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[REVIEW] “The Weight of a Family Name: Mimi Kwa’s House of Kwa” by Hilda Wong
Mimi Kwa. House of Kwa, ABC Books, 2021. 368 pgs.
「家家有本難念的經」: “Every family has a scripture that is too difficult to chant”. Growing up in Hong Kong, this proverb has been woven into our collective consciousness, a quiet acknowledgement that behind every closed door lies a story too complicated to tell.
Mimi Kwa’s memoir House of Kwa opens a door to her tangled and bittersweet family history; it captures the ambivalence of family life, the love that coexists with pain, and the pride that is inseparable from embarrassment. Part family saga, part historical investigation, and part personal reckoning, the book invites us to sit with the weight of a family name and reflect: what are we inheriting from our ancestors, and what are we choosing to leave behind?
It is the detonation of a lifetime’s worth of bottled emotions, unspoken grievances, and family dysfunction.
“Kwa v Kwa… Dad was suing me.” A grenade of gut-punching words that Mimi Kwa tosses at us in the prologue makes us wonder what could drive people to turn against their own flesh and blood. Yet the “Kwa v Kwa” lawsuit only arrives after 342 pages of meticulously narrated family history. Unassuming yet foundational, these pages trace the slow-burn staging of a battle that has been brewing for a long time. The fact that it takes three-quarters of the book to reach the pivotal “Kwa v Kwa” moment implies that “Kwa v Kwa” is never merely a legal battle: it is the detonation of a lifetime’s worth of bottled emotions, unspoken grievances, and family dysfunction, like a volcano rumbling beneath Mimi’s life and the Kwa family.
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The Kwa name begins as a crown worn with pride and prestige during the Late Qing Dynasty.
Across the four generations, the Kwa name tells a story of rise and fall.
The Kwa name begins as a crown worn with pride and prestige during the Late Qing Dynasty. Mimi’s great-grandfather is a prominent silk merchant from Beijing’s elite class who claims to be a direct descendant of the emperor of China. The Kwa name is essentially a brand of prestige and a symbol of elite status, marking class, quality, and belonging.
Then comes Ying Kam, Mimi’s grandfather, who fathers thirty-two Kwa children with his many wives and builds a fortune of material success, expanding the glory of the Kwas.
However, the tide turns in the third generation. Francis, Mimi’s father and an immigrant to Australia who survives racism and hardship, manages to build his own “empire”, Mandarin Gardens, a hostel in Scarborough. Alongside his business success, Francis’s constant lawsuits against others earn him the reputation of a “vexatious litigant” around the neighbourhood, bringing shame and embarrassment upon Mimi. This embarrassment runs so deep that even the number plate on her father’s car, reading “KWA”, becomes a source of inescapable discomfort, and she avoids mentioning her family name during her secondment.
And yet, Aunt Theresa, Francis’s elder sister, is an alternative to Francis Kwa within this generation. Generous, kind, and loving, Aunt Theresa is the beacon of light that Mimi aspires to become. Aunt Theresa is also portrayed as a representative figure of female independence in an era that was still conventional and patriarchal. After the war, Aunt Theresa becomes an air hostess at a time when the job was filled with prestige and glamour. She builds a life of remarkable success and independence, becoming a sparkling, free-spirited, and saintly role model for Mimi.
The glory of the Kwa name may not survive three generations, just as the proverb Mimi quotes, “Fu bu guo san dai”「富不過三代」 (Wealth does not sustain beyond three generations) (p. 31). The proverb speaks not only of material wealth but also of honour and the pride that a name carries. But still, Kwas such as Aunt Theresa and Mimi prove that the Kwa name can still carry something beautiful: generosity, independence, and love.
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The two main sections of the book, OLD KWA and NEW KWA, illuminate the generational divide at the heart of the memoir. Mimi titles the first section “龍的傳人, Descendants of the Dragon”, honouring her ancestors, and the second “外柔內剛, Mouse on the Outside, Tiger Within”, capturing her quiet but fierce determination to survive.
The “Dragon” persona is vividly embodied by Mimi’s ancestors, whose influence has passed down through generations. In the Chinese zodiac, “Dragon” holds the most power. But in House of Kwa, it also symbolises terror and uncontrollable rage. The book cover itself features a dragon and a tiger locked in combat, a visual metaphor for the Kwa v Kwa mentality. It frames the clash between Mimi and her father, the struggles between the old, patriarchal weight of the Kwa name and the new Kwa who seeks freedom from it. Mimi is the tiger, fighting against family influence and the “Kwa madness”.
The “Kwa madness” is the pattern of behaviour, way of thinking, and emotional trauma passed down through generations of the Kwa family. The manifestations of the “Kwa madness” are extreme control, impulsiveness, emotional coldness, and pragmatism, most noticeable in Mimi’s father, Francis. Mela, Mimi’s mother, though not a Kwa by blood, also contributes to the “Kwa madness” through her undiagnosed schizophrenia. “I watched as my mother throws herself in front of a moving car” (p. 179). This memory captures the chaos and unpredictability of her early years.
