Okay, order me two Taiwanese dishes: Beef Noodle Soup and a pork belly bun, and I’ll be your friend. Taiwanese food is why I gravitated to the book "Homecoming" by Eddie Huang, a celebrity Taiwanese-American chef and hilarious author.
The story revolves around Huang’s return to his ancestral homeland, Taiwan, during the COVID-19 pandemic, as he seeks to reconnect with his heritage and culture. I accompanied Huang on a comedic and insightful journey filled with conflicting emotions that offered reflections on the immigrant experience in a globalized world.
When Eddie Huang found out Tom Hanks had COVID, he made a split-second decision to cop a flight to Taipei. It was in the thick of the pandemic, before we had much information at all besides to mummify ourselves and cry in a corner of our bedrooms listening to James Blake if we wanted to survive. All Eddie wanted was to get in his room, order room service, and enter a 30-day dumpling coma—after which, he figured, this whole thing would be over.
Eddie didn't think twice about throwing his social life away when his life was threatened. He'd never…
I was once a doctoral student, and that experience drew me to Elaine Hsieh Chou's book Disorientation: A Novel. The story is about Ingrid Yang, a Taiwanese-American PhD student who has devoted years of time, effort, and considerable resources to completing her dissertation on a little-known but revered Chinese American poet.
I immediately empathized with Ingrid’s challenges. Her journey is a tale of self-discovery, racial identity, and the pursuit of truth, culminating in awe-inspiring self-confidence and peace of mind.
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE SELECTION * A MALALA BOOK CLUB PICK * AN INDIE NEXT PICK * A FAVORITE BOOK OF 2022 BY NPR AND BOOK RIOT * A MUST-READ MARCH 2022 BOOK BY TIME, VANITY FAIR, EW AND THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS * A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2022 BY GOODREADS, NYLON, BUZZFEED AND MORE
A Taiwanese American woman’s coming-of-consciousness ignites eye-opening revelations and chaos on a college campus in this outrageously hilarious and startlingly tender debut novel.
Twenty-nine-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang is desperate to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou…
I love stories about characters on Broadway or in the theatre world, which is why I chose “Yellow Face: A Semi-Autobiographical Comedy” by David Henry Hwang.
I was captivated as DHH, the protagonist, tried but failed to balance racial biases, artistic freedom, and social responsibility.
“A thesis of a play, unafraid of complexities and contradictions, pepped up with a light dramatic fizz. It asks whether race is skin-deep, actable or even fakeable, and it does so with huge wit and brio.” -TimeOut London
“A pungent play of ideas with a big heart. Yellow Face brings to the national discussion about race a sense of humor a mile wide, an even-handed treatment and a hopeful, healing vision of a world that could be” –Variety
“It's about our country, about public image, about face,” says David Henry Hwang about his latest work, a mock documentary that puts…
After Chance Moore, a former FBI cyber-security specialist turned cybercriminal, hacks the bank account of a notorious Guatemalan cartel member, he’s kidnapped and smuggled into Guatemala. After escaping and trying desperately to reach the Belize border, he crosses paths with Vonnie Hollister, a depressed prescription drug addict and alcoholic, who is in Belize to sell her family’s 150-year-old banana plantation. Vonnie is sinking deeper into addiction, and a love affair with an unscrupulous businessman puts her life, her friends, and her plantation in jeopardy.
Chance and Vonnie’s lives become intertwined when Chance is found close to death on Vonnie’s plantation and is moved into her house to recover. Vonnie struggles to overcome her addiction and solve her problems; Chance is impatient to leave the plantation. But covert intelligence has led cartel soldiers across the Belize border – and they know exactly where to find him.
