Memoir Of A Chinese-American                            

"Fresh Off The Boat”, written by a first generation Chinese-American Eddie Huang is unlike any book I have ever read. This is not a literary work of the highest order, and the writer doesn’t mean it to be. This is an extraordinary story of a very talented, but sometimes troubled young man, trying to find his place in the world. This is a story with which a young reader can relate to in so many different levels. Fast pace, unusual language, humor and his own spin on various aspects of life makes his book an excellent read.

Eddie Huang was born in a Chinese immigrant family, who he loved to call "fresh off the boat." He grew up in Florida. As a kid, he used to go to his parents furniture store every day before school age. He was clearly bored and "Before I knew about guns, I was trying to shoot myself."¹ These early years taught him various aspects of Chinese culture. Close relationship with siblings, connection between members of extended family, respect for the elders, Chinese food etc was being engrained within him in this time. Although his parents were working very hard, he grew up poor."My brothers and I shared three comics, two dinosaurs, and one copy of 'Coming to America' between three of us.”²He clearly loathed his life and culture, "If I died, I wanted to come back as a white man."³

Young Eddie with his parents.

As he grew older, he got accustomed to Chinese way of life. He accepted his own tradition. His high school was troublesome. Sometimes he was fighting with other kids or doing drugs and sometime he is thinking about his future, destiny and religion. In this period he got disillusioned with religion. "There isn`t a god that pulls the string."⁴In this period his life changed a lot after he realized his parents have money. They moved into a posh neighborhood and he went to several private schools. He was always getting into trouble, but always maintained good grades.

Not unlike his teen age, his adulthood also had ups and downs. Sometimes he got into a fight and then leave “the hospital just so I could write the paper"⁵. He got in big trouble because of the fight. He had to choose between jail time and visiting Taiwan. He chose the latter. It was a life altering event for him. We see him romanticizing how different his life would be if his parents didn’t immigrate to USA.”I was happy.  Reconciled . I learned my lesson from America and didn’t want to go back.”⁶ Although he realized within minutes “I was already bugging` out because I was about to miss Redskins` second preseason game.”⁷ I think this feeling resonates with so many immigrants in the USA, who don’t want to leave the homeland, but at the same time miss home while there.

In the last part of the book, we see Eddie finding his true passion, food. He opened “BaoHaus” in New York, a Taiwanese restaurant and becomes an instant success. He tries his unconventional ways, and they pays off. Sometime he posts funny job posting, sometimes he smokes weed in the sidewalk and people seem to love it. In the last line of the book, we see that Eddie was finally able to make his parents proud. His drunken mother called him, “You are in the WORLD JOURNAL!”⁸

This book is full of duality. Eddie is sometimes a very nice young man, full of culture, a loyal friend who studies Shakespeare, watches basketball, studies day and night to pass the exam. He also gets in fight with people, does drugs and has a very foul mouth. Even in the picture in the back of the book, in which poses in front of his own restaurant, he looks more like a "punk" than an entrepreneur. Which one of them is the true Eddie? In this book he tried hard seem like do doesn’t care about a lot of things, I felt this is just an act of rebellion. He led the reader to believe that he doesn’t care about studies, or about his parent`s wishes, or even getting arrested. At the end of the book we get a glimpse of his true self, "I just woke up everyday thinking my life was over"<sup>9</sup>, indicating he had to tick the “convicted felon” box and it truly troubled him. He finishes the book with his mom`s word. He dedicated this book to his two brothers. He even finishes the book with a four page long acknowledgement of people who he cares about and says really nice things about them. All this indicates a very different side of Eddie that he didn’t want to reader to know about.

Huang brothers.

What is an American Dream? To me, it is the freedom to work your own way to become successful. Eddie Huang might be a first generation immigrant from a different culture, but to me, he is the embodiment of the American dream. He had his troubles, sometimes faced racism, parental pressure, even jail, but nothing stopped him from his goal to become successful in doing something that he loves to do, what is more American than that? As a fresh of the boat immigrant myself, I wish I would be able to become successful following my dream, just like Eddie did.

[1] Eddie Huang, Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013), 11.

[2] Huang, Fresh Off the Boat, 37.

[3] Huang, Fresh Off the Boat, 39.

[4] Huang, Fresh Off the Boat, 116.

[5] Huang, Fresh Off the Boat, 176.

[6] Huang, Fresh Off the Boat, 199.

[7] Huang, Fresh Off the Boat, 199.

[8] Huang, Fresh Off the Boat, 272.

[9] Huang, Fresh Off the Boat, 253.