but all kinds of things. And then you' ; re going to try it out and you' ; re going to go, " ; Oh my God, it' ; s amazing." ; And I' ; ve had that happen with friends, too, that I' ; ve known that...I remember one friend who he was very, very, very adamant that Thai food was not good because, " ; My wife in New York took me to a Thai restaurant. It was so bad. Oh my God, Thai food." ; And I was just like, " ; What are you kidding me?" ; So I I' ; m like, " ; I think you went to the wrong place." ; So I take him to....I forgot which Thai restaurant I took him to. And he' ; s like, " ; Thai food' ; s the greatest thing. It' ; s my favorite food now. I' ; m so wrong." ; . |00:29:04| Brody That' ; s funny. |00:29:05| Viriyaki But you know, like, it took a Thai friend for him to legitimately go, " ; I' ; ll give it another shot." ; You know what I mean? Because he went to, you know, the wrong place. Some place in New York. I don' ; t know where it was, but you know, I think that' ; s part of it. It' ; s just more of us being around, you know, which kind of goes to the whole thing with all minorities kind of going, " ; Hey, we need more representation." ; Like the fact that there' ; s more of us being out there in more things and people get used to us being out there and normalizes us. It breaks down xenophobia and prejudices, you know, so I think that' ; s part of it. |00:29:44| Brody That story that you just told kind of reminds me of people say that food is an opportunity for people to, you know, to have a door into a different culture to, you know, it' ; s a sort of entryway into learning about different cultures. Do you have any thoughts on on the role of food in particular? |00:30:06| Viriyaki Yeah, yeah, that' ; s a good point. You know, one of the...I remember when Anthony Bourdain passed, and everyone was writing like their own little eulogies on social media. And you really- like reading all that, you really kind of took in how important he was in all of this too, being that that bridge, right? You know, like he' ; s essentially the Jacques Cousteau of culinary, international culinary arts, right? So he' ; s out there exploring the world for us, showing us things we' ; ve never seen. And it' ; s like this guy who you know is, you know, adventurous, cool, charismatic individual. And if this cool guy thinks it' ; s great, well, shoot, I, maybe I like it too. I like him. You know, it kind of goes again what I mentioned previously where if the person you like likes something, you' ; re going to go, " ; Oh, you know what? Maybe I like it too." ; You know now, and he, what he did for all kinds of cuisines was really invaluable, you know? And so having that kind of reach to the Western world, with him being a Westerner, accepting that it' ; s a big deal for a lot of us. You know, you' ; d read out, like I said, all these eulogies and they were just so appreciative. You know, all the stuff that we were teased about and stuff that was stigmatized. He' ; s going out there and going, " ; You guys are idiots. Shit' ; s amazing." ; You know? And he...Yeah, he was like, I think maybe the most important person as far as like bringing that food or opening that food up to new audiences. I don' ; t know. I can' ; t think of anyone else off the top of my head that can I can even compare it to really. The only Asian chef I remember really seeing on TV at the time when I was growing up was Charlie (Martin)Yan. He had that catchphrase " ; Yan Can Cook. So if Yan can cook, so can you!" ; And my sister and I used to watch that all the time. I saw, you know, especially because, like, our dad was a chef. And so it was cool because like, especially back then, because there wasn' ; t that much representation like the only people you would see on TV were, the like emasculated Asian man like that Mickey Rooney in " ; Breakfast at Tiffany' ; s" ; which, you know, obviously not really Asian. And then you' ; d see, like kung fu stars, right, or ninjas or whatever. So that' ; s that' ; s kind of cool to see that guy on there and then to have someone like Bourdain be out there, essentially normalizing our cuisine over here. That was so huge. That was, that was a big thing for us. And then just America in general, just becoming more and more used to seeing different cultures slowly. You know, we' ; re part of that. And it' ; s interesting seeing just even recent last few years, things like " ; Shang-Chi" ; from Marvel or " ; Crazy Rich Asians" ; you know? And so it' ; s like, you know, amongst the Asians, if we joke about like, " ; We got to go see it or we' ; re going to get our Asian card revoked. We got to support it." ; There was there' ; s a comedian here locally. His name is, I' ; m going to butcher his name it' ; s like Peng Dang. And he was saying how, " ; Yeah, did you guys see " ; Shang-Chi" ; ? Yeah, I gave that movie five stars on Rotten Tomatoes, and then I went to go see it for the first time." ; And it was a joke because " ; I had to support it. You know, we got to we got to make sure it does good. Stuff like that." ; So it' ; s kind of like, that' ; s kind of funny. Like, it' ; s like we got to support the few things we have, so we see more because then if more of that comes out than we sort of are just more and more accepted and seen as normal, right? Because it' ; s like some of us, we grow up here and we' ; re normal. But for, you know, sometimes we will have certain prejudices, prejudices placed upon us that, you know, we' ; re not like " ; American" ; or whatever, you know, but just like so many Americans had their own like ethnic histories of, let' ; s say, Irish. We do too, you know, and it' ; s sort of inseparable. Like, it' ; s not like a black and white thing because you' ; re going to get people who go, " ; Oh, I have maybe Scandinavian roots or whatever, you know, Italian roots." ; You know? And they came over here, made their space, brought their cuisine over. I mean, deep dish pizza in Chicago, is that a thing in Italy? I don' ; t know. I don' ; t think I saw that when I went to Italy, right? So they...We' ; re going through what they went through and eventually we' ; ll get to where they' ; re at, where we' ; re kind of seen as equal as they are, you know, hopefully one day. |00:35:12| Brody Yeah, that' ; s an interesting point. I mean, earlier you mentioned that, you know, in your parents' ; restaurant, they had to kind of, at that time, adapt their recipes to maybe make them sweeter, adapt to the American palate. And you know, the examples that you' ; re giving about, you know, Irish or Scandinavian cultures and sort of the gradual assimilation into Americanized versions of whatever pizza or whatever things are from their cuisines. What do you think about this concept of what we' ; re talking about Asian food in particular, about when people argue about what is authentic? You know, whether you know this Pad Thai is authentic enough or not? Where do you stand on that issue? |00:36:04| Viriyaki I probably had the initial stance of, how would I say? Probably, probably a snobby elitist stance initially of like, " ; Oh, that' ; s not the real thing." ; You know, then just after thinking about it, I' ; ve kind of reversed. And maybe that' ; s because of my parents eventually having a fast food Chinese place of their own. And it' ; s, it' ; s something I feel like the evolution of food is, is constant. You can' ; t like if you say, " ; Oh, what' ; s truly authentic?" ; Like, where do you stop in the evolution of some cuisine? So if you think about, say, ramen. You know, I didn' ; t know. I thought that stuff was around for hundreds of years, but it really wasn' ; t around to...If I' ; m correct, when Japan finally opens its borders after being closed off for couple hundred years and the Chinese came in and the Chinese influence mixed with the Japanese influence to make ramen because the Chinese word for noodles is " ; la mian" ; and it' ; s turned into " ; ramen" ; right? You know, so that itself is essentially fusion. You know, and after going to Yokohama and going to the Ramen Museum of Yokohama, I learned that tonkotsu, the pork broth soup of ramen. It wasn' ; t a wide, wide thing nationwide in Japan until, like, I think, the mid 80s. And it' ; s like, oh, that' ; s interesting, because they are, I guess, like, you know, the logistics of farming there, you couldn' ; t have that everywhere. So that' ; s kind of interesting because I thought it' ; s just around forever. But if you are a purist, a true purist, you could go, " ; Oh, pork broth. Oh, no, no, no." ; Right? So for now, if someone says, " ; We don' ; t make that because it' ; s not real," ; the people would kind of look at you kind of puzzled, right? Another thing would be banh mi in Vietnam, and that' ; s supposedly a mix of the French influence with the Vietnamese, right? So again, if you' ; re a total purist, you leave that out. But I I see people arguing online over here where there' ; s a local Vietnamese restaurant, called Ngon, where they had a cognac infused pate and the price for the sandwiches was, I don' ; t know, maybe like eight, ten bucks, I forgot. But there are other local Vietnamese people going scoffing, going, Oh, what happened to buy to get a third free like at Quoc Bao Bakery over here? And they scoffed at the fact that it just costs more than normal, you know, so to them, they felt like " ; That' ; s a rip off! Because, ah, you know, in our minds, it' ; s anchored at this price point. You can' ; t change that price point. You' ; re not authentic." ; So there' ; s sort of like this gatekeep what it should and shouldn' ; t be. And I think that' ; s silly, and I love the fact that Ngon actually tried something different. I like the fact that we had these different options. So for Dallas, I feel like we' ; re slowly trying to catch up with these other major cities in terms of cuisine. I' ; m always seeing