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How faith inspired the Netflix comedy series Kim’s Convenience

by
04 October 2024

The lives of Korean immigrant families and the Bible both provided inspiration for Ins Choi’s hit comedy, he tells Vicky Walker

Danny Kaan

The cast of Kim’s Convenience from the production at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, in 2024

The cast of Kim’s Convenience from the production at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, in 2024

INS CHOI was a struggling actor in his twenties, living in Toronto, when he began writing a play that reflected the culture that he had grown up inside but rarely saw represented elsewhere. As the oldest son of Korean immigrants to Canada, he had arrived in the country at one year old, and spent his early years in the Korean church, where his father was a pastor. He was also surrounded by the small convenience stores taken on by Korean immigrants to Canada, who wanted to establish incomes and better lives for future generations of their families.

His play, Kim’s Convenience, tells the story of a single, significant day in the life of one such business, as the events unfolding around its owner, the eponymous Mr Kim, determine the future of his family-run store and the family itself.

The play had its première at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2011, winning the festival’s New Play Contest and the Patron’s Pick award. Mr Choi had not felt that the play’s popularity was guaranteed — aside from one possible marketing angle: “There’s a lot of Kims,” he jokes. “It’s the most popular Korean last name — [so] if the Kims in the city come out, it might do OK.”

Kim’s Convenience sparked wider interest, and was developed into a TV sitcom, which became a hit. It was picked up by Netflix, running for six series between 2016 and 2021, gathering awards and an international fanbase. Mr Choi has since returned to the play’s roots, taking it back to the stage and bringing it to London in 2024 for two well-reviewed runs.

Shona Louise PhotographyIns Choi

Thirteen years after he first played Jung, the wayward son, he has transitioned to the role of Mr Kim — “Appa” — the family patriarch. The plot has echoes of the story of the prodigal son, although Mr Choi says that this wasn’t his starting point or his ultimate intention: “If you know the prodigal-son story, well, then you’ll catch it. Even the daughter, Janet, is kind of like the elder son: ‘Wait, I’ve been here my whole life. Where’s my fatted calf?’ There’s a little parallel there, you know?

“The word prodigal, I read somewhere meant wasteful,” he says. “So that title can be applied to the son who wastes the inheritance, but it could also be applied to the dad as it applies to our heavenly Father, who it can be seen, [spends] a wasteful amount of love on us. Even at the end of the play, there’s this lavish gesture of generosity and grace. There’s lots of parallels there.”

A lack of familiarity with the Bible has meant that stories well known to Christians land differently with contemporary audiences. “There is a lack of Bible literacy in society,” he says, “but I also think that may be kind of a good thing, where they’ve never been bored about the story. They’ve never heard it over and over. So, as an adult, if someone hears a story from the Bible for the first time, that could be an advantage: ‘Oh, that’s a very interesting story.’”

He developed a new appreciation of the Bible after studying more broadly. “I grew up hearing stories from the Bible, left, right, and centre, but as an adult, after going to school, reading other kinds of literature, and then returning to the stories in the Bible, they’re fantastic. They’re such honest — well, most of them are — depictions of humanity’s lack of faith or trust, or our need of the divine.

“They’re like the foundation for stories: the ‘hero’s journey’, those Joseph Campbell type of heroes, even Joseph in Genesis and his brothers. That whole story is incredible. Or the story of Jesus or Jonah or Ruth — such rich and sometimes funny stories of people’s lives, running away from God. So, they are foundational for me and my way of talking about stories, or how I write stories, but it’s not so conscious.”

REAL-life events also shaped the characters and the narrative. “I grew up as a pastor’s kid — a ‘PK’ — in a Korean church in Toronto,” he says. “And, unlike some PKs, I wasn’t a hell-raiser. But I had a lot of other friends who got into substance abuse and gang-related activities.

“As I was writing the play, I met a friend of mine I hadn’t seen in maybe ten years. We grew up together in church, one of my best friends. His dad ran a store. And, ten years after not being in touch . . . seeing him in a rough situation on the street, I went back and connected with him. I just got married, and so brought him into our home, and we had some food, and it was a very raw experience. I think that really informed the writing of the play.

