Episode 72: The Asian American Experience by David Chang Founder of Momofuku

Davidson Hang Reflections and Lessons from a life worth living

Lessons from an Asian American perspective. These passages really stood out to me. For those of you who do not know who David Chang is. He is one of the most famous restaurateurs out there and I enjoyed his book on overcoming adversity from the lens of being an Asian American. "The downside to the term tiger parenting entering the mainstream vocabulary is that it gives a cute name to what is actually a painful and demoralizing existence. It also feeds into the perception that all Asian kids are book smart because their parents make it so. Well, guess what. It’s not true. Not all our parents are tiger parents, tiger parenting doesn’t always work, and not all Asian kids are good at school. In fact, not all Asian kids are any one thing. To be young and Asian in America often means fighting a multifront war against sameness."​ Imposter syndrome is real for many Asian Americans who don't feel like they will ever fit in white Society because of the color of their skin but stick out like a sore thumb in Asian because of their American tendencies and ways. Asian names that could be misinterpreted as swear-words in English. The EPA tried to shut us down because they were getting complaints of pork smells emanating from the restaurant, which is not an uncommon grievance leveled against Asian establishments in gentrifying neighborhoods. PETA picketed the restaurant on the few occasions that we served foie gras. When we started getting complaints about the noisiness of our HVAC unit, I swear it was the vegans trying to bleed us dry. We spent thousands changing the fan belt and proving that the noises coming from the exhaust were inaudible to human ears. I’m tempted to blame han. Throughout this book, I will argue against the validity of various cultural truths, but I believe in han. There’s no perfect English-language equivalent for this Korean emotion, but it’s some combination of strife or unease, sadness, and resentment, born from the many historical injustices and indignities endured by our people. It’s a term that came into use in the twentieth century after the Japanese occupation of Korea, and it describes this characteristic sorrow and bitterness that Koreans seem to possess wherever they are in the world. It is transmitted from generation to generation and defines much of the art, literature, and cinema that comes out of Korean culture. "I will not deny that there are benefits to being part of what is often described as a “white-adjacent” or “model” minority. I grew up trying my damnedest to integrate into white society. But among the many problems with the myth of the model minority is that it erases the nuances of the Asian American experience. It also sows division, both within our community and with others. Now, if you will forgive a little bit of self-directed racial discrimination, I am what you might call a “twinkie.” Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. There are various factions within the Asian American population, and I definitely reside in the one that looks Asian but lives like a white person. When I visited Korea as part of a program with students from multiple colleges, I found myself excluded from all of the Korean-born, Korean-speaking, and generally more Korean social groups that formed. Then, once we landed in Seoul, the locals knew immediately from my size that I was a gyopo, or foreign-born Korean, so I gravitated to the other twinkies. I didn't yet know how to embrace my Korean heritage, which, ironically, only deepened my experience of han." Check out my blog post for all of the quotes. https://davidsonhang.com/2021/04/01/david-changs-memoir/ 9. By confronting failure, you take fear out of the equation. You stop shying away from ideas just because they seem like they may not work. You start asking whether an idea is “bad” because it’s actually bad or because the common wisdom says so. You begin to thrive when you’re not supposed to. You just have to be comfortable with instability, change, and a great deal of stress. "These were the same guys who had said things like “I need to take a shower to wash the gook off” after hooking up with Asian girls in school. Now there was a class reunion coming up and they were inviting me to hang out. That sort of interaction really screwed with my head. I didn’t become famous for being handsome or athletic or musically gifted. I was just a cook."​ My takeaways from the book is he was able to take advantage of the internet and all of these rising bloggers and realizing the importance of building a community and treating them right where against did not respect them and the power they had. He discussed very vulnerable about a lot of the microaggressions and straight-out racism he has experienced in a eurocentric dominated industry with how fine dining is considered to be European and more recently he has seen that Asian restaurants are starting to be more respected but we have a long way to go in America.