Red Pockets: A Tale of Inheritance, Ghosts and the Future

by Alice Mah

'Part of me knew what the hungry ghosts wanted all along, what they still want. It is not vengeance. No, they want something else, but we refuse to listen. They want us to face up to our broken obligations.'

Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people return to their home villages in China to sweep the tombs of their ancestors. They make offerings of food and incense to prevent their ancestors from becoming hungry ghosts that could cause misfortune, illnesses and crop failures. Yet for the past century, the tombs of many overseas Chinese have been left unattended because of the ruptures of war and revolution. Following a record year of wildfires, Alice Mah returns to her family’s rice village in South China, ninety years after her grandfather’s last visit and fifty years after her last relative died in the village. While she finds clan members who still remember her family, there are no tombs left to sweep. Instead, there are incalculable clan debts to be paid.

In Red Pockets, Mah chronicles her journey from the rice villages of South China to her home in post-industrial England, through the Chinatowns of Western Canada where she grew up, to the isles and industry of Scotland where she now lives. As years pass and fires rage on, she becomes increasingly troubled by her ancestors’ neglected graves. Her research on pollution gives way to growing eco-anxiety, culminating in a crisis of spiritual belief.

A haunting blend of memoir, cultural history and environmental exploration, Red Pockets confronts the hungry ghosts of our neglected ancestors, while searching for an acceptable offering. What do we owe to past and future generations? What do we owe to the places that we inhabit?

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Environment, Biography Memoir, China

240 pages, Hardcover

Published September 9, 2025

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It is no small thing to realise, not just in mind but in spirit, that the Earth is collapsing. To see the heavy debts that you owe. And to understand, finally, the limits of knowing. For what difference does knowing make?”

In 2017 a grant for research into global petrochemical industries and environmental justice unexpectedly enabled academic Alice Mah to travel to the clan village where her great-grandfather had once lived. Ancestral roots tourism is a popular industry in China but Mah wanted to go beyond that and find some way of forging a lasting connection to her family’s past. Deliberately detached and descriptive, Mah wanted to avoid summary judgements about the people and the cultures she encountered, the first section details Mah’s journey to the Cantonese county Taishan. It’s a trip intended to recreate one taken by her great-grandfather Mah Gee Su in the 1920s when he left Canada to accompany his dying wife back to China. But Mah’s challenging experiences in her ancestral village echoed those of many overseas Chinese visitors or sojourners (Huaqiao). After China opened up and the first visitors in search of their families’ past arrived, their interest in history often became tangled up with projects aimed at attracting their investments, encouraging spending on rebuilding former family homes, shrines and clan halls. This emphasis on the financial rather than the intimate or personal overshadows interactions between Mah and the villagers she encounters. They seem more intent on exchanges based on obligation, in receiving offerings - particularly gifts of money in the customary red envelopes/pockets (dongbao).

But Mah also arrives during Qingming – start of spring and the farming season – the traditional time for tomb-sweeping. In keeping with Chinese folk beliefs these are ceremonies centred on tending to forebears’ graves to ensure they aren’t doomed to exist as hungry ghosts, restless and malicious. And it’s this image of her neglected ancestors as hungry ghosts that will remain with Mah. These images somehow link to Mah’s underlying confusion over her identity, who she is and what forces have shaped her: moving between Canada and Britain combined with her mixed heritage have imbued her with a deep-seated sense of rootlessness. In China Mah’s Scottish mother, means she’s not even regarded as Chinese. But growing up in Canada she found herself fending off questions about her origins, her right to consider herself Canadian. She’s uncertain about where to call home.

Once Mah’s back in Coventry, where she lives and works, this notion of being at home versus being adrift dominates Mah’s thoughts. But there, as the impact of climate change intensifies, and the pandemic then takes hold, it becomes interwoven with something distinctly unheimlich. Uncanny dreams, an impression of the eerie take hold of Mah’s fevered imagination. The everyday with its subtle and not-so-subtle harbingers of environmental crisis elicits increasingly-overwhelming sadness, impressions of dislocation and disconnection. Eco-anxiety mingles with intense ecological grief – I found Mah’s depiction of an all-pervasive unease incredibly moving and disturbingly relatable. There is something unheimlich about the world we currently inhabit, and it’s this that Mah’s confronted with: bringing up questions about how to live once aware of a reality of mounting losses from species extinction to disappearing coastlines compounded by news of relentless destruction, spreading violence and genocidal warfare.

