Curtis Chin: EVERYTHING I LEARNED, I LEARNED IN A CHINESE RESTAURANT

This “vivid, moving, funny, and heartfelt” memoir tells the story of Curtis Chin’s time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980’s Detroit (Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers).

Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.
Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.

Curtis Chin: A co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the non-profits’ first Executive Director. He went on to write comedy for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in twenty countries. His memoir, "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant" was published by Little, Brown in Fall 2023 and his essay in Bon Appetit was selected for Best Food Writing in America 2023. He just completed his latest short film for American Masters on PBS.

Cheuk Kwan grew up in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. He co-founded in 1978 The Asianadian, a magazine dedicated to promoting Asian Canadian arts, culture and politics. Kwan’s fifteen-part Chinese Restaurants (2005) documentary braids his personal experiences with his love of travel and appreciation for Chinese culture worldwide. His personal memoir, (2002), draws out a global narrative of the Chinese diaspora by linking together personal stories of chefs, entrepreneurs, laborers and dreamers who populate Chinese kitchens world-wide.

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