David Chang's father was the stereotypical Korean man who distanced himself from everything that America stood for. Throughout his childhood, David was denied access to the world, as his father deemed it too far removed from Asian communities. He was a tiger parent, who forced a young David, around the age of six, to stop being ambidextrous - one of the few natural abilities that his son possessed and of which he was proud: from that moment on he would stop using his left hand. The cost of questioning his authority came at too high a price. When a year later David had an accident while playing with his brother, before giving in to his cries and taking him for an X-ray, his father forced him to go to acupuncture sessions and - most importantly - to walk despite his fractured knee, determined to make him realise that the pain was all in his head.
His family dynamic, however, also had its positives: since his parents were always working, David spent his childhood with his maternal grandparents, who were kind and adoring in an almost comical way.