Christine

“Etsuko had to go back to the restaurant, but she settled on the sofa for a few minutes. When she had been a young mother there used to be only one time in her waking hours where she’d felt a kind of peace, and that was always after her children went to bed for the night. She longed to see her sons as they were back then: their legs chubby and white, their mushroom haircuts misshapen because they could never sit still at the barber. She wished she could take back the times she had scolded her children just because she was tired. There were so many errors. If life allowed revisions, she would let them stay in their bath a little longer, read them one more story before bed, and fix them another plate of shrimp.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“That's not how you eat hot pot! That's some new-age Taiwanese thing. In Beijing, you don't mis the sauces."
"Son, I'll say this the nicest way I can. I'm Chinese and you're an idiot."(247)
My entire life, the single most interesting thing to me is race in America. how something so stupid as skin or eyes or stinky Chinese lunch as such an impact on a person's identity, their mental state, and the possibility of their happiness. It was race. It was race. Apologies to Frank Sinatra, but I've been called a "ch!gg@r," a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a pawn, think the idea of America is cool, but at the end of the day wish the world had no lines. (249)
You have tattoos and others have piercings, but for me, there's nothing that says more about me than the food I choose to carry every single day. As a kid trying to maintain my identity in America, my Chinese was passable, my history was shaky, but I could taste something one time and make it myself at home. When everything else fell apart and I didn't know who I was, food brought me back and here I was again. (250)
...
Ironically enough, the one place that America allows Chinese people to do their thing is the kitchen. Just like Jewish people became bankers because that was the only thing Christians let them do, a lot of Chinese people ended up in laundries, delis, and kitchens because that's what was available...get in where you fit in, fool. (250)”
― Eddie Huang, Fresh Off the Boat

“a man must learn to forgive—to know what is important, that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“The most infuriating thing is the idea that ethnic food isn't already good enough because it goddamn is. We were fine before you came to visit and we'll be fine after. If you like our food, great, but don't come tell me you're gonna clean it up, refine it, or elevate it because it's not necessary or possible. We don't need fucking food missionaries to cleanse our palates.”
― Eddie Huang, Fresh Off the Boat