Strasbourg – La Capitale de Noel

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Strasbourg has declared itself the capital of Christmas, aka la capitale de Noel in French. Chris says that no one can really claim that about themselves, but hey, Strasbourg was bold and decided f- everyone: we can call it like we see it and believe it! Strasbourg is one of the capitals of the EU. It has gone back and forth between being a part of Germany and France, and now, it’s currently part of France and is located right at the France/Germany border. It is famous as being one of the least French cities in all of France, and of course, for having some of the most magnificent Christmas markets in all of Europe. Its Christmas markets are one of the oldest in Europe, going strong since the 1570s, and now stretches over 300 markets stalls across the entire city. Strasbourg’s Christmas tree is known as the tallest decorate Christmas tree in all of Europe, and with all the half-timber houses lining the city, it is beyond picturesque during Christmas time. And with all the gorgeous reflections of lights and half-timber houses along the Rhine River, walking through it has felt like a fairy tale adventure.

We’ve been lucky and privileged to have visited various European Christmas markets for the last 11 years, except for 2020 (pandemic) and 2021 (when I was pregnant, then Kaia was born). We started in Hamburg and Berlin, Germany, in 2013, moved onto Vienna (2014), multiple cities across Switzerland (2015), Brussels, Brugges, and Amsterdam (2019). And this year, we’re in Paris and Strasbourg for their Christmas markets. I do not say this lightly since I never rank or have favorites for places I’ve visited: Strasbourg is likely one of the very best European Christmas market destinations we’ve ever visited; in my opinion, it really lives up the self-declared “Capitale de Noel” designation. Berlin and Hamburg were truly epic with a flying Santa with his reindeer and sleigh in Hamburg (!!) and endless, humongous, and elaborate weihnachtspyramide, or Christmas Pyramids. And here in Strasbourg, it seems like almost every house, shop, and building decks out its facade for Christmas, with Christmas themed teddy bears, Christmas lights, holly, wreaths, and endless ornaments. The markets all have local, Alsatian handmade goods, lots of edible delights (oh, the food at these markets is better and far more varied than in Germany given the French influence!), so there’s lots of fascinating, intricate, artisan-crafted goods to see as eye candy (or purchases, if your luggage has space). And the Christmas tree in Place Kleber – oh, my goodness. It’s likely my favorite Christmas tree of all the European Christmas markets we’ve been to. It’s so, so tall, and it has lots of interesting ornaments and lights that change different colors. Every 30 minutes to an hour, the lights “dance” to a light and music show that is a medley of familiar and favorite Christmas tunes. And my favorite part: it has little gingerbread people all over it! I just loved this tree SO much!

Sometimes when I walk through these markets, I feel like a child again, wide-eyed with wonder at all of the beautiful twinkling lights, mouth-watering scents, and all the fun and festive vibes emanating around me from both tourists and locals alike. I suppose each and every one of us adults has an inner child in us. But oddly enough, as I’ve gotten older each year, I have felt even more like a happy, innocent child at these markets, admiring the simple joys and pleasures of life and taking it all in like there might not be a tomorrow.

Third time in France

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When I was young, I used to have all these fantasies and idealizations of France as some paradise on earth, where people simply understood la joie de vivre (“the joy of living”) and lived life to their fullest. But as someone who is about to turn 39 and nearly entering her 40s, I have realized as an adult who is only getting older that there’s really no such thing as a perfect or ideal society, that every city, country, and place on earth has its tradeoffs. You cannot have one great thing without sacrificing another. The things I love about France can also be the things that frustrate me about it, in the same way that the things I love about the U.S. are also the things that make me absolutely detest it and want to run from it. But alas, that certainly does not mean I do not love France and look forward to every visit here. I feel very lucky to say that I have visited this beautiful and delicious country three times now. It’s one of just a handful of places on earth where I feel like I need to save extra luggage space for all the delicious things I want to bring back home with me (not to mention all the incredible French skincare finds that are so much cheaper here!).

We spent the last day in Paris unexpectedly given my unanticipated ER visit and a delayed arrival in Europe. I got to visit Paris’s Chinatown for the second time (the first time was for Chris’s cousin’s wedding back in October 2015), but this time, we actually got to explore it. We found Chris’s cousin’s ex favorite durian cake spot and got some durian flaky pastries to enjoy. I noticed how much more Vietnamese than Chinese the neighborhood was. Paris’s Chinatown doesn’t look at all like any other Chinatown I’ve been to in that 1) it’s not really that Chinese, and 2) it feels more like a suburban neighborhood where everyone gets around by foot, but the shops, stores, and restaurants don’t really live on a main street or drag. Rather, they are all spread out just within blocks of each other for you to stumble upon.

