Carly Luk

“Much of any culture can be linked back to eating and food, food and care, eating and language. To eat one's feelings, to eat dust, words, to eat your own heart out, to eat someone else alive, to eat your cake and have it too, things that are adorable (puppies, babies) that are said to be good enough to eat, to have someone else eat out of the palm of your hand, to be chewed out, a dog-eat-dog world. Chinese isn't any different from English in this way. Chī for "eat," and chī sù, to only eat vegetables, but also, colloquially, to be a pushover. Chī cù, to eat vinegar or be jealous. Chī lì, to eat effort, as for a task that is very strenuous. To eat surprise, to be amazed, chī jī ng. To be completely full or chī bǎo fàn, and thus to have nothing better to do. To eat punishment or get the worst of it, chī kuī. And, most important, to eat hardship, suffering, and pain, chī kǔ, a defining Chinese quality, to be able to bear a great deal without showing a crack.”
― Weike Wang, Joan Is Okay

“Are you writing?" By which he meant, are you taking care of yourself, have you learned to live with whatever it was that was destroying you. I told him yes, I was, without ever asking if the same was still true for him.”
― Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us

“Quotas haven't gone away, nor have the large groups of us willing to race against time and one another, but never call ourselves a race.”
― Weike Wang, Joan Is Okay

“Home is not a given and, for many, a hard, sometimes impossible place to find.”
― Weike Wang, Rental House