Aaron Lee interviews Isabel Ong, East Asia editor at Christianity Today. They talk about presenting Asian stories to a majority culture, her research and writing process, and what she hopes her readers can learn from East Asia.
Transcript
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Aaron Lee:
Hi everyone, this is Aaron for SOLA Network, and I’m here today with Isabel Ong. Izzy, it’s great to see you. You are the East Asia editor at Christianity Today, and I am happy to be talking to you about your work.
Yeah, can you introduce yourself a little bit more to our audience and let us know what you do as the news and opinions writer—and you also edit your pieces too.
Isabel Ong:
Sure. Yeah, thanks for having me, Aaron. Hi everyone. I’m Isabel, the East Asia editor at Christianity Today. As Aaron said, I write and edit both news and opinion stories. I’m born and raised in Singapore, and I now live in Vancouver, Canada. I have a master’s from Regent College in Christian Studies, and yeah, that’s about it.
Aaron:
Izzy, how did you get this role at Christianity Today? The last time you and I talked was not in an official capacity. We did like an Instagram Live one time during COVID. Yeah, so tell me how this role came about.
Isabel:
Yeah, so yeah, I think when we were doing that Instagram Live, I was probably at Regent studying my master’s. And during that program, I was also discerning next steps—when the master’s degree was completed, what would I be doing next? And I did feel God calling me strongly to continue working in journalism.
Prior to moving to Canada and studying at Regent, I was a fashion and beauty journalist at a fashion magazine in Singapore. So yeah, I loved interviewing people, loved writing stories. I wanted to continue that. And through studying at Regent and studying theology and learning more about the global church, I got super interested in wanting to combine my love for stories and journalism skills with something more relating to Christianity and to theology.
And so, as I was discerning that and then graduated, I was looking for jobs. I found a job posting on Christianity Today’s website. I applied for it. CT reached out a few months later. I did an interview, I did a written test, and then I got a role there.
Aaron:
Okay, yeah. I think I kind of distinctly remember the first time I saw your name on a byline. And I was like, wait, I don’t know if you announced it or something, but I remember seeing your name. I was like, man, this is awesome. This is like the perfect fit. Just from what I knew about you from what you had done online already and a little bit about your background. I was like, this is a perfect fit for you. It’s a perfect match. I’m just really happy that you have this. I think your voice is fitting for the job. And like I said, your background really fits it.
I want to ask you, what does it mean for you that you get to write about Christianity and East Asia—even talking about faith and culture together? What does that mean to you?
Isabel:
Yeah, it’s been a joy and a privilege, definitely. I like that in my role here, I’ve managed to widen the table, bring in voices from the majority world into a magazine that’s established, that’s well respected in the evangelical space.
And for me, I think one thing that I really appreciate about writing about Christianity and about East Asia is that I really learn a lot from the stories that I cover—whether it’s a news piece, whether it’s a story I’m editing by a writer from East Asia. I learn so much about their perspectives on a particular issue, how their faith has shaped who they are, what the church is like.
For example, recently I’ve started working with a bunch of new freelancers, a lot of them are from East Asia. One of them is from Japan—his name is Kazusa Okaya—and he wrote a piece for CT recently about Japanese Christian nationalism. And that was eye-opening for me because I’m not from Japan. I would not know the nuances of what it really meant to have that history as a Japanese Christian, where the church and state were kind of intersecting.
Yes, there were a lot of issues in the World War II period where churches had nationalistic practices. And he wrote that piece to communicate his background, his country’s history, his perspective as an evangelical Japanese Christian to American Christians, who were noticing all these trends happening in a certain corner of American evangelicalism.
So even editing a piece like that, I learned so much about a particular country, about their faith, about their culture. So it’s been awesome.
Aaron:
I love how you don’t come with the perspective of an expert in all of Asian culture or all the different Asian ethnicities, if you want to go that way. You come from the standpoint of wanting to learn and wanting to share.
And we’ll talk about that later, I guess, in one of your articles. But what I want to ask you though, with that in mind, is how do you make it palatable for the broader evangelical audience who might have no or very little exposure to any Asian culture?
You know what I’m saying? Like, you know a little bit, and I’m sure you can get the gist of some—whether Japanese or Chinese or other Asian cultures—but how do you make that presentable to majority evangelical culture?
