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The 73-year-old Chinese Instagram star giving fans a taste of home – and a sense of belonging

  • Lan Lin cooks traditional Chinese dishes from her US home while her daughter records and translates
  • For her immigrant fans, the videos remind them of dishes they have not eaten since childhood, and of their grandmothers still in China

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Lisa Lin recording a video of her 73-year-old mother describing the savoury fried butterfly crackers she has just cooked. Photo: Nick Otto for The Washington Post

Lan Lin does not go around telling her friends she is famous on Instagram. For that matter, Lan, 73, is not really sure how Instagram works.

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Nevertheless, first-, second- and third-generation immigrants across the United States have rallied around the videos her daughter Lisa, 32, films as she cooks traditional Chinese dishes with her mother.

Lan Lin with a dish of steamed ribs in black bean sauce. Photo: Instagram
Lan Lin with a dish of steamed ribs in black bean sauce. Photo: Instagram

Although she cannot figure out why, Lan has become an online mother figure and cooking teacher for thousands of young people she has never met.

In an early video posted to Lisa’s Instagram account, Lan stands in her tiny San Francisco kitchen, sporting her favourite floral print apron and pink plastic slippers. She is making an enormous sticky rice casserole, laced with home-made Chinese bacon, dried shrimp and vegetables.

As she cooks, she explains the recipe in Taishanese, the dialect she grew up speaking in Taishan, a city in south China’s coastal Guangdong province. Lisa leans over her mother’s shoulder, recording the video on her phone.

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