The Chili Paste Incident - Sam Lee Part 2

A jar of Korean chili paste doesn’t sound like a turning point—until you’re nine years old, moving through airports and customs, unable to speak English, and realizing your whole world is about to change.

In Part Two of our conversation with Sam Lee, we follow the winding road from an immigrant kid in Mississippi to a marching band regular, a rock n' roll garage band member, an electrical engineer, a Silicon Valley chip designer, and a venture capitalist. Along the way, Sam wrestles with a question familiar to many immigrants and third-culture kids: Where do you belong when your language, identity, and sense of home keep shifting?

Sam speaks candidly about what it meant to slowly lose fluency in Korean as English took over, and how an unusual tenth-grade school structure opened the door to new friendships, reinvention, and a sense of belonging. Then comes a moment that still carries emotional weight decades later: becoming a U.S. citizen at sixteen. Sam reflects on standing before an immigration judge, taking the oath, and facing the painful reality of renouncing Korean citizenship, a deeply personal story that resonates in today’s conversations about immigration, identity, and cultural division.

We also trace the work journey: paper routes, McDonald’s shifts, engineering school, internships at HP and IBM, and eventually the world of venture capital, where Sam helped fund innovation and emerging technologies.

Near the end, the conversation takes an unexpected and deeply personal turn. Sam shares the medical crisis that nearly changed everything, the FDA-approved treatment that helped save his life, and the long road back to clarity. That recovery eventually led to journaling, and then to a manuscript he’s now writing, with a title that brings the story full circle:

The Chili Paste Incident.

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Links to Stephen's incredible novels:

The Death Letter
The Bondage of Innocents

Transcript

Cold Springs Setup And Part Two

SPEAKER_01 0:11

And the remarkable real life characters behind the stories we tell. Author, former physician, and educator. Helping your guide through the winding roads of this fictional Mississippi town. Each episode will sit down with storytellers, artists, and everyday eccentrics to explore the art, humor, and humanity behind their fascinating journeys. So settle in. Cold Springs always has another story to tell.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

It's June 7th, and we are about to share Stanley Part 2 with our listening audience. You may recall Part 1 ended on a Giggle Fest with Steven and Sam as they started to explore their coming of age stories. Without further ado, Stan

Band Life And Learning Belonging

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Lee Part 2.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Ninth grade, you're in the band, the marching band, you have good friends, you started somewhere in that time frame. A garage band have a great time doing that. I do the same thing in the in the in the thing that I think you'll agree with, especially at first, it's not making the greatest music in the world, it's spending time with your friends and just learning new things. And it doesn't matter if somebody comes in and and doesn't really appreciate what you're doing because you appreciate what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Do you say that's correct? We had a great uh set of parents, allowed us to stay, you know, late at night until we we finally got came home after practices and such. But uh one parent especially allowed us to practice in one of the spare bedrooms. Can you imagine brand new rock band can't even tune their guitars banging around in your house for a couple hours?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Oh yeah, I know the feeling looking back on it now. If my kids have done that. Although I have one child that plays a lot of music, but yeah, it it that is hard to imagine. But that's a good parent that allows his child and his child's friends to to spend that time together. That's a knowledgeable parent about what's important to their children. Okay. Then the school system itself and I recall a bit about the school system back then. Uh when I said that I had you in my class, I was a high school teacher at the Hasbro High School, so-called Blair High School at that time. But

One-Year School And New Friends

SPEAKER_01 3:10

the way the system was broken up is you had several junior highs, and then you had a tenth grade school everybody went to.

SPEAKER_04 3:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

And then an eleventh and twelfth grade school, which is where I taught, that everybody went to that went to continue schooling. So how did your tenth grade go at uh that school where all the students were?

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Well, the year before was interesting as well, where I went to one of the two junior high schools. So there was this mysterious other junior high school on the other side of town, and then we were all brought together in tenth grade for one year in what used to be Rowan high school. It was like a flood of new people. Half the people from the other junior high came. It was interesting. Very interesting. Meaning that the friends you had from one junior high, yeah, you lose some of them, but you pick up some from the other junior high. Spending just one year at a school seems, if I reflect on it, kind of illogical. And I'm sure they've straightened all that up by now. But it was good to have the 11th and 12th at the centralized high school.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

So I imagine that the marching band ranks swelled in the tenth grade. You had you had students from both the junior highs being in the same marching band. Is that am I right about that?

