The chapter opens with a flashback to the previous chapter, in which the two women are in the middle of a conversation. The narrator tells the audience that he has just returned from Hong Kong, and that he and his wife have been separated for a long time. He tells the reader that he is now living in Hong Kong with his wife and their two children. He also tells the story of how he was separated from his family when he was a child, and how he has been separated from them ever since.