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Author Talk - Curtis Chin: Everything I Learned I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant
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551 views Streamed live on Oct 20, 2023 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Join the Library, Loyalty Bookstores, and the Mayor's Office of Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs for
a conversation with Curtis Chin about his new memoir Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. In conversation with MOAPIA Director Ben de Guzman, Chin will share from his book about growing up Chinese-American and gay in Detroit in the 1980's.
Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.
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Transcript
0:01
thank you David can we give David and dcpl another round of [Applause] applause as he said uh well as
0:12
he said my name is bendy gizman I'm with the mayor's office on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs and we have been really proud to partner with dcpl as well as uh loyalty books Christine is
0:23
outside um and uh other folks from their uh Team are here to help with the book signing
0:29
after words uh but yeah no so uh I am pleased to welcome you to tonight's event October is a
0:36
lot of things we're celebrating a lot of things here it's half of Hispanic Heritage Month uh it
0:42
is uh Breast Cancer Awareness Month uh it's Philipino American History Month I shouldn't
0:47
forget that uh but uh perhaps most uh directly related to tonight's discussion it is in fact
0:55
lgbtq history month so it's really timely that you're here Curtis C Curtis and I are old friends
1:01
in the interest of full transparency um but uh as you kick off your tour it just started right like
1:08
yesterday that's Tuesday yeah yeah yeah the book came out Tuesday um but it's really great to have
1:14
you here during lgbtq History Month it's great to have you here in Chinatown uh so Chinatown is
1:21
part of a larger Citywide discussion that we're having in Washington about how we come back from
1:27
Co 19 I mean obviously as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders we have had our own kind of
1:34
up and down experience with uh respect to coid but um our role right now is to make sure that
1:41
uh we remind folks that Chinatown continues to be the gateway to downtown and the Chinatown Arch
1:46
works both ways right on one hand we welcome uh DC to Chinatown but at the same time we connect
1:53
Chinatown to all the conversations that the mayor has been having about downtown DC and how we need
1:59
to come back stronger from Co so uh if you want to use the hash B downtown I will encourage you to do
2:08
that as well but uh regardless my plug of of the mayor aside uh tonight we're here to welcome uh
2:15
Curtis obviously writer SL producer/director activist from his website everything uh he's
2:24
a co-founder of the Asian-American Writers Workshop in New York City Curtis chin served as the nonprofit first executive director uh he went on to write for network in cable television before
2:35
transitioning to social justice documentaries CH uh Chen screened his films at over 600 venues in
2:41
20 countries wow okay um his documentary he sound surprised it's a lot uh his documentary
2:49
Vincent who about the legacy of the hate crime murderer Vincent chin in Detroit um is one of his
2:56
documentaries and Ben makes a cameo I was going to say okay it's the reason why I have an entry in
3:02
imdb.com no but uh but uh Curtis has written for CNN bone Appetit the Detroit Free Press and the
3:12
emancipator uh Boston Globe uh he is a proud Michigan Alum go Blue a lot of Michigan people
3:20
here and uh Curtis has received awards from ABC Disney television New York foundation for the Arts
3:27
the National Endowment for the Arts um and many more his essay in bone appetite was just selected
3:33
for best food writing in America 2023 and I think that's something we might revisit as uh we talk
3:39
about food oh yeah that just came out on Tuesday as well I both yeah so there's a lot of media that
3:46
Curtis has been appearing in uh as a result of his Memoir but uh but before we actually start
3:52
I did want to actually thank a number of the other organizations that have also been responsible for bringing him here uh OCA DC the DMV chapter of OCA asian-pacific American Advocates uh the 1882
4:06
Foundation Ted gong is here uh the Asian-American journalists Association I know that I've talked
4:12
to at least one or two of the members that are here obviously the University of Michigan alumni and a group that's close to my heart Asian Pacific Ander queers United for Action
4:24
uh they also help promote um yeah so uh I have I I have some questions I want to make sure we have
4:32
time for questions from the audience as well but I wanted to start by letting you talk a little bit about yourself folks don't know you for 20 years like I have uh but yeah anything
4:43
you want to say about the book and and that sort of thing so everyone Curtis chin okay uh thank
4:49
you everybody thank you for coming in the warm uh welcome here uh I love coming to DC uh so as Ben
4:55
mentioned the book is called Everything I learned I learned in a Chinese restaurant and it came out this past Tuesday uh and I'm sort of at the start of a 40 City Tour um to promote it yeah and it's
5:05
beginning a lot of great press but you know as the title implies it's about growing up in my family's Chinese restaurant and I like to say that this wasn't just any Chinese restaurant in Detroit
5:14
this was the Chinese restaurant in Detroit and so I sorted throw out a fig I asked the audience
5:19
like to guess how many egg rows do you think we made in the 60 years that we own because this is proof that you know we are the best any guesses 60 years and these are all like handmade even the
5:31
skin and the sauce no math Majors here we sold over 10 million eggr like it was a really really
5:39
popular Chinese restaurant and so it was a really great place to to grow up despite Detroit in the
5:44
80s being a very very difficult time place I mean you know you had the Auto industry that was struggling you had uh crack cocaine you had AIDS I personally knew five people murdered by
5:54
the time I was 18 years old but despite that you know my parents provided this safe Oasis
5:59
in the middle of the cast Corridor one of the more difficult areas of the city um and they were able to raise uh six kids and so this book is sort of a thank you to my parents thank you to that
6:10
restaurant but also thank you to my hometown of Detroit um for providing me a great springboard
6:15
to sort of move forward um and so do you want me to start and read uh the okay so what I'm going
6:21
to do is I'm just going to read quickly a short passage from the prologue and that'll set us up um for some of the questions that you have and so the book is div dived into three sections of
6:31
eight stories each 888 for people who know Chinese Superstition so they're all kinds of little Easter eggs like that uh so the first eight stories are elementary middle school and then eight stories in
6:41
high school and then eight in college um U ofm so uh I'm just going to start and read um the
6:47
first part okay this from the prologue welcome to chongs this is for here to go armed with a smile
6:55
in a red waiter jacket with a Perpetual plum sauce stain that's how my dad greeted any new face who entered the lobby of our popular Chinese restaurant in Detroit interestingly my great great
