 is Mark Shklov, and welcome to Law Across the Sea. I'm the host of Law Across the Sea. And today we had a little bit of a delay getting into the studio here at Think Tech. We got locked out. Keys did not work. The keys to the door would not turn. So we were a little bit delayed. But maybe that's good, because sometimes being on time doesn't give you time to think about what you're going to talk about. And today we're going to talk, the theme of our program is soul of the law. And it's spelled a little bit differently. Soul of the law can be two things. It can be a place in Korea, a city, capital, very vibrant place to live. And it can also be a spirit, soul, a different spelling, perhaps. But you have two meanings. And we're going to talk a little bit about both meanings here today. My guests are Elizabeth Lee and John Rhee. They are lawyers in Honolulu. Welcome. Good to see you both. Thank you, Mike. It's great to be here. Elizabeth is a lawyer with Good Salanderson, Quinn and Stifle. John is a lawyer with Alston Hunt, Floyd and Ng. Both have been practicing here in Hawaii for a while. And the soul of the law theme, that's my title. I'll take the blame for it, comes up because you were both born in Korea and you lived there for a while. But then as young children, you moved to the United States and ultimately became attorneys practicing here in Hawaii. I want to learn a little bit about your background and what the culture of Korea has meant to your growing up and becoming lawyers and your practice of law. In my mind, I think your background, where you were born, is something you keep with you all your life. And even though you may pass the bar and have all these degrees, really the depth of your culture and your knowledge of your background and your history, you carry that with you everywhere. And you talk to people about it. You talk to clients and other attorneys. And it's meaningful. It's sometimes more meaningful than that law degree. People don't ask you about the law degree on the wall, but they do ask you about your background, your culture, where you were born. So I'd like you to both tell me a little bit about yourselves, where you were born, how you came to the United States, and became lawyers. Actually, it's interesting your introductory comments because my father would say while I was growing up, if you died 1,000 times, you would be reborn Korean 1,000 times. You can't change that. So I think you're right. So my family immigrated to Hawaii when I was seven. And primarily, I think their reason for coming here was for education because my parents wanted us to have a lot of different educational opportunities. And my father had spent a few years at East West Center at UH. And so he got to know Hawaii. And I think he fell in love with Hawaii. And he thought, OK, this would be a good place. And it just happened that at that time, the immigration policies were such that we had a great-granduncle who could sponsor us, our family, to come. And so that's how we came to be here. And piggybacking off of Elizabeth's comments, I think that first wave entailed largely educated professionals because there were certain preferences in the immigration laws. So my parents, probably in a similar fashion, immigrated over here. We all immigrated to the East Coast when I was about 3 and 1 half, was raised on the East Coast. And we found our way. My wife and I and our daughter found our way here about five years ago. And that was largely because of our respective careers. Got a position at Austin Hunt. And my wife is teaching at UH Manoa. But Korean-ness, I think, is certainly very embedded in our identities, in our cultures. And I think it seeps into our careers probably in varying fashions. For me, it's certainly a more personal aspect of my life than in a day-to-day work environment. Not many of my clients are Korean. And my Korean right now is probably a little worse than my daughter's. But it's still a large part of my identity. And I'm sure Elizabeth can elaborate in terms of the intersection of Korean-ness and her career. But you were born in Korea. I was. Where were you born? I was born in Seoul. And were you also born in? No, actually, our family is from Cheongju, which is about an hour and a half outside of Seoul. It's more of a suburb. And my grandparents had a farm. Shigol means the countryside. Shigol? Shigol. And so we spent a lot of time in the countryside. And my father tells stories of how he would have to walk three miles in the snow to get to school from the farm. And they're true. Well, you know, and I like what you talk about your father very much because I had the same experience. My father was born in China and came to Canada. And that's where I was born, eventually. But he did share that background. So in your background, education. I mean, I hear that. And I think we'll talk more about that. But I hear education as being kind of the driving force in bringing you here. So my father was a university professor in economics in Korea at Cheongju University. So he was well aware of the education opportunities, both growing up through your primary schooling, middle school, high school, and then just the rigors of getting into a university. And I think there are probably more opportunities now and more options. But back then, I don't think there were that many university options. And so comparing that to the universities in the US, I think that, well, let's give our children that opportunity. And would you say that's like a Korean ideal? Is this giving the children and all children? Right. I think certainly in many Asian cultures, children come