Christine Ha: The Blind Chef’s Big Vision

Written By Melissa Ceria
 

"As I gained more skills in the kitchen without my sight, I gained confidence that I can do things, I just have to do them differently."

🎧 33 min | Episode 17 | Jun 27, 2024

Christine Ha
The Blind Chef’s Big Vision

Can the loss of sight enhance our other senses, unlocking new realms of creativity? Chef Christine Ha, who has turned personal tragedy into triumph through talent and resilience, is a powerful testament to this idea. 

At just 14, Christine faced the devastating loss of her mother, a woman who deeply influenced her love for cooking. This early heartbreak was compounded at 23 when she was diagnosed with Neuromyelitis optica, an autoimmune disease that gradually took her sight by the age of 27.

Navigating the culinary world, where precision and visual detail are paramount, Christine's journey from losing her vision to winning MasterChef Season 3 with Gordon Ramsay is remarkable. She has since become a New York Times best-selling author. Christine's first Houston restaurant, The Blind Goat, was a 2020 James Beard semi-finalist for Best New Restaurant, and she was later named a finalist for Best Chef in Texas in 2022.

Beyond her professional success, Christine has transformed her personal challenges into platforms for advocacy and inspiration for the visually impaired and those affected by mental illness. Reflecting on her most difficult moments, she has said: “I survived it by taking it day by day, sometimes even hour by hour, or minute by minute.”

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Transcript

(Edited slightly for clarity)

Melissa Ceria: Christine Ha, welcome.

Christine Ha: Thanks for having me.

Melissa Ceria: Christine, your family immigrated from Vietnam, and you grew up in a household that honored that cultural heritage. What are your earliest culinary memories and how did they shape your love for cooking?

Christine Ha: My parents were like you mentioned, both from Vietnam. They came over actually, as refugees and had escaped on a U.S. naval ship right before the fall of Saigon in April 1975. I was born some years later in Southern California, so my parents had been in the U.S. a few years before I was born. But of course, most of their lives at that point had been spent in Vietnam, so they missed a lot of the foods that they grew up themselves eating. So my mom would cook a lot of Vietnamese home cooking, comfort food, humble dishes, stuff that her mom would cook for her and her grandmother. So, I ate a lot of that growing up, and I always thought it was delicious. It was just very much a part of my identity. But growing up in the 80s in America, I felt like I was straddling two different cultures and two different generations. And so at school, I never felt American enough, and at home I never felt Vietnamese enough because my mom would pack some Vietnamese food for me to bring to school lunch, and I would always try to trade my eggrolls or my pork belly for my classmates baloney and cheese sandwiches, or peanut butter jelly sandwiches, to no avail. So, it was difficult growing up, but I knew I loved these flavors, and it wasn't until I was a young adult, after my mom had passed away, that I really missed the flavors I grew up eating. So, I set out to recreate a lot of the foods and dishes that she had cooked when I was a child, and that's really how I began. My love for cooking was really teaching myself how to cook in order to keep her spirit alive in my heritage. Alive in the kitchen.

  • Melissa Ceria [00:03:19] Growing up between two cultures is so enriching, but it can also be challenging, as you said. Did you feel that you could transition more easily with time between both, or did you prefer to keep them separate?


    Christine Ha [00:03:34] Over time, I think with maturity as an adult, looking back, I realize that I can be both. So now I feel proud to be both Vietnamese and American, and I realize that it doesn't have to be one or the other, but I can exist in both realms as one person, and there's the now, we talk a lot about the buzzword, like intersectionality, but really that's what it is. So I'm both Vietnamese and American. What does that mean? So a lot of people, as I got older, I met more and more people who identify exactly as I do with having Vietnamese parents and understanding that heritage, speaking that language, growing up and eating that food, yet growing up in America. So also understanding what it's like to be a child in America and reconciling those two differences in that, realizing we don't have to be two different things. We can be a Vietnamese American and what that entails. And so I think a lot of the food I cook tends to encompass both Vietnamese and American aspects of my upbringing as well. So fusing a lot of the ingredients of Vietnamese cuisine, for example, into maybe, American-style dishes or, and vice versa. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:04:43] And would you say that navigating those dynamics, well, how did that shape your personality? 


