Double Cup Love
Double Cup Love is a work of nonfiction based on the life, experiences, and recollections of Eddie Huang. The names of certain individuals, as well as potentially identifying descriptive details concerning them, have been changed.
Copyright © 2016 by Eddie Huang
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
SPIEGEL & GRAU and Design is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Excerpt of ten lines from #20 from Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, a New English Version, with Foreword and Notes, by Stephen Mitchell. Translation copyright © 1988 by Stephen Mitchell. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Huang, Eddie
Title: Double cup love : on the trail of family, food, and broken hearts in China / Eddie Huang.
Description: New York : Spiegel & Grau, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015029722| ISBN 9780812995466 (hardback : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780812995473 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Huang, Eddie, 1982—Travel—China. | Taiwanese Americans—Travel—China. | Cooking—China. | Food trucks—China. | Taiwanese Americans—Ethnic identity. | Taiwanese Americans—Biography. | Huang, Eddie, 1982—Family. | Huang, Eddie, 1982—Relations with women. | Marriage—Social aspects—United States. | Love—Social aspects—United States. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural Heritage. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Customs & Traditions.
Classification: LCC E184.T35 H83 2016 | DDC 647.95092—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015029722
ebook ISBN 9780812995473
randomhousebooks.com
spiegelandgrau.com
Book design by Barbara M. Bachman, adapted for ebook
Cover design: Tim Goodman
Art direction: Greg Mollica
v4.1
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Prologue
Part 1: Love
Connie
Dena
China
Evan
Hakka Heather
Emery
Part 2: Last Days Alone
Corky
Xiao Zhen
Mr. Zheng
Part 3: New Beginnings
Tim
Fish
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Eddie Huang
About the Author
TELESCOPES, BINOCULARS, THE FEDS HATE MY VERNACULAR.
—CAM’RON
THE CRIB SCARFACE COULDN’T BE MORE TONY.
YOU LOVE ME FOR ME COULD YOU BE MORE PHONY?
—KANYE
NOW TAKE THESE WORDS HOME AND THINK IT THROUGH
OR THE NEXT RHYME I WRITE MIGHT BE ABOUT YOU.
—PRODIGY
PROLOGUE
I arrived at the end of my vision only to realize it was another door to confusion: “dun-dun-dun-bana-nana-nana-na-na-naaa-naaa.”*1
I could hear Bird in my head and it was starting to make sense.
Like “Parker’s Mood” jumping out in a moment of satori, I took my cue from the horns and put my head down, sprinting toward the finish. I stumbled over the keys, tried to understand the drums, but really just improvised my way to the end, where I realized that all that was waiting for me was another epiphany, the same one that started it all three minutes and eight seconds earlier: “dun-dun-dun-bana-nana-nana-na-na-naaa-naaa.” But unlike the first time I heard Parker’s sax, this realization wasn’t hope in the face of rejection. It was despair in the face of acceptance. That old, harrowing, reluctant motherfucker despair staring you in the face with empty hands upturned: “dun-dun-dun-bana-nana-nana-na-na-naaa-naaa.”
You listen to his loop at the beginning of the song thinking that by the end you’ll be all brand-new, but nothing. It gives you hope with a faint whisper through reeds, takes you on an impromptu journey to nowhere, and drops you right back off where you started with the same loop and a double dose of despair echoing over and over “dun-dun-dun-bana-nana-nana-na-na-naaa-naaa.”
This was the sound in my head as I watched Kevin Spacey delivering a monologue in House of Cards:
There are two kinds of pain. The sort of pain that makes you strong or useless pain. The sort of pain that’s only suffering. I have no patience for useless things.
Was it useless, though? Before I could figure it out, I felt my heart stop, my face turn gray, and my body disconnect from my mind. I sat there on the couch at my friend Gary’s house in Houston, right across the street from the Galleria. And I realized I was dying.
—
I couldn’t breathe, scared that the last thing I’d ever feel on this earth before I became fish food was Kevin Spacey’s politico-sexual-predator vibes. My face got stuck as I fell off the couch onto the floor underneath the coffee table, where Gary’s AR-15 rested.
How is it legal for Gary to watch Celtic games with an AR-15 around his neck? How is it legal for anyone to walk into a Walmart and cop a six-inch Subway meatball sub, an AR-15, and the “Everything Is Awesome” single in the same shopping cart? Something’s got to give.
It was my body.
It didn’t make sense. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’d just gotten my shit straight. I had my bills on autopay! I had to get to Evan. When everyone else in the family left me, there was always Evan. Emery was my ace, Mom was my heart, Dad was the judge, but Evan was my caretaker. I crawled slowly and deliberately. It took every neuron in my brain to communicate with my legs. It was as if rigor mortis had already set in, flesh stiff like upper lips. I had to fight.
I couldn’t stand, so I kept grabbing at the ground and pulling myself forward with the little traction I could create against the floor. To the reasonable woman or man reading this, you have to understand that my body was gelatinous, I had achieved perfect rehydrated sea cucumber status*2 and for the second time in my life, it occurred to me that my mother would be proud, a thought that kept me going as I pushed my body along by pressing my feet against the moldings at the bottom of the wall. Eventually, I got to the door of Evan’s room.
