Buwei Yang Chao (née Buwei Yang; Chinese: 楊步偉) (1889–1981) was an American Chinese physician, writer of recipes, and wife of the eminent linguist Yuen Ren Chao.
She was born in Nanjing into the Yang family but was looked after by her aunt and uncle. She was sent to Japan to attend the Tokyo Women's Medical College. After graduating as a medical doctor, she returned to China where she met her future husband. They married on June 1, 1921. They had four daughters; the eldest, Rulan Chao (趙如蘭), helped in the writing of her book of recipes.
Buwei Yang Chao wrote two notable books: How to Cook and Eat in Chinese and An Autobiography of a Chinese Woman.
How to Cook and Eat in Chinese was written when Buwei and Yuen Ren lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts during World War II. Yuen Ren was conducting language training for the US Army and Buwei would prepare meals for the instructors using local ingredients. The wives of other prominent academics encouraged her to publish a book which would share these recipes. With the help of her daughter Rulan she prepared over two hundred and thirty recipes. Some came from her travels with her husband. He collected dialect data from across China and often they stayed with their language informants. Though the recipes were not written down, she often recreated them from memory of their taste. [1] When the recipes had been worked out, Yuen Ren wrote the text based on his wife's experience. He coined the terms "pot sticker" and "stir fry" for the book, terms which are now widely accepted. [2]
In her second book, An Autobiography of a Chinese Woman: Put Into English By Her Husband Yuenren Chao, she detailed the eventful life she led prior to her meeting her husband, and afterward in their travels together. Both books were first published by The John Day Company, New York.
She also wrote a third book: How to Order and Eat in Chinese to Get the Best Meal in a Chinese Restaurant (1974).