Because of all the cosmetic services like skin whitening and hair bleaching, there is a lot that people can do to change their appearance without having actual surgery. It's quite common in Thailand and Korea and Japan.

Black culture is very difficult to explain to people who don't have any direct contact with it.

Only when you leave do you appreciate what binds American people and our cultural experience together.

The hip-hop that I really connected with was Public Enemy, KRS-One, Ice Cube, and N.W.A. That late '80s and early '90s era. The beginning of gangster rap and the beginning of politically conscious rap. I had a very immature, adolescent feeling of, "Wow, I can really connect with these people through the stories they're telling in this music."

It's only when an American steps outside of their own culture that you see how integral it is.

For me, there's a very clear parallel between the practice of insight in Buddhism and what's called prajna - the insight that arrives through meditation.

Prajna is insight into the world. And a lot of that insight has to do with karma and the way karma affects our lives.