I could see Evan! I might not be dead! I grabbed the side of the door and pulled myself up with the last bit of energy I had.
“EVAN! HELP!”
He rolled over in his bed to look at me, unimpressed.
“Dude, what are you doing? You look like a psycho leaning against the door like that.”
“EVAN…I just died.”
“What?”
“I just died, man. For real, my spirit left my body.”
“Your what? Left your what?”
“MY SPIRIT LEFT MY BODY! I DIED!”
Evan realized this wasn’t the garden-variety late-night self-realization. He jumped to his feet and stared me in the eyes.
“EDDIE! What did you do? Your eyes are yellow!”
“I ate the indica hash beef jerky!”
“So did I! So did Gary! Stop being a bitch.”
“I ate all of it….”
“ALL OF IT?”
“And some of the weed cupcake.”
He slapped me.
“Wake the fuck up! You didn’t die. What’s wrong, man?”
“My heart stopped. My face got stuck. I felt like gelatin and then everything went gray.”
All the noise woke Gary up from his nap.
“What are you guys doing?”
“I’m dying.”
“BAHAHAHAHAHA, how are you dying standing in the doorway, you stupid fuck?”
“It’s gone, Gary. My essence is gone. I’m never going to be the
same. The Matrix accepted me.”
“Oh my god, do we have to take this fool to the hospital?”
“Calm down. This happened to him before.”
“When?”
“Two years ago, on Orchard Street. We were broke living in an apartment: me, Emery, Eddie, and Ning”—my ex-girlfriend—“on three mattresses side by side. There was only about six hundred dollars left in the Baohaus”—my restaurant in the East Village—“account, and Eddie used two hundred to buy an air conditioner ’cause it was hot. Eddie got really high, Emery got really mad, tried to fight Eddie, and Eddie didn’t want to fight Emery so he ran around the apartment complex with no clothes on, screaming, ‘What do you want from me? Take everything!’ ”
“You think he’s gonna start running around my apartment with no clothes on?”
“No one should run around your apartment, Gary, there are two AR-15s in the living room!” I managed to yell.
“Eddie, if you fucking mention gun control again, I’m gonna kick you out of my house.”
“NO! NO! NO, GARY! I will not shut up! I have to speak up. I have to keep fighting because the day you stop fighting is the day you die!”
I could feel my legs, and my cheeks tingled. The front of my forehead still felt stiff and numb, but I was suddenly hungry.
“EAT! I have to eat!”
I ran to Gary’s kitchen and grabbed the first thing I saw in the pantry: Cheez-Its. Took the box, opened it up, and poured Cheez-Its into my mouth hoping that I could feel them.
“I’m alive! I’m alive! I can chew! I can eat! I’m not dead!”
“OK, I think we might need to take him to the hospital, something’s really wrong,” said Evan.
“Something is DEFINITELY wrong, he’s dancing on fucking Cheez-Its in my kitchen, dude!”
I wanted to make sure I was alive, so I’d poured Cheez-Its on the floor and started stepping on them one by one.
“Intention! You see that, Gary? Life is about intentions. I am man; I intend to step on this Cheez-It!”
—
We packed into Gary’s car and drove to the hospital, where I did jumping jacks for fifteen minutes while I waited to see the doctor.
“What is that boy doing?” asked the receptionist.
“I’m staying alive!”
“Boy, you ain’t at the disco, so you better sit your ass down.”
“I can’t, ma’am. I’m sorry, but the day you don’t want to be alive, your spirit will leave you.”
“Eddie, sit the fuck down,” said Evan.
“No! I’m not trying to cause any trouble, but you have to fight to stay alive, ma’am. Every day, you have to fight. If you accept the world or let it accept you, you’ll be erased. I mean, you can accept it if that’s a conscious acceptance, but it has to be intended. Life is about intention.”
She stood up behind the counter.
“Boy, I don’t know what kind of drugs you did, but you need to sit DOWN because you freakin’ everybody out.”
“It was the beef jerky, ma’am.”
“This boy overdosed on beef jerky?”
“It was marijuana beef jerky, ma’am.”
“Marijuana? Please…let me go get a doctor. I can’t have this man doing jumping jacks in my waiting room.”
Five minutes later, I was admitted into a room where a nurse checked my vitals.
“You need to be still while I do this, sir.”
“OK, I will sit, but I want you to know I’m alive.”
“Yes, sir, you are alive but your blood pressure is low.”
“I died about forty-five minutes ago.”
The nurse looked at me quizzically and wrote on a clipboard.
“The doctor will be in to see you.”
As I waited, I started doing squats using my own body weight, flexing my lower leg muscles to make sure they were still firing. After about ten minutes, the doctor finally arrived. He was a tall white man, with glasses. Nothing else really stuck out about him.
“So you ate some marijuana beef jerky?”
“Yes, sir, yes, I did, and then I died.”
“I heard you were doing jumping jacks, I see you doing squats now, the nurse took your vitals, and besides a little low blood pressure, everything is fine.”
“Sir, I agree that I may be OK now, but about forty-five minutes ago I died.”
