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The Silicon Valley and the internet
gave me superpowers.
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Tools to go to battle with,
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a suit to take bullets with
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and a giant signal in the sky
that told me when it was time to fight.
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Now, I can't actually prove any of this.
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I am not "scientist,"
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I don't have "facts."
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In fact, my Rotten Tomato score
is running around 50 percent right now,
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so I'm not sure why they let me in.
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(Laughter)
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But if we're talking about
colliding with a power
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that's bigger than us,
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then I'm in the right place,
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because this last year,
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I had an interesting year with a movie
called "Crazy Rich Asians" that I did --
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(Applause and cheers)
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Thank you.
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And if we're talking about connection
specifically today,
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then I know my story is only possible
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because of a collection of connections
that happened throughout my life,
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so hopefully by telling
a little bit of my story,
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it will help someone else find their path
a little sooner than I did.
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My story begins when I opened
the holy book for the first time ...
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the holy book of gadgets, of course,
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"Sharper Image."
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(Laughter)
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Yes, those who know.
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It was a magical magazine of dreams
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and had things in there that you knew
could not possibly exist,
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but it was right there --
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you could order it --
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come in the mail.
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And some things that probably
should have never existed,
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like "Gregory," a lifelike,
portable mannequin
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who deters crime by his strong,
masculine appearance.
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(Laughter)
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This is a real thing, by the way.
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But my eyes were set
on the Video Edit Sima II.
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It was so cool at the age of 10.
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You could connect
all your VHS players together
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and cut something together,
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so I called my parents
and convinced them to buy this for me.
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But before I get into that,
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let me give you a little rundown
about my parents.
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They came to the United States
when they were young,
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they're from Taiwan in China
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and they settled
in Los Altos, California --
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the Silicon Valley
before the Silicon Valley --
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and they started a restaurant
called Chef Chu's.
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50 years later, today, they still
work at the restaurant,
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they're still there,
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and I grew up there.
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And it was great.
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Talk about connection --
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this place was a hub of connection.
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People coming there to celebrate
birthdays, anniversaries, business deals,
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eating, drinking --
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connection,
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and I got to grow up in that environment.
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And my parents always said, "America
is the greatest place in the world."
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If you love anything, you can work hard
and accomplish anything you want.
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So, they raised five all-American kids.
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I am the youngest --
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you can see I'm the one
with the eyes closed there --
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and they named actually my sister and I,
Jennifer and Jonathan,
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after Jennifer and Jonathan Hart
from that TV show "Hart to Hart."
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(Laughter)
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So that's how much
they loved America, apparently.
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And they thought
that we were The Kennedys --
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my mom specifically --
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so she dressed us up
all the time like each other
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and she put us in etiquette classes,
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ballroom dance classes,
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made sure that we had
the right dental plan --
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(Laughter)
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This is a real picture of me.
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That is not fake.
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Thank God for that one.
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And I was in charge of the video camera
every time we went on vacations,
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so I would collect all these videos
and nothing to do with it.
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Thus, the Sima Video Edit 2.
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So I convinced them to get it for me,
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and I spent all night trying to wrangle
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all the VCRs from my brother's
and sister's room,
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tangled in wires,
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and now I had something to show them.
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So I brought them
into the living room one night,
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it was probably 1991,
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somewhere around there,
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and I sit them down in the living room,
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my heart was pounding,
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my breaths were deep --
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sort of like right now --
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and I pressed play
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and something extraordinary
happened actually.
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They cried.
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And cried.
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They cried not because it was
the most amazing home video edit ever,
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although it was pretty good,
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but because they saw our family
as a normal family that fit in
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and belonged on the screen
in front of them,
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just like the movies that they worshipped
and the TV shows that they named us after.
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And I remember as the youngest
of these five kids
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feeling heard for the first time.
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There was this place where
all these things in my head
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could go into the great, electric
somewhere-out-there
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and exist in escape,
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and I knew from this moment on,
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I wanted to do this
for the rest of my life,
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whether I was going
to get paid for it or not.
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And so I had this passion
and now I needed some tools,
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and my dad went to work.