    Christine Ha [00:04:48] I feel like it has made me into a more confident person, and I feel like my life has been more enriched knowing two different cultures, speaking two different languages. Also, just knowing that what it can feel like to be lost in growing up in this way, straddling two different cultures. I feel like I have the compassion, and I can identify with a lot of other people who also feel like they never belong in one place or another, one circle another and feel like they're always the outsider or the other. And I feel for people who I think still harbor that sort of mentality is not being able to reconcile their different heritages. So for me, I think it's enriched me personally because I am more compassionate towards other people who feel like they identify with two different cultures or just even two different ways of being like, you know, whether coming from, different socioeconomic backgrounds or identifying as maybe LGBTQ, perhaps, and just trying to reconcile the different aspects of one individual's life into they are human beings. It's, I think, just really my way of being compassionate for all other people who are different from me. And so I think it's really powerful in this world to exist as a different people. And we're all individualistic. But I always say at the end of the day, we're all human beings and we all want to be loved, understood, respected and treated with dignity. And I think that's the most important thing. So having grown up in that realm has made me understand what it's like to feel the way people like me feel. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:06:26] Absolutely. At just 14. You face the devastating loss of your mother. You've said that your mother didn't leave any recipes behind. What was the significance of those recipes beyond just cooking instructions? 


    Christine Ha [00:06:40] The recipes or the dishes my mom cooked while I was growing up were, I felt like the only attachment I had to my childhood and my background after I lost her. So, I no longer, at that point, had someone to cook for me the dishes that she used to. So for me it was about remembering her and respecting my heritage from the country that both of my parents came from, and in turn also keeping that part of my identity still within reach. So understanding the Vietnamese side of who I am. So for me, relearning how to create these dishes was, I think, a way for me to just stay in touch with my background and my mom. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:07:25] When my grandmother died, I was anxious to retrieve her recipes. She was a great cook, and it felt like the alchemy of my memories with her were there. It was a way to preserve the essence of our shared moments. Did you feel the same way about your family's recipes? 


    Christine Ha [00:07:42] I think in some way, yes. I didn't spend a lot of time in the kitchen growing up with my mom or my grandmother, my aunts to cook because frankly, I wasn't really interested in cooking until I was in college and older. But for me, when I create these dishes or cook them or taste them, they conjure up these memories of my past, my childhood, my family. And I think these memories are important to me because it reminds me where my family came from and the sacrifices they made to give me a better life and opportunity here in the U.S. so for me, it's important to always stay in touch with my roots. I would say it is really the crux of why I wanted to learn to cook Vietnamese food. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:08:31] At 23, Christine, you were diagnosed with Neuromyelitis optica, otherwise known as NMOSD. It was gradual, though, for you, what were the biggest challenges that you faced as you lost your sight bit by bit by the age of 27?


    Christine Ha [00:08:47] That period in my life I came across many challenges. I mean, first it was I had been misdiagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis for a few years, and I was put on MS treatments and they were not helping and I continued to get worse. So that was the first challenge, is just being misdiagnosed and going down this rabbit hole of thinking these treatments I was put on by my doctors would help and then they didn't. And then the challenge of the NMO continuing to affect my health, really taking a toll on my nervous system and making my optic nerve atrophy over time. So then that's how I gradually lost my vision in adjusting to this new life of having less and less vision, and learning how to do things with my other senses, and feeling like I'd lost a lot of independence. And then also the NMO had also taken a toll on my spinal cord at some point in time, and I had bouts of NMO attacks where I was paralyzed from the neck down. And that took a long period of recovery from doing a lot of physical and occupational therapies and a lot of medication. So it was like a roller coaster, I would say, both physically and mentally and emotionally, like just not really knowing what I had. And no matter what I tried and treatments I tried, they weren't working. And then dealing with vision loss and dealing with paralysis. All of this happening in the majority of my 20s. I think they were very challenging times and the physical aspects of them were hard, but I think it was the mental stress that I got from just not knowing what I had and why I was doing these things and I wasn't getting better. I felt like it just didn't make sense logically in my head. So mentally it was really tough to try to accept the unknown. And I think that's my big fear, is I like to always be in control. As you know, many of us are that way, like we just want to know what's going to happen next. We want to know what to expect. And when your life is turned upside down like that and you don't know what the next hour or the next day or week or month will hold, that can be very scary. And it goes against a lot of our nature as human beings. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:10:58] What helped you the most during that time? 