7:05
grandpa gong Le chin had faced the same question in the late 1800s as he stood cold and alone on a
7:11
rickety dock in guango China trying to decide his future and that of his young impoverished family
7:16
for here or to go for here or to go as I got older it was a question I asked myself starting
7:22
in our restaurant's long and open back kitchen where my family made some of our most popular items including the tangiest barbecue pork and best smelling almond cookies my mom taught me
7:32
my first lessons before diving into math English and geography she began with a little American
7:37
history tells of Elders and ancestors our family is prologue and so the rest of the prologue sort
7:44
of continues with my family's backstory talking about how my great- great-grandfather moved from Canton China to Canton Ohio before realizing there weren't Chinese people there and then
7:53
moving up to Detroit and following my family you know through the depression and stuff like that and finally reaching uh in 1967 Detroit had this thing called the Detroit Riots which we call the
8:02
Rebellion now and during that time period for the first time ever my family had to Clos the restaurant right for five straight days and during that time period my parents actually had sex and
8:13
so I was born uh you know uh nine months later as their Riot baby and so I feel like that's why I
8:20
inevitably talk about race a lot because without that little incident I probably wouldn't be here so so the rest of the book sort of continues about there and it it was that original question of for
8:30
here to go do I stay with my family in this really wonderful restaurant you know and the city that I
8:36
love or do I have to go out and be myself not only just because of the gay thing uh but also because
8:42
Detroit itself there was just so few opportunities um you know at that time there I mean there just didn't seem like to be a future in the city and so that's that's what a lot of the book is about
8:50
you know is that that tug that I was having so yeah it's a really powerful beginning right for
8:56
here to go and I was like oh wow okay we're in it yeah yeah um so three parts right so uh actually
9:06
the three questions that I have prepared okay so that works out also um but so uh October is lgbtq
9:14
History Month okay and I've been thinking a lot about um Coming of Age as much as coming out right
9:22
so our office uh just hosted a screen on the green thing uh event in Chinatown Park couple weeks ago
9:30
to celebrate mid-autumn festival and we showed turning red if folks know that movie it's about a
9:35
young girl and her coming of age and the feelings down there and like woo um and one of the things
9:45
that actually was so powerful for me as someone who did not experience coming of age as a young
9:53
girl is you know how she began to feel about the crushes that she had on the boy band and you know
10:01
her period and what have you sorry spoilers yeah but the other kind of coming of age story that um
10:10
I also was thinking about as I was reading this was uh the best little boy in the world which was
10:16
I guess his uh name is uh his pen name was John Reed and um oh my God why am I forgetting his name
10:23
he is a DNC uh fundraiser now um Andrew Tobias yes Andrew Tobias so what's interesting to me about
10:31
both like coming of age stories in general is how you think about kind of your emerging feelings of
10:40
romance or sex or what have you and some of them are naughtier than others I don't think we get to
10:46
hear enough about how girls feel about you know the naughty feelings you know uh so what did you
10:53
think about there's a couple of stories that he tells at the risk of no spoilers about kind
11:00
of your your beginnings of your realization of uh of liking boys okay so how do you as a writer how
11:09
do you decide to write about that how much do you reveal how naughty do you make it like what's your
11:15
process uh well first I should say that like uh I did I joined a bunch of writing groups and there was this uh one group that I joined actually in Scotland because I could do it online and
11:24
there was an elderly Scottish guy who's like you know probably like 70 or 80 years old and he you
11:29
know he was a bit conservative and he actually asked like is there a lot of sex in this book and I actually said to him don't worry luckily I didn't have very much sex you know growing up and
11:39
so you it's a very familyfriendly in that sense but um in terms of the process of actually coming out I mean you know I don't know how it was for you but at first you don't understand what it is
11:49
right you just have these really basic impulse of like oh here's a really attractive boy I like to hang out with him you know he just you just get this energy around them right and then you
11:59
at some point realize oh it's something more and I think that growing up in the area that I grew
12:05
up in which was called the cast Corridor it was like kind of the red light district where you're literally exposed to you know prostitutes and you know pimps and you know all this kind of stuff I
12:15
think you do you're exposed to things much faster and so I was aware of these things uh much earlier
12:21
um you know because yeah you're just surrounded by it so maybe it's slightly different than growing up in the suburbs I think yeah my first crush was Wonder woman but then I realized I wanted to be
12:31
her not no no whatever yeah no My First Crush was the Filipino boy in Chinatown you know which I
12:40
called the Filipino Fonzi because he had like you know his little curly hair and his white t-shirts uh and then I started having crushes on our on our workers at the restaurant so that's how I
12:50
sort of got started yeah nice so another uh do you want to read another section and then cuz I have
12:59
a couple of questions and I think maybe it'll be cute if you there's another thing that you want to
13:04
read um oh okay I'll read this part because it's really because I I want to make sure we save time
13:10
for me to read the story about my mom because I always like to read that story but uh I'll read a really quick uh section this is also from the first section of the book um and IT addresses
13:20
what you were talking about like that idea of just coming out okay uh and it's another short section
13:26
so this is um so I I numbered all the chapters like a Chinese menu so this is A6 okay sorry
13:34
in Detroit the mtown sound was everywhere and in my mind the one and only Diana Ross reigned Supreme her sweet youthful voice combined with her radiant smile served as an inspiration to
13:44
me in addition to sharing Chinese zodiac signs the year of the monkey we were from the same area the
13:49
international Superstar had gone up blocks from our restaurant in the Brewster Douglas housing projects the largest Government funding housing in Michigan though Ross's label mtown record record
13:58
had abandoned the city a decade ago I used to fantasize that one day the singer would make a splashy return and we'd share a dinner for two in our front booth when I reached seventh
14:08
grade Diana's hit I'm coming out came bursting onto the airwaves you guys all know that song Right hopefully it's a great song anyway um I'm not going to sing it for you but it's trust me
14:17
it's a good song I was 12 and the term coming out was new to me I'd never heard it before I thought
14:23
