If Pachinko was an easy five stars for you, great news: Min Jin Lee is back with her latest multigenerational family epic. American Hagwon centers on the Kohs, a Korean family who — devastated by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, as well as a stunning betrayal by their father’s oldest friend — depart Seoul for Sydney, and eventually end up in Southern California.
As the parents struggle to rebuild their lives from scratch, they pour everything into their children's futures — pinning their hopes, in particular, on the hagwon, a private tutoring institution central to Korean academic culture, where the younger Kohs will ultimately make their lives.
We asked Lee to tell us about her favorite TV show and the sweet treat she always keeps nearby.
Q: What’s one thing everyone needs to watch?
Lee: [The movies] Cinema Paradiso and Il Postino, and the TV show My Mister.
Q: What’s one recipe everyone should make?
Lee: Soup. An adult knows how to make a soup. Pick one — butternut squash, chicken, sundubu jjigae, whatever. You’ll be glad you did.
Q: What's your favorite unapologetic indulgence?
Lee: I eat a lot of coffee candy. I have them in my tote bag.
Q: What’s the last thing you read that you can’t stop thinking about?
Lee: The Risk of Compressed Modernity by Chang Kyung-Sup.
Q: What is your most prized possession?
Lee: Photographs of my grandparents.
Q: If you were stranded on a desert island and could only eat one thing, what would it be?
Lee: Sweet potatoes. I love sweet potatoes, and they are also fairly nourishing.
Q: What’s one thing you can’t stop listening to?
Lee: My Spotify Happy playlist. (Yep, it works.)
Q: What’s the one thing you can't leave the house without?
Lee: A hat.
Q: What’s the one place everyone needs to visit?
Lee: The Cloisters [in New York City].
Q: What’s one thing that makes you laugh without fail?
Lee: My husband’s puns. I’ll give him the side-eye or roll my eyes, but without fail, I am laughing on the inside.
Q: What's one unpopular opinion you have?
Lee: Brooklyn is not cooler than Queens. So there.
Q: What's one thing that’s made you 10% happier?
Lee: Putting my phone in another room when I go to sleep. [It’s made me] maybe 20% happier.
Q: What should be required reading for every human being?
Lee: The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss for babies to toddlers. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams for elementary to middle schoolers. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison for high school to college students. Middlemarch by George Eliot for older readers.
Q: What’s a corner of the internet you recently discovered?
Lee: No.
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