Shawn Kumagai: A gay man having one foot in two cultures – Los Angeles Blade
LOS ANGELES– The elevator opens on the twenty-seventh floor of an ultra-luxury Highrise building in downtown LA. A man of medium height in a professional and impeccably pressed all-black ensemble is waiting in the marble vestibule.
He greets me with appraising eyes, a wide smile, and a firm handshake before ushering me to a large conference room with sweeping views of the city below.
Endy Zhou, 31, is a Canadian national and a Chinese immigrant. He is a skilled pianist and proudly queer. He is also the owner of Solar101, the largest remote solar platform in California.
In recent years, the rise of solar energy has been astronomical. A study by Princeton University predicts an increase in solar usage of five hundred percent by 2025. This will be a huge win to help maintain and protect the environment by limiting greenhouse gas emissions and thereby reducing climate change.
“I like to be involved in things that benefit the world,” says Zhou. “I realize, too, though, that I am just one person. I like to create small changes that I can control. I will never be one of those people who say, ‘I’m going to change the world.’ No. I’m only making about a 10% difference. But that 10% is enough.”
As a successful entrepreneur who has to work with new people on a daily basis, Zhou has mastered the art of propriety. He has bottled water waiting for us, and even though this is clearly his turf, Zhou chooses not to take a seat at the head of the table but opts for the seat just to the right of it, offering me the head seat as a sign of respect.
Zhou’s business sense and people skills have taken him far in a short period of time. He and his company, which he launched during COVID, have already been featured in LA Wire and New York Weekly, to name a few. Zhou has also been featured in CEO Weekly as number seven on their list of top ten self-made men and women (Oprah held spot number one).
Zhou has taken time out of his busy schedule to speak to The Blade about struggling as a queer immigrant youth, his rise to success, and his philosophy on sexuality and identity.
We are also joined by his immigration lawyer, Joe Adams.
DIFFICULT BEGINNINGS
Zhou was born in the city of Harbin China, the capital of Heilongjiang in the northernmost Sheng province. The “Icy City” is known for its Russian architecture, transportation system, and its yearly “Ice and Snow Festival.”
At age twelve, his parents decided to leave China for a small town in Canada in hopes of a bright and better future for their family–a dream that all too quickly became somewhat of a living nightmare.
“My parents found out quickly after moving to Canada that it didn’t matter that one of them had a master’s degree and one had a bachelor’s degree,” says Zhou. “It was frustrating because these are requirements to enter Canada. But those degrees themselves aren’t recognized passed the immigration stage. So you have to have these things to immigrate here, but no one will recognize those degrees when you are looking for a job.”
“My dad used to be a university professor, and my mom was a college professor. When they came here, my dad became a janitor, and my mom became a massage therapist.”
Due to a combination of xenophobia and a general lack of job opportunities, many immigrants to Canada find it difficult to find work that is comparable to their old jobs. These immigrants, like Zhou’s parents, are then forced to take “survival jobs“ to stay afloat.
“My parents moved here because they wanted a better life,” says Zhou. “They thought they would move to a utopia. They were stuck.”
Trapped in unexpected poverty, the family had one goal: survival. This meant mounting pressure was placed on a young Zhou to contribute to the family, at times exceeding the capacity of a twelve-year-old.
“By the age of twelve, I was already forced to be three-quarters of an adult. I was the only person who spoke English in my family. I had to translate everything. I had no choice. Little did they know I didn’t speak very good English back then at all, but I was in an immigrant family, and the mindset was, ‘Oh you speak English? Then you speak English.’”
“I was handling my family’s finances and things like that since I was twelve, not by choice. I feel this is very similar in a lot of immigrant families. There are a lot of things you have to do and learn when you move to a new country, and sometimes that comes at the expense of the kid’s childhoods and teenage years.”
“I spent a lot of my teenage years helping and working with my parents. When I wasn’t in school, I would be helping my dad clean and stuff like that.”
While the struggle to stay afloat was difficult, he also feels grateful for those formative years.
“I used to be kind of ashamed of that, but in recent years I actually made peace with that. I love the fact that we went through that together as a family, even though those weren’t the easiest years.”
Zhou feels the money struggles of his youth helped to form the resilience he has today.
“I’ve learned to adapt to the negative and change it to work for me. As an Asian LGBTQ+ person, I pretty much have all these targets on myself. I think, ‘how do we turn that negative thing into a positive thing? How do we turn trauma into something that will benefit everybody in the long run?’”
While Zhou is driven to turn his negative experiences into positive ones, there was a time when navigating his sexuality was far more difficult for him. Coming to terms with his sexuality was problematic for Zhou both at home and socially.
“I find that as a gay Asian immigrant, the interesting thing with us is there isn’t a lot of guidance on what we are supposed to do. I am at a weird crossroads of different cultures.”
Zhou feels that, at the time of his childhood, his Canadian hometown was seriously lacking in LGBTQ+ representation.
“I often make this joke that in my hometown, there are about 9 people on Grinder,” says Zhou.
Zhou’s coming out journey was one wrought with prejudice and bullying from his peers.
“I got called, “Fag” walking down the hallway,” says Zhou. “I wasn’t accepted into the best choir of my high school even though I was talented enough because they were all clicks that dated each other, and, being gay, I couldn’t do that.”
“I moved to Canada at grade 7, so by grade 11, I had endured a lot of bullying,” says Zhou.
When the bullying got really bad, Zhou, a naturally shy and quiet child, began to rehearse his responses.
“I was very slow with comebacks. I had a lisp and an accent. So I started to practice on the bus. I had to take the bus an hour home because we couldn’t afford to live where my school was, even though my parents wanted me to go there for the music program. But we couldn’t afford to live in the area.”
“I had two hours to myself plus shower time to just really talk to myself. You know those shower arguments you have with yourself? Every argument I lost, I practiced. I really don’t lose arguments anymore.”
Zhou recalls the day all his practicing first paid off.
“Grade eleven, I just snapped back at somebody. I said, “I’m not sure if I am a homosexual, but I’d rather be one than have to date your girlfriend.”
That moment marked a turning point for him, understanding that standing up to his bullies was the only way to get them to leave him alone.
“After that, my life really changed. I realized I was a lot more powerful than I thought.”
“You have to put out the fire before it becomes a big fire. I believe in making an example out of something. So once I fought back publicly the first time, and my bullies realized they weren’t winning, they backed off. When you turn that back on them, they don’t know what to do anymore.”
For Zhou, the bullying for being gay was sometimes perplexing as he himself had never told anyone he was gay. In fact, he was not even sure of the fact himself at the time.
“I was confused,” says Zhou. “I always knew I was a little bit different. I tried to fit in. When that repeatedly didn’t work, I realized the best thing to do was to create your own friend group.”
“I never felt I fully came out. I never really said I was gay. I just said I was queer. Then I joined the gay men’s chorus, and I thought, “oh, okay, fine. I guess I’m gay now.’ But I don’t necessarily care about that declaration. If I sit here and make that declaration that I am gay, nothing about that changes who I am.”
Zhou fully made the discovery that he is queer in university in what he humorously calls “the hard way.”
“I had a girlfriend, and it just didn’t work,” Zhou says, laughing. “It just didn’t work.”
Zhou says that making peace with who he is has greatly shifted his perspective and sense of self.
“Once I figured out who I was, I realized that I couldn’t hide or change it. In university, I realized that all those people in high school who bullied me for being gay all those times were all right. I really was gay. I was like, “Oh shit! You’re right.” And then I made peace with that.”
“Being Asian and being gay, that’s not who I want to be. That’s just who I am. I have no choice in the matter. I would say that is the most powerful recognition that I have. Just be yourself. I can’t be other people. ”
At home, Zhou says he never officially came out to his parents.
