“I always offered my Volvo. First, it seemed like the cool, generous thing to do. Second, it ensured that everyone had to listen to my music.”

This passage addresses three important aspects of Hua’s college years: cruising with friends, trying to appear cool, and listening to music. Although highs and lows characterized Hua and Ken’s friendship, they spent much of their time engaging in mundane activities, which formed the foundation of their relationship.

“I preferred to spend my time interpreting things.”

The quote relates to Hua’s profession as an English professor and to the value of the humanities. Throughout the book, Hua interprets his experiences in dialogue with philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Charles Taylor, as well as the great anthropologist Marcel Mauss, etc.

“Even then, they understood that American life is unbounded promise and hypocrisy, faith and greed, new spectrums of joy and self-doubt, freedom enabled by enslavement. All of these things at once.”

Hua devotes Chapter 2 to his parents, whose choices and worldviews shaped his. As immigrants to the US, Hua’s parents viewed their country from the perspective of outsiders and recognized the contradictions pervading American society.