it was cool but I didn't think it had anything to do with being gay or lesbian the lyrics were more Universal the song Champion personal freedom and Independence I could definitely relate as there
14:32
were four adults in our house each with a thousand Heavenly mandates whenever the song came on the
14:38
radio I cranked up the volume and channeled my inner Diva unfortunately one morning before we opened as I sang along in the dining room I had an unexpected audience Derek one of our younger
14:48
waiters a member of the old kung fu Club the John Chila wanabe had a ripped chest that he liked to
14:53
show off by leaving a button or two undone as I shook my booty and stretched my lips pink Chopstick and in hand he snuck up behind me and when I turned around he swished his hand from side
15:03
to side his limp wrist may not have been aemotion in American Sign Language but the gesture was so
15:08
well known that even a Chinese waiter from Hong Kong understood what it meant it meant [ __ ]
15:13
thankfully no one else was in the room and dererk had the memory of a goldfish he never brought up my dancing again but his accusation put fear in me no one in my family had ever said anything
15:23
anti-gay not even not even my grandma who could spout some pretty offensive things about race and gender but no one said anything positive about being gay either that left a big question mark
15:32
in my mind how would they react if it turned out to be true that I was that way back in the early
15:38
1980s the perception of gays and lesbians outside the major cities pre-s and prepr parades was much
15:43
harsher more toxic than it is today there were no positive role models in music television or film homosexuals were lumped in with drug users alcoholics and pedophiles there was no guarantee
15:53
that things would get better but despite my resistance and denial and the many cold showers I I took I couldn't ignore my growing attraction to boys it happened too often to be a fluke or a
16:03
one-off until I could figure out what this all meant I needed space to sort it through to buy
16:08
myself time I tried myself to I tried my best to blend in after the close call with Derek I paid
16:14
more attention to the way my body moved in the world how I walked and talked and ate and laughed I started to notice how others were perceiving me too while I didn't think I had any effeminate
16:23
habits I still tried to Butch things up no more silly dancing to the queen of Motown I needed to find a strong respectable male role model preferably one who is straight uh I won't continue
16:35
reading that story but that's a story that then leads into like looking to the screen and you know like seeing Asian-American male images and there's I usually read a br Bruce Lee Story so
16:43
if you guys have Bruce Lee fans in here there's a Bruce Lee Story in here for you okay well first of all I appreciate the fact that you're giving away more spoilers than I am so okay sorry no no no uh
16:55
hopefully they're teasers to make sure people there's a lot of Pop cultureal reference in the book cuz I thought that was fun to do and then second of all I forgot that you use the word booty
17:04
oh so that was cool I'm dating myself but but uh it makes me again think about the whole idea of
17:14
coming out right I mean it's something that we have read into Diana Ross's song right cuz it's
17:21
not like that you know uh but it also thinking about turning red again you know it's the idea
17:29
of living in your truth you know like we all have that fear of showing our authentic selves you know
17:37
whether it's because you're gay or because you're you know whatever uh but that fear that you cannot
17:43
show who you really are into the world because if you do you'll be shunned or you'll turn into a big
17:50
red panda or whatever so um what do you think about the kind of universality of the idea of
18:00
living in your truth I mean I think that you know we we talk about kind of Niche stories and for so
18:07
long writers of color queer writers have been told that you know our stories aren't going to
18:14
be aren't going to sell because people can't re can't see themselves in them but we have to see
18:19
ourselves in essentially white and straight people narratives all the time right so what do you think
18:25
about kind of or what was your process in thinking about sort of generality in your specific story
18:33
well um well the way you start off that question was about like you know your universal truth being who you you are and because this is DC I'll give another spoiler alert so uh my my high school
18:43
years I was a young Republican so if you guys know me I'm not that anymore uh and so I think that
18:51
part of it was that because one of the accusations that they have about asian-americans is that we're not very loyal to this country right so I was going to out patriate all the white kids at
19:00
school like I was like a class president president of National Honor Society I went to boy State I
19:05
founded the young Republican Club this is like during the I mean students against smoking I did all that stuff like I used to joke that Margaret Thatcher was my first girlfriend like I was really
19:15
that I was that bad it seem friends of yours in the audience their heads are exploding right now sorry but that was my way of sort of like staying in the closet right like uh of hiding of of uh
19:27
not wanting to be perceived as uh you know an outsider right I wanted to blend in cuz that's
19:32
what happened my family had moved to an area that was 95 98% white and so I thought that that was
19:38
how I needed to behave to sort of to get along right and much same way that I was probably hiding
19:44
my sexuality I felt like that was a good cover for my race right like um then people wouldn't notice
19:50
my race if they saw me just waving this giant American flag so yeah I we all have we all find
19:57
different ways to hide right and to yeah I was the Asian Alex P Keaton that's what I called myself he
20:04
was really cute come on all right go ahead so uh I have a question uh AO what ises that mean
20:14
oh those are the old Chinese ladies that went yeah yeah and I asked that it is one of the words that
20:20
appears in the book uh because there are certain things that you describe right there are certain
20:26
things that you translate there are certain things that you don't translate whether it's Chinese like
20:32
the language exactly or whether it's like Concepts or and I feel like this is as we talk about equity
20:41
and inclusion and you know feeling belonging and you know there's a whole idea about like how much
20:47
do you have to explain oh yeah right so you I was mindful of the things that you explained but also
20:55
mindful of the things that you did not explain and the things that I didn't get enough time to Google before I came here to like aaho but um what what did again in terms of thinking about your process
21:08
like how do you think about what to explain for folks in the course of your writing and what do
21:14
you think like gole well this gets to the earlier question that you had about the white gays right
21:20
like I think in the past um where people would g a z yeah those gays too uh the gays um you
21:27
know where you would have to uh particularly write stories taking in account what we used to call the
21:33
ga the general audience in America but we don't really have that anymore like my day job is I I do TV and film right and so I often talks about how like you know when I was a kid you needed about 30
21:43
