One day – while doing his own housework – Ma realised he wanted to better understand his mother. He gave her a blank notebook, and asked her to fill it with the unfiltered truth of her daily life. Less than a month later, she’d filled it with quotidian details, about her love life, her friends, her work; “at once a confession and letter to her son”, as Ma describes it.

“I knew she could be quite daring, so I can’t say I was surprised by what she wrote. However, the drama of middle-aged love was a lot more intense than I expected,” Ma says. “As time passed, though, I couldn’t help but be in awe of my mother, who’d written her story with such honesty at her son’s request.”