You've heard Sophia & Da Eun mention several times that a common experience we share is being brought up in the Bay. In the spirit of eps 120 and 123, where  we delved into Juliana and Brian's upbringing, we wanted to have an honest conversation reflecting back on our nuanced experience growing up in the Bay Area. And what better way to do that than to reconnect with old friends who we haven't had an in-depth conversation with before on the topic?

In this episode, Da Eun is joined by an old classmate and friend, Gabby, also known as Gentle Oriental, as they unpack what their high school experience was like, especially after having left the area for several years now. Our reflections of the Bay are informed by:

• our involvement in music, through band and orchestra
• the new experiences college introduced to us (Da Eun stayed in the Bay while Gabby went to art school on the East Coast)
• the biases and conditioning we began to recognize as we entered new vibrant Asian American communities (anti-blackness, model minority myth)
• the lack of education around activism and social justice
• our disparate experiences in NYC, one other location we both share in common

Stay tuned for next week's episode, where Sophia invites her childhood friend to continue the conversation around the Bay Area!

More about Gentle Oriental:
Gentle Oriental, aka Gabrielle Widjaja (she/her) is a 24-year-old Chinese-Indonesian born, California-raised, Brooklyn-based creative who explores the intersection of visual ephemera and Asian diasporic identity through design, illustration and tattoo.
⟡ instagram: @gentle.oriental

Follow us on:
⟡ instagram: @bambooandglass
⟡ links to various platforms: beacons.ai/bambooandglass
⟡ website: www.bambooandglass.buzzsprout.com
⟡ Da Eun: @daeunkm
⟡ Sophia: @sophiasysun

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