Last Tang Standing

by Lauren Ho

Why did mothers always think that if they recited random details about a person you’d never met in your life, you’d somehow magically know what they were talking about?

Problem is, you can’t just shake off centuries of cultural mindfuckery that tell you that you are nothing but a sandworm without the benevolence and sacrificial love of your parents, who fed your worthless child self and molded you into the acceptable, if not exceptional, adult that you are, and that the only way you can ever hope to repay them is if you take the hopes and dreams your parents had for you and gently but surely stuff them down your brain hole, make them yours, and realize them, or betray your parents and burn in the special place in Chinese Hell for unfilial children while eager but inefficient Chinese demons disembowel you ad infinitum. And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the concept of Filial Piety.

I have to actually work for a living in a crappy job like the rest of the world, using 80 percent of my waking hours to eke out a living just so I can enjoy what’s left of my week for the remaining 20 percent and not be homeless.

Maybe I was approaching love and relationships all wrong, ascribing foolish romantic notions to what was essentially a very quantifiable commodity. Maybe I should take a leaf out of her book and just find someone Good Enough.

How is anyone supposed to stay slim in this job once you are past your twenties? Everything just congeals in fat rolls stored in the thighs and around the waist, in internal fat purses that your cells now carry.

cw: fat-shaming / body-shaming (unchallenged)

Linda’s paternal family tree was an off-brand Marcos (or so it was rumored); the family had substantial interests in several mining and timber companies, with land to burn in Borneo.

Does the author not realize how fucked up it is to liken her character to... a corrupt, power-hungry political family who literally had citizens killed and stole billions from their country?

“So I’ve been told. It’s part of my charm.” Without missing a beat, Eric said, “No, it’s not. You have much more going for you than your anxiety.”

Not a hashtag, acronym, emoji, slang word, abbreviation, contraction, typo, or bad punctuation or grammar in sight. What a man.

Well, just wait till the lawyers of the Gen Z cohort are unleased upon the world. Forgetting to capitalize will be the least of anyone’s concerns.

Ah, so this is why people hate millennials.

We both like oysters, for example, and democracy (Eric’s family fled China in the ’60s). Surely that is a good enough basis on which to start a relationship.

“Are we friends?” I said, also rhetorically. “I would hope so. You and me against the world, two foreign talents in a pod,” he said softly, his face getting closer. “You’re my biggest competition. I shouldn’t let my guard down with you, it’s dangerous,” I whispered, leaning in— “Vous avez arrivé!” the taxi driver announced suddenly, shattering the mood.

LMAO THE ROMANTIC/SEXUAL TENSION IS NONEXISTENT. WHAT ARE Y'ALL EVEN TRYING TO DO. YOU CAN'T FOOL ME.

“So what?” Linda shouted back; she was very fond of raising her voice, Linda was. “He seduced me in the first place. I wasn’t even interested in him when I first met him, you know. I thought he was just like any other rich fuck. I thought he was fat.”

cw: unchallenged fatphobia

I got ready with the enthusiasm of a detainee going to a forced labor camp.

cw: mention of labor camps. Genuinely, what the fuck.