The Mothers and Daughters of 'The Joy Luck Club' Quiz

Answer: Jing-mei and Suyuan Woo

The titular chapter is about Jing-mei Woo going to play Mahjong with her late mother Suyuan's friends, following Suyuan's death from a brain haemorrhage. Suyuan had formed the Joy Luck Club with a group of other women back in Guilin, China, and restarted it in San Francisco with three other Chinese families: the Hsus, the Jongs and the St Clairs. The Hsus are hosting it this time and Jing-nei takes her mother's place at the table.

Jing-mei knows that her mother had to abandon her twin daughters while escaping from Guilin, but what she does not know - until the women tell her - is that her mother had been trying to contact her daughters after finding out they were alive, and had been given an address the year before. The women had written to the address and the sisters had written back, and the women had pooled their Mahjong winnings so that Jing-mei can go to China and meet her sisters. Jing-mei promises to tell them everything about their mother.

Answer: An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan

An-mei recalls her childhood and an accident she had that left her with a scar. Her mother has been disowned by the family, for reasons revealed later in the book, and she and her brother live with their uncle and aunt. An-mei's grandmother warns her to never speak of her. When An-mei's mother comes to visit one time, when An-mei is four, an argument breaks out and her grandmother tells her mother that if she takes An-mei with her, An-mei will lose face. A bowl of soup overturns and spills on An-mei's neck, badly burning her. Her grandmother takes care of her as she recovers, and encourages her recovery by warning her that her mother will forget her if she dies.

When An-mei is older, her grandmother is dying. Her mother returns home and makes a medicinal soup, and cuts a bit of flesh out of her arm and adds it to the soup. She feeds it to An-mei's grandmother, but the grandmother dies. This is the moment when An-mei comes to love her mother.

Answer: Lindo and Waverly Jong

Lindo Jong talks about her betrothal to Huang Tyan-yu, the son of a rich family from Peking, when she is still a baby. Lindo dislikes him at first because she thinks he is spoiled, and she has to move in with the Huangs when her family's home and land are ruined by a flood. She learns how to do housework and run a household from Huang Taitai, her future mother-in-law, and the servants. A few years later, she and Tyan-yu are married and he makes her sleep on the floor. While he sleeps, she goes to the red candle that was lit at the wedding and is supposed to burn all night. The servant watching is is sleeping, so Lindo blows it out.

Huang Taitai is angry that Lindo cannot get pregnant. Lindo and Tyan-yu aren't actually having sex, but he lies that they are and Lindo is confined to her bed. Lindo hatches a plan: on the day of the Festival of Pure Brightness, a day for honouring ancestors, she claims that she had a bad dream and that Tyan-yu's grandfather told her he would die if they stayed together, and that he should marry a pregnant servant girl instead. Lindo knows the servant girl is having an affair with a delivery man and has become pregnant. She goes along with the lie and marries Tyan-yu, raising her station, while Lindo gets given enough money to buy a ticket to the US.

Answer: Ying-ying and Lena St. Clair

Ying-ying comes from a rich family with servants, and they go for a picnic for the Moon Festival, in an abnormally hot autumn. Ying-ying was born in the Year of the Tiger, so she wears a yellow and black striped outfit to go to the ceremony. Ying-ying's amah, or nanny, tells her about how Chang'e, the Moon Lady, grants wishes on the day of the Moon Festival. On the boat, while the family are resting, Ying-ying goes exploring and gets dirty, and has to change. She falls off the boat and is fished out of the water by a group of peasant fishermen.

The fishermen take Ying-ying to shore and she goes to see the ceremony, where some actors are telling the story of Chang'e. Afterwards, the presenter says that the Moon Lady will grant wishes for a donation. Ying-ying goes backstage to make her wish and discovers that the Moon Lady is a male actor. Her family eventually find her, and at the end of the chapter, she recalls that her wish was to be found.

