Eddie Huang Quotes & Sayings

I'll always be American in my world view and allegiance. American in the naive way I go to other countries and tell them how they should treat their poor or clean their water. — Eddie Huang

My mom had this habit of speaking Chinese in front of Americans. She didn't give a fuck that they probably thought it was rude. I was caught in the middle. There's a part of me that loves immigrants who throw niceties to the wind and just speak their tongue all day, every day. The older generation never felt integrated in society anyway so they don't care if you see them as "rude." I mean, cot damn, "rude" is probably a compliment compared to the shit people used to say to them. This is our language and it's your problem if you don't speak it, right? But another part of me feels, ".What's Dave got to do with it?" (68) — Eddie Huang

Good food makes me want to hit a punching bag like, Dat's right motherfucker. You done did it there. — Eddie Huang

By the time Christmas came around, while all the other kids made cards, she had me sit in a corner and face the wall because I wasn't a "believer." (27) — Eddie Huang

Everything comes clear and you see exactly how you're goonna win the game: by doing you....I found my voice and no one was going to take it from me. (124) — Eddie Huang

I wanted to inspire people not to work under a bamboo ceiling. Whatever you are - yellow, black, white, brown - you don't have to allow your skin to define who you are or how you operate your business. There's not one face to anything. — Eddie Huang

There was an individual inside me that wasn't Chinese, that wasn't American, that wasn't Orlando. Just a kid trying to get the fuck out, tell his story, and arrange the world how it made sense to him. — Eddie Huang

It wasn't much to most kids. I mean, I was basically getting recognized for being straight dogshit, ignoring that I was straight dogshit, and doing anything in my power just to maintain my dogshittiness. I think on Urban Dictionary that's the definition for insanity - or a Michael Bay film. — Eddie Huang

These same ABCs couldn't speak Chinese and didn't care---but you don't have shit without your native tongue. African slaves were forced by threat of physical punishment to abandon their native languages, but a lot of us just gave ours up with a shrug---these Uncle Chans convinced us to assimilate, shut the fuck up, and play the part. What they didn't understand is that after your have the money and degrees, you can't buy your identity back. I wasn't worried about degrees, but I cared about my roots. Even if I hated what it meant to be an Asian in t he American wilderness, i respected the Chinese home I was raised in. Usually I wasn't so vocal about Asian identity, but without my parents around, I felt a sudden duty to say something myself. It's funny how annoying I thought my mom was, but as soon as she wasn't around, i carried the torch for her. — Eddie Huang

Chinese people questioned my yellowness because I was born in America. Then white people questioned my identity as an American because I was yellow. — Eddie Huang

We weren't Americans like everyone else. We'd always be the other in this bullshit country. — Eddie Huang

I want to prove you don't need to have academic syntax to be intelligent. — Eddie Huang

People ask me what my greatest strengths are and I say perspective. The best way to get that is to meet people that are polar opposites; you learn the most from them. There are pieces of you that are inherently yours, but everything else is a collection of the things you've seen and the people you've met. — Eddie Huang

I choose to be American, I choose to live in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, I choose to have Puerto Rican/Jewish neighbors, and I choose to maintain my Chinese identity. — Eddie Huang

We'd all been through enough cultural cleansing situations that we knew something like Debate Club was going to try to remodel us, but I'll never forget what happened when we left. — Eddie Huang

Once again, my dad knew something I didn't. Looking back, I realize it wasn't just I was Asian. I was a loud-mounthed, brash, broken Asian who had no respect for authority in any form, wether it was a parent, teacher, or country. Not only was I not white, to many people I wasn't Asian either. (148) — Eddie Huang

Money had them under a spell. Once they spent the money on a problem, they never thought about it again. — Eddie Huang

I don't think people in America understand race, and how deep the hooks of whiteness there are in our consciousness. — Eddie Huang

BaoHaus is idiosyncratic, creative, and artistic. My restaurant doesn't look like a Taiwanese restaurant. — Eddie Huang