like the most like interesting, amazing restaurants, but I' ; ll look and go, " ; Oh man, that' ; s in New York. Oh, that' ; s in L.A." ; And it' ; s a little disappointing. So we' ; re slowly catching up. And I like the fact that Ngon gave me an alternative. I like that I had a place where I can buy something slightly more expensive and it was slightly different than what' ; s already there because we already have so many restaurants of this is really the same stuff that' ; s, you know, kind of mom and pop, hole in the wall type stuff. I like the fact they tried something different. So I welcome the evolution of food, you know, because like, where, where do you stop that evolution? Because if you stop it now...So you tell me, like forever from thousand years later, nothing' ; s ever going to change. I mean, that sounds kind of boring if you really, really think about that, right? You know, just think about all the random little local food scenes going on and all these other cities. I remember seeing I' ; m about to butcher this, but I if I remember right, it was either Chicago or Detroit where it was a thing to eat. I think it was like lemonade and cheese was a cheesesteak. If I' ; m right, I figure which city, but I was trying to look up what' ; s interesting locally. And one of those cities had this trend of that cheesesteak and lemonade. It was like, " ; Oh, that' ; s interesting." ; But you know, just the fact that that' ; s a thing. It' ; s really cool, you know, so every every little area is going to have their own food borne out of just preferences or the resources. I remember watching a National Geographic show called " ; Taboo" ; had one episode purely on food. They talked about how like these Nordic countries are eating like rotting shark meat. They showed how Anglo Indians had their own cuisine. The Indians rejected them. The, the Europeans rejected them. So they' ; re kind of like, " ; Oh, we' ; re mixed and we' ; re in the middle," ; and they made their own kind of food. And one of the things that was called " ; kutti pi" ; and kutti pi was essentially like a, like a lamb fetus. You know, it' ; s like very taboo, because it' ; s like, " ; Oh, you' ; re eating this unborn thing like, that' ; s crazy." ; You know, so can you imagine telling these people like, " ; Hey, that' ; s stupid. You can' ; t, you can' ; t even eat that?" ; Like, you know, why not? Like, who' ; s making these rules? Like I want to eat what I want to eat, you know? So I think it' ; s great. And I think the views of people gatekeeping certain types of cuisine, it' ; s like it' ; s such a virtue signal. Yeah. It' ; s like this thing of like, " ; I only want the real thing because I' ; m, you know, I' ; m a consumer of real things. I' ; m legit because I only eat the legit thing." ; But what' ; s really legit, right? You know, I can understand if, say, a company attempts like especially like a big company attempts some sort of dish and is disrespectful about the dish, I can understand. Someone might have a backlash. But just in general like to dismiss like anything they feel is slightly deviating from what they feel is authentic is, I think it' ; s just it' ; s just unfortunate. I think we' ; re just limiting ourselves to that point. American Asian Chinese cuisine in itself is like- it' ; s its own thing and it should be appreciated as its own thing. I was talking to a Chinese friend of mine and I was saying, I was asking her like, " ; What do your parents think about Pei Wei or Panda Express?" ; And she' ; s like, " ; Oh, they love it" ; I said, " ; Great! Me too!" ; Because like, if, if you made that and you brought that to a dinner party, let' ; s say I don' ; t know, like the firecracker chicken at Panda Express, which I get like almost every time. Like if you if I brought that to the dinner, I can' ; t imagine anyone going, " ; Oh man, this is horrible." ; I just can' ; t. It' ; s, it' ; s like, I mean, it' ; s chicken, it' ; s chicken and batter, and I don' ; t know what else to put in there. But whenever I cooked at my parents fast food Chinese place, like most of the ingredients, were like soy sauce, oyster sauce, like a chicken base powder, salt, pepper, maybe sesame oil, vegetable oil, cornstarch. I mean, this is like normal stuff. So the thought of somebody scoffing at any of that, these ingredients at all is like it' ; s just weird, because like, really like that' ; s normal, it' ; s not like you' ; re putting in some crazy, exotic like dish or ingredient out there, you know, but it' ; s just the stigma of it. They don' ; t want to be associated. So they, you know, like, " ; Oh, no, that' ; s not a our cuisine, so you can' ; t make fun of me." ; So they just kind of they get defensive, so they push themselves away. But, you know, I don' ; t know, maybe it' ; s because I grew up in that, making that cuisine because I think about my late father whenever I see some of these places like that and makes me want to go and eat some because every now and then I' ; ll just go, " ; I' ; m going to go to one of these like, you know, low end Chinese buffets to get some sweet and sour chicken or whatever." ; I think it' ; s great. I mean, to me, it' ; s no different than somebody here going, " ; Oh, I' ; m going to get some drive thru like fries or burger," ; and it' ; s like that stuff again, being fast food. It is what it is. It' ; s not seen as high, high, high end culinary, you know, art or anything. And that' ; s fine, too. Again, like, it' ; s great that we have these options. We get what we pay for and sometimes you just want something different. So you know, we' ; re I feel like we' ; re in this phase of our the West' ; s, America' ; s evolution of its palate, that there' ; s this segment of some of us Asians that are out there going like, " ; Really what' ; s really authentic?" ; Like, you' ; re just you' ; re holding the rest of us back and you' ; re kind of like being gatekeeping about the whole thing. And that is an issue that I' ; ve heard some restaurants have to deal with because they' ; re like, " ; What' ; s really authentic?" ; You know what? Like, where do you where do you draw the line? It' ; s kind of become a burden, if anything, you know? But at the same time, the trend is now that so many people are searching out the real thing, the authentic thing, you know, but it' ; s like, what? What is really the real thing? You know, so you see some of these restaurants in the last few years that open up, they' ; ll even put the word " ; street" ; in there in their name like, you know, I saw what was it like Thai? What was that place called like Ka-Tip? I think " ; ka-tip" ; is like the thing that holds sticky rice. It' ; s I think they say like " ; Thai Street Eats" ; or something like that. It' ; s either them or other one called Tanon, which " ; tanon" ; means " ; road" ; in Thai, which funny enough, because my name is Thanin and I had people writing me going, " ; Did you start a restaurant?" ; Like, " ; No, that' ; s Tanon, I' ; m Thanin, and that' ; s different." ; But anyway, I saw like a Korean Street Eats. I think Sabaidee labels themselves as like " ; Laos or Thai Street food." ; And so everyone' ; s trying to do the shortcut of authenticity now because it' ; s being searched out. Before is fusion because we were ready for the real thing yet. And it was like, " ; Oh, look, we' ; re trying something new." ; And now it' ; s like, whether we like it or not, the nature of social media, there' ; s so many skeptical people out there of everything. And again, whether we like it or not, we only trust the people we like, whether it' ; s factual or not. There' ; s yeah, it' ; s like it' ; s affected so many different things in the world now where we only trust the people we like. And so because of that, we want to go, " ; Oh, well, I only want the real thing." ; You know, and so but what' ; s real? Where you draw the line? |00:46:37| Brody And I mean, you' ; ve raised so many really interesting points that I think we should we should talk about a little bit more. First of all, earlier you were talking about the very expensive banh mi. Right? So in Dallas in particular, we have sort of a history of fine dining and sort of French influenced restaurants and things like that sort of high-end stuff with the white tablecloths. And then in, you know, the 70s and 80s, as we got more and more Asian immigrants and, you know, immigrants from other places, had a flourishing of, you know what, I guess we would call " ; mom and pop" ; you know, Vietnamese places, Chinese places and things like that. So. In this sort of conversation about authenticity, where do you think price point or sort of that that fine dining versus mom and pop, where does that fit in for you? |00:47:38| Viriyaki Oh, good question. Well, for one, you know, I think we all get what we pay for and sometimes, I think it is good that there are some things that just are expensive and or overpriced because sometimes you do want to go, " ; Hey, you know what? I kind of want to splurge something. It' ; s a special occasion." ; I went to a really, really expensive, overly priced restaurant called Nusr-Et. It' ; s owned by that guy, Salt Bae, right? He' ; s Turkish, right? Seeing him on social media, I was always like, curious, like, " ; What' ; s, what' ; s the food tastes like?" ; I knew it' ; s overpriced. I knew that' ; s what I was getting into. He' ; s selling like gold covered tomahawks. I mean, it' ; s over-the-top ridiculous. But, you know, I was like, " ; I still want to try it." ; I just, I' ; m so curious. And I didn' ; t care. So you go there, spent, you know, way more money than we obviously should have buying the food. But I didn' ; t mind because I' ; m of the expectation of one, I knew what I was getting into, but I like the fact that I could treat myself to something like that, you know? So in essence, that' ; s sort of