Notes can be found at the end of the piece.

In early July, my maternal grandfather Gong Gong celebrated his 86th birthday at an upscale Cantonese restaurant in Queens. Atop the round dining table sat a lazy Susan balancing dishes of steamed fish, stir-fried vegetables, roast pork and king crab. My entire family was in attendance: my parents, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, Wa Ma (my maternal grandmother) and Nin Nin (my paternal grandmother).

My entire family, that was, except for me. I was the only family member away from the New York area for the summer, the only one to miss the first major gathering since the pandemic.

***

I called Gong Gong and Wa Ma the next day. Not much seemed to have changed since last month’s call: Wa Ma was still telling me in Mandarin, “Stay healthy! Watch your knees!” (“Yes, I have been taking care of my knees!”), Gong Gong was still asking me every five minutes, “Mei Mei, when are you coming back to New York?”  (“I’ll be back in early August!”) and I was still sharing my latest happenings in Durham (“My friends and I went to a planetarium yesterday! I wish I could teleport to Queens to see you all…”).

I heard them clamoring amongst themselves, both trying to contribute their fair share to conversation—signs of a healthy aging marriage. I closed my eyes to absorb their voices—Wa Ma’s strong and robust, Gong Gong’s cool and pleasant. I imagined them in their apartment, sitting at their ancient dining table which perpetually accommodated stacks of Chinese newspapers, a bunch of fresh bananas, and a bundle of toothpicks. When was the last time I had visited their apartment and heard both of their voices coming straight from their mouths? When was the last time I had visited Queens and had seen all my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents in one place? It all had to be before I left for college, before I graduated high school, before the pandemic began… 

***

There was a time where these family visits were common. Twice a month, my mom, dad, brother and I would hop into our SUV, and I’d glue my face to the window, watching as the landscape transformed from grassy New Jersey suburbs to the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan. We’d weave our way through Downtown and Midtown congestion, and if we were lucky, we’d then cruise along a traffic-free Queensboro Bridge to reach Queens: the realm of our extended family and where my parents’ lives in America began.

Month after month, year after year we took this same car route. Although I had passed through the Bowery, Soho, Broadway and Times Square one thousand times, I still could not tell you how to take the subway from Chinatown to Chelsea, or how to snag the best deals on Fifth Avenue. I was a suburb girl, a fake New Yorker who every now and then passively glanced at city life through a car window. 

To me, this particular Queens neighborhood moved at a much more familiar pace than the constant hustle of Manhattan. Cantonese, Mandarin, and Spanish chatter floated through the air as its residents leisurely strolled through timeworn streets. Inside squat stucco buildings hummed the steady business of Chinese bakeries and Spanish hair salons. 

Wa Ma and Gong Gong’s apartment sat just above one of the bakeries. If you didn’t know you were in Queens, you’d think the apartment belonged in 1980s China. Glass cabinets of Buddhist figurines and calligraphy brushes lined one side of the main living area, and scrolls of red paper with deft brush strokes framed the other—Wa Ma’s calligraphy work. In essence, this apartment felt timeless. Nothing about this place ever changed as I grew older.

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It’s mid-December in 2013. My parents have just dropped my brother and I at Wa Ma and Gong Gong’s apartment building. The lobby has already set up the usual holiday decorations: Christmas lights shaped like deer, a mini automated Alpine train set, and a music box that plays old holiday carols. Through the lobby window I can see light snowfall dusting the streets in white.

My brother and I ride the rickety elevator all the way up to the eighth floor and pass identical-looking doors before stopping at the one marked 8E. Before we can even knock, the door swings open, revealing Wa Ma and Gong Gong and their bright toothy smiles. “Mei Mei and Ge Ge are here!” they chirp, and we oblige to their rib-cracking hugs.

