ARGONAUT BOOKS

Wai and Ling are secondary school Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong, both crumbling under the pressure of a forced transition from using Cantonese to Mandarin as a medium of Chinese-language instruction. Wai, awkward and unpopular, becomes obsessed with Mandarin learning, only to fail the qualification exam, lose her job, become mentally ill, and kill herself by inserting a drill into her head. Ling is polished and cunning, she knows how to please her superiors and believes she can tactfully dodge the Mandarin challenge through her social savviness. Ling sees herself haunted and mirrored ...Read More