Tin Tat Kwan in the kitchen of Kwan's Chinese Cuisine in the summer of 1982.

Today, I rediscovered this fun photo of my dad and scanned it so I could share it with my blog readers and on the “About Us” page of redmoonchinesecafe.com.  What I like about it is the smile, the optimism that shines through.  My dad is 27-years-old in the photo.  I am 27 right now.  Twenty-seven years prior to that photo being taken, dad was born in a fishing and rice-cultivating village in southern China where things would only go downhill as he grew under Communism’s grip.  Twenty-seven years after the photo brings us to today… when I couldn’t imagine having the courage to open up my own little restaurant — and the wherewithal to keep it running day after day.  My mom and dad are great successes because they made it work.  That’s pretty cool.

Tonight, I got a neat little story about our first restaurant, Kwan’s Chinese Cuisine (54th and Penn Ave. S., Minneapolis), because the person who took that photo was in the restaurant tonight.  My dad’s good, good friend, Warren and his wife Andrea are in every Saturday.  Warren was one of my dad’s first customers and pretty much instantly became a good friend.

How good a friend?  Well, shortly after my mom and dad opened their little chop suey joint (and Kwan’s really was a chop suey joint — with five booths, five tables and a ‘chow mein to take home’ neon sign in the window), the friendly Minneapolis health inspector came by to tell them their place was a dump.  And what did they know?  They just plunked money down to buy it!  It had to look perfect to them!  Turns out, they had ten thousand dollars in work that needed to be done… new tile floor, wall issues that needed to meet code, etc.  So what did they do?  Not much.  But Warren and his friend John came to the rescue.  They fixed the place up — working around my dad, who I believe refused to close for the two days they asked so they could get the job done.

Tin Tat, Warren and Andrea at Red Moon in 2009. A lot has changed. Thankfully, many things have not.

So much can change in 27 years.  But I’m glad some things do not, like great friendships with people like Warren.  There are a number of instances I do not know what my dad would have done without Warren’s friendship, compassion and advice.  For that, I’ll always be grateful.

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