Van Pao-Te, 60, suspects he’s ill. But he won’t go and see a doctor. Instead, he accepts an invitation to Japan. He takes his son Dy-Chi with him, telling him he wants to explore a business opportunity. Dy-Chi soon finds out his father has other motives for the trip - he is looking for someone.

Haunted by the memory of an absent father who abandoned him 50 years ago, Van Pao-Te goes in search of a man. Or the memory of a man. Maybe it’s a last chance to understand. Maybe it’s just a goodbye… Van Pao-Te walked a different path to his father, though some might say he walked no path at all. But how could he be as irresponsible as his father had been? Just disappear and leave the family in the care of a ten years old boy? No. He was determined to spare his son the heartache that he himself had had to bear. But how then should he treat his son, whom he wants to protect, but also needs to make brave?

As the pair head to Japan, Newman arrives from Hong Kong. Persuaded to come over at his ‘Auntie’s’ insistence, his appearance is somehow related to Van Pao-Te’s past. As with Van Dy-Chi, an unknown truth awaits him…

Father to Son is a story about origins - of fathers and their sons; of people cast adrift from their past; of searching for the past in order to find a future. And of a small island alone in a great ocean...