One interesting thing I learned while looking at how Asian foods, particularly breads or “bao” are labeled in France is that they basically call all bao (soft, fluffy milk bread/buns) “brioche.” When I think of “brioche,” I think of a very specific type of extremely soft, buttery French bread. But “brioche” in France, it seems, is used a lot more loosely. They use it to label all Chinese buns, likely because Chinese bao (good quality ones) are all light, fluffy, and soft in your mouth. This kind of tickled me and gave me some more insight into the French language. My grasp of French is pretty poor now, but it has been coming back to me being surrounded by it here for the last day, and I’ve started remembering basic phrases and have been able to understand what people are saying to each other based on context. But I do love learning nuances of linguistics, especially of Chinese and French because they are the two languages I have formally studied.

When your toddler doesn’t understand what’s happening and still shows love

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Being in the ER was no fun. It was also frustrating because I spent so long there, just over six hours, when I was originally told I’d be there for about four hours end to end. And not knowing whether I was going to be able to make our original flight was unnerving from a logistics standpoint. But what was cute was seeing how Kaia responded to all of it. The night before, when it was evident that I found it challenging and painful to speak and eat, I tried to explain to her in my croaking whisper voice that I wasn’t feeling well and that I needed to rest in Chinese. She responded back in Chinese, “No, I want mama to be comfortable. I want mama to be comfortable!” It was really sweet and almost made me tear up to see how affectionate and concerned she was being.

While spending almost all Saturday at home when she expected to head to the airport, Kaia got upset when Chris tried to get the both of them dressed towards the end of the day to pick up soup and yogurt for me since I couldn’t eat solid foods. Kaia had a melt down and started screaming and crying, saying she didn’t want to go to the airport without Mummy. “We need to wait for Mummy to come home! We can’t go to airport without her!” she cried. My heart almost broke when Chris told me she said this after I got home from the ER.

I hope Kaia is always filled with this much love, affection, and empathy. These are the moments I absolutely love — seeing her grow and blossom and show how deeply human and compassionate she is as a growing tiny person. It would be a shame not to write all these moments down and document them to share with her once she is older and able to see how far she has come. These are the special moments that make me realize exactly how lucky I am to experience motherhood and having a child — a truly beautiful child, inside and out.

Peritonsillar abscess and a fun trip to the Emergency Room

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I couldn’t sleep on Friday night because of the pain. I had my eyes closed while in bed from 8:45pm to 3:30am, wondering when the heck I would fall asleep. In between, I’d take sips of warm water and go to the bathroom to pee. When I woke up at around 7:30am, I knew I was not feeling any better… and in fact, I was feeling worse. I just had this gut feeling that this was far more than just HFM or tonsillitis. I went into the bathroom and shined my phone flashlight on the inside of my throat. The growth on my tonsil had not only gotten redder and bigger, but my uvula (you have one, too! It’s that little hanging ball in the back of your throat!) was completely pushed to the side due to the lopsided growth on my left tonsil. Having a “deviated” or lopsided uvula is very dangerous and is a reason in itself to go to the ER. The health article that outlined what “peritonsillar abscess” was basically gave me a bullet by bullet list of every single symptom I’d had this week, down to the very clear diagram of the abscess and how it creates a deviated uvula, which is how my throat looked! I felt worried and did not want the worst happening to me while traveling abroad. I needed to get this addressed ASAP, as in that morning.

I told Chris I had to make an urgent care visit, so he set me up with an appointment Saturday morning just a few blocks from our apartment. I walked over and was lucky to be the first person seen when they opened. The doctor took a look at me, listened to me discuss my symptoms in a near whisper (it hurt even more to speak that morning), and immediately told me I had to go the ER and explained what I had, which was exactly what I suspected: a peritonsillar abscess. She wrote me a note to get admitted to the ER. I walked over to the hospital’s emergency department and got evaluated right away (in times like this, I’m so grateful I live just one block over from a major hospital!). I did NOT foresee myself going to the ER this week… in fact, other than getting admitted into the Obsetrics department overnight at Lenox Hill in 2021, I’d never gotten admitted into any hospital ever, so this was a bit scary to be told I had to go to the ER right away.

