Tag Archives: Letters from China

This series, Letters from China, honours my 80-year-old mother, and thousands of Chinese migrants in her generation. This series honours millions of Chinese people who strived to create a better life. I translated the letters my mother received from China during the 70s, 80s and early 90s. These letters revealed love and loss, old world and new world, struggles and strength, and dignity of the people who lived through the last century.

Letters from China: Part 2

38 Replies

My mother returned to her ancestral home in China for the first time after 40 years on a big ship from Singapore in 1979. “I was very dizzy for the whole 7-day journey.” How big was the ship? I wondered. “Oh,” my mother recalled, “it was so big that some pigs were on board too.”

My mother could see from her room on the upper deck some pigs eating their left-over food. Continue reading →

Letters from China: Part 1

29 Replies

This week, I’ll share with you some letters from China.

My mother left Fujian, the poverty-stricken province in the south of China in the late 30s, and arrived in Singapore a few weeks later, after surviving the turbulent journey of the South China Sea. Continue reading →