By Melissa Walsh

My guess is that the only thing I had ever said to anyone at Chung’s Restaurant was, “Hi. Pick up for Melissa.”

​Now three decades later, after reading Curtis Chin’s memoir about growing up at Chung’s, I wish that I had allowed curiosity to move me into initiating conversation with those who had served me there — the Chungs and Chins and the friends that worked for them. Who knows. Maybe Curtis Chin himself had on occasion handed me my carryout.

Located on Cass and Peterboro in the Chinatown alcove of Detroit’s Cass Corridor, Chung’s was a culinary gem Detroiters prized. Many a local or Wayne State University newbie, like myself, cherished Chung’s egg rolls as the finest on-budget, tasty on-the-go meal around. Despite its location in an area famed for its crime stats and anecdotes — prostitution, drug trafficking, auto theft, arson, and murder, Chung’s served a loyal clientele for 40 years before closing in 2000 as Chinatown’s last Chinese restaurant in operation. Former patrons still remember Chung’s fondly, as demonstrated in online comments reacting to recent articles covering the May 17 purchase of the building. I suspect today’s contempo ilk of the rebranded “Midtown” would have loved Chung’s as much as we did back in the day.

I recall driving along Cass looking for a parking spot near Chung’s and thinking, “Wow, hookers do NOT look like that in the movies.” This was one of many educational doses of reality the pre-gentrified Corridor gave me. Curtis Chin and his five siblings were raised with many more Corridor truths, guided by their grandparents and parents. In Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, Curtis — aka “number three,” the third child — brings readers into his point of view and grounds them in the lessons he learned.

“The most coveted seats were up front,” Chin shows us, “where five huge windows gave diners a full view of Detroit’s bustling Cass Avenue. At first, I thought these diners were picking those seats for the beautiful scenery. But then I realized they were watching their cars to make sure they weren’t stolen.”

Chin witnessed the gradual disrepair of Detroit’s Chinatown and shares with us what that looked like with a child’s lens. As he and his siblings were the only American-born Chinese-American kids in the neighborhood, Chin felt an obligation to become “cultural ambassador” to help them assimilate, schooling them about Detroit’s Motown heritage and playing apologist of the practice of throwing fresh octopus on the ice at Joe Louis Arena. This early sense of self launches Chin’s early drive to figure out exactly who he is and how he fits in.

The Chin family moved to the Detroit white middle-class suburb of Troy when Curtis and his older brothers were in secondary school. However, the Chin kids continued spending more time working and studying in their Detroit restaurant than they did attending school and sleeping in Troy. About the same time, Curtis also began becoming aware of his homosexual feelings. Chin shares anecdotes of the sting of racial prejudice he and his family experienced in the burbs and the inner struggle he quietly endured as he worked to untangle his sexual identity with no one to confide in.

“One of the most important lessons I learned at the restaurant was about timing," Chin writes about coming out, "when to bring out the soup and egg rolls, when to pick up the dirty plates, when to put out the bill. Everything had an order. Nothing could be rushed.”

Though Chin candidly addresses weighty topics, he thoroughly lightens the prose with humor. The memoir's entertaining laugh-out-loud elements push the reader to keep reading. What I loved most were Chin’s stories about his parents. With compassion and wit, he shows us the great depth of his parents’ devotion to their children and the tremendous wisdom that poured from them.

​I suppose that I had mistakenly assumed all those years ago that it was just the delicious egg rolls that made Chung’s so special. I understand better now. Detroiters adored Chung’s as a place of kindness. It was an oasis for students seeking a quiet place to study with a bottomless cup of tea; prostitutes needing a place to eat, freshen up, and breathe; hungry neighbors running a food tab that might not ever get paid; city of Detroit leaders looking for good, honest conversation.

“Yes, my family succeeded because of America,” Chin writes, “but America also succeeded because of us.”

I’ll stop here; I don’t want to give too much away from this outstanding memoir (release date October 17, 2023). I recommend that you read this book as soon as it’s available whether you had the pleasure of enjoying Chung’s during its 40-year run or not.

​Curtis Chin did the world a good service by capturing what his family taught him so well: “Work hard. Be quiet. Obey your elders.” In other words, Chin’s memoir shows us that honoring persistence, humility, and respect for others goes a long way.