Isabel:
Yeah, that’s a great question because that’s something that I constantly think about and wrestle with here at CT, actually.
I think one thing I’m learning is actually not to over-explain the cultural differences. We explain that only if it’s relevant, if it’s vital to the story at hand, if it illuminates a particular aspect of the story that we want to convey to readers.
But if it’s something unfamiliar, sometimes we might just link to a description of it online or do a very brief explanation. And when we do communicate these nuances in Asian culture, we’ll do it in a very matter-of-fact way.
And I think when you ask me this question, I was thinking about how, you know, I’m from Singapore—born and raised—but I grew up reading books by American authors about America. I never knew what “cool it” was. I never knew things like, what’s Wonder Bread? You know, little cultural references like that that were in the stories I read. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the story. It didn’t mean I couldn’t grasp the overall thrust of what the narrative was about.
So, yeah—this is my personal opinion—but sometimes it’s okay to leave something unexplained. Or to leave the nuances a little bit… well, not too vague, but leave it for the reader to be curious and to be like, “Hey, I don’t really understand this, but I want to find out more. I want to be interested in getting to know another culture, another context.”
So yeah, I think stories about Asia at CT are an opportunity for our readers to be curious. For people who are not familiar with Asian culture to be curious about it and say, “Oh, this is something I do not know. This is something that’s so different from my faith experience, from my personal life journey—and what can I learn from this?”
Aaron:
I love it. I think it’s a good approach, and it obviously works with what you’re doing and your style. I think it’s great.
Aaron:
Izzy, I want to talk about some articles now in particular. And this first one—this one might be my favorite article that you have from CT.
Okay, I mean, they’re all your articles, that’s good of you. I’ll be honest with you—if I see your name on the byline, I’m reading it. I’m going to click on it.
So this one might be my favorite just because I thought it was really good: Amazing Grace: How Sweet the Asian Girl Name.
I want to know—how did you pitch this exactly? Because I thought it was genius of you to pitch this. How did you research it? How did you think it turned out? And then what was the response? So I just kind of want to get the whole picture of this article. It’s my favorite.
Isabel:
Nice. I like that it’s your favorite. It’s one of my favorites too. So I didn’t pitch this article—my editor at the time pitched it to me. Our global managing editor, Morgan Lee, had seen this article out in the mainstream media—I forgot which outlet—but it was an article about Connie, this Asian American newscaster named Connie, and how because of her, many Asian American women were also named Connie.
From that, I think Morgan was like, “Hey, it’ll be cool if you could do something similar about the name Grace.” And I was like, “Yeah, you’re right! I know like three to five Graces already, like in Singapore, back home.” Right? And I was like, “Yeah man.” So that was the genesis of the article. I was like, okay, let’s do something—let’s dig into this. Why is Grace such a common name among women of East Asian descent in North America?
So, how I researched it—mostly a lot of the interview sources came through social media. Just putting it out on X, on Facebook. I think I even went to like Subtle Asian Traits, there was a Christian group there. I asked, “Hey, anyone here named Grace? Are you interested to talk to me? Tell me the story behind your name. Tell me any struggles you face with having such a ubiquitous name like Grace.”
And yeah, many people volunteered. They were like, “Yeah, I want to chat with you.” And they were from different backgrounds, different ages. That was awesome—to have a variety.
Aaron:
How do you think the article turned out? And what was the response?
Isabel:
So I think for that article, I interviewed at least maybe 10 women named Grace. I think that was decent. I definitely could have interviewed far more people, but then I don’t know when the article would’ve come out! I think I said something in the piece like, “If you wanted to interview all the Asian American Graces, you would need like two magazines and a podcast.”
So we had to stop somewhere. I stopped at 10, which I think was decent.
The article, I think, turned out really great because it was very interesting to see all the different reasons behind this name, Grace. It’s a biblical name, but were all their parents motivated by Christian perspectives to name their children Grace?
So teasing out those differences and nuances, recognizing also that women with the name Grace might feel burdened to act a certain way or to be a certain way—to be graceful or to be modest or something. Some of the stereotypes that the piece also wanted to challenge or press into when I interviewed people.
So yeah, I loved doing it. It was a fun piece. It was creative. It was informative. I think it touched on a very obvious cultural thing in our society that nobody had really investigated. So it was fun to do.
