Mother Tong | Dr. Sarah Kwan, PhD

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In Chinese kitchens, ginger, scallions, and garlic are more than the foundation of a meal. They are everyday aromatics that have long been used to support the body through times of transition, including menstruation. Traditional Chinese Medicine describes these ingredients as warming and moving, helping to encourage circulation, support digestion, and dispel cold.

For many folks, the days surrounding a period can bring bloating, sluggish digestion, loss of appetite, or cramping that feels better with warmth.

[Fresh ginger] has traditionally been used to warm the digestive system, ease nausea, and improve circulation, and modern research suggests it may also help relieve menstrual pain.

[Scallions & Garlic] complement ginger by stimulating digestion and adding warmth to soups, broths, congees, and other nourishing meals.

[Steamed fish with sizzling ginger] is not only a cherished meal in many Chinese households, it is a classic example of everyday food therapy. The fish provides gentle nourishment, while the oil-steeped ginger and scallions add warmth and fragrance that have traditionally been used to support digestion, improve circulation, and ease the bloating and discomfort that can accompany menstruation.

Link in bio for recipe. Link in bio to receive our newsletter.
#foodtherapy #chinesefood #tcm #perimenopause #womenshealth

In Chinese kitchens, ginger, scallions, and garlic are more than the foundation of a meal. They are everyday aromatics that have long been used to support the body through times of transition, including menstruation. Traditional Chinese Medicine describes these ingredients as warming and moving, helping to encourage circulation, support digestion, and dispel cold.

For many folks, the days surrounding a period can bring bloating, sluggish digestion, loss of appetite, or cramping that feels better with warmth.

[Fresh ginger] has traditionally been used to warm the digestive system, ease nausea, and improve circulation, and modern research suggests it may also help relieve menstrual pain.

[Scallions & Garlic] complement ginger by stimulating digestion and adding warmth to soups, broths, congees, and other nourishing meals.

[Steamed fish with sizzling ginger] is not only a cherished meal in many Chinese households, it is a classic example of everyday food therapy. The fish provides gentle nourishment, while the oil-steeped ginger and scallions add warmth and fragrance that have traditionally been used to support digestion, improve circulation, and ease the bloating and discomfort that can accompany menstruation.

Link in bio for recipe. Link in bio to receive our newsletter.
#foodtherapy #chinesefood #tcm #perimenopause #womenshealth

Pearly Liu, my mother’s mother, born close enough to Shanghai that her mother tongue was Shanghainese. Born close enough to 1921 that that is the year we landed on, or the year that Immigration landed on. I knew her as a tiny woman with petal smooth skin, hats always - took personal offense to having her head touched. I knew that smile so well, but never knew the woman behind the smile. Not really. Beyond the decades between us, I hold the most grief over the loss of identity and history through the loss of language. A product of survival by the name of assimilation, my grasp of my ancestral tongue will always feel broken. I couldn’t shape the questions I had always desired to ask, nor could she twist her tongue to provide the answers. Maybe it was for the best. My mother knew, without ever being told, never to ask Pearly about her past—a past punctuated by war and loss. I didn’t inherit that restraint.

#ChineseAmerican #AsianAmerican #photoessay #familyarchive #visualstorytelling

Pearly Liu, my mother’s mother, born close enough to Shanghai that her mother tongue was Shanghainese. Born close enough to 1921 that that is the year we landed on, or the year that Immigration landed on. I knew her as a tiny woman with petal smooth skin, hats always - took personal offense to having her head touched. I knew that smile so well, but never knew the woman behind the smile. Not really. Beyond the decades between us, I hold the most grief over the loss of identity and history through the loss of language. A product of survival by the name of assimilation, my grasp of my ancestral tongue will always feel broken. I couldn’t shape the questions I had always desired to ask, nor could she twist her tongue to provide the answers. Maybe it was for the best. My mother knew, without ever being told, never to ask Pearly about her past—a past punctuated by war and loss. I didn’t inherit that restraint.

