Soukei had garnered many “friends” over the years, “the taaitaai,” as she called them, rich wives of Saikeung’s associates who invited her to lunch at the upscale dim sum restaurant in Repulse Bay or to have high tea at the Peninsula. But the women wore her down with their fixation on the latest handbags, their love of island gossip and petty drama, the way they treated their amahs, their passive-aggressive competitiveness in comparing their children. They were all kind to Soukei—they had to be—but she suspected they looked down upon her for her past and said unkind things when she wasn’t
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