Even though I was the first patient admitted to the emergency room that morning, end to end, it still took 6+ hours before I did all the required tests, blood draws, IVs, medications, treatments, and was finally discharged. Two doctors were assigned to me and attempted to drain my abscess after my cat scan revealed an abscess on the left side of my throat that was about three times the size of a quarter. They were unsuccessful, so they had to page a ENT specialist on the other side of the hospital to assist. It took him almost an hour to come, but I was so thankful when he did. He was really friendly and polite, explained everything very clearly to me, listened to everything I said and treated me with respect. He even insisted I just call him by his first name, Peter (that was very non-American of him; all doctors here always introduce themselves as Dr. “Last Name”!). He gave me two painful numbing shots with huge needles (!!) in the back of my throat, then proceeded to drain the abscess, or at first, attempted and failed, as well. Then he had to keep re-aiming and moving the needle (oh, what joy!) to get into the right spot. Even with the area numbed, it was absolutely miserable. Then, he did a rather large incision and fully drained the last bits. And as if THAT were not enough, with the two major areas where he drew out pus, he had to inject sodium chloride to cleanse the open wounds, and that was truly the cherry (or the scream) on top. The cup that held all the pus was pretty hideous; part of me wishes I took a photo of it just to document all the crap I’ve gone through in my motherhood journey as a way that I can tell Kaia, “See? This is how much Mummy loves you! Look at what I had to deal with because of you!” The entire process with the ENT, end to end, was over 30 minutes. Thirty miserable, intense, awful minutes. I wish this experience on no one, even all the people in my life who have knowingly wronged me.

All three doctors marveled over how well I dealt with the abscess draining. One of the attendings chuckled and said that women overall handle it far, far better than any men, but I probably was the best patient when it came to not moving, squirming, or screaming. The ENT doctor insisted that I must have extremely high pain tolerance because I never once asked him to stop or slow down, even when there were more difficult parts. They said that unfortunately, peri-tonsillar abscesses are actually relatively common. They see anywhere from 5-7 cases every week, and occasionally even more. Nothing really puts you more at risk for it (other than being around young kids, ahem). They say that perfectly healthy people just get it, and that it’s really just bad luck. They’re just happy that I came in today as opposed to waiting longer because in the absolute worst cases, the abscess spreads and could cause pneumonia or even SEPSIS.

I always laugh when people talk about high pain tolerance. I went through IVF, pregnancy, pregnancy sciatica, and a completely unmedicated labor and birth. Plus, I survived 14 months of breastfeeding that included pumping as well as two horrible milk clogs, one of which, to this day, still has a remaining scar on the side of my breast to remind me of my breastfeeding woes. If I am not on the top of the pain thresholds for humanity, then I don’t know who the hell is other than those really sad, unfortunate souls who have been tortured and raped in wars or nearly burned/beaten to death and still living.

So I finished my antibiotic IV. They checked my face and throat for swelling. I kept spitting out endless mucus and blood from my drainage and incision. They gave me two prescription painkillers, an antibiotic, and a steroid to take for the next 6-10 days. I got discharged at 4pm yesterday after over six hours in the ER, and I went to to the pharmacy to pick up my meds. And then I finally went home to Chris and Kaia. Chris spent much of the afternoon on hold trying to change our travel itinerary, and I’m sure Kaia was angsty because she had to stay home all day. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for them not knowing what was going to happen next with my ER discharge time constantly changing. They originally told me I’d be out by 2, best case, but I didn’t end up actually walking out until just past 4. We’d never have made our 5:30 flight out of JFK in time.

It’s okay, though. I’m happy I acted on my gut and went to Urgent Care, and then the ER, to get this abscess addressed and drained, plus the medications I needed. It means we’d have one day less in Europe, and we ended up having to cut Luxembourg entirely out of the itinerary. But now, we do have more time in Paris and the same amount of time in Strasbourg. I can’t really complain about having another night at home to rest, or an extra day to explore Paris.

This is yet another grim, painful reminder to me how important health is, and how it really trumps all else. If you don’t have your health, you truly have nothing else.

Travel while sick

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“Are you excited about your Luxembourg/France trip?” my friend happily texted me yesterday morning. I grunted when I saw her message.

