Meet Frank Song Jr.

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Frank Song Jr.. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Frank below.

Frank, so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?

I have often felt like a person who is both betwixt and between most American spaces. I am on a journey to connect with the core of who I am and what I truly believe in.

I grew up in a small town in rural Virginia. My family immigrated to the US from a remote farming village from Hunan, China. I always felt out of place. We spoke a dialect of Chinese at home that was different from Mandarin Chinese. I already felt different from the homogenized western image and caricature of a “Chinese American”. My family’s farm practices and lifestyle already made me different from other Chinese folks. Then to top that off, being the first Chinese American family in my small town in Virginia created an environment I’m still trying to make sense of as an adult.

Assimilation was the game I was taught to play. Assimilate into Mandarin speaking Han dominant Chinese culture, and assimilate into the English speaking Appalachian and Protestant Virginian culture. How do you assimilate when you feel so different?
I learned how to mask, depreciated my sense of self-worth, used my charisma to hide any insecurity, and reinforced my abilities in mimicking and desperation to belong to popular culture. I lost myself in the process?

But what about me? What about the unique perspectives, wisdoms, and stories I fail to share when I spend most of my time caring more about being able to fit in with others?

Throughout my life I’ve also had to makes sense of my sexuality. I knew I was attracted to men since I was in middle school and have been on the journey of understanding my gender expression and sexuality ever since. An additional complication has been understanding gender expression and sexuality in the space of straddling East Asian and American culture. What does being gay look like in the atmosphere of ancestral veneration, euro-Christian conservatism, east Asian folk deities, comparative gender expression between farming people in East Asia vs. rural America? What does masculinity and femininity look like in different cultures and cultural experiences. It gets confusing…..and I’ve reflected endlessly on these thoughts and topics. I’m an expert in naval gazing as my sister would call it.
I identify as a queer musician, dancer and Naturopathic Physician.
In my music I have fought the colonial and inner programming to assimilate. I found myself unsatisfied with playing genres that never felt fully my own. Americana Folk, R&B, Pop, Soul genres can still feel like I am somehow on the outside still seeking a permanent invitation in. I would even sometimes feel too American to be fully embraced by Chinese pop and Chinese folk music communities. How could I not feel like this? I grew up watching TV and American media, hardly to never depicting Asian American artists. I didn’t grow up hearing Asian American rhythms, instrumentation, or music styles in American music…even though Asian people, labor, and culture have been a foundational thread woven into the fabric of America.
So as a musician, I think it is my desire and dream to create the sounds that solidify true Asian cultural and spiritual presence in popular American music. In a way, I am addressing my feelings of being the only person who looks like me in the room by confidently creating and displaying what my spirit and soul looks like through my music. Creating a space for artists or others that look like me. I am American and love what Americana folk has taught me. I appreciate all Black and African American diasporic music for all its joy and messages and language of strength and liberation; and I am taking those styles and melding them with my East Asian folk traditions.

As a Naturopathic Physician, I also am also fighting for integration and cultural appreciation; a space that I can feel like I can belong to. I grew up straddling two medical systems, both of which have their strengths, weaknesses, and role in our lives. The way we have created stigmas towards both medical systems, feels like we are tearing two powerful modalities of healing apart that can and should function in harmony. In a way, this is an accurate metaphor for what it feels like to be me. Something that should exist as one, but has culturally been torn into two worlds; to offended by each other to work together. I chose to pursue a doctorate in naturopathic medicine despite the stigmas surrounding “complimentary and alternative” medicine, because it is the TRUTH I believe in. It exists as one in my own body. It exists in the households that are still preserving the wisdom of grandmothers, elders, and Mother Earth. It also exists in their children who don white coats and utilize powerful and researched therapeutic agents such as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and surgical interventions.

I have come to a point where I’ve decided I must lead with an authenticity that has always been within me. I think some folks refer to it as the “inner child”. My Innocent inner child loved the ancient tales of Chinese folk heroes, loved the sound of bluegrass and Appalachia folk ballads, loved to dance and shake his ass, and hug the people I love closely. My inner child knows the herbs my grandmother fed me were powerful.
In conversations with my inner child, I tell him that I know he may feel lonely or out of place. That he may be the only one in the room that speaks his dialect, looks like him, or has the same opinions and observations as him. I’ve told him that the feeling of belonging may be rare to come by, or maybe doesn’t even exist at all. But I have told him that what I WILL do is fight to create that space for him and others like him.

