I'm from Los Angeles, and we have 24/7 sun pretty much all year round.
My dad came to Korea one time, and then he pulls out a whole bunch of my headshot prints. He's like, 'Amber, you need to sign all of this for me because all of my friends want these.' I guess that's when I kind of realized I was 'famous.'
I wanted to tour the United States because I feel I owe it to the community that I grew up in. When I was growing up, the only people I saw on TV were Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Jet Li. Our representation as Asians wasn't big, but I wanted to be like Lucy Liu and then Maggie Q.
I finally chopped off my ponytail at the end of middle school, and it was the best decision I made.
I was on an army show, and in the army - especially in Korean culture - there's a very, very strict hierarchy. Obviously, you would not talk informally or disrespectfully to your commanding officer. But me, in my limited Korean, I basically told my commanding officer, 'Thou shalt forget!' The Korean public thought it was really funny.
I definitely went through this whole phase of seeing what my seniors or friends would be wearing and just copying that.
My mom was a house mom when we were growing up, and that's all I knew about her. I had a really big disconnect with her because she only spoke Chinese. Her English isn't good at all. Being a typical second-generation, you have the basic stuff, but I never had a deep conversation with her.
'Beautiful' was something that I kept really close to my heart, that I kept from a lot of people for years and years. It's my story. And I think that was the first impression I needed to give to people as a solo artist. This is who I am; this is what I'm about.
People don't know what it's like being the foreigner until they are one.
The sun sucks. I used to love the sun, but now I hate it because it just wants to kill everything. I always tell everyone, if you don't want to do skin care, fine, but at least put sunscreen on. The reason why we have little freckles, skin cancer, and wrinkles is because of the sun.
I hear that I dress like a boy and that I should be more girly, which I can understand, but I just focus on what I want to do and enjoy my time with fans who love me for who I am.
I think we should let our guards down a little bit more.
I will always continue to work hard, become stronger, and learn to love myself for who I am, imperfections and all.
I think, in the end, we are all our own individual person.
People assume a lot about me. Some people come up and think I'm hard. I'm actually very, very shy. I'm bubbly in the right circumstances. But I'm a big introvert.
I haven't said this yet, but my goal for this 'Beautiful' album is not to say, 'I'm beautiful,' or, 'OK, I'm so cool.' This is, honestly, an album written for the listeners.
With anything new, if it's weird or cool, it will catch people's attention. But slowly, that new thing, if it catches on, it becomes a trend itself.
In a T-shirt and basketball shorts - that's just my go-to: I'm ready for a workout. I'm ready to go play basketball. I'm ready to go dance. I'm ready to go into the studio. It's my getup for anything. I can get it dirty, which is fine. I can sweat in it; it's fine. It's nostalgic because it's what I wore every day as a kid.
One of my goals always, when I write music, is that it's not only me sharing my story with the fans: it's also a reminder to myself that, 'Hey, I said this so that I need to grow from it.'
In f(x), when I'm doing K-pop, that's cool - that's our concept. But me, as a solo artist, I'm just me. I'm gonna wear my jeans, my Jordans, and I'm just gonna be a little stupid on stage.
