You Know You’re Chinese When… offers a happy, humorous celebration of Chinese-American culture. With the help of his family, author Stephen Choy assembled a compendium of the customs, traditions, foods and quirky habits of everyday life, illustrated by his wife, Canossa. For those who grew up as he did, this lighthearted collection will recall the familiar tastes, sounds and objects of a lifetime.

“Time was when I disliked being so immersed in the practices that singled our family out—annual visits to the cemetery, eating with chopsticks, shopping in Chinatown. I just wanted to be ‘American!’” Choy recalls. “I suppose that was more in my self-conscious teen years. Well, here I am now in my 70s with a wife from Macau, many years a member of the Kung Sheong Doo Society, and very happily identifying as Chinese American.”

A clinical psychologist by trade—and still practicing full-time today—Choy is a trained observer of human behavior. “Sharing what is uniquely different about us with one another enriches our melting pot as a whole,” he says. “Attending college in Milwaukee and living in New York for ten years broadened my view of what being Chinese in America is all about. I’m not trying to define the whole Chinese-American experience. My book is meant to educate and entertain through the lens of my personal experience.”

This type of book is a customized project based on the Photo Legacy Package. Illustrations by his wife were provided by the author, as was a design concept for the book interior, created by his daughter. Our Legacy Isle team used this template and refined it for a commercial audience. In addition, our team advised the author on structuring the book and adding elements to give it more reader appeal.

You Know You’re Chinese When… is available via our online store, local bookstores and via online booksellers.

Cover and sample pages from the interior:

In If the Shoe Fits: A Newsei’s Guide to Japanese Wisdom, Rev. Clarence Higa offers a loving, light-hearted look at the rich backstory of Japanese-American culture. As a Buddhist minister in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, Rev. Higa often finds himself asked the meaning behind customs passed down through the generations: Why is it bad form to poke your chopsticks into a bowl of rice? Why do we eat mochi at New Year’s? Why shouldn’t you cut your fingernails at night? With an incisive sense of humor, Rev. Higa unravels the hows and whys of Japanese traditions for the benefit of what he calls “Newsei”—the generations of Japanese Americans born after their Issei and Nisei forbears.

Throughout Rev. Higa’s youth, his father often received omiyage (gifts) of anpan, although years later he confessed that he hated the sweet bean pastries. “Why didn’t my father tell people that?” Rev. Higa wondered. “His answer lived with me forever: ‘It isn’t the gift that is cherished, but the thought behind it.’ And it was that bit of legacy that encouraged me to write this book. I had a compulsion to compile my own wayward wisdom for the benefit of others—so that one day you can explain to your own children why you do things in that idiosyncratic way.”

This type of book can be created with the ‘Ohana Package or Professional Package. Illustrations were provided by the author.

If the Shoe Fits is available via our online store, local bookstores and via online booksellers.

Cover and sample pages from the interior: