NICE TO MEET YOU

I'm Samantha Han Wong

When my sister announced her pregnancy, I immediately started researching traditional 坐月子 postpartum Chinese recipes, but I found so few English resources to help me do this well. I was at a loss. Even my mother, a Very Traditional Chinese Lady (VTCL™) hadn’t done this in over thirty years and had few ideas when it came to 3 months-worth of recipes to nourish my sister and help replenish her body so that she could regain her strength and be able to help this new baby grow, especially after her C-section.

Searching online, all I found were the same recipes for steamed chicken and red jujube tea. My sister made it clear there was no way she would be eating the same three dishes on rotation for months, which is how the Tangerine Peels Recipe Course was born.

I've been cooking Asian food all my life and know my way around a wok. My grandmother, a Traditional Chinese Doctor in a time where there were few females in the role, passed down her commitment to helping others to me. I truly hope this resource is valuable in your journey.

My Story

Standing in the living room of our rental AirBnB for the week, I opened the letter my brother-in-law had handed me the moment they had gotten off the plane, into the taxi, through the doorway, and read it aloud in front of them:

“Dear 妹 (Little Sister),

Our company has recently created a new role, and though the paperwork has not been finalized, we wanted to let you know first, so you can begin preparing and engaging in professional development. We would like to promote you from “妹妹 Little Sister (Level 6)” to “YiYi Auntie (Level 1)”, effective end of January 2023.

There will be no compensation changes associated with this promotion.”

I immediately started bawling, which is how you know you are an adult—met with the happiest of news and you start crying like it is a funeral. I read somewhere it is because as we get older, there are so few moments of profound joy, that we are emotionally overwhelmed in the same way as when tragedy finds us.

In the days that followed, I felt excited, nervous, and a deep sense of sadness. I mourned the closing of a chapter, one that had brought my sister, my brother-in-law, and myself together as a close-knit unit， and when I was done being sad, I was able to think about this new role: how can I support my sister through this? Caring for her through her fourth trimester was one of the best ways I found to do exactly that. 

Gratitudes

I am deeply grateful to my sister and brother-in-law for having this baby. This is not why they chose to have a child, but what a gift this experience has been to my mother, a first-time grandma, to our aunts and uncles who delight in his giggles, my brother-in-law’s brothers, who get to experience funcledom, and to me.

This baby has unlocked a new experience for me; he has taught me what one-sided love feels like. Holding him, in the early weeks, so small and delicate, I realized I will always, always love him more than he can even grasp. And when the time comes, thirty-odd years down the line, and he is holding a child who means so much to him, only then will he be able to know this kind of love.

Now, I call my nephew “our baby” and my sister, generous as the older one always is, doesn’t begrudge me of it. It has only been a year and I can still remember a life without him, though I wouldn’t ever want it back.