“There is a happy ending. Many years later, when he was in a rehab in Korea, he met this woman who he fell in love with, and who helped him back to recovery. They got married. He went to seminary, and now he’s a pastor of a street mission in Canada, and he’s doing really well. He has three kids, and is using his experience when he was a kid to minister to those who may be going through similar patterns.”

As well as providing a grounding in the faith, the local church played an important part in bringing Kim’s Convenience into existence. Mr Choi was “an out-of-work actor and an unemployed artist, as we generally are”, when he was approached by his pastor, who asked, “How can we help you as a faith community?”

“I said, ‘You know what, I’m working on this play called Kim’s Convenience. No one wants it. It’s not going to see the light of day, but I just need a little bit of money to hire some actors for a week to read it, just to workshop it, because playwrights need to hear their work. They need the number of actors that it takes, maybe a director, maybe a dramaturg, to sit in a room, hear other people say their words so that they could get out of their own head, and to talk about scenes and talk about things to generate new ideas.

Danny KaanIns Choi as Appa, with Edward Wu as Jung, in Kim’s Convenience, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, in 2024

“He came back to me within a week, and said, we have — I think it was maybe five, maybe three to five, thousand dollars, and they gave the room for free. It was just such a wonderful thing. And then, at the end, we had a public reading of it. No one memorised anything: just a bunch of actors reading. And it was so well received, and I got such great feedback. It really encouraged me to pursue it further. That was just before I entered it into the Fringe Festival.”

He believes that the Church could play an important part in supporting artists: “If the local church could reach out to their parishioners — or anyone, just artists in the area — and give them free time, free room to rehearse, that’s such a great benefit for the artists: for performing artists, for playwrights, for actors. And this [Kim’s Convenience] is one success story of that generosity.”

He is also aware of the impact of his work on the next generation of Asian creatives: “There’s a few times when there’s been younger Asian artists, and — I find this out much later — they saw the play, and now they’re writing or acting or producing, or it had a big effect on their life, because they hadn’t seen themselves or their family or their story. They had never seen themselves on stage.”

He describes it as “a humbling position to be in, because I just want to make people laugh. I want to entertain. I just followed a ‘smell’ and it led me to do that play and for it to have a big effect like that, it’s like, ‘Oh, OK, well, thank you. I’m grateful to be part of that process’.”

For audiences, particularly when they share cultural experiences, the response is one of recognition: “I think it is still a rarity to see Asians on stages, see an Asian-led play in any Western city, including London, and so for there to be a comedy about a family whose members everyone can relate to in some form, I love hearing comments like ‘I had that exact conversation with my dad,’ or ‘That’s exactly like my mom and I, word for word.’

Danny KaanIns Choi as Appa, with Jennifer Kim as Janet, in Kim’s Convenience, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, in 2024

“I think it’s comforting to know that, for audiences, they’re not alone. It’s not a singular experience. It’s a shared experience. You know, if you’re second-generation, there are these cultural clashes, but it’s all enveloped in love and trying to express love when language doesn’t work, when words fail.”

He has retained his own faith: “I’m still praying. I’m still asking God, ‘What do you want me to be when I grow up?’ I hope it has deepened and grown. I’ve been more inclined to ask people for prayer at my church. There’s designated people to pray for you, and I’ve been doing that because I used to not do that. I used to not want to, because it’s a bit of a confession of weakness. It’s an admission of need, and sometimes my ego doesn’t like that; so it’s good to do it. It’s a better place to be on your knees praying than trying to stand on top of a hill.”

He encourages other Christian creators to begin their own work: “Don’t wait for anyone to invite you to do it. Don’t wait for your parents or the church or for your friend. Just start. It’s like: ‘I’ve never written a play.’ Just start. I always feel like we were created in the image of a creative God, and I think he smiles when we create, when we make things. So go and do likewise.”

Kim’s Convenience is at Riverside Studios, 101 Queen Caroline Street, London
W6, until 26 October. riversidestudios.co.uk

Review by Peter Graystone here

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