LOS ANGELES — Mary Ma holds three lit incense sticks in front of the almost life-size photo of her father displayed outside Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park.
She has been in this parking lot, walked by this exact spot, dozens of times — but never like this.
Behind piles of flowers, cards and candles left for Ming Wei Ma, the beloved manager and longtime leader of the dance hall, Mary quietly talks to her dad, telling him he no longer has to worry. Then she pours some of his favorite Chinese liquor on the asphalt and lights him a cigarette — his preferred brand — as an offering before the makeshift altar memorializing the mass shooting victims.