#ChineseAmerican #AsianAmerican #photoessay #familyarchive #visualstorytelling

Some stories need room and time to stretch and unfurl. They ask us to sit with uncertainty, to root through the long-buried fragments that live in the most tender parts of our hearts. The work is one part excavation and another part gentle softening. We pick up what has been buried, turn it over, and run our fingers across the thorns and the blooms. We decide where each part belongs—and whether it is something we want to carry forward.

To read more of Ming Ming Kwan’s serialized essay, click the link in our bio.

#ChineseAmerican #PersonalEssay #DiasporaStories #MemoirWriting #AsianAmericanVoices

Some stories need room and time to stretch and unfurl. They ask us to sit with uncertainty, to root through the long-buried fragments that live in the most tender parts of our hearts. The work is one part excavation and another part gentle softening. We pick up what has been buried, turn it over, and run our fingers across the thorns and the blooms. We decide where each part belongs—and whether it is something we want to carry forward.

To read more of Ming Ming Kwan’s serialized essay, click the link in our bio.

#ChineseAmerican #PersonalEssay #DiasporaStories #MemoirWriting #AsianAmericanVoices

Read & Swipe ->

Everyone had a visceral remembrance of soup like this. Maybe not the exact bitterness, maybe watercress instead of gai lan, maybe one or two, more or less, xia mi, but they remembered.

On June 6, 2026, we invited community, some new, some long held, to our space in Chinatown. We are on Waverly Place, which is aptly referred to as the spiritual heart of Chinatown. As Chinese immigrants arrived during the Gold Rush, they gradually transformed it into the center of political and social life. After the 1905 earthquake, nearly all of Chinatown burned. San Francisco officials tried to use the disaster as an opportunity to move Chinatown to another part of the city so the valuable downtown land could be redeveloped. Chinese merchants, diplomats, and community leaders successfully resisted those plans, and Waverly Place was rebuilt on its original site.

The resilience and relationship-centered bedrock of this street embodies the heart of Mother Tong. We talked ancestors, drank smoked plum juice made by our sister and ate tomato-beef stewed by another sister, drank bitter green soup (same sister as the tea) and swallowed mouthfuls of zongzi, made by our aunt.

What we learned:

* People want to be heard; women want to be heard
* Generational wounds remain unhealed, wounds that show up today, even in this room
* As diverse as our backgrounds, there are more intersections in our stories than differences
* Pervasive familial silence can feels like secrets
* History is stitched together by one quietly spoke, a look, and what’s not said
* Everyone has a story that could be a book on its own. Women, some doomed, some fated to live, all of them ferocious, helming families and dynasties of their own

#SFChinatown
#Chinatown
#ChineseAmerican
#localfood
#sffoodie

Read & Swipe ->

Everyone had a visceral remembrance of soup like this. Maybe not the exact bitterness, maybe watercress instead of gai lan, maybe one or two, more or less, xia mi, but they remembered.

On June 6, 2026, we invited community, some new, some long held, to our space in Chinatown. We are on Waverly Place, which is aptly referred to as the spiritual heart of Chinatown. As Chinese immigrants arrived during the Gold Rush, they gradually transformed it into the center of political and social life. After the 1905 earthquake, nearly all of Chinatown burned. San Francisco officials tried to use the disaster as an opportunity to move Chinatown to another part of the city so the valuable downtown land could be redeveloped. Chinese merchants, diplomats, and community leaders successfully resisted those plans, and Waverly Place was rebuilt on its original site.

The resilience and relationship-centered bedrock of this street embodies the heart of Mother Tong. We talked ancestors, drank smoked plum juice made by our sister and ate tomato-beef stewed by another sister, drank bitter green soup (same sister as the tea) and swallowed mouthfuls of zongzi, made by our aunt.

