Breaking Banh Mi w/Curtis Chin
Author of his hot-selling memoir, "Everything I've Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant"
Randy:
Hey everybody. I’m joined with Curtis Chin. Who is he? Curtis is the co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City. He went on to write for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in sixteen countries. He has written for CNN, Bon Appetit, the Detroit Free Press, and the Emancipator/Boston Globe. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Chin has received awards from ABC/Disney Television, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and more. His memoir, "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant" was published by Little, Brown in Fall 2023. His essay in Bon Appetit was just selected for Best Food Writing in America in 2023 and he just produced an episode of America's Test Kitchen's podcast, Proof.
Curtis:
Great. Just thank you for that really kind bio. Just one point of clarification. It's the National Champions Michigan! (laugh) Things are going great. I've been down this whirlwind tour for my book. As I was telling you earlier, the book came out on October 17. I did 50 events, including five in Europe. Before that. I did about 70 events between October 17 and December, and I'm doing over 100 events this Spring. And you actually caught me on a one week break here in Los Angeles. So I'm recharging now.
Randy:
I cannot imagine doing 100 events in Spring alone! So I hope that you have built up enough stamina.
Curtis:
Yeah, I am. I mean, I still enjoy meeting people. And obviously I want to support the book. But I have to admit some of the other little perks of the road like frequent flyer miles and hotel points and stuff like that, that used to drive me. I don't think about that stuff anymore. Now it's really just about going to meet the people. And yeah, and connecting, and people have just been so kind on the road that it's actually still fun.
Randy:
Thank you for sharing that and into your memoir. “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant”, you take us into your upbringing in Detroit and working at your family's restaurant. So how did your family come to Detroit? And how would you describe the city back then, during the 80s?
Curtis:
Detroit in the 80s was a really tough place to be. Not only did you have the auto industry that was struggling, which led to a lot of anti-Asian hate. But you had crack cocaine, you had AIDS. I knew five people murdered by the time I was 18 years old. I literally watched as my hometown burned in front of me. But despite all this, we had this really wonderful Chinese restaurant in the inner city that my parents were able to raise me and my five siblings. And so I always tell people, despite all the hardships in Detroit, I wouldn't trade my childhood for anything.
Randy:
Detroit back then, was a predominantly Black and White city. What was the Asian community like, during that time?
Curtis:
The Asian community was very, very small. You know, the Chinatown that we had was really a Pan Asian community because it was first developed as an International District. So there were other Asians there too, primarily Filipino, Indian, Afghans/ I like growing up there with that diversity. But when you step out of the rest of the city, there's very, very few Asians, right. I don't know the exact stats, but it was under 1%. You know, very, very, very few Asians in that area.
Randy:
What did you learn about the many patrons that came to your family restaurant? Were there any particular stories that stood out to you?
Curtis:
One of my favorite parts about growing up was the ability to sort of see the whole city of Detroit, despite spending as much as 80 hours a week in that Chinese restaurant during the summers, like open the close seven days a week, I got to see the whole city because the city came to us, right? Everybody from the mayor, to the local pimps and prostitutes on the street corner, all came to our restaurant, you know, depending on what time of day it was or what day of the week it was. And so I feel like I got a really great education in terms of seeing the world and how people act and how people think. And so it was a really great education.
Randy:
What were some of the valuable lessons that you learned from working at your parents’ restaurant?
Curtis:
God, there's so many I mean, you know, they're all in the book. It's not just about cooking lessons or Mahjong lessons, but really more fundamental lessons you learned about life. The first related to this idea of our customers was that when you're a little kid, oftentimes your parents who say don't talk to strangers, my parents gave me the exact opposite advice. They were like, talk to strangers, and who they were referring to were the diners in our dining room. Because my mom didn't have a chance to graduate high school, my dad went to community college for maybe two semesters. They didn't really know what opportunities existed outside the four walls of that Chinese restaurant. But they knew that they had this dining room full of people who did. And so anytime my dad met somebody who thought had an interesting job or career, he called all six of us kids to run over and barrage them with questions of what do you do for a living? How did you get your job? How much money do you make? And so it really was, you just never knew who ever walked in the door, right? And you just had to be open for everything.
