John Cho in San Francisco and Sheryl Crow across cultures

This weekend, I ate a LOT and relaxed.

But with last week's busyness, I didn't get a chance to talk about how I listened to John Cho speak in San Francisco.

One thing he said really struck me. As a second-generation immigrant whose parents came from Korea, he described his parents as "cowboys," who came to the US for a better life, who came knowing nothing, not even the language of this future home. (Here's a link to more from his talk.)

And yet these rebels couldn't understand when their own children wanted to be rebels in paving their own frontiers that weren't as safe (jobs that weren't the doctor, engineer, or lawyer). This was an irony I never thought about.

This is an irony I go through every day.

As a fellow second-generation Asian American, I've struggled against a lot of expectations my parents tried to force on my life. Believe me, pop music critic, isn't one of the things immigrant parents can easily brag about.

So, in my first year as a critic, I took my mom to a concert, to Sheryl Crow - a performer who wasn't too loud, or too offensive. Before the show, I went through all the different genres on the radio - this is hip-hop, this is rock, this is country, and this is Sheryl Crow, so she could recognize the difference. Then I explained to her what a typical night would be like - what she could expect.

At the concert, my mom got into it and started pointing out potential people I could interview. She even got down with the music -- well, sort of.

And the only thing she wasn't really down with was Crow's outfit: some low-riding tight leather pants. My mom immediately forbade me from ever wearing pants like that.

I ended up writing the concert review about the uniqueness of the night, about bridging cultures and generations. (Here is a link to that story.) And the ironic thing is that Crow's public relations person at the time was someone like me, a second-generation Asian American who brought her mom to concerts in order for the mom to better understand what her daughter did for a living.

The pr person and I bonded over that.

Ever since that concert, I've continued bringing my parents to concerts, just so they understand me and my passion. Because of this, I've gone to some concerts I usually would never go to, like Yanni.