"No. I didn't mean you," Jenny immediately replies. "You can't quit. I really like you. I plan to give you a forty percent raise. Lulu, don't go sour on me. I'm your friend. Unlike others, you're a real treasure. I'll do whatever I can to keep you." Jenny softens her tone. Bossy and sympathetic at the same time, she certainly knows how to use both carrots and sticks.

Before Lulu can respond, Jenny adds: "Lulu, don't rush your decision. Take a few days to think clearly and then come back to me. I really think you'll like working with me." Jenny smiles like a boss. Lulu sees that smile, and immediately thinks of a crocodile.

Lulu nods, ready to leave.

"Wait." Jenny stops Lulu. "Now as a true friend, I want to give you some womanly advice."

"What?" Lulu almost feels like crying. This is so humiliating.

"You're smart and beautiful. You could easily win the world if you wanted to."

"Win the world? How?"

"Make use of what you have to get what you don't. Remember, you won't always be this young." Jenny sounds like a mother.

"I guess I can never be as talented as you are," Lulu says, and leaves Jenny's office, muttering "You bitch" under her breath. She is not in Jenny's league when it comes to office politics. Should she accept Jenny's condescending offer of the 40 percent raise or should she just quit? If she quits, who is going to support her and her mother? Neither of them has a husband to rely on. Luckily, she had already bought the subsidized apartment and it was a done deal.

She calls me. "Should I make husband searching my fulltime job or should I get the book How to Succeed in the Dirty Games of Office Politics? "

"Be a woman warrior instead of a demure bride," I say firmly.

SIZHU BUPA RESHUI TANG: Dead pigs aren't afraid of boiling water.

Lulu quits her job.

In the following weeks, her life has changed dramatically. She unplugs the phone, declines all invitations to parties and dinners, and hides at home. I take a few days off and spend time with her. We rent soap operas from Blockbuster. With a bowl of instant noodles and a cup of coffee on the stand next to her sofa, we watch the videos around the clock, living in a fantasy world that takes Lulu away from reality.

Yes, soap opera is Lulu's way of escaping. First of all, there is no more bombardment with news of devastating wars or terrible diseases. Second, instead of getting herself into real cat-fights, dirty tricks, office politics, or heartbreaking relationships with men, she watches other people suffer. Their torment makes her feel not too bad about her own situation.

Third, soap operas are silly and melodramatic, and it doesn't matter if they are Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese, American, or Mexican. As she cries and laughs over their silliness, she feels she outsmarts them.

Lulu's favorite genre is kung fu soap operas such as The Water Marshals and The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. Kung fu stories always have beautiful settings in a desert or near a lake or forest that is totally different from the concrete jungle she lives in. They are always about integrity, honor, chivalrous knights, and the sacrifices of the ancient Chinese. These are the precise qualities that modern people lack. At times, the scenes and the fights are violent, but they are aesthetically violent.

One time, as we see a duel on screen, Lulu says, "I wish to have a duel with Jenny."

"It would perhaps be more honorable than behind-the-back mischievousness," I say.

Because Lulu has rented so many videos and DVDs, Blockbuster sends her a free gift. It's Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad series workshop. Lulu watches it for the sake of practicing her English and as a change of pace. But soon, she is captivated. In the video, Mr. Kiyosaki talks about the cash-flow quadrant and the differences between an employee and a business owner, and he explains why most employees go from job to job while others quit their jobs and go on to build business empires. According to the legendary Robert Kiyosaki, one can get rich as a business owner, but only be a member of the middle class as an excellent employee. He encourages people to find their own business models rather than relying on big corporations for financial freedom. Lulu is totally inspired and cheered up by this god-sent video.

"I'm on the right track to financial freedom by quitting my job. I should have my own business and be my own boss," she tells me. "My next step is to find the business. That is to say, what can I do?"

I look at the piles of videos and DVDs on the carpet of her living room, and have an idea,

"What about manufacturing soap operas? Isn't our life like a soap opera? The parties, the dinners, and the dates we've had."

"Sounds wonderful! But it probably would take me ten years to finish it."

"But remember what Jenny told you? The only thing China doesn't lack is people," I say to her.

"Yes, you are so right, Niuniu. If I can hire a team of writers to work with me, we can form several production lines. Networks need content to fill in their time slots. We can even go international since we can sell the rights to other countries!" She yells happily.

Lulu is a go-getter. A week later, she asks me to accompany her to meet a producer in the lobby of the Shangri-la Hotel. The producer is a good-looking, well dressed, smooth man in his forties. Lulu tosses around her ideas for the soap opera. He says he wants to hear more, and they can meet the next day.

Lulu arrives at the hotel the next day and rings him in his room. He says, "Come upstairs." Lulu gets suspicious. It's a gorgeous room and he's got wine, soft music, and cheese and crackers. After three glasses of this marvelous California mountain chablis, the man puts his hand on her thigh and his other arm around her. Lulu moves away.

"Is this also part of your job?" she asks him.

"Yes," he answers.

"Do you feel ashamed?" she asks.

"I love women. My job allows me to meet lovely women like you. It's a privilege. Why should I feel ashamed?"

"I love your honesty. Welcome to my first reality TV show!" Lulu points at the concealed camera she just set up while he was opening the wine in the kitchen. The man stares at the small red light, dumbfounded.

Beibei's sister Baobao returns to China from the United States with her Taiwanese-born husband and American-born kids. This visit is her first trip home after living in the States for sixteen years.

During the Cultural Revolution, being the oldest kid of a heiwulei family, one of the "five black types" of counterrevolutionaries, Baobao was humiliated and discriminated against as a student. Under Deng Xiaoping's open-door policy, Baobao's grandparents were rehabilitated and offered prominent positions in the party. Baobao enjoyed privileges as a gaogan zidi, or a child of high -ranking Communist Party officials.

This roller-coaster life turned young Baobao into a cynical rebel who loathed inequality and "special treatment." While most children with connections cashed in their opportunities for nice jobs, she dreamed of finding a fairer life in the United States, the land of equal opportunity. In the mid-1980s, she received a government grant to study engineering at the University of Texas. Chinese who received this type of grant were normally required to go back after they had finished their studies to "serve the motherland." But all Chinese in the United States were granted green cards after Liu Si, the Tiananmen uprising in 1989. Baobao stayed in the United States and became a chemical engineer. She later married a civil engineer from Taiwan.