million viewers for a show to stay on the air by the time I broke into TV that number had fallen to
21:48
about 8 to 12 million but now you only need about three or four million viewers and when you're looking at numbers like that you can actually write something directly to an Asian-American
21:57
audience and have a really good shot at getting renewed you don't need to reach 30 million and
22:02
because of that you know not just for small communities like the Asian-American communities but for African-American communities gay lesbian communities you see a lot more products right that
22:10
are geared towards us where you don't have to do the translation and so that actually applies like when I was writing the book when I initially was starting writing like I would think about like
22:19
the lines of dialogue right and I actually would write them out in Chinese but then I would put them in parentheses right and then um I was in one of these writing groups and one of the guys he was
22:29
a a professional translator and he actually said oh we don't do that anymore right like we don't
22:34
put that in because it takes the readers out and so you have to write that sentence in a way that
22:40
that the reader can pick it up from Context right and so that's the way the book is written I don't translate because they don't do that anymore and they also don't italicize anymore right because in
22:49
the past they would italicize and say oh this is a foreign word but now they don't do that anymore because you know I mean they just assume that it's all one language this is the voice that I
22:58
heard as the writer right and so why do I have to take these pauses to explain to somebody else and
23:04
so that is something that I had to uh learn you know because I I think that was just my default I was like oh I need to translate so that everybody understands but then people are saying no let the
23:15
reader come to you you know you don't necessarily have to to go where they're at so great so um I
23:22
do have other questions about the about the book obviously but because you have such a rich story
23:31
Beyond what's in the Memoir right um and the the the fun thing about a memoir is that you know how
23:38
it ends it ends with you sitting here but um and I you know trying to remember I think I posted
23:46
this in social media I'm trying to remember how we first met and I think it might have been the
23:52
20th anniversary of Vincent chin the hate crime murder in Detroit I already explaining things
23:59
if you don't know the story you should Google it but uh I don't remember whether that was actually
24:05
the first time we met um I was working um at uh I was doing Asian-American civil rights at the time
24:12
and I was able to bring a flag that we had flown over the capital to Detroit to present it to his
24:18
family his mother had just died um at the grave site it's still one of the most kind of Moment
24:25
Like historical moments for me but what you did a whole documentary about the legacy of Vincent
24:33
chin um kind of what are your thoughts about and we're we're just celebrating an anniversary this
24:39
year right are we oh last year yeah last year so um you talked a little bit about Vincent chin in
24:46
the book um kind of what do you think about his legacy and and what thumb prints of his are in
24:55
the book or in are in your writing in general well I mean it definitely had an influence on me uh how many people here know the Vincent chin story do most most people know it okay
25:05
um oh great so I won't so um Vincent chin he was a close family friend my uncle was his best man
25:10
and so this was obviously a story it's a horrific hate crime uh murder that happened in Detroit for those who don't know um and so uh he was out celebrating his upcoming wedding and he went
25:19
to the strip club and he got you know these two white Auto Workers bashed in his head right and so he was in the hospital the next uh by the next morning we found out and uh you know if you're a
25:30
little kid you're you're obviously going to be interested if you know somebody that's in the hospital right fighting for their life and so that I was I was checking all the newspapers and I was
25:40
watching all the TV news trying to find out how are they're going to report about this story but nobody wrote about it it it literally took the media 12 days before they covered the story by
25:49
that time he was in the hospital and he died after 4 days his wedding had been canceled all this stuff had happened right and and then finally one story appeared and then it took another 10 months
25:58
before another story appeared and all the while the media is constantly writing all these stories about the white Auto Workers and how difficult they were having how many you know how they were
26:08
struggling in life and it just really made me think like well well why isn't anybody telling
26:13
our story and that's there's a story in here where uh I I lug the typewriter into the dining room to
26:19
start writing letters to the editor you know what typewriters are people here yeah uh so uh this is
26:24
a big one right and I had to like lug it in and so I write these letters to the editor and none of them ever got published but you know that's how I started getting into this idea of writing you know
26:33
I mean before that I literally thought I was going to be a Chinese waiter for the rest of my life you know so I go from waiter to writer you know what I mean but uh yeah because it was a great Chinese
26:42
restaurant and I really loved being there but then after seeing this idea that you know who's going to tell our stories I felt like well okay well then I I'm going to try to do that and so
26:51
it's did have a profound impact on my life there is literally one keystroke away from waiter and
26:58
writer I know wow that'll be the cover of my next book from waiter from waiter to writer but I also
27:05
jokingly say that I feel like even though I don't work in a Chinese restaurant I'm still a Chinese waiter because I live my life trying to please people like always like thinking like oh what do
27:13
you need do you need help you know what I mean and so I feel like I'm at my core I'm still a Chinese waiter even though I write no no I uh I think that's I I mean it also comes back to literally
27:26
the first words that you right right for here or to go am I here am I going like where where is
27:33
my journey at the risk of being a little kind of tried about it yeah but um yeah no so uh I wanted
27:41
to well I also want to leave time for questions and answers but uh I wanted to see if there was I
27:47
do I do have another at least one or two questions here but uh I wanted to see if there was anything
27:52
else you wanted to read or your about about my mom is that okay all right this is for the moms in the
27:58
audience okay okay so this is uh um towards the uh end of the book so basically so in the era that
28:06
I grew up as a gay man it was during the AIDS era and um you know given the amount of uh death that
28:12
I'd already seen just living in you know working in Detroit um I literally thought I'd be dead by
28:18
the age of 30 I'm I'm of that generation of gay men where it's just like you know I don't have a very life a long life ahead of me and so when it came time to graduating high school and applying
28:28
to college I didn't want to go to college you know because I thought like well I have maybe at best a
28:33
10 12 years left to live why would I spend four years sitting in the classroom again but um you
