Not knowing the name of a person close enough to be almost family, or even a family member, is an occasional hazard of Chinese, and sometimes Chinese-American, life. As the Wangs drive away from Ama’s house, it dawns on them that, should the need arise, they have no idea how to look her up by name. It’s the only available vehicle that hasn’t been repossessed. Now that Charles has lost everything with the collapse of his cosmetics empire (it’s 2008) and must gather his two younger children from boarding school and college to take refuge in the home of his eldest child, Ama provides a means of travel from Los Angeles to upstate New York: a Mercedes station wagon Charles sold to her for a dollar sixteen years ago. “Ama,” wet nurse to Charles Wang, father of the clan, followed Charles from Taiwan to California and provided the children with a steady adult presence - as well as many years of housekeeping - through the death of Charles’s first wife and his remarriage to a woman who never quite fit in. the World, are the offhand ones, such as when the Chinese-American family named in the title realizes they don’t know the name of the woman who raised most of them. Some of the funniest moments in Jade Chang’s first novel, The Wangs vs.
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