An Uncommon Recipe for Success

I’ll be honest: I limped my way across the finish line at my Northwestern graduation. 

I remember baleful storm clouds creeping across the Evanston skyline on that June afternoon as Wynton Marsalis ’09 H rushed through his Commencement speech. And while it felt good to finally finish this undergraduate experiment in a harried, hurried manner, I had not achieved proficiency in any field of knowledge. 

I had cut bait on my history degree and done the absolute minimum to eke out a diploma. During my (super) senior year, I spent my weekends at Evanston restaurants to learn how to cook. Yes, despite a monstrous pile of student debt and time invested, I wanted to become a chef.  

This is a particularly stinging failure of the Asian American narrative. Our parents had not immigrated here to work a strenuous blue-collar job only for their children to return to the very same trade. We were supposed to turn the narrative around, become a respected professional — a doctor, a lawyer, whatever. Just, for the love of God, don’t let me catch you in front of a stove. 

But what can I say? It was an irrational calling of an unconventional nature. I leapt in with both feet. 

Of course, this had to be hidden from my mom, a single mother. You can imagine the heartbreak it would have caused. So I got support from my most important resource at Northwestern — my friends. There were many times when I threatened to repeat a habit of giving up on myself. I didn’t excel in high school, so I cut class. I barely graduated as a result. I excelled at the cello, but I gave up when it got hard. I was expelled from The Juilliard School. 

I had no idea what I was doing at a university like Northwestern, and the freedom to make my own choices was damning. The school threatened expulsion. 

But not this time, I told myself. 

I liked it here too much. I was finally surrounded by people with whom I had mutual respect and genuine camaraderie — good people who wouldn’t let me quit. These friends dragged me to the library, proofread my papers and banged noisily on my door when I didn’t want to go to class. And when I experimented with buttered noodles and grilled pork tenderloins for my friends, they encouraged me to keep at it, despite me barely knowing how to make a vinaigrette.