Learn more about Curtis Chin’s work here: Curtis from Detroit.

© 2023 Melissa Walsh

Women Can Be Chauvinist Pigs, Too

When the novel's protaganist, Elizabeth Zott, Chemist, is ejected from her lab, Garmus shows us how she thrives after landing in a kitchen, applying common sense, scholarship, and good old moxie. Life is complicated. And kitchens can be discovery stations, we learn.

​What sets this story into real life is how Garmus so brilliantly brings to life complicated characters: men who do bad things, men who do good things, women who do bad things, women who do good things. (Bashing men with the proverbial sweeping hockey stick is shallow and as unjust as any other form of discrimination.)

As I read a particular scene about the female HR secretary at Elizabeth Zott's place of employment, I recalled a time when I overheard two women in a rink lobby chatting about a hot topic in the news: pending legislation that would promote equal pay for equal work. 

"You know, I really don't care if I get paid less than a man, especially if he has a family," one of the woman said to the other.

"Yeah, my husband has to carry our health insurance; so the premium comes out of his check. It's not taken out of my check. I don't care either," the other said.

Enter me, unsolicited and highly perturbed.

"So what if your husband dies or walks out, then would you want equal pay?" I asked the women.

"Well, I just mean that usually the man pays for everything," one said.

"I don't have a man paying for anything," I said. "And I'm raising sons into men. So what about me? You think I should be paid less than a man?"

They stared at the floor. Awkward!

"You should really start supporting women," I added. "You never know when you'll need to support yourself and your kids."

I walked away. This was the only conversation I had with these women all season. They were moms of boys on my twin sons' team. But they were rarely at the rink, because their husbands did the hockey chauffeuring and, I'm sure, the ice-bill paying.

Garmus' protagonist, Elizabeth Zott, has similar encounters with weak-thinking women, whose words were like punches to the gut when she was down.

Why Don't You Take the Meeting Notes?

The dumbest encounters Elizabeth Zott experiences are with weak-thinking men, like when men presume she's a secretary, blind to the fact that she sports a lab coat.

And yes, I know what that feels like. I've endured that stupidity many times during my more than three decades as a professional. Here's one instance:

When I was a logistics engineer, I was invited to a meeting by a group of technical writers, all men. They wanted me to take an issue they were having with a design to engineering for resolution.

Although I was their target audience for the meeting, one of the tech writers asked, "Hey, Melissa, would you mind taking the notes for us?"

"Why should I take the notes?" I asked.

"Because you're probably better at it than us," another tech writer said.

"Why would I be better at taking the notes?" I asked.

"Well, you know."

"I know what?" 

Silence.

I asked again, "So why is it that you think I should take the notes at YOUR meeting?"

No response. One of the tech writers got out a pen and pad of paper and started the meeting.

No Head-of-Household Pay for You

​At the risk of introducing a spoiler, Elizabeth Zott falls victim to the "you're worthy of being a parent, but not worthy of a living wage" nonsense of her era.

I'm witness to the residue from this nonsensical thinking that continued spreading like mildew well into the nineties and this century. I was bringing home the bacon for a family of five, which was at least 25 to 35 percent less bacon than what men were bringing home after performing the same work.

A common practice then was, and maybe still is, giving a woman a title like "specialist" or "coordinator" and then loading her with genuine project management duties. This way, she could be paid less while doing the work of men holding the title "project manager."

When I was working for an automotive aftermarket tool and diagnostics provider as a marketing "specialist," I traveled for work at least once a month. I never used being a single mom of four as an excuse not to travel. Not once! I wrote business cases with ROI, negotiated SLAs, wrote tool-installation guidelines, traveled out of state to meet with mechanics to promote new essential tools they were about to be required by their dealerships to purchase, traveled to California to meet with clients, etc. I felt that I even worked harder than many of my male counterparts doing the same work. I didn't leave work early afternoon to play golf, and I didn't do the two-martini lunch. Oh, and I also went to night school taking automotive technology courses so that I would understand well the work our tool endusers did.

I felt it was time to approach my director and request an appropriate title with "manager" in it. He asked me why. I listed the activities I managed and said that I deserved more pay.

"Well, aren't you a second income anyway?" he asked.

