Eating Chinese Food Naked

by Mei Ng

Ruby Lee has left home (a Chinese laundry in Brooklyn) and she hopes to leave behind the ancient disputes and bitter loving of her parents for a brash and sensual world of her own. But can she leave her Chinese inheritance behind? A superbly satisfying and witty debut from a smart new writer.

Genres: Fiction, China, Asia, LGBT, Queer, American, Contemporary

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Born as the third and youngest child of Chinese immigrant parents in Queen’s Village, New York, Mei Ng received BA in women's studies from Columbia University in 1988 and later MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College, CUNY.

After working as a counselor for the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project and a lecturer in Psychology in Ohio University, she currently practices as a licensed psychoanalyst in Manhattan, NY.

Reviews

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

THANK YOU, Mei Ng, for writing this novel about Ruby Lee, 22, who graduates from college and moves back in with her parents in Queens, NY, with only $124 in her bank account, thinking of her mother-father-daughter relationship, working as a temporary secretary, gazing into bakery shop windows, feeling critical, feeling restless, always longing for something to happen. I wish I knew about this book three years ago when I was in the same position, but actually, I might still be in that position, so everything resonates. Too deeply.

Eating Chinese Food Naked ('98) was published a year after Catherine Liu's Oriental Girls Desire Romance ('97). Both stories are similar: Chinese-American women in their 20s who graduated from prestigous schools, kind of wandering in New York, sort of similar re: opening themselves up to sex, un/happiness. Thinking of being Chinese, family dynamics. I had to adjust to Mei Ng telling this story in the 3rd-person omniscient, though, whereas Catherine Liu uses the 1st-person in a way that I like, very much a record of my internal monologue, but Mei Ng enters into everyone's mind where I'm skeptical of whether it's true, or she's "projecting."

Bell, Ruby's mom, is a seamstress. Franklin, her dad, does laundry. They didn't marry out of love ("Chinese people don't believe in love," her mother said), and eventually with their children out of the house, they moved into separate bedrooms, and this bothers Ruby, who also thinks of how she's never seen her parents kiss hello or goodbye and links this to her growing up without physical affection, like when she's in school, "she pretended she had touched people all her life, but her lingering gave herself away," and then once she knew what it was like, she wanted it all the time! I totally understood this part. I remember lying awake in bed, in 7th grade, listening to Savage Garden's "To the Moon & Back" when they sing, "Mama never loved her much and
Daddy never keeps in touch / That's why she shies away from human affection", LOL, dramatically believing, "It's all my parents' fault that I'm incapable of showing affection."
> > > also relateable: Ruby's discomfort when her mom holds her hand, which is soft and makes her think of women, who she wants to be with, but is afraid. Ruby has a chance to kiss a girl, Hazel, at this party, but she pretends she has to go say hi to other people and leaves, regretting it, I think. My margin comment: "Nooooooo"

LOVE CAN BE SHOWN IN OTHER WAYS
- Giving someone the better piece of chicken
- When her mom sews "alligator shirts" (Lacrosse polos?) at her job and thinks her husband might like one so she asks her boss if there are any extra she could have (aw:( ♥)
- Her mom slips a nice fat shrimp into her dad's bowl. He acted as if he didn't see it but when he finally got to it, he ate it slowly and thoughtfully.
- Nick, the white college boyfriend that Ruby is constantly unsure of whether she should stay with, was eating all the good meaty bits and leaving the bony parts for her. This made her quiet, and she felt sad suddenly that she loved a man who took the good bits for himself. She had been taught to give the good bits to the other person and that the other person would give her the good bits, and in this way, they would take care of each other. She watched the duck disappearing into his mouth.