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More devastating still is the lawsuit Francis files against Mimi. “Kwa v Kwa” is the Dragon versus the Tiger made real in the Supreme Court of Western Australia. Francis asserts Aunt Theresa’s legacy belongs to him instead of his daughter. A father suing his own daughter is the ultimate betrayal and a complete breakdown of family loyalty and trust. The lawsuit leads Mimi to confront not just her father’s betrayal but the entire landscape of her childhood. It was the breaking point that sent her spiralling back through years of pain, displacement, and unresolved emotions.
“Everywhere I go, I am different, even at home—especially at home.”
Growing up in Australia as a Chinese-Australian, Mimi’s childhood is filled with racism, her father’s “Kwa madness”, her mother’s mental illness, and the trauma of sexual assault. This pressure and helplessness drive her constant rebellion during her teenage years, as well as her suicide attempts. Mimi drifts between Perth, Melbourne, and Hong Kong, never quite belonging anywhere. She constantly navigates cultural differences, from whether to take her shoes off indoors to deeper questions of identity and belonging. As she states, “Everywhere I go, I am different, even at home—especially at home” (p. 179).
But even in the darkness, there are always lighthouses. Mimi finds emotional refuge in Aunt Theresa and her school friends who bring a sense of comfort. This includes the times when Mimi visits Hong Kong and spends time with Aunt Theresa and her helper, Bridgit. The guidance, influence, and kindness of Aunt Theresa become a reason for Mimi to feel proud to be a Kwa. Mimi also finds solace in her half-related younger brothers; she satisfies their wishes and pours into them the love she has always wanted. This is her way of overcompensating for what she misses out on because of Francis’s complexities: sometimes we give others what we never received ourselves. Her efforts to instil happiness are an attempt to break the cycle, redefining what “Kwa” can mean. Mimi proves that creating a different kind of legacy is a deliberate choice.
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… it is also a time capsule that offers a rare glimpse into the old China and Hong Kong under Japanese occupation.
House of Kwa is more than a family saga; it is also a time capsule that offers a rare glimpse into the old China and Hong Kong under Japanese occupation. We have all heard the familiar horrors: the desperate act of eating tree bark to survive starvation, random shootings, sexual violence targeting local women. But Mimi’s memoir reveals how the upper class in Hong Kong survived the occupation. It uncovers an entirely different set of survival skills and tensions compared to the widely known experiences.
Francis’s mother, Ng Yuk, hosted mahjong for the Japanese officers. This was not entertainment but a calculated survival tactic: to create a “protective buffer” for her family, to remain close to the seat of power, and to gather information that might influence her family’s fate. She is also vigilant in protecting her daughters from the predatory gazes of the Japanese officers. The stark phrase “Collaborate or die” becomes Ng Yuk’s guiding philosophy. To her, collaboration was not betrayal, but a strategy in an impossible situation. Ng Yuk’s philosophy demonstrates the pragmatism of survival when choices are a luxury. This chapter of history prompts us to reflect on how fortunate we are to live in a world where choices are taken for granted.
Some details in the OLD KWA section feel too vivid, almost surreal, as if Mimi had been there herself. But these details, whether fact or embellished memory, successfully capture the many facets of Hong Kong that no longer exist: a world of polygamous households, traditional superstitions, and complex family structures that have faded into history. For Hongkongers today, like me, the book resonates deeply, as it adds layers to the many tales I grew up hearing.
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More than a memoir, House of Kwa also reads as a quest for Mimi to understand her family legacy and why everything unfolds as it does, the “Kwa way”. The book unearths buried family stories and confronts an uncomfortable past. The memoir becomes a form of therapy, a way of processing pain. Mimi closes the memoir in the epilogue:
When the dragon closes his eyes for good one day, I will know that tiger and predator reached an understanding of sorts and a kind of peace in the end—one that could really only come about from telling my story in order to let it go.
The book is an act of reclamation, reclaiming the Kwa name for herself. Across the narrative, we witness the evolution of the Kwa name in Mimi’s life: how she adapted to being a Kwa, what the name truly meant to her, and, ultimately, how she chose to redefine it. House of Kwa proves that trauma need not be a life sentence; we can always choose to heal and create a legacy that is truly our own.
How to cite: Wong, Hilda. “The Weight of a Family Name: Mimi Kwa’s House of Kwa.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 7 Jul. 2026, chajournal.com/2026/07/07/kwa.
Hilda Wong is an undergraduate student in the Department of English Language and Literature at Hong Kong Baptist University, with wide-ranging interests in multicultural writing, speculative fiction, Modernist literature, and postmodern and postcolonial studies. [All contributions by Hilda Wong.]