Fortune cookies find their way back to Japan (and Mexico and Iraq)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 31, 2008
Tomoko, who played an important role in the Japan section of the book (and the wardrobe advice for the book launch) sent me this email today:
yesterday, as i was headed out of office, i noticed one of my colleagues had a bright orange book in her bag. i thought to myself, ‘wow, that looks like jenny’s book.’ i went to put on my coat and then realized, wait, no other book is that color…that must be her book! so i swung by the desk again, and i was right! so i ran up to her and said, ‘i couldn’t help but notice that book in your bag…’ and she proceeded to tell me how she read a review of the book, wanted to read it, so asked her brother to bring it from the u.s., and how she was enjoying it a lot. then i smiled and said, you know, i’m kind of in the book. she squeals, ‘what?!?’
so point is, jenny has a reader in japan! one that did not find out about book through tomoko and went out of her way to get it.
And another person on Amazon wrote he wanted the book badly enough that he got it couriered to Mexico City. And another friend got the book delivered to Baghdad, where he is working. The lengths that people are going to to get this book is pretty neat. The fortune cookie marches on. Â Send pictures! I will post them.
Topics: Book Musings | No Comments »
No MSG @ the Nixon Library
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 31, 2008
The Nixon Library, now run by Tim Naftali (who is a pretty snappy dresser) took the fortune cookie talk and really ran with it and had fun. They had a huge amount of promotional material. The poster they designed was adorable, with the No MSG! promise
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The passing of Dith Pran, a legendary colleague
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 31, 2008
One of our inspiring colleagues, Dith Pran, passed away early Sunday morning. He was the subject of the film, The Killing Fields, and the founder of the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, which aims to educate people on the Cambodian holocaust.
Dith Pran was one of those legendary people you were honored to meet when you started at The New York Times. Tom Huang writes a tribute to him on Poynter.org, about his role in inspiring young Asian American journalists, especially through AAJA.
At the moment, his family is asking that cards and letters be sent to the New York Times:
Dith Pran
The New York Times
4th floor Picture Desk
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10018
Topics: Journalism Musings | No Comments »
Bravo’s Asian Top Chefs at the NYC Asia Society on Wednesday
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 31, 2008
So the Asia Society, where I am speaking on April 16 with Fucshia Dunlop, is hosting an event highlighting the Asian Americans in Bravo’s Top Chef series on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Among the speakers is Hung, the Vietnamese American who won Top Chef. Details below.
The popular Bravo reality series “Top Chefsâ€, along with other food shows on both the big and small screens have fueled the interest of bright and talented young people everywhere to pursue a food industry career. Such popular shows have taken audiences to the “back of the houseâ€, sharing some of the drama that really happens in the kitchen everyday, and the dynamics of different personalities and cultures in a business that depends on team work.
more »
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Genghis Cohen…this tops Shalom Hunan even.
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 31, 2008
Oh my god. When I saw this, I made Josh turn the car around so I could take a picture of Genghis Cohen (which opened in 1983 as a Chinese restaurant, but also now serves as an acoustic lounge). The Jewish-Chinese connection marches on.
Topics: Jews & Chinese Food, Photo | No Comments »
Nixon Library vs. the Nixon Foundation, who controls the hallways?
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 31, 2008
The Nixon Presidential Library (run by the National Archives, note the .gov) and the Nixon Library Foundation (run by his friends and family, note the .org) have this very odd relationship, where they co-exist in the same building but have slightly different goals (truth/history versus honoring the man).
The saga of the federal government and the Nixon’s estate is contentious and fascinating, involving a series of lawsuits and Supreme Court decisions.
Topics: Quirky | No Comments »
Fortune cookies are not a “food’ (according to our federal government
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 31, 2008
Fortune cookies are not necessarily food, at least, according to the federal government
The Nixon Library made these adorable custom-made fortune cookies to promote my talk on Saturday (above). But the library is part of the National Archives which is part of the federal government which is not allowed to give out “food†as presents (all kinds of regulations out of Washington).
So the library went up to the General Counsel’s office and got a special ruling that fortune cookies were not food, but rather a novelty gift.
Which is not unfair, after all, hardly anyone eats the cookies themselves anyway
Topics: Book Musings, Fortune Cookies, Quirky | No Comments »
Fortune Cookies, the Hollywood version…
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 31, 2008
Since I was in Los Angeles, I met up Hollywood folks who are interested in optioning The Fortune Cookie Chronicles for a television series about Chinese food.
Optioning of course, is a looooong way from anything ever happening. I’ve had other things optioned (Man Date), so know that there are many ways for projects to die going forward.
