Tai Nai Nai
Tai Nai Nai (“great-grandmother”) was my father’s grandmother. My father talks about her with a great deal of respect, even though he has never met her: “My grandma was a fierce woman. Even the garlic she minced was spicier than others!”
“What was her name, ba?” I asked my father over dinner once.
“We don’t know.” He popped a fried peanut in his mouth and started chewing.
Ever since I left China in 2008, I’ve not found any place that serves fried peanuts like home: the nuts themselves are crispy but substantial; the red skin is touched with just a little oil to make the salt grains stick. The correct way to pick up a fried peanut is with your chopsticks, of course. When you do, the airy skin falls apart, taking most of the salt with it. You don’t gently put the peanut in your mouth; you “pop” them in with a quick turn of the wrist.
Years later, when my attendings told me to “turn your wrist” while suturing during surgery, I whispered to myself: “Just like popping a peanut in my mouth.” Then, I was less nervous.
And when I traveled far away from home, the taste of fried peanuts and many other foods became home for me. And I longed for them. The peanuts were my father’s favorite dish to go with rice wine — the high-potency, spicy, aromatic Chinese liqueur. After a few sips of wine, he was always ready to tell stories about my ancestors.
“What do you mean you don’t know her name? She was your Nai Nai!” I reached for the fish on the dinner table, but my hand stopped mid-air.
“Well. Women didn’t carry names. We think her maiden name was Cun (存), as in ‘existence,’ but we could be wrong.” My father sipped some rice wine and went back to peanut chewing.
Tai Nai Nai was a Mongolian woman who married into another Mongolian family. The Mongolians had complicated long names. After the Qing Dynasty ended and power was handed over to the Han government, everyone had to put down a simplified, one-character last name on their new national IDs, along with an ethnicity. “Zha” became our surname because it resembled the sound of the first syllable of my great-grandfather’s first name. And somehow, we became Manchurians instead of Mongolians.
The change of times meant a loss of identities. Stories were the only things left to tie a family together.
No living person in my family can tell me what Tai Nai Nai looked like. Even though the stories about her always come up amid rice wine and fried peanut-laden dinners, my father has never met Tai Nai Nai. She died before he was born.
But apparently, like me, she had big feet.
“Your Tai Nai Nai had a pair of silk shoes with a hand-sewn flower pattern. After she passed, they kept her shoes under our bed. They were too big for any other woman to fill in the family.”
photo taken in the San Antonio Museum of Art, 8/27/2023 — a pair of Manchu women shoes that resembled my Tai Nai Nai’s shoes under the bed
Tai Nai Nai’s shoes weren’t the only things about her that were too big to fill.
In the winter of 1926, Beijing was just starting to approach freezing temperatures. Tai Nai Nai was taking an after-lunch walk in the neighborhood. Beijing was a small town back then. Everyone knew everyone.
So, when an unfamiliar pregnant woman walked by, Tai Nai Nai immediately sensed something was off. Having had multiple children herself, she could tell the woman was almost due to give birth. What was she doing taking a walk on her own, being nine months pregnant? Was she new in town? Does she know any midwives?
“Mei Mei (younger sister), have you eaten lunch yet?” Tai Nai Nai approached the woman. In many Chinese dialects, every younger person is a younger brother or sister who needs our protection; and every older person is an older brother or sister whom we must respect. And asking about satiety is a common way to greet someone.
Surprisingly, the woman turned a cold shoulder toward Tai Nai Nai, pretending not to hear.
This confirmed her suspicion that something was not right. Everyone answered Tai Nai Nai’s friendly greetings.
“Mei Mei, when is your due date?” Tai Nai Nai followed her.
In the neighborhood, Tai Nai Nai was a prominent figure. She was known for her “warm heart” — if anyone needed something, they knew to knock at the “Old Zha” family’s door and ask for the wife in charge.
My father said Tai Nai Nai was also fierce. She had to be. She was the oldest of three siblings. She had a younger sister and a younger brother, whom she had to bring up. They didn’t dare to raise their voices in front of her. She had an unknown number of children. My father’s father was referred to as “number six.” And there was an aunt whom everyone called “number three.” But my father doesn’t recall ever seeing any other aunts or uncles. This probably means Tai Nai Nai lost at least four children. To what, we don’t know.
People didn’t talk about death. Maybe it was superstition. Maybe because it was so common. When the family visited the graveyard during Qing Ming festivals, everyone burned money-shaped thin papers and talked to the dead.
“May you have peace, and may you protect those of us who are living. We give you all the money you may need and hope you live a rich life underground. Next year, we will bring you more.”