    Christine Ha [00:11:00] I would say friends and family reaching out and spending time with me, not necessarily trying to resolve my issues and not always trying to understand because I know they couldn't understand. I didn't know anyone else that had gone through what I was going through at that age. So not pretending to understand, but just spending time with me and just sitting with me, sometimes in silence and just being in my place of pain with me, metaphorically. I think that was helpful. That kept me hopeful and optimistic. Sometimes, like when you're going through really tough times, your life is just consumed by these challenges and these difficulties, and sometimes you want to try to escape or forget for just a little bit. So just having conversations with friends and family and talking about other things and then making me laugh or distracting myself, and I will say, another big thing that helped me through that time was listening to audiobooks, because I had lost my vision and I had not yet learned to read Braille, and I was going through all of these issues with my spinal cord so it was difficult for me to use my arms and my legs. So the thing that helped me pass the time was actually listening to audiobooks. So rediscovering my love for literature, for novels, and for stories that helped me get through these dark times too, because they were a way for me to spend time in an imaginary place and forget about my own problems. And I'd always been an avid reader and a lover of books and stories, and so it was this time that after I recovered, I decided to do a complete career change. And instead of going back into the corporate world because my undergraduate degree was in business, I decided to go back to school and get a Masters in Creative Writing and do storytelling instead. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:12:40] Navigating that inner landscape. Did you have to get to know your body again? 


    Christine Ha [00:12:45] I did, I feel like I had to learn that my body is very capable, but at the same time, I had to start understanding my limitations and learning how to do very simple things again as I slowly recovered, like learning how to brush my teeth again as I regain use of my arms and got feeling back in my fingers. Also learning how to do things with less and less sight. Even as I was regaining back my sense of touch and my motor and sensory skills, which were just learning to, you know, the simplest things like how do you get your toothpaste onto your toothbrush head without being able to see? Then I had to learn, like, you know, put the toothpaste on your finger till you feel it, and then you scrape it off with your toothbrush head. So adapting to this new way of life with less vision and with, you know, motor and sensory skills that sometimes are there fully 100%, sometimes they aren't. And just trying to figure out how do you get by day by day and live with these new changes in life.


    Melissa Ceria [00:13:45] I find it very beautiful that you started cooking at that time as a way to also connect with your mother. To what extent was that a healing process for you? 


    Christine Ha [00:13:54] At first it felt like a challenge because I had just started learning to cook and I was getting pretty good at it and really excited about it as just a hobby. And then I started dealing with the vision loss and all of these other health issues. So I really thought at some point that I would never be able to cook again or be independent in the kitchen, and losing independence for me was the biggest loss from the vision loss. It was hard because I grew up an only child. I lost my mom when I was young, so I felt like I had to grow up pretty fast and learn to be very independent and not depend on other people. And suddenly I had to depend on other people to drive me to the doctor's office, to help me read my mail, to help me cook or feed myself. So I thought that I would have to depend on other people to even cook. And so it was at the start of this depressing, I would say, to feel like I wouldn't be able to live by myself anymore. But as I slowly tried to make simple things again in the kitchen like, for example, just making a cold cut sandwich or a peanut butter jelly sandwich, doing things that are very simple, and then maybe graduating to cutting fruit. So using a knife to cut fruit, to perhaps frying an egg or scrambling eggs on the stove, using now fire on a stove. I slowly progressed in learning how to cook again with less sight. I think that helped me, one, realize that I can be independent again. I just need certain adaptations and I need to learn to do things a different way to be, to cook again and be independent again in life. And then two, slowly, as I gained more skills in the kitchen without my sight looking back, it helped me gain more and more confidence to realize that, okay, I can do these things, I just have to do them differently. I might need some help in certain ways, but if I can figure out strategic ways to adapt, I can be just as independent as I was before. And so that gave me confidence to take more risks and to not be afraid to make mistakes in the kitchen or in life, and just embrace these mistakes and realize that there are learning moments in my life and to improve myself and my skill set and my character in the process. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:16:12] On the subject of confidence, Christine, you go on to MasterChef Season 3. What motivated you? 


