coming up on "asian focus," the mastermind behind the chicken and riceifies tells us his story. plus andrew mark plays the i'm mary sit, join us next for african american. she was once a high powered attorney and now a successful pulitzer prize for its music. a tale of passion, love, fear, deceit, betrayal and death and now she's written two more offers. thank you so much for being

mary. >> first of all, how did you transform yourself from lawyer , attorney? >> i've always had a lot of stories in me, i've always bip a storyteller and believe it or not being a child lawyer was really a training ground for being operative creative. >> a lot of drama there, right. >> that is absolutely true. because what you learn as a trial lawyer especiall y as i did is you learn skills, persuasiveness because you've got a certain period of time to persuade strangers that you're telling the right story and so when i retired from the practice of law i think i was ready good what kind of musical training did you have,

reach for so many people. >> that's right. because i grew up in singapore, so the form of opera i uup with was chinese opera hints adam whitesnake because there is a lot of chinese opera based on the legend of the white snake. i was introduced to weston opera late in the life after i came to the united states and so you have met tours, where the met would tour from city to many, many years ago and then when i married my husband, charles, who was passionate about opera we listened to opera every day, he would get up and opera would come on at breakfast and throughout the day and interrupted only by the 6:00 news, but essentially i rived with opera all of the time. >> so you learned to love it. >> i did. >> and you and your late

write a trillology together. it is called uro boris, which is the greek term for the snake eating its own tail in this never ending cycle. >> wait, so when the snake eats its own tail it transforms or becomes bigger? >> no. well when the snake eats its own tail it dies because it is eating itself, its own body provides substance, so it is rejuvenated, reborn as a snake, as itself. so that is the symbol of life, death, rebirth and reincarnation and it is the universal symbol, it is across many, many, many different cultures from the greeks to

hindu culture, across western civilization of reincarcination. >> and your first opera has to do with a snake. >> absolutely. in fact madam whitesnake is part of the cycle for conceiving of it. >> so you guys collaborated for the conception but you accheatiole it. >> actually. chimes was the inspirationful the whole trilogy because he was having a big birthday and i didn't know what to give him but i knew he loved opera. so i was going to commission a little song cycle for him and i started writing the words and before you knew it became a whole story and before you knew it began an opera labreto

>> your first pulitzer prize, it is pretty amazing. >> let's talk about madam white snake and how that's the first triology coming up. tell me about madam whitesnake. >> and we have a slide here! so madam whitesnake is the story of a whitesnake demon who yearns to experience love and you can see our chronic piece o the association with madam white snake, the beautiful woman who is really a snake and her lover. and of course this madam white monopoly snake is based on the thousand-year-old legend of the white snake, which is universal in east asia. >> a snake who yearns to become human in order to experience love. >> absolutely. and one day she is grant

woman and she notes love of her life and she marries him and she gets pregnant. >> and he doesn't know she is a snake. >> no, of course not. >> and of course being new love she doesn't dare reveal her true! so she becomes pregnant with what? >> well that's exactly it. it is a very sort of sensitive subject, especially now with between marriage was not legal, you can imagine a marriage between a snake and a deem and a human, the authorities just simply didn't like that idea and that of course the abbott who represents law and order in the beings and it is disaster. >> okay let's quickly go to the next two. now wrote two as parof the story, tell me about this. >> okay o, so we can look at

the next. >> that is our logo, that bora bora snake eating its tail and you can see madam white snake and the other operas of gill gillgamesh. and each collaborates into each other. and what you'll see in this marathon that i have set up is that the characters all reincarnate, the conductors reincarnate, the reincarnate, meaning they are different people yet the same. the only people who don't reincarnate is the director and myself. #. >> you're in it in. >> no, that's one apparatus, so three conductors, three composers. >> you are the only common element. >> and the director, there is only one director who looks at

unified whole. >> now other two are they based on legend or all from imagination? >> they are all imagination and based on the same characters because the characters are reincarnating. >> this is performed in boston september 15th? >> opening day is september 10th and we'll have a spot at 11 a.m., then we break for lunch. them we go on to opera number two at 3:00, then we break for dinner. then opray number three 7:30 and then we go home to bed. >> three, why are you doing all three operas in one day, why is it an all day marathon? >> because it is truly the form of it will show you-- >> it is related to each other. >> what reincarnation is. it is a totally immersive experience like chinese opera, not just one day but two, three, four, five day affairs, i go to a one day efair and

create. >> but for western audiences do we have the patience, to sit through this? >> i hope so. it is going to be an amazing event. it is a once in a lifetime. >> but you're also showing them singally too, by themselves. >> yes, because people can see them by themselves. but i believe if you see the whole trillology, which is what i'm hoping for people to see all three, but they don't have to, they will then parts the whole is really much greater the sum of the parts. >> it has been said you are now the reddest, you've laughed. now you've written three, two in the works for 2016-2017. >> i'm starting to believe. i like to think of myself as aircrafter and agretter

but it is really creating the story from my imagination based on things that are happening in life now that are inspirational or that had great impact on all of us. so my next opera is about fanaticism and now video gam entertainment. so it tries to deal with issues that inspire us now that westream grapple with andic tal now. >> and you can present in a very old classical artform so you make it relevant again. >> exactly. and that is the only way to rejuvenate an older kind of art form. >> we're going to listen in a few weeks, go to

details. >> coming up next, food trucks aren't just the meets of culinary delight and even spawned their own restaurants. the chicken and rice guys up next. stay with us. ? amazing sleep stays with you all day and all night. sleep number beds adjust on both sides for your best sleep ever. don't miss the biggest sale of the year.

