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  "description": "On bratwurst and ice cream in the sun, stick shifts, and the pill.",
  "path": "/goettingen/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-19T17:04:44.000Z",
  "site": "https://laiyin.org",
  "tags": [
    "left",
    "Phở",
    "replacement",
    "a good wife",
    "Paris",
    "Sevilla",
    "boob job",
    "discharge",
    "Seoul",
    "Bordeaux",
    "tissues",
    "that",
    "I told you"
  ],
  "textContent": "By the time we were all munching Currywurst\nand fire-grilled Thüringer\nat Bratwurst Glöckle in Göttingen,\nwe had left Porto,\nfound a house in France,\nslurped Phở steaming hot in Tours.\n\nOne month still to go before our move-in date,\nI said to him:\n“Let’s go to Germany,\nfor admin,\nfor doctors,\nfor your father,\nfor your aunt and uncle,\nfor Inge.”\n\nWe left the small car in France\nand headed north,\nhim,\nthree daughters,\ntwo dogs,\ntwo cats,\nsardined into a replacement car,\nhim on the phone and online,\nbooking appointments within an impossible window:\n\nDentistry\nGynaecology\nOrthopaedics\nEndocrinology\nPaediatrics\nOncology\nOphthalmology\nDermatology\nENT\n\nI booked his family,\nfor lunch,\nfor dinners,\nfor coffee and cakes,\nlike a good wife,\nlike Lai Yin.\n\nIt’s around the Gänseliesel that everything happens.\nMy first time meeting his family.\nHim buying me walking boots\nfor my Eurorail journey,\nto Paris,\nto Venice,\nto Sevilla.\nChristmas markets,\nupset stomachs after creamed mushrooms.\nCoffee,\ncakes,\nice cream with our babies and his family,\nour first baby still in nappies,\nlying down in the middle of the Markt,\nforehead burning, \"Dada, I am sick.”\n\nThe day after occupying our Airbnb,\nPetra, my first baby, found work to pay for her next trip\nto Austria,\nto her boyfriend,\nto her first love.\nShe cleaned Airbnbs,\nscrubbed at the village butcher,\nfilmed promo shorts.\n\nBy the time we got to the gynaecologist,\nwe’d been to\nthe GP,\nthe dentist,\nordered my first pair of glasses,\neaten ngau lo mein (牛撈麵) and aap chow faan (鴨炒飯) with authentic wok hei at the Chinese restaurant across the street from Mister Spex.\n\nMe.\nMy youngest, now eight.\nPetra, my first, already active at sixteen.\nMy middle one,\nin the car with the dogs, waiting her turn.\n\nHim shuffling three clipboards,\nfilling out medical histories for\nthree of his women.\n\nMy words came fast:\n“Get the pill for Petra.\nBoth their grandmothers died of cancer;\novarian, breast.\nTell the doctor they need a Pap smear,\nultrasound,\nbreast exam.\nTeach them how to self-examine.\nDon’t forget my boob job,\nour period pain,\nmy stomach cramps.\nI want them with me.\nYes to HPV, Rubella, vaccinations all done.\nTell the doctor it’s Padme’s first time. She is not active.\nThe dates of our last periods are …”\n\nA young woman\nbehind a desk\nbehind a computer screen\ntyping, recording my medical history,\nher breasts extending to her elbows.\n\nI said: “kui hai yi sang ah? kui gam hau sang ga? (佢係醫生呀？佢咁後生㗎？)”\nHe said: “Empty your bladder, come back and sit down.”\nI rolled my eyes and did as I was told.\n\nBy the time the young doctor\nplaced my legs,\nraised my labia level with her eyes,\nshe was assisted by a senior woman, both in gloves, masked.\n\nThe young doctor\nopened me,\nthe duckbill, clear and plastic\nfilled with discharge, translucent, white.\nThe senior doctor rubbed the cotton stick around my cervix.\nI inhaled.\nI winced.\nI looked at him,\nhe held my gaze.\n\nBy the time the young doctor inserted the ultrasound probe deep,\nshe moved it like the stick shift of my first car.\n\nHe stood behind my new gynaecologist,\nlooking at the ultrasound screen,\nlooking into my eyes,\nlooking at the monitor,\nlooking between my thighs,\nher hands,\nwatching the probe buried deep,\ntwisting left, twisting right, up, down,\nreturning to lock eyes with me,\nme holding my breath,\npretending to smile.\n\nThe senior doctor\nkneaded my breasts,\nlifted them,\nheld them,\nweighed them in her hands,\nlooked underneath,\ntraced my areolae with her fingertips,\nlooked puzzled.\n\nShe looked\nat me,\nat him.\n\nHe said: “Armpits.”\nI raised one elbow above my head.\n\nThe senior doctor said to the younger doctor:\n“So etwas habe ich noch nie gesehen!”\n\nHe said: “Seoul.”\nShe said: “I cannot feel anything. Your breasts are perfect.”\n\nI said,\n“Where are the teens?