The rest of the family hated Orlando. It was full of ass-backward transplants, bad food, and doo-doo basketball players. It was everything that sucked about the South with none of the benefits. People drove ride-on lawn mowers through their neighborhoods wearing Home Depot hats, but you couldn't find any decent barbecue within five counties. No Southern hospitality, just hot asphalt and suburban phoniness. All the ignorance, none of the sense. — Eddie Huang

Word ... I like this hip-hop! You got more of it?" "Yeah, Doggystyle comes out soon and I'll send it to you." When I got Doggystyle, my dad took it away. "What is this stuff? These dogs are having sex on the back! Who is this Doggy Dog? — Eddie Huang

I like a walking culture; I need to be in a city where you can walk everywhere. — Eddie Huang

When they beat that dream out of me, I said I'd be a sportscaster on ESPN and I'll never forget what my father said: "They'll never let someone with a face like you on television." To this day, I wake up at times, look in the mirror, and just stare, obsessed with the idea that the person I am in my head is something entirely different than what everyone else sees. — Eddie Huang

The best part about beef noodle soup is that there are no rules. It just has to have beef, noodle, and soup. There are people that do clear broth beef noodle soup. Beef noodle soup with dairy. Beef noodle soup with pig's blood. It would suck if you looked at my recipe and never made your own, 'cause everyone has a beef noodle soup in them. Show it to me. — Eddie Huang

My only goal as a comedian was to stomp the life out of the model-minority myth. — Eddie Huang

Landlords in New York are generally the scum of the earth. They're beneficiaries of the worst kind of nepotism, eating off the good business decisions of their parents. They have no compassion because they've never had to work for shit to know how it feels to need a fucking break. (256-257) — Eddie Huang

There is a lot of food culture that goes on in the home and in the community in non-traditional ways. Food is a lot more than restaurants. — Eddie Huang

I remember not having money, I remember having money, and neither had a bearing on who I was as a person. It affected how others saw me, but not how I saw myself. — Eddie Huang

Bankers make money, too, but I'm not running up into Chase and throwing milk shakes at the homie selling subprime mortgages. — Eddie Huang

Figure it out!" We always had to figure it out, so you can, too! We didn't have the luxury of people explaining why I couldn't use my left hand or why his family had no money. We just figured it out. But love is a funny thing. — Eddie Huang

I don't believe you need to shout out the farm, the name of the chicken, or all that other bullshit on the menu because it should simply be the standard that we serve all-natural meat. — Eddie Huang

I was sick of immigrants not getting the credit they deserved. I was sick of the Jean-Georges of the world making a killing on our ingredients and flavors because we were too stupid to package it the right way. I was sick of seeing other Asian kids like myself walking to school with their heads down. I was sick of seeing them picking snow peas in the dining room after school and I was sick of not having a voice in America...My main objective with Baohus was to become a voice for Asian Americans. (264) — Eddie Huang

I don't think people realize how fucking weird Christianity is if you're not raised around it. But, hey, it got me off time-out. And, who knows, maybe a billion white people can't be wrong and it's all really true. — Eddie Huang

I'll always be Chinese first. It probably isn't politically correct to say or something that the majority understands; I can change my shoes, I can swap my passport, but, I'll always have this face. — Eddie Huang

I had no desire to be a chef, but I had a desire to be someone who was heard. — Eddie Huang

Xiang wei is the character a good dish has when it's robust, flavorful, and balanced but still maintains a certain light quality. That flavor comes, lingers on your tongue, stays long enough to make you crave it, but just when you think you have it figured out, it's gone. Timing is everything. Soup dumplings, sitcoms, one-night stands - good ones leave you wanting more. — Eddie Huang

These white people like really mushy food. — Eddie Huang

I gave up trying to find friends at college and befriended dead people between the margins. — Eddie Huang

Unlike others who let it eat them up and took it to their graves, I refused to be that Chinese kid walking everywhere with his head down. I wanted my dignity, my identity, and my pride back; I wanted them to know there were repercussions to the things they said. There were no free passes on my soul and everything they stole from me I decided I'd take back double. (81) — Eddie Huang

