LIFE

Some things only make sense years later.

The people we met when we were young, the things that happened, a choice, a few words — they all became part of who we are.

Looking back, you realise those chance moments only happened once.

A student carrying a tape recorder beside his New Zealand teacher on a 1990s university campus

ESSAY INDEX

All Life essays

01 / 11

An ageing wolf stands on a moonlit summit

Reading Power · 06Once You Are SeenFrom Zhuge Liang at Longzhong and Wuzhang Plain to Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos: a literary reflection on attention, power and what follows.Read essay →

Li Kui meets Song Jiang in Jiangzhou

Reading Power · 05FeathersSeeNZAgain Reading Power · 05: Feathers.Read essay →

Cao Cao rushes barefoot to welcome Xu You at Guandu

Reading Power · 04Before You Say ItXu You, Jia Xu and Sima Yi all moved through Cao Cao’s world of power. One kept speaking, one chose a few words, and one survived by letting others misread him.Read essay →

A woman in a pale blue gown looks across a candlelit salon

Reading Power · 03You See What They Want You to SeeA countess, two statesmen, a fixed fight and a banquet: four stories about intention and appearances, read alongside ancient Chinese wisdom.Read essay →

Liu Bei restraining Zhang Fei as Guan Yu stands nearby, literary historical illustration

Reading Power · 02Who Do You Choose?Robert Greene’s Law 2 meets Chinese history: friendship, enmity and fitness for a role collide.Read essay →

An editorial still life of Power, open pages and symbols of time and power

Reading Power · 01If I Could Do It AgainA Father’s Day gift and the first law in Power bring the author back to the man he was more than twenty years ago.Read essay →

Two adult daughters walk ahead along a wooden boardwalk at Ayrlies Wetlands, small in the distance beside a broad stretch of wetland water.

Father’s Day, 2026This Year, They Walked AheadA Father’s Day lunch at a Whitford vineyard leads to Ayrlies Wetlands, then a 5:30 a.m. phone call, congee, and a childhood memory that lingers beyond the day itself.Read essay →

The Green Island brick house more than twenty years later

Life · ReflectionThe Day We Kept Putting Our Hand UpA first New Zealand home, an auction, and the questions we did not yet know to ask.Read essay →

A middle-aged man and his younger self looking towards the coast

Life · MemoryMeeting My Thirty-Years-Ago SelfA reunion after thirty years becomes a meeting with the boy who could not use Pinyin.Read essay →

A Chinese student carrying a tape recorder beside his New Zealand teacher on a 1990s university campus

Life · Language & MigrationThe Kiwi Teacher Whose Eyes I Could Never Quite Meet AgainA small misunderstanding that echoed from Wuhan to New Zealand across decades.Read essay →

A driveway through autumn trees towards a hunting lodge

Life · FamilyEighteen: The Same Confusion, in a Different WorldA father and daughter reach eighteen in different times.Read essay →