'Fresh Off the Boat' sailed choppy waters.

AuthorBauder, David
PositionLiving

Byline: David Bauder

PASADENA, Calif. -- Food personality Eddie Huang said Wednesday that ABC is being "smart and strategic'' in how it is adapting his memoir "Fresh Off the Boat'' for a television sitcom, but the process has been anything but smooth.

The series, which debuts Feb. 4, tells the story of a teenage boy from a Taiwanese family trying to fit in to an American suburb.

Huang's appearance at a television conference to promote the show was preceded by a lengthy first-person piece this week in New York magazine in which he complained about how his often-angry story was smoothed over to make a feel-good sitcom.

Huang, the owner of New York's Baohaus restaurant who is listed as an executive producer of the series, wrote that "the network's approach was to tell a universal, ambiguous, cornstarch story about Asian-Americans resembling moo goo gai pan written by a Persian-American who cut her teeth on race relations writing for Seth MacFarlane.''

In the article, Huang reached a grudging admiration for ABC because the pilot addressed an episode from his youth where he confronted a schoolmate for using an ethnic slur against him.

"The show is strategic and smart in the way it eases the viewer into'' discussions of ethnic relations, he said Wednesday.

Huang said in an interview he had no regrets about writing on his behind-the-scenes experiences.

"The conversation about race and Asians in America and our culture and us being silenced in a dominant culture for a long time is a conversation that I want to start, and that's what I think is the most important thing the show can do,'' he said.

He said he hoped Americans hold the show responsible for staying true to the book and to the Asian community in general.

People involved with the show conceded that it was not easy to make.

"I appreciate Eddie for having the boldness to have this dialogue,'' said Constance Wu, who portrays his mother in the series.

Huang's article made for some awkward moments onstage, especially when some critical words he had written about the show's top writer, Nahnatchka Khan, were...

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