I absolutely loved this memoir! It made me miss my hometown a little bit. I did not grow up in a Chinese restaurant, but my kids had the privilege of attending five years of schooling in a full-on Mandarin Chinese immersion school in the Midwest. Our extended family consisted of all the teachers and interns that pulled us into their private lives. We celebrated each other’s holidays and birthdays, welcomed new babies, and most of all shared an abundance of meals.

That’s how Curtis Chin’s book feels. That’s how his father, and eventually himself, made all their customers feel; welcomed and accepted no matter what color or religion you are. Or if you're a prostitute looking for a late snack. Written like a storytelling conversation, Chin walks you through growing up in Detroit, Michigan during the 1980s; not too far from 8 Mile. His childhood is steeped in family drama (and tough love), politics, racism, violence, self-identity, and homosexuality. Being Asian in the Midwest was hard enough, but add that he was a self-proclaimed Republican and secretly gay.

All the food dishes Chin shares are enough to make you jump in your car and drive to the nearest Chinese restaurant, like, immediately. I really appreciated Chin’s mention of MSG as he listed out certain ingredients to make a full dish. MSG has its own very long history, but most known is its stereotype for being toxic and “bad for you”. The debate on MSG has fueled xenophobia and racism and is still prevalent today.

Chin presses on hard topics and shares the difficulties of her own self-reflection to be a better person.

Can I also say how much I loved seeing the word pop in a book again?? Soda is fine, but the way pop imitates the sound of that aluminum can cracking open is just, ah...
I can’t wait for ya’ll to read this book!

I admit, as the granddaughter of a Chinese restaurant owner in East Detroit (back in the 70s and 80s, yo), this memoir was right up my alley. In EverythingI Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, Curtis Chin captures the Detroit flavor of that era, the Chinese immigrant experience, and layers on top all of that the Chinese restaurant culture. The Cantonese phrases that he scatters throughout pulled me back to that time, and I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the past...without having to write it myself ;)

This book was not for me but will be appreciated by readers who want insight into growing up as an American-Born Chinese in Detroit.

Curtis Chin’s coming of age memoir recounts his experiences in a large Chinese-American family who are running their family restaurant in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood in Detroit in the 80s and 90s. He grows up trying to discover his individual identity while navigating family traditions and expectations, racism, and sexuality. This book is very well written and will leave the reader seriously craving good Chinese food.

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

I loved this book, and ended up reading it in less than two day. The prose was easy to read, and I found myself wanting to cheer for the author's happiness, and glad that he was able to find his way, and himself. I know it can be hard to write an ending to one's life, but the "conclusion" at the end of the book felt like a good way to close Chin's story. What I also loved was that he was self-reflective, and described the people in his life with both honesty and respect.

Written by Curtis Chin, this book discusses growing up in Detroit in a large family (all American Born Chinese, save his mom and grandparents) that ran a Chinese restaurant. I also enjoyed learning about Chin's journey of accepting his queerness in a fraught and tumultuous city in the late 1980s/1990s.

Chung's was an institution on the Cass Corridor Chinatown: even I have eaten there after a Tigers' Game at the old stadium which is also long gone: we even saw Coleman Young there one time. Chin himself may have described the restaurant which operated from 1940-2000.best himself: "Even though Detroit was a very segregated city, they all came to the Chinese restaurant. It was one of those places where it was sort of like a town hall, a town center where you could meet everybody," Chung's, was one of five or six Chinese restaurants on Cass that decades ago easily produced 4,000 egg rolls (all hand made) a week. along with Americanized Chinese food.

This book is not just about Chinese food or being a gay American-Born-Chinese (ABC. is an issue also seen in The Crazy Rich Asians series of books) in a black, radically segregated, often violent town: it's about family and finding one's place in the world that does not always accept or understand you.

A great memoir that will make you order dinner to relive the days of shiny red sweet and sour sauce, fried chicken balls and other ABCC (Ameican-Bastardized-Chinese-Cuisine) foods many of us secretly love to eat despite the plethora of "authentic Asian" restaurants that now flood the landscape.

A great read that I will highly recommend.

#shortbutsweetreviews