Lets not push it under the rug, or push it to the side because, no matter what, it's going to keep coming up. You know, if you never deal with that dirt up under the carpet, it's going to get larger and larger, and it's going to keep coming up.

If I had to come up with something that just came to me, I think growing up in a small town, I want knowledge. I still think today, knowledge is one of the keys.

Growing up, I started developing confidence in what I felt. My parents helped me to believe in myself. I wasn't the best looking guy, I wasn't the best athlete in the world, but they made me feel good about myself.

Coming from a small town it was tough to dream big. When I grew up in a small town in Georgia, my biggest dream was one day to be able to go to Atlanta.

We opened Panda Inn on June 8, 1973. The whole family - my parents, a brother and sister - all worked at the restaurant for free. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment in San Gabriel and didn't have any money.

My mother had an illegal abortion in 1960, which was the year the birth control pill came out, but I guess a little late for her, but - and I never knew. I found out when my father, after her death, got her FBI file.

It's incredibly rewarding to have people come up to me at readings and say, 'I'm not Chinese, but this is the relationship I have with my mother.' Or say, 'Your book made me think a lot about my parents, and I've decided to sign up for counseling.' That is mind-boggling.

Stay-at-home mothers, working mothers, people are very tough on each other. I don't see that in the world of men. I don't see working men who have children, and those who don't, judging each other. I think there's a different category of expectation.