Thank you to Michelle Brower, Jessica Williams, Danya Kukafka, Ore Agbaje-Williams, Julia Elliott, Allison Warren, and everyone at Aevitas Creative Management, William Morrow, and The Borough Press. To Kim Liao, Beth Nguyen, Reese Kwon, and Aimee Phan. To the National Arts Council of Singapore, the Creative Writing Programme at Nanyang Technological University, and the Toji Cultural Center. To the many books that helped me complete this novel, especially Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang, and Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists by Vanessa Neumann. To Kathy Shih, Stephen Lin, and the late Yvonne Chua. To Nelson Luo, Eric Zhou, Shirley Nie, and everyone at Sitoy Group. To trusted early reader and all-around sounding board Vanessa Hua. To Matthew Salesses, my guiding light. To my parents and my family. And, always, to Asmin.