We play into the definitions and stereotypes others impose on us and accept the model-minority myth, thinking it's positive, but it's a trap just like any stereotype. They put a piece of model-minority cheese between the metal jaws of their mousetrap, but we're lactose intolerant anyway! We can't even eat the cheese. — Eddie Huang

For me, juicing isn't about binging and cleansing; I try to incorporate it into a balanced diet. — Eddie Huang

Rice in Taiwan, unlike America, doesn't always come out soggy and limp. — Eddie Huang

All that time, my fears - about identity and family and love - were misplaced. It isn't acceptance that extinguishes us, instead, it awakens us. — Eddie Huang

I don't think people understand the model-minority stereotype is negative. You are boxed in. You have to untangle that to find your own path. — Eddie Huang

I blog because I have something to say. — Eddie Huang

I've never said I was a chef - I think I make great food. I will never open a restaurant to do, like, tasting courses. — Eddie Huang

When we talked about "A Modest Proposal" I felt like I was running circles around everybody. I understood that shit better than the professor 'cause he was just a fan. I wasn't an Irishman, but I knew how it felt to have someone standing over you, controlling your life and wanting to call it something else. From the people at the Christian Fellowship to First Academy to my parents to Confucius to thousands of years of ass-backwards Chinese thinking, I knew how it felt. Everything my parents did to me and their parents did to them was justified under the banner of Tradition, Family, and Culture. And when it wasn't them it was someone impressing Christianity onto me and when it wasn't Christianity it was whiteness. — Eddie Huang

...don't borrow money from people, but if other people need it from you lend it to them, as long as it's inconsequential. — Eddie Huang

I wanted to get free. (129) — Eddie Huang

I don't do coupons or Reeboks. Life is too short to half-step. — Eddie Huang

The easiest way for Americans to make sense of Chinese history is to compare everything to Jewish history. There's an analogue for everything. Torah: Analects. Curly sideburns: long ponytails. Mantou: bagels. — Eddie Huang

Mon, they said they were going to 'fuck me up'!"
"No, we didn't, he fucked himself up."
"No one is fucking anyone! Who taught you to fuck people up? ... — Eddie Huang

Whether it's food or women, the ones on front street are supermodels. Big hair, big tits, big trouble, but the one you come home to is probably something like cavatelli and red sauce. She's not screaming for attention because she knows she's good enough even if your dumb ass hasn't figured it out yet. — Eddie Huang

Black culture has been a huge influence in my life. — Eddie Huang

Style isn't an excuse to cook without a standard. Style just determines the set of rules you choose. — Eddie Huang

I don't like labels. I don't understand the need for them. When you define yourself a certain way, people have expectations. — Eddie Huang

America ain't three fifths bad. — Eddie Huang

The reason we use all natural, hormone-free, antibiotic-free Berkshire pork belly, beef, and chicken is that it's the right thing to do. — Eddie Huang

I'm so sick of people misunderstanding Asians in America and what we're about. — Eddie Huang

Take the things from America that speak to you, that excite you, that inspire you, and be the Americans we all want to know; then cook it up and sell it back to them for $28.99. Cue Funk Flex to drop bombs on this. All my peoples from the boat, let 'em know: WEOUTCHEA. — Eddie Huang

If my mom was made, you'd hear wild and crazy Chinese. If it was my dad, he got his white man voice on. — Eddie Huang

Patience, attention, and restraint are the keys to good cooking. — Eddie Huang

We had to have white people front like the chef and owners. It was not OK for my dad to sell steak, but white people cooking Asian get more attention than the people in Chinatown who actually know what the fuck they're doing. — Eddie Huang

don't pick on people who were already being picked on. — Eddie Huang

You can't convince yourself! You either believe or you don't believe." (28)

"She say you ask weird questions, but I say you're student, you supposed to ask! Her job to answer! I say you're lazy, if student ask, you answer!"
"Yeah! She told me my real great-grandparents are these white people named Adan and Eve!"
"Bullshit! But hey, Ciao Wen, be smart. Why you argue with her about that? You know they believe this stuff, just let them believe."
"But she told me I was going to Hell if I didn't believe and told me to ask God into my heart!"
""Ha, ha, yeah, she told me, too, think she do something soo good to help you. Whatever. You know it's lies, let those idiots believe. Just focus on real school. Don't be stupid and fight them, you'll lose." (30) — Eddie Huang

