Q&A: Elise Hu, Foreign Correspondent for NPR
ELISE HU is the kind of person who moves a toddler, two cats and one dog to Korea, while pregnant, with her husband to open an NPR bureau in Seoul. I bet she is also the kind of person who can navigate hilly terrain in a stick shift while eating an ice cream cone. In her first year in Korea, she filed reports about the MERS virus outbreak, hiring fake friends for your wedding, and a deal between Japan and South Korea on wartime sex slaves. Luckily, she agreed to work through the 14-hour time difference to be interviewed here.
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ReportHers: What is it like to rely so heavily on fixers for your reporting since you don’t speak Korean or Japanese?
Elise Hu: Since establishing a rapport with sources is a go-to in my reporting toolbox, having to use a proxy was pretty difficult, at first. I have learned to really trust and rely upon the people I work with who not only do interpretation, but also have to know the premise of the story as well as I do because they set-up a lot of the interviews and logistics to make the stories happen. I’ve also picked up Korean language along the way, so that I can at least nod to the parts I do understand.
RH: Is it the goal that you would eventually not need a translator or fixer, or will that always be a part of the picture?
EH: Based on my progress in Korean, there is zero chance I will be able to work at the level I need without an interpreter. I even used a fixer/interpreter in Taiwan, where folks speak Mandarin. I am fluent in Mandarin Chinese, but because I never grew up talking about geopolitics or 20th century war history in Mandarin, I STILL use an interpreter in the event there are gaps.
RH: Is it frustrating or are you used to it now?
EH: For the most part, I’m used to it. We do try and get English speakers to engage with us for stories. It was super easy to find English speakers in Malaysia, for instance. And there are often Japanese experts who give their interviews in English. The place in East Asia where it’s been hardest to find English interviewees is Korea, despite the years and years and thousands of dollars the Koreans invest in English lessons and training.
RH: Why do you think that is, that it’s harder to find English interviewees in Korea despite that investment?
EH: Koreans will tell you that even they think that their English language education is broken. It’s heavily reliant on memorization of arcane vocabulary or language rules, they’re tested only in written English and they get very little practice actually speaking in English. So when I try to, say, order a tea in English at a coffee shop, the clerks just freeze up. They are terrified of having to communicate. This isn’t EVERYONE, of course, but I’ve attempted to conduct enough English interviews now that it’s a pretty clear trend that despite years of learning, conversational English still seems to be a barrier for many Koreans.
RH: What are some qualities or skills – both natural and hard-earned – that have helped you get to where you are in your career?
EH: Curiosity is key for journalism, of course. For creating/making things, I think it’s generally important to be open to all sorts of influences, whether it’s strangers you meet at a bar or art or music, and then not being so focused on rigid goals that you don’t leave room for a random insight or inspiration. Career-growth wise, I’ve never had a plan. I have general ideas about what I get excited about and then try to align my work with those things. One other approach of mine is to rarely say no. I know that for time management’s sake, women are always trying to say yes to less tedious stuff or obligations, and I think that makes a lot of sense. So when I say “I rarely say no,” I mean, I pretty much accept any invites I get to go out, or meet a new person for lunch or go on a trip, etc. Even if it’s at the last minute. You have to leave yourself room for discovery.
RH: What about balance? In what ways do you fit in down time of some kind? I was recently talking to my parents about how I want more balance in my life, and they were like, “Balance is overrated.”
EH: Balance is a weird word since it implies that the priorities in your live can achieve equal weight, and that’s not realistic. When people ask me about down time, my first reaction is always to think to myself, geez, I’m not that busy. As I recently read in a piece, and I will quote, “I am the laziest ambitious person I know.” I mean, I have an infant and a preschooler and work as a foreign correspondent that has to be ready to fly off at any moment, and on the face of it that seems like I’d be quite busy, but I guess that’s relative. I control my own schedule since I work from home, my husband gave up his full-time job to be lead parent at home and I work in “intervals,” meaning, sometimes I go really really hard, for a good week or two, and I work 16-hour days or am on the road nonstop. But after going hard, I will just not do much for a few days and have fun, go out with friends, etc, to recharge. Getting to control my schedule has been key to working in intervals.
RH: If I remember correctly, you and your husband, journalist Matt Stiles, seem to alternate parenting and work responsibilities based on what’s happening in your careers. Can you talk a little about that? What kinds of conversations do you have when making those decisions?
EH: Matt was the one who really encouraged this move to Korea. He said it would be invaluable for me since I’ve always been internationally-minded and love to explore, and that it would be an invaluable experience for us as a family. That meant his career had to take a pause, but he still does contract-based projects and is enjoying his time being the lead parent. I expect that when my tour is up, and if he gets a great offer, I’ll do a less demanding job so that he can go heads down on something he’s really passionate about.
RH: I feel like that kind of partnership is rare. Do you feel that way?
EH: Now that I’m part of an expat community, I actually find almost every couple we encounter has a similar structure, in which one spouse made a frictionless sacrifice of his or her individual career to allow the partner to have hers, or his. I think it’s something spouses do for one another a lot, but it will never be easy. When you’re trying to be a good partner, or mother, or friend, while at the same time trying to make your personal dreams a reality, it will always be a challenge.
RH: Can you share an example of when it has been particularly hard for you?
EH: Sure. As the mom, I obviously carried my daughter Eva for nine months, and then gave birth to her, and then breastfed her exclusively for a year, and think our bond is unique and IN MY MIND, I wanted to be the parent she goes to first. Or when she wakes up at night, I sort of expected that she’d call for momma. But this summer, after the birth of my second daughter, and because I am frankly just unavailable during bed time because that’s when I get my NPR stories edited due to the time difference, I noticed a real shift — Eva started calling for her dad, and asking for him first, and only wanting him to read or perform other tasks, like bathe her. This was really heartbreaking for me because of my own built-in expectation. Eva got out of that phase once her little sister got bigger and now I’m not rejected, but she still does like her dad to be the one who calms her at night if she wakes up from a bad dream. I had to learn to be okay with that, and if you think about it, why shouldn’t I be?! He’s the go-to parent in this house, and if I want things to be that way, I have to let go of the notion that I could be the go-to parent, too.
RH: What project or piece are you most excited about right now?
EH: If I told you I’d have to kill you.
RH: You’d have to fly back to the U.S. to do that! Unless you have people to call. Ok how about this one: What at the South Korea bureau are you most excited about?
EH: I’m heading into year two on this beat. That means I’m shifting from “Hey look, a squirrel!” coverage to being able to better understand the nuances of this place and ask more probing questions about it as premises for stories. I intend to spend more time in Japan in year two, since it’s part of my portfolio and I was grounded from flying last summer due to being super pregnant. In Japan, I’m most interested in how that society is dealing with shrinking — there are not enough babies in Japan to replace its workforce and its population. That makes for some fascinating ways society and the economy will have to adapt.
RH: By the way, do they have XTC gelato in Korea? It might just be a Hong Kong brand.
EH: Haven’t seen it. In Korea, the best dessert in my humble opinion, is bingsu. It’s like eating milky snow.
RH: Favorite flavor?
EH: Mango.
RH: Yum. Well Elise, you rock. Thanks so much. I know you have some All Things Considered filing do to. Catch you on the radio.
EH: Thanks for asking me to do this! Take care.
Pub date: Feb 8th, 2016