S3E7: Why I Wanted To Interview Paul

The hardest part of a story like Paul’s isn’t the violence, the prison, or the headlines. It’s the quiet room where it starts: a one-bedroom apartment, lunch money on the counter, nobody home, and a kid with time that feels like abandonment. After wrapping the interview past 2 a.m., I couldn’t sleep, poured a drink, and tried to make sense of the gratitude and guilt that show up when you realize how close your life came to the same edge. 

I also share a piece of context that changes the way I hear all of this now: writing to Chinamac while he was incarcerated at Sing Sing and carrying one line for years, “I’m glad you never got too deep.” That’s the difference between watching a documentary and talking about your own community. There’s no distance when it’s Chinatown, when it’s your people, when you can still picture who they were before anything went wrong. 

From there, we get to the core lessons that stick: the street always lies, survival isn’t success, and loyalty isn’t love. If you grew up around street life or grew up without a father or consistent adult presence, you know how powerful the need for belonging can be, and how fast the streets offer it. I also tell the truth about what kept me from going all the way and why being scared might have saved my future. The image I can’t shake is also the most hopeful: Paul is out, building a beautiful family, proof that reentry, healing, and real change are possible. 

Listen, then send me your questions for Paul at theunclewong at gmail.com. If enough come in, we’ll bring him back for a part six, so subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find the story.

Please contact me at theunclewong@gmail.com

Transcript

A Night After The Interview

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Yo, what's up, everyone? Welcome back to Asian Uncle. I'm your host, Uncle Wong. So, like many of our episodes, this was not planned. After I wrapped up the interview with Paul, it was already well past two in the morning. Everything was quiet. And obviously, I couldn't sleep. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't think anyone can fully absorb all that emotion in one sitting. Or even process it. So I did the next best thing. I poured myself a drink. I just sat there. Mostly trying to remind myself how damn fortunate I am in comparison. How things could have been much different for me, or even worse for Paul. Bad and good at the same time. Grateful and guilty all in that same breath. I don't know, but these contradicting feelings it hit me to a point where only whiskey can serve. And even my editor, he didn't admit it. Just a step away. Not only is he a child, he's 18, he's also my son. I still don't know if having him edit this was the right call. I guess part of me wanted to. I guess part of me wanted him to understand the real world. But part of me kind of feel that perhaps it should be hidden for a little bit longer. But today I just want to talk to you. Because Paul's story left behind something in me. And I think a lot of that is sitting with you too. And before I get into it, a little context that I think would change how you hear everything I'm about to say.

Letters From Prison And Perspective

SPEAKER_00 2:27

You probably know Chinamack from YouTube. We mentioned him several times in the interview, I believe. I wrote to him when he was in prison. My mom and my brother went to visit him at Sing Sing. He wrote back to me several times. I don't remember them all, but I do remember one letter. Especially the ending. He wrote, I'm glad you never got too deep. You have a beautiful family and a bright future ahead of you. He was right. I never got too deep. I stayed in school, I went to college. For me, this whole world was a side quest. I got deep enough to wet my socks, but not my pants. And because of that, I had something most people on the outside would never get. Understanding their lives up close, being close enough to be a part of it, even if I was only on the edge. And now, years later, documenting it the way I'm doing it now. And years later, documenting it the way I'm doing now. That's the difference between this and a documentary. Because when you watch a documentary, there's distance. You can take it in, feel for it, and still walk away like yourself, or as yourself. This wasn't one of those circumstances.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

There's no distance when it's your people. There's no distance when you can still picture exactly who they were before any of this happened.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

I don't say that to make this about me. Paul's the one who lived it. And the one who paid the price. But I think you deserve to know where I'm sitting when I say this one was different. The thing I keep coming back to, I guess for me, the most important out of the most important thing out of all five parts.