first in the family. My husband loves to say how he's the low man on the total and I have a son who's 14. And I think education and school issues, schooling, that, I mean, that's priority. I mean, that takes priority. And that's something I hear now that culturally Korean and that's something you currently still practice in your own American life, OK? Now, John, you said you landed on the East Coast. I did, yes. OK, where on the East Coast? I grew up largely in New Jersey. OK, all right. That's why I detect that accent, that New Jersey accent. So what are you talking about? So yeah, and you both speak some Korean. You're fluent, Elizabeth, as I understand. Fairly fluent, yes. And do you have much occasion to continue to use the Korean language or? Well, when I meet prospective clients from Korea or Korea-based companies, I think even though their English is very good, many of the Korean business folks in Korea were educated in the US or have some education. So their English is very good. And growing up from, I think, kindergarteners today go to English in Korea. Right. They're called hagwons. And it's like a study, like a Kaplan kind of place. So their English is very good. I think when I meet Korean business folks, potential clients, I speak to them in Korean out of respect. It's a show of respect. I think if I were to just speak English and be very Western and say, hey, Mark, how are you? Good to meet you. I think I might come across a little rude and maybe kind of arrogant. So as a sign of respect, I will abide by the Korean customs that they're used to in Korea. I think they appreciate that. And John, your practice, you said you mostly don't deal with Korean clients. That's right. But how does that affect, what do you bring to those relationships from Korea in your mind? Well, I might have to lie down and catch for this one. I think that it affects our identity and everything that we do so that when the two biggest examples that come to mind would be those are interactions on behalf of the HSBA, Hawaii State Bar Association and the Seoul Bar Association so that there are those times when we get together as attorneys, as people who are just interested in these issues, and get to meet Korean attorneys. So it doesn't necessarily mean clients and business per se. But as we all probably know, we're in a line of work that's based on relationships. And even if, let's say, I'm not exactly fluent, a certain core knowledge of culture, of our respective cultures and histories and countries does go a long way and does help. And let me ask you, just from your Korean background, if it's true, is there a reason you became attorneys that is Korean-based or might have influenced you culturally from Korea? I'll say this. The Re-Family Dining Room Table was not the breeding ground for litigators because it was pretty conservative. We were pretty quiet. So this is not, and I'm certainly not blaming my parents or anything for that, but does culture have, did it affect me? I think it affected not necessarily my litigation skills, but my appreciation for, let's say, law and its effect on society. Because we all immigrated at a time when Korea was still, let's say, a military dictatorship. It was a market democracy was on its way. But this was a test case for that transition towards a civil society. And my parents and I didn't necessarily talk about it a lot, but certainly it was on my mind growing up in this civic engagement and how law has an impact on society. But you, Elizabeth, what John says is that this may not have been verbalized, but there's something culturally and in your background that may have made law something you thought about. I think for me, my response is not as intellectual as John's. I have two points. I mean, one, in Korean language and the vocabulary, many of the professions end with the syllable, sa. So it's pyeonho sa, that's attorney. Eusea is doctor. Okay, I'm drawing a blank now, but, you know, so those are the favorite professions. There's a professional degrees, right? Doctor, lawyer, professor, and actually, moksa, which is pastor, because, you know, there were spet pastors. So that was stressed in our family. And yeah, you want to, right, exactly have a profession that ends with that. And so practically speaking, I mean, growing up, even though I grew up here in the US, I didn't know you could be a chef. I didn't know that you could have a career as a salesperson. I didn't know there was such thing as a school nurse. You know, those are all things that I would have loved to, you know, marketing, you know, be a marketing person. For me, it was either you were gonna go into law or medicine, and my math skills weren't good enough. So, you know, but sort of similar to what John was saying, though, but once I decided, and I decided early on, like I think in middle school that I wanted to be a lawyer, I think that experiencing some prejudice, some inequality, some of the issues that we face as immigrants, I think that affected me in terms of, you know, the advocacy aspect of being a lawyer and knowing things that the average person may not know about one's rights. I think that probably played a big factor. Can I just add, I agree with you so much in terms of the explicit and maybe implicit expectations of parents, because you're right. I mean, it's doctors, lawyers, professors, and that goes hand in hand with this emphasis on education and trying to achieve. I don't see many, like recently, when Aziz Ansari and Allen Yang, when an Emmy, Allen Yang, except in speech, said, you know, Asian parents out there, if you could give your children fewer violins