I get so disenfranchised reading the news, because global borders and lines we've created are completely unnecessary. That's just another person on the other side, and it's his bad luck that he was born there and it's my good fortune that I was born here. It's all kind of illogical. — Eddie Huang

Why leave a country when you're on top? Whether it was another communist scare or the even greener pastures in America, no one ever gives me a straight answer. (The only thing anyone can agree on is that they still miss the island.) — Eddie Huang

Not only was I not white, to many people I wasn't Asian either — Eddie Huang

Revenge is always expensive, but you get what you pay for. — Eddie Huang

New York felt to me like what America should be - a representation of the world in this small pocket. — Eddie Huang

If you like our food, great, but don't come tell me you're gonna clean it up, refine it, or elevate it because it's not necessary or possible. We don't need fucking food missionaries to cleanse our palates. What we need are opportunities outside kitchens and cubicles. — Eddie Huang

I want everybody to run at the same speed as me. But some people are more conscientious, they think more and they plan more. And they're more careful. — Eddie Huang

What we did do was got to Chinese school. Whether you lived in D.C., Ann Arbor, New York, or Orlando, if there were Chinese people, there were Chinese schools where you went every Sunday to take Chinese Language and cultural classes. Chinese people would drive hours from every direction to take their kids to school. All teachers were volunteers and the parents chipped in to keep it going. While the rest of America went to church, we learned how to read right to left. — Eddie Huang

When I met white kids' parents, they always asked me bullshit questions about race, where our family was "from," and used words like Oriental. I was like a toy in their house, but Joey's parents were Asian so it felt like family. I never felt like I had to carry the burden of the whole Chinese diaspora, or that everything I did was a statement about my people and where we're from. (84) — Eddie Huang

Suburban or not, something most definitely went wrong and we're still trying to figure it out. But if you ask me, Pac and that dickhead at Debate Club had a lot to do with it. We never tried to join a club, after-school activity, or anything productive, for that matter, ever again. The Honor Roll wasn't something we wanted to be part of. We gave up on doing it their way, we wanted to get free. — Eddie Huang

My parents always insulted each other. Mom was a good student and thought school was important. Dad agreed even though he had a chip on his shoulder because he never got good grades. He learned most things from running around on the street, but in a funny way, my dad was smarter. My mom never remembered what she learned in school because she just memorized stuff for tests; it was my dad, who had bad grades, that actually remembered everything he learned. — Eddie Huang

The show is easy when there aren't real feelings behind it. — Eddie Huang

I saw an opportunity to use a restaurant to identify a lot of my issues and concerns with being an immigrant in America, and Asian in America, and a young person in America. — Eddie Huang

For years, I wanted to know if there was one person, one voice, one individual inside me. All my life people would call me a chink or a chigger. I couldn't listen to hip-hop and be myself without people questioning my authenticity. Chinese people questioned my yellowness because I was born in America. The white people questioned my identity as an American because I was yellow.
No black or Spanish person ever called me chigger, but hustling all of a sudden got white people off my back. I was the same dude with a different job, but now I was finally "authentic" to white people, and it made me realized it's all a trap. We can't fucking win. If I follow the rules and play the model minority, I'm a lapdog under a bamboo ceiling. If I like hip-hop because I see solidarity, I'm aping. But, if I throw it all away, shit on my parents, sell weed, pills, and strike fear into unsuspecting white boys with stunt Glocks, now I's authentic? Fuck you, America. (171) — Eddie Huang

Asians don't use the oven for anything but holding Jordans. — Eddie Huang

I suddenly realized that converting to white wouldn't be easy, but still, that toilet paper was like silk. — Eddie Huang

Carpetbaggers with no culture or moral compass, enabled and empowered with new money. — Eddie Huang

