pui-ling lew
劉佩玲

queer, vietnamese-chinese diaspora. cook, community dream doula, narrative and cultural worker, asker of good questions, creative gatherer. student of trees, light, and water.based in lisjan ohlone land / oakland, ca

cook

I cook as a form of prayer, weaving together people, food, land, and culture.

stories as sense making and navigation

dream doula

I doula community dreams as a radical act of world-building and accompaniment.

gather & facilitate

I gather people in creative ways as forms of play to build new worlds.

let's create together

click here & share more about how you'd like to dream and scheme together.

I am my relations

I was born and raised in the East Bay, with ancestral roots in Guangzhou, Southern China. Due to war and displacement, previous generations of my family has spent time in Vietnam, Japan, Cambodia, and Canada. About a year ago, I participated in a Qi-Gong for Asian Organizers led by Sally Chang and Seanathan Chow, and it was then that Sally Chang had named that our diasporic generation is a creative generation, bridging between our ancestral homelands and the places that we now call our home. I hold this deep in my heart, as I commit to rooting in Lisjan Ohlone lands as a guest.My story of being a part of the diaspora has led me towards a path of reconnecting to our cultural and ancestral life ways. Food has played an essential role in cultural rehydration and care. Food is culture. Food is relationship to land, peoples, place. Food is care. Cooking with the Winnemum Wintu on the Run4Salmon journey recently helped bring to life cooking as prayer.I deeply believe in and feel a calling towards participating in our community by nourishing our creative spirit, through food, story, and radical accompaniment, all of which can take the different forms - cooking for protests, faciliation, consulting, and more. Some creative projects that I'm a part of include Food Culture Collective and QiKi Club.Sources of power, creativity, and rest include the Collective Acceleration community, Norma Wong, Zen, my ancestors, friendship, oaks, bay trees, and waterways, and contra and square dancing.