"It starts with my mother’s hands. Her delicate skin, lined and creased, as she tenderly traces the plump cheek of my youngest son. Her lines, folding into rivers, creasing into ravines, dotting out into borders. The snowy smoothness of my son’s cheek, undulating and open to promise."

“I used to feel that being Chinese Canadian was akin to being lost between houses of separated parents, or being an alien guest of a gracious host. Through the exploration...