SPEAKER_04 4:46

We used to come over from let's see, 10 starting in tenth grade to main campus, uh, Blair campus for practices and band. So I don't know how it worked, but they worked out.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

I am going to get back to the girl thing. But uh that gets you to your junior year in high school, and you're at the high school, you'll be there junior and senior years, and you knew that going in.

English Takes Over Korean Fades

SPEAKER_03 5:20

And at this point you're comfortable with the English language?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yes.

unknown 5:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

That was a transition for me. So let's say that occurred probably ninth grade.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Did you lose any of your prowess in speaking Korean?

SPEAKER_04 5:51

Well, uh since there was no community Korean community in Hannesburg, uh we my sister and I especially, who assimilated quickly into the American world, we lost our ability to further improve our language. So we spoke at the time, uh, as you probably know, Asian languages are kind of more complex where there's different ways of speaking to elders, different way of speaking in business versus, you know, your same age kid or versus, you know, someone younger, all that. I never learned that. I can find a bathroom and I can ask for food, but uh I probably could not conduct a business meeting in Korea. I would say I started at the fifth grade

Citizenship And The Hidden Grief

SPEAKER_04 6:45

level, Korean, and degraded since.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

What about your citizenship? Did you become an American citizen at some point? And what age was that?

SPEAKER_04 6:59

The answer is yes. I was nationalized when I believe I was 16. And it was for me a traumatic experience. Because I still at that time I was identifying myself as Korean. And at that time, uh either Korea or US, and it was probably Korea, you could not hold both citizenships at the same time. So you had to denounce, in my case, Korean citizenship to become American. And I had to go through the entire interview process, etc. The whole process really brought me down to an extent that actually uh I went into a deep dive for at least three or four months.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

How about your brother and sister? Did they become American citizens?

SPEAKER_04 7:51

They did.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Did it bother them as much as it did you?

SPEAKER_04 7:55

I'm sure it did, especially my brother, who never really assimilated. I don't recall them going through that. Maybe I was just wrapped up in my own little world. That was one of the defining moments for me.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

How did that come about? How does a person where did you go to do that? And did you have to do some basic learning? I I have a an Asian, a Chinese daughter-in-law who has gone through that process and they ask her ten questions. They and she had to get six of them right. Things like, what is the Bill of Rights? You know, what is the Constitution? And she got the first six right, so said that's fine, you don't have to do the rest of them. And then she had obviously to swear allegiance to the United States of America and so on. Is that the way it worked for you?

SPEAKER_04 8:54

Actually, it was a lot more complicated, I guess, back then. We actually had to have an interview with the immigration judge. That was probably added to the trauma as well. And we had to go down to Biloxi to the federal courthouse, I guess, or yeah, federal courthouse. And formally denounce your uh citizenship from your prior country and answer certain questions. And if he was satisfied, you were allowed to s stand in the ceremony to become citizen. A lot more formality, I think, back then. For me anyway.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Well, I may not understand how much formality that my daughter-in-law had to go through to do all of it. That's the part I know. She suffered a bit with that too, but she had two children citizens here, and she didn't want any chance of being deported for whatever reason and having to leave her children. So she had that incentive to do it. Where's she from? She's from China. Okay. One of my sons went over there to teach English and lived for two years and came home with a soon-to-be wife. They married here.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah. Well, it it's worked out well. She's done great. They live in Fairfax County near Washington, DC. And they're doing well, so I'm really proud for 'em. You became a U.S. citizen at sixteen. That would be about your junior year, wouldn't it? Uh I can't recall, but I think it was.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

Summer between junior and I was young for the uh the grade, so I believe it was between junior and senior year. The summer?

Paper Routes McDonald’s And Freedom

SPEAKER_04 10:50

I remember it was hot.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

In there someplace. Okay. High school in the band, in the marching band, you have a group of friends there and a sense of identity. Have a garage rock and roll band. But by this time, have you widened your scope of friends? Do you have other friends that are not necessarily in the band or absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 11:19

Uh including friends I met through somewhere somehow. Went to Oak Grove, if you recall. Now West Hattersburg, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Back then it was a small school, West Hattersburg. Now it's bigger than Hattersburg High.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

But I'm sure it is. And that's where I met my girlfriend. And we started dating in junior year. A good friend of mine who uh also played trumpet moved to Oak Grove and we got reconnected, and that's how we met. You met her.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah. Well, good for you. You're dating someone from another school. Along about that time, to make this more personal is when I would have met you, right? Right. Did you take chemistry with me or just physics? No, just physics.

