Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a point of convergence for romance, family ties, and unequal access across borders. Rick travels there while Ever is in Taipei, intending to see Jenna; the journey becomes a source of uncertainty for Ever and, later, an argument about whether Rick has already made his choice. The city also figures in Sophie’s wealthy family background, linking the novel’s intimate conflicts to the different resources available to its young characters.

A destination shaped by family and migration

Hong Kong enters Ever’s understanding through several family histories. Her parents had hoped to visit Fujian, where they were born and met in college, but had never been able to afford the trip. Ever knows little about Taiwan beyond its geography and the fact that her uncle Johnny, who married her mother’s sister in Vancouver, was born there. In this family map, places are carried through stories of birth, marriage, departure, and journeys that money has postponed.

The novel gives cross-border movement a material cost as well as an emotional one. Ever’s parents send her to Taiwan to learn her culture, selling her mother’s necklace to help make the opportunity possible. The family’s migration history remains present in Ever’s recollection of her father’s childhood poverty and of the immigration officers who have pursued her parents in the United States. Hong Kong, like Taiwan and Fujian, belongs to a wider network of family and movement, but access to that network is not equally easy for everyone.

Rick’s trip and Ever’s uncertainty

Rick’s absence becomes consequential when Ever learns that he has left Taipei. Li-Han drove him to the airport, and Marc says Rick is flying to Hong Kong for a few days. Ever remembers that Rick had mentioned only that Jenna’s father worked for a bank there, not that he planned to travel. With her own departure approaching, she concludes that she may never see Rick again.

The trip’s meaning remains unsettled in this moment. Ever does not know its full purpose, and the prospect of Rick going to Hong Kong makes his attachment to Jenna feel immediate even before she has a clear account of what he intends. Later, Xavier turns the journey into a pointed challenge: if Rick has not made his choice, Xavier asks, why is he with Jenna in Hong Kong? He explains that he overheard Rick arranging to pick Jenna up at the airport as she moved her flight from Taipei. Hong Kong thus becomes evidence within the characters’ competing interpretations of Rick’s relationship, rather than a neutral destination.

Wealth, distance, and unequal mobility

Hong Kong is also tied to Sophie’s family’s affluence. When Ever asks whether Sophie can come visit, the answer is that Sophie is volunteering at a horse camp for disabled children and is afraid to fly. Rick says he is trying to persuade her to fly out for a week. Ever remarks on the expense of the ticket; Rick replies that Sophie’s father is an executive at the Bank of China Hong Kong.

That information changes Ever’s response. She flushes, recognizing the disparity between Sophie’s ability to afford an international ticket and her own family’s financial strain. The contrast is made concrete through the image of a pearl necklace sold to fund Ever’s journey. Hong Kong therefore marks not only a route between people, but also the financial distance that determines who can travel easily, who must sacrifice for a trip, and whose family can make a visit possible.