Sundays are for Dim Sum. While the rest of America goes to church, Sunday School, or NFL games, you can find Chinese people eating Cantonese food. — Eddie Huang

If you grow up in an immigrant culture, there are going to be foods you eat that other people just don't get. — Eddie Huang

No matter how hard the Man tries to sterilize us, I take solace in the fact that that we can't be erased. — Eddie Huang

That's the confidence that New York gave me. There was finally a city that appreciated what I had to say and the honesty with which I said it. — Eddie Huang

I wasn't meant to be an attorney, but I was meant to go to law school. — Eddie Huang

Religion wasn't a big deal in our house. I don't think it was a big deal in most Chinese households. We always had photos of ancestors, organs, and incense in bowls, but the family unit was bigger than any religion, or government for that matter. Besides education, there weren't any social issues I remember my parents getting down for. — Eddie Huang

I'm convinced that frats are the beginning of the end for most of the people who end up running the world. It teaches them to give up individuality, independence, and even their paper for acceptance. — Eddie Huang

But what I'm very interested in, whether it's writing, whether it's hosting a show, whether it's cooking food, I'm just into the discussions of identity, culture and the politics of culture. — Eddie Huang

For the first time, I ate with a bunch of other Taiwanese-Chinese kids my age who knew what the hell they were doing. Even at Chinese school, there were always kids that brought hamburgers, shunned chopsticks, or didn't get down with the funky shit. They were like faux-bootleg-Canal Street Chinamen.

That was one of the things that really annoyed me about growing up Chinese in the States. Even if you wanted to roll with Chinese/Taiwanese kids, there were barely any around and the ones that were had lost their culture and identity. They barely spoke Chinese, resented Chinese food, and if we got picked on by white people on the basketball court, everyone just looked out for themselves. It wasn't that I wanted people to carry around little red books to affirm their "Chinese-ness," but I just wanted to know there were other people that wanted this community to live on in America. — Eddie Huang

I'd fake the part for a second to infiltrate, gather intelligence, and then ditch it, laughing on my way back to the outside. That's the perk of being Chinese, you can walk through walls and no one really notices. (155) — Eddie Huang

I have more to say as a writer than from behind a wok. — Eddie Huang

I think my mom is manic, but Chinese people don't believe in psychologists. We just drink more tea when things go bad. Sometimes I agree; I think we're all over diagnosed. — Eddie Huang

People has jokes, but at this point I was meaner, so I didn't even think twice. You said some shit, I threw you into a wall. Teachers, counselors, psychiatrists, family, and friends couldn't understand. I was a nice kid, smiled a lot, had a genuine interest in books, culture, and anything that I could get my hands on to read. But there was this switch that would go off. Between getting hit at home and all the things people said about me, I just couldn't take it. I couldn't walk away. I was determined to get even, I wanted to hurt people like they hurt me. — Eddie Huang

I like being on camera, performing, seeing what people have in common. — Eddie Huang

When I feel off, I read the 'Tao Te Ching' to get my equilibrium right. I started reading it in the eleventh grade. — Eddie Huang

People talk about perfect timing, but I think everything is perfect in its moment; you just want to capture that. — Eddie Huang

Back then, when the culture was still building, people were loyal to stores, brands, and the cause. The style was retro-nineties, loud colors, vector or photographic driven, skinny jeans, selvage denim, lots of Japanese brands, and hip-hop/street culture content. There was also a political aspect to streetwear. Speaking for myself, I was sick of rocking logos for people. What people started printing their own shirts on AAA or American Apparel blanks, we got to rep the culture through the clothing. In the post-9/11 era, a lot of the more powerful messages about individuality, free speech, and what it was to be American manifested themselves in streetwear. (215) — Eddie Huang

To this day, I wake up at times, look in the mirror, and just stare, obsessed with the idea that the person I am in my head is something entirely different than what everyone else sees. That the way I look will prevent me from doing the things I want; that there really are sneetches with stars and I'm not one of them. I touch my face, I feel my skin, I check my color every day, and I swear it all feels right. But then someone says something and that sense of security and identity is gone before I know it. — Eddie Huang