Mei is torn between her very traditional Taiwanese heritage, strictly enforced by her parents, and her decidedly American tastes in culture and activities. Driven by her parents and by the guilt to perform they instilled in her, Mei graduated early from high school, and, at seventeen, is now a freshman at MIT. Her parents really want her to become a doctor, but Mei hates germs and bodily functions, and instead loves dance. She would rather use her mastery of math to open and run her own dance studio, but she doesn't want to disappoint her parents.
Mei's Chinese heritage assumes she will be the obedient daughter who fulfill her parents' wishes. She needs to be a doctor, because it is a respectable and essential career that has great earning potential. She is to marry a man of Taiwanese heritage her mother will have selected, and she is to have a son, to continue the family line. Her brother Xing broke with tradition when he introduced her parents to his girlfriend, a woman who, due to a childhood sickness, would have difficulty conceiving a baby. As a result they disowned him and barred Mei from even contacting him.
Now at MIT, Mei is navigating the minefield that is roommates, parental expectations, classes, and cute boys like Darren, a Japanese American, not even counting her own wishes and desires. Darren looms large, but he's a no-no in her parents' eyes, with the Japanese responsible for China's suffering during the Second World War. As the first semester progresses, Mei sinks further into a web of lies she has told to keep the two parts of her life separate, but she soon realizes that she can neither be fully Chinese nor fully American, but rather a hybrid with the best and worst characteristics. Can Mei discover a way to reconcile these two parts of her life without antagonizing her family further while at the same time not denying who she really is?
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