David Hu
Stories are at the core of everything we do. Stories are how we experience the world, how we make sense of it, how we share it. They help us better understand our own inner worlds, and they bridge the expanse between the personal and the communal.
“I kind of compare storytelling to skateboarding,” says David Hu, a Bronx-bred, Brooklyn-based storyteller. “Skateboarding is an individual thing. And I feel like it takes time to achieve. It’s like a trick, like a kickflip. You just kind of keep doing it, but once you land it, it feels so good. And that's how I feel about storytelling. When I started it off, I was just fucking around. I didn't care what I was doing. It was almost like you give a kid a toy to see what you get. But nowadays, it's about quality.”
Hu is a Moth Story Slam winner and has been featured on Kevin Allison’s Risk!, Story Collider, and a slew of notable storytelling events and podcasts. Interviewing a storyteller can be one of the easiest and most enjoyable jobs a writer gets, because with storytellers, everything is a story. Ask one question and just get out of their way.
So today, we’re going to start by getting out of the way and letting David tell his story.
His path to storytelling begins with a rough-and-tumble childhood in the Bronx.
(more after David’s story)
DAVID’S STORY
“So this is how it all started. My parents are immigrants from Hong Kong. They came to New York in 1970 for a better life. My mom was a homemaker, and my dad was a waiter at some restaurant in Chinatown, who worked a lot of hours. My mom and dad and my sister, who was one month old, immigrated to New York City. And they found this amazing apartment in the Bronx with only $500 in cash. And little did they know that the neighborhood during that time is riddled with crime and violence. They lived on what's called Valentine Avenue. And I remember, as a 7-year-old back in early ’80s …the apartment was almost like a fucking zoo. Walking through the lobby of the building, it’s just like chock full of shit and puke. And it reminded me of the Fear song 'I Love Living in the City.'
“But I felt like growing up I was pretty sheltered. I felt sheltered and alone, because my mom and dad didn't let me outside to play. And there were no kids my age to hang out with in the building. And we were literally the only like Chinese family in a predominately Black and Hispanic neighborhood. So we stood out like yellow box of Whitman's assorted chocolates.
“One of my favorite TV shows growing up was High Feather. It was a TV series back in the early 80s. Not a lot of people know about. It was on PBS. It was about a bunch of white kids that go summer camp — that’s how old school it was. And I was just so fascinated. Just watch these kids swimming in a lake and singing songs over campfires, roasting hot dogs. I was like, ‘wow, I want to be just like them.’ And I got this whole notion about camping. And I'm wanting to do it. And I remember I was like ‘Mommy, can you take me camping, please?’ And she was like, ‘Okay,’ so what she does is she pulls out a queen-sized bedsheet from the dresser drawer in her bedroom, and she pitches a huge tent in our living room. And I remember we ordered Chinese takeout and watched Silver Spoons.
“And I remember one day I walked up to my dad, I was like, ‘Dad, can you take me fishing?’ And so he fills up the bathtub with water, and he takes a can of sardines and dumps it in there. And I thought it was kind of cool. I had these little, you know, submarine men, that I would just put it in the bathtub. It's like, Wow. It's almost like the Hudson River, but the bathtub. You know, my mom and dad provide me a fun and safe environment. It just felt like like a fishbowl compared to what was happening around me.
“One night, things turned for the worse when my dad was coming home really late. And I remember standing in kitchen, my mom and I hear someone approach the front door of our apartment, and hear the key go in the lock, but it didn't turn. And my mom walks in the door. And she's like talking to my dad through the peephole, like saying, ‘Hey, what's going on, you can't open the door?’ And I remember standing there. I mean, I didn't know what was happening. I heard footsteps in the background. And they were just getting louder and louder. And I just hear a scream and sounds of fists echoing throughout the hall of the building as my mom was staring through the peephole in fear. And those noises just disappeared, and I remember that key finally turning in the lock, and my dad rushing into the apartment and just slamming the door shut. I never saw my dad so scared in my life. He’s white as a ghost, out of breath and he's holding his fist in his hand, and I can see blood dripping through the knuckles of his fingers onto the kitchen floor. … And the last thing I remember is that my mom was wrapping my dad's hand up with a kitchen towel like a boxer. And after that incident, we moved.
“We moved to a predominately white neighborhood in the Bronx called Pelham Parkway, and we bought a house that had a backyard. I had my own room. And it was surrounded by trees. And I felt like it was a picture perfect dream. Living in this neighborhood soon became a nightmare. I remember when I was 13 years old, I was walking to school and I hear someone scream, ‘You fucking Chink, go back to China and eat a bowl of rice.’ I was startled because I don't even like rice. And I look across the street and I see this middle-aged white guy giving me the middle finger. His name is Mr. Mazzuca. And every time I walk down that block, he will always curse me out. And I started feeling really like scared, almost discouraged walking down the block to go to school.
