The Joy Luck Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

hand.”
    My mother confirmed her suspicions. Nobody wanted the sweatshirts, those useless clothes. The M & M’s were thrown in the air, gone. And when the suitcases were emptied, the relatives asked what else the Hsus had brought.
    Auntie An-mei and Uncle George were shaken down, not just for two thousand dollars’ worth of TVs and refrigerators but also for a night’s lodging for twenty-six people in the Overlooking the Lake Hotel, for three banquet tables at a restaurant that catered to rich foreigners, for three special gifts for each relative, and finally, for a loan of five thousand yuan in foreign exchange to a cousin’s so-called uncle who wanted to buy a motorcycle but who later disappeared for good along with the money. When the train pulled out of Hangzhou the next day, the Hsus found themselves depleted of some nine thousand dollars’ worth of goodwill. Months later, after an inspiring Christmastime service at the First Chinese Baptist Church, Auntie An-mei tried to recoup her loss by saying it truly was more blessed to give than to receive, and my mother agreed, her longtime friend had blessings for at least several lifetimes.
    Listening now to Auntie Lin bragging about the virtues of her family in China, I realize that Auntie Lin is oblivious to Auntie An-mei’s pain. Is Auntie Lin being mean, or is it that my mother never told anybody but me the shameful story of Auntie An-mei’s greedy family?
    â€œSo, Jing-mei, you go to school now?” says Auntie Lin.
    â€œHer name is June. They all go by their American names,” says Auntie Ying.
    â€œThat’s okay,” I say, and I really mean it. In fact, it’s even becoming fashionable for American-born Chinese to use their Chinese names.
    â€œI’m not in school anymore, though,” I say. “That was more than ten years ago.”
    Auntie Lin’s eyebrows arch. “Maybe I’m thinking of someone else daughter,” she says, but I know right away she’s lying. I know my mother probably told her I was going back to school to finish my degree, because somewhere back, maybe just six months ago, we were again having this argument about my being a failure, a “college drop-off,” about my going back to finish.
    Once again I had told my mother what she wanted to hear: “You’re right. I’ll look into it.”
    I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things: that she didn’t really mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more. But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once again: My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more. No doubt she told Auntie Lin I was going back to school to get a doctorate.
    Auntie Lin and my mother were both best friends and arch enemies who spent a lifetime comparing their children. I was one month older than Waverly Jong, Auntie Lin’s prized daughter. From the time we were babies, our mothers compared the creases in our belly buttons, how shapely our earlobes were, how fast we healed when we scraped our knees, how thick and dark our hair, how many shoes we wore out in one year, and later, how smart Waverly was at playing chess, how many trophies she had won last month, how many newspapers had printed her name, how many cities she had visited.
    I know my mother resented listening to Auntie Lin talk about Waverly when she had nothing to come back with. At first my mother tried to cultivate some hidden genius in me. She did housework for an old retired piano teacher down the hall who gave me lessons and free use of a piano to practice on in exchange. When I failed to become a concert pianist, or even an accompanist for the church youth choir, she finally explained that I was late-blooming, like Einstein, who everyone thought was retarded until he discovered a