Aaron:
I love it. Those are the exact reasons why I thought it was such a great article.
Do you know how many people named Grace?
Isabel:
So many. Yeah. So many.
Aaron:
Yeah, and what you said—it’s something that we kind of joke about, right? But you were able to give it, I think, meaning and weight behind it and significance behind it. I mean, obviously it has all those things even without you writing about it, but I think you just brought it to our attention. And I think that’s important to do. Yeah, I think it was so good.
Another article I want to talk about: Is Feng Shui a Harmless Practice or Spiritual Danger?
The reason why this one stuck out to me was because I think it was in this article where I realized like, hey, Izzy, you don’t just hit up Chinese people. You don’t just hit up Korean people—the circles I tend to run with.
But you interviewed Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian people. So I want to ask you: What does it mean for you to have this type of diversity when you do these interviews, to get a broad East Asian representation?
Isabel:
That’s very important for me. I come—again, I’m from Singapore. I know that there are many people of Chinese descent in Southeast Asia, like the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. And so every particular culture will actually be different—or will have different understandings or approaches to a cultural phenomenon like feng shui.
So yeah, I wanted to show how pervasive and influential feng shui is in so many different countries across Asia—particularly those of Chinese descent—and how people in each context would navigate the situation. How similar it could be, but also how different it could be.
So yeah, for me personally, it’s very important to have diversity in the interviewees I have in my stories. It just shows that breadth of differences—whether you are a Chinese person in China or a Chinese person living in North America. I think it helps to see that, oh, there are Chinese people in all these different parts of the world that also struggle with these same issues, that wrestle with these same challenges. So yeah, that’s very important.
Aaron:
I think it’s good that you’re able to do that. I’m assuming that you use social media to get such a wide breadth of people?
Isabel:
Yeah, for this story in particular—because I think I interviewed people who are like scholars or teachers, professors—I looked at contacts that I had, or looked at Bible colleges, that sort of thing. Like, “Oh, maybe this person studied Chinese Christianity.” So I’d reach out to them to ask if they have any experiences with feng shui, would they be interested to talk about this topic.
So that’s how I went about it for this particular story.
Aaron:
Got it. Not so much through social media.
Isabel:
Yeah.
Aaron:
Got it. Got it. A true reporter.
Isabel:
Thanks.
Aaron:
The last specific article I want to talk about: Can Bubble Tea Bring Gen Z into the Chinese Church?
You co-wrote this, I believe, with Sean Chang. I want to know how this article came about. Bubble tea seems like, yeah, an on-the-nose topic for Asian culture. How did you find a way to make this connected with Christian faith?
Isabel:
So this was my first story, actually, that I worked on when I joined CT.
Aaron:
Oh, okay! I didn’t know that.
Isabel:
Nice to revisit that. Yeah. I did a lot of the interviews in person in Chicago, where one of the Chinese Christian efforts was based. But how the story came about was mainly through Sean Chang, our former Asia editor. He knew a Chinese believer in Chicago who was planning these “tea chats”—online discussions talking about faith, culture, politics, philosophy—that were drawing Chinese immigrants in America together.
He was a pastor as well, the person who ran the bubble tea house and these tea chats. So that’s how the story first came about—like, oh, this is an interesting way to evangelize now. It’s not so much bringing people into a church, but there’s this Chinese pastor who’s inviting people to a casual café-like space, have bubble tea or Chinese tea, and just talk about life.
We interviewed a person at the tea shop who loved going there—he was not a Christian. That’s one of the opening anecdotes in the story. He knew the owners were Christian, but that wasn’t a deterrent for him. It was interesting to hear his perspective.
We also chatted with a Chinese Christian woman who had some experience with the tea chats. She talked about how valuable such a platform was to reach out to people who were unchurched or antagonistic toward Christianity—but a space like that would welcome them.
That was the original story. It became a print story. And usually for print stories at Christianity Today, we want to talk about a larger trend. So my editor was like, “Hey, why don’t you look at other people doing this in North America?” And lo and behold, there were people using bubble tea for evangelism. That makes up the whole story—how people are using this popular drink in Asian culture to talk about Christ.
