The novel follows the life and romantic entanglements of Raymond Ding, the assistant director of Jack London College’s Office of Minority Affairs. Raymond is an interesting lesson in cultural duality, a matter that many second generation migrants such as himself know all too well. He is a rarity in that he is in his late 30’s, has no children, and the only divorcee in his mostly traditional Chinese-American family.
He tried to please his parents and married “The Perfect Chinese-American Woman” but their marriage ended in an ugly divorce. He yearns to make it on his own, completely autonomous from his parents, an inclination that his father disdainfully labels as “American.” In contrast however he also feels a strong sense of filial duty towards his parents as any traditional Chinese son should. This constant internal cultural tug-of-war is one of the hallmarks of his character.
Raymond then becomes involved with Aurora Crane, a photojournalist of biracial ancestry. She is very different from his previous wife: beautiful in a non-standard Asian way and very career driven, with good reason: Aurora, like Raymond, fights an uphill battle against mainstream American society’s cliches of the Asian-American woman, especially in her particular line of work. Their relationship is initially very passionate, marked with feverish lovemaking, but eventually fizzles out. Reason being that Aurora becomes painfully aware of Raymond’s constant shuttling between wanting to be a “dutiful Chinese son” and an “independent American man” a matter that grates on her not just because she finds his lack of identity to be unseemly in a man but also because it reminds her too much of her own struggles with her own identity.
After Aurora Raymond then falls in with Betty Nguyen, a colleague of his the university. Betty is ethnic Vietnamese and his relationship with her is likewise sexually charged and just as difficult as his previous relationship as she suffers from deep emotional trauma from her youth as war refugee and they constantly butt heads disagreeing on matters of politics and personal philosophies.
Raymond eventually make amends with Aurora and their resume their conflict filled relationship once more and although she still hasn’t changed her opinion about Raymond’s cultural rants and long-winded discussions about Asian vs. American cultures she does finally admit to the fact that she does indeed love this conflicting and complex package of a man.