Randy
Which kind of is interesting, because I think it might have trained you to become more of like a journalist, in a sense, right? Or to become a writer like asking all these questions?
Curtis:
Yeah, or it made me curious about people. Right? And it made me invested in the world. You know, it's really interesting, because one of the questions that I get a lot on the road, as a writer now is, what was the one book that changed your life that made you want to become a writer? And I always say, I didn't really have that growing up. Because I grew up in a Chinese restaurant, we didn't have books floating around. The only ones we had were the two kind left behind by our customers. One was the harlequin romances. And the other one was the Bible. And as a closeted gay Asian Buddhist, I had zero interest in neither one of them. And so I didn't really think about becoming a writer. But what was happening in terms of how it was developing as a person, in some ways, made me the perfect candidate to be a writer, because as you were saying, you know, I was talking to people, right, I was learning their stories, I was developing opinions about the world. Ideas, right? And I think those are things that are just as important. If you want to ask yourself, well, what does it take to become a writer, you just need to be engaged with the world, you have to have ideas and opinions, you know, that you're willing to advance. And I think that all those things were happening. Despite the fact that I didn't really read much as a kid. I had this whole world in front of me.
Randy:
One of my favorite moments in the book is how you mentioned your dad would be so immersed in his relationship with his customers, what was so special about his relationship with the restaurant?
Curtis:
My dad was a real, ultimate people pleaser, he really wanted anybody that came into our restaurant to have a good time and to be well-fed. That was his main goal in life. And you could really tell he wasn't happy unless the customers were 100% happy. And so he really bent over backward to always try to please them. And I feel like that's probably one of the traits that I've learned the most from him. I don't work in a Chinese restaurant anymore. But I like to think that I still live my life as if I were that Chinese waiter. I go around asking people, “can I help you?” “what can I get for you?” “How can I make your life easier?” That was sort of, in some ways, the ideas that I had when I graduated from college and went off to New York to co-found the group The Asian American Writers Workshop was just how can I help other writers fulfill their dreams? How can I make their life a little bit better?
Randy:
I was wondering if you could talk about the American Asian American Writer’s Workshop. How was that developed and what was the process like, starting that?
Curtis:
Well, it started from a bunch of us really young Asian Americans in New York City, all writers or aspiring writers, or aspiring to be published writers, or people just writing for their own personal gratification. How did it really start? I mean, literally, a couple of friends, you know, we would go to readings, and we see other Asian Americans. And we'd be like, “Hey, do you guys want to get together?” And then we started meeting up and sharing our own work and from that, we had so much fun that we thought like, “oh, okay, do you guys want to try doing the reading together?” And so we did that. And then we're like, “Oh, do you guys want to try publishing the journal together?” I said, “Sure.” So we did that. It's just like, it was always this can-do attitude of like, well, let's try it. What do we have to lose? We're all in our early 20s and we're all game for it. So yeah.
Randy:
You spoke about Vincent Chin, a Chinese American who was murdered by a group of white supremacists. What did you learn about him? And how did his murder impact your worldview and the Detroit Asian community that you were connected to?