For Mah, her emotions also hark back to concepts of obligation and inheritance. What debts might be owed to past, present and future generations – and to the very space she inhabits. Mah grapples with how to fully acknowledge and confront the state of things without mentally or physically collapsing or adopting evasive strategies that lead to denial and political paralysis. Mah visualises the hungry ghosts as the embodiment of these menacing thoughts and emotions, relations between material and spiritual. The final section of Mah’s unorthodox, arresting memoir which becomes her offering, is focused on healing strategies - moving forward, laying her ghosts to rest. She doesn’t come to any easy resolutions or conclusions – there are none - instead there’s a focus on the provisional and the possible: on community, on activism, on spreading information and on embracing small pleasures. The realisation that the past is past and Mah’s attention has to be given to what’s needed in the present and what’s owed to future generations.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Allen Lane for an ARC

Rating: 3.5

[Rebecca]

I got halfway through. I borrowed this because it was on the Wainwright Prize for Conservation Writing shortlist. During the Qingming Festival, the Chinese return to their hometowns to honour their ancestors. By sweeping their tombs and making offerings, they prevent the dead from coming back as hungry ghosts. When Mah, who grew up in Canada and now lives in Scotland, returns to South China with a cousin in 2017, she finds little trace of her ancestors but plenty of pollution and ecological degradation. Their grandfather wrote a memoir about his early life and immigration to Canada. In the present day, the cousins struggle to understand cultural norms such as gifting red envelopes of money to all locals. It was easy reading but slightly dull; it feels like Mah included every detail from her trips simply because she had the material, whereas memoirs need to be more selective. I was vaguely reminded of the works of Jessica J. Lee.

[akacya ❦]

2025 reads: 338/300

i received a complimentary audio copy as part of libro.fm’s influencer program. i am leaving this review voluntarily.

in this book, the author details her journey from the rice villages in south china, to her home in post-industrial england, through the chinatowns of western canada where she grew up, and finally to the isles of scotland where she now lives. she becomes increasingly troubled by her ancestors’ neglected graves and by her research on pollution. mah explores what we owe not only previous generations, but future ones.

i’m going to be honest and disclaim that i read this book on a plane, and plane reads are always sort of a hazy memory to me. however, i do remember finding it interesting how well mah blended personal memoir, cultural history, and environmental politics. this was such a unique book, and one i can definitely see myself rereading at some point.

[Jen Burrows · Rating 3 out of 5]

Red Pockets is an intriguing memoir, weaving together ancestry, climate change, and our deep connections to the land. Mah's exploration of these themes is thoughtful and evocative, offering a fresh perspective on how personal and environmental histories intertwine, with her climate anxiety acting as a palpable undercurrent.

However, I found the themes are a little undermined by the book's disjointed structure. The jumps across time, place and pace can be confusing, making it harder to fully engage with the overarching themes. While the ideas are compelling, it felt like a more cohesive narrative might have given them greater impact.

*Thank you to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review*

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10 - a bit of a slower read, but insightful memoir into a blend of issues across climate change, Asian heritage, family life, belief systems, identity and grief. Poetically written at points - references to Buddhism and climate anxiety resonated the most with me!

[Mai H.]

Memoir March TBR

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Bond Street Books

[Katrina Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a philosophical, haunting and topical memoir of race, environmental crisis and what we owe our own familial and personal legacies.

Alice revisits her ancestral home, tracing a sparse family tree to a community where her ancestors once lived and their graves remain untended. Questioned and questioning, she struggles to understand what it means to connect with these roots and honour those who are lost.
She explores these Chinese, and also Canadian, Scottish and English places that she and her family have lived.

Interesting features that I want to think more on include:
-The concept of ghosts, reemerging trauma
-Her Buddhist philosophy
-Language barrier in her understanding what gifts the Mah clan ask of her
-Petrochemical pollution
-The experience of COP and loss of hope
-The tax on Chinese immigrants in Canada
-Her son's questions and her balance of honesty and protection
-The physical sensation of pollutants on the body
-Genetic predisposition and fear of Schizophrenia
-Glasgow's shipbuilding history
-Mixed race experience of her great grandparents compared to her own
-Grieving and remembrance ceremonies across cultures
-Pandemic and wildfire and freak weather experiences
-Qingming Festival
-Eco anxiety

[Michelle]

Red Pockets: An Offering is Alice Mah’s memoir, combining an exploration of her Chinese cultural heritage and environmental justice. The book begins as she returns to her family’s ancestral home in China, and moves from there to her life in England, interspersed with her work in environmental studies. I don’t give star ratings for memoirs, but I do know that I was largely disappointed by this book. It had all the things I love from a non-fiction, but fell flat since it read disjointedly, hopping from place to place, thought to thought. I sort of got the sense that the author was mad at or embarrassed somehow by her Chinese roots, although I did find her quest to find their ancestral village fascinating.

[SneakySquid · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting memoir of finding your place, what it means to connect to your history as a immigrant and some climate activism. There are plenty of impactful quotes and beautiful writing throughout this short novel.

Personally, I enjoyed the first half of the book much more than the latter portion. It starts off with Alice reconnecting to her roots. But struggling with cultural taboos, and unspoken rules of a society she is tied to but not part of. As someone with mixed backgrounds from strong cultures this experience is difficult. We lose so much culture through generations. It's jarring to experience it yourself and accepting you'll never be from your ancestors motherland is tough.

The exploration of what it means to be Chinese Canadian and the culture developed here is a nice counter to the struggled she faced in China. There would have been a benefit if she truly embraced or accepted either side. Chinese or Chinese Canadian. But, ultimately it feels like there is a discontentment with being Chinese and she ran to her other ancestors instead. While some may not agree with this. This is a real struggle many mixed race individuals face and seeing it played out and not figured out was refreshing.