like a thing with anything luxury, right? It' ; s like there is this joy of the fact that you can do it. Not to say it' ; s even necessarily smart or anything, but just sometimes it' ; s nice to go. " ; You know, what I' ; ve earned this for myself, it' ; s not practical, but that' ; s the joy of it." ; So these places that do- that aren' ; t charging like the price of whatever dish that' ; s cheap in the homeland, like they. I mean, they have to. It' ; s a different world where we' ; re not we' ; re not over there. We' ; re here. So the course, the price is going to be different. To expect it to be the same is, I don' ; t know, it' ; s just it' ; s just unrealistic. There was a Thai noodle place in town called Khao Noodle. He got rave reviews. I think it was named second best new restaurant in America by Bon Appétit magazine. Didn' ; t survive, ultimately the pandemic, but very highly reviewed place. I loved it. It was great. They would give you these small boats of handcrafted noodles. Like everything' ; s made from scratch. The chef Donny became like this media darling locally and you' ; d buy, you' ; d buy the noodles. And it was like something like five dollars a bowl. And it' ; s like, you know, basically like a couple of bites and it' ; s gone. Real small. And his whole thing was, " ; I want to try all these different noodles get a variety of stuff." ; It' ; s just like buying it on the streets of Thailand. Of course, the price point is much different. I didn' ; t mind. What I did hear from him and the other owners of the restaurant was that, you know, the Westerners are very accepting of it. They came in, they saw it as this cultural experience like, " ; Oh wow, look at this," ; trying all these different things. And the fact you had to eat so many dishes to kind of get full was kind of a fun experience for them. But the biggest pushback they got was from other Thai people who were like, " ; Oh my God, you' ; re too expensive. You know, like, it' ; s so cheap in Thailand." ; And so it' ; s just funny that we' ; re sort of now in this place of where we have this baggage of expectations now where these price points are anchored from the homeland. And to bring them over here and it' ; s different and they' ; re just sort of like unsupportive of it. You know, it' ; s...I know it' ; s interesting. |00:51:21| Brody Yeah, it' ; s difficult, it sounds like it' ; s difficult to navigate between the representation, you know, and sort of excitement at the representation and also the thoughts about authenticity and price and things like that. |00:51:38| Viriyaki You know what, I just thought of something. There was something similar to happened kind of like to that where when ramen, ramen restaurants were starting to come up in Dallas. And a lot of people I saw were going, " ; Wait, how much is it for a bowl of ramen? Ten, fifteen dollars. Are you kidding me? Like, I thought that was like, you know, like 50 cents for the ramen." ; And so they' ; re used to again, the anchored price point of the Momofuku Ando, like cheap packaged ramen. And so, what they don' ; t know is that' ; s what came after. But because they' ; re introduced to that first, they think that' ; s the real thing. Now you' ; re trying to give me this gourmet ramen. that' ; s not the real thing. How dare you? They feel they' ; re ripped off. But the, the packaged ramen was made because the process of ramen is very labor intensive, very time intensive. And so that all that process made this cheaper, quicker product, you know. So if you knew that- that what the real thing was before, you know, it' ; s like you' ; re kind of like, " ; Oh, that' ; s interesting. There' ; s this cheap alternative." ; Maybe some of those people would go, " ; Oh, that' ; s a bastardization of the real thing," ; but it was like the opposite where they experienced the fake thing first thought it was the real thing. And they' ; re, they' ; re offended that these people were, you know, ripping them off, essentially, with this overpriced version. But that was a real version all along, you know? You know, and kind of a similar situation is barbecue sauce. Some people think what makes something barbecue, you throw the sauce on there? Well, that' ; s not true. Actually, barbecue is marinated meat slowly cooked over an open flame. Because there' ; s Korean barbecue, Chinese barbecue. It' ; s way different from American barbecue, you know, but the barbecue sauce that we know it over here in the West, that' ; s the process of barbecue condensed into sauce form. So you have that shortcut, right? You know, so it' ; s kind of, kind of like that. Like you' ; re, they' ; re just anchored because of what they grew up with and then they find out something else. It' ; s not what they thought they were. And it can. It can kind of, you know, we' ; re stubborn people. We don' ; t, we don' ; t want to admit that we' ; re wrong. You know, so it' ; s just going back to the point of like price point. Yeah, it' ; s it' ; s a it' ; s a battle. And it' ; s like the thing that restaurants seem to keep- Asian restaurants- seem to keep having to educate their fellow Asians about and be like, " ; Hey, we got to be realistic here. We got rent. The cost of food' ; s different here. Cost of labor is different here. Like, if you want those prices from the homeland, you' ; re free to fly back over there. You get that stuff, but it ain' ; t happening here. Whether you like it or not." ; Like that' ; s just just the reality of it. You know that the you know, it' ; s almost like the cost of if you think about like pay overpaying Uber to bring food to your house. " ; Well, hey, we brought the flavors of the home here. So you' ; re going to have to pay a little extra because you' ; re not over there." ; That' ; s the that' ; s the convenience charge in this abstract way. |00:54:35| Brody That' ; s funny. So did your parents have a second restaurant then after the Marissa' ; s? |00:54:41| Viriyaki Correct, so they had Marissa' ; s. They sold it. And then my dad went to work for Ridgelea Country Club. Chef. He was a chef there. Which funny enough, he met two brothers there who were Thai. There were also chefs over there. And then later on, my parents made a fast food Chinese place in downtown Fort Worth. My aunt bumped into a lady who she said, " ; My husband' ; s from this area of Thailand," ; and my aunt was like, " ; Oh, my sister' ; s husband is from there." ; And through some talking and they' ; re like, " ; Maybe they know each other." ; And then just funny enough, it turns out they were like, that lady' ; s husband and my dad were childhood friends, like skinny dipping as little kids in Thailand. You know, like, I forgot how old, like super young. And so he literally like flies over like the next day, and he basically made this chain of fast food places, Chinese fast food. And they get to talking to and my dad' ; s like, " ; Hey, I' ; d like to open one here." ; And that' ; s what they did. And we had that for, I feel like eight years. |00:55:48| Brody What was it called? |00:55:49| Viriyaki It' ; s called Chao Phraya, which is a river in Thailand, even though it' ; s Chinese food. Which for those that actually knew what Chao Phraya meant, it was kind of confusing. " ; Like, Isn' ; t that a Thai river?" ; And they' ; re like, " ; Yeah, it' ; s because the owner' ; s Thai." ; So it' ; s kind of funny. Like every now and then you get somebody actually knew what the name meant. So yeah, they had that for a while until my dad had health issues and eventually they sold it. |00:56:11| Brody Okay. And you worked there as well? |00:56:14| Viriyaki Yeah. Yeah, that was that was my first job. So I actually worked there. And then eventually I worked there and I worked at Bank One. They soon got bought by JPMorgan Chase.So, I' ; d worked my two jobs. So there' ; s like those are like my first two jobs, and so I did a little bit of everything like cooking to, cashiering, scooping food. So it' ; s kind of like it, like so many other children of immigrants like we, you know, we couldn' ; t not work in the family restaurant, so it' ; s kind of forced upon us. And you know, I look back on it fondly now that we didn' ; t have like cell phones and cameras back then. So. But man, I wish I had a picture of me and my dad cooking back then. That would have been awesome. I try to ask my sister if she knew if we had any photos of my, our granddad' ; s butcher shop. I don' ; t think those exist too. Like that would have been so amazing to see. But yeah, I look back on it now. You know, you didn' ; t like it back then because it' ; s like you' ; re kind of forced into it. And you know, I think, I think a thing with, like a lot of Asian immigrants growing up, and this is sort of true of like any kid, we don' ; t look at our at our parents when we' ; re kids and it' ; s cool, right? Like, " ; Oh my God, I don' ; t want to do what they do. That' ; s, that' ; s lame." ; You know and with us, like growing up, a lot of us initially will have this phase because we' ; re being judged negatively by it. Like we push away our culture and we' ; re just like, " ; Oh, no, I want to do that. It' ; s embarrassing. I don' ; t want to do the family business." ; And then when you grow up, you sort of go, " ; Hey, you know what? That makes me unique and makes me special." ; And you embrace it. And that' ; s a major trend for a lot of children of immigrants, too. There was one girl I met who her mom owns Quoc Bao Bakery. And so she posted on this group on, hugely popular group on Facebook, called " ; Subtle Asian Traits." ; She had this tattoo that said " ; Banh Mi Princess." ; And she talked about how, when she was growing up, she was embarrassed that her mom made sandwiches. Right? And then she grew up. She' ; s like, " ; You know what? My mom was a single mom, who as an adult, went back to school earned her degree. Her