28:40
know ultimately I I decided to apply to to college because my mom really guilted me into going and uh
28:46
but I made a deal with her I said I'll apply to one school you know and if I don't get in then I'm not going to college and she said okay fine but you're applying to Michigan so she made me
28:55
apply to Michigan and I applied to Michigan and I got got in um you because I had good records and stuff like that I did cool stuff in high school like as I I was on the Wheel of Fortune in high
29:03
school I did all this other cool stuff so yeah so I I got into Michigan um so but when I got into
29:09
Michigan I still wasn't sure what I was going to do um so because I had rationalized okay I'll go to college because what's four years of my life given a woman who's given up her whole life for
29:19
me right so that was my decision and so I went to college not knowing what I was going to do um and
29:26
then I eventually stumbled into the writing program there and so I would like to read a story of that you know uh partly because it's a a tribute to my mom too okay so this is towards the
29:36
end after I just got into the creative writing program at U ofm being a creative writing major
29:42
made me the literary expert at chongs that was inevitable as my dad asked every customer have you
29:47
met our number three he's the writer in the family every time he mentioned my program the number you
29:52
were son number three I was son number three yes yes that's how they called me oh he's number three
29:58
uh every time he mentioned my program the number of students accepted got smaller and smaller at some point I expect him to say I was the only one allowed on campus to even own a pen one
30:08
week one of our waiters was out sick my younger siblings were busy with their weekend activities so I was the one to call in to help I jumped at the chance to have some home-cooked meals for a
30:17
few days I was running around the dining room refreshing our customer silver teapots when a white middle-aged woman reached into her oversized bag and pulled out a colorful hard cover have you
30:26
read this book it's so good the joylock club the recently released novel that featured a bunch of
30:32
old sassy Chinese ladies who like to eat gossip and play maang could easily have been in the back of our kitchen every time I came in to help at the restaurant another Diner usually older and female
30:43
cited the most memorable characters lines and scenes they all wanted to know if I was working on something similar I was writing poetry but they didn't care to them all writers were the
30:53
same they would squeal you could be the next Amy Tan my mom turned out to be the biggest Pusher she
30:59
rarely had a book in her hand but the success of the Joy Luck Club convinced her that her life was a bestseller too she followed me around the dining room dropping stories from her childhood the same
31:09
ones I'd heard growing up but now she recounted them as if she was auditioning for her own books on tape one night after seeing how our waiters sometimes pulled their tips together my mom shared
31:20
an oldie when the Communists marched South they targeted my family my uncles and Grandpa were rich
31:25
in America so the Red Guard called us traitors my stubborn grandma didn't want to leave her big home
31:31
so when my parents escaped to Hong Kong they left me behind to keep her company the Communists hated
31:36
me in my pawpaw when I was four they made me watch as they forced my grandma to CL the climb the old
31:42
banon tree in our Courtyard then they pushed her off into a pile of broken glass for a visual my
31:47
mom rubbed her knees another time standing in the water station she launched into her own nautical
31:53
tail when I was five my uncle in America paid $25,000 in renman be a king's Ransom and people's
31:59
money to a local fisherman to ferry our remaining family out of China after a long ride tucked under
32:05
the planks of his fishy fishing boat we came up for air but we weren't in Hong Kong the Traer had
32:10
turned us into the authorities in jail I had to sing Communist party songs to earn extra rice for
32:15
me and my grandma another chapter came as we stood beneath a painting of the Chinese Countryside when
32:21
my papa and I were freed from jail we found that the officials had given away our home to peasants
32:27
we were forced to live several Villages away in a dirt Hut with three other families whenever we went out for a p of water my Grandma had to bend low to keep her head below the soldiers once again
32:38
she gave me a demonstration this time bowing her head granted my mom's epic Saga interested
32:43
me who wouldn't be intrigued by Tales of prison cells guns and stolen ransoms even the parts of
32:49
her about her mundane life in Hong Kong after she was reunited with her parents and siblings were amusing but these were her stories not mine she had to tell them not me I was in school to find
32:59
my own voice I sat and listened but that was as far as it would go toward the end of the summer
33:05
as I was at the back table sipping my red pop pop for the midwesterners here yeah stockpiling poems
33:12
for the upcoming semester my mom sat down before I could say anything she started talking I was a top
33:19
student in Hong Kong when Pepsi came to town they held a big contest for students to draw a picture of their own School mine was the best of Sacred Heart I w six cases there were so many bottles
33:29
I had to give some to the nuns I threw down my Parker Pen the one I treated myself after getting
33:35
into the program yes and they kept burping all day it was so funny you've told me that story
33:40
over and over and I don't even like Pepsi I prefer Coke my mom's shoulder shriveled the
33:46
shine faded from her Rosy Cheeks you don't want to hear my story I tensed up I do but I'm behind
33:53
on my own stuff between working at Drakes I don't know people from an aror Dres uh the journal and
33:59
saving the world my schedule was packed on top of that my workshops in the fall were Advanced still
34:05
insecure about my place in the program I put pressure on myself to create more interesting writing by staying up late and scribbling in my notebook every detail of my life but no matter
34:13
how hard I tried working harder couldn't produce a better poem my mom lifted herself off her seat
34:20
the glint in her eyes orphaned me her 42 years of life flashed before my eyes she'd gone from
34:26
Guang Joo to Hong Kong to Detroit and spent the past two decades raising her six children in a hostile foreign land she tried to prove her life had worth that it hadn't gone unnoticed and
34:35
here I was the ungrateful son writing it off her lips quivered in a soft murmur I hastily picked
34:42
up my pen backtracking go ahead mom I'll write it down this time my mom bowed her head and as
34:48
if I as if I were one of the soldiers holding a gun to her Temple ordering her to sing you go on
34:54
not you do your own thing I reached reached out my hand but by then she had disappeared through the black swinging door leaving only the rattling from the kitchen the clanging walks and rumbling
35:03
dishwasher I sat there upset at myself being so inconsiderate everything I had done in the past
35:09
three years had been for her but it seemed as though I had failed the final test my education wasn't just to help me get a better life it was for my whole family we were a team we were the
35:18
eight Immortals how could I let them down I needed to make things right but I knew that like most