The night before the visit, the whole family sat around the dinner table and cut up papers like our parents taught us. Yet no one really knew who the paper money was precisely for. For the unnamed dead. For the ancestors.
Tai Nai Nai became the matriarch when her son married and she finally had a daughter-in-law. If the daughter-in-law misbehaved, she slapped her.
“A daughter-in-law is a willing servant for three years; then she is an unwilling servant for the rest of her life.” An old Beijing saying has it.
Women’s lives were not easy back then. When they became someone’s wife, that was all they existed for. They moved in to live with their husbands’ families and worked within the homes.
To rule as the matriarch, you had to endure years of discipline from the women who came before you, starting with your mother-in-law. Then, when the time was ripe, you got to rule if you were respected enough.
Sometimes, you earned the respect by being fierce: when a younger woman under you behaved badly, you were the first to slap them. This served two purposes. One, you showed everyone you knew the rules of the house the best and, therefore, had the right to correct anyone who didn’t follow them. Two, by being faster than the men in the house to react, you protected your daughter-in-law from much heavier hands.
Photo taken in 2019, Cuan Di Xia village.
The strange pregnant woman unknown to the neighborhood nodded, still evading questions.
“You must have already hired a midwife, then?” Tai Nai Nai asked.
“Where I’m from, we don’t use midwives. We give birth to babies at home by ourselves.” The woman answered before quickly walking away.
By yourself? That doesn’t seem right. Tai Nai Nai started to worry about her.
For the next few days, Tai Nai Nai progressively expanded her after-lunch walking route and listened for the cry of a newborn baby or a woman. Manchurian women didn’t bind their feet. So, with her big, unbound feet, Tai Nai Nai walked briskly.
A few days later, on her early afternoon “patrol,” she passed by a courtyard house she hadn’t noticed before. That was when she heard the cry of a newborn. The mei mei from out of town must have had her baby already! She thought to herself.
But there was something abnormal about the cry: it was weak and starting to become faint, as if the baby had been crying for days.
Where was the mei mei? Was she OK? Shouldn’t she be rocking the baby back and forth? Feeding it? Changing it? Singing to it?
Something was definitely wrong. And when things went wrong, Tai Nai Nai was always the first to act.
She ran around the courtyard house and saw that the door was not locked — something not so unusual back then. She went inside without knocking. There was no time.
Photo taken in 2019, Cuan Di Xia village.
What happened next was a story that had been told by three generations before me. It has become a family legend. And like any legend, the line between truth and imagination is blurred — each storyteller added more “spice” to the story. As her offspring, we all paint Tai Nai Nai how we imagine her to be.
“Even her minced garlic was spicer than others.”
Tai Nai Nai followed the baby’s weak cry to the living room and saw that all the windows and doors were open. A cold wind rushed through the empty courtyard and directly into the living room table, where the baby was left with only a thin layer of clothing. The sky was threatening to snow.
She ran toward the baby, wrapped the loose blankets around it, and picked it up.
“Shh, shh, good baby, good baby.” She tried to soothe the baby while looking around for his mother.
At one corner of the room, in the dim light, there sat the crying mother.
After the baby stopped crying, the room became eerily quiet. No one said anything at first.
Tai Nai Nai knew what was happening. She recognized loss and desperation when she saw it. And she wasn’t going to let fate take charge.
Tai Nai Nai took a step forward cautiously toward the woman, not knowing what she might do. She held the baby tight to her chest.
“Mei Mei, are you…Are you leaving the baby to die?” She cut to the chase.
The woman from out of town came to Beijing to follow her husband, who was sent to the frontline of the Kuomintang–Communist Civil War right before she arrived. She was determined to keep looking for him. But she couldn’t do it with a newborn baby. The baby had to go.
None of the storytellers in my family blamed the woman. No one said much about her. It was understood through the absence of words that she had no choice. And I believe it to be true.
Tai Nai Nai looked at the baby boy, who was cold and withering away, then looked at the shadowy figure hiding in the corner of the empty house. She did something she had only done to her ancestors at the graveyard and her parents on her wedding night: she kneeled on the floor.
男儿膝下有黄金。“There is gold under each man’s knees.” We say in Chinese. This means kneeling is an action as precious as gold. Tai Nai Nai was not a man. But her knees were at least worthy of good silver, too.
“Mei Mei, if you trust me, I am from a good family. I can take the baby and raise him for you. Please spare his life.”
