I grew up watching my dad perform exorcisms for members in his congregation. The Chinese diaspora community on the East Coast is a strange mix of high-income middle class households and folks who gave up everything to get here just to scrape by. The two communities rarely overlap, but I’ve witnessed plenty of these folks in my living room, claiming to be possessed or haunted or just hearing voices. As it turns out, it’s hard to be in this country when you feel like you’ve traded a bad life for another bad life, but it’s can be just as hard when the “good life” you’ve given up everything for leaves you feeling just as alone.

Over time, I came to realize that “possession” for a good many of the uncles, aunties, and sometimes kids that passed through my living room was a coping mechanism. They weren’t haunted by some undead spirit so much as being swallowed whole by profound isolation - even after doing all the Right Things and making the right sacrifices,

It’s probably the one thing Sandy has in common with her marks, it’s also why she’s confident that these otherwise reasonable, intelligent people will be so willing to part with their hard-earned cash because they, like her, will do anything to believe that what plagues them can be exorcised.