John and his wife Nola are in Guangzhou to adopt a baby. John is biracial, with a Chinese Singaporean mother and a white American father, and he works as a professor. He was working on a historical novel about Chinese workers and the construction of the transcontinental railroad, but the project has stalled and he has been writing faux dime-store novelizations of an old television show called Kung Fu. The current book in this series is going to be set during the building of the railroad and feature rebellious workers. His colleagues think that he is working on a book about the murder of Vincent Chin. He and Nola tried to have a baby, but were unable to do so because of a chromosomal disorder that caused miscarriages, so they decided to adopt a Chinese child. John did not sleep on the flight over and is jetlagged. Nola is able to sleep and while John lies awake, he thinks about how difficult their marriage has become since they began trying to conceive. They are traveling with an entire group of adoptive parents-to-be, and their tour guide is a Chinese woman who, because of how difficult her name is to pronounce for westerners, has told everyone to call her Napoleon.