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He continued to brag
about my home video editing skills
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to the customers at Chef Chu's,
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and luckily this is the Silicon Valley,
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so they're working on stuff,
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hardware and software --
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these are all engineers --
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and they offered to give me things
for digital video editing.
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This is like the mid-'90s, early '90's,
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where this stuff didn't exist
for kids like me.
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So I'd get these beta software
and hardware from places like HP and Sun
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and Russel Brown at Adobe.
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And I had no manual,
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so I'd figure it out and I fell in love
with it even more.
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I went to USC School of Cinematic Arts
and started to go there,
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and my mom and dad would always
call me randomly and remind me
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that I've got to do movies about
my Chinese heritage.
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That China was going to be a huge
market for movies one day --
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I was like, "Yeah right, guys" --
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(Laughter)
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Always listen to your parents.
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(Laughter)
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I wanted to be Zemeckis,
Lucas and Spielberg.
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The last thing I wanted to talk about
was my own cultural identity,
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my ethnicity.
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And honestly, I had
no one else to talk --
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there was no one at school
that I could really open up to,
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and even if I did, like,
what would I say?
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So I ignored it
and I moved on with my life.
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Cut to 15 years later,
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I made it in Hollywood.
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I got discovered by Spielberg,
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I worked with the Rock and Bruce Willis,
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Justin Bieber --
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I even came to the TED stage to present
my dance company LXD,
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and it was great.
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And then a couple years ago,
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I felt a little bit lost, creatively.
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The engine was going down a little bit
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and I got a sign --
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I heard from voices from the sky --
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or more it was like, birds.
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OK, fine, it was Twitter.
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And Twitter --
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(Laughter)
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It was Constance Wu on Twitter,
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it was Daniel Dae Kim,
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it was Jenny Yang, who's here today,
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it was Alan Yang --
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all of these people who were writing
their frustrations
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with representation in Hollywood.
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And it really it me.
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I thought these things
but never really registered --
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I was really focused on --
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and I felt lucky to be working,
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and then I realized --
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Yeah, what is wrong with Hollywood?
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Why aren't they doing this?
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And then I looked at myself in the mirror
and realized I am Hollywood.
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I literally --
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I popped my collar before I came out here,
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that's how Hollywood I am.
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(Laughter)
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Is it still up? Still up?
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(Applause)
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And for all these years I felt
like I had been given so much,
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and what was I giving back to the film
business that I loved?
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And I felt lucky to be here,
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but at this moment, I realized
that I was not just lucky to be here,
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I had the right to be here.
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No, I earned the right to be here.
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All those sleepless nights,
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all those parties I missed on Fridays,
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every friend and girlfriend I lost
because I was editing --
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I earned the right to be here not just
to have a voice but to say something,
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and say something important,
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and I had, actually, the power --
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the superpower to change things
if I really, really wanted to.
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All those --
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you know, when you try
to tell stories about yourself
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and people who look like you
and look like your familiy,
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it can be scary,
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and all those feelings
of being alone came back.
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But the internet is what told me --
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sent the sign that there was going
to be a whole army waiting for me
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to support me and to love me for it.
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And so I found Kevin Kwan's amazing
novel, "Crazy Rich Asians"
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and we went to work.
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We put this movie together.
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All-Asian cast --
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the first all-Asian cast in 25 years
with a contemporary story --
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(Applause)
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When we started it was not
a guarantee at all.
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There was no comp for this kind of movie.
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Every time we did surveys and stuff,
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the audiences weren't going to show up.
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In fact, even in our test screenings
where you give free tickets to people
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to watch your movie,
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we had a one to 25 ratio,
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meaning after 25 asked, only one
person said yes,
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which is super low
for these types of things.
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Asian people who knew the book
didn't trust Hollywood at all,
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Asian people who didn't know the book
thought the title was offensive,
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and other people who weren't Asian
just didn't think it was for them.
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So we were pretty screwed.
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Luckily, Warner Brothers didn't
turn away from us.
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But then the electric
somewhere struck again.
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And this army of Asian-American
writers, reporters, bloggers
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who over the years had worked their way up
through their respective publications,
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went to work, unbeknownst to me.
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And they started to post things.
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Also, some tech founders out here
started to post stuff on social media,
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write stuff about us in articles
in the "LA Times,"
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in "The Hollywood Reporter"
and "Entertainment Weekly."