    Christine Ha [00:16:19] It's a really funny story. I was in my last semester of graduate school, so I was about to defend my thesis and graduate with the Master's of Fine Arts and Creative Writing, and I had started, you know, cooking again quite well and frequently. And my friends and my then boyfriend, now husband actually encouraged me. They said, "oh, there's a show called Master Chef. Why don't you go out and audition? Because the nation needs to learn that a visually impaired person can cook in the kitchen." So I went to open call auditions in a nearby town for Master Chef. Really just thinking that if I get far enough to get on the show, I thought I would just have a great story idea, and I really thought it would feed my creativity and I'd either have like an idea for a fictional short story, or I would have an idea for a personal essay to write about my experience or a humor essay, and I thought it would just be material for me to come home and write about in my workshops at school, not expecting to get far. So I did it really for the creative inspiration and just the experience. But I did do it at the encouragement of my friends and family. But going in, not really expecting to get far. I thought I would be done after the auditions, but I kept going and I am a competitive person and very determined so I just kept trying and and then, you know, I was getting closer and closer to the end and I thought, maybe I can do this. But each day was definitely difficult, and I didn't expect to get as far as I did. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:17:51] You've described yourself as an introvert, and yet you've successfully appeared on national TV and given Ted talks, what drives you to do this work? 


    Christine Ha [00:18:00] I am still an introvert. I would say I'm not a reserved person, but I like, you know, my quiet time and such. But, I think that it is important and it is my responsibility and my duty here on this earth to spread my story, because I've found over the years that my life story has inspired a lot of people or encouraged people in some of their darkest moments. So I know that winning MasterChef is much more than just winning MasterChef. I think it gave me this platform and this responsibility to make other people's lives better through the telling of my story, through the sharing of my experiences, through talking about the personal lessons that I've learned. So for me, I think it's important for me to do these things, even though at the beginning they were very challenging because, you know, a lot of people know public speaking can be very scary if you're not experienced in it, but I knew it would be good for society. So I felt these are challenges I need to take on. It's another challenge in life that I just need to overcome because it does more good than bad. I just put myself out there and just kept retelling my story and found that a lot of people enjoyed it, so I just feel like it's my duty. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:19:19] Can you take us into the kitchen and briefly describe how you adapt to cooking without sight? What techniques or tools do you rely on today? 


    Christine Ha [00:19:28] I definitely rely on my remaining four senses. I actually use my sense of touch a lot because, for example, when I chop vegetables, I feel the cut of the vegetable, the size of the vegetables, so I know, like, do I need to cut more or do I need to dice them smaller? Of course, your sense of smell and taste, which go hand in hand quite a bit. Those are important because I'll know by smell if, for example, if the garlic is raw or if it's starting to caramelize in the pan or if it's burnt, and then, you know, my sense of taste is just, as I'm cooking, like, how do I balance out the seasoning or the different spices? And listening too, is just, you know, is this pan hot enough by listening to how the water sizzles in the pan. So a lot of it is just over time and experience, like learning to adapt with my remaining four senses. As far as tools, like these days, we have such advancements in technology that really helps. So smart home appliances I would say like I use that to set timers to convert measurements. I use my smartphone or my tablet where I have, like all my recipes, so I can refer to them using a screen reader. All of these things I think are just helpful in the kitchen, and sometimes it does take a little bit longer for me to cook, perhaps than a sighted person, but when I'm in my own home kitchen, everything is very organized. Things are made more tactile so I can feel it instead of being able to look at it. So, you know, there's raised-dot stickers that are on some of my appliances so I can feel exactly the position of the stove knob, for example. So these small adaptations help and especially organization in the kitchen, which is supposed to be a priority whether you're sighted or not. But I've always been an organized person, and the organization in my kitchen is, I would say, is like no other kitchen. It's what all my friends say. So that helps me know where everything is at any time. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:21:17] Being a chef can be stressful. What is your relationship to stress or pressure today? 


