Chinese Fish

The story is told from Cherry s perspective, the oldest of the four children of Ping, long-suffering wife to the third son Stan. They run a fish and chip shop until a stroke disables her husband, and Ping and her children have to find other ways to support themselves. Cherry struggles with the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings especially the rage-prone meat-cleaver-wielding Baby Joseph. And Grandmother, relocated from Hong Kong against her will, finds herself bewildered by her grandchildren: a brood of defiantly monolingual aliens.

Narrated in multiple voices, including archival fragments and scholarly interjections, Chinese Fish takes place in the overwhelmingly white monocultural world of Aotearoa New Zealand from the 1960s to the 1980s. It offers a glimpse into the lives of women and girls in a community that has historically been characterised as both a yellow peril menace and an exotic model minority .