Answer: Lindo and Waverly Jong

Waverly Jong and her brothers, Vincent and Winston, go to a Christmas party at their church and are given presents from Father Christmas. Vincent gets a chess set with missing pieces and Waverly gets Lifesavers, which her brothers use as substitute pieces. Waverly begs them to let her play and while her brothers lose interest, she keeps playing and becomes a chess prodigy, playing against adults. Lau Po, a Chinese chess player, teaches her various strategies in a local park.

Lindo takes credit for Waverly's chess skills and Waverly becomes angry, thinking Lindo is vicariously living through her and showing off about her. Waverly gets angry and runs out of the house, and when she comes back, Lindo ignores her. She temporarily stops playing chess, but when she starts playing again, she is not as good as she was and eventually gives up.

Answer: Ying-ying and Lena St. Clair

Lena St. Clair grows up in an atmosphere of paranoia, as Ying-ying constantly worries about danger and particularly fixates on girls having babies (for reasons that became clear later on). For example, when she sees a homeless woman, she claims the woman had a baby she didn't want with a 'bad man'. Ying-ying's English is poor, so Clifford, her husband, makes guesses at what she is saying and Lena frequently mistranslates things to protect her. Ying-ying is pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy with no brain, and has a mental breakdown.

The St. Clairs live next door to the Sorcis, an Italian-American family who are constantly arguing. Lena hears Teresa, the daughter, screaming and thinks she is being murdered. However, Lena changes her mind after meeting Teresa after Mrs Sorci kicks her out and she sneaks back in through the St. Clairs' fire escape. Lena realises that Teresa and her family do love each other, and arguing is a way of expressing that.

Answer: An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan

Rose Hsu comes from a large family, with several siblings. She is in a loveless marriage with her husband Ted and is giving up hope. She thinks about how her mother used to believe in G-d, but loses her faith on a fishing trip to the beach after her youngest son Bing dies. An-mei tells Rose to look after her brothers and she watches Bing; Bing walks towards his father, who is fishing, and Rose is distracted when her brothers Luke and Mark have a fight and An-mei tells her to break them up. Bing falls into the sea and the family spend hours looking for him, and An-mei has to be pulled out of the sea by rescuers.

Rose worries that her family will punish her, but all of them blame themselves for Bing's death. An-mei does not give up hope and goes to the beach the next day to pray, asking G-d to give Bing back. She then tries praying to Chinese gods and even makes an offering of tea and a sapphire ring her mother gave her. She and Rose think they see Bing in a cave, and An-mei throws an inner tube into the water, but it is destroyed. Many years later, Rose finds the family Bible and sees that on the list of deaths, An-mei has written Bing's name in pencil.

Answer: Jing-mei and Suyuan Woo

Jing-mei recalls being made to learn the piano by Suyuan, who is desperate to compete with the Jongs and their chess prodigy daughter Waverly. Suyuan encourages Jing-mei to learn everything from Bible passages off by heart and capitals to daily temperatures around the world, but decides that Jing-mei should have piano lessons after seeing a little Chinese girl playing the piano on television.

Jing-mei hates having piano lessons and takes advantage of the fact that Mr Chong, her teacher, is deaf. When he and Suyuan arrange for her to play in a recital, she plays so badly that the audience are shocked. The next day, Jing-mei and Suyuan fight when Jing-mei refuses to go to her lesson, and says that she wishes she was dead, like the twins. For the rest of her life, she continues to feel like a disappointment, although she does start playing the piano again.

Answer: Ying-ying and Lena St. Clair

According to a Chinese superstition, a girl will have a husband with a pock mark on his face for every grain of rice she leaves. Ying-ying tells Lena this and that she knew a man with pockmarked skin and that he was a 'bad man'. Lena worries about having to marry Arnold, a particularly mean boy with pockmarked skin, and begins not only leaving rice but refusing to eat anything lumpy, before going on to develop an eating disorder. The boy later dies and Lena blames herself for wishing death on him. She binges on ice cream and throws it up, and is never able to eat it again afterwards.