Curtis:
Yeah, the Vincent Chin story is actually one that's important in my life, and it's actually something I do cover in the book to some degree. So I was 14 years old at the time. Our families were friends. There weren't a lot of Chins in Detroit and so we were part of the same family association. My uncle was his best man. And so, you know, we found out the very next night. So this was in the 80s, during the height of the anti-Japanese sentiment, Vincent Chin was a Chinese American out celebrating his upcoming wedding. He goes to a strip club where these two white auto workers come in, and they're heard saying, “it's because you mother blanks that we’re out of work, and they all get kicked out of the bar. But then these two guys get in their car, and they drive around Detroit until they see Vincent sitting outside of McDonald's, waiting for his ride to pick him up. Then, they took a baseball bat out of their car, and they bashed his head in. And because our families were friends, we actually found out that very next morning, that he was in the hospital struggling, fighting for his life. When you're a young kid, and you hear that someone you know has been violently beaten like that, you're going to check the newspapers to find out what they say. So I checked the papers, I checked the news on TV, and they didn't say anything that day. They didn't say anything. The next day, or the next day after that, or the day after that. It took them 12 whole days before they even mentioned that Vincent Chin case. By that time, he had died. You know, they pulled the plug. They canceled the wedding. During that whole time period, all these Chinese Americans or Asian Americans were coming to our restaurant, asking for details because our restaurant was the center of Chinatown. We were like the hub, we had the gambling den underneath us, too. So that's why people naturally came to our restaurant. And they were all asking, like for details and what we'd heard. That contrast between what our community wanted to hear and what the mainstream media was covering was really stark to me. So that's when I started thinking about like, well, who's going to tell our story, somebody has to tell our stories because several months later, when the judge came back with a sentence, he only fined these two guys $3,000 and not having (them) serve a single day in jail. He (later) said, “you don't put these kinds of people in jail, like white middle class people with jobs.” And it just made me really think like, well, you know, he understands the white auto workers’ story, but does he understand the Chinese American story or the Asian American story? So that's when it became really important for me as a young person. I didn't necessarily think that I was going to be that person to tell stories. But I knew somebody had to tell our stories.
Randy:
Thank you for sharing that. Because it is a very important part of our Asian American history. What we have seen in the past 40 years is that the Asian American movement became so impactful (partly) because of Vincent Chin even though it is still a story that's unknown to many in our community but I think the last several years were, especially in the wake of Stop AAPI Hate, we're seeing more of the stories like Vincent emerge, and as a reminder of where we stand in this country, and I was wondering what your thoughts were, or what your thoughts are, in the last several years in the wake of the anti-Asian violence, and also with Vincent Chen's murder? And how much effect did it have on the community?
Curtis:
Yeah, I get asked this question to sort of reflect back on the difference between the 1980s in Detroit, and what's happening now, right? And I actually like to drop back even further and say,, my family's been here since the late 1800s. The discrimination that my great great grandfather faced when he first came to America, is not too dissimilar from the discrimination that I might face, right? This idea that, “oh, you're a foreigner”, “oh, you don't quite blend in well with America”, or, you know, with COVID, “oh, you're dirty, you're disease ridden.” These are all the same stereotypes that they had against the earliest Asians that came to this country. So I think, sadly, that racism will always be part of the American experience. But on the bright side, our community's ability to sort of respond to these things has really changed dramatically, even when you just compare it to what happened during the Vincent Chin case. For instance, if you compare that time period and what happened with this COVID, and the Stop AAPI hate, and rising anti Asian violence with the media attention back then, we didn't have any journalists covering the stories at the local or national level. Now, we have so many Asian American journalists out there covering stories in the newsroom pitching these stories, making sure that they don't get dropped after the first report. We have a whole network of Asian American nonprofits. that are now promoting this idea of civic engagement, of reporting crimes by being vocal. We have a whole constellation of Asian American celebrities who are able to use social media to sort of push out the stories, we have Asian American politicians who can pass legislation, we have Asian American businessmen and businesswomen, people who are now creating Asian American foundations out there to support our community efforts. And so, just looking across the board, there are just so many improvements that allow us to fight back against these things.
Randy:
You mentioned growing up, you were both Republican, (obviously, a little different from the current version of the party), and being gay. What was appealing to you about the Republican Party back then. And how did it impact you as a queer Asian American?
Curtis:
So in my defense, it was the 80s, the Republican Party had just had their national convention in Detroit. Growing up in the inner city, and you see the dysfunction of some of these big cities, you start to wonder, like, which party is speaking to me? And so, part of it was that my family had moved out to this suburb, which was like, 98% white, and I felt like the best way to sort of fit in was to try to be like them. And so I thought, like, okay, well, if they're going to say that Asians are disloyal, right, we're not very patriotic. I'm going to (be a) patriot like all these white kids, I'm going to be the most American kid possible. And so there was a TV show back then called Family Ties starring Michael J. Fox, and I basically became the Asian Alex B. Keaton. This school was 98% white, but yet, I was elected senior class president, President of the National Honor Society. I started the Young Republican club, Students Against Smoking. Margaret Thatcher was my imaginary girlfriend. I mean that's how I sort of tried to fit in as just a kid in high school. Through the journey of the book, you see that I start to question some of these ideas and whether or not, these policies that they were pushing really fit in well with me. So that's one of the journeys of the book that I take.