I felt like a poor little rich girl when I saw that message. I should be happy that I have this fun European Thanksgiving trip filled with Christmas markets across three cities the next week. But honestly, nothing is that exciting or satisfying when you are not feeling well, especially when it’s a challenge to talk, eat, and breathe. Going on a trip, especially for over a week, means I have to pack and organize all my stuff. It means that I have to pack and organize all of Pookster’s stuff. It means I have to think about which bags/rollers to take and which not to take. It’s a mental load that when you are sick, is not very fun. Oh, and then I realize that I didn’t even compile lists for things to do/eat while in two out of three of the cities, so I had to spend time doing that yesterday.

At least one fun thing I did between preparing for the trip and napping is watching cooking videos (hi, Kenji and Pailin from Hot Thai Kitchen), and also watching people take out all their Trader Joe’s grocery hauls. I love watching people reveal their grocery purchases!

Massive growth on my left tonsil

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I woke up this morning hoping to feel better, but instead, I woke up to shine a light into my throat to discover that the HFM growth on my tonsil had only gotten larger. I cannot even open my mouth now past a certain extent without it hurting. Pushing my tongue down so that I can properly see the full growth is painful in itself. Talking hurts. Eating everything hurts. Even things you’d think would be soothing like hot liquids and soups just feel irritable. I took some honey and prescription strength ibuprofen, which seem to be helping a bit. Even breathing hurts since there’s wind that goes through your throat every time you breathe (hence… why it’s called a “wind pipe”).

Every time I have gotten sick like this because of little illnesses that Pookster has picked up, I always jokingly tell myself, “It was worth it to have a child, right? This is all making me stronger?”

Third time’s a charm with Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease

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I knew I was coming down with something again earlier this week. I could feel my throat getting sore. But it wasn’t until last night when I suddenly realized my toes and fingers felt painful in certain areas that I wondered if I had contracted hand, foot, mouth disease… for a third time? After dinner, I shined a light into my throat, and there it was: all the spots along my tonsils and back of my throat. I looked closely at my toes in the areas where I felt pain and sensitivity, and there were tiny little red dots that were painful to touch.

Here I am again, for the third time in my child’s life: with hand, foot, and mouth disease. The first time, in early 2023, I had it the worst: I had a fever, massively sore throat, body aches, the works along with all the spots that I somehow failed to notice until a doctor pointed them out to me. That was when Kaia picked up HFM from some kid in the building’s play room. The second time was summer 2023, where I had the spots and a sore throat, yet I was still functional and able to do meetings and calls, go to the gym, and do most things other than socialize in person. This time, the feeling of blades in my throat are the worst. This afternoon when having a quick verbal exchange with Chris, it felt like every word that came out of my mouth was like a cut in my throat. My fingers and toes are very uncomfortable. But the good news is that I don’t have a fever or body aches!

It’s okay, though. I’m resilient. I can get through all this. Pookster’s illnesses, even when she is asymptomatic, make me stronger, too, right? And the good news is that we still have plenty of food to eat so that I don’t have to cook. We have Vietnamese garlic noodles, roast chicken, stir-fried gai lan, as well as leftover rice and dal makhani! Hopefully, they won’t feel like blades going down my throat when I eat it all.

Hairy legs

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I had a dream that I was walking along the street with a work friend. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Out of nowhere, she points down to my legs. “Did you miss some spots?” she asked.

I stopped and looked down at my legs. WOW. I’d never seen them so hairy before. Even in the colder autumn and winter months, I still tend to shave my legs at least every 2-3 days since I go to the gym every weekday, and I prefer wearing shorts over pants during my workouts. But my legs were literally like long fuzz balls. I could barely even see the skin on my legs!

I’m not sure what this dream was a sign of. But what definitely happened next was that after my morning workout today, I definitely did a thorough shave of my legs.

Cheetos and pink soda sprayed all over me on the subway

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I’ve been living in New York for almost 16.5 years now. Before that, I spent four years coming to New York as a tourist. So in total, I’ve spent 20+ years walking the streets and frequenting the subway here across all boroughs. In that entire time, I’d never really had any type of “incident” happen to me on the subway…. until today.

