Food is Medicine

I used to avoid cooking Chinese food…it brought up emotions I wasn’t ready to handle. Until this year, when my body began telling me the story of my ancestors, allowing me to heal. I am told I am a “free individual,” but I know I embody the collective wisdom of my ancestors.

Food has brought all of my ancestors to the table, to settle the war they were waging inside me. My yieyie was a travel agent, poet and photographer and my mama was a government official. They were part of the Hakka tribe, which means “guest family” in Cantonese, because they were starving in the mountains and had to come down to the Pearl River Delta, where my mother’s tribe the Han lived, to find work. My popo was a fisherman, farmer, herbalist and host of a community kitchen and my gonggong was a farmer and dragon boat racer. I am an amalgamation of all of these beautiful people.

Instead of pathologizing my parents for emotionally neglecting me, I contextualize my trauma within generations of uprooting, as a call from Mother Earth to remember her wisdom.

“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.” -Assata Shakur

Pictured: mushrooms w/ bok choy, kung pao chicken, beef brisket soup, veggies from Hmong farmer, braised pork, tomato w/ egg, west lake beef soup, chow mein @madewithlau