She tackled television journalism on all the major networks. But before that: She survived the hormones of four older sisters. She learned how to make beer work in her favor. She dated an Eagle. Join guest Connie Chung for a chat about family, friends, and career… and see what happens when Janet… um… puts the moves on her.
Episode 11:
The JV Club
Connie Chung
Connie Chung
Awww, such a great podcast. Connie Chung is tough as nails with a heart of gold. Janet, did you just about die when she told you that you were awesome? (You are, btw.)
Guys! I’m behind in my Nerdist comment responses! Thank you so much for the great feedback! Expect shout-outs in Episode 15!!
I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think Connie Chung may be the first guest that wasn’t a teenage kleptomaniac…… Excellent podcast as always!!!
I’m only 10 minutes in and this is already SO fascinating and sweet. This is just a joy to listen to.
I remember seeing Connie Chung on TV all through growing up. I live in China now (Shanghai, even) so I’ve been to the places she talks about near the beginning – Suzhou and Nanjing – and hearing her life from here to there is really fascinating.
Thank you for that wonderful interview, Connie Chung is a delight! So inspirational, even if I’m pushing 40. She made me tear-up a bit at the end, but it’s OK, I was alone and no one saw me.
(Atop, I suppose it should be added, the awkwardness and self-doubt that adolescence tends to foist on us all…feeling particularly so, and lack of counter-suggestion coming from or at least being attributable to being Different from nearly everyone else around. I, too, had a bit of that kind of experience, particularly at that Fun age…)
Hmm…little does Connie Chung know that Kulap Vilaysack has already got you matched up with Howard Kremer. But there have been worse epitaphs, certainly.
And it’s oddly coincidental, but you seem to be interviewing primarily women from where I’ve come from as well (New England, Hawaii, DC), making the podcast oddly nostalgic even beyond the universals you touch on…
Remarkable, and sad, as I’ve heard from other Asian-American women of Connie Chung’s generation, how when they were in largely non-AA circumstances that they felt and felt they were seen as unattractive, in adolescence…the first time I came across that explicitly, in Carol Shen/Glass’s interview in WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO THE CLASS OF ’65 (which I read in the early ’80s when I lived in Hawaii), I found myself blinking…Really? How could that happen? Default racism That strong? Otherwise, very cool that Chung’s parents not only faced and largely triumphed over tragedy and hard times but raised their daughters to be confident in themselves, even if perhaps a little too much so in re their behavior toward the baby sister in her early years (though that’s a family dynamic that also comes close to the universal, at very least in larger families).
And very glad that you’re gaining confidence in your abilities in this podcast arena, as well you might!
Green Gables popcult alert: Jose Antonio Vargas, the journalist and undocumented immigrant (who didn’t realize upon being sent as a kid to live with grandparents in the States by his mother in the Philippines that he was being sent with faked dcouments), who, when he learned he was in the US illegally, decided he would attempt to fit in with US culture better than he had been, and so to lose his Filipino accent studied carefully the diction of characters in THE GOLDEN GIRLS, FRASIER…and ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (though he found their diction a bit alien, and wondered if the series was set in Britain)… http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html?pagewanted=all
Amazing interview! I couldn’t stop laughing at some parts…Connie’s so funny!! And I love her voice!!
Fantastic episode, Janet. Great job.
Hey, I’d just like to thank you for this podcast as a teenage girl I really relate. I think I have become more confidant in who I am as a direct result of this podcast so thank you 🙂
This episode (and the podcast as a whole) is such an inspiration. As a 16-year-old, listening to this show is the best part of my week.