I felt as if I was offering him slices of my raw heart, still beating. “Have another one,” I said, hopefully, extending the tray. I watched his jaw wrestling with the thick texture of the red bean paste. I cut little slices of them, putting one onto my tongue, salted yolk first I loved the salty-sweet contrast of that first bite. Although they were a bit dented, the ornate mooncakes were still glossy brown in their plastic trays, smelling of spiced flour and rich red beans. My partner was beside me, his lanky arms draped over my bed frame as he watched me peel the cakes from their festive red packaging.
In my low-ceilinged North Dunedin bedroom, I crouched over the mooncakes that my parents had lovingly sent me all the way from Tāmaki. It was the mid-autumn festival of October 2020. I decided to stop dating white men long before I broke up with my last partner of that persuasion. When you stop looking for whiteness in yourself, you stop looking for it in your partners, writes Naomii Seah.