“Shun-Wai” by Taien Ng is a short story in which the author recounts her childhood memory of her visit to her grandparents’ place in Hong Kong when she was thirteen. Taien Ng was born in 1970 in Vancouver. Being a first-generation Canadian-born Chinese, Taien Ng did not always understand or come to appreciate her Chinese heritage. However, she still found her mother’s attitudes towards traditional Chinese practice hypocritical: while her mother constantly reminded her of her Chinese heritage, at the same time her mother is overly critical of traditional Chinese practices when they’re in conflict with her own religious beliefs, even to the point of demanding the author’s grandparents to take apart something they hold dear - the Shun-Wai.
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