Xiaoan Life Stories

On a typhoon night in 1986, only a security guard and the last crew preparing to leave remained in the ferry terminal. Chow Chi-ming descended the wet stairs to the engine room and first noticed the cooling pump vibrating more urgently than usual. The gauges remained within the safe range, but the return-water temperature was wrong. He did not declare a fault. He asked a colleague to power the backup pump and spread the logs from the previous three shifts across the workbench. Across three pages were two small changes others had missed: oil pressure had fallen by less than half a mark while the return-water temperature kept rising. With the wind striking the hull, he made the shutdown decision in fifteen minutes and recorded every judgement in his pocket notebook.

Chan Yuk-lan first opened her suitcase in Hong Kong in a cramped guesthouse near Sheung Wan Pier. It was not heavy: two sets of clothes, a tape measure, four letters from her sister, a family photograph and a folded piece of blue cloth from her mother. Outside, people argued in Cantonese. She understood none of the words and could only guess from their voices who was urging whom. On the first night, she spread the blue cloth over a wooden crate and ate her meal there. The makeshift table gave the narrow room a boundary. It also taught her that home is sometimes not an address, but a piece of cloth one instinctively knows where to lay first.