What we learned:

* People want to be heard; women want to be heard
* Generational wounds remain unhealed, wounds that show up today, even in this room
* As diverse as our backgrounds, there are more intersections in our stories than differences
* Pervasive familial silence can feels like secrets
* History is stitched together by one quietly spoke, a look, and what’s not said
* Everyone has a story that could be a book on its own. Women, some doomed, some fated to live, all of them ferocious, helming families and dynasties of their own

#SFChinatown
#Chinatown
#ChineseAmerican
#localfood
#sffoodie

Approx. 1951. Taipei, Taiwan

5 of them with 1 on the way. 5 kids in 6 years, 1 set of twins. The math boggles. Solidly in Taiwan, their parents, without a moment to pause, getting ready to open a jewelry and antique dealership at the fabled Grand Hotel in Taipei. On the heels of a stunning defeat, Chiang Kai-shek decided there weren’t enough extravagant hotels catering to foreign guests in his newly militarized Taiwan. It was his wife, Madame Chiang who suggested this as a priority. In the spare moments she got to spend with her parents, my mother (the child with the excellent bob), would overhear her parents whisper that “Fu ren jing tian lai!” (aka the grand madame, herself, has arrived). It would appear that the Grand Hotel indeed lured foreign guests, as soon, Maxine (provenance Mill Valley, CA) and Mr. Hughes (provenance Portland, Oregon, a man with a marked adulation for Chinese art) came into my grandparents’ lives. Little did they know, or maybe they did, that they would be boots down in Multnomah, Oregon 12 years later.

It is improbable to think of my mother, my kin, sitting for this photo. The picture crosses eras and lifetimes and yet still I sit now, in San Francisco, CA, able to touch and talk to the child with the excellent bob.

#ChineseAmerican #AsianAmerican #photoessay #familyarchive #visualstorytelling

Approx. 1951. Taipei, Taiwan

5 of them with 1 on the way. 5 kids in 6 years, 1 set of twins. The math boggles. Solidly in Taiwan, their parents, without a moment to pause, getting ready to open a jewelry and antique dealership at the fabled Grand Hotel in Taipei. On the heels of a stunning defeat, Chiang Kai-shek decided there weren’t enough extravagant hotels catering to foreign guests in his newly militarized Taiwan. It was his wife, Madame Chiang who suggested this as a priority. In the spare moments she got to spend with her parents, my mother (the child with the excellent bob), would overhear her parents whisper that “Fu ren jing tian lai!” (aka the grand madame, herself, has arrived). It would appear that the Grand Hotel indeed lured foreign guests, as soon, Maxine (provenance Mill Valley, CA) and Mr. Hughes (provenance Portland, Oregon, a man with a marked adulation for Chinese art) came into my grandparents’ lives. Little did they know, or maybe they did, that they would be boots down in Multnomah, Oregon 12 years later.

It is improbable to think of my mother, my kin, sitting for this photo. The picture crosses eras and lifetimes and yet still I sit now, in San Francisco, CA, able to touch and talk to the child with the excellent bob.

#ChineseAmerican #AsianAmerican #photoessay #familyarchive #visualstorytelling

I am a bad descendent.

I am a “bad” descendent, a diluted result of assimilation and survival. How do I make sense of traditions that feel visceral but that English is wholly inadequate to describe? How do I reckon with my inadequate grasp on my mother tongue, a legacy of assimilation and fear?

So much disappears when people are forced out of their homes. War interrupts lineage. Immigration fractures language. Assimilation teaches silence. Survival leaves little room for storytelling. Sometimes our ancestors did not pass things down because they could not. Sometimes they could not because they had to become small…quiet. And sometimes there simply was not enough time, money, safety, or shared language left to carry everything intact.

Read @dr.sarah.therapy ‘s full reflection on #themothertong website.

#ChineseAmerican #AsianAmerican #photoessay #familyarchive visualstorytelling

I am a bad descendent.

I am a “bad” descendent, a diluted result of assimilation and survival. How do I make sense of traditions that feel visceral but that English is wholly inadequate to describe? How do I reckon with my inadequate grasp on my mother tongue, a legacy of assimilation and fear?

