When I ask about steaming the gai choy, my tongue feels thick. Three months into the lockdown, pandemic fatigue has made me chatty as a marooned sailor. When Fay admires their tight vermillion blossoms, I turn around. His Yoshino cherry trees have budded, and the dwarf nectarine trees are blooming. Since Tim died in 2015, I’ve been taking care of his tortoises, his leopard geckos, and his garden. He lives off the grid in the Santa Cruz Mountains but says this house is colder than living in the woods. When my guy, Ner, complains that all the surfaces are cold, I’m genuinely surprised. This morning, when I checked the thermostat, it read 48 degrees, so I put on another sweater, proud not to waste money. Living here now, my Chinatown habits stick, and I can’t seem to use it. Tim, my youngest brother, put in a heating system when our mother got sick. Mom believed foods had hot and cold energies that harmonized the body, allowing it to govern health. Though my mother died in 2003, I still hear her at every meal, admonishing me for eating avocadoes, grapefruit, watermelons, any salad or raw food, all too cooling. Otherwise it’s too yin,” my neighbor advises.

Who wants to be Miss Chinatown anyway? my sister would say.

The tall stalks double in my arms and I feel like a champ. Bitter is why I prefer gai choy over bok choy.īefore I can decline, she’s sending more over. Another day I’ll ask if hers means smart or favored. My name is Fae, too, but I don’t know if we share the same Chinese character.

The plumes of leaves are wider than bamboo and more delicate. When I reach for the bunch of bright stalks, I feel like a Miss Chinatown receiving her winning bouquet. I go to the fence and watch her cut the tall greens at their thick stems. My neighbor is in her garden and asks if I like gai choy. On this rare sunny day in the Outer Richmond of San Francisco, I take my late brother’s tortoises down to the yard for their bath. (Courtesy of Grove Press) Book excerpt: 'Orphan Bachelors' The cover of 'Orphan Bachelors' by Fae Myenne Ng. Host Deepa Fernandes speaks with Fae Myenee Ng about her memoir ' Orphan Bachelors.' Ng grew up in San Franciso's Chinatown surrounded by elderly men who were prevented from having families due to America's Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, something which also impacted Ng's family.

Telling lies steam download