The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam

Percival Chen is not your typical hero. He loves to gamble and frequent prostitutes. He seems fairly oblivious to what is going on right under his nose--and in the world at large. And at one point, he becomes addicted to drugs. But he loves his family and will do anything to keep them safe--which he proves more than once during The Headmaster's Wager. Chen grew up poor in rural China. His father set off for Indochina to make money. After becoming a successful rice merchant in South Vietnam, he financially supports his family back in China but remains in Vietnam because the lure of additional wealth is hard to resist. Chen makes his way to Vietnam to track down his father, who has become a sad shadow of his former self. Chen eventually opens an English academy, which provides translators for the American army during the Vietnam war, which is when most of this story is set. It's fascinating to see how the war impacted the people on the ground--how so many lusted after American dollars then tried to distance themselves from the Americans when defeat seems inevitable. And it's interesting to see the war from Chen's perspective because, although he is a successful entrepreneur in Vietnam, he is Chinese. So he manages to keep the war mostly at a distance--until the point when his foreign status puts him and his family in real danger. The Headmaster's Wager gives you a lot to think about: What is "home"? What constitutes a family? And what does it mean to be a good father?