Rating: 2 1/2 stars

I’m probably one of the few of the non-Asian persuasion who will find My Mom is a Fob: Earnest Advice in Broken English from Your Asian-American Mom funny.

Having spent most of my life growing up in San Diego, home of military bases and top universities, I’ve spent a good amount of time around Filipinos and other Asian nationalities.

As a bonus, my best friend is Filipino-American (I’ll call her Mel), which gave me a front-row seat to the audible and visual antics of her very Filipino mother; which were usually good for a laugh. Just as the Wu sisters documented in My Mom is a Fob, Mel would regale me with stories of her mother doing a background check on her (Mel’s) then 32 year-old future husband asking, “Are du chur he’s tirty-two? He look porty-por”, too often wearing the most inappropriate fashions and my favorite, dying her hair pink just before Mel’s wedding.

Fob started out as a website, as do many of the funny blogs to books do: Shit My Dad Says, Hot Chicks with Douche Bags, Go Fug Yourself, Dear Girls Above Me etc. ; presenting as a compilation of funny antics, anecdotes and conversation snippets featuring their mother’s (often hilarious) ignorance and misuse of the American culture, lifestyle and language.

Despite their linguistic slip-ups, you have to give these women major props for learning a language that most Americans can barely speak correctly.

Now that I’m back in New York, I can still get my fill of Asian women fun, from the Chinatown grocer yelling, “You no touch! You buy!” To the hostess at my husband Rich’s favorite sushi place, where he never fails to receive the enthusiastic greeting: “Herro, Lichie!”
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Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Perigee Trade; Original edition (January 4, 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-0399536403