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3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
dark
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
Eddie Huang is best known as a hyperactive Chinese chef and restaurant owner in New York City. although he is very young, his brash outspoken nature has won him outsize attention from the press and the opportunity to publish a memoir covering his first 30 years or so. Chef Huang starts his story with his family's move from Taiwan to America, and follows the trail from poor immigrant to fairly wealthy business owners (neighbors of Tiger Woods in Orlando!). He never flinches from telling the tough parts of the story, and always manages to add an insightful observation or wry humorous twist of words to make the story go down easier. while clearly very intelligent, he got a law degree from Yeshiva U., Huang chooses to write a lot of the book in a hip hop style that makes for some interesting reading. the young Chinese immigrant becomes a gangsta and then a businessman, but never loses his identity. i can't really recommend this one to too many people...my interest in restaurants and cooking carried me through.
Huang's frenetic writing style and the manner in how he chooses to plop one anecdote down after another keep you turning his pages and afterwards, you're left with a deep-seated contempt towards white America and the munchies for some really good Chinese food. (I suspect, that if you read this book while blazed, the munchies aftershock effect would be heightened.)
All joking aside, it's fascinating to peek into the life of someone who's gone through the American dream gauntlet and come out with a very unique blend of convictions and conclusions that span the spectrum between the underground and the ivory tower. This country, as f-ed up as it is (to borrow from Eddie's vocab), is amazing in that it can hold such diversity in not just how many different races are represented here, but in the range of stories that unfold as a result of all these displaced peoples. Though I am Asian American with parents who also hustled from their motherland to here like the Huangs, I'd have to say my family's experiences of settling into Queens, NY, and plugging into the Korean American community through church wouldn't intersect in any Venn diagrams with those of the Huang family's journey. My family had it a lot easier in one sense because we have lived most our lives in an international city where white people don't stare openly at non-whites. The few times we dealt with the oh-so-intelligent "ching chong" and other racist hollers were from blacks and Hispanics. Reading this, it almost felt like I was reading something from a parallel universe because my family's experiences of figuring out how to be Asian American in this country practically read as the polar opposite.
I loved it. I loved every second of it. I loved how foreign it was, and not in the "exotic" way but to hear from a fellow yellow survivor who's broken through the bamboo ceiling and lived to tell the tales and its gory and glorious details. (I have about a million rap/hip hop songs to look up and key venues to add to my China bucket list.)
The only thing that I could relate to* (not counting the typical Asian parental dismissal of dreams and achievements outside of the model minority mold) was Eddie's point on how food knows no boundaries. It doesn't matter how poor/rich, conservative/liberal, male/female, young/old etc., etc., anyone is, as long as s/he is not afraid of food. We all know what salt, sugar, vinegar, herbs and spices mean, and can appreciate umami-rich foods. Barring very specific preferences or dietary constrictions, we can have firsthand accounts of what tastes good or bad. I don't think it was an accident that Eddie gained his critical mass and platform through food, especially since his family has close to ties it, because it's a universal language. I'm just grateful that he did because now we have the sitcom Fresh Off the Boat in our lives, even though it's clearly a sanitized version for white America. It's important to have more diversity in mainstream America and it'll be interesting to see what effect this starts or leaves, 10-20 years down the road.
The one thing that made me leave back the fifth star was because I wanted to hear more about his post-childhood years. College and NY are so condensed compared to the attention paid to his coming-of-age stories and that's probably because Huang felt that he'd already laid down the groundwork of how he came to accept that he would always be the Other in this country. Still. Stories are crack to me and I will always feel like there could have been more unless I get the nitty gritty.
*I don't mean that I find what he says to be distasteful or that I necessarily disagree, but that I personally don't have the knowledge or experience to spit back the appropriate rhymes or street culture references.
All joking aside, it's fascinating to peek into the life of someone who's gone through the American dream gauntlet and come out with a very unique blend of convictions and conclusions that span the spectrum between the underground and the ivory tower. This country, as f-ed up as it is (to borrow from Eddie's vocab), is amazing in that it can hold such diversity in not just how many different races are represented here, but in the range of stories that unfold as a result of all these displaced peoples. Though I am Asian American with parents who also hustled from their motherland to here like the Huangs, I'd have to say my family's experiences of settling into Queens, NY, and plugging into the Korean American community through church wouldn't intersect in any Venn diagrams with those of the Huang family's journey. My family had it a lot easier in one sense because we have lived most our lives in an international city where white people don't stare openly at non-whites. The few times we dealt with the oh-so-intelligent "ching chong" and other racist hollers were from blacks and Hispanics. Reading this, it almost felt like I was reading something from a parallel universe because my family's experiences of figuring out how to be Asian American in this country practically read as the polar opposite.
I loved it. I loved every second of it. I loved how foreign it was, and not in the "exotic" way but to hear from a fellow yellow survivor who's broken through the bamboo ceiling and lived to tell the tales and its gory and glorious details. (I have about a million rap/hip hop songs to look up and key venues to add to my China bucket list.)
