Shin Yu Pai

Shin Yu Pai is the host of The Blue Suit. Follow her on Twitter here.

Describe The Blue Suit in 10 words or less.
A podcast about Asian-American stories told through personal objects.

How did the show come about?
Congressman Andy Kim’s act of donating his blue J Crew suit to the Smithsonian, as an artifact that could tell part of the story of the January 6th insurrection, directly inspired The Blue Suit. The stories in the media about Congressman Kim came at a particular time when there was a huge uptick in anti-Asian hate crime nationwide, targeting our elders and women. His story spoke deeply to me about the need for images and stories about Asian Americans and their strength, character, and personal leadership (broadly defined). Because I’m a museum nerd with an interest in archives, telling stories through objects particularly appealed to me. Plus the idea of creating not just a story series, but a series that also operates as a way to create an archive of the contributions of Asian Americans to culture and society. 

Fill in the blank: You will like The Blue Suit if you like _______.
Michelle Zauner’s memoir Crying in H Mart.

Why are you the perfect host for this show?
I’m a poet with an academic background in museum studies who has worked in museums and archives. I apply my skills as a writer to use metaphor, non-linear storytelling, image, setting, and dialogue in the scripts that I produce for my show. As a museologist and former curator, I wrote acquisition rationales and object labels that explored the story of inanimate objects. I bring my love of writing and objects together to weave together stories from the owners of these objects, who are Asian Americans, like me.

How did you decide what objects to feature?
I wanted the stories to focus primarily on individuals with a connection to the Pacific Northwest, whether they currently live in the Seattle area or have lived here in the past. I turned to my community of artists knowing that there would be some personal objects that would have a lot of personal significance. I primarily wanted to curate stories about objects that were made or inherited or gifted - this includes a red glittery chador; sculptural objects made out of repurposed paper and old books; and a piece of vitrified glass from the vitrification plant at the Hanford nuclear site. But there are a couple of objects that don’t fit this criteria which were purchased - like a vintage Califone record player - though that was acquired off of Craigslist. I also wanted to think broadly about the notion of objects and “collections” - to think about things that people might not think of as traditional collections. Like plants. And things that are questionably “objects” – like songs or a culinary ingredient.

What object in your life has significance to you?
I keep a small ball of yellow beeswax in my shrine that was gathered off the floor of a large-scale museum installation for Wolfgang Laib’s career retrospective at the Dallas Museum of Art. He was installing giant beeswax ziggurats in the gallery and there was leftover wax drippings stuck to the floor. I’ve had this ball of wax for 22 years and it’s still fragrant. Laib is one of my favorite artists and I’ve written poems about his work.

What’s an episode of The Blue Suit you are excited for people to hear?
The episode on the night-blooming cereus. I interviewed Jessica Rubenacker, the exhibitions director for The Wing Luke Museum, about her plant collection which numbers over 300 specimens. We talk specifically about an other-worldly plant that she grew from clippings. The night-blooming cereus which blooms and fades in a single night. We talk broadly about plants, as a metaphor for diasporic people who uproot and transplant into new environments which may not always provide hospitable conditions for thriving.

What do you hope The Blue Suit does for people?
I hope The Blue Suit provokes curiosity and wonder, while providing humanizing stories about Asian Americans and their contributions to contemporary culture.

Why is the show called The Blue Suit?
The title is an homage to Andy Kim’s J Crew blue suit which he bought on sale and intended to wear to the presidential inauguration as a suit of celebration.

What would a season two look like?
I’d like to interview Al Young - a Seattle-based championship Asian American racecar driver who has won every drag racing championship trophy in the nation. His Dodge Challenger race car is in the collections of the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. I want to talk to him about his personal collections of muscle cars and racing paraphernalia, alongside his relationship to his parents’ collections of Chinese antiquities which were the subject of a very public dispute with the Tacoma Art Museum which deaccessioned them. I want to talk to fashion designer Malia Peoples about her collection of colorful vintage 1970s polyester which she repurposes into contemporary fashion designs as part of an ethics of sustainability. I have one of her bucket hats and a dress that she designed. I’d also like to chat with Crow Nishimura of Degenerate Art Ensemble about changing her name and the stories associated with names. I’ve also had a name change.

If you were going to start another podcast—don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it—what would it be?
I would love to start a podcast about dark tourism and sites of conscience - what draws us to these places of history and what we’re seeking to learn about ourselves through examining their historical significance. Tourism in general - specifically a critique of tourism interests me. The travel writing space is a fairly white space. The experience of being a tourist while also looking Asian produces certain cultural experiences and interactions with locals - i.e. the pervasive stereotype of the affluent Chinese or Japanese tourist abroad.

Are you a podcast listener?
As a poet and writer, I’m more a reader of books than a consumer of podcasts. I feel a bit like finding new podcasts is like discovering new bands that I’ve never heard before. There’s so much material out there having recommendations really helps.

What’s a podcast you love that everyone already knows about?
This American Life is a favorite for its stories which often feel like personal essays.

What do people not ask you that you wish they would?
I wish that more people would express curiosity about my experiences of growing up in Riverside, California - which was a very mixed race, working class community when I was coming up in the world. It’s easy to assume because I grew up in Southern California that I lived in a community with access to other Asian Americans and Asian American culture, heritage, food, language, etc. This was not the case for a large part of my early life. My family did not ever fit into a white adjacent model minority identity. If anything – to borrow a term from writer Anthony Veasno So – I’ve felt like an “off-brand Asian” for most of my life. That is to say that I wish that people would ask me real questions about identity beyond “where are you from” – how social class, geography, gender, and the politics of my immigrant parents have shaped my sense of Taiwaneseness and what that means to me as a lived experience.

Thanks, Shin Yu!