» Click here to read Barbara Bamberger Scott's review.

Review #1 by Roberta O’Hara

EVERYTHING I LEARNED, I LEARNED IN A CHINESE RESTAURANT is delectable. A coming-of-age memoir set in the family business, it’s a filling and often funny tale of relationships, advocacy, heartbreak, resilience and eye-opening change. The book offers not chapters but rather items off a menu --- stories of childhood rich in multigenerational, familial love. 

Curtis Chin was born into Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, the oldest surviving Chinese restaurant in Detroit, Michigan. His great-great-grandfather Gong had defied the odds (the Chinese Exclusion Act) to open a successful general store; in turn, Gong’s son opened the restaurant, which was “an instant smash.” Despite a move to a new location and Chin’s father dropping out of school to help run the business, it thrived to become “the happiest place on earth.”

"A coming-of-age memoir set in the family business, it’s a filling and often funny tale of relationships, advocacy, heartbreak, resilience and eye-opening change."

Chin and his brothers grew up in the kitchen. Over oolong tea and grandma’s almond cookies, their smart mother taught them American and Chinese history. Their dad treated them as “guinea pigs,” testing out the latest dishes on Chin and his siblings. Chin often played the game as well, inventing soups both edible and not so much. In the crowded house and the tumult that was 1980s and ’90s Detroit, “[t]rying to understand, accept, and establish my own identity by race, class, and sexuality was difficult, especially when these intersections contradicted and collided.”

But understand, accept and establish he did. Chinatown and the Cass Corridor were the most crime- and drug-ridden sections of the city. Avoiding the realities of the day, including racism, was difficult when surrounded by the sounds of sirens. The town eventually became desolate, as shops were abandoned and people left for safer areas, but Chung’s remained a refuge for many. The family moved to a safer suburb but retained the restaurant.

By the time he was 18, Chin and his family had lost five people, including Vincent Chin, a close family friend who had been killed in a racially motivated assault in 1982 that made national news for its biased light sentencing. (Chin went on to produce a documentary about the murder called “Vincent Who?”) Growing up Asian and middle class was fraught enough; being gay was difficult, as he “wanted to be a good boy” and not disgrace his family. 

Chin’s father made all the customers feel special. So when Chin saw himself noticing boys and commenting to himself on their hair or clothes, he chalked it up to finding the good in everyone and being like his dad. But at age 12, when given the choice between a Playboy and a Playgirl magazine, he found himself drawn to “the cute white guy” on the cover of Playgirl. He noted that his interest in boys “wasn’t just different --- it was bad, and I needed to hide it.” Chin writes, “Coming out in the 1980s was a much bigger deal than it is now. It involved more caution and calculation. There was no network of support groups, no guarantees ‘it gets better.’ It wasn’t out of the question to be disowned or even killed by your family.” Chin carried guilt for many years, until self-acceptance and other acceptance found him at Drake’s, a sandwich shop, where “[b]eing different made me normal.”

Throughout the book, Chinese delicacies are a staple. (Food is love.) And even in the end, with Chin heading to New York after college, his family sends him off with egg rolls and plum sauce for his trip. The revelation Chin dreaded hasn’t come yet, but he has found comfort in being himself and the knowledge that it will…at the right time.