sandwiches have been written about in publications like D Magazine. Just like, my mom' ; s amazing like, look at all she did for me" ; and I believe her sister, her sister. And so she went, got this tattoo to show her mom like, like, " ; You know what? I was looking at this all wrong. Your a badass." ; And now she embraces it. You know, I think that' ; s so cool, but that' ; s kind of just sort of the trajectory a lot of us are on where, you know, initially because we were judged on it, we didn' ; t really want to embrace it. It felt weird because we were in this kind of funny middle ground of like we' ; re Americans, but we' ; re not like the Americans, like the Caucasian Americans. And so we want to fit in. That' ; s why a lot of them will have these, you know, Americanized names like it' ; s it' ; s sort of funny. Like there' ; s memes and jokes about how there are so many " ; Kevin Nguyens" ; out there, you know, and they don' ; t have their, they don' ; t use their Asian name because they had to assimilate. You know, it' ; s like, " ; Oh, your name is, I don' ; t know. Huy. " ; Well, you' ; re going to be, you' ; re going to be Howard or something like that." ; So we had like my my sister, her Thai name is Sa, and they' ; re like, " ; You' ; re Marissa." ; My mom' ; s name Montatip..." ; You' ; re Mona." ; And it' ; s like me is like, no " ; You' ; re just Thanin." ; I never had like the American name, but I know some people who eventually reverted back to their Asian names. I know a Russian friend who she used to go by Jane, but now that things are, you know what they are, the climate, what they are, where they' ; re, much more, people are much more open. She' ; s like, " ; Hey, you know what? I' ; m not Jane anymore. I' ; m Yevgenia." ; It was like, " ; Oh, OK, you know, like, like, fuck it, I' ; m going to be who I am now." ; You know, and that' ; s kind of a cool thing, seeing that kind of happened. There' ; s a Korean girl I knew she was a, man what was her white name? I' ; m trying to remember. Well, either way, she used to be like, let' ; s say, Jennifer and then she' ; s like, " ; You know what? I' ; m going to my Korean name. I' ; m now Young Son." ; You know, like so. |01:00:40| Brody Well, I mean, it' ; s really interesting because I mean, it' ; s kind of similar to what you were saying earlier again about the adapting the recipes and the food that was served in the restaurant to the western palate. I mean, these names are people' ; s actual names, but they were adapted to be, you know, quote unquote Americanized. So. You know, you were growing up in the 80s and, you know, kids growing up today, it' ; s a much different climate. What do you think some of the key differences are and you know, and to sort of think about what, to you what does it mean to be an American? |01:01:23| Viriyaki Hmm. Man, it' ; s a good question. You know, I think as far as like just being an American, like, I would say that the more I travel around the world, the more I do appreciate America. Like it' ; s in every, every country has their issues, right? But like America? Like, it' ; s, it' ; s almost, it' ; s almost underrated in so many aspects. Funny enough, I joked with someone that I went to Italy and I saw the Arizona tea was $2.99 cents and I was like, " ; That' ; s the price of freedom." ; But yeah, I know, like America is awesome. There' ; s a, there' ; s a Laos friend of mine they' ; re, they' ; re dentists. They own like, I don' ; t know how many dental offices now, but they' ; re like loaded like crazy. We' ; re not close friends because, you know, I wish I was better friends. But we' ; re friends, anyway, they' ; re like loaded. And they' ; re from Laos. And I remember him posting about must have been Fourth of July or something. He goes, " ; Yeah, I came from Laos, but I' ; m proud. I' ; m more proud to say I' ; m an American because America, you study hard, you work hard. You could be whatever you want. And he basically did that. Him and his brother came over here and now this guy and his wife have, I don' ; t know, like nearly 10 dental offices. I don' ; t know what other businesses they have. I know they own, co-own, several restaurants, and they had like the biggest house I ever been in my life. And he credits you know, that to the opportunity that America afforded him, you know? And so to me, what it means to be American is like, this is a place where, you know, sounds so cliche, right? You can rise up from nothing. And I' ; ve seen that. I mean, there' ; s so many. Like, I' ; ve seen so many Vietnamese people who, they would come over here. Barely speak English and create businesses. You know, like they' ; ll just pool all there talents together, all their money, and they' ; ll do something through just grit and determination. And to them, it' ; s like, " ; Well, that' ; s the whole reason we came." ; And for some of us that grow up here, it' ; s very easy for us to forget the opportunities that are here because we' ; re like, it' ; s normal to us. It' ; s not normal for the people that came over here. And so, those of us that grew up within this system, we can kind of take it for granted, unfortunately, until someone later on points it out to us. There was, I was talking my friend about how, you know, there was there was some article about like, you know, Asians who are seen as the stereotype of, like, so smart, entrepreneurial. How come there aren' ; t that many, that many Asian CEOs and this and that, you know. And I thought that was interesting and I thought about- this is my theory. I could be wrong about this. But like they, a lot of them are like, they don' ; t want to necessarily be CEO for someone else they' ; re looking at as well. I want to run my own thing. I want to do my own thing. You know, so that can do spirit of " ; I' ; m crossing the ocean to come over here so I can have freedom in terms of, you know, life and business." ; So I think that might be part of it. That' ; s my theory anyway. But yeah, they' ; re so proactive and gung ho about it that they' ; re just constantly looking at it as, you know, this is an opportunity, and I' ; m here to take advantage of it, you know? So to me, what it means to be American is, is, is portrayed and like I' ; m reminded of it the most through immigrants. If anything, you know, it' ; s like there' ; s, you know, the whole thing of like, " ; we' ; re built on the backs of immigrants" ; and it' ; s true. It' ; s just true. You know, we just, for better or worse, like the people, people that are born here and grew up here, like we kind of, we kind of forget because it' ; s normal to us, you know, they have that perspective of coming from not having those opportunities and then going, " ; Oh, I' ; m going to take advantage of it over here." ; You know, so like my like my dad, I remember when I was like, five. Like, his car broke down. He just like " ; Oh I' ; m walking to work." ; You know, so to them it was like, there' ; s no complaining. We' ; re here to move forward. So I' ; m going to, I' ; m going to keep moving. |01:06:01| Brody That' ; s great. Well, speaking of starting your own thing, you have your own photography business. Can you tell me about sort of the turning points and what led you to starting that business? |01:06:15| Viriyaki Initially, I just like loved art. I was making art in high school. I wasn' ; t exactly sure what I was going to do. I knew I was going to be something visual. I went to college. I eventually decided I' ; m going to probably going into advertising. And while in that major, I had photography as the elective. I started liking that major way more than, or I' ; m sorry, I started liking that, the photography class way more than the major I was in. So to get into the major, which University of North Texas calls " ; Communication Design" ; so you' ; re designing like how to communicate with words and images, and it eventually would branch off into either graphic design or advertising. So to get into this major, I had to take five prerequisite classes- Drawing1 and 2, Design 1 and 2, Art Appreciation. Had to submit five pieces of art and I had to write an essay. I remember at the time, I think they said something like 300 something on average students would apply and maybe like 90 would get in. So I applied. I got in. I' ; m excited. " ; Oh, yeah I know what I' ; m doing with my life" ; because you know, you know, you' ; ll meet the college kid," ; It' ; s like I switched majors eight times and came back to the first one, and I don' ; t know what I' ; m going to do. I' ; m not sure what I like in life." ; So for me, I was excited- just the fact I even knew what I wanted. So I go in there and taking my classes, I get accepted. Taking more of the classes of the major. But while I was in photography what dawned on me was, " ; Man, I' ; m liking this way more than the, the, the major I initially took." ; But I always felt like two years just to get into this, get in as major. And I thought, " ; Oh man, like, should I switch?" ; I already spent two years of my life in this thing. And there was like an Arnold Schwarzenegger quote. I can' ; t remember exactly what it was, but he was talking about when he worked out. You talked about every little pain that he got from exercising. He, he loved it. In his own words. It' ; s going to sound gross. He goes, " ; Every time I get a pump, it' ; s like, I' ; m coming. So every time I' ; m lifting weights and doing a curl can imagine I' ; m just coming all day." ; It' ; s such a weird analogy, but anyway. The other part of the quote was whenever you do something and you, and to others, it' ; s, it' ; s hard or painful, but you like it, you found your calling. So while in photography class at UNT, I would be there like all day, like morning till night, developing photos. I mean, just long hours. But I was absolutely fascinated by it, just seeing the pictures