Huang Quotes & Sayings

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

The Sun Tzu School (which wrote the Art of War) surely never imagined that their antiwar, pro-empire treatise would become known and accepted after the fall of the first empire as a text on military tactics. Likewise, they would have been surprised to see the Ping-fa military metaphor - an inspired teaching device - come to be seen as the message and not the medium. — David G. Jones

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

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

I don't want to get burned when I'm cooking. To avoid getting hit when pan-frying, I stand far away and use chopsticks that are almost two feet long. I learned it from my mom, who does the same thing. — 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

Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate. — Huang Po

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

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

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

I have collected all the writings of the Empire and burnt those which were of no use. — Qin Shi Huang

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

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

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

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

Real success or victory is measured by the quality of that very process of attention and mindful involvement, practice, and commitment. — Chungliang Al 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'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

Blind is not the situation when people cannot see others but when people fail to feel or sense the existence of others — Millie 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

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

Dont bother me!!!!!! — Stephen Huang

The Eee Pad Transformer Prime is a category-defining product. Powered by Tegra 3, it launches us into a new era of mobile computing, in which quad-core performance and super energy-efficiency provide capabilities never available before. With Transformer Prime, ASUS has once again led the industry into the next generation. — Jen-Hsun 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

A cook's job in my opinion is to be creative and push the boundaries of their cuisine and never stop experimenting. — Ching He Huang

Why do economists fall in love with authoritarian governments? — Yasheng Huang

I wanted a good place to settle:
Cold Mountain would be safe.
Light wind in a hidden pine -
Listen close - the sound gets better.
Under it a gray haired man
Mumbles along reading Huang and Lao.
For ten years I havn't gone back home
I've even forgotten the way by which I came. — Gary Snyder

I like being on camera, performing, seeing what people have in common. — 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 barely took a moment to appreciate nature. Come to think of it, the
only time I did it was when I was so upset I wanted to commit suicide in the
Huang Pu river. — Vann Chow

Look, I can appreciate this. I was young too, I felt just like you. Hated authority, hated all my bosses, thought they were full of shit. Look, it's like they say, if you're not a rebel by the age of 20, you got no heart, but if you haven't turned establishment by 30, you've got no brains. Because there are no story-book romances, no fairy-tale endings. So before you run out and change the world, ask yourself, What do you really want? — George Huang

If you don't like your current situation, career, or relationships, by envisioning a different reality and constructing a new life within your mind, you literally cause the fabric of existence around you to bend to that new reality. You begin drawing in opportunities, people, and situations that you can take advantage of to propel yourself where you want to go. — Alvin Huang

The violin is basically made of a wood box and four main strings. — Sirena 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

If love is real, doesn't it then last forever? Why? Life is real, and it doesn't last either — Lisa Huang Fleischman

If they can't start a meeting without you, well, that's a meeting worth going to, isn't it? And that's the only kind of meeting you should ever concern yourselves with. — George 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

Marian Head is a true student of Tao. Her insightful and persuasive 'Wu-Wei' approaches for personal transformation reach our hearts with open invitation to join the 'soft' revolution and harmonious agreement for all. — Chungliang Al Huang

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

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

Today is just the beginning of Kepler. Because of its super energy-efficient architecture, we will extend GPUs into datacenters, to super thin notebooks, to superphones. — Jen-Hsun Huang

Your father? What he do? He no plumber, is he? I no trust plumbers. Or Disney World. Working with mice, very shameful. — Ana 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

Mr. Huang's nickname was Old Yellow, because that is what his name literally meant and he was the senior person in the office. — Theresa MacPhail

Your true Zen nature can never be gained or lost. It is what you are. — Huang Po & Thomas E Uharriet

Quite amazing how determined kings and emperors have been to destroy books. But civilization is built on such desecrations, is it not? Justinian the Great burned all of the Greek scrolls in Constantinople after he codified the Roman law and drove the Ostrogoths from Italy. And Shih Huang Ti, the first Emperor of China, the man who unified the five kingdoms and built the Great Wall, decreed that every book written before he was born should be destroyed. — Ross King

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

Many people treat their bodies as if they were rented from Hertz - something they are using to get around in but nothing they genuinely care about understanding. — Chungliang Al 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

The ignorant eschew phenomena but not thought; the wise eschew thought but not phenomena. — Huang Po

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 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

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

For true peace of mind we must acknowledge whatever fault we live upon, whatever time bomb ticks in our closet, and enjoy our Shangri-la nonetheless. It isn't the absence of the problem; it is how one lives in its presence that matters. — Chungliang Al Huang

Tai chi does not mean oriental wisdom or something exotic. It is the wisdom of your own senses, your own mind and body together as one process. — Chungliang Al 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

The Sun Tzu School Ping-fa Directive.
Be strong and continually aware. Manage your strength and that of others. When essential, engage on your terms. Be observant, adaptive, and subtle. Do not lose control. Act decisively. Conclude quickly. Don't Fight! — David G. Jones

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

The violin is very beautiful. Some people relate it as the shape of a lady, but, whether you like it or not, it's been so for more than 400 years, unlike modern stuff that easily looks dated. But I think it's very personal and unique that, although each violin looks pretty similar, that no two violins sound the same. — Sirena Huang

In the early 1990s we witnessed the emergence of a revitalized contemporary Chinese art world that began as a reaction against the government-approved Social Realist style. Zhang Xiaogang, Huang Yong Ping, Ai WeiWei, Yue Minjun, and Wang Guangyi were among the first group of artists to establish a movement that became known as Cynical Realism. — Arne Glimcher

They mislead the unwitting masses. — Huang Huahua

The display is the computer. — Jen-Hsun 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

And now try to follow me, because I'm gonna be moving in a kind of circular motion, so if you pay attention, there will be a point! — George Huang

In America, we're allowed to play ONE role, the eunuch who can count. — 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

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

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

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

When words fail music speaks. — Irena 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

Consider the sunlight. You may see it is near, yet if you follow it from world to world you will never catch it in your hands. Then you may describe it as far away and, lo, you will see it just before your eyes. Follow it and, behold, it escapes you; run from it and it follows you close. You can neither possess it nor have done with it. From this example you can understand how it is with the true Nature of all things and, henceforth, there will be no need to grieve or to worry about such things. — Huang Po

When you wake up in the morning, you must really wake up totally-physically and mentally. Otherwise, don't bother with the day. — Chungliang Al Huang

I will allow only my Lord to possess my sacred lotus pond, and every night you can make blossom in me flowers of fire. — Huang E

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

My slender waist and thighs are exhausted and weak from a night of cloud dancing ... — Huang E