“And I told my parents about it. My parents confronted him one afternoon. And the following day, someone threw a brick through my parents window. And luckily no one got hurt. But after that incident, we stood out like a yellow Post-It note on a white picket fence because everyone was calling us ‘Chink,’ telling us ‘Go back to China,’ ‘You want me to break your other window,’ ‘Are you going to die tonight?’
“It was scary. I mean, it got to the point we had to get bars on our windows and I felt like prisoner in my own home. And I begged my mom and dad to move, but they just told me to walk the other direction, which is to go to school the longer way. And I remember I was coming back home from school and I see Jerry across the street. This crazy Vietnam vet. He’s like, ‘Hey, kid, come here. I got something for you. It’s in my apartment.’ Okay. So I walk into his apartment. And he hands me a hammer. And he says, ‘Next time you see that motherfucker, I want you to beat the shit out of him until he dies.’ I'm like, ‘Cool. Thanks. I thought you were gonna give me some candy. But I'll take the hammer instead.’
“I remember I'm getting ready for school the following day. And the longer and alternative route to go to school was under construction. So my only option is to pass by Mr. Mazzuca’s house. I’m scared because I think this guy's going to kill me. So I take the hammer, I put in my bag. And I'm walking by his house. My heart is beating on my chest. I don't know what the hell's going on. And I don't see him sitting on his porch. I see him walking down the street. So I follow him. And as I get closer to Mr. Mazzuca, he suddenly falls to the ground face first … And I'm standing over him. And he's convulsing like a fish out of water. I've never seen this before. And he's looking at me and he says, ‘Help me, help me. My pills, my pills.’
“And I just stare at him, and I see a reflection of my dad. The night he got stabbed, helpless and scared. I go next door to the neighbor's house, knock on the door and say, ‘Call the ambulance. This guy's about to die.’ And the ambulance shows up. And they pick them up.
“And after that incident, I don't see him for a couple of weeks. And I started to get worried. Is he okay? And one day, I'm walking down the block. And I see him sitting on his porch. And he’s really frail, he has a robe on and he's sitting down. So walk by and he struggles to get up. He says, ‘You fucking Chink. Die and eat a bowl of rice.’ And I’m like, ‘What kind of logic is that?’ And I smile, and I walk away.
“And eventually he died. And a Cambodian family moved in. And a year later a Black [family] and a Hispanic [family], and the fabric of hate eventually became extinct. And every time I eat a bowl of rice, I think about my Mom and Dad. How racism and hatred made them resilient to the challenges of being an immigrant in this country today. And resilience made me who I am today.”
Years after that, Hu found himself working on the stock exchange trading floor — successful, but miserable. He discovered storytelling as an outlet and was soon trying to break into what was, in 2013, a closed and cliquish New York scene.
Getting little-to-no advice or guidance from New York storytellers, he took advantage of a workplace sabbatical program and hit the road, signing up for Moth Story Slam events across the country, from Portland, Oregon to Asheville, North Carolina.
“It wasn't well thought out at all,” he laughs. “But I would tell stories. I was so amateur back then, I only had like two stories. I was trying to find like someone to give me coaching before I went on this journey. It was just trial by fire. I was going to these different cities and posting my experience [on social media], and people start following me. And I started getting emails from producers saying, ‘We want to have you on our show.’”
A 2016 layoff, followed by a thyroid cancer diagnosis, threw his world off axis. “I got a chance to reflect that what I really want to do in life is to inspire other people … I'm cancer free now. It definitely gave me a new outlook on life.”
As his audience grew, so did his craft. Persistence, including taking the chance of nearly doubling a 5-minute set time to get noticed by the Risk! podcast folks, opened doors and placed Hu solidly in the New York storytelling scene he’d previously been excluded from, and also on the national scene.
“I kind of felt like — I don't know if you saw that movie Rudy,” he says. “About how he wanted to play football for Notre Dame. He tries as hard as he can, you know, becomes a janitor. All he wants to do is play football for Notre Dame” [spoiler alert: he does].
COVID and the necessary, radical social unrest of 2020 forced Hu to continue refining his stories and technique without the benefit of live audiences and amid national, as well as deeply personal, challenges.
“I was a tough summer because my dad has Alzheimer's and was going through some really crazy mental shit,” he explains. “My mom was getting emotionally strained, and saw this racism shit going on. The weather was hot. People were lighting fireworks at all hours of the night, in and out. A lack of social interaction. It's felt like it was almost like, an emotional meteorite just came down to hit me.
“The pandemic was such an emotional time for all of us. It tested our wills. And I felt like, I was getting so in touch with my emotions and my vulnerability — the core of it. I gotta tell you, it's crazy. What I'm saying is, if it wasn't for the pandemic, I felt like my writing wouldn't have become this strong.”
“Storytelling serves a big purpose,” he concludes. “It allows us to reflect on the world through our own eyes. That's kind of a pretty easy way of putting it, but it feels like it goes a deeper level. It’s understanding more of the context around your purpose. And I feel like it's a powerful tool.
“I feel like, once we get back some sort of normalcy. I don't know if we'll have this time again to actually really get to the core of how we were feeling and really take that energy, and radiate it.”
