Cultural Vocabulary
In An-mei's childhood home, this word did not mean a dead person, but "anything we were forbidden to talk about".
What is a ghost?
This relative had a "tongue like hungry scissors eating silk cloth" and a very bad temper.
Who is Auntie?
Inside the belly of the "greedy girl" who poisoned herself, the monks found this large vegetable.
What is a white winter melon?
An-mei was this age when the boiling soup pot toppled and burned her neck.
What is four years old?
The mother prepared this in an attempt to cure Popo one last time.
What is medicinal soup?
This term refers to a "traitor to our ancestors", a label Auntie used for An-mei's mother.
What is ni?
This figure sat in a "large, unsmiling" painting on the wall with eyes that followed An-mei.
Who is An-mei's father?
When a "bad girl" shook her head too vigorously, these poured out of her ear like chicken broth.
What are her brains?
An-mei describes the soup falling on her as if "everyone's anger" were doing this.
What is "pouring all over me"?
The mother used a "sharp knife" to cut a piece of flesh from this part of her body.
What is her arm?
This concept is defined as "respect for ancestors or family" that is felt deep in the bones.
What is shou?
She claimed that An-mei and her brother had fallen out of the "bowels of a stupid goose".
Who is Popo (the grandmother)?
Popo used this story to warn An-mei that if you are this, "what is inside you is what makes you always hungry".
What is greedy?
To make An-mei "hurry back from the other world," Popo threatened that her mother would do this.
What is forget her?
An-mei realized that honoring a mother means the "pain of the flesh is nothing" compared to what is here.
What is "in your bones"?
Popo told An-mei that losing this is like "dropping your necklace down a well".
What is face?
This person laughed during a funeral procession when a framed picture of a dead man fell.
Who is An-mei's little brother?
Popo compared her own swollen, sick body to this "soft and rotten" item.
What is an overripe squash?
An-mei observes that a wound does this "to protect what is hurting so much."
What is "close in on itself"?
To find one's "true nature," An-mei says one must peel off their skin until there is none of this left.
What is flesh (or scars/skin)?
An-mei used this adjective to describe the "bossy" missionary ladies whose style her mother imitated.
What is insolent?
An-mei's mother was a "number-three concubine" to this man, who already had a wife and two other concubines.
Who is Wu Tsing?
Popo said that saying this person's name was equivalent to "spitting on your father's grave".
Who is An-mei’s mother?
Popo told An-mei that if she died young, she would owe her family one of these.
What is a debt?
An-mei describes her mother's oval face as being "not too round" like Auntie's and "not sharp" like this person's.
Who is Popo?