Randy:
In your memoir, you mentioned the AIDS crisis of the 80s and early 90s. Can you tell us about how this affected your ability to navigate as a queer Asian man, and the queer American culture that you were learning about?
Curtis:
Yeah, those were devastating times for gay people, whether you're Asian or not. I mean, especially as a gay young person coming out, the future looked really bleak. Growing up, I honestly thought I'd be dead by the age of 30. I did not think that I would live as much past high school. So for me, that sort of made me wonder, when I go to college, what would my life be like? So, yeah, I think about that sometimes with young people these days and the challenges they're going through and would they be able to relate to that really harrowing time period? I know that some people tried to say, like, oh, it's like COVID. In many ways, it's similar, but in some ways, even more devastating, because it was so focused on the LGBT community at first. So yeah, it was a tough time. I have to say.
Randy:
What were some of your favorite and your customers’ favorite dishes at the restaurant?
Curtis:
God, how much longer? How long is your show? Thinking about the food. People often ask me, what was your favorite part about writing the book and I always say, like writing about the food because you instantly just go back to that moment of tasting that food and feeling like, “Oh, I wish I could have that stuff now”. Because our restaurant is no longer around. They're just sort of a memory right now. So yeah, it's too many to mention but off the top of my head, almond boneless chicken, which is a very Detroit dish, was one of my favorites. My dad made the best beef and mushroom, lo mein. And obviously, our egg rolls, which were our most popular items. They were so popular that in the course of 65 years, our restaurant sold over 10 million egg rolls. That's how popular they were.
Randy:
My goodness. I wish I could go back in time and experience that. Are both of your parents still around as well?
Curtis:
No, sadly, that's what sort of started me on this journey was that I was a TV writer in Hollywood. And I get this terrible phone call that my parents were in a car accident and my dad passed away and I was the one called back to work in the family business, to make the decision to sell. I mean, so here I am gone from the restaurant for 20 years. And now suddenly, I'm the one who has to figure out how to run this place, cook, and wait tables and do all this stuff. So it was hard. You know, thinking about it. And I feel like if I have a second memoir, that would be that time period. And I've tentatively named it “Leftovers”, because mom was in the car too. And so she was injured, but my brother who was living in California as a doctor, and so we moved her out there. So slowly, all the other siblings followed her out there. And I was the one left behind by myself back in Detroit, to sort of figure out like, how do you sell this restaurant? Or if I even sell it? Do I quit working in TV and stay back home and rescue this restaurant?
Randy:
When you look back at the restaurant's legacy, what do you think about the impact that it has on the community, and what it means to have a family restaurant?
Curtis:
I don't know about the Asian American community, because it was a very small community. And I know that a lot of people remember it. But I know in Detroit, the larger community, there's a great sweet spot for the restaurant. I mean, as I've traveled around the country, I've had so many former customers come up to me, and just thank my family, for providing such great food and having a favorite restaurant for so many years of their childhood. And so that's been really, really wonderful. I'd like to share this one story, which is that I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And at the end of this packed reading at Porter Square Books, this woman gets up and she asks, “Has anybody here ever eaten at Chung’s?” and nobody did because we're in Massachusetts, but she said, “I grew up in Detroit. That was my family's favorite restaurant. We went there every Sunday.” She just has such great memories there but then she said that her mom has dementia now and she said when she told her mom that she was going to the reading by one of the kids from Chung's, her mom started recounting all these details about our dishes, our food in vivid detail. And she said, for the first time in a long time, she felt like she had her mom back. And so I think there's just something special about food and restaurants and identity, and childhood memories. And so to know that your family was a big part of that for so many people in a very gratifying experience. Right?
Randy:
It's just beautiful and you answered part of my question. But since your memoir came out, the response has been very positive and you've been going on a long national book tour. What have you learned along the way from the audience that has listened to your talk and read your book?