The wind was still howling on that cold Beijing winter day. Dried leaves in the courtyard whirled on the ground, making a shuffling sound as if hurrying life along. Chill crept from Tai Nai Nai’s knees to her spine. She held the baby tighter.
It must have felt like forever before the woman nodded. Tai Nai Nai couldn’t see her face but could make out the movements of her head. It was probably for the best.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Tai Nai Nai struggled to stand up while holding the baby with both of her arms, trying to warm up the baby with her heartbeat. It was an effort that couldn’t be interrupted.
“Our surname is Zha. It’s an uncommon name. Zha, like ‘to stab’. Ask around. All the neighbors within the miles know us. If you ever need anything from us, just come. Ask for Old Zha’s wife. You have my word.”
Old Zha’s wife with the warmest heart.
As Tai Nai Nai pushed open the big wooden doors of the courtyard, she turned to face the woman again: “Mei Mei, take heart; we will tell your son he had another pair of parents, but we will treat him as our own.” Those were the last words the two women said to each other for the next seven years.
You have my word.
And those were the words of gold.
Tai Nai Nai only had one living son. And her sister had no son. So, the boy was taken in immediately as the apple of their eyes. He is my great-uncle. We are not related by blood. But there is more to family than blood.
My great-uncle took the surname of Tai Nai Nai’s sister’s husband, Li. Great-grandfather Li was a private chef for a wealthy family in Beijing. He didn’t have much money but made enough to raise a boy and send him to school. And going to school was the privilege of only first-born sons. As promised, great-uncle always knew he was adopted. But it made no difference to him. Everyone spoiled and loved him.
When great-uncle was seven, his birth parents visited for the first time. The woman from out of town eventually found her husband, who became a businessman after he retired as a soldier and made a name for himself.
They asked for the “Zha family, Zha, like ‘to stab.’” Everyone knew in the neighborhood who they were referring to. “The Old Zha and his wife! That way!”
The couple came bearing gifts: a bag of white sesame and a bag of peanuts. People could only afford peanuts once a year during Chinese New Year. And white sesame? Many had never even seen a whole bag of it.
“Jie Jie (older sister), we came to see your son.” The woman choked up as she put the emphasis on the word “your". If you don’t want us to see him, we understand. We only ask you to tell him he has another Ba Ba, whose last name is Chen, and who will leave half of all he has to him after he dies.” The couple cried and begged.
But Tai Nai Nai’s sister didn’t want the couple to meet great-uncle. She only allowed them to watch him from the front yard.
Great-uncle was tall for his age, like his Mongolian cousins. He looked healthy and robust. And when he got thirsty from playing, he ran to Tai Nai Nai and said: “Da Ma (older aunt)! Da Ma! I need some water!”
Tai Nai Nai wiped the sweat off his forehead with her sleeve while he gulped water. Her eyes filled with love and pride. Then she snuck him a small piece of pastry. “Don’t let your cousins see it. Eat it quickly. Now, go play!”
Pastry from Beijing my mother brought me, 2023
Then, the couple saw that Tai Nai Nai upheld her promise.
“We are indebted to you forever and ever. Thank you for raising our son.” Kneeling, the couple put their heads onto the ground by Tai Nai Nai’s big feet.
“So, did great-uncle get the inheritance from his birth father?” I asked my father, popping peanuts into my mouth. The nutty, oily, and salty aroma filled my heart with curiosity for ancestral mysteries.
I have never met my great-uncle, who moved out of town soon after the Revolution. He recently reunited with my father, who calls him uncle. He is 97 years old now, still robust and healthy. He eats like a youngster. He plays Er’Hu. And he still loves his pastries.
My great uncle Li, age 97, playing Er’Hu.
“He sure did! After Mr. Chen died, half of his inheritance went to my uncle. He and his children live a comfortable life.” My father smiled, which he rarely does, and raised his small rice wine cup for a toast.
“To the unnamed ancestors.” He said.
“To Tai Nai Nai!” I poured my juice into a small rice wine glass, joining the ceremony at the dinner table.
Unlike the men, Tai Nai Nai couldn’t leave any inheritance because she didn’t own anything. She wasn’t even entitled to a name of her own. No one possesses a photo of her. Her silk, flower-patterned shoes were eventually lost, too.
Yet she exists through the family legend:
Tai Nai Nai was tough but unconditionally giving;
warm-hearted and always decisive.
She was a gritty Mongolian woman,
who wore shoes too big for anyone to fill in the family.
More importantly,
Tai Nai Nai did what was right and stayed true to her promises.
She spoke words of gold.
Her name was Benevolence.
And we are all her legacy.