and more cameras, you know, it was quite telling. I think that, I think our generation would probably tell our kids to be try being an entrepreneur. But I don't think our parents would have told us, you know, go ahead in the garage and tinker with whatever, you know. It's down to the lawyers. Well, and I hear that comes from both of you as a perhaps a Korean cultural push from your parents. And I wanna talk a little bit after our break about where we go from there, where you go from there, and what your thoughts are about Korea today, okay? Okay. So we'll take a brief break and then come back with Elizabeth and John. Hello, my name is Crystal. Let me tell you my talk show, I'm all about health. It's healthy to talk about sex. It's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about. It's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it. 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You can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m., where we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs. So please tune in and aloha and thanks for watching. Well, we are back with Law Across the Sea, and our program is Soul of Law, and we have Elizabeth Lee and John Rhee, talking about, well, growing up Korean in a way, although that wasn't really our theme, but a lot of it does play into being attorneys, right? I mean, that Korean cultural background, the education, the push for education, and the saw. I want you, I mean, I want my daughter, I want my son to be these esteemed professionals who have that last part of the title that in Korean is so important, and I see how that has formed your present beliefs, also about where you go forward with your own families. And just before we go into investment from Korea, how has that, how have you reacted to that going forward with your own children? How does the Korean culture play into that, or what part do you take and leave behind, or what part do you emphasize? Well, I think people wonder why that LPGA is dominated by Korean female golfers. And I think that the simple answer is, they work very hard. I mean, the work ethic, you can't beat that. I remember my first job at a law school, I was with a firm in Seattle, and back then we would still do research with real books in the library. And the library was right outside the senior partner's office, and I'd be standing there doing my research. And he would see me when he came in in the morning, and then he would see me there when he left at night. And he asked me, do you ever go home? Do you ever leave the firm? And I said, I was always taught to be here before my boss, and be the last to leave. So you never leave your job before your boss leaves. You're not boasting. No, no, I just... You are telling what was your cultural background. Right, it was just natural for me. And if I did anything less, I felt like I wasn't doing a good job. And I think even though my parents didn't sit me down and say, okay, these are the rules. Once you start working, this is how you behave. But just over time at dinner conversations or talking about this and that, you learn these different values that translate to how you behave. And I think that the Korean work ethic is unbeatable in terms of, you know, I mean, incomparable to other. And I think that plays a big factor in the way that I work as an attorney. One thing that we mentioned just during the commercial break because Mark, you talked about the next generation or going forward, you know, I don't think our respective families would have valued, let's say, the person who dropped out of undergrad at Harvard and started a software company. So there are those aspects where I think we're more comfortable telling our kids to be entrepreneurs, to pursue certain projects. And speaking for myself, my family probably didn't espouse the virtue of the greasy wheel against the oil. And that's one thing that I see that is so important. It's good to debate, it's good to question. And that's something that I try to instill in my daughter. So going forward, I do think that there would be more since we're here in the States on individuality and entrepreneurism. And so now we're kind of seeing maybe the best of both worlds. We're seeing a Korean culture and American culture coming together and you're combining them and moving forward with your own children into something that you personally believe is better and are more appropriate. Let's put it that way. Well, I'm pretty strict with my son still, though. And he has these discussions with his friends at school as to whose mom is scarier. And so he has a couple of friends whose parents are also from Korea. But they're a different immigrant than my parents were in that they immigrated here because they have money. And it's just what they choose to do that's a little different than back in the 70s. But he talks about, well, my mom's pretty scary because she'll get upset if I don't get the A-plus. Like if there's an option for A-plus, and I get an A- This could be a TV show, right? Tiger Mom. Right, and it's not that I'm so much a Tiger Mom as I think that what I still carry over from my culture and from my parents is that you don't want to waste any of your talents, God-given talents. You don't want to, you want to maximize what you can do. I think the difference may be in my generation, it was like use your talents to maximize it for yourself. But I think what my husband and I try to instill in our child is use your talents to maximize the good for others. And I think that concept of serving and being more community-minded and being able to have the ability to be outward in