The Wangs vs. the World

by Jade Chang

Women, she realized, were scared to be assholes. And what is any artist, really, but someone who doesn’t mind being an asshole?

America was a great deceptor. Land of Opportunity. Golden Mountain. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. But inside those pretty words, between the pretty coasts, was this: Miles and miles of narrow-minded know-nothings who wanted no more out of life than an excuse to cock their AK-47s and take arms against a sea of troubles.

It pained Charles to imagine their matrimonial bed; the groom would probably squeeze his bride into a doughy, complicit ball and just gnaw at her, grunting and drooling all the while.

Americans and their endless capacity for offense had always perplexed him. “Some Chinese do eat dog! So what? American all eat pig, and pig just as smart as dog! If something is good to eat, why not eat it?”

There it was. It wasn’t advice; it was gratitude. “Thank you for giving me a good life,” said Charles, to his children, to his wife whom he had known since she was almost a child. “A beautiful life.”

Charles struggled to hold on to the receding world, to the knowledge that his loves, the four of them, were all around. Love burned bright white in him. A glow, aglow. The world began to slip from his grasp. Earthquakes. Floods. Infidelity. Betrayal. Failure. The fields burn and the next harvest is assured. The world destroys itself and we rebuild it. The destroying is as important as the rebuilding. There can be as much joy in the destruction as the rebirth.