35:25
disappointments in our house apology were never spoken only Deeds would bring about reconciliation
35:31
so that's my mom's story so she finally did get me to write her stories so they're just embedded
35:36
in this book so I always like to read that because it's like you it's for my mom so yeah thanks that whole Reading Is So Meta and ironic and like you you say writing her off but you're
35:52
literally writing her in yeah yeah right and so you're not telling her story but you are in fact
36:00
not telling her story by telling her story so uh yeah so um it brings me to the question of
36:09
um there are obviously other characters in the book your family the the other the eight um and
36:18
what was your process of talking to them about writing your book and oh I didn't no they they
36:26
haven't read it yet although I think they have now because they they they posted up pictures saying they received the book uh like you know on Tuesday but I haven't heard from them since
36:34
so I'm I'm assuming you're very busy you're on a book tour I'm very busy yeah yeah um but you
36:41
know I mean the one person I did talk to was my mom I talk to her quite frequently like two or three times a week just uh going over details with her and things like that and so are you going to
36:51
Detroit I will be yeah we have a whole series of events November 8th through the 13th uh the people
36:56
in Detroit have really embraced the book um uh the Detroit Historical Museum um organized an exhibit
37:02
to go coincide with my book launch I was supposed to do a big event at the world headquarters of Ford but they're on strike right now so they froze all their money for discretionary stuff like this
37:12
um but the Detroit Free Press the news have all uh done pieces Metro Times uh Detroit public
37:18
television uh did a piece on me um what else just like and obviously I'm going back to U ofm uh got
37:24
a big reading there at the rackam Auditorium so that'll be a big reading uh yeah so the people in
37:30
Detroit are really excited I think they're more excited about the egg rolls coming back to town but I have to tell them like sorry it's just a book yeah yeah so great um so speaking of egg
37:43
rolls we are kind of on the border of Chinatown here in DC um DC's Chinatown size or what have
37:54
you has its own unique history you live if memory serves not too far from LA's Chinatown in the in
38:04
another ethnic Enclave of Little Tokyo um at the risk of showing how much i' how long we've
38:09
known each other um but you've seen Detroit's Chinatown you've seen um LA's Chinatown kind of
38:18
especially in this moment like what do you what are your thoughts because you know obviously at
38:24
at our work at moia UH China town here the work that we do with the 1882 foundation with all the
38:32
nonprofits that we fund and support here all the businesses obviously the the Chinese restaurants
38:39
that are still here um what are your thoughts about chinatowns across the country and go uh
38:48
well I mean I can only speak for the one that I grew up in in Detroit I mean it was it was a really small Chinatown there were like six uh Chinese restaurants and one of them was Indian
38:57
you know what I mean that's how small we were uh yeah but and it was a really tough part of town it
39:04
was like the red light district but I did feel really s safe there because there was this one
39:09
street corner that my parents said you can't go one block this way and you can't go one black and we kind of had our whole world there you know and so that was it was a nice comforting place for me
39:18
to grow up even amidst you know being in what was noted as the worst neighborhood in Detroit so um
39:25
yeah I only have uh fond memories um in terms of uh uh gentrification and things like that I
39:31
I um you know I I try to be even cute about this so so my family had this restaurant from 1940 to
39:38
2000 and after we closed down um the building has uh remained empty for 20 years right we were the
39:44
last restaurant in Chinatown so you know after that it was pretty much dead um and so uh that
39:51
place is the building has remained empty for 20 years but finally someone this past year bought
39:56
the building and they actually re they tracked me down in LA and asked me if I would reopen the
40:01
restaurant that's how popular the restaurant was like people have this really long memory of like please reopen this restaurant um and so I think there was like a 5% of me that thought like ah
40:11
could I do this like could I go back you know uh and and reopen this restaurant uh but no I there
40:17
just too much going on and I couldn't um but then like a couple months later I heard through the grave find that they actually did find a different restaurant and part of me was sad because like I
40:26
would have wanted our family to go back into that space and and and help the city revive too because
40:32
there's a lot happening in Detroit right now and I want to be part of that too uh but then you know
40:38
at the end of the day I just sort of had to let it go and say like well all I could do is hope
40:43
for the best for whatever family moves in next and hope that that 3177 Cass Avenue provides them
40:50
with as much love and and success and prosperity as it provided for my family um and so I I can't
40:57
be too nostalgic about it I can't let Nostalgia hold back progress I think so yeah it's a tough
41:04
position to have you know so no thank you uh so uh I could talk to you all night but uh I wanted
41:12
to see if folks had questions I see David with a microphone ready to are there questions that folks
41:19
have David there's one in the front uh she doesn't look like she's committed to asking a
41:29
question I'll say while we wait um Curtis's movie Vincent who is in on our online movie collection
41:35
so if you don't have a library card you can watch Vincent who with your library card on on canopy so uh really glad to have that connection as part of our library collection as well oh thank you
41:43
yeah what did your mom think of the book I don't know yet uh she is on the family group chat saying
41:58
good luck have fun but that's all uh and and but I have a bunch of uh readings in the Bay Area and
42:04
she's going to be there so uh is that where she is now yeah she's in the Bay Area yeah uh after
42:11
my dad passed away um you know uh yeah we had to move her out there um I really don't know I I bet
42:19
you it's going to be a lot of mixed emotions for her do you know what I mean I'm she's very proud
42:24
huh but I'm sure she's very proud yeah yeah no she'll she'll also want the spotlight too
42:32
she's going to be like yeah that's my son you know she'll she'll she'll get in front of the camera she has no problem with that but um yeah she's had a really difficult life and I I I I do
42:40
want to make her happy and I hope the book brings her Joy um and vindicates a lot of stuff because
42:47
she has I think she's always just felt like you know she was uh never had a really chance to live
42:52
her own life yeah so we have a question over here and there's one in the back as well but go ahead
42:59
okay I'll hand it off to you when I finish but um you mentioned Drakes and that that made me
43:04
very excited because I grew up going there when I was younger um before it closed um but I was
43:10
wondering when you were in an arbor what were your favorite restaurants or where else did
43:16
