Interview #189 — Soo-Min Shim and Zhi

by Soo-Min Shim and Zhi

Soo-Min Shim and Zhi live together on unceded Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri country. They are art pals and are currently sharing in quiet domesticity with two other pals.

Soo-Min and Zhi talked about community, radical mediocrity and visibility.

Zhi: I will always remember the moment I cried in the car with you.

Soo-Min Shim: Well… actually, I made you cry. Are we starting with that? Remember that time I made you cry?

Zhi: It’s a hook.

SMS: Firstly I make everyone cry, I am a heartbreaker… but also you made me cry that time we did makeshift karaoke at home and you sang sad Chinese ballads.

Zhi: And I cried at your sad Korean ballads.

SMS: To clarify, so I am not mischaracterised as a bully, I think I made you cry because I wanted to support you with changing jobs. So I understand the response; when you have been denied access to support for so long and you receive it, it can be overwhelming. I felt this when you helped me move to Canberra.

Zhi: I understand that. When I first moved to Canberra, I was alone and very timid—I didn't know how to do a lot of life admin—I think a lot of it was tied to being a migrant and not being shown stuff, like how to go to the doctors or what bulk billing means? I don’t have a parent who showed me the process of doing life things in Australia. So many very simple things like getting my local drivers license sorted out was such a struggle. But after I moved into our house, I made so many random life moves that I should have made earlier because I feel safe and supported in this household. Quite literally, I owe you my life. I can’t have left my workplace if I hadn't had consistent validation from you and Sha (Elyshia Weatherby) that I was in fact going through a Rough Time for years, and I wouldn’t have acted on my instinct to leave as quickly as I should have.

SMS: Absolutely, being housemates with you has completely reconfigured how I understand the very overused and misunderstood term ‘community’. In the past, I used to think ‘community’ was stronger in numbers but I am starting to think you just need one or two people. When you are looking at numbers, it doesn’t feel like a lot is happening in Canberra, which is not true. In fact in many ways, it's more genuine and generous because you do get closer to the people you do find.

Zhi: Yeah, because it’s substantial support you are getting from people around you rather than a scattered group that you don’t actually fully know very well.

SMS: I value that depth. I value that commitment. In this community of just you and me, you have helped me heal in many ways. I have obviously discussed trauma with you but not in the way we may have trauma-bonded and bonded over anger. I don't think that's very productive or sustainable. I want to find joy. How do you find joy? How do we find ourselves outside of trauma? I think about my trauma for five hours every night. Why do I need to think about it for 8 hours everyday!

Zhi: Do you think we’ve trauma bonded?

SMS: I don't think so because our friendship started with going to karaoke and the arcade and making tiktoks and just cooking for each other. Normie shit!

Zhi: We are actually just both losers.

SMS: I want to frame it as radical mediocrity.

Zhi: That is something I strive for.

SMS: This idea of radical mediocrity, just being not achieving, is linked to my hesitation towards being ‘perceived’. Maybe being perceived is the wrong word because I don’t want to be opaque. You need to be transparent to be held accountable. But what I understand by saying ‘I do not wish to be perceived’ is I hesitate to be rendered highly visible or become caught in recognition politics. In fact, I found doing this conversation hard because I am skeptical of the interview format in and of itself. I love the work that Liminal does, but I feel like if you are platforming any individual it might inevitably erase the fact that I am just a messy collage of friendships and everyday interactions.

Zhi: That means Liminal can shift and change and they have kind of done that—maybe the interview is the backbone of what is happening but they are also able to expand—through prizes, special issues, etc. We can say what we think.

SMS: The issue of being named and defined by my identity detracts from the work that I want to be doing. Recently I met some activists in Canberra and I have found that the people who do the most work are the people who are the most invisible. They don’t care about being perceived. They don’t care about recognition. They just want to get the work done and move on. They look after the people around them. I want to be like that. I don’t want to buy into celebrity.

Zhi: That's kind of why I have such a weird relationship with the acclaim around blur by the and being spruiked. Yeah, I put a book out but it’s a series of work made by a young Zhi. I am a different person now but I move through the world carrying this bio—the visibility of my new work conditional on my old work having been recognised—would people not look at what I do now if I didn’t have the clout of having lucked into shortlists because maybe at that particular juncture in time that work seemed cool to the institutional gaze. I don't want to be defined by that—it’s just a moment. It feels like once a representation of the self in any way comes into existence and is publicly received it can never be taken back. There may not be consistency between the iterations of self you’ve chosen to make visible but why can't we embody all of those selves?