Wa Ma disappears into the kitchen to bring out two steaming bowls of homemade wonton soup, Gong Gong following suit with a bowl of slightly salty grapes (the salt killed germs, apparently). My brother and I eat at that same table strewn with Chinese newspapers and toothpick bundles while the two bombard us with questions in Mandarin: “Mei Mei, when will you finish sixth grade? How was your first clarinet audition?” “Ge Ge, are you still taking swimming classes?” We respond to the best of our ability, our Mandarin a mishmosh of vocabulary and grammar structures picked up from Sunday Chinese school lessons. 

Of course, I’m glad to see Wa Ma and Gong Gong, and I’m thankful for the wontons and salty grapes. But I mostly want to skip awkwardly answering questions and instead quietly read Percy Jackson to wile away the afternoon.

***

I’m grateful when six o’clock comes. It means dinner with all of the extended family at Nin Nin and Ye Ye (my paternal grandfather)’s house, which sits on a quiet street lined with sturdy maple trees. Coincidentally, it is just a five minute drive from Wa Ma and Gong Gong’s apartment. It’s been this way since the 80s, before my parents even met.

Even before I enter the house I can smell Ye Ye’s famed pork chops from the front steps. Nin Nin and Ye Ye are waiting by the front door, cooking aprons tied to their waists, their arms outstretched and welcoming. “Come in, almost time to eat! You must be so cold!” they say in Cantonese. Their hugs are a lot gentler than Wa Ma and Gong Gong’s. 

One of my biggest regrets, I think, is never learning Cantonese. It’s one of the most ubiquitous Chinese dialects, the one my dad’s entire side of the family speaks, but virtually unintelligible to people who only speak Mandarin (and vice versa). My Cantonese is as good as counting to ten and flubbing phrases like “No, I’m not cold”, “beef noodles”, and “I have to use the bathroom.” Although I can communicate half-decently with Wa Ma and Gong Gong in Mandarin, it’s just smiling, nodding, and hoping for telepathic communication with Nin Nin and Ye Ye.

The doorbell rings. I hear feet stamping out snow by the doorway and high-pitched squabbling (“Ow, you kicked my foot!” “That was an accident, jeez!”) that can only mean my cousins are here. I bound over to the front door, bursting with excitement. People my age I can play with, finally! As the adults set the table, Fi proudly flashes her new Temple Run high score to me and Kristina and Katherine show me their latest Webkinz additions: a rainbow pony and a labradoodle. Alyssa and my brother are off somewhere having a heated discussion about Pokemon. With all of them, there’s no need to sweat over my mediocre Mandarin or butcher my Cantonese. English is the reigning language among us.

Soon, dinner is served, and everyone sits down to eat. We help ourselves to pork, tofu soup, glass noodles, and rice, serving each other food that’s a bit out of reach. In the background I hear the mixed Mandarin and Cantonese chatter of my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. They’re talking about whatever adults talk about—stocks and the economy, maybe. They also talk about us, the kids—apparently, my cousins are starting to ride the subway by themselves to school. “Ah, they’re so independent!” my mom says. “If we lived in New York, I bet Ge Ge could do that. Mei Mei, I’m not so sure. She would probably get lost in the city.” She’s not wrong about that.

Meanwhile, my cousins, brother and I are invested in much more riveting subjects such as Temple Run. Sometimes out of the corner of my eye I see one of my grandparents smiling at us, watching us tackle the question “Why does Subway Surfers even exist if Temple Run is already so good?” I wonder what they find so amusing about our conversation.

After dinner, a few scoops of red bean ice cream, some more chatting among the adults and several rounds of the board game “Sorry!” among us kids, it’s time to head back to New Jersey. Before my mom, dad, brother and I put on our coats and pile back into our SUV, we say our goodbyes to the rest of the family. In Chinese though, there’s actually no phrase that truly means “goodbye”; the closest phrase translates to “until we meet again.” “See you in two weeks for Christmas!” we all say. “See you soon!”

***

Christmas comes and goes. 2013 becomes 2014, which quickly turns to 2015, then 2016. It’s a crisp September evening, and the whole family has gathered in Chinatown at a restaurant called Congee Village.