Zhou’s situation is not singular nor unique. Many Chinese males find it nearly impossible to speak about sexuality and gender in traditional Chinese homes. One study in 2018 found that gay Chinese men, in particular, are more prone to mental health issues “because of deep-rooted, traditional social influence that overemphasizes heterosexual marriage, fertility, and filial piety.”
This silence on the topic of Zhou’s queerness has carried through to his adult life.
“Do they (Zhou’s parents) acknowledge the fact that I’m gay? No. But to quote my idol in life, Naomi Campbell, ‘That’s a them problem.’”
“They don’t have to accept me because I’m not asking for acceptance. I change enough people’s lives. I create my own family.”
“My relationship with my parents has changed throughout the years. I would say that in my childhood, I felt the hardship that was put on them was transferred to me. But, nowadays, we have a different dynamic. I support my family. Most of what I say to them is just statements rather than asking for permission. I’m not asking them if I can be a homosexual. I’m saying I will not marry a woman.”
While Zhou has come to terms with his sexuality, he says that while he is open to finding a partner, romantic love is not and has never been the main priority for him.
“Finding a girlfriend or boyfriend was never on my radar in life. I didn’t really think about that. I was more focused on myself and my career. Growing up, I saw a lot of relationships around me, and I know I don’t want anything like that.”
When asked whether the relationship between his parents influenced his stance on romance, Zhou responds: “Absolutely. It influenced me not to have one.”
“I’ve really seen what a conservative ideology has done to my mother as a woman. But also, in life, I’m not saying I’m not open to dating. But I’m looking for someone to push me, to make me better. I don’t want to meet somebody halfway. I want to meet better people. People who inspire me and encourage me both in friendship and in a relationship.”
A BUSINESSMAN IS BORN
Working with his father from a young age gave Zhou his first taste of earning a living. He then had various other pursuits, such as selling water at raves, even though he was too young to participate in the raves themselves. He also paid for his music degree with a choir gig, singing as a tenor on the weekends at a local church.
But it wasn’t until shortly after attaining his music degree from the University of Victoria, B.C. that Zhou’s life as a businessman truly began, not out of desire but out of necessity.
“After university, my dad had a stroke,” explains Zhou. “So, I took the most paying job that I could find, which was making door-to-door sales for internet and TV in Canada in the middle of nowhere. I had to support my family. I had to support my parents.”
Zhou says he made a name for himself by making door-to-door sales. He quickly got promoted to general manager, where he oversaw large door-to-door campaigns in Canada.
However, the shy boy from his youth was still alive and well within Zhou, making client-facing an excruciating experience. This lack of natural talent in sales forced Zhou to face his fears and his pitfalls just as he had to learn to stand up to those bullies in school.
“I hated it door-to-door. I was so bad at it. How many times in a day can you get someone to look at you and slam the door in your face? It’s pretty hard. So I was forced to find ways to make it work for me and become good at it. I had been handed a situation where I had no choice but to go try to make sense of it. I had to go try to make $70 at a house.”
Zhou gives the impression of being self-assured. His eye contact is direct, and his jokes flow naturally with our conversation. However, Zhou admits that these social skills set still do not come naturally to him. Rather, he has learned and practiced them over time.
“I needed to learn how to communicate with people, how to talk to people because I really didn’t know how. I am very shy. I didn’t want to talk to people. That sort of is still true, although now I have the ability to override it.
“I don’t necessarily fight it. I often put myself in situations where I don’t have to speak to people. If I am in a situation where there are a lot of people, I ask myself, ‘are you happy here?’ If the answer is no, I leave.”
“But when I have to speak, I just learned to work with it. If I need to have a conversation and I see there is a value I doing so, then I can do it.”
Zhou’s tendency towards shyness highlights a major cultural difference between the East and the West. Where the West tends to value the boasting of success, the East, especially East Asia, tends to preach and value modesty from a young age.
“My innate nature and my culture says, ‘why are you talking?’” says Zhou.
Unfortunately, Zhou’s cultural upbringing may be what stands in the way of his legal status in America.
Zhou’s immigration lawyer, Joe Adams, explains that Zhou is seeking an extraordinary ability visa, an O-1 visa.