OTHER NOTABLE FAVORITE PARTS
- her mom calling broccoli "tree ears"♥
- going to Dunkin Donuts to get coffee, a cruller, and look for jobs and apartments
- her mom getting a blue pleated shirt on sale at JC Penney's and considers it a fancy shirt so it makes an appearance 3x in the novel
- "oh it's not so bad here"
- "if only"
- Ruby had that look on her face that said, "Don't. If you help me I will die of frustration and weakness, both."
- "Do you take dictation?" they ask her. "Why, are you a dictator?" she wanted to answer.
- Suddenly she saw herself in ten, twenty, fifty years—at the same desk, caring desperately about some chart that she couldn't care less about.
- She wanted to take off her sweater but that was the part of her outfit that made it a work outfit #lol
- trying to bake bread but it's unsuccessful, didn't rise, and going thru the steps in her head, knowing she did everything as she was supposed to, yet it didn't work, thus feeling hopeless (what happens when you do everything "right" and still don't get results??)

AND WHEN RUBY FINALLY MOVES OUT
"Her mother stared at the license plate, memorizing it in case the movers were kidnappers." ♥ ♥ ♥

In conclusion, this was another necessary novel for me to read, but I look through the 1,2-star reviews on here and hope they don't bury my 5-star review for someone who also needs this book, who needs a review to convince them that YES, YOU SHOULD READ THIS

[Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. It’s a shame that this book isn’t really talked about!! It has a quiet but gripping premise: a recent college grad moves back in with her Chinese-American family, and the story follows her and her family’s complex relationships with each other. I feel like it really captured the anxieties of graduating from college and not knowing what to do. The intricacies of the family felt so expertly portrayed, especially the parents who are tied to each other and need each other in their own way but are a bit unhealthy in how they treat each other. Although the story mostly focuses on Ruby, I feel like the picture painted of each character really lets you understand the family’s dynamics and the trajectory of their individual stories. It kind of hurt my heart but in the way that comes from connecting to a character. I also really appreciated the aspect of the story that explores Ruby’s sexuality.

I remember finding this book while I was shelving fiction at the Strand and the flap description immediately appealed to me. I’m so glad I decided to pick up!! Also, I weirdly haven’t read that many books published in the 90s so I’m glad to have picked it up for that reason too. Not much “happens” in this book, but if you like character-driven stories as I do, you’ll probably enjoy it too.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, I had to skip around a bit because it was too painful at times to read. Story of a Chinese American daughter whose graduated from college and doesn't know what her next step will be. She lives at home for a while, reopening the never healed wounds that keep her away but always bring her back home. But for me a lot of it was too familiar. The dynamics where you berate the people you love the most because you don't know how to say kind words. Ah, that is my very Chinese family! The cycle of breaking loved ones' hearts, and your own in the process, because you don't know how to say I love you.

[Li Sian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, well, I'd agree with most reviewers that this is a flawed book, but a) do you know how hard it is to find novels that portray the queer Asian-American female experience in a way that feels hard-edged and smart and cynical in the best way, and b) most reviewers saying this is a flawed book have also compared it to Amy Tan's novels. As in. Amy Tan's novels are supposed to be better. The superior good. To which I'd say: shut the fuck up!!!

What impressed me the most was how good Ng is at a specific form of ennui, a form of ennui that doesn't feel worthless, feels earned from the weight of experience. Sure, Ruby is (annoyingly, you could say) passive, her ambivalences about moving back in with her parents after college, about temping, about her boyfriend, all too fully fleshed out. But what drew me in about this novel was the way she loves her mother, how all too painfully she understands (and yearns to relieve) the weight of her mother's oppression. I haven't read a book that shows you what it's like between a mother and a daughter, and what it's like to hate your father for what he does to your mother, in too long. The end when you realise that Ruby's dad was trying, too, but that it was too late, and Ruby's mother is at least as determined to make herself unhappy as he seemed determined to, was the killing thing. And also: at least 50% of what makes this novel so compelling to me is how unlikeable Ruby is. How often do you get to read about an Asian girl who compulsively cheats on her white boyfriend? A queer Asian girl???