After lifting my jaw off from my chest, I said, "Uh, no. I'm the head of a household."

"Well, you get child support, right?"

"A drop in the bucket compared to what I pay in childcare, not that it's any of your business."
​
He gave me no new title, but a very small raise. I remained underpaid.

I was laid off about nine months later when the tool program that I worked so hard to help launch launched.

HAVE We Come a Long Way, Baby?

So I have my gripes about experiencing unfair treatment because I'm a woman. I suppose that I was never savvy enough to reap the benefits I see other women getting: diamond ring, house, car, getting to hold their babies longer before returning to work. My life has made me familiar with all the liabilities of being a women. But these struggles cultivated in me wisdom, empathy, and strength of mind. There's hurt and anger in me, too, I admit. But I'm working on healing from it.

Lessons in Chemistry is about all of that — the growth of a quirky and intelligent woman healing from being treated as if she were a mindless utility.
​
From what I see in the workplace today, it seems that things are improving for women. Are they? I'm asking the younger women reading this. The millennials and gen-Zers. Tell me how things are for you. But first, read Lessons in Chemistry and learn about what we've been fighting for all these years.

"Whenever you start doubting yourself, whenever you feel afraid, just remember. Courage is the root of change and change is what we're chemically designed to do."
~ from Lessons in Chemistry

© 2023 Melissa Walsh

Sometimes, we arrived early for a show, as the “Ugly Hour” guys were leaving. That was how to get a good seat. This afterwork crowd might have been buzzed, but not ugly. (My partner is a former ugly-hour patron, and I think he’s mighty fine!)

The music at Lili’s, thanks to Lili’s son Art’s industry connections and ear for quality rock, hailed from the best musical talent in and near Detroit. The music was let’s-swipe-the-playlist quality. Outstanding performances. Art was lead vocals with The Mutants. So yeah, the range of music was “So American” awesome.

My Lili’s fun came to an end when, in 1998, I became the mom of three sons — a singleton and twins 13 months apart. In 2003, a year after Lili’s 21 closed, I had my fourth son.

As a mom of four boys, when the topic of Lili’s came up among friends over the years, I thought about Lili as matriarch. Her matriarchy nurtured rockers, punkers, grungers, new-wavers, and glammers for decades.

I remember how gracious she was to us with her smile and kind comments. I remember her stepping onto a chair clapping her hands and yelling in her mom voice “Stop it” to the young men looking like they were about to start moshing. There would be no moshing in Lili’s bar. But there would be generous pours of Jezy, because Lili was fun.

Marie Lidia (Lili) Danielczuk Karwowski was born in Wilno, Poland. She survived a World War II prison camp with her mother; they arrived in Hamtramck in 1952. Lili's father, a Dachau survivor, joined them later. Her parents died in the 1960s.

Lili's son Alan told me that Lili spoke seven languages, and she raised her sons speaking Polish. Many families spoke Polish as a first language in Hamtramck then. Hamtramck still was a community of Polish-speaking shops and parishes when I lived there in the 90s. Dzien dobry. Dziękuję

Saturday's Mickeypalooza was a grand event. Most importantly, it had a high turnout, which amounted to that much assistance for Michael. It also presented a stunning response of love for Michael, his brothers, and for his mom, who died December 22, 1999.

The event attracted hundreds of rockers in their fifties, sixties, and seventies. I showed up in my leopard-print faux-fur coat and my groovy Picasso scarf, which I thought Lili would’ve liked. Most of the ladies donned something in leopard print — a shirt, scarf, jacket, or coat. Sitting at the bar sipping a Valium, I watched the crowd, imagining what these Detroit music lovers — my contemporaries from back in the day — looked like back in the day. I could picture them with younger faces, fuller and less-graying heads of hair, wearing badass leather jackets, MC5 or Iggy and the Stooges t-shirts, heavy eyeliner, dark lipstick, tall shoes, long earrings, and fresher tats and piercings. I imagined them with me three decades ago standing in the pre-show queue in the alley, having a smoke and sharing facts about the band we were about to hear.

It was the happiest reunion I’ve ever witnessed. And the music — holy kick-out-the-jams, it was fantastic, performed by musicians who graced the Lili’s stage long ago — See Dick Run, David Bierman Overdrive, Ricky Rat Pack, and The Polish Muslims. The opening comedy act by Lauren Uchalik was good ole making-fun-of-Hamtramck giggles. And seasoned Detroit DJ Kelly Brown emceeing! Picture perfect.