By definition, in order to qualify for an O-1 visa, “you must demonstrate extraordinary ability by sustained national or international acclaim, or a record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture and television industry, and must be coming temporarily to the United States to continue work in the area of extraordinary ability.”
However, the nature of the O-1 visa is problematic for East Asians like Zhou, Adams explains.
“There is an implicit bias in the way certain immigration rules are written,” says Adams. “When it comes to the extraordinary ability visa and petitions, there is an implicit bias towards people who are self-promoters. I don’t think this was deliberately set out, but these rules were written in the 20th century to favor those who are really good at self-promotion. This is a western bias.”
In other words, Zhou’s learning to override his shyness is not just good for business, it is necessary to his being able to apply for a visa that will allow him to keep his business in the United States.
“I find this counterintuitive,” says Zhou. “As I said, I don’t want to talk about myself. But as I learned to talk about myself, I realized I have a lot of things to speak to. I can inspire people.”
“When I applied for my first visa right at the border, I thought to myself, ‘it’s just a sale. They are forced to talk to me. They can’t shut the door on me.’ I said to myself, ‘you are here. Now let me do my job.’”
Zhou also makes an effort to educate his staff on Eastern mentalities to better serve his Asian clients.
“We do a lot of outreach. A lot of companies in California tend to ignore that Asian people even exist. For example, a standard here is that a long contract has to come in English or Spanish, but it doesn’t have to be in Mandarin or Tagalog or in any other Asian language. We do a lot of education on how to work with Asian clients. We are slowly making it more friendly and multicultural.”
“We are building a platform for people who are traditionally overlooked by society,” said Zhou in a previous interview with New York Weekly, “whether it’s due to a lack of a degree or lack of opportunity. I’ve worked extremely hard to build my own platform, and I’m now offering to grow with other like-minded individuals together. We are not just looking for sales in a solar company. We are looking to build an authentic platform for people who are underdogs: people who grew up being told that they aren’t good enough, not hardworking enough, and people who grew up never feeling like they had a chance.”
In addition to his internal fight to Westernize his mentality and educate Westerners on the Eastern mindset, Zhou has to battle homophobia in the business world.
“I have lost out on contracts before when people found out I was gay or that I go to drag shows. To that, I say, ‘great.’ One of the most advantageous things I enjoy as someone who knows myself is that I have the ability to pick and choose. I am not afraid to say no. I find that very validating. ‘No’ is a complete sentence.”
Zhou also does a fair amount of due diligence when it comes to taking on new clients.
“We do research on our clients,” says Zhou. “I am also very careful about my online profile. When we decide to work with someone, we look at their online profile as well. If they belong to some sort of hate group or something like that, I just don’t work with them. I can’t be associated with people like that.”
“When I speak to someone about business, their looks, their gender, their sexuality has nothing to do with me. What has something to do with me is what can you bring to the table and what can I bring to the table.”
“Now I have a lot of people reach out to me via Instagram and LinkedIn, especially. They say, ‘I read your article in LA weekly,’ or ‘I saw you perform.’ A lot of gay people say, ‘I didn’t know that you could be publicly gay and do these things.’ That is what I spoke about earlier. I like to take my cons and turn them into pros.”
Zhou feels that LA, his home of five years now, is the one place he has found consistent acceptance.
“I actually visited LA when I was 26. I never had experienced so much inclusivity when it comes to people being LGBTQ+ especially when it comes to being an Asian LGBTQ+ person.
“When you are in a smaller town like where I was working up in Canada, we as people of color kind of come after the white people, for lack of better words. Because of who I am, I was never the preferred anything. So it is nice to be in a place where you can just be who you are.”
“I love LA so much that I actually recently had this conversation with that I have fallen into this interesting place where I don’t want to travel because I already live exactly where I want to be. I don’t need a vacation from my life. This is my vacation spot.”
When asked what advice Zhou would give to his childhood self, he responds: “I wouldn’t say anything. He will figure it out.”