    Christine Ha [00:21:23] I think that stress is in a way good because it pushes us to perform. But we all know scientifically that too much stress makes your brain release too much cortisone. So when you have this fight or flight mentality all the time in your head, you do start burning out and it affects your muscles. It releases more lactic acid in your muscles. So I think learning to manage stress is highly, highly important. Stress is going to be an everyday factor for all of us. And stress could be you know, we tend to think of the word stress as negative. But stress happens in so many ways, like even small changes or positive changes in our lives, like starting a new job. We're excited about that, but there's still a level of stress to that experience because it's something new. It's something we are not used to and we have to adapt to, so we don't know what to expect. So I think learning to manage the stress, learning that stress can be positive, not always feeling like it's going to be the end of the world, figuring out how to sit in that moment of stress, process it, and then problem solve it. I think those are the steps that I personally take to try to deal with stress. And of course, also taking breaks are important, like whether it's taking a vacation from your work, taking a break every hour to just get up and stretch or take daily walks, be out in nature and get your mind off of work or your daily stresses. I think taking time for yourself and self-care are very, very important to keep your brain and your body healthy and in its tip-top shape. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:22:52] You've had to adapt over the course of time. And I'm wondering, in what ways has that process influenced your creative philosophy? Not just in cooking, but in life overall? 


    Christine Ha [00:23:05] Ooh, that's a tough question. But I would say that adapting is a part of life. It was something that it was hard for me to learn because I love routine and I love knowing what to expect, and I like being in control. But life will throw all sorts of things at you, and you do have to learn to adapt. So what I think that means, and how that relates to creativity, is that you are constantly having to change in some way. It could be minimal. Sometimes it's very maximal. Like, for example, all of us went through the start of the Covid pandemic and suddenly our lives were turned upside down. We had to figure out a new way of working. Like, what do we do with our family? Like, how do we do this or that? How do we live? Sometimes the changes come quickly and come a lot at a time, sometimes they are minimal. Most of the time they're minimal or moderate. But adaptation and evolution are constants in our lives, and we're always having to change or adapt or evolve or grow in order to make sense of the experiences that are happening to us in our lives. So I think in that way, it's like creativity, because you also have to always think about innovation and ideas, and you're constantly trying to come up with new things and think about things in new ways or new lights or, you know, banter with other people who share similar visions and like, have a brainstorming session, so I think adaptation and creativity are similar in that there is constant change, and you have to think about constantly adapting and evolving in order to make things new and fresh. And this is from a business standpoint, this is from a creative standpoint. I think it's from a lot of perspectives in our lives. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:24:51] Beyond your culinary success, you've become an advocate for the visually impaired and those affected by mental health. What inspired you to take on this role? 


    Christine Ha [00:25:00] I think when I went through these life experiences myself personally, I knew the struggles. I knew how hard it was to lose my vision to be diagnosed with a chronic disease that would affect me for the rest of my life, and then the mental and emotional tolls that these experiences took on me, I think took me to a dark place and made me very sad and feel hopeless from time to time, but I was able to eventually pull myself out of it, fortunately. And so for me, I know how deeply these things and these experiences can affect a person. So for me, I think I just try to live my life and tell my story and share my experiences so that other people who perhaps are going through something similar, understand that there can be light at the end of the tunnel, and there is a way out. And the scariest thing is, is feeling alone like no one else cares or understands or is there for you. So I think loneliness is the hardest thing about all of this. So for me, I just want people to know, like I've gone through something similar before so I can understand to a degree I may not understand 100% because we're all different human beings. We all have different backgrounds and grew up, you know, were raised a certain way, have different personalities. So all of these things will affect how you deal with your challenges in your life. But I know what it's like to go through difficulties and how much that sucks and how lonely and isolating it can feel. So I just want people to not feel like they're alone or they can't reach out and be proactive about trying to get help. So I think that's why I advocate for all of these often socially-marginalized people, or people who feel like it's taboo to talk about mental illness or mental health or disability. I want people to know that there are other people who have gone through very similar experiences, and they've been able to still do positive things in their life and come through it. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:26:59] The restaurant industry is particularly rigorous and has undergone many changes since Covid. Do you think mental health advocacy is now even more important in this industry? 