“Son, there is nothing I can do for you medically, but man to man, if you’re going to eat weed I have a bit of advice for you.”
“What is that, sir?”
“Don’t be such a pussy about it.”
“I’ll try, but I’m starting to think that this is all there is.”
“What’s all there is?”
“Being a pussy.”*3
“Come again?”
“Running. I gotta keep running.”
* * *
*1 That’s the sax at the beginning of Charlie Parker’s “Parker’s Mood.”
*2 My mom always loved sea cucumber, and the technique she was most proud of was her ability to re-hydrate dried sea cucumber perfectly.
*3 He said it first! I assure you I would never use pussy as a pejorative.
PART 1
LOVE
Connie
When it all came crashing down in Houston, I was dating Connie. I met her on OKCupid, but she claimed she’d seen me on the train before, and in some metaphysical way, I felt like I already knew her, too. She was Chinatown ice cream, a seeming contradiction considering that most Chinatown residents shart their pants when introduced to lactose. Ice cream was a foreign object our bodies rejected, but being raised in America, we wouldn’t be denied. We wanted our gummy bears. We wanted our hamburgers. We wanted our fucking ice cream.
In the Chinatown ice cream truck there was always red bean, green tea, and the dreaded durian, but Connie represented a special flavor that anyone from Rowland Heights to Fairfax, Virginia, would recognize: black sesame. Our parents put red bean in ice cream, and Japanese heads even had matcha, but the greatest contribution my generation of Asian Americans has made to ice cream is undoubtedly black sesame. We’d seen black sesame in tong yuan, fried sesame balls, and even pancakes, but to infuse creamy, whole-milk, lactose-laden ice cream with black sesame was extremely fucking future. Each generation must have its own ice cream. This was ours.
We complain about silenced minorities and the lack of Asian-American voices in our culture, but it’s not that we don’t talk. Go to any boba spot or Chinatown ice cream shop on a Friday night, and you’ll hear a lot of chicken talk. If you happen to be reading this book in Alabama, and there isn’t a Chinatown ice cream shop for you to peep game, just go on Yelp,*1 which is also Exhibits A, B, and C for the squawking Chinese American. Nothing encapsulates the over-reduced Chinese-American mind better than Yelp. We aren’t quiet, we aren’t devoid of opinion—we’re an extremely passive-aggressive, tribal, prescriptive people who can’t agree on how we feel about Indians. But it’s extremely East Asian to even ask these questions, i.e., how should we feel about Indians as a group, as a race, but not as individuals? Other Asians—like Filipinos—are much better about these things and much more liberal in their acceptance and understanding of life in general, but if we keep it to the Dogmatic Three—China, Korea, and Japan—every opinion was reductive and authoritarian.
In Korea you have chaebols,*2 in China you have Confucianism-Maoism-Momism, while Japan has legislation on the proper way to fold and present a receipt. I once walked into a 7-11 in Tokyo, got a Pocari Sweat, took a sip of said Pocari Sweat, then walked up to the register to pay. When I reached the counter, homie said to me: “You should not do that in Japan.”
“Do what?”
“Drink the Pocari Sweat before you pay.”
“Is this rule specific to Pocari Sweat?”
“No, anything. Do not eat or drink before you pay.”
“Are you from America? ’Cause your English doesn’t sound like you grew up in Japan.”
“I am defi
nitely Japanese. I was born in Japan, then went to high school in California and came back to Japan so I know how people in America drink things before they pay, but you should not do it in Japan. It is very offensive.”
“But I’m paying.”
“It doesn’t matter, I already thought bad things about you.”
“Like what?”
“That you are a thief.”
“What if I don’t care what you think?”
“This is very dishonorable.”
It occurred to me early on that as an Asian American what I think about myself doesn’t really matter, nor do intentions, because the ultimate arbiter of our lives is public opinion. We go through our lives making calculations based on expectations and declaring judgments using our advanced research skills despite never really touching, seeing, or feeling the things we’re judging. While the West anchors identity in the autonomous mind—“I think, therefore I am”—Asian identity is the sum of our judgments of other people: “I side-eye, therefore I am.”
Connie was an avatar of Generation Black Sesame but chose to quarantine herself in the old Asian-American mold. On our first date, she told me she had moved to N.Y. from L.A. largely because she read my blog, loved food, and related to everything I said about Asian identity—the power of an ancient culture hurtling forward unbound from arbitrary restraints—but I doubted it. She had been formulating all types of ideas for Baohaus from California; she criticized our forays into vegetarian curry, and seemingly had a plan for my life before ever meeting me. My mom was the same. I’m pretty sure the minute my dad’s Calpico hit the lips of her vagina, she was screaming: “I understand you!” “I know what you need!” “You must keep bar license active!”*3
Connie was a less effective American remake of my mom cloaked in skin-tight racerback dresses. If you told Connie and my mom to get to the same 99 Ranch Market from the same starting point, my mom would get there twenty minutes faster, taking back streets and residential service roads, while Connie would sit on the 405 driving in the sand,*4 arriving at the 99 Ranch Market after all the good hollow heart vegetable was already bought up.