Reviews for Eating Chinese food naked

The average rating for Eating Chinese food naked based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-03-12 00:00:00 John Walker 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

Review # 2 was written on 2008-09-07 00:00:00 Brian Morrill 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.