As it happened, I was also reading Searching for Billie by Ian Gill—a book thick with Eurasian themes (the author identifies as one himself) and steeped in the history of Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation. It was the ideal reading companion for someone in the middle of portraying a character from that era—though I’ll admit, nothing makes you question your own identity like reading a book that unpacks it for you.

I’ve found myself in Kaiping—a speck of a city in southern China, two hours from Guangzhou, known more for the people who’ve left it than the ones who’ve stayed. One suspects the place never quite recovered from its most brilliant export: the huáqiáo, or returning overseas Chinese, who came back with foreign educations, expensive suits, and enough money to build themselves European-style watchtowers—diāolóu, they’re called—by the dozen.