My people will call your people…
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Crossing paths again and again with Parag Khanna
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 29, 2008
A friend of mine mentioned that another author, Parag Khanna, had a book, The Second World, being published around the same time as mine from Random House. (read the New York Times Magazine cover excerpt.)
And it turns out, really really around the same time. We ended up overlapping a lot in our tours. His event in Barnes and Noble was one night before mine. His Washington D.C.’s Politics and Prose was the night after mine. Our Boston Harvard Book Store events were six days apart. We both headed to San Francisco for a few days. Then I literally crossed paths with him in the studios of KPCC where he was coming in of his Airtalk interview (listen here) as I was going into my Airtalk interview (listen here).
If we you were to combine our theses, it would be that the Chinese are increasing their sphere of influence over the world starting with the proliferation of restaurants.
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In the East Coast we tend to name our airports after politicians….
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 29, 2008
I flew into the Burbank Airport and was amused to observe it was called Bob Hope Airport, named after the comedian who lived nearby and kept his plane stored there. But of course, it made sense given that it serves Burbank and is close to Hollywood.
It’s an amazing airport: small, easy to get in and out of, plus there is valet parking(!).
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Signing books in book stores…a humbling (and encouraging) experience
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 28, 2008
So during our downtime in San Francisco, I ran around to local bookstores with Naomi Epel “signing stock” as they say in industry parlance, which means that you sashay into stores and say you are an author and you want to sign your books. Very proactive authors do this (I should really do this in Los Angeles, but I am really too tired and I don’t have Naomi).
It’s both a humbling and encouraging experience. For one, you realize how few copies of your books certain bookstores might just have on hand (two, or maybe just one, buried in some book shelf) and then you think oh goodness, how many “one” copies of a book it takes to sell thousands. On the bright side, sometimes you learn that is because they might have so few because they sold some of the others, especially the ones that were in the front (good sign, that is what happened to me in Borders in Union Square, they had sold all the ones downstairs). City Lights originally had five copies of my book, but they had sold four and had more on order.
My publisher also told me that Barnes and Noble had just reordered, which is a good sign just three and some odd weeks in and they are one of the largest accounts. It’s all about exceeded expectations.
If you sign books, the nice thing is that you meet the book store employees, so they put a face to a name. Also sometimes the autographed books get more prominence, as the Borders in Union Square for example has a wall just for autographed books. The prominence helps if people are just browsing in the store and happen to pick up your book (as opposed to it being buried spine out in the cooking section).
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幸è¿ç¾é¥¼çºªäº‹ (“Fortune Cookie Chronicles” in Chinese)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 28, 2008
Another random Chinese article…from a few weeks back, forwarded to me by my classmate from Beijing University Charlene Wang. I chose Charlene as a name for her in college, because her original English name was Beryl, and I was like nononono. You sound like some British grandmother.
åŽè£”女记者掀起æ£ç»Ÿä¸é¤çƒ
æŽç«žçš„新书《幸è¿ç¾é¥¼çºªäº‹ã€‹å‡ºç‰ˆåŽå¸¦èµ·äº†ç¾Žå›½äººçš„æ£ç»Ÿä¸å›½èœæ–‡åŒ–çƒ
　　幸è¿ç¾é¥¼æ˜¯ç”±æ—¥æœ¬äººå‘æ˜Žã€”å·¦å®—æ£ é¸¡”ä¸å…³å·¦å®—æ£ äº‹
Topics: Chinese, Media & Interviews | No Comments »
I’m sooooo tired, but I can’t sleep
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 28, 2008
This is the first day in many days that I did not have to get up at some time for an interview or an event or something. I got up at 5:30 a.m. for a 7:45 flight at SFO. But even though I went to bed at 2:30 a.m. because I was up thinking about about a video I want to create, I couldn’t sleep that well and was up by 7 a.m., squishing my luxurious morning. 🙁
Topics: Book Musings | No Comments »
Alcohol makes people buy books…the San Francisco launch party
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 28, 2008
On Wednesday night we had an amazing book event in San Francisco, spearheaded by Dave Lu of Fanpop (and aided with Jimmy, Ben, Lydia and James). It was 150+ people at Swig Bar on Geary Street, and it was a new promising model for a book event.
Topics: Book Musings, Chinese Food | No Comments »
Time.com: Explaining General Tso (convergence)
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 28, 2008
Time Magazine has a video with me talking about American Chinese food at Chinatown Brasserie. I’m interviewed by Gibert Cruz who himself is a print journalist by training. But we are all learning video. It’s all about convergence, I’m discovering.
