“When all you read about is stories about people from elsewhere, it is easy to wish to be elsewhere, particularly when one’s lived reality seems bleak and decidedly unrosy.”

— “Where Is Hong Kong Literature When We Need It Most?” Electric Literature

“It is always a wonder: an extravagance of blossoms emerging overnight, the shade of lilac — not quite violet but a gentler pastel — so rarely encountered in nature, gracing the intervals of leafy avenues. A gentle surprise. You step out one cool morning to be greeted by their fully-dressed splendour, and that is when you know the interminable, tepid winter has finally ended, and there will be no more evenings spent bundled up in sweaters indoors: spring has arrived in Mexico City.”

— “Notes on Jacaranda Season” Shanghai Literary Review

“You had lived through the great earthquakes of 1957 and 1985 and 2017, and now you took your time reaching the ground while our street shifted and staggered beneath our feet. You were 101 years old, you told me later, and I marvelled at the physical shape you were in; another time, you told me you were 89.”

— “To the Señora on the First Floor” Panorama

“So idyllic, so picturesque; we were blocks away from where an Oscar-winning movie was filmed. It was a childhood I never had, in the city where real estate was too precious to be ceded for children’s play. I remembered that my father never invested his money: he believed investing was money made without generating any real value to society.”

— “The Property Bug" Invisible City

“Now that I’ve attempted to recreate the dish, I’m still convinced it was not make-believe, although whether the citrusy addition was of my own invention or co-created with my father, I’m no longer so sure.”

— “On Nissin Ramen” BAIT magazine