Dial A for Aunties

Meddelin or Meddy Chan is the protagonist of the novel. She is very close with her family—mainly her mother and aunts—but struggles to balance her perceived role in the family with her own goals and dreams. Meddy feels guilty about putting any distance between herself and her female relatives, believing doing so would be to “abandon her family,” a “heartless” act (2-3). She also fears being abandoned herself, though she initially attributes this fear to the family “curse,” which allegedly causes all the men in the family to leave or die. As a result, she fails to commit to her relationship with Nathan after college. Instead, despite her own wishes, she breaks up with him and agrees to join the family wedding business as a photographer.

Surrounded by overbearing women, Meddy is shy around them and rarely stands up for herself or voices her own opinion. While she is proud of her Chinese Indonesian heritage, she is also self-conscious about how her culture and immigrant social class differ from the perceived “norm.” She is therefore reluctant to introduce Nathan to her family. She is also aware of her own distance from her culture, most clearly reflected in her lack of fluency in any language other than English.