Photography by Hayley Palmer

A couple of Saturdays ago, I cleaned out my closet. I tried on old piano recital dresses, Halloween costumes, and Girl Guide uniforms. And then I saw my cheongsams, my traditional Chinese dresses. I could probably count the times I wore them on one hand, and all these times were before I hit double digits so they definitely wouldn’t fit now. But that got me thinking. I was sure my mom had some of my family’s cheongsams hiding somewhere. So we took them out and I tried them on. But none of them fit me. There was definitely some irony in that. The dresses that the rest of your family wore? You can’t fit them. Because you’re not really Chinese, right? You’re mixed with white and for some reason that seems to take precedence. And sure, it wasn’t that deep but it still stuck in the back of my mind. So I hung the dresses on our clothesline and took some photos. A family tree of dresses I outgrew and dresses I can’t fit from a culture I don’t totally fit into.