I checked into a Taiwanese post-partum hotel

...and wrote about it for the New Yorker. Plus, how I'm renegotiating my relationship with the internet.

Last fall, as I was madly promoting my cookbook on social media, something very different was happening behind the scenes. I had just given birth to an actual baby and was curled up in bed at a Taiwanese postpartum hotel— fresh off of an emergency C-section, emotional, and hormonal. There, I started sketching the outlines of this essay for The New Yorker.

After many months of digesting my notes, typing scattered sentences on my phone while soothing a crying baby, and partaking in fortifying conversations with mom friends around the world, this piece is finally out.

I, on the other hand, was lounging at a luxury postpartum hotel in Taipei, leaving much of the hard work to an army of nurses. I could sleep in a fluffy queen bed, wake up to a floor-to-ceiling view of the city, and eat a hot breakfast of rice porridge, poached greens, and herbal tea. The experience was so indulgent that it felt wrong.

I kept my pregnancy completely offline because I have become very conscientious and self-conscious about what I reveal to the internet. I have not always been this careful. When I was younger, I shared my life openly on social media with wild abandon. I believed that the more authentic and raw I was on the internet, the more people would like me, the more relatable I’d be, etc, etc. But now, as a freelance writer of 15-some years, I’ve seen and experienced how menacing the internet can be— how total strangers can latch onto a singular photo or a caption or comment or tweet, and spin mad tales that spiral out of control.

I do, though, find enjoyment in infusing my personal experiences into my work and this essay was a great and cathartic way to do that. A lot has happened in the last year and this is just a small cross-section of what I have been going through.

A couple of tidbits that were left out on the cutting board:

• Postpartum centers in Taiwan are regulated by Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare, which conducts annual inspections to make sure they’re up to code.

• Taiwan’s postpartum industry is 30 years old and has the largest market per capita in the world.

• Because Taiwan has the oldest, formalized postpartum hotel industry in Asia, local consultants are flown around Asia (to China, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, HK, etc) to help set up similar centers.

• Taiwan has the lowest birth rate in the world.

• Studies have shown that human pregnancy is the metabolic equivalent of running an ultramarathon.

• According to a 1937 survey of New York City public hospitals, physicians discharged new mothers after an average of 9.4 days. That trend quickly shifted after World War II, when a baby boom decreased the amount of available beds in hospitals and maternity patients were sent home shortly after giving birth; some excused as early as 24 hours. Today, the average woman in the United States with a single birth goes home after two days.

---

On the topic of personal essays, I had another one come out earlier this year for Foreign Policy about my experience as a fixer for international media.

In recent years, as tensions between China and Taiwan have reached historic highs, foreign journalists have flocked to Taiwan to capture life inside a geopolitical flash point. In January, more than 200 journalists from 28 countries arrived to cover the 2024 presidential election. Yet many of these short-term, visiting journalists distort the reality on the ground. They depict the island as the centerpiece of a drama that they’ve already made up their minds about, often inflating tensions and asking leading questions for heightened effect. And the fixers are brought on as the stagehands, charged with providing the backdrop for pre-written narratives.

With that said, I’m off to a documentary shoot for the next three weeks. When I come back, I plan on dedicating more time to this newsletter.

Stay tuned.