The only thing that I could relate to* (not counting the typical Asian parental dismissal of dreams and achievements outside of the model minority mold) was Eddie's point on how food knows no boundaries. It doesn't matter how poor/rich, conservative/liberal, male/female, young/old etc., etc., anyone is, as long as s/he is not afraid of food. We all know what salt, sugar, vinegar, herbs and spices mean, and can appreciate umami-rich foods. Barring very specific preferences or dietary constrictions, we can have firsthand accounts of what tastes good or bad. I don't think it was an accident that Eddie gained his critical mass and platform through food, especially since his family has close to ties it, because it's a universal language. I'm just grateful that he did because now we have the sitcom Fresh Off the Boat in our lives, even though it's clearly a sanitized version for white America. It's important to have more diversity in mainstream America and it'll be interesting to see what effect this starts or leaves, 10-20 years down the road.
The one thing that made me leave back the fifth star was because I wanted to hear more about his post-childhood years. College and NY are so condensed compared to the attention paid to his coming-of-age stories and that's probably because Huang felt that he'd already laid down the groundwork of how he came to accept that he would always be the Other in this country. Still. Stories are crack to me and I will always feel like there could have been more unless I get the nitty gritty.
*I don't mean that I find what he says to be distasteful or that I necessarily disagree, but that I personally don't have the knowledge or experience to spit back the appropriate rhymes or street culture references.
It's an engaging book, but the guy is a shit.
Turns out I have no idea about basketball, hip hop, streetwear, or the food scene in New York. #vocabularybuilding
Turns out I have no idea about basketball, hip hop, streetwear, or the food scene in New York. #vocabularybuilding
At times arrogant, obnoxious, and gratuitously sexist, the tale of a Taiwanese immigrant trying to find a way to be authentically himself and finding that path through the culinary arts sometimes shines through.
Eddie Huang's memoir is very funny, earnest and smart. Loved the style of his writing, it felt very conversational.
Although I'm only half-Asian, a few generations removed from Japan and very culturally white, you're always identified as your non-white part. So although I'm not a "real Asian" I could definitely relate to a lot of the stuff he talks about concerning being an Asian in America, particularly a "rotten banana" Asian.
Although I'm only half-Asian, a few generations removed from Japan and very culturally white, you're always identified as your non-white part. So although I'm not a "real Asian" I could definitely relate to a lot of the stuff he talks about concerning being an Asian in America, particularly a "rotten banana" Asian.
I'd really give this a 2.5 stars if I could.
I enjoy the ABC TV show based on this book, and decided to read it after seeing Eddie Huang in an interview and hearing about his disdain for the show. He was likeable enough on TV, and I was curious.
He should stick to the TV interviews because in the book, he's not really likeable at all and he definitely has a huge chip on his shoulder. His writing and the organization of the memoir is choppy and disjointed. He goes back and forth between passages heavily laden with street slang (much of which I didn't understand but didn't necessarily mind), to some really thoughtful and philosophical writing about his observations on being a minority in America. I admired those moments, but they seemed out of place with the rest of the text. He should have picked one tone and stuck with it.
P.S. I'm not sure what Eddie Huang thought would happen when he sold the rights to his story to ABC, which is owned by Disney. Of course the show isn't the same as his book. He needed to hold out for HBO or Netflix if he wanted to see his true story reflected.
I enjoy the ABC TV show based on this book, and decided to read it after seeing Eddie Huang in an interview and hearing about his disdain for the show. He was likeable enough on TV, and I was curious.
He should stick to the TV interviews because in the book, he's not really likeable at all and he definitely has a huge chip on his shoulder. His writing and the organization of the memoir is choppy and disjointed. He goes back and forth between passages heavily laden with street slang (much of which I didn't understand but didn't necessarily mind), to some really thoughtful and philosophical writing about his observations on being a minority in America. I admired those moments, but they seemed out of place with the rest of the text. He should have picked one tone and stuck with it.
P.S. I'm not sure what Eddie Huang thought would happen when he sold the rights to his story to ABC, which is owned by Disney. Of course the show isn't the same as his book. He needed to hold out for HBO or Netflix if he wanted to see his true story reflected.
I loved this book! It's so unique because he writes in such an authentically "Eddie Huang" voice. If you're don't use the same hip-hop vernacular as him then he can be a bit hard to understand at times. But I didn't care! I loved! It was all part of the story he was trying to tell. He story is such a great story for anybody who takes a less than conventional path. Plus he tackles racism through it all. Well done dude.
I have to say that Eddie Huang is interesting and entertaining. His story is inspiring and I enjoyed hearing about his experience (I listened to the audio version, which was fun to hear his voice). It did get annoying at times as Eddie is very arrogant and quite a braggart, know-it-all.
So so so much bad language. Not just the 500 f words, but all the inappropriate sexual references.
If all that could be ignored, it was interesting content. I enjoyed learning from his perspective as a Chinese man and American but having a hard time identifying with both, either, or neither.
If all that could be ignored, it was interesting content. I enjoyed learning from his perspective as a Chinese man and American but having a hard time identifying with both, either, or neither.