Lena is married to Harold Livotny, who works at the same architectural firm as her, and they split everything evenly even though he earns far more than her. They make a list of the things they share and when Ying-ying comes to stay, she notices ice cream on the list and points out that Lena does not eat it. She asks Lena why they share everything, but Lena does not know. Ying-ying has a rickety table made by Harold in her room and it breaks, and she asks Lena why she didn't stop it breaking if she knew it would happen.

Answer: Lindo and Waverly Jong

Waverly is divorced and has a daughter, Shoshana, from her first marriage to Marvin Chen. She is a tax lawyer and met Rich Schields, her white fiancé, at work. She worries that Lindo disapproves of him and thinks he isn't good enough for her. When Waverly, Rich and Shoshana have dinner with Lindo and Tin, Rich commits several faux pas, such as pouring soy sauce on his food, drinking big glasses of wine and taking large portions.

Waverly thinks Lindo is trying to hurt her with her constant remarks about Rich - such as criticising the fur coat he gave her - and goes to see her parents, only to find Lindo sleeping on the sofa, and worries that she is dead. The two women have a heart-to-heart and Lindo reveals that she already knew Waverly and Rich were engaged. Lindo is hurt because she thinks Waverly is projecting her own feelings onto her, and Waverly realises that Lindo is not trying to hurt her, she is just brutally honest. Lindo comments on Rich's freckles, but Rich sees the funny side of it.

Answer: An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan

Rose is getting a divorce from Ted and is seeing a psychiatrist, but An-mei disapproves because she thinks the psychiatrist will confuse her and make her see 'heimongmong' (fog). Ted sends Rose a cheque for $10,000 to tide her over until the settlement, and has signed it with an expensive pen she gave him, which he promised he would only use to sign important things. Rose is depressed and notes that the garden, which Ted spent so much time on, is growing wild. An-mei phones her and asks her why she does not speak up. She thinks Rose is too pliable because she lacks the element of wood.

Ted phones Rose to chase her about the cheque and papers that need signing, and she invites him over. She gives him the papers and he notices that the garden has grown wild, but Rose says she prefers it that way. She also tells him that she is keeping the house, and that he can't just pluck her out of his life like a weed and throw her away. She dreams about Old Mr Chou (a Chinese Sandman figure) and her mother looking at a planter, and the seeds An-mei has planted growing wild in a mass of heimongmong.

Answer: Jing-mei and Suyuan Woo

The Woo family celebrate the Chinese New Year with a crab dinner and Suyuan buys eleven crabs so that there will be an extra. The eleventh crab has a missing leg and Suyuan is not allowed to put it back. The Woo family are joined by Mr Chong, Jing-mei's old piano teacher, the Jong family, Vincent and Waverly's partners and Waverly's daughter. Waverly picks the best crabs for Shoshana, Rich and herself. Jing-mei takes the crab with the missing leg, but Suyuan insists that she have a bigger one.

Jing-mei has done some copywriting for Waverly's firm, and the two argue because Waverly's firm did not pay her on time, because they did not like her work. As Jing-mei and Suyuan clear the dishes, Suyuan notes that only Jing-mei would have picked the dead crab, because she thinks differently to Waverly. She also gives her a jade pendant as a gift.

Answer: An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan

'Magpies' continues from where 'Scar' left off. An-mei's mother takes her home, despite her uncle and aunt warning her that she will lose face. An-mei's mother is married to Wu Tsing, a rich merchant, and is his fourth concubine. An-mei is happy at first, but the mood changes when Wu Tsing's second wife - the most powerful of the concubines - returns and gives An-mei a pearl necklace. An-mei's mother crushes a pearl to show An-mei that it is fake, and warns her not to trust Second Wife. She also has to leave her mother's room and sleep with Yan Chang, her mother's maid, when Wu Tsing comes to have sex with her mother after having sex with his new fifth wife.

