How Waiting Tables Sparked Lillian Li's Imagination

It’s safe to say that Lillian Li’s debut novel, Number One Chinese Restaurant, wouldn’t have been written if it weren’t for Peking Duck.

Li grew up in Rockville, Maryland, where one out of every three residents is Asian American, and she always had an emotional connection with Chinese restaurants.

“What restaurants symbolized to me was that even if you left your home country behind, you could create a home that was culturally specific to you in your adopted country, and create a link for your own children,” says Li. But she never considered setting a book there until she got a job in grad school waiting tables in an upscale Chinese restaurant. She didn’t last long, quitting after about a month.

“It was the moment I quit that cemented my decision to write about it,” says Li. “I had never waited tables before and had no idea my finger joints would ache so badly just from lifting plates up and down. It was physically as well as emotionally challenging. I was spending six days a week serving people who looked right through me and my coworkers. I had to think what would it be like to be in that restaurant space, where there’s a lot of emotional as well as physical labor and you’re wrapping people’s pancakes, and yet it’s a one way street.”

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Li will speak at the Texas Book Festival panel “Forged Families in Favorite New Fiction" at 1:30pm, Saturday, Oct. 27, in Capitol Extension Rm. E2.030 with Aja Gabel. For more TBF coverage, see our dedicated Texas Book Festival page.