Image by This is the 14th part of the story. The previous parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
Thanks to Fifi’s amazing organizing skills, the dinner party goes on smoothly. Fifi arranges the dinner menu, prints out recipes for the cooking machine, gives instructions on the timing and the sequence of cooking, sounds warnings on sitting and cutlery, suggests music and diversions, and even provides interesting and up-to-date topics to be used when the conversation comes to awkward pauses.
Ayun doesn’t want to get into a fight with Fifi. The dinner is supposed to cause Fifi’s dismissal. What’s the point of getting involved in a battle right before Fifi bites the dust? However the fight becomes inevitable when Fifi runs a program which requires everybody sitting down at the big dinner table. Ayun wants a buffet style setting, in which all the food is displayed on the table, and people can fill up their plates and sit wherever they choose.
Fifi has sensors, which monitors the immediate environment and detect the missing plates and chopsticks, seats unoccupied by the table, the louder noise, the disruption to the sequence of the dishes being served. Fifi is so annoyed that it displays “Attention” and “Warning” on its screen to express its robotic displeasure, but the party is in full swing and nobody is paying attention to Fifi.
In the living room, several husbands are watching soccer games on a Spanish speaking cable channel. Although they can’t understand the comments, they can still enjoy the game. Several children, about Andy’s age, all run around wielding plastic weapons from Andy’s toy box–Andy enjoys it so much. They run from the front yard to the back and throughout the house, making terrific noise. Wives are separated into several groups and they try to talk, keeping each other updated on the gossip, but they are often disrupted by their attention to their children.
Wanyan and her husband Koi are the person Ayun has in mind. They will be her cat’s paw in the grand scheme of things. And Ayun has planned that they help her dispose of Fifi without even knowing that they are actually helping her.
Koi is an associate professor in the engineering department of Rutgers University. Ayun’s husband Tram has always wanted to get hired by Rutgers. Tram’s position in CUNY in Staten Island is a little lackluster in comparison. For this reason, Tram has always tried to be friendly with Koi and would always invite Koi to any party he hosts.
Anyway, Koi has a very colorful and complicated family life. In this aspect, Koi is more Americanized than other Asian immigrants. As you know, most Asian immigrants are too exhausted by overwork, too subdued by boredom, too worried about losing money (although this has never stopped people from visiting casinos), too unimaginative about life’s alternatives that we choose to stay in bitter relationships and try to manage the unmanageable. However Koi is very different. Probably because Koi is a brilliant engineer and scientists. His confidence in his professional skills and his inexhaustible energy gives him the strength (or arrogance) to step out of the typical comfort zone of other people.
What I am saying is that Koi has had three wives and Wanyan is his third wife. Most exhausted immigrants can barely survive the constant tit for tat with one wife, but Koi can handle three, which includes the life with his current wife, the property dispute (which is still in their hands and can’t find a satisfactory buyer) with his second wife Malia, and the custody issues with his first wife Koko. Koi’s first wife was his high school sweetheart. She became more independent than what a wife should be in Koi’s opinion. Since academic jobs are hard to come by, she chose a position in Midwest over her life with Koi in New Jersey. Koi divorced her and has had more than 12 years’ argument over the amount of child support he should pay ever since. The kid is going to college soon and Koi is battling his first wife on how to arrange the college payment.
(To Be Continued Here)
Haoyan Do 