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My parents were always going on about fate. Sometimes I wondered if this fate thing was just something adults made up to make themselves feel better, like the tooth fairy.
“It means a mistake isn’t always a mistake,” he said. “Sometimes a mistake is actually an opportunity, but we just can’t see it right then and there. Do you know what I mean?”
According to her dad, there were two roller coasters in America—one for rich people and one for poor people. On the rich roller coaster, people have money, so their kids get to go to great schools. Then they grow up and make a lot of money, so their kids get to go to great schools.
“Just a second,” he said. Before I could even realize what was happening, he took one of the $5.99 pencils and told the cashier to ring it up. “Dad, what are you doing?” I asked him. He ignored me and handed the cashier six dollars—the entirety of our recycling money that day. I watched the whole thing unfold with my mouth open. Outside the shop, my dad kneeled down so that he was my level. “You are not a bicycle,” he said. My eyes searched his. “Do you understand?” he asked. He reached down, took my small hand, and opened it. He put the new, expensive pencil in it.
In China, people do not split the bill. It’s considered very rude to do so or to not pay for a friend. As a result, people routinely got into fistfights in restaurants as customers pushed and shoved one another for the bill.
“I promised when I married you that I’d take care of you,” he said in a small voice. “And I’ve failed you.” I sucked in a breath. I looked over at my mom, who sat there calmly, a hand draped casually over her wound. “Quit feeling so sorry for yourself,” my mom said to my dad. “I’ll decide when you’ve failed me. And you’re not even close.”
Free means innocent until proven guilty, not guilty no matter how innocent.
There was awkward, and then there was taking-a-shower-next-to-your-teacher awkward.
The median annual income in 1989 for Chinese immigrants in the United States was only $8,000—lower than that of any other immigrant group.3
Later, some of these immigrants would go back to China and not recognize the country they left. They would not recognize their brothers and sisters, in their designer clothes and handbags. Their brothers and sisters would not recognize them. Neither would the new Chinese immigrants, who would arrive in business class and not understand why anybody would ever turn to the loan sharks.
