Counterfeit

Schools function in their primary roles as institutions of education, but they also hold a symbolic power indicating a person’s aspirations, abilities, and upward mobility. Ava went to Stanford because it was expected she would attend one of the most prestigious colleges in the US. For Winnie, attending Stanford is an opportunity for advancement not available to her in China. As Winnie notes to Ava, the school one attends is a status symbol as much as a handbag; it signifies that people are in the same club.

School for Henri holds a similar charge for Ava. First and foremost, she feels the need to conform to the expectation that her child enroll early in a desirable, competitive preschool so he can begin receiving educational opportunities immediately. Ava particularly desires this opportunity for Henri because she has concerns about his speech. The Chinese immersion school is an acceptable alternative to the other private preschools because Ava can say she chose it for the language exposure. But Ava is humiliated when Henri is expelled and she has to confront the fact that he simply wasn’t ready. This is a check to her own aspirations to prove herself a successful parent.

Cell phones function in the novel as a tool for communication, connection, and surveillance. They afford a moment of humor highlighting Ava’s anxieties at the apartment in Guangzhou where she meets Winnie’s go-between. Ava’s fears that she is about to be attacked are overturned when the contact invites her to show him pictures of Henri, which Ava claims not to have on her phone. The cell phones further function as a plot device to keep Winnie abreast of Ava’s confession while Winnie is in China.

The cell phone also serves as a symbol to illustrate Ava’s growing ease with telling lies. Leaving her cell phone at the counter when she returns a replica handbag to the store becomes Ava’s signature move, a skillful misdirection that shows confidence in herself and her ploy. Ava further uses her cell phone for deception when she leaves it in the bathroom at her friend’s house during their class reunion. While Ava takes a car to the storage unit to retrieve 200 bags she and Winnie can sell before they are confiscated, the location data on her phone suggests Ava was exactly where she told the detective she was. The cell phones are a device that cements Ava and Winnie’s relationship and allows their schemes to succeed.