Anyway, you should read this if unhappy families who love each other is something you're interested in.

[waffl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A blurb on the back reads "a window into the complex and sexy world of Gen Xers." I don't know what this blurb is talking about, because there is nothing sexy about this book. Any sex that happens here is incredibly sad. In fact, everything is incredibly sad. Eating Chinese Food Naked is a kind of mundane tragedy, and I really connected with it.

Most things that happen in the book don't have much weight individually, but all together it is full of heaviness. The heaviness of family, of time, of trying to convince yourself that you are in love. I saw myself reflected in the book a little too clearly, and that made me sad as well.

Researching the author, I discovered that she now works as a psychotherapist, which feels very fitting, considering it feels like this book took me through my own small therapeutic journey. I'm sad that she hasn't published another book since, but im reassured that she is surely very good at her profession, if her writing is anything to go by.

I'm really glad I picked this book up on a whim, it was definitely worth my time.

[Debby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather unremarkable story but entertaining enough to keep me reading to see what would happen...unfortunately not much happened. Most valuable insight from this book? I have had a glimpse into the chinese laundry industry.

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 2 out of 5]

A melancholic and bittersweet (at best times) story told by a young Chinese woman moving back in with her parents (above the family laundry in New York) following college. Not enough happening to keep the interest up unfortunately and with a non-ending that disappoints.

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book WAS quirky and entertaining. The relationship between Ruby and her mother was touching. However, that's about all I can say for it.

Ruby does nothing. This might be alright, except Ruby also learns nothing. Perhaps it appears that she does at the end, but to me it seemed that she had most definitely learned nothing at all. Throughout the book she gets flashes of things that might be insights, but she never really follows through with them. It might be okay if Ruby learned nothing - but the characters around her learn nothing and do nothing as well. Perhaps this is much like life, but if I wanted to read a book that was THAT much like actually living...well I wouldn't, because I already have a life thankyouverymuch and I'm looking for something that tells me something new or tells me something in a new way.

I wasn't bored by this book. I was just treated to a sense of growing disappointment.

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel is enjoyable and easy to read, especially the format and the font size are just very pleasant to let your eyes glide over them. The story itself reminds me almost a little bit of the Catcher in the Rye, it has a similar use of repetition and pointlessness, but that is also what makes it interesting to read. In light of cultural identity this novel brings light to the complex interplay of intersectionality and also the different generation effects.

[Julia Coan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way Mei Ng writes about families and being lost in your 20s is insane. Loved this book a lot. Sad, depressing, shocking, funny, and hopeful.

[Louise Bureau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1998, Eating Chinese Food Naked is ahead of its time, and deserves more attention. I can best describe it as a Chinese-young-woman-from-Queens version of Dolly Alderton's Everything I Know About Love, but more culturally centred & heartfelt.


"The slippers her mother had given her were red with gold dragons. Ruby put them on and pointed her feet this way and that. They were bright and flashy in the way that Chinese people love; for two bucks, you felt like a millionaire. During the summer of third grade, the girls were wearing Chinese shoes, thin black cloth with flowers embroidered on top. Everyone was wearing them except Ruby. The other girls could play at being Chinese and she envied them, that they could put it on and take it off as easily as doing up the straps of their shoes in the morning and kicking them off after school. Even when she got older, people would get mad at her for trying to act black or white or Puerto Rican."


"Ma. So much food." Ruby was relieved her mother had made Chinese food for Americans, neat and clean, not like the dishes she usually made, with claws and heads, skin and tails like it was still an animal."

[carissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75
important themes

[Jodell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book depressed me, made me angry, bored me, broke my heart, and wrecked me. Because what daughter does not want to try to make her mother happy in some small way. A woman who came from a poor country and has worked hard all her life in America washing and ironing other people's cloths. While Ruby was the kind of daughter who wants to try and make her mother happy in any small way she can. It just never seems to work. Bell is Ruby's mother. She is the sufferer in this book.

