The Opinionist

Twenty-four years of friendship and all it takes is a promotion to drive a rift between them. The driving force of a play is tension, and Cynthia’s new job was the tipping point that exposed the rust and failure of a machine that until now remained invisible or unprovoked—Tracey’s insecurity, victim complex, and racism. Even all those years of working on the floor together were not enough to stop Tracey spreading baseless rumors about her “affirmative action” promotion or throwing her under the bus for a management decision she likely had no say in. You could draw more ugly comparisons, like narcissists trying to sabotage their partners when they want to leave; but as Cynthia and Tracey’s tale is of friendship, what I thought of first were situational friends. Situational friends are connections that exist within a specific context, like school or work. The difference between situational friends and “real friends” is that the former depends on the context of how you interact with them ...

My father, settled, successful, content — and stingy. My mother puts them together for the juxtaposition — laments this contradiction of a man. My father is not poor; by China’s standards, not by a long shot, but growing up with him you would think you were. The Chinese middle school I went to was attached to USTC, the Chinese equivalent of MIT, that I only had the chance to attend because of my father; and even in those circles of USTC legacies and rich kids my classmates and teachers revered him. One, for being a professor in physics, one of the toughest departments in one of the most prestigious universities in the country, and two for having lived in America. At lunches with my parents’ friends they jokingly ask him to “bless” their kids in their academics. When we go back to the countryside village where my father grew up the residents greet him like he is still seventeen and the first in his family to go to college. I say this not to brag but because all I hear reading back on th...