you go uh well I do reference a lot because the whole the whole third section is but I I mean so
43:21
I Nam drop a few places like Cottage in and stuff like that but um I was also one of those kids at worked full-time and then went to school at night so I didn't have a very active social life like
43:31
I didn't you know what I mean uh I didn't and I regret that sometimes because I I sometimes you
43:36
know because I had to pay for college myself and I didn't want to leave with any debt I I do I do if I do have a regret in life is that I maybe didn't take advantage of more things
43:45
in college you know like study abroad programs or or things like that I was just so focused on just
43:51
getting out of an arbor you know what I mean get my degree and go you know so okay oh there
44:00
is one there's a pivotal scene in here so you have to wait why is there one that you want to
44:06
Fe name the
44:15
restaurant okay okay okay okay okay well when you get if you if you buy the book and you read
44:24
it there is a okay there's a there's a there is a mo there's a pivotal moment you know uh in my life
44:31
that's a decision is made in a Chinese restaurant it just doesn't have to be our Chinese restaurant yeah so okay what's your question hello niow hi Yan I don't speak Chinese I know but anyway do
44:46
you think the um all the bad neighborhoods out there even in China and everybody thinks New York's bad but do you think China could be just as tough uh I'm sorry repeat the question well a lot
44:58
of people read the Bible um and there's a lot of bad times in the world and uhuh do you know God's
45:04
name not talking about Jehovah we're not talking about religion sir all right thank you all right
45:13
oh was that a I think I know that just thank you okay well I I think I have a a reference of what
45:20
he's talking about so like I didn't read much as a kid because I grew up in a Chinese restaurant um you know the only always joke that there were only two types of books that we had at
45:28
the restaurant all left behind by our customers one were harleyquinn romances right because we
45:33
had a lot of single women would come read the other one was the Bible you know and I always say like you know as a gay uh Buddhist I had zero interest in either book so that's why I didn't
45:42
read much as a kid so I think that's the answer to his question right okay sorry Patrice hey Curtis
45:52
um thank you so much for coming I love all the different identities that you shared tonight so
45:57
producer author you know your coming out story there's just so many different identities what
46:03
do you want your readers to take away from your Memoir so um you know when you write when you sell
46:09
a book I don't know how many people are are would like to sell their own Memoir or non-fiction book but what you do is you have to uh write this really long marketing program uh uh proposal
46:18
and I said to like I said for the people of color I'm going to talk about racism for the gay people
46:23
I'm going to talk about the coming up process for the Jewish people I'm going to talk about Chinese food and if I can hit all three audiences then I think I'll have a bestseller so uh but in terms of
46:33
what I want like if if I had to do like a pie in the sky uh hope um you know you know all writers
46:41
want to have impact right like we want our books to matter and for me I feel like we live in this really divided country right now where we have these little silos where we don't talk to each
46:50
other but Chinese restaurants are actually one of those few places where you can walk in and meet someone you know from a different background racial religious sexual orientation whatever like
46:59
sitting at the table right next to you and if you took the time maybe even just have a start of a small conversation like what are you eating like maybe it's those small moments that will
47:08
maybe bring our country back together again like finding spaces where we can uh sit down literally
47:14
you know together um because I you know I really don't like the the the divide that we have in our
47:20
country right now I really but but I also don't want to skirt some of the issues that are erating
47:26
some of this tension and so um I jokingly said to my agent it's it's sort of like you know uh
47:31
come for the egg roll but stay for the talk on racism you know and that's what I want I want us to be able to have these serious talks about these issues but I don't want them to drive
47:40
a wedge I want us to be at the end of the day like family used to do right like you can have
47:46
these arguments and at the end of the day you get up in the table and you know you're going to see these people again you know what I mean so yeah that's what I would like to Hope um that
47:54
maybe the book can help start a conversation you know I don't know maybe it's too lofty but yeah
48:00
that's my hope yeah one egg roll at a time one egg roll at a time that would be my new phrase
48:05
solving World Peace one EG roll World Peace one egg roll at a time yeah are there other
48:10
questions oh yeah David's coming can you pass can you pass this
48:17
forward uh I was telling my child here the title of your book and and she goes um because this
48:28
everything I learned I learned in a Chinese restaurant she goes even okay she said even
48:35
algebra yeah yeah we learned so did you also learn algebra oh yeah my mom my mom ran a school like
48:42
it was Kuman before there was Kuman like in that back like you know yeah awesome I wasn't because
48:47
I I wasn't sure how to answer that question I was like oh I I thought it was this was you know hyperbole but literally you learned everything in the rest restaur yeah yeah we did stuff like that
48:57
but that's not what the book is about I mean the book is really about the soft skills you learned because I actually think that those are probably the most important things that you learn in life
49:04
um you know and people often ask me well what's the first thing that you learned growing up giving the title of your book everything I learned I learned into Chinese ran I talk about this is
49:12
a lesson that I learned primarily from my dad but also from my mom is um you know when you're a kid
49:18
you tell your kids don't talk to strangers right my parents gave us the exact opposite instruction they said talk to strangers and who they were talking about were all the people sitting in our
49:26
dining room because my mom didn't graduate high school my dad went to Community College for two semesters they didn't necessarily know all the opportunities that existed for us outside the
49:35
four walls of that Chinese restaurant but they knew they had a dining room full of people that actually had these opportunities I had this knowledge and so whenever my dad would meet a
49:44
customer that he really clicked with or had an interesting job whatever he call all six of us kids to run over and we like barrage these poor customers with questions of like what do you do
49:53
for a living how'd you get your job how much money do you make you know and so uh yeah just
49:59
this idea of like you know not being afraid of talking to people that are different from you not being afraid of asking questions or even asking for help I mean those are really important
50:09
things you know um to learn in life how to be able to communicate with people who are
50:14
completely different and because our restaurant really serviced all of Detroit right like during the day it'd be a lot of uh you know white collar workers from the downtown businesses or uh people
