Sweet and Sour, Monterey Park Library, April 16, 2011

Sweet and Sour offered me a chance for a second visit to speak in Monterey Park at their public library. Unfortunately, the turnout was not as good as it was for my first visit last year to talk about my two books on Chinese in the American South.  You win some, you lose some, I guess.  One of the many challenges in doing book talks is the difficulty of predicting turnout. The topic was interesting as several other venues have had large attendance for a talk on the same book.  Perhaps holding the event at 10:30 in the morning was not as good an idea as we thought it would be. Or maybe there was some competing activity that day.  On the plus side, at least I didn't have far to travel to get to this site and afterwards I got to feast on some old style Toishan comfort food with friends at a nearby 1950s decor Chinese restaurant!

Foster City Library, April 9, 2011 Talk on Sweet and Sour

My second talk in Foster City, a place close to my heart where my sister Mary and her husband, Ed, and their family lived for many years. There was an engaged gathering of about 40 in the audience, some who had been to my other talks in the region in the past so it was nice to see familiar faces among the new ones. Several people who had been associated with Chinese restaurants in their families were present and shared their observations and experiences. And, my friend and contributor to the book with a narrative about her family's Oakland restaurant, artist Flo Oy Wong participated again sharing a lively account of that experience through her drawings and poetry.

U.S.-China People's Friendship Association, Long Beach, April, 2011

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."

Pasadena Talk to International Food Service Exec Association, Feb. 2011

        The International Food Service Executive Association (IFSEA) was a different type of speaking venue for me. Initially, I had been in touch with an organization I had spoken to about 3 years ago in Phoenix, Desert Jade Women's Group, that my friends, Joe and Liz Chan, had set up. Their schedule was already full, but there is interest in having me come next year.
          However, through this contact person, I was given a new lead for a talk as she 'recommended' me to her friend, Toye Tang, a lively 87-year old leader of IFSEA, a food services organization in southern California who invited me to come to a buffet luncheon in Pasadena to speak briefly at their event. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet chefs, culinary school students, food vendors, and even lawyers!

A Fourth Visit to the Berkeley Chinese Community Church, Jan. 25, 2011!

Definitely one of my favorite venues! I have had the privilege of speaking on each of my four books to this engaged and friendly group of Chinese seniors who have a weekly morning meeting of exercise, singing, and hearing presentations before enjoying a nice lunch.

I was not at all jaded yet, being that this was my 3rd talk on the same book in 4 days. In part, it was because of the wonderful welcome I always receive here but also because another contributor to the book from a family restaurant upbringing, Julie Wong Hornsby, volunteered to share some of her memories. She brought her 2 teen sons and some friends (even though they had all attended the San Francisco talk just 2 days prior). She gave a wonderful account that was warmly received and enhanced the whole presentation.

I joked once to this group, when I had written only 3 books, that I would have to write a 4th book, which turned out to be Sweet and Sour, just so I could come speak to them again. Mission accomplished!

After the talk, I had a wonderful opportunity to have tea with, Susan B. Carter, a prominent retired professor of economics living in Berkeley who attended the talk.  Prof. Carter has done extensive research on the history of Chinese restaurants and made outstanding presentations on the subject at conferences.

Sweet and Sour: Main Library, San Francisco Jan. 23

We had an equally large turnout (over 50) for the Sweet and Sour talk on Sunday at the Main Library. After I started with an historical overview of Chinese family restaurants, I turned it over to artist Flo Oy Wong who gave a lively account of some of her experiences working in her family's Oakland Great China Restaurant back in the 1950s. I finished the presentation by talking about issues such as 'authenticity,' the challenges of new Chinese cuisines, and the future status of the small mom and pop Chinese Cantonese restaurants.

Sweet and Sour: San Francisco Chinatown Library, Jan 22, 2011

When I published Sweet and Sour, I felt that San Francisco's public libraries would be interested in acquiring copies for its large Chinese patronage so I contacted them for this purpose. Luckily, the SF Main Library was planning to have a special exhibit, "San Francisco Eats," dealing with books, photos, menus, etc. related to SF cuisine in early 2011, so I was asked if I would like to present a talk on the book. I was, of course, more than willing. In fact, I asked if I could also give a second talk on the book at the Chinatown Branch library, where it might be more likely to attract a Chinese audience whereas the Main Library might attract a more ethnically varied audience. That is the story behind how I got to do two talks in San Francisco.

As a bonus, since two of the contributors to Sweet and Sour, noted poet Nellie Wong and noted artist Flo Oy Wong, volunteered to be part of the presentation as these two sisters had grown up in their family restaurant in Oakland.
I was also excited to speak in two libraries where I had spent many hours as a high school student either studying or just hanging out with other kids.
When I arrived at the Chinatown library for the talk, the first thing I learned was that Nellie Wong had called in sick. While I regretted that she was not able to present, fortunately some of her literary friends had come (to hear her) and one volunteered to "pinch-read" some of her poems about restaurant experiences. Next, the remote control on the projector would not work, so the poor librarian had to manually advance each slide on my cue. These unexpected setbacks, I should add, came on top of the failure of the Post Office to deliver the books I had sent 3 weeks earlier, forcing me to lug a new set up on the plane, Caltrain, and the Muni bus!
Fortunately, the talk went well before a packed house... which the librarian said was one of their best turnouts. And, then at the end, I met artist Leland Wong, who had given me permission to include one of his great photographs in my book. Leland generously treated me to some Chinese soul food at a local village type cafe nearby. What a day!

Irvine Regional Library, Dec. 2010

Hanh Nguygen, Chi-Ah Chun, left, me, wife Phyllis,

Young Hee Cho,Kim Vu.

Going from bad to worse! If I thought my event at the senior residence in Camarillo was disappointing, a bigger disaster occurred at my next event in Irvine, a city that has a large Chinese population. The talk was held in the evening, and that might have been a factor, but only 10 people turned out, one again being my wife, and four were my colleagues, professors from Long Beach State.

But there was a "silver lining," believe it or not!

For 3 of the audience members were from the Long Beach chapter of the U.S.-China People's Friendship Association that were referred to my talk by the President of that organization who had heard me speak a few months earlier at the Cerritos Public Library. My talk must have been good, because a month or so later, I received an invitation from them to speak in April, 2011 to their organization!

Leisure Village, Camarillo, Nov, 2010

I had such great success speaking to the seniors, mostly non-Asian, at the Chateau Cupertino last year that I decided to push my luck since a close friend lived at a senior residential complex in Camarillo. Since most of this audience would also be non-Asian, I downplayed the idea of presenting content from my books and focused instead on a case study of the process and sequence of events by which I reinvented myself in retirement by writing books on Chinese American history. It was not as promising as I had hoped, with only about 9 attending, one of whom was my friend and another, my wife. Nonetheless, most of the audience, save one, found the presentation interesting and informative.

Sweet and Sour, Cerritos Library, Oct, 2010

My second visit to the beautiful, no, magnificent, Cerritos Public Library to speak on Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurants. Since I live only several miles from this venue, it is a breeze for me to get there, which is definitely another plus because traveling distances, worrying about arriving on time, unpredictable traffic, and lugging books for signing all make book talks mentally and physically challenging. Cerritos has a large Chinese community, which ensured that a good sized audience would be present, and I was not disappointed.