\"\n\nBy the time I walked out of the examination room,\nmy first baby was watching the dogs,\nher younger sister alone in another examination room with the senior woman who assisted my young gynaecologist.\n\nThey did not let me in to be with my second baby.\nShe did not want me there,\nshe did not want her breasts examined,\nshe did not want to talk about it.\n\nWe stood outside the examination room,\nhim still filling out forms.\n\nBy the time we ordered cake and ice cream\ntopped with mountains of whipped cream\nfor him and my girls,\nsitting al fresco in the pedestrian zone with the early spring sunshine warming our faces,\nhe and the doctor agreed on the mini pill for Petra.\nI told him: “Make sure you teach her how to take it.”\n\nHe took the dogs to stretch their legs.\nEvery few steps he stopped and patiently answered:\n“ _Das sind Portugiesische Wasserhunde.\nEhemals Arbeitshunde auf Fischerbooten in der Algarve, mit Schwimmhäuten wie Enten.\nNein, nicht Mutter, Tochter, ein Paar,\nja von verschiedenen Züchtern.\nOk, bye-bye, Tschüss._”\n\nBy the time he sat back down,\nInge, the Governess who came to Hong Kong through his mother’s arrangement\nfor another German Chinese family,\njumped off her electric bicycle.\n\nMy cackle of girls surrounded her,\nlaughing, rushing, shouting,\nhair and hands waving in the air,\narguing over homemade Easter treats and gifts from Inge.\n\nMy little one asked:\n“Is this my grandmother?”\n\nInge sat down,\nhair held by a scarf,\nhands wrinkled and scarred,\nthick spectacles balancing on her nose:\n“No, I took care of your Uncle Hans in Hong Kong when he and your father were still in shorts.”\n\nMy little one shouted:\n“I was born in Hong Kong!”\n\nInge asked him:\n“Warum hinkst du?”\nHe said:\n“Just a pinched nerve.\nOrthopaedic appointment next week.”\n\nShe said:\n“Neeh! I know zis. You need a new hip like I have.\nOne week hospital,\nthree weeks rehabilitation.\nI asked for more.\nI had five weeks of breakfast, lunch and dinner in the park.”\n\nBy the time Inge pedalled off,\nwe purchased Petra’s tickets\nfrom Göttingen\nto Linz\nto Vienna\nto Bordeaux.\n\nBy the time my girls were wolfing down rare sirloins at Block House in Hamburg with his mother’s brother and his partner,\nSymi, our young water dog bitch, entered her first cycle,\nlocked in the bathroom\nwearing baby nappies slit for her tail,\nBali, older by a few months, desperate to mount her,\nseparated from his mate by two doors like an airlock.\n\nWe had been on the autobahn since 4AM for an early morning dermatology consultation in Eppendorf.\n\nWe arrived with a single appointment for my youngest.\nBy the time the doctor saw us,\nall staff and patients had heard our family history from my little one holding court;\nhe had made space to see all of us.\n\nAfter lunch, it was Instagram moments for Petra around the Innenalster,\nmore Demon Hunter tops for my youngest.\nHim behind us,\ncarrying my MCM beach bag,\nour puffy down jackets,\nhis limp.\n\nBy the time I drove us back to Göttingen at night,\nhe and the girls had fallen asleep in their seats.\nHim next to me,\nMacBook on his lap,\nglasses on his nose,\nright hand on the laptop’s lid,\nleft hand on my right thigh,\nbreathing slowly.\n\nBack in our Airbnb,\nI placed my good box of Tempo tissues on his pillow.\nI said:\n“You shower first. I left you something.\nAfter that, sleep.\nI’ve got the girls. We’ll watch TV.”\n\nBy the time he and I got back from the dentist,\nhe had held my calf,\nwhen the needle went in,\nwhen the drill screamed,\nwhen the water jet made me squirm,\nwhen I shuddered,\nhe held eye contact.\n\nBy the time he learned he needed a hip replacement,\nwe had another bratwurst.\n\nMy first baby opened the door,\nher face and nose red,\nher eyes swollen,\ntears flowing,\ncrashing into his arms:\n„Er hat mit mir Schluss gemacht!“\n\nHe took her hand: „komm, wir gehen spazieren“,\nand walked away with her, without ever stepping inside\n\nBy the time they returned, I had cooked dinner.\nShe leaned in to hug and said: „does it always hurt so much?“\nI said:\n„Yes it does.\nAlways.\nIt won’t last.“\n\nWhen she was not looking, I said:\n„I told you this would happen.\nI told her he’s not right for her.\nI told her not to go.\nCouldn’t he have ended it before we bought the train and plane tickets?\nI’m glad it’s over.\nI told you he’s not for her!”",
  "title": "Göttingen",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-12T08:31:20.778Z"
}