Chinese back in the day didn't marry for love and Belle was forced into marriage at age 17 to a 30-year-old man who made it to the United States, and he brings her to America, and they start their journey.

If you ever had a mother that suffered and sacrificed everything for you then you don't know the weight you carry around trying to please them, or make them happy, lighten the load. If your one of these mothers who give the best part of the meal to your husband and kids, and you eat what's left because it's your way of showing your love. You are probably not going to understand this book. But I recommend to every girl who goes on a date with a man before marriage and if they happen to go to dinner. See if he leaves half of that dessert left on the plate and offers it up to his date and says he's full. Maybe one out of 100. But turn it around and say If the woman saves up that last part of the dessert and says she's full and offers it to the date. 99 out of a hundred men will eat it.

I think it's a chapter in this book all women can relate to and worth repeating:

He kept putting duck in his mouth she was not eating. He was eating all the good meaty bits and leaving the bony parts for her, this made her quiet and she felt sad suddenly that she loved a man who took the good bits for himself. She had been taught to give the good bits to the other person and that the other person would give her the good bits, and in this way, they would take care of each other. She watched to duck disappear into his mouth. She refused to scrabble around for the last good bits.

How many women scrabble around for the leftovers, the good bits in every area of their lives. To many I say.

[DubaiReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

A character study.

This is very much a character driven book, very little actually happens, but we do get a feeling for life as a second generation Chinese girl in New York.

Ruby is 21 when she graduates from university and goes home to live with her parents. Although she didn't have much money in her bank account, I didn't get the feeling that her return was entirely a financial decision. She cared a great deal for her mother, Bell, whose uncaring husband treated her poorly. Although Ruby loved her father, I don't think she liked him very much and she was certainly aware of how mean he was to Bell.

Ruby wanted to take Bell away for a holiday in Florida, where her friends lived, and she worked as a temp to raise the funds, but the trip was continually postponed. Why? Bell just couldn't make the break from her husband, her life, even for a couple of weeks.

There was also a white boyfriend from Ruby's time at Columbia. While he loved Ruby, she wasn't sure how she felt about him and didn't see any problem with going off for other sexual encounters at the same time. There was quite a bit of sex in the book, thrown in in a very casual manner; nothing overtly blatant, but certainly not disguised.

I think what has stayed with me most from this book were the courtesies extended while eating - one would always choose the best bits and slip them into the other person's bowl and they would do the same for you. It was a way of showing you cared. That really appealed to me.

Published in 1998, this is the author's only book. I notice from her biography that Mei Ng was also a graduate of Columbia University and was raised in Queens, of Chinese parents; I wonder to what extent this book is autobiographical.

Not a riveting read but interesting and thought provoking.

[Florence · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don’t know when i started this book so i just put a random date.

if you pick up this book expecting it to be like the blurb, you’ll be disappointed. if you pick up this book expecting it to be a story of character development, in particular, personal growth and growth in relationships (whether this is closer together or further apart bc sometimes growth can be the tail end of a relationship), then you won’t be disappointed!

i used to think books that didn’t really follow a ‘plot’ was a boring but now i think it’s just because i didn’t relate to anything that the characters were going through. there was this one chapter near the end when ruby is literally doing as the title of the book says, and oh man, that’s a fiery chapter. not in a sexual way (although yes, i think it might be the most saucy of the lot, which is not all that saucy).

i must go take some pain relief now (unrelated to the book, i swear), so this review that made no sense is no over. :)

edit bc i just thought of it and needed to write it down: ethnicity is always going to part of our identity. society and the effects of colonisation may dictate how they want us to feel about our ethnicity, but ultimately, we decided what our ethnicity means to us. and this can change over time, i mean, the way i felt about mine definitely did.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The protagonist is the most aggravating kind of listless character, but the reason I couldn't put this book down was her family. Painful at times to read in its plain logic devoid of optimism — and because of my own background as a Chinese-American woman — Ng captures a story of womanhood through a Chinese immigrant lens. The story of her mother Bell is what kept me reading, the rare moments of unspoken affection between mother-daughter, mother-father, mother-son.

