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To an outsider, it might seem that Sue Lee's career just recently launched forward at high speed. It's easy, she thinks, to forget how much she's accomplished until she stops to think about it in retrospect. Video games and esports were a staple -- an escape -- in her life at one point. And the passion she exercised managed to translate into something more. Known to the gaming community as "Smix," Lee spends a lot of her time as a stage personality. As a host and live translator for events like DreamHack, her role is to engage the audience and the pro gamers who are often standing in the spotlight beside her. And when she isn't hosting events, she's working at Twitch as a partnerships merchandise associate. Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, but moved to New York when she was only 10 months old. "I was born there, but I pretty much -- you know -- I'm as American as they come, basically," she said with a laugh. She has an older brother. Raised in a "traditional [South] Korean family," she spoke exclusively Korean at home. And living in a South Korean-saturated community in Queens, Lee said that it was a comfortable area for her mother to get by without knowing much English. "My mom made me go to Korean school, which was like this makeshift class after church on Sundays," Lee said. As a child, Lee always played games alongside her brother. "Growing up, I looked up to my brother a lot," she said. Noticing that her brother had been playing games on his computer, Lee immediately followed suit. "There was a mouse and cheese game. All of them, like, Windows 98 games," she said. Lee fondly recalled the time her brother asked for her input about whether they should get a PlayStation or a Nintendo 64. (She picked PlayStation; her brother ignored her input and chose the N64 instead.) And the times her brother would trick her into a trap so he could snipe the kill on her avatar. "I was easy to kill," she laughed. Eventually, Lee ended up in St. Louis for college, at Washington University. She was a double major in anthropology and psychology, with the idea that she wanted to understand people. "I feel like psychology is a very close-up, microscopic study of people. You get a really good understanding of the way people think, why people think the way we do," Lee said. "And then I liked anthropology because I thought [it] was kind of a macroscopic look at people."  She also decided on a Korean literature and language minor, wanting to further her skills in the language. She had to take a placement test, and while she wasn't unfamiliar with the language, she wasn't super-fluent, either, so she ended up in Korean 2 instead of Korean 1. When she eventually made the climb to Korean 4, she realized the class was full of native South Korean international students who had taken the class for an easy grade. "It was kind of like the final stage," she said. "I remember it was full of -- basically to be blunt about it -- [South] Korean international students who wanted an easy A. So obviously, to them, it was an easy A. But to me, it was really difficult." She and her fellow students were tasked with finding a topic of their own choosing to talk about, in Korean, for the duration of the course. Lee chose StarCraft. "I chose the topic of StarCraft, and how it evolved the way it did in [South] Korea," Lee said. "The guys in particular knew about it. I think they raised an eyebrow at the fact that I cared so much about it, and then the girls were just really nice girls. So they were just like, oh, that's cool that you're so into it." College was also a dark time for Lee. During the autumn of 2009, Lee experienced a life event that exacerbated her depression. Losing motivation to attend classes, Lee found solace in watching pro StarCraft leagues, and a majority of her life revolved around it. "I would wake up at 9 p.m., and then I would wait until South Korean StarCraft came on, which was usually at around 3 or 4 a.m.," Lee recalled. "I would watch the matches, and then as soon as the matches ended, I would wait until the postmatch interviews were posted on the South Korean forums, which was usually around, like, 7 or 8 a.m." She'd then immediately translate those interviews as soon as they would show up, post the translations on the Team Liquid forum, and finally head to bed. Lee discovered this site about a year prior, when visiting South Korea for the first time. After having seen professional games broadcast on some of the cable channels late at night, she had found this forum chock full of international fans who were just as excited about professional SC matches as she was. Still, it was a difficult time for her, as she deactivated from her sorority. "I really did try to make the most of my college experience," she said. Lee explains that she had cultivated a variety of friend circles at that time in her college career. "But I pretty much just dropped everything at this point," she said. "The only productive thing I enjoyed doing was [translating]. After MLG Raleigh [2011], I was asked to live-translate at IPL 3." "[StarCraft] was literally the only good thing to come out of that time," she admitted. Her text translations became an important source of information for the Team Liquid forum she frequented at the time. It was a productive method of coping that ultimately enabled her to be involved in the esports scene.  