SMS: So much of Asian so-called activism is tied to visibility which I understand is important. I used to believe that the more reviews I was publishing the more visible I was and therefore of course it was better. But I am realising now that there are more subtle forms of empowerment. I have been thinking a lot about inscrutability as a strategic tactic. Stephen Hong Sohn published a book this year called Inscrutable Belongings: Queer Asian North American Fiction. Similarly in 2017 Jane Hu wrote a fantastic article called ‘The Inscrutable Voices of Asian-Anglophone Fiction’ and Sunny Xiang wrote a book published last year Tonal Intelligence: The Aesthetics of Asian Inscrutability During the Long Cold War. They analyse a myriad of Asian-American writers and the way inscrutability was of course detrimental in the Orientalist stereotyping Asians as mysterious and deceitful throughout American history. But what I am interested in is how they all analyse potential ways these authors simultaneously played with the exact conditions that set to oppress them. How self-conscious refusal to be easily legible or readable is calculated and playful. At a time when I feel like everything I produce is inevitably commodified, withholding is defiance.

Zhi: I feel like that’s what I did with blur by the, what I often do with poetry. I want only to be recognisable to myself for a long time—which I don’t know is of that much use to anyone but myself—how much of it is hiding, how much of it is wanting to be more truthful to myself but needing for that process to retain a certain sense of privacy.

SMS: I think we write for different audiences. I hope a lot of my writing is just a big interrogation of institutions.

Zhi: And I just pretend that they don’t exist.

SMS: They are both productive. Actually, I don’t know how productive mine is, I just make enemies.

Zhi: Mmm, it makes me upset that criticism makes you enemies because isn’t that an act of care—you are wanting to make a space more habitable for yourself, your community, and are actively communicating that to institutions. That takes so much energy and thought and care. I appreciate you, and the work you do! I don’t think my practice is very productive. I think I just… I just feel like I'm hanging out and being myself. I wouldn’t call straight chillin’ productive.

SMS: But I do think that is generating some sort of change in and of itself; you just existing and thriving. I don't mean productive in terms of the capitalist sense of producing work. I mean productive in terms of revealing an alternative mode of living and being based on play. Playfulness to me is a form of activism. You're defying the rules, even if it’s subconscious, you are still showing alternative paths and I think that's the greatest source of activism. You're not just being destructive, you're constructing something that's different and novel.

Zhi: Poetry is fun for me. Most of the time, I don’t know what the fuck is going on but it’s quite freeing to fuck around and say exactly how you feel but in a way that makes sense to you. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else—that’s also maybe a problematic take on poetry. I think that’s what I used to do but now I am starting to think about readability because, like you said—who do I write for? Who do I want to empower? What use is art if I live in it alone?

SMS: But that is what makes poetry so special; that it can have multiple meanings and it’s not just prescriptive.

Zhi: It’s kind of like a series of mirrors, angled different ways. I’m writing for myself, and to reflect myself but if someone happens to read it and feel connected to it then that’s great. But, that’s always the starting point, I write first for myself, to make sense of and for myself. Poetry as a process of forgiveness, just allowing myself to fuck around until an answer or a bigger question is revealed to me.

SMS: You’re now shifting into making essays right? Can you talk to me a bit more about that shift?

Zhi: No. [Laughter]

SMS: I respect that. You are exercising withdrawal, refusal and inscrutability!

Zhi: I just wanted to challenge myself to say more. I feel like, I very instinctively use poetry to hide. I think I want to find out what articulation feels like. It turns out that I am really bad at tenses.

SMS: But that is why poetry is so great right. It’s so malleable.

Zhi: Poetry helps you get in touch with your inner water sign.

SMS: It does. It's so dramatic sometimes. Poets, are you okay?

Zhi: Crying.

SMS: Well, I look forward to more car cries with you, Zhi.

Zhi: Wait, Soo-Min, do you have any advice for emerging critics?

SMS: I am ambivalent about the term emerging. It is very teleological. When has one emerged? When does one stop emerging? I feel only qualified to speak to myself and comfortable only to give advice to myself maybe. Something I am constantly working towards is being vigilant of subsumption or co-option and remaining protective of integrity. Institutional critique now has cultural currency so it’s easier to flatten an argument for sensationalism. I want to be spacious in my writing and in my care. Do you have advice for emerging poets?

Zhi: I’m not sure I’m doing well enough myself to dole out advice but... protect and nurture your inner child—they who are inquisitive and non-compromising and joyous. Who are you inspired by?

SMS: You! Also my supervisors throughout university, Yvonne Low and Chaitanya Sambrani. Also my friends Lina Koleilat, Sam Kwon, Chaelyn Son, Kim Phan, Lena Wang, Shivani Sankaran, Annie Zhang, TanushriSaha, Kavya Kalutantiri. Also my mother. This is turning into some weird dedication/acknowledgement list. The list is too long. This is what I mean by that I am just an amalgamation of all the amazing people in my life.

Zhi: I feel similarly! I am only possible by the people who have helped me survive and thrive—this includes you, Elyshia Weatherby, Milo Murdock—the ecosystem around our house, our community. One more question: what does being Asian-Australian mean to you?

SMS: I have written about this elsewhere but I see this label as constructed and tactical and deliberate. I don’t see it as some easy biologically essentialist or ethno-nationalist category. It is a self-aware term that should illuminate the frameworks around us for the sake of politics.