An-mei finds out the truth about her mother from Yan Chang: Wu Tsing's first wife only had daughters and Second Wife did not have any children. The third wife also only had daughters, and Wu Tsing was desperate for a son. After An-mei's father died, her mother went to visit a Buddhist shrine and paid her respects; Wu Tsing and Second Wife saw her on the boat and hatched a plan. Second Wife befriended An-mei's mother and let her stay in her bed, but at night, Wu Tsing took her place and raped An-mei's mother. Second Wife then claimed that An-mei's mother lured Wu Tsing into bed, and her family disowned her, forcing her to become his concubine. Three years later, she gave birth to a son who Second Wife claimed as her own.

Wu Tsing is very superstitious and An-mei's mother takes advantage of this by committing suicide three days before the Lunar New Year, because three days after a death, the ghost comes back to settle old scores. Wu Tsing is afraid of her angry ghost, so he promises to raise An-mei and her half-brother Syaudi and treat them well. An-mei is no longer afraid of Second Wife, and crushes the fake pearl necklace.

Answer: Ying-ying and Lena St. Clair

Thinking that Lena underestimates her, Ying-ying recalls her marriage to an abusive man who cheated on her multiple times, before abandoning her for an opera singer. He impregnated her with a son and she had an abortion in revenge. Lena does not know about the man or the baby, but Ying-ying wants to tell her.

Ying-ying gets a job in a shop and meets a white American man, Clifford St. Clair, an importer of clothes, who courts her with cheap gifts. Four years later, Ying-ying finds out that her ex-husband was murdered by his current girlfriend and marries Clifford, but it is a loveless marriage and Ying-ying feels like a ghost. When he dies, she feels that she can finally love him equally. She does not want Lena to make the same mistake and end up miserable with Harold.

Answer: Lindo and Waverly Jong

Lindo is getting her hair cut at Waverly's hairdresser, who comments that the two women resemble each other. She thinks about how she has to show a different side of herself, or face, in the US; in China, she paid a woman in Peking for advice about moving to the US, and the woman tells her to pretend she is studying religion, and to find a husband and baby. When Lindo moves to the US, she pays another woman to give her a list of useful addresses, and gets a job in a fortune cookie family. This is where she meets An-mei Hsu.

An-mei invites Lindo to her church as she knows a man there, Tin Jong, who is looking for a wife. Lindo and Tin have problems communicating as they speak different dialects, and she and An-mei hatch a plan; they pick a specific fortune that says 'a house is not a home when a spouse is not home', and Lindo puts it in a cookie and gives it to Tin. Tin proposes to Lindo and the two get married. Lindo names her daughter after Waverly Street, where their home is, so that when she leaves, she will take a piece of her mother with her.

Answer: Jing-mei and Suyuan Woo

Jing-mei and Canning, her father, go to China to visit Canning's aunt, who lives in Guangzhou. Originally, the other families were going to tell the girls that Suyuan was coming to visit, but Jing-mei worries they will blame her for not appreciating her mother enough, so Lindo Jong writes a letter informing the twins of their mother's death. Jing-mei and Canning meet Canning's family and stay in a hotel. It is there that Canning tells Jing-mei more about her mother's escape from the Japanese.

After Suyuan left the girls behind, she was picked up by a US army truck. Her husband, a Kuomintang officer, had died and she was taken to hospital in Chongqing, where she met Canning. The two searched all over China, from Guilin to Kunming, until they left for the US in 1949. Meanwhile, an old Muslim peasant, Mei Ching, found the twins and took them in, and when her husband died, she told them about their family. After Suyuan's death, an old school friend had spotted the girls in a department store in Shanghai.

Canning and Jing-mei then travel to Shanghai and meet the twins at the airport, and the book ends with Jing-mei reflecting on how much she and her sisters resemble their mother.