The Fortunes

The narrative moves back in time to tell the story of Ling’s arrival in the US. Ling’s mother had been a Chinese sex worker and his father a foreigner. His mother, who was from a semi-nomadic fishing community looked down upon by the majority Han Chinese, died in childbirth, and Ling’s father sold him to a man who sold opium and managed sex workers. When Ling grew older, this man arranged passage for him to travel to the United States and work in the fast-growing world of gold mining.

Ling recalls his first job in the United States, working in Uncle Ng’s laundry alongside Little Sister, who like Ling’s mother, is a sex worker. Uncle Ng is an inveterate gambler but a lenient and trusting boss. Little Sister has a more difficult personality, and she berates Ling for his lack of speed and skill when she begins to instruct him in how to clean and press clothing in the laundry. She tells Uncle Ng that he is slow, and “a shirker,” but Ng does not believe Little Sister and, slapping her, exclaims that Ling is obviously a good man. In spite of her unpleasantness, Ling is drawn to Little Sister and finds himself spying on her, even when she bathes, in order to get a better look at her body. Although he grew up around sex workers, Ling does not recall ever having been so attracted to one, and he becomes increasingly infatuated with Little Sister.

Ling was entranced by the bustling streets of Sacramento at first, but quickly encountered prejudice and learned to conceal his queue (a long braid worn by Chinese men at the time) and move briskly through the city, keeping his head down and avoiding conflict.

Most of the men who come to see Little Sister are shy from so much time without the company of women, but Ng keeps a cleaver in his shop in case of emergencies, and Ling worries about her. One night he stays up late making a kite, and although Little Sister is still unkind to him, she enjoys it when he sets it loose into the air, and she begins to soften. He wonders why she stays in the laundry, and she tells him she has no other options. She asks him the same question, and he responds that he intends to quit and become a gold prospector.

Ng is happy to let Ling take over the delivery routes. He claims that this is because Ling speaks better English, but Ling knows it is because of the prejudice and even threats of violence that Chinese people encounter on the streets. Ling cannot wait to quit the laundry to become a prospector, but Ng laughs and points out the hidden difficulties of that life. He himself had been a prospector, and had found the work difficult, but had amassed enough money to purchase the laundry. He thinks that it is an easier way to make a living and tries to impart this wisdom to Ling.

One day, a group of white men on the street jumps Ling, and although he fights back, he is badly beaten. He returns to the laundry intending to get Ng’s cleaver, but Little Sister stops him. She cleans his wounds, sews up a large gash on his head, and tells him that his ribs are probably cracked, but not likely broken. Touched by her compassion, Ling tells Little Sister how he feels about her. He is surprised that not only does she refuse to sleep with him, but she expresses a deep resentment towards Chinese men. She’d been sold to the laundry by her father so that he could finance her brother’s prospecting career. She has little use for a group of people who imported their women to the United States only to abuse and exploit them, and she explains to Ling that she has no interest in sex or romance with Chinese men.

Charles Crocker is on Ling’s delivery route, and after helping the man out with his clothing one morning, Charles offers him a job as a live-in laundryman and servant. Ling relays this news to Ng, who tells him that he had intended to adopt Ling as his son and pass the business on to him. This would mean that Ling would own Little Sister. Ling does not want to own her, but Ng scoffs at Ling’s feelings. He tells him the story of a Frenchman who had seemed to befriend Ng during his prospecting days, but who had turned out to be just as prejudiced as the Americans. He tells Ling that he is sure Ling will be back. On his way out, Ling offers Little Sister a newly acquired gold piece in exchange for sex. She agrees, and afterwards he wonders if it was worth it. She is cold to him and he resents her for it.

Ling goes to work for the Crockers. He initially mistakes their Irish domestic worker Bridey for Mrs. Crocker, which Bridey finds hilarious. Bridey is prejudiced against Chinese workers because they are increasingly replacing Irish servants. Bridey bristles against the idea that anyone would prefer domestic workers who were not white to Irish girls like her. Bridey, however, is getting married and leaves after Ling’s first week. Crocker reminds him of Ng in a way, but Ling is relatively content in his position. He would still prefer to leave to become a prospector, but he is beginning to understand how difficult that line of work is and how success in it is unlikely.