So much disappears when people are forced out of their homes. War interrupts lineage. Immigration fractures language. Assimilation teaches silence. Survival leaves little room for storytelling. Sometimes our ancestors did not pass things down because they could not. Sometimes they could not because they had to become small…quiet. And sometimes there simply was not enough time, money, safety, or shared language left to carry everything intact.

Read @dr.sarah.therapy ‘s full reflection on #themothertong website.

#ChineseAmerican #AsianAmerican #photoessay #familyarchive visualstorytelling

Bitter greens soup for Liver Qi stagnation.

What is liver qi stagnation?

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the Liver system is closely tied to emotional regulation, stress response and the smooth processing and expression of emotion. The Liver is considered both a functional system and symbolic network, not just the physical liver organ. Liver qi is the functional energy associated with with this system and is connected to the ability to move through stress and keep circulation, energy, digestion, menstrual flow and physical tension in check.

When does liver qi stagnation occur in a woman’s lifecycle?

Liver qi stagnation emerges during periods when a woman must continuously hold, manage, suppress, adapt, or carry more than the body can smoothly move. It is associated with. It can appear at any stage of life, but it is especially common during periods of transition, emotional pressure, constrained identity, or chronic stress.

Bitter Greens Soup for Liver Qi stagnation by @ricepapersf on our website.

#traditionalchinesemedicine #womenswellness #perimenopause #sffoodie #perimenopause

Bitter greens soup for Liver Qi stagnation.

What is liver qi stagnation?

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the Liver system is closely tied to emotional regulation, stress response and the smooth processing and expression of emotion. The Liver is considered both a functional system and symbolic network, not just the physical liver organ. Liver qi is the functional energy associated with with this system and is connected to the ability to move through stress and keep circulation, energy, digestion, menstrual flow and physical tension in check.

When does liver qi stagnation occur in a woman’s lifecycle?

Liver qi stagnation emerges during periods when a woman must continuously hold, manage, suppress, adapt, or carry more than the body can smoothly move. It is associated with. It can appear at any stage of life, but it is especially common during periods of transition, emotional pressure, constrained identity, or chronic stress.

Bitter Greens Soup for Liver Qi stagnation by @ricepapersf on our website.

#traditionalchinesemedicine #womenswellness #perimenopause #sffoodie #perimenopause

Taiwan, approx 1949.

This American story has already begun. It follows a family of 7, soon to be 8 on a boat ride out of Qingdao, China, helmed by American navy men. One of the last boats. A family who has already weathered the Civil War and has found themselves, improbably, in front of a cameraman in Taipei, Taiwan. How he got all those children to look at the camera in unison is lost to history.

The Chengs.

Cheng Tsao Liu “William,” the grander than life tall man at the back and Liu In Shan “Pearly,” the beauty with the low-key victory rolls have shuffled their litter across an ocean to tenuous safety. The little one, searching the camera, thumb in her mouth, just like my daughter, is my mother.

This is a love story about an American family. It is a parsing of generational stewardship led by women whose wisdom and voices are carried forward by us, the descendants.

This is the journey of one family but it is the journey that thousands took.

#ChineseAmerican #AsianAmerican #photoessay #familyarchive #visualstorytelling

Taiwan, approx 1949.

This American story has already begun. It follows a family of 7, soon to be 8 on a boat ride out of Qingdao, China, helmed by American navy men. One of the last boats. A family who has already weathered the Civil War and has found themselves, improbably, in front of a cameraman in Taipei, Taiwan. How he got all those children to look at the camera in unison is lost to history.

The Chengs.

Cheng Tsao Liu “William,” the grander than life tall man at the back and Liu In Shan “Pearly,” the beauty with the low-key victory rolls have shuffled their litter across an ocean to tenuous safety. The little one, searching the camera, thumb in her mouth, just like my daughter, is my mother.

This is a love story about an American family. It is a parsing of generational stewardship led by women whose wisdom and voices are carried forward by us, the descendants.

This is the journey of one family but it is the journey that thousands took.

#ChineseAmerican #AsianAmerican #photoessay #familyarchive #visualstorytelling

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©2024 by Dr. Sarah Kwan, PhD

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