Dr. Ken Jeong
Passion.
What is passion? It is doing what you love.
Last week, I went to the Seattle Symphony’s performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at Benaroya Hall. Later, I watched Dr. Ken Jeong, medical doctor-turned-actor and stand-up comedian, on Jay Leno’s show through TiVo.
If you listened to Beethoven, you could feel his passion flooding through his music.
Beethoven had already lost 80 percent of his hearing ability when he wrote the Fifth Symphony. By the time he wrote the Ninth Symphony, he was completely deaf.
How could someone write music without the ability to hear feedback from musical instruments? In those days, there were no hearing aids or support systems. All of Beethoven’s peers thought he was weird, so they were no help.
And how did Dr. Jeong, a son of Korean immigrants, whose wife Tran Ho is also a medical doctor, overcome his family’s opposition, changing from a well-respected profession to something the Korean community might not approve of?
If you understand the Asian community, becoming a doctor is the dream of many parents for their children.
For Jeong to abandon his years of training in medical school — it must have been tough. Jeong seems so passionate about being an actor, though. He double-majored at Duke University in drama and pre-medicine.
With passion, Beethovan and Dr. Jeong removed their adversities. Jeong, 40, has developed his own brand of comedy and is a successful actor in television shows like NBC’s “Community,” and in movies like “The Hangover.” ♦