Aaron:
That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing behind the scenes. I love hearing about how people do their work—especially in writing. And to hear that was your first story, and that it was able to go to print as well—that’s amazing. That’s incredible. I think you do good work, Izzy.
Isabel:
Yeah, it’s fun. Like when people were reading the magazine, I know one friend from Hong Kong said her mother-in-law, who’s not of Chinese descent, read the article and sent it to her and was like, “Hey, you drink bubble tea too!” So yeah, it’s really nice when stories resonate.
Aaron:
Okay, two questions. I want to know: What’s your favorite boba place where you’re at?
And then I want to know—you’ve written about boba, your other stories include architecture, you’ve written about anime before too—so what other topics would you like to tackle?
What topics really fascinate you that you haven’t written about yet?
So first, your favorite boba. And then second, what’s next for you?
Isabel:
My favorite boba place here is probably Chatime.
Aaron:
Okay, Chatime!
Isabel:
Yeah, I should have a better option, but I can’t think of anything now. But the one that I always go to somehow is Chatime. I think there’s a few near my home, near my church, so it’s an easy, accessible place to get.
Aaron:
Good call, good call.
Isabel:
Yeah, and in terms of topics that fascinate me—I’ve loved writing about all these different topics as you mentioned: architecture, anime, art. I’ve done stories on political conflict, natural disasters, missions, church division.
But personally, I think I would like to do longer, more in-depth reported features.
So it’s more about the type of story I want to do, rather than the topic itself.
But one topic I’m working on—and people listening to this or reading this could help out—is a story about the South Korea adoption fraud. There was news that came out, I think late last year, where an investigation by the government found that many adoptions of babies out of South Korea were fraudulent.
They had stolen babies from parents, or said that your parents are dead or something. So yeah, many issues in that whole adoption process in the country.
That’s a story I’m looking into, and I’m actually interested to speak with Korean adoptees or adoptive families in America.
If you are one of them and you’re listening to this, and you are open to sharing your story with me, you can reach out to me at asia@christianitytoday.com.
Aaron:
Absolutely. Thanks, Izzy, for sharing that.
Okay, let’s wrap up here—last question.
What do you hope the Christianity Today audience and the greater evangelical world can learn or take away from East Asia?
Isabel:
There’s a line that goes, “Asia is not a monolith,” and the same applies for East Asia. It’s so diverse, it’s varied, and the nuances fascinate me.
There’s so much to learn from Christianity in all these different parts of East Asia. There’s a piece by Soojin Chung, the director of Princeton’s Overseas Ministry Study Center, that comes to mind. She wrote about how Korean Christianity grew in the soil of shamanism—and how this awareness of the spirit world actually helped grow missionary efforts in the country.
That was so interesting for me to learn about, and I would never have known this if Soojin hadn’t written this piece for CT.
So I think readers can expect to be surprised, to be challenged, to ask questions.
What are stories and challenges the church is facing in this region that can shed greater understanding into the Christian life?
Can we break stereotypes and assumptions down and widen and deepen our understanding of the church in China, South Korea, and Japan?
So I do hope that CT readers and the greater evangelical world can go beyond caricatures or vague impressions of Christians in East Asia—and take the time to read and digest our stories. The stories that we’re working with writers to produce, the stories that we’re covering.
There’s so much to learn from Christians in East Asia. Approach all these stories with curiosity, with humility. Share them with family and friends. I think that will all help to bring greater awareness of what CT is doing now with telling the stories of the global church.
And SOLA Network has been a wonderful support in that.
Thank you for always sharing our stories about Asian American context. So thank you.
Aaron:
I’m happy to do it. Your work is important, and I’m glad to have been following you from even before this. Yeah, keep doing the Lord’s work.
Isabel:
Thank you so much for your ministry.
Is there something you hope to learn or take away? Like, you can tell me as an editor.
Aaron:
I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t know—yeah, maybe I’ll have to talk to you offline about that one.
Yeah, let me think about that one.
Isabel:
Yeah, I’m always open to feedback. And ideas!
Aaron:
Oh yeah. What I want to see is—I want to see you write that long-form article. That’s what I want to see.
Isabel:
Thanks! Yes, it’s great for people speaking into that and reminding me—yeah, I need to work on longer-form pieces. Thank you.
Aaron:
Thanks so much for your time, Izzy. Let’s do this again.
Isabel:
Yes.