The Beijing Family by Gina Tang

Kara Chan is a little too busy these days. This savvy real estate broker and developer is flying back and forth from Los Angeles to Las Vegas almost every week. She’s catering to the whims of a Beijing family newly arriving to wealth buy a 10-million dollar Beverly Hills home she brokered for them. At the same time, launching a multi-billion-dollar Vegas hotel and casino project with high-end Asian investors. Simon Wang, manufacturing magnate, his teenage son Greg, and his mother, the indomitable Grandma Moh, a holdover from Mao’s Cultural Revolution, are having problems adjusting to life in Beverly Hills. Oddball Grandma Moh eschews the conveniences of modern life like a top-of the line washing machine, preferring to beat her laundry with a stick. And why order takeout food when you can kill some critter in the garden and then cook it? This Beijing Hillbilly can be a major headache. Meanwhile in Vegas, Kara’s trying to piece together a deal that is a dream come true. The investment money is lined up by her good friend Chelsea, the daughter of a Chinese casino tycoon; a great site on the Strip has been chosen as well as a world-renowned architect. But something’s not quite right. There are headwinds that give Kara pause. It’s 2007, and rumors of an impending economic crash worry her. Her nightmares of doom and destruction haunt her. Worlds are about to collide. Forces are brewing beyond her control. Can Kara survive the approaching storm? Can she stomach the fried possum? *Rewritten and republished in 2017*