The One-Bedroom Origin Point

SPEAKER_00 5:19

It wasn't the ghost shadows, the maximum security prison, or the violence. It was the apartment.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

One bedroom.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Father, Paul in the living room, lunch money on the counter. Nobody checking on him when he came home. That's where everything starts. Not in Chinatown, not in the precinct, not in the courtroom, but in the living room. With a kid who had all the time in the world and no one to fill it with. And I know that apartment. I know what it feels like when the quiet in the house isn't peace. It's absence. I know what it feels like to know that your parents weren't bad people. They're not evil. They just weren't there. They had to work. They had to survive. They were doing exactly what they're supposed to do. You understand it now as an adult, but back then, you just knew the house was empty and the streets wasn't. A lot of us grew up in some version of that apartment.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

And we don't talk about it enough. Growing up without a father, and I say this because I think more of you can relate to this than you like to admit.

How The Street Sells Belonging

SPEAKER_01 7:05

There's something in you that goes looking. Perhaps not in an obvious way.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

It starts quiet. Older guys who seem to have answers that you don't. A group of people where you don't have to earn your place with good behavior and grades. We all want to look for a place where someone just says, you belong here. And the street speaks that language better than anywhere else. It doesn't ask you a lot of questions. And that's what Paul found out. And if you've been listening, you know that it wasn't the violence that drew him in the first place. It was just feeling like he was somewhere. And that he mattered to someone. That's not a criminal instinct. That's being a child, that's being human. But now Paul made his choices. He would be the first to tell you that. Choices compound even the smallest ones.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

And he's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

But if you're somewhere right now feeling that same pull, that same gravity towards the sense of belonging. Then listen to Paul's story. Listen to the years that he can't get back. Those four walls. Nothing but his own mind. There's two things Paul said that I keep turning over. The street always lies.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

It promises freedom and delivers cages. Survival isn't success. And loyalty isn't love.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

That second one, a lot of us who grew up there. Where survival was the whole point. We confuse the two. Loyalty to people who aren't really protecting you, that isn't love. Staying because feeling staying because leaving feels like betrayal. That's not love either. Love shouldn't trap you. It doesn't require you to become someone smaller to belong.

Why I Didn’t Go All In

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Now, I said earlier, I don't fully know what kept me on this side. That was only half true. I remember my dad flying back when he found out I had a gun. I remember my mom crying and pleading me not to go out. She did everything she could. And my brother. Even though I was proud to protect him when he was young. But he was growing up too. And somewhere in that, I realized the only way I could actually protect this family was to make something of myself. And that one thing kept me in school. It kept me from drifting too far. And honestly, I'll just say it. I was too much of a bitch. I was too scared. I'm not Paul. I don't have that kind of nerve. I wasn't born with it. I could see the consequences before they happen. I'm too much of a sissy for that life. And I used to feel some kind of a way about it. But sitting here now, I'm glad. Being too scared to go all the way might be the best thing that ever happened to me.

Building The Family We Missed

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Of course, Paula's out now. Great job. Beautiful family and children. And that's the part I think meant the most to me out of this entire story. It wasn't the years inside, the violence, none of that. Those were just lessons. But the image of a person who came from all that, now raising a beautiful family. There's always something better on the other side, waiting for you. Always. I think about this pattern. The ones like us, we grew up without a blueprint. Almost all of us, without even realizing it, spend our whole lives building the opposite of what we came from. Like there's a quiet inner voice that me and my brother both share, for instance. I know Paul and all of my friends who came from similar families feel the same. And that quiet voice says, I know what absence feels like. And I'm not passing it on. And so every one of us who came from something broken, what we want more than anything else in this world is to create something different. We wanted to be fathers, to be there for our children. Paul built it. Many of my friends did. And that matters just as much as everything. And that matters probably more than any lesson you would learn from Paul's life. We recorded this for over seven hours. And by the time we were done editing, it became these five parts. Condensed. And I still don't think we scratched the surface of a life like that. But I'm glad Paul trusted me with it. And if you made it all the way here, you already know why this one is different.

Send Questions For Part Six

SPEAKER_00 14:22

I want to bring Paul back. There's more there. And I think you feel that too. So if you have questions for him, things you wish I had pushed harder on, or things still turning in your mind after all these five parts, please send them to theunclewong at gmail.com. Like I said before, I read them all. And if enough comes in, we're gonna do a part six. Thank you for listening to this segment. Hope you enjoyed it. This is Uncle Wong signing off.