The New Yorker: Fiction cover image

Gary Shteyngart Reads Weike Wang

The New Yorker: Fiction

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Lip Rings - What's the Point?

The woman's immigrant parents had wanted the best for her, so imagine coming home to them with a lip ring. If she looked like a hoodlum, then she would have trouble getting into college. She could make friends with other people wearing lip rings and form a gang. Is that what you want as a career? Her parents would have asked to form a lip ring gang in jail. The couple tried to mimic the chef, but perhaps their skin was thinner than his. Holding the mug the Japanese way didn't hurt any less than sticking their hands into boiling water. This is the Japanese way, he finally said. He held the mug delicately at the very top with two fingertips and

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