develop and trying to perfect it. So to me, even as I was there all day, man, I loved every minute of it. I remember two classmates coming in right, right as they walked in the door. They stopped, they looked at each other and one person kind of elbowed the other and goes, " ; See, I told you Thanin would be here." ; And then it was like, kind of like, " ; Oh, that' ; s funny." ; Because I' ; d just be there all day, you know, I was just like, obsessed of it. So through being obsessed with it, it was just very evident to me. It' ; s like, " ; This is this is really what I really want to do with my life." ; And so I remember a turning point in my dedication to photography was we had an assignment in Black and White 1, and we were supposed to do a depth of field assignment, which means you' ; re, you have to shoot something where everything in the photo is all sharp and then shoot another thing where one thing is in focus, everything else blurred out. Shallow depth of field, right. Two pictures of each. So I remember doing my photos and I' ; m in the middle of developing the film. I see someone else' ; s photo. I don' ; t know whose photo it is. It' ; s drying on the rack. Black and white photo. It' ; s a picture of a dandelion on a little hill. The dandelion' ; s in focus. Everything else on that hill is just blurred out. Dreamy mess. And I see this photo and I think, " ; Oh, my God. That' ; s so amazing. Like, that' ; s so beautiful." ; And I go " ; My pictures suck. Like, I cannot compete with this photo. This photo was way better than mine." ; So I threw my film away. I was like, " ; I' ; m not even going to finish my assignment or that roll. I' ; m going to go reshoot everything." ; Seeing that photo gave me a benchmark. I went back out, reshot it, made an A. The teacher, you know, you turn in four finished photos, but you also were supposed to shoot entire role of 24. I would shoot a roll of 36 to go overboard. So I just had it in my mind that, you know what, if I can' ; t be better than the classmates, how am I going to survive in the real world, right? So for me, it was just like one thing I could control was my effort. So I was I was going to go, I' ; m going to give it a thousand percent. I' ; m going to be the guy that gives you more than you asked for. And so I felt like that was like my way to sort of separate myself from everyone that, you know. The one thing I have, you know, within my power was that and I will say that being an Asian photographer, it kind of helped out because you do have at least some bit of support from the community. It can kind of go for you and against you. You know, I' ; ve experienced it and I' ; ve heard it from other photographers of, let' ; s say, like my Vietnamese friends, that are photographers or Indian friends are photographers, that whenever the people who are from your homeland try to do business with you, there is this weirdness of like some of them are like, really supportive. But then you also get some that are sort of like dismissive of your value because you' ; re so close to them. You know, some of them feel like you' ; re not worth what you' ; re charging and they' ; re much more likely to pay, be willing to pay full price to a Caucasian than they are to you. You know, they just, just for whatever reason, we just devalue ourselves, and it almost goes back to that whole thing of like that restaurant, Ngon, where they' ; re having the banh mi and it costs like twice what it normally would cost. You know, where they' ; re like, " ; Oh, you' ; re not, you' ; re making it for white people or whatever." ; So I' ; ve had to deal with that in the photography world, you know. So I had a Thai friend. He made the comment like, " ; Oh man, I bet you get our business from the Thai community." ; I' ; m like, " ; Are you kidding me?" ; Like, it all comes from like mainly the Vietnamese community because the Thai people, they' ; re just like again, I guess just because we' ; re Thai, they just feel like, " ; Oh, I don' ; t know, can you do this price?" ; And was like, " ; Oh man, why do I have to deal with that?" ; But I hear that from, like I said, my Vietnamese friends. When they with other Vietnamese people. They feel like they' ; re so close they' ; ll be like, " ; Hey, give me a discount, you know, from the homeland." ; So for better or worse? You know, we had to deal with that stuff. But I will say just in general, as an Asian business owner, we do get that support. And just as a photographer myself, I feel like there was less competition to get business because there weren' ; t that many photographers within our community. Whereas I' ; ll see on the forums of Caucasian photographers, I have to in essence complete with other, you know, Caucasian photographers. They can get lost because of the sheer numbers of businesses out there, whereas I' ; m sort of niche among the community that I kind of luckily stand out, you know, and some, some of the Asian photographers they' ; ll shoot within that niche. Then they' ; ll go, " ; You know what? I' ; m tired of niche. I need to advertise to break out of this because I' ; ve shot or it' ; s a shoot within this community, and they want to break out." ; So which is sort of like similar to how the restaurants kind of operate too, where the general attitude was for us to survive, we got to appeal to the bigger audience out there, which is, you know, Caucasian, right? They make up 80 percent of America. I' ; m not sure my statistics, but you. You know, Caucasians are the dominant ethnicity in America. So to make sense, like business wise, they cater to them, you know? But I will say that now, especially now, there' ; s so many Asian Americans that if you wanted to just be within that niche like you could do pretty well. I think with most businesses, I would, I would assume anyway. |01:14:58| Brody Do you feel like there are times where being Asian or knowing about Asian customs and culture has been helpful to you in photography? |01:15:09| Viriyaki Yeah, I think so because sometimes those are legitimate concerns, some clients and they' ; ll express that where they' ; re like, " ; Yeah, I want someone who kind of understands and can predict and know what' ; s going to happen." ; So if you' ; ve shot it before, they' ; re much more willing to work for you. I will say, though, that even if you were a Caucasian and you' ; re an expert, they' ; d be fine with going with them too. Because I' ; ve heard that too, where there are times when maybe I' ; m booked already and I need to send them a friend and the friend might be Caucasian, and they' ; re like, and I' ; ll go, " ; Hey, this person just shot a lot of Vietnamese weddings and they' ; re amazing. You should go with them." ; And the client, the potential client will be like, " ; All right, cool. Sounds good." ; You know, so but it' ; s more of a knowledge thing than anything. But the shortcut is you' ; re from that ethnicity or you' ; re close to the ethnicity. So I' ; m going to assume that you know it already, you know, so because they don' ; t, they don' ; t know what people know, right? So it does. It does. It does help you out. I' ; ll say that. |01:16:08| Brody So like in a wedding situation, what are some examples of things that that are helpful to know? |01:16:13| Viriyaki Well, depending on the culture, of course, and every culture will have their own like differences of like the flow of the day and certain what I call " ; mini events." ; For instance, if you' ; re doing like a Chinese wedding, a lot of them will have these wedding games in the morning, where the groom essentially has to earn his way into the house to see the bride. So if you' ; ll be at the front door and they sort of like lovingly haze the guys before they can come in and they have to pay their way in. So some of the games I' ; ve seen are, yeah, some of them are just like intentionally like made to embarrass the guy. So I saw one where they had Saran Wrap, and if the guys had to put on lipstick and then kiss each other on the different sides of the Saran Wrap. There was another game where they made the guys eat random things and it' ; s like, this one' ; s like a tiny shot glass of oil. This is salt. This is something spicy. I saw one where they put, and these are weddings I shot, where they had to put female underwear on on the outside of their pants, and then they strapped an empty tissue box around their waist, that ping pong balls on them and had to twerk the ping pong balls out. It' ; s like one of the funniest things I' ; ve ever seen in my life. So they' ; ll do these games, but it' ; s kind of cool to like if you' ; ve kind of know the general flow, you can be prepared for things like that, And, like a lot of Asian weddings will have these table rounds where they go around each table. The oldest person will give a little speech, they' ; ll do a toast, will give them envelopes of money. You know, so instead of like a wedding registry, they' ; ll actually hand them envelopes of cash. And generally the custom is to at least cover your meal from the wedding. And usually, at the end, the bride and groom will wind up kind of making a little bit of money in a sense, once they pay off everything. So it' ; s kind of helps them in their new life together. But yes, it is mainly like a predictive thing, you know, so you can kind of know what' ; s going to happen and just be prepared for it and whether that' ; s like from a creative standpoint or a technical standpoint. |01:18:28| Brody How did you get into food photography? |01:18:32| Viriyaki So I had...well, besides my dad being a chef, I had two aunts who had restaurants. I remember approaching one aunt and just was like, " ; Hey, can I photograph your food?" ; I forgot. I only remember what made the me initially even want to shoot the food. I don' ; t know if it was even driven by like from like a business standpoint, but