Through my music, my medicine, and community work, I am building for my inner child. I want him to feel like there is someone fighting for his most basic emotional needs. I tell him to keep his head held high, to tell the truth. Even when others may not know what to say or can’t receive what he’s communicating, I encourage him to move through feelings of shame or discouragement. If all else fails, he has permission to leave the space as well.

It has been vastly healing to realize that I do carry gifts within me, preserved throughout time, collapses of civilizations, and colonization. It has been healing to realize what makes me different makes me unique, precious, and powerful. I wish to shine and resonate with this mindset more as it is the correct remedy to the disappointments of ignorance and living in a country built upon the bones of genocide, oppression, and suppression of “different”.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am a full time musician in New York City, based in Brooklyn. I recently made a shift away from practicing as a fully time Naturopathic Doctor. As a Naturopathic Doctor I received specialty training and residency in Lyme and Tick Borne Diseases. I still maintain a small practice based in New Milford, Connecticut, but my full focus is now on my music career. I am currently producing new tracks and releasing music videos. My goal as a musician is to bring East Asian stories and sound into popular American music. Our community has been a part of America for over two centuries, helping build the foundations of America, yet so little of the spirit of our music and art is in popular culture. Instead we often get an assimilated, homogenized, and diluted version of who we are. I want all of America to hear, fall in love with, and heal through the East Asian art that I fell in love with as a child. I want to do it in a way that is also authentic to my American spirit as well. I’ve spent too much of my life feeling like my identity doesn’t get to participate in the melting pot of America.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Act with kindness, and work through barriers that prevent me from being kind to myself and others. Life is shitty, trauma is real- but the only way to experience more elevated levels of peace is to dive into the darkness of the shitty and traumatizing parts of life. Kindness can be on the other side.

2. Courage to speak my mind. Growing up Asian American, I was taught to stay silent about my own discomforts and injustices. Those days are over. Even if the whole room of medical providers don’t agree with me because they aren’t the same age, race, or sexuality, doesn’t mean I should speak up. I have changed the approach and course of a patients’ treatment because my specific identity brought up a perspective that coincided with the needs of the patient more closely than the main provider. That can be true in so many situations. Don’t be afraid to share your thoughts, and if you are in a position of leadership and privilege, it would be good for you to hear ALL the voices of your people.

3. Sometimes I can take life too seriously. Coming from an immigrant family and pushed into the hamster wheel of survival and achievement based living, I have struggled mentally. I often feel the pressure of always being professionally presentable, emotionally strong, and financially independent. I have more recently realized how exhausting that is. As much as Dr. Frank Song Jr. ND is a put-together badass bitch, he’s also a dumb slut sometimes. He struggles and can be messy. He gets so sad he needs to just watch rom coms in bed and eat snacks all day. He ALSO deserves to be gentle with himself. It’s okay to not be perfect, and that the world doesn’t AUTOMATICALLY deserve perfection from me.

Prove to me first your deserve all of me, and then I shall deliver.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

Oooof, I’ve been feeling very overwhelmed recently.

My first advice, is that I think I won’t ever “figure it all out”. Life will continue to be ever-changing, presenting new obstacles and challenges. All I can do is take it day by day.

I often create a disservice to myself by over scheduling disregarding how much energy I actually have, and not being flexible enough to cancel or reschedule projects and demands. I have been trying to approach planning from a more meditative and integrated space. What I mean by that is not putting something down in my calendar just because I CAN. I let more loving and mature voices come into my decision making. I ask myself: “do you have the energy”, “can you say no to this, and if not, what is making you feel like you can’t say no”, etc.

Self care is so important. I also know many of us are still developing an understanding of what our self care looks like. We often are consuming other people’s self care plans to inform our own. Maybe yoga works for Sarah, but it doesn’t for me. Maybe Kevin like to game for 4 hours with his friends, but that might not be me. Maybe as an introvert your self-care involves leaving the city and spending time in quiet nature; or maybe as an extrovert living in a small town, you need to take a quick bus or train ride to have a night out amongst many people to feel inspired and reinvigorated. No one really determines what is your self-care routine, YOU do.

Also just know I don’t have it figured out at all. I know and have explored many tools, but I am still trying to figure out what that looks like as now a NYC dweller and not living in rural Virginia or Vermont.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.franksongjr.com
• Instagram: @franksongjr
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_akdLM45g572PUhuBxM3hA/videos

Image Credits

Photographer:
Elizabeth Spears (NYC)
Mario Costa (Paris)
Janet Taub (New Milford CT)