Reading Notes W15: Joy Luck Club, Part A

An-Mei Hsu "Magpies"

My mother seemed to regain her pleasant nature. She put her old clothes back on, long Chinese gowns and skirts now with white mourning bands sewn at the bottoms (Tan, 226).

I looked up at my mother looking down from her window, watching everything. So in this clumsy way, my mother found out that Wu Tsing had taken his fourth concubine, who was actually just  and afterthought, a foolish bit of decoration for his new motorcar.

My mother was not jealous of this young girl who would now be called Fifth Wife. Why should she be? My mother did not love Wu Tsing. A girl in China did not marry for love. She married for position, and my mother's position, I later learned, was the worst (Tan, 228).



 Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Penguin Books, 2014, pp. 197-288.