Stemming from a recommendation from one of the admins in the Team Liquid forum, James Lampkin, Lee was invited to translate for IPL 3. "Because there were so many tournaments that had [South] Koreans at the time, because I did a decent, acceptable job, I started being asked by other tournament organizers," she said. Though it was the first time she'd ever done live-translating, Lee made sure that she was well-prepped for whatever might come her way by utilizing an academic tactic: studying. "I made, like, flashcards," she said with a laugh. "I put, like, the unit names and then the Korean word for it on the back, and I really studied my butt off for it." Now that Lee is a little more experienced with live-translating, there are other tools of the trade that she's picked up. "For example, players sometimes might use a phrase that's specifically a Korean phrase that sounds really bizarre translated literally," Lee explained. "In that case, I do think that it's better to just interpret and think of a similar-ish way to say it in English, without translating it word for word." Other than those instances, she adopts a more literal style even if it means things sound a bit more dry. Part of that is because Lee says it would be taking liberties to embellish the answers that are given. There's also the possibility of adding banter to a comment, when the intention wasn't there to begin with. Transitioning to a host presented its own set of challenges. Live-translating definitely helped Lee for the stage presence needed to fulfill host duties, but there were so many other things in play that had to be worked on. "There's just a lot of skills of being a host that I just didn't have from the start," she admitted. Leading the crowd, hyping them up, and knowing when to transition smoothly are some of the many skills a host needs to balance. Being a bilingual host also presented its own challenges, partly because Lee didn't know which way of interviewing players would work better. Should she ask the English question directly, or announce to the viewers that she was going to ask (and subsequently, translate) the question? "That sounds like it's not a big difference, but it is, actually," said Lee. Stuck in this conundrum, Lee looked toward another Korean-speaking bilingual host as a role model. "Chobra was doing similar work as me, where he would translate and host. I thought the way he did it was very smooth and fluid," she said. Despite all the hard work that has gotten Lee to where she is now, there were streams of comments that nitpicked her intentions. "[It's] definitely a challenge. I feel like you have to work even harder to prove that you actually care about the game," she said. "People will automatically be skeptical of your intent." Any mistakes are scrutinized, and any small error would suggest to others that she wasn't meant to be there to begin with. "It's almost seen as proof you don't belong there," said Lee. "Someone else should have gotten it. That you got it just because you're a girl. And there's the normal stuff I get on a daily basis, where [people] sexualize me, saying I s---ed someone to get where I got. Ridiculous stuff that just goes over my head." Lee has been branching out into newer game titles, stepping away from her beloved StarCraft. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the newest esport that has captured her enthusiasm. When DreamHack needed a host for one of their CS:GO events, they eventually asked Lee, who already had experience working with them. "The way I describe my relationship with StarCraft and CS:GO is StarCraft is my first love. I will always love StarCraft, I will always love working StarCraft," she said, enthusiastically. "But CS:GO is new, exciting -- I guess the new game I'm 'dating' now." Whether the game is chock-full of action or there's always a cool-looking frag, there seems to be no other word other than "exciting" that she can use to describe CS:GO. Being South Korean and American -- and again, being able to command both languages -- has offered Lee opportunities to carve out a space for herself in the realm of esports.  Lee admitted there were instances when she very much felt more American when interacting with the South Korean players. It's still a factor when she engages players on stage. Regarding the instances when players give seemingly blasé answers, Lee said, "I understand why they do it, even though the host in me is, like, 'Please give better answers!'" Though Lee is transitioning away from a purely live-translating role into a more stage-present host, the South Korean aspect of her identity isn't at all forgotten. After all, that's what propelled her into what she is now. "It was just a part of who I was that helped me get involved with esports somehow," she said. She also believes luck has played a role in her career. "It's always humbling to work these events and see kind of the stories behind different players and teams that you meet," she said. It's clear that Sue "Smix" Lee has no intention of slowing down, at least for the foreseeable future. "That's the coolest thing about hosting," she said. "You get this overarching view of all the players as they work their hardest to win. Working as a host provides that, like, really cool vantage point of just being able to witness that every time you work an event."
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