"And she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English."
"In me, they see their own daughters, just as arrogant, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English."
"I saw these things with my Chinese eyes, the part of me I got from my mother."
"It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish to think she could use faith to change fate."
"And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. You have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation."
"And in a way, I felt disappointed. I had been waiting for her to start shouting, so I could shout back and blame her for all my misery."
"But my therapist said, Why do you blame your culture, your ethnicity? And I remembered reading an article about baby boomers, how we expect the best and when we get it we worry that maybe we should have expected more, because it's all diminishing returns after a certain age."
"The power of my words was that strong."
"That's the way Chinese mothers show they love their children, not through hugs and kisses but with stern offerings of steamed dumplings, duck's gizzards, and crab."
"Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever."
"Secrets are kept from children, a lid on top of the soup kettle, so they do not boil over with too much truth."
"It's my fault she is this way. I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?"
"In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you."
