Meddy Chan and her aunts’ personalities are inspired by the real members of Jesse Q. Sutanto’s family. Sutanto has many reasons for drawing inspiration from her own family, from a disdain for research to a desire to share information about Indonesia with Westerners. Sutanto, who grew up living in Indonesia, Singapore, and Oxford—and currently resides in Jakarta with her family—has “forty-two first cousins and thirty aunties and uncles, many of whom live just down the road” (Sutanto, Jesse Q. “Meet the Sutantos: How My Wacky Indonesian Family Inspired a Murder Mystery.” CrimeReads, 29 Apr. 2021). Like Nathan Chan, Sutanto’s husband, Mike, is British. Sutanto has said, “[A]side from the dead body, my large family can produce situations as wild as the ones in my book [Dial A for Aunties.] [...] They may go a little overboard, but they always remind me of how loved I am” (“Meet the Sutantos”).

Sutanto, who, like Meddy, has also worked as a wedding photographer, exemplifies her family’s dynamic with Mike through a story about an instance of food poisoning.