The Joy Luck Club Waverly Jong Quotes

And looking at the coat in the mirror, I couldn’t fend off the strength of her will anymore, her ability to make me see black where there was once white, white where there was once black. The coat looked shabby, an imitation of romance. (III.2.34)

And even if I recognized her strategy, her sneak attack, I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eye, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfections. (III.2.72)

When I was in love with Marvin, he was nearly perfect…But by the time my mother had had her say about him, I saw his brain had shrunk from laziness, so that now it was good only for thinking up excuses. He chased golf and tennis balls to run away from family responsibilities. His eyes wandered up and down other girls’ legs, so he didn’t know how to drive home straight anymore. (III.2.74)

Rich was smiling. "How long does it take to say, Mom, Dad, I’m getting married?"

"You don’t understand. You don’t understand my mother." Rich shook his head. "Whew! You can say that again. Her English was so bad. You know, when she was talking about that dead guy showing up on Dynasty, I thought she was talking about something that happened in China a long time ago." (III.2.111)

At the corner of the alley was Hong Sing’s, a four-table café with a recessed stairwell in front that led to a door marked "Tradesmen." My brothers and I believed the bad people emerged from this door at night. Tourists never went to Hong Sing’s, since the menu was printed only in Chinese. A Caucasian man with a big camera once posed me and my playmates in front of the restaurant. He had us move to the side of the picture window so the photo would capture the roasted duck with its head dangling from a juice-covered rope. After he took the picture, I told him he should go into Hong Sing’s and eat dinner. When he smiled and asked me what they served, I shouted, "Guts and duck’s feet and octopus gizzards!" Then I ran off with my friends. (II.1.8)

The sexual chemistry was what really surprised me, though. I thought he’d be one of those quiet types who was awkwardly gentle and clumsy, the kind of mild-mannered guy who says, "Am I hurting you?" when I can’t feel a thing. But he was so attuned to my every movement I was sure he was reading my mind. He had no inhibitions, and whatever ones he discovered I had he’d pry away from me like little treasures. He saw all those private aspects of me – and I mean not just my sexual private parts, but my darker side, my meanness, my pettiness, my self-loathing – all the things I kept hidden. So that with him I was completely naked, and when I was feeling the most vulnerable – when the wrong word would have sent me flying out the door forever – he always said the right thing at the right moment. (III.2.78)

One day I after we left a shop I said under my breath, I wish you wouldn’t do that, telling everybody I’m your daughter." My mother stopped walking. Crowds of people with heavy bags pushed past us on the sidewalk, bumping into first one shoulder, then another.

"Aii-ya. So shame be with mother?" She grasped my hand even tighter as she glared at me.

I looked down. "It’s not that, it’s just so obvious. It’s just so embarrassing."

"Embarrass you be my daughter?" Her voice was cracking with anger.

"That’s not what I meant. That’s not what I said." (II.1.58)

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from others, and eventually, though neither of us knew it at the time, chess games. (II.1.1)

In my head, I saw a chessboard with sixty-four black and white squares. Opposite me was my opponent, two angry black slits. She wore a triumphant smile. "Strongest wind cannot be seen," she said. (II.1.76)

In my head, I saw a chessboard with sixty-four black and white squares. Opposite me was my opponent, two angry black slits. She wore a triumphant smile. "Strongest wind cannot be seen," she said. (II.1.76)

And my mother loved to show me off, like one of the many trophies she polished. She used to discuss my games as if she had devised the strategies.

"I told my daughter, Use your horses to run over the enemy," she informed one shopkeeper. "She won very quickly this way. And of course, she had said this before the game – that a hundred other useless things that had nothing to do with my winning. (III.2.12)

And looking at the coat in the mirror, I couldn’t fend off the strength of her will anymore, her ability to make me see black where there was once white, white where there was once black. The coat looked shabby, an imitation of romance. (III.2.34)

I didn’t know what to do or say. In a matter of seconds it seemed, I had gone from being angered by her strength, to being amazed by her innocence, and then frightened by her vulnerability. And now I felt numb, strangely weak, as if someone had unplugged me and the current running through me had stopped. (III.2.123)

I saw what I had been fighting for: It was for me, a scared child, who had run away long ago to what I had imagined was a safer place. And hiding in this place, behind my invisible barriers, I knew what lay on the other side: Her side attacks. Her secret weapons. Her uncanny ability to find my weakest spots. But in the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in. (III.2.164)

"Don’t be so old-fashioned, Ma," she told me, finishing her coffee down the sink. "I’m my own person."

And I think, How can she be her own person? When did I give her up? (IV.3.12)

He had no inhibitions, and whatever ones he discovered I had he’d pry away from me like little treasures. He saw all those private aspects of me – and I mean not just my sexual private parts, but my darker side, my meanness, my pettiness, my self-loathing – all the things I kept hidden. So that with him I was completely naked, and when I was feeling the most vulnerable – when the wrong word would have sent me flying out the door forever – he always said the right thing at the right moment. (III.2.78)