    Christine Ha [00:27:08] Oh, 100%. I think the restaurant and the service industry are often overlooked. People think of them as transitional jobs, not careers. And I think people don't realize, like, how hard it is to be in the service industry. You're constantly having to kind of be at the beck and call of guests and do as they please, but, you know, you're still human being, you're still trying to juggle different things. You still have your own personal life outside of work. So I think mental health is important and there should be a work life balance for sure. You know, you should be able to take your whole selves to work like it's good to be honest with your managers or boss your peers about what you're going through. But at the same time, I believe you have the responsibility to try to come up with solutions to like, you know, not let your personal life affect your work life severely. Like you can let people know. But when you're at work, you're at work and you're here to still perform as a professional. And, you know, I live my life the same way. Like I'm very open about when I'm dealing with health issues with my team or how my day is going. I'm always honest about that. But at the same time, like, as the owner of the restaurant, like, people look to me as the leader, so I have to come even-keeled. And that doesn't mean like I will never cry at the restaurant, but it also means I can't come in with a temper and take things out on people because, you know, this is how I feel. But I'm going to squash that for now and deal with these things professionally, because I'm at work and I'm your leader. So I know they look to me to be calm and even keeled. No matter what is happening outside in the world or within, you know, my life. So I try to just live by example. And that's the example I try to set at my restaurants. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:28:45] Sounds like you've got a good sense of boundaries. 


    Christine Ha [00:28:48] Yes. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:28:48] Christine, what's next for you in your culinary career? What are you hoping for? 


    Christine Ha [00:28:54] This year I'm actually working on a second cookbook. So I'm hoping, you know, I'm putting together recipes, trying to put together a cookbook proposal. I would love to publish another cookbook, because it's been quite a long time since I published my first one. And my recipes and my cooking have definitely evolved. And I know people have been hungry for another recipe book from myself. So I would say that's the thing that's on the near horizon. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:29:17] And you must get such joy because you're passionate about cooking and writing. So blending those two, that must be very fulfilling for you, right? 


    Christine Ha [00:29:25] It is. The subject is still food, which I love, but then it's exercising a different part of my brain, a different creative part, where writing is much more of a solo aspect than perhaps running a restaurant. So it's nice to kind of be quiet and think about how to express myself and put words on a paper and tell my story in the form of recipes. It's something I'm looking forward to, and it has its own challenges, but I'm excited for time to finally sit down and go back to writing. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:29:54] What else are you keen to learn? 


    Christine Ha [00:29:56] Keen to learn? That is a good one. I mean, I want to continue learning about new cuisines that I don't have experience with. I haven't done this in a while since the pandemic. But I did learn to snowboard. But I want to get better. But it is kind of scary now that I'm older. Like, you know, when you fall, it's definitely going to hurt more than when you're 20 years younger. I would like to continue to do some other physical activities that take me outside of the restaurant, outside of my work. I recently picked up rock climbing again. I'm thinking about maybe picking up boxing, but I'm trying to come up with, like, a new physical activity that would pose a different fun challenge in my life that would take me outside of the box of restaurants and food.


    Melissa Ceria [00:30:44] That's so cool. Reflecting on your journey, what have you learned about yourself that surprises you? 


    Christine Ha [00:30:50] I have learned that I too have limitations. I think many people wouldn't expect that answer because my first reaction would be like, oh, I learned that I have a lot more ability and a lot more gumption and strength than I thought I did in confidence, but I want to take it the other way. Like as I get older and as I've gone through all of these experiences, I realize that I am still human. I still have my limitations. I still need to ask for help and depend on other people. And I think that is surprising because growing up, like, we tend to think we're invincible as youth. We can do all these sorts of crazy things and we'll live forever. And then you start experiencing things like vision loss and serious diagnoses, and then you're like, oh, wait a second, maybe I can't always do a 100% or 200%. Maybe I need to take a break and just focus on myself. And I think over the years, that's what I've learned. I've learned that I can do a lot of things and I've achieved a lot of things, but I still get tired, I still get sad, I still feel stress. And that's when it's important to have people around you, whether it's your friends, your family, your spiritual circle, your team, your employees, you need to have all of these people around you supporting you, all moving towards the same goal and the same vision. And I think that's what helps me keep my strength up, is knowing that I have weaknesses and limitations. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:32:24] And maybe those weaknesses are just a beautiful reminder of the community that you have in your life, and the interdependency or the bonds, I should say, that enrich your life very much. 


    Christine Ha [00:32:36] So it definitely makes me always appreciate the people in my life and knowing that I cannot do the things I do alone. And it does take a team. 


    Melissa Ceria [00:32:47] Christine, thank you so much for talking to me today. I really enjoyed our conversation and admire everything that you're doing. Good luck with the snowboarding and with the new activities. Keep us posted. I wish you all the best as you continue to create all of these wonderful experiences for us. Thank you so much. 


    Christine Ha [00:33:08] Thanks, Melissa. It's been a pleasure being here.

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