Lately, we’ve been meeting in Manhattan because it’s more centrally located than Queens, and everyone is always busy. I’ve just started high school, which means I have joined my brother in the juggling act of homework and extracurriculars. Between cross country meets, orchestra rehearsals, and schoolwork, our bimonthly Queens trips have become harder to maintain.

Kristina and Katherine arrive at Congee Village straight from a table tennis tournament; they’re still sweaty and wearing their uniforms. Fi and Alyssa arrive a few minutes late from an outing with their college friends. The restaurant seating is a bit cramped and I’m disappointed that pork chops aren’t on the menu, but the most important thing is that we’ve all made the effort to come together.

My grandparents, of course, are here. As always, they greet us with brightly lit smiles and hugs—but recently I’ve become acutely aware of the way Wa Ma and Gong Gong’s hugs are less rib-cracking than they used to be, Nin Nin’s rapid hearing loss, Ye Ye’s palpable absence. I’m grateful we’re eating out at a restaurant, actually. My grandparents don’t have the energy they used to to take on the burden of cooking and cleaning.

As we order and wait for our food, I glance over at Wa Ma, Gong Gong, and Nin Nin. I’ve known them my entire life, but how much about them do I really understand? My mom and dad have explained a bit about what their parents’ lives were like before coming to the United States, but even they don’t know some details. What stories of my grandparents remain untold?

I know I am a direct product of their choices. Because of their decision to leave everything behind in China 40 years ago and settle in Queens, I’ve grown up as an American-born-Chinese kid, primarily absorbing Western culture while reinforcing my Chinese roots through these New York visits. Despite the communication barriers that lay between us, my grandparents always have done everything they could to express their love: the copious amounts of delicious food, the gifts, the praise. But have I acknowledged all of it besides awkwardly answering their questions and being embarrassed about my Cantonese?

These are too many thoughts for one dinner. Our food arrives, and I shake myself back to reality. There is a plate of steamed fish sitting right in front of me, and I impulsively pick out the best parts to give to Wa Ma, Gong Gong, and Nin Nin. “These are for all of you,” I say, hoping that somehow, they’ll understand that this small gesture is an expression of my gratitude for their years of sacrifice.

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Family is the unbreakable cord that ties people together. Family is the trunk you can always lean on and the home you can always go back to.

The moments with my family that felt commonplace back then are the memories that I treasure now. I remember Wa Ma would teach me how to write calligraphy, and we’d spend the entire afternoon dipping brushes in ink, her hand gripped over mine as she guided my brush across thin rice paper. I remember my brother and I would arm wrestle Gong Gong, squealing as we lost every match, marveling at his strength. I remember if we arrived early at Nin Nin and Ye Ye’s house, I would watch Ye Ye make his pork chops, thinking that if I memorized every ingredient and every step, I could someday make them too. I remember Nin Nin would sometimes give my brother, cousins and I blankets to play tug-of-war with, each round more heated than the last, our entire family laughing at our fun and taking pictures of us.

Looking back, I understand why my grandparents smiled at the silly Temple Run conversations my cousins and I used to have. To them, having the whole family together in one place and seeing their grandchildren grow was already enough. They didn’t need anything more.

***

I may not have been at Gong Gong’s birthday celebration, and I may not have seen my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents in over a year. But as soon as I come back home from Durham, I tell myself, I’ll visit New York. I’ll explore the city with my cousins, maybe snag a deal or two on Fifth Avenue, and finally learn how to ride the subway from Chinatown to Chelsea.

And then I’ll ride the subway up to Queens to see Wa Ma, Gong Gong, and Nin Nin, and when I hug them I’ll make sure no ribs are cracked in the process, and they’ll see that I have in fact been staying healthy and watching my knees. I’m not exactly sure what will happen after that, though. Just being in each others’ presence, I think, will be enough for all of us.

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Note: Locations have been changed.

How I address my grandparents: