Online Matchmaker

My first date was such a success in Mama Lai's eyes that suddenly surfing AOL chatrooms became a pastime.  If you were a twentysomething or thirtysomething Chinese man cruising AOL chatrooms, my mom was happy to be your friend, send you a family picture and point out her eldest and say:

"My single eighteen year old daughter.  Just started college.  Would you like to chat with her?"

And in my tumultuous first year of college, there was the guy in Boston who didn't get along with his sister, the guy in Atlanta who was a PhD in engineering, the law student at USC, and the Stanford grad students who liked to go swing dancing…