I asked this aunt to shoot some of her food. I figure, who else is going to let me, you know, get all this food free, right? So I shot for her so she could use. And then not long after that, someone else that knew my family needed food photos. And I think my mom was the one who was like, " ; Oh, my son can do that. Go hire him." ; You know? So she' ; s sort of like, my agent. It' ; s kind of funny. You know, so every now and then she' ; ll recommend some restaurant to me, and she' ; ll just half jokingly, but of course, that means half seriously be like, " ; I need a little referral for a referral kickback." ; Kind of seems to be like an Asian parent thing, asking her kids for money. So yeah, I don' ; t remember what really, really made me get into it at first. Or like, what was the catalyst for that? I honestly don' ; t remember. I mean, maybe it was just sort of just out of curiosity. I really don' ; t remember. |01:19:57| Brody But you' ; ve done a lot. |01:19:58| Viriyaki Oh yeah. |01:19:59| Brody Tell me about some of the most memorable food photography jobs that you' ; ve done. |01:20:03| Viriyaki Oh, man. You know, I remember, one of the first interesting things I did, or at least evolved from it was, there' ; s a local sushi place that wound up being in like a list for Travel and Leisure and a photo I shot for them want to be in there? So it was a great source of pride for me to go, " ; Oh man, I' ; m in Travel Leisure. It' ; s a major publication." ; Yeah. So getting to shoot anything that' ; s big is incredibly validating, right? And it' ; s is great for your portfolio. Can like tell people, right? All right, so you know, so you like in the last year, I got to shoot some stuff for Taco Bueno, a restaurant that Dirk Nowitzki and Headington, the people that own the Joule, the hotel are invested in called Tango Room. And so that was kind of cool being a huge Dallas Mavericks fan to go, " ; Yeah, I shot this restaurant Dirk co-owns." ; Like, it' ; s kind of cool. One of the, I have to say, one of the first or the first dish we shot there was this appetizer. It was like this caviar dish. It' ; s an appetizer. $250. If you bought this dish. It had like beluga caviar and we' ; re just like, you know and luckily we shoot it, we got to eat it. Yeah, so that was great. And also, I got to shoot for Bonchon, the Korean fried chicken chain. So I shot for Red Bull before. Actually not their drinks, but one of their cliff diving competition, which, by the way, not many people know Red Bull is a Thai invention. Not many people know that. I have an interesting story about that. But yeah, so it' ; s just it' ; s just cool and validating just to have like some major company, you know, has the option to choose anyone. They choose you. It' ; s, it' ; s awesome. And of course, even if you shoot like the smaller restaurants to shoot it and then get to just eat free food, like that' ; s amazing. It' ; s a theory of mind. Even if you' ; re rich, like free food, like a huge thrill. You know, I' ; m not rich. I can' ; t, I can' ; t confirm, but I would assume, like, " ; Oh, free food, it' ; s amazing." ; I' ; m assuming Jeff Bezos, if you' ; re like, " ; Hey, you want, you want free lobster?" ; He' ; d be like, " ; Hell, yeah. You know?" ; |01:22:11| Brody So when you' ; re photographing food, what are the biggest things to remember or what do you what are you trying to do? What are you trying to aspire to? |01:22:20| Viriyaki Well, for me, shooting food, I' ; m usually trying to look at like the texture of the food and how to emphasize the texture. So there' ; s a, there' ; s like a saying that I came up with where it' ; s called. I say use light like an adjective. So when what I mean by that, is like what I want to describe, this person, thing, place. And a lot of it' ; s going to be crafted by the mood through the lighting. And so when I' ; m shooting for that, I' ; m usually trying to look at like, how can I emphasize this texture in an interesting way to make it look like they give the volume or just show like the moistness of it? Or maybe it' ; s like the heat, you know, with the steam. Sometimes the food needs a little bit of work. So, you know, we kind of take it upon ourselves to do the styling. And if the budget allows for it, you have a stylist there to kind of help you out and make it better than what I could do, of course. So most of the time, I' ; m trying to evoke a mood, you know, emotion, right? Which then hopefully entices people to want to go out and try that food that I' ; m trying to, like, essentially advertise for the business. Whenever I look at the food, I' ; m usually trying to like. go, " ; What' ; s the most optimal angle?" ; Sometimes you have to ask the chef, like " ; Which, what are you looking at? You know, like what are you trying to do with this dish?" ; So I think it' ; s interesting that with food, where I' ; m essentially reinterpreting someone else' ; s art, you know, I' ; m like, I' ; m like the translator, you know, until someone actually goes there and eats it, you know, because their art is the interesting about culinary art is, it' ; s a fleeting thing because unlike like a Vermeer painting, they make that art is for it to be optimal, you got to eat it basically right away, right there, you know? And then they got to redo it, you know, so that' ; s like the part of the fun and the challenge of it is that it is fleeting. And so I' ; m there to sort of capture it in its best literally and figuratively the best light to then entice other people to go, " ; This is art that you need to come consume yourself" ; you know, and hopefully it translates you, well, my translation. Yeah. So I think that' ; s interesting, you know? And again, it goes back to the whole collaborative nature of both art forms. |01:24:36| Brody Yeah, that' ; s really interesting. I' ; m going to go back in time a little bit to...You mentioned you went to UNT and studied there? What was it like to be in college during, during that time period? Were there are a lot of Asian students, where there are a lot of Thai students? And you know, what was that? What did it feel like? |01:25:05| Viriyaki Well, I' ; ll say this not too many Asian art students. Your parents will put up a fight. I' ; ll say that Asian parents are very practical. So when they if you tell them I' ; m going to be in any kind of art major, they' ; re the number one thing they' ; re going to go, " ; How are you going to live? How are you going to survive? You' ; re not going to make any money." ; Funny enough, I just saw on the internet this viral video of this girl where her parents were...She wanted to do something I think, like in like graphic design. I forgot something art related. And she' ; s crying in this video. And the parents are like, " ; You can' ; t, you can' ; t study that basically." ; And then the mom is being very insulting to the daughter, saying, " ; You' ; re not even good-looking enough to get a rich man." ; And this and that. And so in this post, all these Asians are just sort of like, " ; Yeah, I can relate, man" ; . The Asian parents, like, they' ; re going to want you to take like a more, you know, quote unquote normal job. And I had that kind of pushback, too. Luckily, not from my parents, but everyone around my, my parents. So my mom, she had four brothers. Three of them were successful. The one wasn' ; t, but three of them were very successful. One of them was like a general in the Thai army, another one was a lawyer. Another one was a chief of police in one of the districts in Bangkok. And so those three, there were all wealthy, like incredibly wealthy. They had maids that lived at them, huge houses. Unfortunately, mistresses. I mean, it was like a movie. They lived the life. Right? So I remember the police officer uncle, he was like lecturing my mom, going, " ; Oh, tell him not to draw so much. He' ; s not going to make any money. Make him be a lawyer or a doctor or whatever." ; You know. I mean, so to me, it' ; s incredibly validating that I, you know, get to make six figures doing what I love, you know, so I it' ; s like I was kind of like, I wouldn' ; t say it to him and be rude, but it' ; s kind of really like yells, I want to stick it to you, you know? So to be able actually do that, my mom is incredibly proud and she just always looked at as like, you know, when people would ask her about or talk to her about, you know, what I was studying. She' ; s kind of like, that' ; s what he loves, you know? And also because I paid my own way through college, working for my parents and working for the bank. You know, because of that, with art being expensive, it is me, me, me, me paying my own way. You know, they didn' ; t really have as much to say because I supported myself. Maybe you would have been different if they had to pay for all the expensive like Prisma colors and charcoal and all that stuff. But, you know, I guess that' ; s sort of like the Asian spirit of like, I' ; m going to do this and persevering like I took it upon myself to go, " ; I' ; m going to make this work and make this happen by myself." ; My family would, they would go on vacations without me. I would. I would go on vacation like, I don' ; t know if I want to spend that money because that could be a new lens. So I was thinking big picture all the time and they would go to like Thailand without me, and I would just hang back so I could just save more money. So I was thinking like big picture, stockpile more equipment so I can move up. And then later on in my adult life, I would get paid to travel. You know, so like, you know, free vacations, essentially. And so I feel like, like like I won, you know, like I, I invested in myself. I took the chance and it really paid off. You know, so it' ; s, it' ; s awesome looking back on it now and how fulfilling my career has been. All of people I' ; ve met and all the places I' ; ve