Carnegie Wong and Blondie meet and marry in college when they are asked to take in a baby of Asian descent (Chinese Korean? Japanese?) Their modern American marriage thrives as they adopt another girl from China and eventually have a son of their own. But always in the background is the delightful evil genius of the story, Mama Wong, who swam from mainland China to the freedom of Hong Kong by hugging two basketballs for flotation. She's a Chinese mother of staggering ambition, and Carnegie spends his life resisting her. As the story opens, the family is awaiting the arrival of a "cousin" from China to help babysit and attend the college she's missed because of the Cultural Revolution. What happens as this unknowing instrument of Mama Wong inserts herself into the already over burdened household leads to a funny, witty, perilous situation. The cracks in America's body politic are thrown into comic relief as the cousin applies her Chinese focus to the contemporary scene, and the fragile structure of the Wong family threatens to collapse.