I was already having an annoying day. I got my period a bit early yesterday, which led to a night of interrupted sleep due to cramps. They seemed to subside in the morning after I took some paracetamol and did some cardio and pilates at the gym. But my cramps came back this afternoon, and at around the same time, I started feeling a little feverish. But I insisted to Chris that I needed to go outside, so I’d still go out to pick up Pookster. When I got to the train station, the train was delayed; I had to wait 12 minutes for the next train to Chinatown. When I finally got on the train, it was packed. I stood there like a sardine in close contact with pretty much everyone else on the train… Until out of nowhere, I felt this cold liquid spray my back, legs, and shoes. At first, I thought the guy had projectile-vomited on me until I saw his Sprite bottle, which had pink liquid in it. And it had this strange odor… which I immediately realized was Cheetos, the fried cheese snack that I haven’t eaten since I was a kid. The guy who was holding it seemed totally unfazed with the pink soda bubbling over and flying all over the place; all he said was “oops!” And nothing more. As soon as I realized what happened, as if involuntarily, I yelled out, “What the fuck?!” and everyone around me, despite being packed, tried to make space and avoid the Cheeto-pink soda freak, who kept looking down and seemed like he was either high, drunk, or both. At least four or five other people got hit the freak’s Cheeto pink soda mixture, including a man in a suit sitting down near where he was standing, who took almost every tissue out of his pockets and laptop bag to wipe himself off; all the tissues were drenched with pink and orange. I gave him a sad look, which he shared back. All these people around us gave us sympathetic looks; one of them even gave me a light pat on the back as he exited the train. I got down to Chinatown as soon as I could, picked up Kaia, came home, and immediately took off all my clothes and threw them in the wash. I tried to scrub my Uggs as best as I could. I was NOT happy.

I love public transit. I really do, especially as someone who hasn’t driven a car since she was 21 and has never enjoyed driving. But this is one of those moments where I thought, “So, this is why people prefer their cars…”

The Vietnam (American) War from the eyes of a Vietnamese person

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In my adulthood, I’ve tried to find more books to read that would educate me about China and Vietnam, my father and mother lands, that are written from the perspective of people who are actually Chinese and Vietnamese. It’s been a pretty big mix of movies, documentaries, fiction, non-fiction, and perhaps one of my favorite book genres — historical fiction. It’s been easier to find books on Chinese culture and the Cultural Revolution. It’s been more of a challenge to find books that are written on Vietnam’s rich history (especially the French colonial period and the Vietnam War) that are NOT told from an American or European perspective, but rather that of a native Vietnamese person. Then I finally stumbled across a book recommendation in my Modern Asian Moms (MAMs) group called The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai. From the first page, I knew it would be an easy read, a real page turner of a book. And oddly enough, it was just published in 2020, so it’s a relatively recent book. Some people criticize the book and say the language is too simple since the book was written in English, which is the author’s second language after Vietnamese (someone on Good Reads actually complained that he had to look up words in a dictionary only a handful of times as a person who knows English as a second language… because apparently, that should be the barometer of “complex language”).

When I say the book was an “easy” read, I meant that it took no time to get into the story. It’s actually a really hard book to read when you think of all the brutal portrayals of hardship, death, rape, hunger, and exposure to Agent Orange and its effects on not just the people it physically touched, but future generations; one baby born in the book (this was a time pre ultrasounds) was born without any arms or legs; she had a forehead that was three times the size of her body, and she died within seconds of being born. But it made me realize even more how flawed the western portrayal of the Vietnam War was, as it was nowhere as simplistic as it was taught to me in school. There were people in the North who were recruited to the Southern Army and vice versa. There were many people who were pro French and actually reaped plenty of benefits of French colonialism. And there was a mass re-education camp that was like a prison after the war, which pretty much everyone on the Southern Army was forced into. The land reform of the 1950s created immediate violence and destruction across all of Vietnam; people who were wealthy were stripped of everything they owned and many were executed publicly and brutally.

I thought about what my mom said about growing up poor and the contradictions of the stories she shared. Her dad, my paternal grandma, died when she was only 6, from choking on his own mucus. But he was a highly educated man who was fluent and literate in both Vietnamese and Chinese. She said in her younger days, her dad was a respected “high official” in government. What that meant for her family once the war started, I’ll never know because my mom doesn’t like to talk about it. I don’t even think she’d like to know I’m reading books on Vietnam or the war at all. She seems to want to wipe all that out of her memory, which is not unlike many others who lived through that difficult period in Vietnamese history.

There are two protagonists we shift point of view from in the book: the grandma in the 1950s and her granddaughter in the 1970s. The grandma says, “Do you understand why I’ve decided to tell you about our family? If our stories survive, we will not die, even when are bodies are no longer here on earth.”

It’s the stories of our families, of our lives that keep people alive. And though I’ll probably never fully know my mom’s stories of Vietnam, I’ll have sources like this historical fiction book for me to lean on for at least a glimpse of what she experienced.