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Grassroots uprising of making
ourselves news.
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One amazing thing to witness.
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And the swell of support
turned into this conversation online
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between all these Asian Americans
where we could actually debate and discuss
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what stories we wanted to tell,
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which stories should be told or not,
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what kind of --
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are we allowed to make fun of ourselves?
-
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What about casting?
-
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What are we allowed to do?
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And we didn't agree --
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and we still don't,
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but that wasn't the point.
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The point was the conversation
was happening.
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And this conversation stream
became an infrastructure.
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It took all these different groups
who were trying to achieve the same thing
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and put it all together
in this connective tissue.
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And again, not perfect,
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but the start of how we determine
our own representation on the big screen.
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It became more physical
when I went to the movie theater.
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I'll never forget going opening weekend,
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and I went into the theater,
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and it's not just Asians --
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all types of people --
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and I go in and sit down,
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and people laughed,
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people cried,
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and when I went into the lobby,
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people stayed.
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It's like they didn't want to leave.
-
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They just hugged each other,
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high-fived each other,
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took selfies,
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they debated it,
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they laughed about it.
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All these different things.
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I had such an intimate
relationship with this movie,
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but I didn't understand
when we were making it,
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what we were making
until it was happening,
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that it was the same thing that my parents
felt when we watched our family videos
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in our living room that day.
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Seeing ourselves on the screen
has a power to it,
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and the only way I can
describe it is pride.
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I have always understood
this word intellectually --
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I've probably talked about this word,
-
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but to actually feel pride --
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and those of you who have felt it know --
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it's like you just want to like,
touch everybody and grab and run around.
-
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It's like a very --
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I can't explain --
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it's a very physical feeling,
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all because of a long
pattern of connection.
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Film was a gift given to me,
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and through the years
I've learned a lot of things.
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You can plan, you can write scripts,
you can do your story boards,
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but at a certain point,
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your movie will speak back to you,
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and it's your job to listen.
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It's this living organism
and it sort of presents itself,
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so you better catch it before
it slips through your hands,
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and that's the most exciting part
about making movies.
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When I look at life, it's not
that different actually.
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I've been led through these sort of
breadcrumbs of connections
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through people,
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through circumstances,
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through luck.
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And it changed when I realized
that once you start listening
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to the silent beats and the messy
noises around you,
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you realize that there's this beautiful
symphony already written for you.
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A direct line to your destiny.
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Your superpower.
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Now, film was a gift given to me,
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sort of spurned on my parents
and supported by my community.
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I got to be who I wanted to be
when I needed to be it.
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My mom posted something
on Facebook the other day
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which is usually really bad
things to say out loud --
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scary, she should not
have a Facebook, but --
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(Laughter)
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she posted this thing,
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and it was a meme,
-
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you know, one of those funny things,
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and it said, "You can't change
someone who doesn't want to change,
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but never underestimate
the power of planting a seed."
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And as I was doing the finishing
touches on this talk,
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I realized that all the powerful
connections in my life
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were through generosity and kindness
and love and hope.
-
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So when I think about my movies
"Crazy Rich Asians" and "In the Heights"
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which I'm working on right now --
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(Applause and cheers)
-
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yes, it's a good one.
-
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All I want to do is show joy
and hope in them,
-
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because I refuse to believe
that our best days are behind us,
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but in fact, around the corner.
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Because you see love --
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love is the superpower
that was given to me.
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Love is the superpower
that was passed onto me.
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Love is the only thing that can stop
a speeding bullet
-
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before it even exits the chamber.
-
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Love is the only thing that can
leap over a building
-
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and have a whole community
look up into the sky,
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join hands,
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and have the courage to face something
that's impossibly bigger than themselves.
-
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So I have a challenge for myself
and for anyone here.
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As you're working on your thing,
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on your company,
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and you're forging this thing into life,
-
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and you're making the impossible possible,
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let's just not forget
to be kind to each other,
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because I believe that is the most
powerful form of connection
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we can give to this planet.
-
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In fact, our future depends on it.
-
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Thank you.
-
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(Applause and cheers)
-
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Thank you.
-
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(Applause)