Bolstered by the ease with which they con her, William and Shem work their way up to bigger and better targets while word of mouth enhances their social status.
William and Shem attend a dinner party hosted by Suzy Yamada, where many of their past and future clients mingle.
William encounters Max Brill Carlton, author of Primitives, who informs him that Preciosa had no lines in the play.
For the first time, William feels guilty about the purposefully bad feng shui work he did for her, the cause of her sudden misfortune.
She pretends to be a woman named Walung, re-enacting her part in Primitives, speaking in tongues and twirling about to distract from the fact that they are stealing.
Rowley's family is not happy with this turn of events, so William agrees to relinquish all claims to the apartment.
William runs into Brian Q in a shoe store and learns that he has completely turned his life around, even founding a charity to raise money for AIDS patients.
Suzy confronts William with her growing suspicions that Walung is responsible for stealing several valuable objects from her home.
After meeting Shem C, William pretends to be a Chinese master of feng shui and helps him con New York's elite.
Although William enjoys the wealth and adventure of a scam artist, he secretly wants to settle down and “be good,” as he tells his friend Rowley P. Shem C is a failed Jewish writer with a grudge against the upper crust society that has rejected him.
Though his own behavior caused the failure of his marriage to Marianna Hood and the loss of his fortune, he blames society at large.
Suzy Yamada is Kendo's mother and an architect and interior decorator whose work is featured in House & Garden.
After growing sick of constantly cleaning up after the hustlers, Neil changed his name to Gurinder and began giving terrorist tours to students and tourists.
In Fixer Chao, Han Ong explores several themes including the concept of the model minority, fetishism, empire, queerness, orientalism, and identity politics.
In Fixer Chao, the model minority is the upper crus society William attempts to join.
[3] Fixer Chao uses this desire to consume to his advantage, profiting by convincing the wealthy that they are in need of newer and better things.
[4] The New York elite fetishizes the mysticism surrounding William as a feng shui master, and they purchase his services for alarming sums of money.
[5] Lindsay S offers water and ice to William in a glass with a “single small diamond etched inside the rim which immediately enhances the taste and value of the beverage.
William exploits his masculinity and gender stereotypes to compensate for the assumption that Asian men are essentially feminine.
The idea of identity politics refers to movements and theories attributed to the social injustices a particular group feels.