Counterfeit

to share one’s secrets is to force others to bear your burden; to stay silent is to spare them.

when you grow up as I did, schooled in the supremacy of “face”—the figurative face, the image, reputation, honor that must be fought for and preserved at all costs—breaking free from constraints to think for oneself becomes a Herculean task.

You don’t earn straight A’s all your life without being uncommonly competitive.

All of us fixate on certain kinds of cheating, while willfully ignoring other kinds.

Ava,” she said, “that good-immigrant shit may work on white people, but it won’t work on me.

She'd gone to the right schools, chosen the right career, married the right partner, formed the right family - and made enormous sacrifices in the process, and yet here she was, thoroughly miserable, horrified by the prospect that her entire existence had been built on lies.

Those luxury brands, they’re the villains.

It’s the only place for freaks like them, hucksters, con men, unicorns, queens. Winnie is the American dream, and that’s what drives everyone mad, mad, mad—that she had the gall to crash their game and win it all.

Here in China, no task is ever deemed impossible, no demand too extreme, no deadline too tight. There’s always someone younger, scrappier, hungrier, willing to work harder, faster, longer. Need a high-speed rail station in nine hours? Or a 1,300-ton bridge in a day and half? Not

She only had to hang out with Ava a couple of times before she saw her opening. Of course Ava’s Harvard-educated doctor husband was absent and neglectful; of course she couldn’t admit that she hated being a lawyer and twisted herself into contortions downplaying her son’s developmental issues. As far as Winnie could tell, Ava’s entire life could be boiled down to this: great on paper, rotten everywhere else.

Here I am in Barneys (RIP), as the impatient, high-powered career woman on her lunch break; that’s me, too, at Saks, the indecisive middle manager who only recently started buying luxury; at Gucci, the flighty trophy wife; at Louis Vuitton, the spoiled heiress; and here at Nordstrom, my favorite of them all, I am the down-to-earth stay-at-home mom, which is to say, more or less myself.

He’d entrapped me in this house with a demon child. At that moment, the only thing that mattered to me was getting back at my husband. I wanted to make him feel as abandoned and powerless as I felt, to show him what it was like to be the one left behind.

Here, in San Francisco, surrounded by professional contacts and former colleagues, I was a lawyer on extended maternity leave, on sabbatical even—a concept that had, as of late, transcended the walls of academia and infiltrated corporate life. In the last couple of years, acquaintances had taken monthslong paid leaves to travel the world, volunteer at wildlife preserves, meditate in ashrams. Here in San Francisco, I could tell myself I wasn’t so different from them.

Given all I’ve said so far, you must be wondering why I so willingly befriended her this time around. I’ll admit that at first, I was dazzled by her wealth and beauty, her extreme confidence. I suppose a part of me was still stuck in freshman year, clinging to friends like life rafts.

Everyone has a price. The trick is figuring out what it is without overpaying.

What had once been their greatest strength--their perceived docility and obedience, their relative invisibility--had become their weakness. The narrative flipped. Now their Asian features read as scheming, perfidious, sly.

Has she left social media to focus on saving her father, or has she been detained at a resort hotel in some remote locale with no access to the outside world? Either way, all signs point to a colossal public reckoning, to the kind of scapegoating that will destroy the Maks and their associates forever—Winnie included, if her whereabouts are discovered by the government or the Maks’ henchmen, or both.

know this is hard for you to believe, but Asian families are different from white families. We don’t talk the way you all do. I mean, we talk, of course we talk, but not about our fears, our pain, our deepest, darkest secrets.

The international brands, already skittish about manufacturing their goods in China, yet unable to walk away from the cheap labor, implemented harsh regulations to combat IP theft. Leftover materials had to be accounted for down to the millimeter; blueprints were stored in industrial safes, factory rejects swiftly destroyed.

Now, I chucked my useless plastic cards on the bath mat. During my last conversation with Oli, before I’d boarded the plane, he’d said, You can’t have it both ways. You can’t drop a couple grand whenever you feel like it and then get mad at me for working to earn that money.

And I can’t say that I blame him. After all, he’d begged me not to go, and I hadn’t listened, opting instead to attempt to outrun our problems like some reckless, angst-ridden juvenile

It was simply part of the uniform, and she’d do anything to maximize profits. This singular focus and pragmatism is what made her so successful.

Stanford was full of kids like me. I had new contact lenses. I’d grown my hair long enough to braid. I was ready to be seen, and if I couldn’t have a blond ponytailed jock roommate, I wasn’t going to let the one I did have get in my way.

I asked what had brought her to San Francisco, and she said she was here on business—handbag manufacturing, boring stuff. She waved a hand laden with emerald and sapphire eternity bands. To think I’d left my engagement ring at home for fear of appearing too flashy.

All of this is just to say, the woman standing in the doorway of my neighborhood coffee shop looked rich. Asian-tourist rich. Mainland-Chinese rich. Rich-rich.

Equality is about having choices, even if my choice isn't the one she would have made.

And I’m so glad I restrained myself in time because now, from where I sit today, confessing everything to you, I see what I couldn’t as a child: to share one’s secrets is to force others to bear your burden; to stay silent is to spare them.

myself before my uncle and aunt. What can I say, Detective? You don’t earn straight A’s all your life without being uncommonly competitive.

I’d grown increasingly certain I could never return to tax law and the tyranny of billable hours, a thought that so frightened me, I’d mentioned it to no one.

How dare the Americans arrest a helpless grandfather who was only seeking medical care. How dare they allow this upstanding businessman to pledge a five-hundred-thousand-dollar donation to one of their elite hospitals and then turn him in to law enforcement. How dare they disrespect an entire nation.