| Quote #1 My aunt haunts me – her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her, though not origamied into houses and clothes (1.49). |
Kingston pays tribute to her aunt's memory by writing her story.
| Quote #2 When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves […] [The white crane boxing story] was one of the tamer, more modern stories, mere introduction. My mother told others that followed swordswomen through woods and palaces for years. Night after night my mother would talk-story until we fell asleep. I couldn't tell where the stories left off and the dreams began, her voice the voice of the heroines in my sleep (2.1-2). |
Brave Orchid equipped her children with role models through storytelling.
| Quote #3 When I dream that I am wire without flesh, there is a letter on blue airmail paper that floats above the night ocean between here and China. It must arrive safely or else my grandmother and I will lose each other (2.183). |
Kingston imagines that the ties between her grandmother and her is in the form of a letter.