your ambitions to benefit others, that's a new concept that's new to our generation. Can I just share one related anecdote, and this might segue towards kind of investments in Hawaii and so on. My wife and I had a parent teacher night several years ago. And there was one woman who, a Korean lady who approached my wife, and they hadn't seen each other in over 20 years. They had known each other in middle school. And my wife's friend came here from Korea with her children and that was specifically for the issue of education and conferring upon the next generation that education skill set. So I mean, is that what we should expect from Korea now as far as investment? Is that what you're saying, John? Is that the field that we should be promoting here in Hawaii? My question to both of you is, what is coming in from Korea? What do you see in your practices or in life in general, or from your relatives or friends? What do you see from the Korean country coming into Hawaii as investment? Because we're interested in promoting Hawaii too. You know, I don't know if we should expect a massive tide of Korean parents wanting to send their kids to private schools, but I do think that's indicative of where Hawaii sits in the imagination of Koreans. One, there's Obama and everyone apparently knows that Obama went to Punahau and grew up here. So there is that aspect. I still think that Hawaii features prominently as kind of a resort paradise. And lastly, it has a unique state mandate with respect to renewable energy. So to the extent that the government as well as larger companies want to seek investments and research and test cases in renewable energy, that remains an open niche market, I think, with potential. I think we can be more creative here in Hawaii. I mean, we're not in New York, LA. We don't have these 30, 50 million dollar deals for these big Korean companies to do, but I think Hawaii is attractive to South Koreans as well as to a lot of folks in Asia, right? And I think that business folks want to do business where they like to travel to. And so if we can be more creative in terms of trying to attract more Korean companies to do business here in Hawaii, I think that's where the future is. So for example, I was talking to someone and I don't do much in the entertainment field or in movies, but Hawaii is a great place for scenes in K-drama. Absolutely, yeah. In Korean drama, I don't know if you see much of it, but that one kiss. Right? I mean, the one kiss is just so pivotal in the scene and to do that on the sandy beaches of Hawaii, that would be amazing, but my understanding is it can be kind of difficult to shoot here because of the cost and there are other barriers currently that prevent these filming companies from Korea coming here to shoot, but I think that would be one area that we could probably, you know. And also, you know. It makes sense. Yeah, and definitely, I see the older South Koreans where like the folks who are over 70 or like in their 80s, I think people want to be able to leave Korea if something were to happen with North Korea. So they're slowly moving a little bit of their assets over to Hawaii just a little bit at a time so that if they, right, so if they need to leave, then they've got money sitting here. And so they're buying real estate for themselves, maybe not like these big deals, but. Can I raise one point? And I think what you mentioned about K-drama is important because it's not, there was a certain government institutional role in the growth of K-drama and K-pop. One well-known, I think a well-known saying in the 90s was that the profits from Jurassic Park outnumbered all the profits from an X number, a huge number of Hyundai automobiles. And there was a government push to engage in soft power and to develop the industry to export, you know, culture, music and dramas because it has become a significant economic factor. So to the extent that the Hawaiian government or other players can be strategic to reach out and say here are some economic incentives to film here or to create music here or culture to have bands perform here, there's so much potential, I think. One final question that I'd like each of you to give me an answer to is, you know, and you kind of brought it up, Elizabeth, is that South Korea sits on the border with North Korea. And I've been in Seoul and it's like, so what? What's the cultural background to that or the philosophy? What makes Koreans so cool? Well, I think it's just that they've lived with that threat for a long time. And, you know, when I was in Korea last year, I mean, I talked to cab drivers, I talked to people at Starbucks, you know, just the local residents and I was just surprised, you know, how close the Incheon Airport is to the border. And I think most people, most young folks that haven't lived through that, you know, war-torn, you know, situation, I think they're just, you know, they just don't really see it as a real threat. John, briefly. I agree. They've been technically in a state of war for the past 50, 60 years, I think, so that when you live with it every day, you know, what are they gonna, what are the choices? We're just gonna get up and leave. I guess if people have the money, they will make those contingencies. But for the vast majority of the folks there, they will go about with everyday life. So that when I speak to my in-laws, I'm not really asking the question of, so when are you coming over? Stuff like that. Well, you know, and that's good. I mean, that helps us too in our own lives is learning how to live with that type of stress. And I wanna thank you both for helping me today.