SPEAKER_04 12:16

Just physics. I I remember physics, but I also remember Bunsenburner, so maybe it was both.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

So we were always together, so I'm sure we did. So you've assimilated. Here you are living, and we haven't really talked about this. I happen to know about some things about you because of a book you've written that we're going to talk about later. So your family wasn't really well off and you didn't have a whole lot of money. And so you went out to find jobs so you could have your own money. What was your first job? My first job was a paperboy.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Ah. Delivering a Hattiesburg American every day. And then I grew into getting a job at uh as soon as we turned 15, all of us swarmed around jobs. You know, we gotta get a summer job so we can get some money. And all that. And uh I ended up working at McDonald's. Ah, McDonald's. My sister had worked there and put in a word, so as soon as I turned 15, uh, I could drive myself. So applied at McDonald's and got got the job, and I brought in my two other buddies and became a comedy show. Yeah. We would uh do the closing shifts, so often we're out at 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock until we got home. It's type of a fun freedom type of uh experience.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

How long did you work at McDonald's?

SPEAKER_04 14:08

I think uh less than two years, but m longer than a year. What was your job there? Starting out, I was uh doing the grill, meaning I was the guy who put together all the burgers and etc. So in the in the back.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

In the back. Cooking them just right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Family life. W did you have a strict curfew? I guess I envision Asian families as toe in the line and all that. So did were you always under a strict curfew or did you have more leniency?

SPEAKER_04 14:49

No, we didn't really have a curfew per se. We had expectations. If you're not working late, you shouldn't be out. Type of uh there was no word spoken to that effect, but we all respected it. So

Engineering Internships To Silicon Valley

SPEAKER_04 15:05

I don't think there was much problem around that. And I would get in trouble for staying out too late, part of teenage, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

The time came, high school's over, getting to be over, and I'm assuming you applied to several colleges because obviously you're an academic kind of guy back in those days. So what were your dreams at that point?

SPEAKER_04 15:29

My dream when I was a kid was uh to be uh Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Well, by the time I graduated, uh I figured I was decent in math and I was decent in science. So what do I translate that into? Some kind of engineering. Uh so I applied to a lot of engineering schools. I was lucky enough to get uh some offers, you know, full-ride offers, but I decided to go to Mississippi State with uh my other buddies, don't break up the band. And also, you know, my girlfriend was still around, right? Ah. She went to state as well? No, she stayed and uh went to USEP.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

So hate with her.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

Yeah. Uh it took another year and a half uh before we finally broke up.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

So you went to Mississippi State? I don't regret it at all.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

Uh it was a great time.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Uh you kept the band together, so you got to play some dates around and uh got to be with your friends, got a degree in uh, I think electrical engineering, is that correct? Yes, sir. What did you what was your work life like?

SPEAKER_04 16:43

Other professor had come back from Silica Valley and uh his specialty was designing chips, computer chips. So I got interested in that and decided to pursue a master's. So I went to um get my master's at AM. But along the way, I've always uh worked in the summers. It just expands my uh world a little more. And so during college, I was able to get internships, summer internships at HP, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM down in Bokertan, where they developed the first PC. So that really got my juices going. So after my master's in electrical engineering at AM, I came out to uh Siccome Valley and joined a company, growing company called Advanced Microdevices, AMD, uh one of the big guys now as a chip designer. And then after about two years of uh designing chips, I got itchy. I got bored. So I decided to go into more business side and I took over as a product marketing manager for one of the chip lines at the company called LSA Logic, which now is part of a FAGO. During that process, I learned about the culture of venture capital in Sylvan Valley, and they're the financial driver behind all these innovations to create new companies uh out of these entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas, but not uh quite the resources to develop a real company and product. And I got interested in that. So I checked into that. My wife, by then, when we met in college and got married after college, was working for a startup. And through her, I got introduced to a couple of edge capitalists, and uh they were complimentary, saying, hey, good educational background, etc., etc. But you're not qualified. Now, what do you mean I'm not qualified? Says, well, you should go and get an MBA. I said, okay. So I applied to three schools and got accepted by two and chose one. The exact conversation went something like this uh with my wife. I come home, I get the test results uh from GNET RN, etc. etc. She knew I was uh applying, and she was supportive. And then I finally said, Well, I've decided to go back, and here's my choices. And she goes, After two years of marriage, you gotta go back to serving as a student. If we're gonna do that, I want to be my mom and dad. So that's why I chose Wharton at Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. I got my MBA, and between the years, two years, was a summer associate at one of the local venture firms, which had uh invested in West Coast a lot, too. And that was my cue. So uh worked there until my partner and then decided to uh come off on my own to West Coast and start my own firm and rest of this history. So here you are.

