d where one can say “If this was Ah Siao, then I’m Jacky Chan.” without getting questioning looks. Slang and idiomatic expressions are used in the narrator’s stream of consciousness throughout the story. Carlos says to Manuel: “Christ, if I had half your balls I’d have done something about it. I’d have looked out for her sometime and faced up to your mother.” The word balls means courage but can also connote the male’s testes, just like when Carlos expressed his feelings with the line: “Something nipped my balls.” The words babe and a knockout used in the story refer to voluptuous or gorgeous women. The phrase “picked up” are used instead of just saying learned in the following lines: “I’d thought it a strange Latin affection he’d picked up until then.” and “It was the first time…. he might have picked up a few pointers from Corrales and his gang.” Other expressions such as given up for dead, dying to meet you, out of line, butted in, threw dagger looks, over Mei Lu’s dead body, conked out, way beyond my league at.al. are all over Ong’s work to awaken us to the truth that there is still racial prejudice in our society today. ...
