>>149813053
>Eventually, Mei "sells" herself to her bully, Tyler (Tristan Allerick Chen), for his birthday party. It's an unpleasant arrangement that ends with Tyler saying, "You want your money? Get your butt down here, now." He later yells about her "psycho mom" and "creepy temple" before Mei pounces on him with possibly murderous intentions. Ming, you know, is so close to getting it when she accuses Mei's friends of using her. She's made to be the villain--and she is, for the bulk of the film--but she's not wrong in this moment. Mei, the pariah, has found acceptance through the minstrelsy of her culture, and that's as heartbreaking as it is common. Ming is reacting against the casting of her daughter in the other Asian female trope in the west: the prostitute.