some gems from Jennifer 8 Lee's The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which i read a few weeks ago:
"My siblings and I are known as ABCs, American-born Chinese. We're also known as bananas (yellow on the outside but white on the inside) and Twinkies (which has more of a pop-culture but processed ring to it)." (11)
***my note: i was out at a birthday dinner on sunday night at a chinese restaurant here in guatemala city, and we ran into a family that i know from work. i got to talking to the kid's grandparents, and they called me a banana after asking me about where i was born. i hadn't been called a banana for like a decade. weird. p.s. i hate being called a banana.***
"China is the largest immigrant-producing country in the history of the world. The United States is the largest immigrant-accepting country in the history of the world. I, like the Chinese food I grew up with, sit at their crosscurrents. Look at me, and you may see someone Chinese. Close your eyes, and you will hear someone American." (252)
"In coming to the United States, what my parents gave me and my siblings is the freedom of choice. I write for a living because I want to. Sometimes I stop and think how of it is that I earn my income wrestling with a language that my own parents struggled so much with." (254)
***my note: my parents went to the US for better opportunity. then i left the US.
And my favorite:
"Who writes your fortunes? I asked.
Well, that was a sad story. Their main writer had been one of their executives, Donald Lau, who had been with the company since the 1980s. The fact that he was the only employee who spoke fluent English made him the de facto fortune cookie writer. At his peak he wrote maybe a hundred fortunes a month. The effort drained him. A decade into his soothsaying career, Lau became stymied by writer's block. He retired as their chief fortune cookie writer in 1995. 'He told me it was the hardest job he ever got,' said Derrick. 'He ran out of ideas. He can't write anymore.'"
what did you think of the book? would you recommend it as a worthwhile read?
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