In the hours before dinner on Sundays, my two uncles would play Chinese chess on the dining table and fill the big room with cigarette smoke. Uncle Strong moved in small, cautious steps with his pawns, while Uncle New Sea dashed his cannons and horses across the board. Uncle New Sea’s red troops would run all over Uncle Strong’s blue territory, knocking down everything in sight like a true conqueror. Uncle Strong defended each of his pieces, no matter how small, while Uncle New Sea didn’t mind sacrificing both of his loyal ministers if he could stab at Uncle Strong’s last horse. Uncle Strong lost most of the time, but he didn’t mind. He just studied the chess board, blinked, and lit another cigarette as Uncle New Sea began raising troops for a new battle.

Uncle Strong was always blinking, as if he were fundamentally uncertain about everything. The rhythm of his blinking was not so much like a clock’s regular ticking as someone tapping out an elaborate telegram, for Uncle Strong belonged with Grandpa in the pantheon of inexpressive men that nevertheless had a lot on their mind, so their silence often relegated them to the backdrop of our family gatherings. Uncle Strong became the cigarette smoke in the room, while Grandpa became the sound of the radio, which he carried around with him during the day like a propaganda loudspeaker and slid under his pillow at night like a spy. Rising above their gentle waves were the chitchats and giggles of my aunts.

If you stay in a work unit,” he was famous for saying, “you could see your whole life spread out in front of you from the cradle to the coffin.” So he decided to become a big boss, somebody who made money give birth to money.

When Uncle New Sea came, he would fill the room with gasps and sighs and make us realize what country bumpkins we were, not to like coffee or mangoes, not to have taken a bath in a white-tiled bathtub, not to recognize the Italian label on the sleeves of his suit. From his first flight on an airplane, he brought us a fruit salad, arranged so prettily in a plastic bowl that we all found it a pity eat it. Instead, Grandpa stored it in the refrigerator and showed it to everybody who dropped by our house as if it were a rock from the moon.

Uncle New Sea left his workplace, a Chinese art agency selling to foreigners for Japan, because he wasn’t content with getting a regular salary and always wanted to “make a fortune.” “If you stay in a work unit,” he was famous for saying, “you could see your whole life spread out in front of you from the cradle to the coffin.” So he decided to become a big boss, somebody who made money give birth to money.

Ever since becoming the president of his own company, Uncle New Sea liked to order people around, especially Uncle Strong, who was a mechanic in a blanket factory: “Come, repair this for me!” “Go, deliver that for me.” On the busy street, Uncle Strong pedaled his bicycle, carrying planks and ladders on his shoulder. Uncle New Sea, for his part, hired a car with a chauffeur in a black suit and white gloves. The chauffeur would get out of the car first and announce in a Peking Opera voice: “President Lu has arrived.” Uncle Strong, too, was supposed to call Uncle New Sea “President Lu” instead of “Brother-in-Law.” “We have to look professional,” said Uncle New Sea. “When I get rich, I’ll buy you a house.”

Uncle Strong lived in a tiny little room with Aunt Gold and Lulu, a room that had barely any walking space after a bed, a table, a three-person sofa, a wardrobe, a refrigerator, a cabinet and a television. There was a flushing toilet outside, but they shared it with three other families, so in an emergency, even a man had to sit down and pee into a chamber pot. They had to wait for three years for a room that little, and during those three years all of Grandpa’s hair fell out from worrying. So everybody was counting on Uncle New Sea.

His latest project was to invest in American land. With 30,000 yuan, amounting to five years’ worth of my grandparents’ savings, Uncle New Sea made Uncle Strong get on line at three o’clock in the morning to buy fifteen identical wooden plaques. In fancy calligraphy and golden engravings, each read in English and then Chinese translation:

When we first saw these words, we thought of a handful of soil, a blade of grass, a golden autumn leaf, and a blue dew smelling of summer and chlorine. People said that you could exchange one of these wooden plaques for an American visa — after all, how could they refuse to let you into America if you owned a piece of California.

Yet before we had time to apply at the American embassy, the newspapers already exposed the whole thing as a big hoax, and the plaques became as worthless as firewood. “We are living in an era of liars and swindlers,” Grandma, who knew the good old days when nobody dared to embezzle even a ball of thread from her silk factory, cried with outrage. “How can people be so immoral?”

Uncle New Sea, however, remained optimistic and enterprising as ever. With the help of a Japanese sponsor, he managed to open China’s first karaoke bar in Hainan Island, but before the business got going, the local gangs took over, and he managed to salvage only two loudspeakers from the ruins. Next, inspired by the Peace Park lantern festival that had drawn such a crowd that a few children were stomped to death, he scraped together investments from multiple sources to put together a festival of Chinese ethnic dances, flying in actors from as far as Tibet, but Heaven had no eyes and rained for two weeks, so that the ticket revenues had barely covered the costs. Uncle New Sea kept having new ideas, but the problem was either the lack of capital or bad luck, and so he couldn’t help but see his old friends and enemies, with only half of his brain and a quarter of his nerves, get rich faster than he did, buying cars and villas, ivory and diamonds, marrying younger wives and sending their children abroad. The consolation came, however, when he found out that several of his old business partners had also landed in jail.

Over the years, Uncle New Sea got by with stocks and a few business ventures here and there, but the fortunes he talked about — and made the rest of us dream of — never materialized. In our ever rarer family reunions, he would still play chess with Uncle Strong, who had been retired prematurely from his state-owned factory and played a card game called “Struggle Against the Landlord” with his former co-workers day in and day out. In the meantime, he had so much time to hone his skills at chess, it was now his turn to win the games. Uncle New Sea, for his part, had also become a good loser. After every game, he would shuffle the pieces like mahjong tiles and light another cigarette: “We’ll see at the end of the day who’s the general and who’s the pawn.”