I Judged a Book by Its Cover and Won.

I'm not a scholar. Never have been, never will be. But I may deserve a Pulitzer just for finishing a book in less than a week. The book may have had larger print and may have been written in fairly elementary language, but I would like to point out that there were no pictures or illustrations to get me through it.

This book was awesome¹. I don't believe I have ever read a memoir before, and I probably won't ever again. Unless Eddie Huang comes out with a Part II. I am not about to rehash the book like a book report or give you just the test worthy material like Cliffs Notes. I am going to tell you that it hit close to home. Home being the Asian kid growing up in the 80's.

Eddie has an amazing way of bringing you, the Asian readers, back to your chili-bowl-haircut-multiplication-table-memorizing-days². Right from the get-go he has you craving soup dumplings. I immediately find myself making mental plans to go to Jeng Chi Bakery - THE dumpling house in town. He brings you back to elementary school, when your most feared time of the day was lunch. Unless you were a fat, Asian kid...then you hated P.E. more³. But at lunch, there was no hiding your true colors. If the other kids didn't see it, they sure as hell smelled it. Anything that wasn't a PB and J or leftover, cold Mr. Gatti's⁴ looked funny and smelled gross. How does a 7 year old explain to another 7 year old that the black stuff that looks like bat ears is really black fungus, but not the fungus-fungus that you're learning about in science class? Or how boxed Vitasoy is like regular, white-people milk on crack. There was no way to explain it, and in second grade, the best thing to do is to just throw your alien food away, or keep it in your Doraemon/Hello Kitty backpack until you get home.

The book made me realize that I wasn't the only kid lost in American culture. I wasn't fresh off the boat; I was born in the US. Yet there were so many moments growing up that I either wasn't able to write a 350 word essay because I didn't get The Christmas Story or Top Gun reference or I thought meatloaf was raisin bread with ground beef, instead of raisins⁵.

Eddie says that his greatest strength is his perspective. "There are pieces of you that are inherently yours, but everything else is a collection of the things you've seen and the people you've met." It's like that stupid question you always get asked in grade school, "Who is your hero and why?" It seemed like everyone always had an answer. If it wasn't their dad or their grandfather, it was someone in American history that did something great. I never had an answer, at least not one I could put a name to and write about. My heroes are everyone that has influenced me in a positive way. Everyone that I have learned from. No one particular person. Heroics are everywhere. As Rosanne as this sounds, Eddie Huang is the newest addition to my list of heroes.

I love how the book is full of food and culture. And the sports lines are pretty ill, as well. I've never been able to explain to others how I came to love sports as much as I do, but after reading Fresh Off the Boat, I realized that it may have been my "out." It was my release that wasn't drugs and violence. But it was still my way of expressing who I was and who I did not want to be. Asian kids didn't play sports, but that didn't stop me from learning all the starting quarterbacks to all the NFL teams⁶ or skipping Chinese class to go to the basketball gym.

I shamefully must admit, there are not many times I vocally express my appreciation for my culture. In fact, a lot of people are quick to say I don't like my own people. And to that, I respond that it's not the people I don't like, it is the stereotypes that these people continue to feed and allow to grow. Using coupons is fine, it's tough times out there right now. Abusing coupons is wrong and ballistically annoying. Panda Express is not Chinese food. Peas and carrots are not what make fried rice. And sweet and sour chicken is not supposed to glow in the dark! Eddie Huang made me not only re-evaluate my appreciation for my culture, but made me want to share it with others. You don't know stinky, until you have had stinky tofu.

Would I bring Eddie Huang home to my parents? Probably not. Would I read the book out loud to them? Definitely not⁷. But I will tell them that the outstanding education they moved here for allowed me to appreciate the good read of his memoir. Let the title and the tacky color scheme speak for itself - this book is like no other. Read it, then go eat some damn good Chinese food.

¹ Speaking of elementary language...I guess I could have used the thesaurus here.

² I hated long car rides. Instead of learning the streets to the 'burbs, I was learning how to multiply faster than a calculator.

³ I, personally, loved P.E. I thought I was going to be the starting guard at Stanford. You can stop laughing now.

⁴ I still remember the first time I asked my parents if I could have cold pizza for breakfast...I never asked again.

⁵ I ate my first meatloaf (store-bought, of course), the other week. Next on my list, pot roast.

⁶ Back then, starting quarterbacks didn't get traded and benched like they do now. I don't think I even knew who Steve Young's back-up was. It could have been a tatted Squidward...oh wait, that's Colin Kaepernick.

⁷ They may find Huang's colorful language a bit offensive. But it was the consistent use of the F word that encouraged me to keep reading.


-bObD.