Christine H. Chen was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Madagascar before settling in Boston where she worked as a research chemist. Her fiction has appeared in The Pinch, Fractured Lit., Vestal Review, Pithead Chapel, SmokeLong Quarterly, JMWW, and Best Microfiction 2024, 2025, Best Small Fictions 2024, 2025 anthologies. She is a recipient of the 2022 Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and the co-translator from French of the hybrid novel My Lemon Tree (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023). More of her stories at www.christinehchen.com.
Ah Ma’s steady, tenacious, rough hands hand me a pan masked with a film of oil to soap in the sink, let hot water soak it for an hour, Ah Ma’s mouth says, and the oil easily will come off easier, in the meantime, here are chopsticks, bowls, and cups for you to clean. Ah Ma’s mouth crunches out strings of words… Read more →