Topics: Media & Interviews, Video | No Comments »
Authors@Google and Chefs@Google
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 28, 2008
I went to speak at Google as part of their awesome Authors@Google program. As we drove by, I noticed that Google has its own street sign. Not Google Blvd or Google Parkway or Google Avenue — Just “Google.”
Topics: Appearances, Chinese Food | No Comments »
Escorts, Drivers, and Literary Chaperones
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 27, 2008
So when authors go on book tour, they plug with this whole network of people who drive the authors from event to interview to hotel to bookstore to FedEx/Kinkos. Each city has a handful of such people, and in San Francisco I was hosted by the inimitable Naomi Epel, who has been doing it for 20 years and thus has seen Nobel Prize winners, former presidents, and other celebrities pass through. (She also coordinated a dinner at Jai Yun with the Asia Society‘s San Francisco branch and the American Institute of Food and Wine.)
The thing is, these people are technically called escorts, which of course has a nose-wrinkling connotation (especially after Eliot Spitzer’s downfall). You could even say that Naomi runs an escort service.
My friend Lydia was completely aghast at the term and so we struggled to come up with one she could use. You can’t call them drivers, because they are more than drivers. In the journalism world in foreign countries we might call them also “fixers†(which also has a weird connotation, given Michael Clayton or organized crime flicks)
In the end she came up with a term she felt comfortable using: “literary chaperone.â€
Which of course makes me feel like I’m 13.
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Kids and Fortune Cookie Chronicles in front of Barnes and Noble
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 27, 2008
My friend Kelly sent me this photo of her kids with my book on display at Barnes and Nobles.
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Tonight at the San Francisco Public Library and Launch Party
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 26, 2008
So I have two events back to back tonight (Wednesday, March 26) — library and a 150+ person party.
- 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. San Francisco Public Library , 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
- 7:30 to 10:30 p.m., San Francisco Launch Party @ Swig Bar , 561 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94102, Organized by Dave Lu of Fanpop (I need a Dave Lu in every city!). This is right after the San Francisco Public Library event, so I won’t be there until about an hour into it, but it will not be small because Dave Lu knows how to organize events. My publisher is even throwing in the dim sum!
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OC Register’s Q&A…musings on my Chinese name and Colbert
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 26, 2008
Richard Chang of the Orange County Register write a Q&A with me and also plugs the appearances at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena; Friday at Skylight Books in Los Angeles; and Saturday at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda. What is nice: it will also be picked up in the Los Angeles Daily News (which has the DailyNews.com url, forcing the New York Daily News to nydailynews.com)
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Aol’s front page, “click bomb”
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 26, 2008
Aol.com put this feature on Chinese food myths on its front page for six hours on Sunday and it cause a jump in traffic to this blog, and a sharp (but quick) bump on Amazon (~200 to 124). As a guy who worked for Gap’s Internet properties observed, when they have a shopping deal featured on the front page of aol.com, it’s a “click bomb” — a tsunami of visitors.
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Fortune Cookie Chronicles in Hawaii
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 26, 2008
A friend sent me a photo of her 90-year-old dad reading The Fortune Cookie Chronicles galley while on vacation in Hawaii.
Topics: Book Musings | No Comments »
Fortune Cookie Chronicles’ Amazon rating is back up to five star
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 24, 2008
I woke up today to discover that my Amazon rating is back up to five stars because two new contributors pulled the average up. I thought I should take a screenshot of it while it lasts.
Topics: Chinese Food | No Comments »
Random people actually read the book…which still continues to surprise me
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 24, 2008
So I was at R&G Lounge in San Francisco Chinatown for a low-key alumni event when these people from another table actually recognized me because they had read my book. They weren’t even Chinese American or my age.
It was a father and teenage son pair, genetically Indian, from Brownsville, Texas.
(That’s like essentially Mexico). We had a nice chat about the book, including Mexican Chinese food (which I had to cut from the book).
I was impressed how much they remembered (both had read it). It’s the first time that someone who read the book actually recognized me. In Boston, a waitress recognized me from Colbert, which is also neat but not the same as someone who read the book. Authors, who are like usually just names, don’t generally have their faces associated with them.
Then I was at a housewarming party where two people came up to me and said they had just chosen The Fortune Cookie Chronicles for their book club. I told them to email me, I answer any questions. I could even join in on discussing via conference call.
Their first book? Andrew Morton’s unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise — which they said was actually pretty good.
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Third printing!
By Jennifer 8. Lee | March 24, 2008
Due to strong re-orders from bookstores and (hopefully) continued media attention, the publishers just ordered a third printing. Yay. Whew.
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