The Expatriates

Mercy lies in bed in her tiny, cheap apartment, daydreaming of eating mythical creatures such as unicorns or centaurs. She is hungry but cannot bring herself to eat and tries to imagine what kind of meal could tempt her. It is late in the morning in December, but she has no job or place to be. Finally, she rises from bed and slowly prepares herself a small salad, forcing herself to eat it slowly, bite by bite. She reminds herself that she needs to cling to these small rituals or she will not be able to survive the day.

Margaret Reade distracts herself by designing a garden landscape for some friends of friends. She worked as a landscape architect in the US but followed her husband, Clarke, to Hong Kong and now stays home with their three children. Later, she catches a taxi to meet a party planner and asks for help planning Clarke’s upcoming 50th birthday celebration. During the meeting, she is relieved to find out that the planner doesn’t know about her youngest son, G. Though this is not revealed until later chapters, G was lost and presumed kidnapped on a trip to Korea. Margaret has not recovered from the loss and leaves the meeting relieved that she survived the pleasantries and did not have to mention her son.

Mercy is 27 and has lived in Hong Kong for three years. She is Korean American and traveled here for a new start, but she now believes that her bad luck is inescapable. She recalls a childhood memory when her drunk father told her that a fortune teller predicted that her life would always be muddled. She went to Columbia University in New York, but to her mother’s chagrin, she drifted through school. She spent most of her time studying the habits and mores of the wealthier students she hung out with, especially her roommate, who was a wealthy girl from Hong Kong.

After college, the gap between Mercy and her wealthy friends widened. She took a series of temporary jobs and realized that she needed a change, so she came to Hong Kong to visit her old roommate. Since then, she has worked a series of odd jobs writing and waiting tables. She thought her babysitting job for Margaret would be a solution, but “the thing with G” has completely wrecked her life (21).

In the present, Mercy searches online for stories of people who are guilty like her—bystanders to others’ tragedies. She wonders what happened to them and what will happen to her.

Margaret relaxes in the bathtub. She is in her secret apartment in the working-class neighborhood of Happy Valley. She rented it a few months ago and spends her days there, lying in bed or taking long baths. Clarke believes she is busy at home, and her children are at school, so no one knows where she is. She tries to think about how to live now that she only has two children and is unsure how she will go on.

She reminisces about meeting Clarke when she crashed a party in New York. She was 26 and working at an advertising agency, and he was older and more established. They married and had three children rapidly: Daisy, Philip, and G. They moved to Hong Kong for Clarke’s job, though Margaret was nervous about giving up her job and becoming a trailing spouse. She also chafes against the whiteness and homogeneity of the expatriate community. However, she believed that this would be a new adventure for their family until tragedy struck.

Mercy wonders if her life would have been different if she had never met Margaret. She feels that fate is deeply unfair to her.

She remembers meeting the Reades on a boat trip, invited by one of her friends. Mercy felt out of place among the crowd of mainly white, wealthy expatriates. Margaret is a quarter Korean, and she and Mercy bonded over small talk. However, Mercy did not fit in, especially not with the men who were patronizing and made derogatory remarks about the Asian help. At the end of the trip, one of the drunk husbands tried to grope her, and she fended him off, wondering what it was about her that attracted bad men.

Margaret thinks that the entire problem started with their trip to Korea. She hired Mercy to come with them so she and Clarke could spend some time alone. Mercy was enthusiastic and came over to their house a few times to play with the kids and get to know them beforehand. However, once the trip began, Margaret started to doubt her judgment. Mercy was late for the flight and let the kids stay up late and eat sugar. She went to the hotel bar the first night, leaving the children sleeping alone in the room. However, Margaret decided to let her have another chance.

During the trip, Margaret reconnected with her father’s family and accompanied Clarke on some work dinners. Mercy seemed to be doing better, but when she accompanied Margaret and the kids to a crowded market, she lost sight of G while Margaret was in the bathroom. They searched but could not find him, and the police were also unable to find any leads.

In the present, Margaret thinks about the incident and wishes that she could erase Mercy entirely, replacing her with the missing child.

In her lavish apartment, Hilary is sitting with Julian, a young boy in the local foster care system. Because he is seven and biracial (Indian and Chinese), he is unlikely to be adopted. Hilary and her husband, David, are considering adoption, and Hilary pays for him to have piano lessons at her house once a week.

Hilary leaves to join her friend, Olivia, for lunch at the club. She reflects on the circumstances that led her to Hong Kong. She is from a wealthy San Francisco family, and David is an attorney. She followed him when he relocated to Hong Kong for work, and she now fills her days with lunches, parties, and tennis. She is scornful when she sees pudgy middle-aged mothers at the club, thinking derisively that they have let themselves go and that she will never do so. However, she is also deeply jealous; she and David have been trying and failing to conceive for several years.

She met Julian through her charity work. When her women’s group was touring the orphanage, she realized that she had begun her period and was not pregnant. She took it as a sign that she should try new avenues to motherhood and was struck by Julian when she saw him. Though it was unorthodox, she managed to convince the authorities to allow him to come to her house for piano lessons. He likes the lessons and the snacks her housekeeper, Puri, prepares, but he seems wary around Hilary and speaks little English. David supports the adoption but doesn’t press Hilary, who cannot decide whether it is the right thing to do. Instead, she floats in a kind of stasis.

At the club, Hilary meets with Olivia, a wealthy and beautiful Hong Kong native. Hilary thinks of her as one of the “landed gentry” who look down on mainlanders and expats alike. At lunch, Olivia gently asks Hilary if a person should tell their friend bad news, even if it might hurt them. Hilary, suspecting that Olivia knows something about David potentially being unfaithful, begs her to wait. She says that she has a dinner party that night and can’t bear it.

That evening, Hilary sits on the couch and waits for the guests and her husband to arrive. Around her, the hired cook and waiters buzz, preparing the house. She thinks about her upbringing and her struggle to lose weight and keep it off, believing that David only stays with her if she is thin and beautiful. David comes home, and they exchange meaningless pleasantries. She imagines them as characters in the Sims computer game.