Chapter Six: Lena St. Clair - The Voice from the Wall; motif

Lena St. Clair is the narrator in this chapter. She explains how her mother would tell her awful stories she encountered that scarred her for life. Lena's father saved Ying-ying, Lena's mother, from the horrible life she had in China. Lena says, "My mother never talked about her life in China, but my father said he saved her from a terrible life there, some tragedy she could not speak about" (104). The motif in this book is the idea that nobody likes to share their past lives in China. What is in the past, stays in the past. They do not discuss what happened before they came to the United States. Lena's father and mother could not communicate very well because Ying-ying knew only Mandarin and Clifford knew only English. Lena acted as the translator for her parents, but she often times could not understand what her mother was saying. After Lena's mother finds out she is pregnant, she arranges the furniture in the apartment saying it is 'unbalanced'. It seems as if Ying-ying did not want the child and bumps into furniture like there is no child in her stomach. After the baby is born, then dies, Lena moves her bed against the wall. She hears strange noises coming from the other side of the wall. She thought the girl was being beaten, but she never saw bruises on her when Lena saw her. The chapter is finished with the young girl and her mother laughing and crying on the other side of the wall.