Illness Recovery And Writing The Book

SPEAKER_01 20:12

We don't have much time left, but a couple things I want to get to. One is you kind of had a mocky wrench thrown into your life a few years ago with a medical issue, correct?

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Yes. So I am retired and I have been retired for eight and a half years. Like you said, personal medical situation caught up, and that immediately put me out of ability to think much. So it was a challenge, both for myself as well as my family. And some miraculous stuff happened. Uh, there was a drug that was approved by FDA by a couple months before I was diagnosed, and that drug has saved my life.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Wonderful. And when that happened, I think you've told me that it caused a lot of reflection in your life, and what did you really want to do and looking back over your life? And was there something that you'd want to do in your life? And now, what have you come up with, Sam? What do you want to be? What are you doing? What have you done? You know the answer to that.

SPEAKER_04 21:31

It took me a good three years to get my head back. My processor, call it, functioning enough that I could actually think. And I started journaling. And then as part of uh therapy, uh to get your brain working. And then it dawned on me that I always want to write a book. And maybe I know enough English now to write a book. Uh so I morphed that project into a book. And here we are. Looking for editors.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

And we will find editors. Let me just say about your book. You you sent the manuscript to me. I was glad to read it. I didn't know what to expect. But let me say that it is one of the most intriguing things that I've ever read. It's very timely because in it you basically tell the story of a young Korean boy who comes to America and which you have a lot of personal experience with and and and how he dealt with that. But it's also timeless because it deals with human situations, family situations, human interaction with other people, making friends.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

And losing friends.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yes. And being a proper friend. It deals with all of those things. And as Sam has alluded to, it uh manuscript is finished basically, looking for editors. He will find editors. Hopefully, been able to be of some help with that, and then he'll look for a publisher. You're going to hear more about that on my podcast and from me personally, because I will push this book to the best of my ability because it is excellent. It'll be deserving of some awards. I firmly believe that. There's kind of tentative title, I guess we could say, at this point, and I think you can share that. So, and we'll finish with this. The title that you're foreseeing for this work and where that title comes from.

SPEAKER_04 23:46

Absolutely. The working title is The Chili Paste Incident. And it reflects to when we were coming from Korea to United States. My job was to carry this jar of chili paste that's seriously used in dishes in Korea, including making kimchi. My mom thought that Korean chili paste was the best, and we must take some to America. And that was my job as a nine-year-old going through airports with a jar of chili paste, going through customs, you know, without speaking any English, kind of pointing, and custom agents kind of sparking at each other. And we call I call that Chili

The Chili Paste Title And Goodbye

SPEAKER_04 24:35

Paste Incident, and therefore the working title is Chili Paste Incident. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

There are going to be great things happen with this book. Sam, thank you for joining us here. You've shared so many things that many people are going to find fascinating and interesting. And as I've already said, it's very timely with all the immigration stuff that we're hearing about on the news this day and time. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 25:03

Thank you for inviting me in. I can't fa uh we didn't really talk about it this much, but I can't emphasize the uh racial divide and and pressures that we see today, which used to be in the uh in the 70s, it was prevalent.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Thanks again. I look forward to seeing you in person here pretty soon because you've become into our fair city to to visit and be able to have dinner with you then. So again, thanks to Sam Lee for his time with us. Thank you, Dr. Bean. Thanks for spending time with us in Cold Springs. If you enjoyed today's story, please like, subscribe, and share the show with someone who appreciates a good twist and a strong sense of place. You can find more about me by visiting Jstephenbeam.com. That's the letter J Stephen with a PH and Beam with an M. Until next time. Keep your porch light on and your pen ready. If you get an idea, write it down before it grows legs and walks off without you. Support for stories from Cold Springs comes from MCS Home Center Bellevue. Visit them at 7329 US 98 in Hattiesburg. Tell them Cold Springs sent you.