Curtis:
I guess it relates to the customers in the sense that I always knew that our restaurant was special because the city always had these year-end Best Of lists, and we were always on there. Celebrities would come into town, they swing by the restaurant because all the hotels would recommend them coming to our place. So I always knew that our place was special. But I guess I didn't realize the depth of how much people took our restaurant into their heart of hearts and their childhood, and their sense of who they were. Right? They really, really defined in some ways their childhoods. So that part's amazing to me, and it just really makes me appreciate my childhood even more.
Randy:
I'm curious about what celebrities have come into your restaurant……
Curtis:
In the book, the most famous one is Yul Brynner, the Oscar winning actor who was coming to tour with The King and I, and he rented our restaurant for the cast party. So that story is in there. But we had other celebrities like Smokey Robinson and Joni Mitchell. They're like singers. Some of the British royal family came, they're like the Earl of Snowden. Senator McCarthy back in the old day. Oh, my. Yeah, you know, so a lot of you know, national, several celebrities but also local celebrities, too, would come. But again, those were not the only people because we also had the pimps and prostitutes and drug dealers and drag queens coming in as well.
Randy:
Now what a life that restaurant had, especially with the kinds of people that came in and been a part of this magic, the magical ride. If you had to talk to your 12 year old self, what would you say to that kid?
Curtis:
Don't be a Republican (laugh). Eat more food. I think back to like, God, I wish I could eat some of those dishes now. Yeah, eat more food or learn how to make those foods, because I don't know how to make those dishes. My mom knows how to make them and my uncle, but I don't know how. So I feel like it's something that maybe I just need to like to sit her down and just say go through it. But I just don't have the patience to be a cook. Do you know what I mean? Right?
Randy:
How's your mom been since the book's release?
Curtis:
Admittedly, after the accident, life is really tough for her. But I think the book has given her some measure of joy, because so much of the book is actually her story as well. And her drive to sort of give her kids a future. Because like I said, she came from China, and didn't even get a chance to graduate high school. And she really put all of her efforts into her kids and so therefore, the publication in some ways, is her success as well.
Randy:
Last question, is there anything that you'd like to share that you have coming up for the rest of this year?
Curtis:
So my paperback comes out! Well, a couple things. One is, I made a film about a famous Asian American documentary photographer named Corky Lee and so that just got picked up by American Masters. So that's going to be coming out. But really, the big thing is, my paperback comes out October 1, and I'm just in the early stages of this, but if anybody has any ideas to help me, I'd really appreciate it. There are 24 chapters in my book, and I'm calling the tour 24 stories, subtitled “Every Restaurant Has A Story.” So I'm going to do my book tour and visit 24, Chinese or Asian restaurants around the country. And all my conversation partners instead will be restaurant owners, their kids, chefs or waiters because I really want to highlight some of the challenges that some of these venerable restaurants are having, the difficulties, the challenges, they've had post COVID. And so I want to use this book as an opportunity to sort of raise awareness of their existence and maybe generate some local media for them and so that's what I'm doing. I have a couple restaurants already lined up. Lots of people are giving me suggestions for places to cover, like their favorite restaurants. And so I've got to figure out exactly which restaurants to go to. So if anybody has any suggestions of a good restaurant to do a book reading in the fall, let me know.
Randy:
Thank you so much for your time, and I greatly appreciate your story, and also what you have given to Detroit and also what you have really given to our own community as well.
Curtis:
I love the Asian American community. I support it so much. I mean, just anything that people need, I'm happy to help out but in any way I can. People can follow me on Instagram or social media or go to my website at curtisfromdetroit.com. I am still gonna be touring through May all over the country so you might be able to catch me in one of your local cities.
Randy:
Thank you so much for your time and best of luck to you on your journey.
Curtis:
And good luck on the newsletter!
Another great interview, another great book recommendation! I can always count on you to make my TBR worthwhile. I’ll have to reach out to Curtis to see if his book tour is coming to Chicago, I know a great Thai/sushi restaurant that he could visit! 😁