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I'm Wei, a freelance writer and editor in New York City who covers culture and food for publications like The New York Times, Eater, and The Oxford American. I like reporting stories that complicate our beliefs about identity.

My first book LITTLE SEED, a hybrid memoir about my family and the amazing world of ferns will be published on May 14, by A Strange Object/Deep Vellum. Pre-order it here!

I'm a co-founder of Reported Media, a branded content studio that produces social documentary shorts for Feeding America, and other clients. I'm also the editor of branded content at The New Yorker Creative Studio. Get in touch: weitchou at gmail dot com.

Recent Work

Identity Bingo! How I almost became an Asian American food memoir cliche, for Lux Magazine, Winter/Spring 2024.

The nostalgic appeal of mung bean desserts Asian American pastry chefs are making something new of the humble legume. T Style Magazine, February 9, 2024

Selected Work

The holdout. The very last restaurant in NYC’s once-bustling East Broadway Mall is hanging on, one tray of dumplings at a time, for Eater, February 22, 2023

A review of Daniel Cheek's romantic black-and-white landscape photographs, for The New York Times Style Magazine, November 2, 2022.

Make tempeh, not despair. I like to ferment my way out of existential terror, for Prism, June 3, 2022.

A town worth fighting for. The residents of Uniontown care deeply about their community. They want the rest of the country to stop polluting it, for Sierra Magazine, Feb 26, 2021.

What is lost? On an aging Taiwanese-American community in Atlanta that is grappling with what it means for their cultural and political identity to slip away, for The Oxford American, March 17, 2020.

City malaise, cured by a cloud forest? On the healing power of ferns, for The New York Times, November 30, 2019.

You've probably never had real soy sauce. On fermenting my own soy sauce and reflecting on family and inheritance, for Heated, July 12, 2019.

When you see an iceberg, everything else feels small. On what it's like to watch an iceberg melt, for The Outline, July 8, 2019.

Green mole. On snooping on someone else's summer romance and recovering from depression in Mazunte, Oaxaca, for Crust Magazine, May 23, 2019.

The unreliable reader. On Esme Wang's "The Collected Schizophrenias," for Longreads, April 4, 2019.

The good tidings of solidarity. In June, a successful unionization effort at "The New Yorker" proved to be more than a victory for labor, for The Outline, December 24, 2018.

"God created everything. Testicles too." Getting to the bottom of what it means to be a man at the twenty-fifth annual Testicle Festival, for Esquire, December 20, 2018.

Inside EastMeetEast, the controversial dating app for asians that raises thorny questions about identity What's the point of an "Asian4Asian" matchmaking service in 2018? for GQ, December 3, 2018.

New York's first sake brewery considers the art of American rice wine. A day with Brooklyn Kura, for Vogue, October 24, 2018.

Rich Chigga and the difficulties of keeping it real. Chatting with the Indonesian rapper, during his first tour in the United States, for The New Yorker, June 7, 2017.

Sour, sweet, bitter, spicy. An installation at the Museum of Chinese in America documents a quickly shifting American culture, for The Paris Review Daily, February 17, 2017.

A meeting of the fern society. After failing to save my dying fern, I decided to look for help among experts, for The Paris Review Daily, January 13, 2017.

Where Death Lies. On eating blowfish in Tokyo, for The Morning News, September 11, 2016.

Eddie Huang's spiky chronicles of Asian-American experience. On the celebrity chef's knack for capturing the subtle contraditions inherent in being Asian in America, for The New Yorker, May 26, 2016.

The baijiu riddle. Learning to love China's infamous firewater, for Serious Eats, June 2015.

Fishing for somen. How I hosted a Japanese backyard noodle party in my studio apartment, for Serious Eats, February 2015.

Collected Bar Tabs, for The New Yorker, 2016 - 2018.