PROPONENTS of the 'Asian values' argument often talk of the loyalty, honour and other positive aspects of the extended family.
But perhaps those close-knit ties begin to unravel when some Asian families transport themselves to the land of the free. Or, indeed, anywhere they can play the lottery.
A New York Vietnamese family hit the front pages last week after a jury awarded US$8 million (HK$61.8 million) to a woman six years after she claimed her uncle had stolen her winning lottery ticket.
The court ruled in favour of Julie Sau Thi Ma, whose uncle Xuan Lien had for all those years refused to admit the jackpot-winner he cashed in belonged to his niece.
Both relatives had been working in an electronics store when Ms Sau bought the ticket - using the same numbers she always used, taken from her dead mother's healthcare card. But when she went to the hiding place she reserved for her tickets, she found it gone.
When Mr Xuan cashed in his ticket, he used the implausible story that he had copied the winning numbers from a discarded ticket he found lying in the street. A suspicious Ms Sau won an injunction to prevent the lottery authority from handing over most of the US$8 million, but had to wait until now for her day in court.