Excerpts from "How to American by Jimmy O. Yang"

About the book:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35959613-how-to-american

I figured it was better to disappoint my parents for a few years than to disappoint myself for the rest of my life.

Excerpt from "Foreword by Mike Judge" Section

Someone asked if there was going to be more Jian Yang next season. This was followed by thunderous applause, which was followed by even more thunderous applause when I said yes. Jimmy was officially famous.

This really is the land of opportunity, but most Americans just don’t see it because they’re simply too used to it. They don’t appreciate it and they don’t take advantage of it as much as people who move here from other countries do. When you come to America from a place like Iran, you get here and you just marvel at all the opportunities and the freedom.

Excerpt from "Prologue" Section

I didn’t even speak enough English to understand the simplest American slang. On my first day of school in America, a girl came up to me and said:

“What’s up?”
I stared at her, confused. I had never heard this term before.
She repeated, “What’s up?”
I looked up into the sky to check “what is up” there. There wasn’t anything. I looked back down at her and replied, “I don’t know.”
She finally realized I was either foreign or severely mentally handicapped. So she explained:
“‘What’s up?’ means ‘How are you doing?’”
“Oh, okay. I’m up. Thank you.”

Excerpt from "1. How to Asian" Section

One of our favorite local celebrities was Stephen Chow, a comedy legend in Hong Kong who later became an international star with Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. Stephen created a genre of comedy films in Hong Kong called mo lei tau. Translated from Cantonese, it literally means “nonsense.”