Buwei Yang Chao
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Buwei Yang Chao (née Buwei Yang; Chinese: 楊步偉) (1889-March 1, 1981) was the wife of the eminent Chinese dialectologist and linguist, Yuen Ren Chao. She was born in Nanking into the Yang family but was looked after by her aunt and uncle. She was sent to Japan to attend the Tokyo Women's Medical College. After graduating as a medical doctor, she returned to China where she met Yuen Ren Chao. They married on June 1, 1921. They have four daughters; the eldest, Rulan Chao (趙如蘭), helped in the writing of her book of recipes. Buwei Yang Chao is the author of two notable books: How to Cook and Eat in Chinese and An Autobiography of a Chinese Woman.
In How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, she collected over two hundred and thirty recipes. Some came from her travels with Yuen Ren. He collected dialect data from across China and often they stayed with their language informants. It was during these opportunities that Buwei would enquire about the dishes that their informants cooked. She wrote that though the recipes were not written down, she often recreated them from memory of their taste. Her "author's note" illustrated her family life with good humour and candour, also shedding some light on the great linguist himself, from his closest companion.
Buwei and Yuen Ren lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when she was writing her recipes. As her husband was also involved intimately with the Harvard-Yenching Institute, she wrote of contributions to her life from the wives of other prominent academics because of social interaction with her prominent husband.
In her second book, An Autobiography of a Chinese Woman, she detailed the eventful life she led prior to her meeting Yuen Ren, and afterwards in their travels together. Both books were published by The John Day Company, New York.