It's a book that leaves you feeling somehow shittier than when you started it with an unsatisfying ending that reminds you a bit too much of the unchangeable things in life. But at the same time, there's a bittersweet taste of understanding, and Ng's compelling construction of a laundry as a centerpoint of life is meaningful and well done. I wish I could read this as if I never had before. It's been a long time since a book struck me this personally.

[sofaspace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly sickening to read, (in a great way) but in the sense that you’re constantly bouncing between feeling an awful sense of relatability to Ruby and simultaneously being blindsided by her actions.
This story captures perfectly the essence of many complex Asian-American families, down to culinary tradition and an innate stubbornness towards emotional vulnerability. (honorable mention: the never ending desire to atone for everything you’ve ever done to slight your parents)
I will say that the lead character, and other characters, are all crucially flawed in ways that make them distinctly human (so much so that you could really imagine the things they say and do; you’ve probably heard it before) & this is great because I’m a firm believer in characters not having to be likable to have the book be a good read 🎀
rip mei ng you would’ve loved poor things

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ruby finds herself with no plans after graduating from Columbia and moves back in with her parents, to the apartment behind the family laundry in Queens.

Good on family dynamics and on the state of feeling in limbo. However, so little happens in the limbo-state that the book sometimes feel boring, and the question of why Ruby had no plans on graduation and why she'd changed her major from journalism to women's studies is never addressed - when it's surely crucial to her state of mind during these months.

[Rhiannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uncomfortable in that it reminded me of the relationship I have with my mother (confusion, misunderstanding, but generally care) and her culture (which is sort of mine and sort of not) and the house where I grew up (I felt embarrassed to have friends over).

I cried a few times reading this since I haven't fully processed the above (especially the part where I recognize that my mom is also a whole ass person with feelings herself) and I felt more seen than I expected when I picked this up at the library.

I guess it's time to start going to therapy babeyyy

[Sherry Tinerella · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok. It held my attention though it did drag in spots. I found the family relationships to be the most interesting. I enjoyed reading about the family's Chinese culture. I understand that the main character is confused about intimacy and identity but it it is not clearly resolved. I don't understand why the author threw in the sexual identity issue into the mix, it was never fully developed.

[Gato Negro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love love loved this book. It has my favorite themes - the mother/daughter relationship, sexual conflict, and Chinese culture. The author writes in such a descriptive, beautiful, intelligent style that drew me in from page one and made me sad when the book came to an end. I could read this over and over and still be enthralled by the details, the richness of the words and the incredible characters. An amazing debut novel by the author.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bitter-sweet story of a Chinese-American woman's relationship with her parents. Ruby and her mother are both beautifully realised characters. The complicated, nuanced relationship between mother and daughter is handled deftly.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of those books I'd bought at a used book sale and figured I'd probably never read. But it turned out to be a wonderful story, mostly about the relationship between Ruby and her mother. Really good.

[Vic Specht · Rating 3 out of 5]

A frank and often frustrating peak into navigating rigid Chinese American family structures and the struggle for independence. This book has given me a greater sense of understanding and respect for the minute but meaningful gestures that can express love.

[Sabah · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was like staring at a mirror and confronting the thoughts, feelings, and fears I’ve kept hidden behind locked doors. I felt this book deeply.

[Eva · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is so easy to read, but I don't like it.

Ruby is the youngest daughter of a Chinese immigrant family who lives in Queens. Her dad has a laundry business, her mom works in a clothing factory. I think they're getting by just fine economically. However it's a whole another thing mentally as she grew up witnessing how much her dad ridiculed and bullied her mom every time, up until the point that she just wanted to sweep her mom and take her away somewhere, away from her dad.