Crocker is frustrated with the lack of progress on his railroad. The workers that he can find are lazy, often drunk, and frequently leave to try their hand at prospecting halfway through the month. Crocker’s friends and business associates, important men in their area, come to the house often. They are all prejudiced against Chinese workers and Ling must tolerate both their “harmless jokes” and direct insults.

Ling gets into a fight because he tries to stand up for a Chinese man engaged in an argument with a white woman who is upset that she lost a job to a Chinese worker. The woman, who is drunk, begins insulting Ling and pulls his hair. One of the white onlookers pulls a knife. Ling’s queue, an important sign of loyalty to the emperor, is cut. He returns home, and Crocker is pleased with his short hair. He tells Ling that he looks “civilized” and offers to buy him new clothes.

Ling, who still visits Little Sister weekly, finds out that she wants to leave Ng’s. She asks if Crocker might hire her, but Ling says he does not think so. She reveals that she is pregnant and also that Ng is actually her father. Ling is aghast. He leaves, but cannot stop thinking about Little Sister, and returns a few weeks later to talk to her. Ng tells him that he has sold her.

Ling attends a meeting for something called the “Chinese Question,” but realizes too late that it is just a gathering of angry white men complaining about Chinese workers taking jobs from white Americans. There is a call to boycott Chinese laundries. Because his hair is short and he wears western clothes, he is not recognized as a Chinese man by the mob and escapes.

The narrative returns to the railway car in which Ling was riding with Charles Crocker in Chapter 1. These events take place two years after the events of Chapter 7. Crocker’s railroad is now almost entirely staffed with Chinese workers, and he is chagrined because they are striking. This is out of character for Chinese men, and Crocker does not know how to remedy the situation. Crocker and Ling are visiting an area where railroad construction has proven deadly for countless Chinese workers. This causes Ling to worry and to reflect on various men he’s known since immigrating who have died. As the train travels on, Ling is subject to racist taunts from white men and boys. He sees hundreds of Chinese workers struggling in difficult conditions and realizes that the railroad is being built almost entirely by Chinese immigrants.

He recalls a day when Crocker took him with to a brothel. The madam, a Chinese woman, was famous, and she and Crocker seemed to be very friendly with each other. Crocker left Ling in the living room while he went upstairs with a woman, and Ling passed the time talking to the sex workers and to their madam. Dismissing Ling’s moral reservations about her work, she argued that she and Ling were similar, that Ling also sold himself, in a way, to Crocker, and that he would never be seen as the man’s equal. Ling had been curt with her as well, and had pointed out that the women who worked for her probably hated her, that she was exploiting them. The madam was unruffled by this accusation and said that if she didn’t employ them, someone else would. She dismissed marriage as “another kind” of ownership and remained calm during the entirety of a conversation Ling found upsetting.

After Ling and Crocker exit the train, Ling realizes that he has been brought on this journey to translate a conversation between Crocker and his Irish managers and the striking workers, all of whom are Chinese. Ling listens to the workers, keenly aware of his western clothing and his shorn queue. He tells Crocker that the workers want wages equal to what their white counterparts would make, and Crocker balks at their demand.

Ling visits the workers. He was initially proud of having been the one who convinced Crocker to hire Chinese workers, but now he realizes that Crocker hired them not because he thought they would make exceptional workers but because he realized that he could pay them less than white workers. As Ling drinks tea and gambles with the men, he realizes that they know who he is. He talks with them about their experiences building the railroad and realizes how grueling the work is and how much the men are exploited. He returns to Crocker dispirited.

Ling informs Crocker that he is going to quit working for him and take a position working on the railroad. Crocker does not believe him at first, and then is awestruck when he realizes that Ling is serious. Ling realizes that he has always wanted to belong, that he was never comfortable in his western clothes in the role of servant. He would rather be among his own kind of people.

Ling has difficulty fitting in on the railroad crew initially, but when he begins working with explosives and finds that he has a knack for it, he is accepted by the other workers. After the completion of the railroad, when work becomes scarce, he obtains a position gathering the bones of the many men who died while working on the railways so that they can be shipped back to China.

The Chinese Exclusion Act is passed, the last in a long line of anti-Chinese legislation that halts further immigration from China. Ling ends up back in San Francisco, his first port of entry into the United States. He runs into Little Sister, who is now the madam of her own house. He finds out that several of her daughters are sex workers in her employ, and he shudders in silent horror at how callous Little Sister has become. She tells him that she will have sex with him without charging him, but makes him promise not to tell anyone that she has given herself away for free.