From ages 5-8 my parents would take me to an all you can eat chain called Old Country Buffet about once a month. I remembered this weird period today and have been thinking abut childhood nostalgia, fitting in, & (2nd gen) AsianAmerican identity: THREAD (1/n)

My parents emigrated to the US from China about 10yr before I was born. Both came here for grad degrees at American schools + upwards mobility: dad worked his way up as an eng at Boeing, mom started off in telecom before settling down in Seattle to have me (2/n)

I was fortunate to grow up in a diverse neighborhood w/ a high proportion of other American-born Chinese kids (ABCs). We ate dumplings at home and spoke a mix of chinese & English. My parents did their best to smooth out the experience of growing up yellow in America for me (3/n)

and for the most part I think they did an incredible job - save for a handful of things that still stick out to me today, including the Old Country Buffet Years (4/n)

when I was 5 we started frequenting a chain restaurant called Old Country Buffet. OCB is a buffet offering unlimited portions of the most indulgent of American foods: overflowing tubs of bright orange mac&cheesy, corn&potatoes&oil&salt cooked in a dozen permutations, (5/n)

massive cinnamon buns drenched in thick white glaze by a station of six kinds of deep-fried meats. sensual and sickly, Old Country Buffet was an unholy orgy of the worst excesses of consumerism, served on cheap plastic plates with the OCB mascot (a bee) stamped in the center(6/n)

To repeat: the Old Country Buffet mascot was a bee. This will become important later (7/n)

Every time we go to Old Country Buffet, I load up two, then three, then four plates with the greasiest and vilest selections the restaurant has to offer. I stuff my face until I cannot eat another bite and then I go back for seconds (8/n)

By the end of the meal I am extremely uncomfortable and drifting in and out of consciousness. But Old Country Buffet isn’t done with me yet. It coaxes my 8 year old monkey brain to the desert station for endless soft serve and chocolate cake, which I dutifully force down (9/n)

We walk out to the parking lot and I promptly throw up in the backseat of my mom’s 2005 Honda Odyssey minivan. I cry as my parents wipe the vomit dripping from my face and we drive home in silence. This happens every few months for about three years. (10/n)

On Thursdays at Old Country Buffet, a man dresses up in a bee costume (the chain’s mascot) and walks around the restaurant, handing balloons to children and posing for pictures w families. So when our monthly OCB date falls on a Thursday, the routine is a little different: (11/n)

I stuff my fucking face with mashed potatoes and fried chicken, accept the bee-man’s bright red Old Country Buffet balloon, throw up in the parking lot, lose the balloon, cry, throw up in the minivan, cry more, and pass out on the drive home. The experience was surreal (12/n)

and sometimes when I think back I wonder if it was just a dream. But it can’t have been a dream, because this happened every month for three years. And when my brother got to the same age, the exact same thing happened with him for another three years. (13/n)

Why did my parents keep taking me back to Old Country Buffet? Why did they take my brother? I don’t know. Eventually we stopped going. originally I was maybe going to say that it was something about fitting in as an immigrant family but actually it clearly wasn’t, (14/n)

we could have just gone to literally any other American restaurant (and we often did!). Old Country Buffet should have definitely been cut by like, the fifth time this happened, and there was zero reason for this to repeat itself with my brother too. (15/n)

but whether i like it or not, this happened and the best I can do is to try to put the pieces together and make sense of them all. (16/n)

There’s no takeaway or moral of the story. In retrospect I sort of lost the point of this thread in the middle and I guess it just reads as a disgusting grade school memory of me throwing up all over myself. This doesn’t really have anything to do with identity (17/n)

or anything like that and if you’ve made it this far I’m sorry you had to read all of this. Stay safe from coronavirus

(END - 18/18)