Happy Lunar New Year! 新年快樂

Greetings, friends. I interrupt our boba tea series because…  it’s Lunar New Year – Happy Year of the Dragon! I have a lot to tell you about the dish I made for it, but first, I need to tell you about my neighbors, Lilia and Branden.

When we first moved to our neighborhood in Philadelphia in 2018 without knowing anybody, our neighbors Lilia and Branden welcomed us with homemade cookies and warm smiles. The cookies even came with a handwritten note and phone numbers. ”Welcome to the neighborhood!”

It was such a heartwarming gesture and a stark contrast to our previous life in San Francisco. We simply weren’t used to that. Later, I would learn that Lilia doesn’t like to cook much so those cookies felt even more special.  

And their kindness didn’t stop there—Jane, Lilia's mother, came from Shanghai when their children were born. Jane's handmade pork and chive dumplings taste like a mother’s love for her children. As their neighbors, we get to feel her love too, since she always brings a bag over whenever she makes some. We are so lucky to have Mama Jane’s dumplings in the freezer.  

As time has passed, our connection with Lilia, Branden, and Jane has continued to grow. Jane often looks after our cats when we are away, and we return the favor by occasionally feeding their fish (doesn’t seem like a fair trade does it). We even set up a little "tomato forest” for their son, whom we will affectionately call "tomato boy" here,  right in front of our garage. And you know what? One of the most fun things Lilia and I did together was cheering our hearts out for my husband Hong at the Philadelphia Marathon in 2022. Lilia, being one of the most upbeat and humorous people I know, made so many runners smile that day with her infectious energy and signature smile. I will never forget that day and how much it meant for us!

Hong and I both live far away from our families, so Lilia, Branden, and Jane are the closest we have to a family around here. Coming from Taiwan, where family is everything, celebrating Lunar New Year halfway around the world from home was tough at first when I came to the US for undergrad. When you don’t live close to family, or you aren’t surrounded by your own people, or don’t feel the New Year spirit all around you, then New Year just sort of fades away and becomes insignificant. Not being surrounded by Taiwanese people, and not having access to Taiwanese restaurants but rather Cantonese and American Chinese ones, I just stopped trying fearing further disappointment. For many years, New Year would just make me sad. I put my Taiwanese self in a box, to be revisited later. 

But when COVID kept me away from visiting Taiwan for three long years, I felt a tug on my heartstrings to dust off that box and reconnect with my roots. I looked inside and found the contents to be very blurry. It dawned on me that by moving away, I'd unintentionally closed off a core part of myself —my family, my language, and my heritage. And that’s just some of the price I am still paying by deciding to leave my home country to live in another one.

Fast forward to last Friday, our first time doing New Year together with Lilia’s family. We all gathered around at Lilia's place to have nien ye fan (year end’s dinner in Mandarin, 年夜飯). Despite saying she'd ordered in, Jane cooked up a storm, filling the table with many delectable Shanghai dishes and, of course, her signature dumplings. Surrounded by friends and kids laughing, we gobbled and chatted in Mandarin, English, Japanese, and Spanish. I felt very deeply that though we're miles away from our families, right here in our adopted city, we've built our own family. It took me a long time, but by letting go of the all-or-nothing mindset and by learning to stay open to love, I am able to have this relationship with our neighbors today.  

And that, my friends, is something to be truly grateful for. It is for me what gue-ni, The Taiwanese word for celebrating Lunar New Year, is all about. If you weren’t able to be with your own family this lunar new year, I hope that you got to spend some time with those you love.

In the next post, I will share with you the classic Taiwanese dish I brought to the dinner: Pampano and rice noodle soup. Happy New Year, and Shin Ni Kuai Lo!