You have to know that I’m leaving because of New York, not you. You know why I don’t want to live here. I don’t want to hustle 24/7 just to make rent. - Ling Ma

That sounds like a conspiracy, I dismissed. One of Jonathan’s constant critiques of me was that I didn’t keep up with the news enough, but I wondered if he wasn’t over informed, deep-diving into obscure articles and message boards, seeing connections that weren’t there.

If you are an individual employed by a corporation or an institution, he said, then the odds are leveraged against you. The larger party always wins. It can’t see you, but it can crush you. And if that’s the working world, then I don’t want to be a part of it.

Spirit money, yellow bills imprinted with gold foil, was tied with red string and shrink-wrapped in thick stacks. When I lived in China, my grandmother used to burn it. Once broken down into ashes, she had explained, the money would transfer into the possession of our ancestral spirits. They would use it to buy things or to bargain with others or to bribe afterlife officials for favors. The afterlife, with its bureaucratic echelons and hierarchies, functioned similarly to the government. Nothing turned your way unless you took matters into your own hands.