gotten to go, so I' ; ve gotten the go on, you know, like I remember, right before Corona 2020, I went to shoot a wedding in New Zealand and I went to Thailand, Japan, then I shot in Paris for like a proposal, you know, and and later that year, I was supposed to shoot in Mexico twice. Wedding in Italy. Hawaii that particular year. And you know, Corona kind of took it away. But like I mean, I had some years where I' ; d go to like three or four countries every year and a multiple states within the year. You know, so to even go to any one place is like such a thrill and validation of your skill, you know? And I was like averaging like multiple international trips a year. And so I really felt like man, like proud of myself that I. You know, took that risk and it all paid off. |01:29:49| Brody It' ; s incredible. What is the Thai community like in North Texas today? |01:30:00| Viriyaki Oh, you know what, I was going to mention something. You' ; re asking about the college thing. Go back to it real quick about how there aren' ; t that many Asians in my major. I' ; ll say this. I would meet other Asians or run across other Asians at UNT, but because I look a little almost like I' ; m Hispanic. I think it' ; s because my eyelids folded and I have the high nasal bridge because my mom luckily had the nice nasal bridge. They would walk by speaking Thai, and there was a part of me wants to be like, " ; I' ; m Thai too." ; But they wouldn' ; t think I' ; m Thai. It' ; s kind of funny. Yeah. Oh gosh, there' ; s something else I was going to mention about. You' ; re asking me about my experience in college. Oh, I will say this. When I was a UNT, we would learn all of the a lot of the technical stuff, but they didn' ; t teach you about business and, you know, not that knock on them. But this is just in general. You don' ; t learn about business, you don' ; t learn about the interpersonal stuff. So you learn the core basics of lighting, technical, how to use a camera. But for you to survive and make a career out of it, that wasn' ; t really a thing they taught. At least not then. I don' ; t know how it is now. So that was something you had to sort of go out there, get your reps and learn on your own. And that was...it took a long time. I completely think that if the internet wasn' ; t around and didn' ; t grow, you know, along with me, I don' ; t know if I' ; d have the career I have now because so much of like having a career depends on networking, getting yourself out there, because the old traditional ways of getting yourself out there, I mean it costed of money. So now if you' ; re somebody who' ; s passionate and has vision, you can easily find knowledge now, like online. When I, after college, I remember going to libraries looking, specifically looking for photography books of studio lighting to get smarter and up my skills, and the books would be like from the 80s, you know, or there wouldn' ; t even be there at all. It' ; s like it' ; s so difficult. So the landscape of the internet opened everything up with everyone trying to sell their knowledge and then the free knowledge and YouTube out there. You know, I look at YouTube as like, you know, today' ; s library. I mean, there' ; s so many things that I' ; ve learned from. I remember we were playing badminton and I found some Korean badminton lessons in there. I don' ; t know what they' ; re saying, but I watched a guy and I kind of knew how to do some of the basic moves. You know what I mean, so it' ; s been an interesting journey as far as how much information is out there now, so that anyone that' ; s really, really looking for it, they can they can learn it. They don' ; t necessarily need that curated formal education. It is helpful, but you don' ; t necessarily need it, need it. And then also just technology, too, as it is in a place now that there' ; s stuff I could do now, I could never do back then. I mean, like the Chinese lighting companies that created alternative gear, that was really expensive over here. They, they innovated. They did. They weren' ; t. I mean, there were some that were just cheap copies, but there are some that were cheaper and better than what was, you know, the popular stuff to buy. So, for instance, one of the things to do studio lighting was you had to have this trigger that would go on your camera would send a radio trigger to a receiver, the receiver plug into the light. So when you shot the photo, it would send a signal set the light off. So it used to be $189 for the trigger. Another $189 for the receiver. So you' ; re looking at almost $400 just to have light that popped off wirelessly. And then there was this company that came out and it was like, " ; Oh yeah, just get this receiver or this trigger." ; And it' ; s like 70 bucks and you' ; d see these Chinese companies that eventually came in. It was like some of them were as cheap as like ten, fifteen dollars. And, you know, and then some came in and that was just to pop the light off. And then these other Chinese companies like, well, not only can you pop the light off, you can turn the sound on off. There' ; s a modeling light they has a LED in the light. You could turn that off. You could do different channels. Different groupings. Change the power independently of all those. You could do...they mentioned a, it' ; s like the sound. Whenever you take a picture, it' ; ll have this beeping noise you could turn out. So they had all these options, you could do it and it was cheaper. And again, just kind of like anyone that' ; s really, really trying to improve and is hungry for that knowledge. Well, now with the price point being lower, it kind of leveled the playing field. So, you know, at least in the photography community, I saw a lot of older established photographers are sort of bitter about that like, " ; Oh my God, these young people come in, they' ; re taking away my business." ; And they felt like just because they were there first, they were entitled to business. But you know, the nature of business is it' ; s it' ; s it' ; s kind of like evolution, you know, it' ; s survival of the fittest. So if you' ; re not out there trying to be different, you' ; re not out there trying to like, make relationships with people, you' ; re not out there, you know, moving with the trends, you will get left behind, you know, and people are going to move on. And so the people who are truly visionaries, they' ; ll stick around and the people that are from the old school, being sort of gatekeeping about the industry, you know, they had to move on to other things, you know? I had a friend who she would say, " ; Oh, I' ; ve been shooting, I' ; ve been doing this for. I forgot how many years leading up to three decades, and I think this is the best way." ; And she' ; d lament to me like, " ; Oh man, how come I get all the boring clients? Like your clients so much more fun?" ; Oh you' ; re stuck in the past? And if I do anything that' ; s modern and you kind of scoff, " ; Oh, I don' ; t know about that." ; Well, what you put out, your portfolio is going to draw certain clients to you, right? So, you know, you got to you got to evolve. But yeah, so the technology with the internet and just the lighting gear like, I was sort of in a perfect spot growing up. I mean, I almost wish I was, you know, coming into it now because I would save so much money and there' ; s so much advancement now. But it definitely helped. It was this, you know, I thought about that a lot of how like, " ; Man, I wish I was more successful earlier on." ; I' ; d have like so much more money because back then, it' ; s like just trying to build your portfolio and buying so much equipment that then would get outdated. And then you' ; d find a better option, like a year later, two years later, months later, maybe. And you' ; re like, " ; Oh man, I wasted that. I don' ; t even use it anymore, you know," ; I' ; d have so much money saved. |01:37:03| Brody Now the technologies are expensive. |01:37:05| Viriyaki Yeah, it moves fast. So anyway, sorry, what was your question? |01:37:09| Brody Well, we were just talking about the Thai community in general. And sort of another question I had was during the time that you were in college and when you were growing up, how close was that community and what were the sort of the ways that the community socialized or, you know, or got together? |01:37:29| Viriyaki So I, around college time, I really didn' ; t know that many Thai people. I was living in Fort Worth. I don' ; t believe the Thai community around there was like, there is that many people. I usually wound up meeting, mainly Vietnamese or Laos people over there. It wasn' ; t till I was in Dallas that I started meeting more time people. Right after college, I remember. You know, there' ; s a there' ; s a lot of Thai young adults would be over here and one of the reason they could really stay was they were in school and they' ; d work for these restaurants. So on like Friday or Saturday nights like these restaurants would close and essentially they' ; d throw these parties with these young Thai adults would gather like 20, 30, 40 people in the restaurant and they' ; d serve food on like Styrofoam plates so they don' ; t have to wash them. Some other Thai people would bring in their instruments and start playing live music. So they, you know, we kind of create our own little scene there among our, you know, little cliques hanging out like it we' ; d be over this side of the bar and the other clique would be over there. And so we were just, you know, we kind of took it upon ourselves to cater to our needs, which is sort of, I think, a theme among a lot of immigrants, you know, and it' ; s created its own ecosystem of businesses of making the comforts of home over here. The Thai community itself, I felt like they, and I think it' ; s a generational thing. I think I think that the Thai American kids that