Stop Asian Hate

So if we’re going to talk about Asian hate, let’s talk about my boss growing up. 

When I was a freshman in high school, I got offered the best job I’ve ever had, it was working the take out counter at my local Chinese restaurant. My boss, Freddy, was a very smart man. He introduced the concept of having American girls answer the phones when people call to place their orders. And you might think that’s not really an insane concept to come up with but at the time, no other restaurants in the area had that idea. It allowed American customers to ask questions, explore the menu, and order food without shame. And on the flip side, it prevented a lot of the bullshit you see when there’s a “language barrier”. I put that in parentheses because even though my boss spoke near perfect English, because of his thick Chinese accent, people would try to pull the “oh well I wanted xyz and you gave me abc, so I want free food” when in reality my boss would know every food allergy, special request or known bullshit customer phone call that would come in and would prepare for it. What I mean is, that if you have an American girl reading back your $250 order on New Year’s Eve, you then can’t come back to the restaurant and blame the “stupid Chinese Man” for a “misunderstanding”, or worse, your weak ass attempts to get free food.

My boss, Freddy, is the hardest working man I’ve ever met. He opened his restaurant so he could put his 2 daughters through college, which he did. But he built and gutted his restaurant with his own hands. He worked 364 days out of the year for close to a decade, before his wife came in to help. That’s not an exaggeration. He worked every single day except for thanksgiving when the restaurant was closed. And his hours? He’d get up at 4-4:30am everyday and drive from his house in Quincy to get produce and meat from Chinatown. He believed in the best products and quality for his food. He saw a need for quality, authentic Chinese food on the cape, and wanted to do it right. After grabbing his supplies for the day, he would then pick up all of the cooks. We would call them “Suk Suks”, which means uncle in Cantonese. Because they were family friends of my boss, they were like our uncles, our family. I found that my Italian family wasn’t all that different from my Chinese family. Very extended. The restaurant would open for lunch everyday at 11:30am and close around 8-9:30pm depending on if it was a weekday or weekend. After cleaning up and closing down, my boss would drive all the suk suks home and finally maybe have 5 minutes to himself at 1:30am, all before resting his eyes and starting his day again at 4:30am just a few hours later.

You would expect with a schedule like this, my boss would be mean, on edge, or just too stressed out with his work to be easy to talk to but that wasn’t the case. My favorite times were coming in before the dinner rush. Typically a shift would be a few hours, with the first hour being mostly sidework - folding menus or filling up condiments. But I’d enjoy sitting and talking with Freddy about life. Because he was a father to me in a lot of ways. On birthdays and holidays, he’d have a cake with my name on it. Chinese New Year? I’d have a red envelope waiting for me. He was always full of insight and conversation, even working as hard as he did. I look up to him very much. He would let me ask him questions about growing up in China, but he didn’t like to talk about it that much. He saw some crazy shit as a kid, guys being shot, and how his dad protected him from that. But he still smiled. He had the greatest sense of humor, especially considering the amount of racist and I don’t know how to word this, but insinuating racism that would transpire day to day in his restaurant. I say insinuating because, it’s one think to call a Chinese person the C word (not cunt the other one), but it’s another thing entirely to constantly try and push discounts you don’t deserve (he would give police and fire a discount so people would try and cheat wearing police emblems and complain if a discount wasn’t given), or the countless people who would call and complain for free food, when we would triple check their order before it getting sent out. My boss would admit if he made a mistake, but he’d always remember the mistake. It was the influx of people who would try to take his kindness for weakness just to get free boneless ribs on their next order. Now I don’t know where these people worked who would call and complain, but I bet nobody would come into their business or job and try and strong arm them for discounts, using the bullshit excuse of broken English or a misunderstanding. It’s sickening. 

I’m thankful I worked there growing up, because it made me aware of how we treat Asian Americans in this country. As I became more involved in the business, I started to learn Cantonese so that my boss could take a hour or two nap before the dinner rush and I could call the orders to the suk suks, rather then have him order. We talk about the “American dream” but that’s something that they feed you to get here, and when you’re here, they make you find another minority to look down upon while boosting your own American dream up. To me, there’s nothing more American than starting a business to put your kids through college, actually building that business with your hands, and then providing top quality Chinese take out at the expense of your own personal life and sleep schedule. Yet instead of honoring the Asian American families in the us, we’re being hateful and hurtful, when they’re more intrinsically “American” than 85% of the American people I deal with on a regular basis. 

My boss Freddy, taught me my work ethic, and taught me about the American dream. He taught me how to do things the right way and do them the way you want, and good things will follow. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him. But he made me the person I am today. 

*3/10 people know the best thing about learning Chinese is that sometimes a word is a normal word, and sometimes it’s a swear. It’s all in how you say it. Sometimes a chut is a chut, and sometimes it’s just a 7.