Lit Circles Post #3

Quote: Maxine (about Brave Orchid) Page 123:"She would not allow anyone to talk while eating. In some families, the children worked out a sign language, but here the children spoke English, which their parents didn't seem to hear."
Significance: How do the characters maintain their cultural ties to their homeland while living in America?
They do this by keeping their Chinese traditions. They are not allowed to talk at the table. But since they know English, they speak that. Their parents spoke Chinese as a first language so their children speaking English was like their children not speaking at all.
Connection: This struck me because at the dinner table, not talking is out of the ordinary. Even if we get frustrated with each other we still talk. There is not a time when we don't talk. When Brave Orchid told her children to eat, not talk, but in America, we talk while we eat. So Brave Orchid is keeping her cultural ties to China that way.
Question: What is considered "polite" dinner manners in other countries?

Quote 2; Page 125 Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid talking: MO:"Do you think he'll get angry at me because I came without telling him?
BO: He deserves your getting angry with him. For abandoning you and for abandoning your daughter."
Significance: What challenges do the characters face upon their arrival?
Moon Orchid faces telling her husband that she came over here without telling him. Her husband left her and her daughter and did not even invite them to come to America. He even did so much as remarry.
Connection: This blew my mind! It is unbelievable that a man could abandon his wife and daughter. But it is even more unbelieveable that he would remarry, and then have more children! It shows you how different things were back then.
Question: Would you send back for your wife and kids if you were in his position?