While there is something to be said for the climate change portions. It felt a little tacked on and out of place. Just to say it because the author herself is in the field. It is another conversation that needs to be had. But, this book would have benefited from choosing it's path and sticking with it.

[W.S. Luk · Rating 3 out of 5]

"There is a bridge between divided worlds, a place where all spirits can rest without sorrow. [...] I Keep searching for this place, which is neither inside nor outside myself. When the wind blows just right, I edge a bit closer."

Prompted by returning to her ancestral village in China, Mah's book explores the issues of heritage and personal identity that unspool from this encounter. I feel this memoir's blurb may do the book a disservice: based on its description I expected it to deal closely with questions about the climate crisis and our relationship with past and future generations (and Mah does write fascinatingly about moments such as losing her sense of smell due to exposure to pollution), but these themes ultimately felt peripheral to the author's discussion of issues such as her rediscovering her family history and dealing with anxieties during COVID, with the book at times taking on a stream-of-consciousness structure rather than possessing a single thesis. These topics are written about engagingly, but I'd probably have enjoyed RED POCKETS more if it'd been framed as a more loosely-structured narrative of personal rediscovery or connection with ancestry and environment.

[Mihiret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such an interesting, complicated book and far more than a straightforward memoir or travel narrative--it is complicated in all the right ways, as the author continues to ask questions and find new layers throughout the writing. It begins with Mah returning to her family's ancestral home in China with her cousins, trying to find someone who remembers her great-grandfather and great-grandmother. But Mah is not just a descendant seeking ancestors and trying to untangle what she owes them; she's also a researcher on environmental devastation, specializing in petrochemicals, and she cannot walk through the current village looking for traces of the complicated past without noticing all the ways the future is also being poisoned. The book then becomes partly an exploration of what we owe our ancestors (especially those who might have become hungry ghosts), but also what we owe those who come after us as we move through mass extinction. It's a book that makes readers question their own complicities and blind spots. I recommend it.

Thanks to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for my free earc. My opinions are all my own.

[Violet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I expected a book about a mixed-race Chinese-Canadian woman visiting her Chinese ancestors' village, and it was that and so much more. Alice Mah is a sociologist and academic who focus on the environment, industrial development, petrochemical contamination... and a large part of this short memoir focuses on her climate anxiety and her desperation at every "once a century" climate event, from fire to flood to contaminated rivers. It was bleak, her constant thoughts about the planet being echoed by the Hungry Ghosts of her Chinese ancestors, her obsessive monitoring of the news during Covid finding a bit of peace here and there, outside or within a community of friends sharing the same fears. I think I loved this so much because it found me at the right time, in a period where I also moved and feel disconnected from others around me who don't seem worried about the planet as much as I am. It's a very reflective book and it is beautifully written, I will probably re-read it at some point.

Free ARC sent by Netgalley.

[Penelope · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed learning about the Chinese traditions at the start of the book when the author returns to her ancestral home in China, though she seemed to be negative about everything, making me wonder why she was planning to return. I'm not sure how I feel about a half white woman complaining about a traditional culture she has little experience with, even if it her own ancestry. I also enjoyed the parts about her grandparents in Canada during the goldrush. However, I found the parts about covid, the author's childhood, and pollution tedious and the author didn't seem to have anything new to say on the last topic, despite apparently being an academic in that field. The book felt like it should have been longer, both in length and containing the author's second trip to the village. We are left with hanging questions about cleaning the graves and paying the villagers.

If anyone is interested in hungry ghosts, I recommend Lisa See's Peony in Love instead.

[Zzzannie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected from the description.
It reads like the travelling journal of someone suffering from transgenerational trauma and mental illness. The author seems to draw a parallel between her “ghosts” and the state of the planet (she is an environmentalist). However, the retelling is mostly focussed on her feelings and interpretations of situations where ghosts and pollution are harming her.
While I appreciated the retelling of her trips and reading about her quest to understand where she comes from, too often I felt uneasy reading parts of the story, especially when she recalls travels with her son or methods she has tried to feel better (which always left her worse it seems). Guilt is a recurring theme in this book and I did not understand how/if the closure came at the end.
I finished the book because it was an ARC (thank you Goodreads and Bond Street Books), but it left me confused and uneasy.

[Ula (avibrantmind) Kaniuch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually loved the flowing nature of this memoir. It doesn’t follow a neat, linear path, but that made it oddly relaxing to read, like being in conversation with a thoughtful friend who moves easily between stories of family, history, and climate change.

What stood out most to me were her reflections on returning to her ancestral home and feeling both deeply connected and also an outsider. The tension of expectations and culture. As an immigrant myself, that tension felt familiar. It’s a book that feels both soothing and fascinating at the same time.

*ARC*

[Luigia Polegato · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy red pockets and found the parts about the rural Chinese culture interesting, and the parts about climate change made me think about things, however I did find that it was a little all over the place and hard to keep up with at times.