Quotes From An Mei

An-mei influences the way her daughter Rose grows up because she missed out on having a mother growing up. In their relationship, An-mei sees Rose's problems and wants to help, but Rose pushes her away. She'd rather talk to a psychiatrist than her mother. By the end of Rose's story, her relationship with her mom and her ability to stand up for herself changes. Since An-mei never had her mom around she wants to be close to her daughter and let Rose experience what she didn’t get to. Although An-mei later learns to speak up and assert herself, she fears that she has handed down a certain timidness to her daughter Rose.

An-Mei never knew her mother very well, and she didn’t want to be the same mother to her daughter. Growing up An-mei lived with her grandmother Popo. An-mei says at the start of her story, “When I was a young girl in China, my grandmother told me my mother was a ghost. This did not mean my mother

In this section, An-mei realizes that if one is to discover one's identity, one's heritage, one must metaphorically "peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until then, there is nothing." Nothing, except the scar. An-mei has a scar, a reminder of the day that her mother came to Popo's house and begged An-mei to come with her, and at that moment, a pot of dark boiling soup spilled on tiny An-mei. As a kid Popo would tell An-mei so many different stories to keep her from doing things. She told her stories about being too greedy, and listening to her elders. For example, to protect her grandchildren from evil spirits, Popo tells them that they came from unwanted eggs of a stupid goose; they came from eggs so valueless that they weren't fit to be "cracked over rice porridge." An-mei believes this tale,; later, when her mother arrives unexpectedly, An-mei notes that her mother has a long neck "just like the goose that had laid