I was on an army show, and in the army - especially in Korean culture - there's a very, very strict hierarchy. Obviously, you would not talk informally or disrespectfully to your commanding officer. But me, in my limited Korean, I basically told my commanding officer, 'Thou shalt forget!' The Korean public thought it was really funny.
— Amber Liu
I haven't said this yet, but my goal for this 'Beautiful' album is not to say, 'I'm beautiful,' or, 'OK, I'm so cool.' This is, honestly, an album written for the listeners.
I always had good skin as a little kid, but when I turned 25, everything just went south.
As the human race, let's continue to show love, compassion, and respect towards one another.
I will always continue to work hard, become stronger, and learn to love myself for who I am, imperfections and all.
I see that I'm very unique, but I'm not trying to be. I'm just being me.
I'm all for equality.
Being on a K-pop label and agency, everything's taken care of for you. The music is set up for you. Your food, manager, practice room, recording studios - all these things are in the palm of your hand. However, you know the compromise of what you can actually do or say.
In London and New York, people just naturally seem to dress really well, and that makes me want to do the same. In Seoul, too; in L.A., I'm just like, 'Eh.'
I wanted to tour the United States because I feel I owe it to the community that I grew up in. When I was growing up, the only people I saw on TV were Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Jet Li. Our representation as Asians wasn't big, but I wanted to be like Lucy Liu and then Maggie Q.
Instead of trying to group people into something and have this one assumption, get to know someone for who they are. I guess a lot of people are really lazy to start getting to know people or make that effort.
I finally chopped off my ponytail at the end of middle school, and it was the best decision I made.
For me, when I went through my depression, I always felt like I was alone, and because people never understood me, I had to shut myself out from the world. Art and music was the only thing that could ever help me get over that.
If I can give something to the next generation, I want to give a message of positivity, to believe in themselves, because I think the world has just a lot of unnecessary stresses to be a certain way, look a certain way, do certain things.
I just love music. Every genre of music: country, rock. I originally first loved punk rock. Pop punk. I don't know, just rock in general. And getting to rap. And now K-pop. Different types of music. I love everything.
Definitely, doing my solo stuff, it's fun in a different way. I get a lot more say. However, there's a lot more work to do because I have to make everything happen.
My mom was a house mom when we were growing up, and that's all I knew about her. I had a really big disconnect with her because she only spoke Chinese. Her English isn't good at all. Being a typical second-generation, you have the basic stuff, but I never had a deep conversation with her.
My dad came to Korea one time, and then he pulls out a whole bunch of my headshot prints. He's like, 'Amber, you need to sign all of this for me because all of my friends want these.' I guess that's when I kind of realized I was 'famous.'
'Beautiful' was something that I kept really close to my heart, that I kept from a lot of people for years and years. It's my story. And I think that was the first impression I needed to give to people as a solo artist. This is who I am; this is what I'm about.
I felt very motivated to release some things in English because I wanna represent my community.
In f(x), when I'm doing K-pop, that's cool - that's our concept. But me, as a solo artist, I'm just me. I'm gonna wear my jeans, my Jordans, and I'm just gonna be a little stupid on stage.
I definitely went through this whole phase of seeing what my seniors or friends would be wearing and just copying that.
I don't cry that much, and if I do, it's for a really big thing.
Gay, straight, bi, whatever - it doesn't matter. Love is love.
Sitting on my butt waiting on opportunities won't do me any good.
I'm from Los Angeles, and we have 24/7 sun pretty much all year round.
People assume a lot about me. Some people come up and think I'm hard. I'm actually very, very shy. I'm bubbly in the right circumstances. But I'm a big introvert.
I think, in the end, we are all our own individual person.
I hear that I dress like a boy and that I should be more girly, which I can understand, but I just focus on what I want to do and enjoy my time with fans who love me for who I am.
And what I love about music and art in general is that you can take something so negative or positive - any emotion, no matter how sad or happy - and turn it into art.
The reason I connected with music was because of the stories that people were telling and making me feel when I listened to a song.
When I first debuted back in 2009, K-Pop was already starting to get bigger because of the Internet. And that's how I found it, because I'm not Korean.
I'm always in the studio working on music and dancing.
My parents are really supportive of everything I do.
I worked at a school supply store as a cashier.
Always SPF! The sun is trying to eat you, pretty much.
I think us humans are just so cruel to each other. We just want to keep judging each other on our looks.
I just dress for comfort.
The most important gift you can give anyone is honesty, and that's what I want to do.
With anything new, if it's weird or cool, it will catch people's attention. But slowly, that new thing, if it catches on, it becomes a trend itself.
Society tells you home is where you grew up or where you settled, but nah. I have friends all over the world. Maybe I have a billion homes.
I was terrified to go solo. It's lonely doing it by myself. But I wanted to challenge myself.
People don't know what it's like being the foreigner until they are one.
I think we should let our guards down a little bit more.
My Mandarin is slowly getting worse.
We're all fighting for the same thin,g and I hope that the fight for equality, the fight to help people get over their anxiety or depression, whatever thing they're going through, I hope that we can all come together more as a community.
I know when I was growing up, I was always lost and just thought I was alone and that I needed to find where I belonged.
I've always felt like, you know, there's this imaginary wall that we ourselves put up or others do by saying that we can't do something.
I'm comfortable with myself now, and I understand how goofy I am, how stupid I can be, how emotional I can be, or how focused I can be.
As any human does, I have my happy times and sad times.
