How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Don't let your father know that I told you [about your forgotten aunt]. He denies her. Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don't humiliate us. You wouldn't like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful" (1.9).
We learn that some of the stories Kingston has been told were meant to be warnings. She must be a good girl for the sake of the family's reputation. It's ironic, that the very stories that later empower Kingston are the same ones told to her to limit her.
Quote #2
"I'm not a bad girl," I would scream. "I'm not a bad girl. I'm not a bad girl." I might as well have said, "I'm not a girl" (2.152).
Kingston grew up feeling like being born a girl was a set-back. The world treated her differently through no fault of her own.
Quote #3
It was said, "There is an outward tendency in females," which meant that I was getting straight A's for the good of my future husband's family, not my own. I did not plan ever to have a husband. I would show my mother and father and the nosey emigrant villagers that girls have no outward tendency. I stopped getting straight A's (2.160).
Because of other expectations of girls, Kingston manipulated her behavior in order to react against those patriarchal expectations. It becomes tricky because then Kingston's sense of self becomes confused – should she let herself do well in school or not? Who is she doing it for?
Quote #4
"When your father lived in China," Brave Orchid told the children, "he refused to eat pastries because he didn't want to eat the dirt the women kneaded from between their fingers" (4.218).
Kingston remembers how her mom would tell her about her father's sexism. Our narrator's ardent vow to fight unfair treatment of women quickly causes conflict within the family.
Quote #5
"She's very pretty and very young; just a girl. She's his nurse. He's a doctor like me. What a terrible, faithless man. You'll have to scold him for years, but first you need to sit up straight. Use my powder. Be as pretty as you can. Otherwise you won't be able to compete" (4.269).
Some might call Brave Orchid a complicated feminist. She wishes Moon Orchid to confront her husband for leaving her in China, but Moon Orchid has no wish to do so. Then Brave Orchid makes Moon Orchid feel like she'll need to be prettier to please her husband.
Quote #6
"You want a husband, don't you?" said Brave Orchid. "If you don't claim him now, you'll never have a husband. Stop crying," she ordered. "Do you want him to see you with your eyes and nose swollen when that young so-called wife wears lipstick and nail polish like a movie star?" (4.290).
Brave Orchid speaks for her sister in a way that is not helpful. Why doesn't she just let Moon Orchid do what she wants to do?
Quote #7
Brave Orchid told her children they must help her keep their father from marrying another woman because she didn't think she could take it any better than her sister had. If he brought another woman into the house, they were to gang up on her and play tricks on her, hit her, and trip her when she was carrying hot oil until she ran away (4.367).
Brave Orchid coaxes her children to punish a potential second wife of her husband instead of the husband himself. Why is that?
Quote #8
Normal Chinese women's voices are strong and bossy. We American-Chinese girls had to whisper to make ourselves American-feminine. Apparently we whispered even more softly than the Americans. Once a year the teachers referred my sister and me to speech therapy, but our voices would straighten out, unpredictably normal, for the therapists (5.69).
Kingston is confused which model of femininity she should use as a standard. The very relativity of femininity according to culture, belies how arbitrary those standards can be.
Quote #9
When my sisters and I ate at [the great-grandfather and great-uncle's] house, there we would be – six girls eating. The old man opened his eyes wide at us and turned in a circle, surrounded .His neck tendons stretched out. "Maggots!" he shouted. "Maggots! Where are my grandsons? I want grandsons? Give me grandsons! Maggots!" He pointed at each one of us, "Maggot! Maggot! Maggot! Maggot! Maggot! Maggot!" (5.124).
Kingston gives us another example of a (male) relative who demonstrates shockingly inappropriate behavior toward his female relatives. No wonder Kingston felt during childhood that girls were bad by default.
Quote #10
"Improve that voice," she had instructed my mother, "or else you'll never marry her off. Even the fool half ghosts won't have her." So I discovered the next plan to get rid of us: marry us off here without waiting until China. The villagers' peasant minds converged on marriage (5.133).
Kingston comes to scorn marriage.
Quote #11
"Chinese smeared bad daughters-in-law with honey and tied them naked on top of ant nests," my father said. "A husband may kill a wife who disobeys him. Confucius said that." Confucius, the rational man (5.134).
Patriarchal values are written into ancient texts, too. Stories that are considered classic and have been passed down for years and years are often infused with sexism.