About a year ago, Hazel Wallace from the Long Beach chapter of the
U.S.-China People's Friendship Association attended my talk on Chinese family restaurant history at the Cerritos Library. She must have liked it, as she referred other members including Stanley Yon and Rose Mary Thompson to one of my other talks, all of which led to an invitation for me to speak at one of their lunch meetings, where else, but in a Chinese restaurant!
I have given talks at restaurants before, and sometimes the configuration of the dining room does not lend itself well to powerpoint slides. There is also stray noise coming from other parts of the restaurant that can be distracting or disruptive. My prior restaurant talks have been in an enclosed section and lighting can be lowered so slides can be readily viewed. However at the Long Beach presentation at the
Forbidden City Restaurant, the space used was a partially enclosed patio area, so that there was the danger that the slides shown in early afternoon would not be easily viewed. Actually that part of the slide presentation was better than I feared, but there were a few anxious moments at the outset because they did not have the right cable to connect the projector to the laptop. This is not an uncommon problem, i.e., computer glitches, etc.
On the plus side, the audience was large (over 70) and eager to learn about the topic. The afternoon was most enjoyable, and a very nice way to spend my birthday!
Hazel Wallace, Past President of USCPFA-LB was generous in her compliments:
"Bravo! Wonderful talk on my favorite of all of your books! Thank YOU for being the object of our overwhelming attendance and I hope you sold a few books to the attendees! The food was good at the Forbidden City, the ambience was great, and you proved that you were the "man of the hour"! Thank you for "being" our event."
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