She was okay, living on her own in the outside world, until she had to crawl back to her parents' laundry home while she was figuring out about her life. She went back to her old routine as a kid, sleeping in the same room with her mother, picking her mother up from her factory, carrying her groceries and so on, and at some point fantasising about having sex with her mother, while she could just pick up stranger and have sex with him although she has a some sort of boyfriend, a white Jewish boy who was terribly in love with her.

To be honest, I don't know what's wrong with Ruby. Yes, growing up in a dysfunctional family can fuck you up, but seriously I feel like Ruby was so lost in her thoughts that it annoyed me to the point of me could no longer read this tale of immaturity. Too bad, because Mei Ng's narration was great and flowing, but the story? It lacks of essence. Is it a tale about Ruby can't figure out herself? Well, the audience can't figure it out either...

[Jellyfish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows Ruby in the first summer after her graduation from university. It's a coming of age 2.0 novel of sorts, but really, at its heart is Ruby's relationship to her mother. There is a certain exquisite pain any child-turned-adult knows, perhaps; it hits you out of nowhere when you see an aging parent, see exhaustion or sadness in them. Maybe I'm being too general, maybe this isn't a universal experience, but it's certainly my experience and Ng captures it perfectly (so there are at least two of us).
Unfortunately, this book has been severely let down by the editor and/or agent (if there was one). It would have benefitted immensely from a liberal amount of red ink and some tough love. The most irritating thing for me was the fact that the not-so-personal third person narrator kept jumping back and forth between Ruby and the many characters in the book, which admittedly made for some beautiful moments in which we got to see Bell's (Ruby's mum's) perspective, but I'd have preferred to stick with Ruby and have Bell confined to her own chapters.
These structural issues aside, Ng writes with an assured voice and lets images transport the message rather than diving into flowery language which was great. Overall an enjoyable if unusual read. Would love to see more from the author.

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book as a decorative ornament to prop up a glass surface on the table of a small coffee shop I visited and I found the scene and the title so hilariously matched in their absurdity that I couldn’t help but adding it to my reading list. Coming into the book with zero expectations I was delighted to find it tackling themes very close to me: the immigrant experience, its gendered perspectives and the struggle of the second generation in bridging the family and the new culture. While the topics interested me I was a little underwhelmed by the execution. Even though the book is not particularly long at 250 pages, the story seemed to move at a glacial pace. I can praise the realism in highlighting the pace at which we make progress, or not, with complex emotional problems but I can also recognize the sand this throws in the gears of the reading experience. While you can see the gradual development of the characters their subtlety can be maddening.

[Miawmomo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this novel in my local bookstore and it was a great discovery for me. I could describe it as a slice of life genre. It is set in New York, the main character Ruby, a Chinese American girl, returns to her parents after moving back home.
When she returns, living with her parents, especially her mother, brings up a lot of reflections, and we get to know the story from various points of view, her mother Bell being a protagonist at times.

It is narrated in a time when there were no social networks or the internet as we know it.
The narrative is so close that it often feels more like a memoir than fiction.

It's a little sad that I couldn't find more information about the author, so I think this is her only book. I feel it feels like a contemporary novel even though it was published in 1998.

[Amber Jo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the crappiest book I have ever read. period. One long boring snooze fest into a Chinese lady's life. She struggles with life- blah blah blah. Yet, this mundane piece of literature will walk you through a very awkward section of sex talk with Mom, "do you come?" She can't event confront her mom about her mom and dad's relationship, but she's doing to have THIS conversion?! no way!! Then we are blessed to get through the ultra insane "I had a sex dream of actually having sex with my mom" and thought it would be good put it in print. There wasn't a point to this book, nothing was resolved. She can't figure out if she is bisexual, whether to buy new clothes or to get a real job and best yet can't commit to anything... her boyfriend, talking to her parents, forming a relationship with her siblings, getting a recipe, going to school....
Save yourself.
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