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A Chinese Banquet
Have you ever attended a Chinese banquet? The tables are always round and usually big enough to seat up to twelve guests. You might be in a private room at a restaurant or lucky enough to be in someone’s home. There’s probably a lazy Susan on the table to pass the dishes around. And there…
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Family Photos
This week, my mother sent me a poem. She didn’t write it herself and I don’t know who did. Like most of Mom’s emails to me, she forwarded something a friend had sent to her. Usually Mom sends photos, recipes, cleaning tips and YouTube films about China. Last weekend, I was looking at old family…
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Migrant Writing
migrant ˈmʌɪɡr(ə)nt/ noun a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions I am a migrant. I moved from the United States to the Netherlands because my husband got the job of his dreams in Amsterdam. My parents are migrants, too, leaving China for America for…
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Model Minority
I have been a minority all my life. As the only girl in a neighborhood of boys, a downtrodden East Los Angeleno in a fancy-pants law school or a Chinese-American expat in the Netherlands. As minority experiences go, however, I can’t really complain. My kind doesn’t make trouble and so trouble rarely rains down on…
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Jiaozi
I love jiaozi. It’s what I want to eat when I go home to Los Angeles. It’s the first stop if I’m traveling in Asia, whether that’s Kyoto (where they’re called gyoza), Taipei or Shanghai. For me, jiaozi is comfort food. But at least one website breathlessly declares jiaozi to be: at the heart and…
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Gong Ho
When Mom was still in high school, she wanted to become a journalist. She had won a school competition for writing and the prize was publication in the local newspaper. No surprise, I suppose, as Mom was a good student. She graduated at the top of her class from the National Taichung Girls’ Senior High…
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Shame Is a Useless Emotion
To keep me out of a gang or getting pregnant by age 16, my parents sent me to an all-girls Catholic high school. The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary founded Ramona Convent in 1889. The road from Ramona led via circuitous paths to where I am now: an author. Shame The Dancing Girl and the…
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Pig Knuckle Soup
My mother believes in soup. Whenever I was too sick to go to school, she would start a pot bubbling. I remember the reek of blood leaching out of bones. The suds that rise to the surface of the boiling water and the yellow pools of fat hiding below. When my mother wasn’t looking, I…
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Christmas Chinese-American Style
Christmas in Los Angeles is a contradiction in terms. The plastic icicles taped to the roof. The electrified snowman set among the cacti. But Christmas Chinese-American style takes weirdness to a whole new level. Not that my family was strange. We were like others at Christmas, Chinese-American or not. For Christmas Eve, we invited all the relatives,…