Almost blind and orthopaedically damaged from an early age, Mary Chan Ma-Lai (1950-2000), the child of a Tanka family (the sea-borne fisher people of S.China) writes her memoirs with honesty and wry humour. She tells of poverty, hunger and casual cruelty and of those who empowered her to become a teacher, writer, international traveller and a vital force to those who knew her in Hong Kong and far afield.