Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging

A warm and poignant narrative about the uniquely grinding life of restaurant families, the costs of “making it” as an immigrant, and a daughter’s attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach. When she was three years old, Rachel Phan met her replacement. Instead of a new sibling, her parents’ time and attention were suddenly devoted entirely to their new family restaurant.

For her parents—whose own families fled China during the Japanese occupation during the Second Sino-Japanese War and then survived bombs and starvation during the war in Vietnam—it was a dream come true. For Rachel, it was something quite different. Overnight, she became a restaurant kid, living on the periphery of her own family and trying her best to stay out of the way.

While Rachel grew up, the restaurant was there—the most stalwart and suffocating member of her family. For decades, it’s been both their crowning achievement and the origin of so much of their pain and suffering: screaming matches complete with smashed dishes , bodies worn down by ever-spreading arthritis, and tenuous relationships where they love one another deeply without ever really knowing each other. In Restaurant Kid, Rachelseeks to examine the way her life has been shaped by the rigid boxes placed around her.

She had to be a good daughter, never asking questions, always being grateful. She had to be a “real Canadian,” watching hockey and speaking English so flawlessly that her tongue has since forgotten how to contort around Cantonese tones. As the only Chinese girl at school, she had to alternate between being the Asian sidekick, geek, or slut, depending on whose gaze was on her.

Now, thirty-one years after their restaurant first opened, Rachel's parents are cautiously talking about retirement. As an adult restaurant kid, Rachel’s good daughter role demands something new of her—a chance to get to know her parents on the trip of a lifetime. Bringing to lyric life the prism of growing up in a "third culture," Rachel Phan has crafted a vibrant new narrative of growing up, the strength and foibles of family, and how we come to understand ourselves.