y! know better sleep. only at a sleep number store. it all started eating chicken and rice in new york with some 15 thought why isn't there chicken and rice in bostonn expanding to a catering company now he has five food trucks. welcome, chef. thanks for being on. and i'm smelling this wonderful sample you've brought with you, chicken and rice, a special creamy garlic. is this a secret? >> secret, i can't tell you. >> hardly any calories, right? >> yeah, we can go with that. [laughs] >> so i'm going to sample. this is how many versions; like the basic chicken and

how much does this retail for? >> $7. >> thank you for bringing it. >> no problem. straight from the restaurant. >> this is chicken? this is not something else that tastes like chicken. >> i know for $7 it is really good and it is a lot of chicken and it is very moist and i like the spices. >> thank you. >> it is not spicy brut like how you flavter. >> we use several different spices. >> i'mic taking another bite. so you have this chicken and then you have a lamb sandwich? >> it is a lamb plate, all rice plates and you can do chicken, lamb or both. >> this is great i receive it. >> we also have hot sauces. >> so you have different sauces to go over. >> okay. excuse me. so you have that and then you have a combination plate. how did you get started for that firsted to truck. where did you get the money in. >> we actually used our home

charge card. >> we actually did do that, down the road. >> everybody has savings, you had a group of friends. >> yes, yes, it was three of us in the beginning and put up $10,000 each and my mom gave us a loan as well, which ended up coming a gift. >> oh, that's nice. >> but we did our first engine blew in our food truck so we to put a new engine on a credit card, which was 20,000s. >> and that was immediately successful. >> how did you get the recipe, who did the cooking? >> we all kind of shared the cooking. >> the dish is actually from new york so popular falafel and middle eastern food. i thinkten started maybe in the middle 90s. i'm from new york and i had the food i love there and i love starting businesses so at

very popular so we started thinking about it and researching on ebay and found a food truck in miami and bought it. >> and then you in two years you had four food trucks, right. >> yes,. how are you dispansing, quickly. >> i think that we're just, i think the entrepreneurial helped a lot. especially unthis industry. it is very competitive in the food industry. it is very competitive but you start food businesses so i think that gives us an advantage having a business degree because we're all education business background, i think that helps. >> what did your mom think when she said oh, my goodness the food truck of most asian parents want the doctors, lawyers and pay you with a food truck. >> yeah, so i told my brother when i but the food truck in miami, i didn't tell my mom

me and said hey your brother told me about a food truck and she pretty much said are you crazy. [laughs] but she has been very supportive. my father has been great. >> i'm sure they've been great. >> yes. >> so what makes your food truck stand out? boston has a lot of food trucks, way back in 2010 they didn't but now they're everywhere. >> i think the food by itself is one of the cheapest, largest >> and for $7, pretty tasty. >> especially downtown, you're not eating for $10 bucks. >> how did you transform foodtruck into restaurant? was that a learning curb, okay now we're going to do the brick-and-mortar thing to serve at a restaurant? >> it actually wasn't too bad. i think we spent a week in the restaurant when everything opened and after that it ran itself, but that's the reason

because we have a rally good kafwe ecfocus on our people. >> they have fun doog what they do. >> oh, yes. the food industry is tough and we make it fun for employees and that's really different than other fast food places. >> how do you make it fun? do you have a cob test, giveaways or just good hours? >> i think it is going back to the asian background i think it is some kind of family values and we respect each other, create family environment and people like that. are very typically people are very want things to be perfect but we don't expect that. we know there are people who have their off days, their bad days, so we're patient with people, give them lot of chances and they appreciate that. >> so they are very loyal to you. >> very loyal. i think we've had two managers leave in four years. >> not bad at all.

remedies every year and this year, 2016, you're projectedded to make 16, or 10 million in remedy? >> that's probably very high but i think we could softly probably make about 5 million this year and we've doubled every year. >> and how are you able to do that? >> the people are the most important part is having people be able to run things so that's the first thing, good people is always number one. we've been able tool build alvery unique business model. so we do the food trucks and make a lot of revenue from our catering, go pop up cafes and then restaurant. so it is very diversity. so papa cafes are over at the mall and in other office

they let us set up tables and we pre-made the food and sold at the table and that can do as much business as the restaurants. >> so the bostons are pre-made and people come out and take a box and sit at table? >> close, yes. so we make the food before hand and scoop it out the rice, the chicken when they order and then we box in front of them. >> how often do you do those? >> we do the but the pop-ups probably 10 a week, sometimes three or four a day. >> and you told me just before the show started you're buying out another restaurant group and you're going to expand your restaurant side of the business. >> yeah, we have a few locations in connecticut and tree in boston if we do the deal. >> ever come to texas? that's where i'm mostly here. >> yes, definitely. i love texas. that is really cheap to start up a business. >> that's what i heard, a lot

>> that's right. what advice would you give to somebody who says i want to deal with this guy does. what advice can you give a young person starting out and what to do in the food industry. >> i think it really comes from yourself, you have to be the driver and i think the founders, the partners, we formed a really good team because we have some good leadership skills. we're very humble, we definitely work veryar we don't think that we're the best or the smartest of anybody we just try to bring those people in so we know we don't have food experience, so better skill than this and that really helps us grow because it is not something that you can learn of absence, how to be food. >> very good eon, thank you so much for being with us. particular rice guy, we love that name. and your food is delicious. >> thank you.

performance.

our last segment features andrew mark served at mit and currently the faculty member one at hill school for the arts instructing master classes around the world from finland, to chine tew germany. he's been awarded for the string education and american string etch tooer association with teacher studio of the year. his recordings can be heard on the new world, coke, albion,

here is mark performing in d-minor suite. ?

? andrew mark, that's all for

i'm mary sumpt we'll see you again in four weeks. i'm mary sit. we'll see you again in four weeks. ? [music]

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