grow up now are much more assimilated than the ones I met when I was growing up. And because of that, I felt like the people I was around, when I was in my early 20s, I felt like they weren' ; t as adventurous, or as outgoing as some of the kids are now. What, what I mean by outgoing is they kind of stuck to their other Thai friends. And I don' ; t know if that was a language barrier or cultural barrier. But I see, you know, the kids of today, they' ; re much more open to being around all these other people. Different types of Asian, Caucasians? Not to say that that group back then wasn' ; t, but I didn' ; t see it as nearly as much because I remember just as a small sample example, there was this thing called the Dragon Boat Race in Irving, Las Colinas, actually. And. I remember seeing an entire basically entire team of like, I think, Taiwanese people or Chinese. There was another team that' ; s made up of like 90 percent who were Vietnamese, and I would ask my Thai friends like, " ; Hey, you want to go do this thing like this dragon boat race?" ; Where I' ; d go, " ; Hey, you want to do a mud run?" ; And they' ; re just like, " ; I don' ; t want to get dirty or, you know, like, who else is going?" ; And it' ; s just, I just remember feeling a little frustrated. I' ; m like, " ; Why are we so lame?" ; I know if sounds terrible, putting down my people? But it just seemed like the Vietnamese community is so much cooler. Like they were just so much more open to trying all this stuff, you know? I don' ; t know what made them so reserved, but I feel like the younger generation now growing up is much more open to doing so much more things are much more adventures of getting out there, trying out of stuff. So the community is, you know, it' ; s kind of a small world, I guess. It seems like so many, at least the Thai people, so many just kind of know each other for better or worse, which could lead to, you know, just like needless drama. You know, so which I suspect that' ; s kind of a thing with all the all the minorities. It' ; s just it. Just it is what it is. |01:41:24| Brody I' ; m going to go backwards one more time, which is you mentioned when you were growing up, when you were quite young, that in Haltom City, there were the couple of other Thai families and one of them had the movie store. And one of them had the meatball factory. Can you tell me more about those two businesses? |01:41:43| Viriyaki You know, the movie store people, we don' ; t really keep in touch with them that much. I don' ; t have much to really explain further about them, unfortunately. I will say the meatball factory people, they were close friends of my parents. They eventually sold their factory to I believe a Laos family. And last year, funny enough, I wound up shooting photos for the website of that meatball company. And I asked them, like, " ; Hey, so did you guys buy this company from a man named man named Som" ; And they' ; re like, Yeah, yeah." ; I was like, " ; Wow, so funny." ; I told them how I grew up next to it. And so Somsak he when he had a second location for his factory, the one that was near my parents' ; restaurant was the first one. He then moved somewhere else, got a bigger factory. Next door, was a dry cleaning place. So his, his the owner of that dry cleaning place was this old man who he had no family. And was, " ; Oh I' ; m going to retire, you want to buy my business?" ; So he bought it and then he transitioned into dry cleaning. Somsak did. And so I believe those dry cleaning plants are still around. I think so. I know his son, his oldest son, he had two sons and a daughter, the oldest son. His Thai nickname is " ; luk chin" ; which essentially translates to " ; meatball." ; So just like, " ; Hey, Meatball!" ; Funny, his real name is Bobby. But he keeps in touch with my sister because he lives in Austin. My sister lives near Austin. So they still keep in touch. My sister is the one that, if anything is true historian. She keeps in touch with everyone. Much more social. I' ; m just working all the time. So yeah, he sold the meatball company off and man and honestly, I think they make the best Asian meatballs around. So I' ; m glad it' ; s still going on. There' ; s a few products they don' ; t make anymore, which I' ; m sad. But man, he had like what they call " ; heaven beef" ; Nua Sawan. And it was like, it was like the best. And I don' ; t think they make that anymore. It' ; s too bad. Now talk about it, I need to call my sister, see if they can give me the recipe. Maybe he' ; ll, maybe he' ; ll let me make it. If there' ; s one thing I' ; m really sad about my dad passing away, you know, besides, him passing away, of course, I wish he was around now to see how further the western palate has gone, how much more open because, you know, like just stuff like selling the beef jerky, it' ; d be so much easier to get out there. People are so much more receptive. I mean, just like social media and online presence like to sell your food items, it' ; s, you know, ghost kitchens. There' ; s so much we could have done instead of just being stuck at the brick and mortar place and hoping people stumble upon you. You know, I wish my dad was around to see that because it would have been really interesting for him to see and also for us to like, just take advantage, then just have to have fun, especially like just experimenting, you know, with different recipes and whatnot. You know, I wish he was around to do that. I see some of the younger Asians doing that with their parents now where they' ; re helping their parents do this social media side of things and taking the orders and the the mom, usually it' ; s the mom that' ; s making like the food, you know? And I' ; ve bought some too, where it' ; s like you go to their Instagram and you' ; re like, you' ; ll see them post the prices and items they have and you do, they' ; ll have like a little pick up spot, you Venmo them, you know, so it' ; s it' ; s cool to see that out there, that that' ; s going on, and it' ; s evolved to that. Because like, sometimes like restaurants themselves, like the logistics of restaurants, they can only make certain things because it' ; ll keep well. But then for you to actually like, someone will make something special and it' ; s being made this particular day, putting in your order now. So now they know exactly what to make, like. It opens of doors and makes some interesting food that you normally couldn' ; t get. Right, right. So I wish my dad was around because then he could have done more than what the restaurant usually offered. |01:45:54| Brody Now that really has changed. The whole landscape has changed and evolved. Well, I just want to say thank you for sitting for this interview and ask you if there' ; s anything that I didn' ; t ask you that you want to include. |01:46:11| Viriyaki Hmm. I' ; m drawing a blank right now, but a bet like later tonight, I' ; ll think of something. Let me think about this. What aspect have we not even touched on? I mean, maybe might have covered everything. Let me think. Oh, you know what, I' ; ll at least do this. That Red Bull story. So I remember I was having dinner with my parents many, many, many years ago. My father was still alive. And I was at dinner with my parents and there were a lot of people their age who were at the restaurant with them. And there was one gentleman there. He talked about how he knew the inventor of Red Bull and- in Thailand. And the inventor says to this guy, " ; Hey, I made this drink. I' ; m selling it in bottles. Door to door." ; So the Red Bull in Thailand is different from what we know it here because it' ; s non-carbonated and it' ; s in these short, stubby bottles. They' ; re like dark brown, almost like a A-1 sauce bottle, but it' ; s shorter. And he was kind of like, " ; You' ; re selling drinks door to door?" ; Like what? Like he said, " ; I don' ; t know, man, is this going to work?" ; So he passes it up and he' ; s like, " ; I' ; m an idiot. I' ; d be so rich now if I went sold those drinks to him." ; You know, the story goes that there was an Austrian businessman, I believe, on a trip to Japan drank this thing called Krating Daeng, which means Red Bull. And he' ; s like, " ; Oh, I got a little bit of pep." ; And if I' ; m correct, the story is that he and the original inventor, he came and bought like half the company, both like 49 percent shareholders and the Austrian, Austrian businessman brought it over into the west, dominates the landscape of energy drinks, right? So when I shot the Red Bull Cliff Diving Championship and Possum Kingdom Lake, I' ; m kind of marveling at because I' ; m like thinking back to that story going, " ; This guy was selling this drink door to door. And now all the way here, with all these people here jumping off a cliff, you know, like Red Bull merch every day, you know, like multibillion dollar company." ; Like, it' ; s kind of amazing, you know? And even though maybe that guy isn' ; t here, like that' ; s sort of like. I guess a good parallel, just Asians coming over and finding their own space within America. To see that dream come over, and it has its own history in place here too, you know, and to be accepted, you know, because like before Red Bull, like, what energy drink did we have, right? You know, so it' ; s kind of interesting thinking about the evolution of that. As a parallel with the rest of our cuisine, too. |01:49:07| Brody Yeah, that' ; s really, really interesting. Thank you for sharing that story. Well, again, thank you so much. This has been so interesting and I really am thankful to have your story included in this. |01:49:18| Viriyaki Thank you. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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“Interview with Thanin Viriyaki, April 19, 2022,” Digging In Dallas, accessed May 4, 2024, https://diggingindallas.org/items/show/26.