Crossings

A 10-year-old struggles with what filial piety entails.
A secretary is asked to take over her takeover boss.
Two seekers brave a storm for the world’s best Hainanese chicken rice.

Crossings: The Best Hainanese Chicken Rice And Other Life Dilemmas gathers 12 tales of ordinary people thrust into predicaments, often of their own making. At these critical crossings, their choices can reshape their futures in unexpected and irreversible ways. Though the short stories are bookended by events in a café, they traverse a wide array of settings: from a judge’s sombre chambers to the perilous rooftop of a mansion and the eerie calm of a cemetery. The characters wrestle with dilemmas such as addiction, prospective partners and personal bankruptcy, offering windows into the complexities of modern life. At the heart of these tales are weighty moral questions, as varied as pro-choice/pro-life, the death penalty, and the tangled threads of social justice. Yet, the characters remain deeply relatable – flawed, driven by their desires, and doing their best to navigate life’s uncertainties. Each story invites reflection on the pivotal crossings we all face. They remind us that even the smallest action can ripple into unforeseen consequences – sometimes quietly, sometimes explosively.