50:25
from Wayne State or from the med center that was really close by but then at night it would literally be The Pimps the prostitutes and the drug dealers do you know what I mean and so as
50:33
a kid I saw all of Detroit you know and being to be able to communicate with all of these
50:39
people at their level I think it's just some was something that I grew up with and I feel like it's
50:45
I like to think of it's it's just I don't know it's just it's nice to be able to do that to be able to communicate with people you can't get that kind of education at a school institution that's
50:55
for sure no not necessarily yeah because often times you know we're so stratified right like in these paths that we have in life you're sort of tracked in with all the same people that have
51:03
very similar backgrounds to you but if you work in Food Service I don't know anybody here who's worked as a restaurant as a kid you are instantly thrown in with people from different backgrounds
51:13
and you have to learn how to relate and listen to them and understand them in a way you know
51:18
that that really forces you to see that the world is really big at one time but also very small at
51:23
the same time too yeah I'm seeing some nods about restaurant workers uh do we have time maybe one or
51:31
two more questions I see yeah how many people are here from Detroit um okay that's your question no
51:40
so and Kurtis knows what I'm going to ask about do you know about almond boneless chicken yeah okay
51:47
um Curtis can you tell the crowd about this dish and how it's uniquely Detroit and okay and you
51:53
know how it was instrumental in your family's restaurant okay did does anybody here know my
51:59
family's restaurant chongs or eaten there I don't know if anybody has but it was in the center and it was really popular for many generations it was the Chinese restaurant like I like to think of it
52:08
that way and so my grandmother used to say that we we were the inventors of this dish called almond boneless chicken which you can find at pretty much any Chinese restaurant in Detroit but it's
52:16
very hard to find in other places it's a really basic dish right it's a white chicken meat uh a
52:22
fet uh battered and then deep fried uh and then uh a brown gravy a soy sauce uh gravy and then
52:29
sprinkled with crushed almonds and maybe a little um you know slices of pea pods uh and then served
52:35
with a bowl of white rice right it's just a really really popular dish um and so uh I actually after
52:41
this book came out um America's Test Kitchen which is a show asked me to do an episode for them uh
52:47
for their uh podcast yeah exploring that dish and uh my grandmother's theory about whether or not
52:54
we invented it and I think I think what I came to this conclusion after doing research like looking at all these old menus because we have old menus from the 30s from when we you know like and stuff
53:02
like that and uh I I think I pinpointed that at least in the lore of Detroit that it's um actually
53:08
a marriage between a traditional Cantonese dish called almond pressed duck which is like a breaded
53:15
uh you know duck and battered and and fried with um you know the uh soul food right because what
53:22
happened the dish sort of came about in the' 60s what happened was that in the late 50s the city of Detroit demolished both the Chinatown and black bottom Paradise Valley which is where a lot
53:34
of the Black Culture was centered and because of that both communities had to move into this area called the ccor which is you know originally like a lot of poor white people but now it was
53:44
all poor people of all colors but because of that interaction between you know the poor blacks and
53:49
the poor Chinese people you sort of have this marriage that created this dish called almond boneless chicken so that sort of came out of the' 60s you know and so yeah no we we were talking
53:58
about this earlier when you were on sporkful the podcast and I thought that they had your recipe
54:05
on it in the show notes but maybe they didn't they may have added it from the website because there are other people that have it you know and um like I said and I said to them it's just a theory I
54:14
know there's a million people that are going to come out of the word workk and say [ __ ] like you know but they said you can go with it because it's just this idea of let's explore culture and
54:23
how conversations can happen and so said okay if if I can be wrong you know that's why I'm
54:28
just covering myself just in case like people like you know you know okay uh I'm I'm getting
54:34
the hook I I think we have time for one more question guess you mentioned before that you're
54:39
you weren't much of a reader growing up so what was the Catalyst that got you to be interested
54:44
in writing and become a writer well it was the Vincent chin case that's when I first started writing and then literally going off to college um you know because I was working full-time uh
54:55
you could take creative writing classes at night and they seem like easyas so I was like okay I'll
55:01
get it easy a you know cuz you didn't have to do much right you didn't have to read much you just write a few poems and then you can graduate so uh yeah uh but I but I always did enjoy words
55:13
I mean like in the sense that because when you're sitting in a Chinese restaurant as a kid there's not much to do right so you end up like reading the newspapers over and over you know and you do
55:23
the word puzzles and all that kind of stuff so I did like Words individually but I never read
55:28
books per se um I did read the newspaper you know because that was around uh but the idea of being
55:34
a writer um and being a professional writer that didn't happen until I got to Michigan you know um
55:40
and so uh that is something I am thankful for I mean in the sense that the college did you know
55:45
set me on this path to being a writer and so um yeah I've had a really great career I feel very
55:51
blessed um you know to have the experiences I've had in life um um you know uh yeah so I don't know
56:00
what to say great no well first of all thank you for coming um you know Washington DC whenever we
56:08
bring folks here we always talk about National politics and the White House and what's going on down there but what I loved about tonight's conversation was that it was so local yeah I
56:18
mean it didn't even have to be about our Chinatown right just the fact that that there are cities out
56:25
there that despite whatever might be happening on Capitol Hill or whatever there are vibrant
56:30
neighborhoods in chinatowns whether in Detroit or LA or DC uh so I just really wanted to thank you
56:37
for reminding us of all that okay yeah yeah and that Chinatown is here the restaurants are going
56:43
to be open when we get out of here um but I do want uh well and and we'll have you sign books
56:51
obviously but I just wanted to see uh again thank you can we give give him a round of applause yeah
56:58
uh thank you so much um and so as I mentioned earlier I am this is the start of my tour uh
57:04
after this I am literally on the road straight until November 20th except for three nights when
57:10
I'm back in LA but also doing readings there so I'll be everywhere from Seattle to Miami to Boston
57:15
so please check out my website hopefully you can you know have friends or family who can join me on
57:25
all
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