Shattered Shadows of Glazed Light

In 1866, Lin Yaomei, a sixteen-year-old girl from Wuyi, bravely sailed south across the seas to find her missing brother-in-law.

After enduring countless hardships, she finally reached the mines of Ipoh, only to discover that her brother-in-law, like the other gold mountain migrants, had a family on both sides of the sea.

To spare her sister's feelings, and so her sister could keep receiving the letters and money her brother-in-law sent home, Lin Yaomei made a pact with him to keep the truth hidden. She kept that secret for nine whole years.

During those nine years, she went to work at the mines as a tin washer, wading through water to sift for tin. The work was bitter and hard. She swallowed her tears and shared only happy things in her letters to her sister, far away in their hometown.

Her sister likewise shared good news and hid the bad.

The sisters kept in touch through slow but precious letters. While the younger sister faced the risks of mine disasters and the complexities of an ethnically diverse society in Nanyang, the elder sister fought the constraints of feudal tradition and the upheaval brought by war back home.

They were twin flowers, and also mirrors reflecting two sides of life.

The letters and money the younger sister sent home helped their little family weather the storms. The elder sister's steadfastness and patient waiting were the younger sister's greatest source of strength.

The tin-washing pans in the gold mountains and the embroidery hoops back home bore witness to the sisters' lives, full of shimmering fragments and shifting fortunes.