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Lan Samantha Chang

Lan Samantha Chang Books

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The Family Chao

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“Their father, seated near one end of the long table, smiles broadly. "Pass the vinegar, please!" His voice is so deep and loud that everyone turns to watch him. Holding a steaming dumpling in a large porcelain spoon, he drips a bit of sooty vinegar on top, greedy and focused. He picks up a sliver of ginger, using his chopsticks with the precision of a surgeon, and places it over the dumpling's puckered nipple. He raises the spoon to his mouth and takes a bite. "Hmm. It's good," he announces. "But I like my dumplings made with pork. Hot meat juice gushing into my mouth at the first bite. Hot, greasy, delicious pork juice!" Dagou's chest swells. "You know they're vegetarians here." "You prefer plain dumplings?" their father shoots back. Dagou doesn't answer. He and their father favor meat in all of their food. "I have nothing against 'plain food,'" their father says, addressing the community at large. "Winnie says it's sinful to eat living creatures, it amounts to killing, it's an act of violence, especially because the choice is an act of will, because we can decline to eat meat, because it's okay----and maybe even healthier, Winnie says----to eat only vegetables. She says people who stop eating meat have a long life, and people who eat only vegetables have the longest life. Yeah, yeah. But, Your Elderliness"----he nods at Gu Ling Zhu Chi----"I, Leo Chao, would rather be dead than stop eating pig. I will be ash and bone chunks in a little urn before I don't eat juicy pig.”

Famous Last WordsMeat EatingBoisterous
Book:The Family Chao
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“You think I'm a loser!" Dagou yells. "Am I a loser for keeping us alive when all the decent places are moving to the strip? I keep your business going. You pay me almost nothing. My salary is a joke. I want an equal share of the profits." "Big man," sneers Leo. Ming knows Dagou will turn to Winnie a second before he does it. He always runs to their mother. "He grown up now," Winnie says. "Let him have his share." "You stay out of this! You gave up the business when you left it for this menstruation hut!" The table erupts. "Lay off it." "Don't talk to her like that!" "This is a Spiritual House." Leo pushes back his chair. Standing, he has the look of a beast on its hind legs: hairy, primitive, his long arms hanging almost to his knees. It isn't just the dark, unshaven hair sprouting in patches on his cheeks. There is something hungry yet remote in his close-set eyes. Everyone can see it. Some of them shrink back and turn away. Ming knows this eerie quality well. It has been there in his father for as long as he can remember. Long ago, he learned to escape its worst, to allow other members of the family to confront it. Now he climbs up into a place of refuge in his mind. A kind of hunting blind, where he can watch and wait. From above, Ming watches his brother. Dagou has the blank expression of someone who is only just becoming aware of what he's done. "'Don't talk to her like that,'" their father jeers. "Mama's boy! And you..." He grins wickedly at Winnie. Despite her vow of tranquility, she appears ready to bolt from her chair. The nuns seated on either side hold on to her arms. "You think he's still your diaper-filling lamb. You haven no idea what a dog he is. Ask him why he needs money now. Ask him. Ask him." Dagou looks around the table. "It's true I've fallen in love," he announces. "My whole life is changing." He pauses importantly. People stare at their plates. "Christ," says their father. "All this fuss over a decent fuck." The nuns gasp. Now Dagou's chair creaks, and he also rises to his feet. He is enormous and he swells with rage. His shoulders tense. He points at his father and his finger is shaking. It could be that he has decided, once and for all, to take down Big Chao. As the Sons of Liberty rose against King George. As the sons turned on Chronos, as he himself turned upon Uranus. So it will be in the family Chao.”

IssuesSuperiorityVengeanceFather SonUnfairnessVerbal Attack
Book:The Family Chao
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“Winnie and Big Leo Chao were serving scallion pancakes decades before you could find them outside of a home kitchen. Leo, thirty-five years ago, winning his first poker game against the owners of a local poultry farm, exchanged his chips for birds that Winnie transformed into the shining, chestnut-colored duck dishes of far-off cities. Dear Winnie, rolling out her bing the homemade way, two pats of dough together with a seal of oil in between, letting them rise to a steaming bubble in the piping pan. Leo, bargaining for hard-to-get ingredients; Winnie subbing wax beans for yard-long beans, plus home-growing the garlic greens, chives, and hot peppers you used to never find in Haven. Their garden giving off a glorious smell.”

HomegrownFamily BusinessChinese Cooking
Book:The Family Chao
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“The sincere reaction to making meaningful art is often speechlessness. We make art about what we cannot understand through any other method. The finished product is like a pearl, complete and beautiful, but mute about itself. The writer has given us this piece of his interior and there is frequently no explanation, nothing to be said about it. Often, the writer himself has very little idea of what he has created.”

WritingArtUnderstandingBeautyCreationWriterSpeechlessness
Author:Lan Samantha Chang
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“You said you and William became 'officially involved' on December twenty-fourth?" "Yes." "That night, did you and William ever discuss a recent windfall of fifty thousand dollars?" "No." "Did you and William discuss your plans to move in together?" "I said, no." "Did you agree to become officially involved with William even though you both knew another woman still considered herself his fiancée?" "Yes." "Did you decide to do this because William's financial prospects had suddenly improved by fifty thousand dollars? Enough to live together in the Lakeside Apartments, after his father was dead?" Brenda flinches. Jerry calls out, "Objection! Speculation! Foundation! Assumes facts not in evidence!" The objection is sustained. Udweala rephrases the question. "You said you had financial reasons not to be 'officially involved' with William Chao. Did you become 'officially involved' on the evening of December twenty-fourth, despite the fact that he had not broken off his engagement with his girlfriend, because William now had fifty thousand dollars?" "For God's sake, no." Brenda's voice is sharp. "I told you, he never told me about any fifty thousand. What are you implying here? You want to make me out as some kind of slut? A whore? You want the jury to think that Dagou tried to pay me to move in with him?" Again, James glances at Lynn's juror. Her lips are set, her eyes bright, and James understands that with these blurted questions, Brenda has said exactly what the persecution wanted.”

ConfessionGold DiggerCross Examination
Book:The Family Chao
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“Leo turns to him, eyes bright with anticipation and a kind of hunger. "How's your mother?" he asks. "Is she happy now? After dragging us out here in the middle of the night, just to get a little attention?" Dagou struggles against the light-headedness of sudden fury. "Shut up," he manages. "You have no right---" Leo sniggers. "Look at you. Tears in your eyes!" "You're the one who put her here!" His voice shakes. "You couldn't help tracking your shit into her temple! Even there, you had to torment her!" "Mama's boy!" Leo sneers, his face grotesque and knowing. Something shatters in Dagou's mind. He lunges at his father, fingers reaching for his windpipe. "You deserve to die! I hate you. I'm going to kill you!" Leo is pushing back. He's a strong old man, but Dagou has not been working out for nothing. Dagou brings his father closer, tightens his grip on Leo's throat. A woman is shouting, giving orders, but Dagou can't listen. He feels his father's pulse: hot, human. Leo's eyes bulge.”

VengefulFather IssuesRiled
Book:The Family Chao
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