And it felt as if Lili was there with her beautiful smile, watching her sons and those who love them. Sto lat!

In a 1980 Detroit Free Press article, reporter Mike Duffy captured this from Lili:

"I cry with my customers. I laugh with them. I cuss with them. I drink with them. This is like a big family. It's happy at times; it's rotten at times. But whatever happens, I try to treat everyone like they were my own children."

Sources:
​Detroit Punk Archive: https://detroitpunkarchive.com/ 
"Hamtramck's leopard-clad bar owner dies" by Kelley L. Carter, Detroit Free Press, December 23, 1999.
"Punk and polka at home at Lili's" by Mike Duffy, Detroit Free Press, April 15, 1980.

To send more love Michael's way, follow this link.

© 2023 Melissa Walsh

We hugged and cried for a few minutes. Speaking through the sobs was difficult, but we understood the cry of each other’s heart. Afterward, I went to a restroom, washed my face, pulled the proverbial veil over my eyes again and went to the toddlers’ classroom to get my sons. I returned home feeling comforted.

Another woman in the church, some 30 years older than me, a woman who had been my Sunday School teacher when I was a child, called me periodically to see how I was doing and to pray with me. She gave me the opportunity to again cry with someone. At the time, she led a Sunday morning study group of married couples who were 10 to 20 years older than me; she invited me to join the group. I accepted and she led the group in welcoming me. Attending church became less painful. (About a decade or so later, the body of elders forced her to step away as leader of this group. Her only infraction was being female while leading males in Bible study.)

The third woman who showed me love was a woman my age. She was from a family of new wealth and exceptional generosity. She had been caring for a son a year older than my oldest, who was born with painful birth defects. Despite her struggle to meet her son’s needs for round-the clock care, which she was in the throes of at the time, she found the strength of kindness to bring me and my boys Love’s light. She checked on me from time to time that year. A few days before that Christmas, she popped over with her son, who handed each of my sons a wrapped gift — inside an adorable kid’s watch. She handed me a small gift-wrapped box with a tag addressed to “Mom” from my sons — inside a charm bracelet.

Out of a church membership of more than three hundred, these three women modeled Love for me, generously, humbly, discretely. Most others in the church were indifferent toward me; some were openly hostile. Eventually I walked out of that church for good, one Sunday in 2001, in the middle of a sermon about caring for widows and orphans. 

After leaving the church, C.S. Lewis became my mentor on faith and philosophy. I read everything Lewis, crawling deeper into Narnia for comfort and healing.

Believing
My embrace of Lewis’ mystical universe was likely triggered by my new-found belief in Santa on December 23, 2000. Weeks earlier, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a woman from the group I was kicked out of had asked if I would like a Thanksgiving basket — one of those baskets church ladies give to single moms as charity, with photo opp. I declined. I wanted to ask, but didn't, “If you think that I’m in such dire straits that I can’t afford to feed my family, then why haven't you spoken with me about it?”

Thankfully, during this crisis (which would be followed by more crises over the next twenty years), I was able to provide shelter and food for my sons, and childcare, which cost me about $80 per day at the time. Finding the time and money for Christmas shopping, however, was an extreme challenge. 

On December 23, when I opened my front door to retrieve the mail, I found a large plastic bag on my porch. It was tied with a large red ribbon, attaching a tag addressed to my boys, "from Santa.” Inside were toys, an abundance of toys for me to wrap and tag as from Santa. My sons mattered to Santa.

I called the women from the church who had showed me love over the past several months. They swore the toys did not come from them and that they did not know whom they were from. I made other calls, to friends, to people from work, to my mom, asking for clues about this Christmas surprise. No one had a clue.

I still don't know the identity of this Santa, but I continue to carry a belief in the spirit of Love’s light in the dark that this Santa brought me. It is Santa power, mine and others’, that carried me through my incredible, wild journey of raising my sons. Santa power is Grace. What I have taken away from my journey is that God does indeed allow some of us more than we can handle alone. And therefore a responsibility rests on community to reverse the gravity of crisis with Grace's power to ease the load of the burdened.