The story called the “Rules of the Game,” is the one I am blogging today. The story was written by Amy Tan, and the story is really long. It has tons of details, information, and descriptions. Once you read this story, you will be kind of overwhelmed by everything.
There are several things I do not know, things such as: Prawns, sanddabs, so I looked them up on the website. Prawns are similar to shrimps, and sanddabs are the fish that lays bottom of the ocean, their eyes are on one side. They lay on their side, waiting for any prey for them to eat. They blend themselves with sand. If you want to check out on what they look like, go to below of this blog to see the links to pictures.
This story is very detailed and long. Personally, I think the story is too detailed that it lost me halfway into the story. Especially the part where the author described the chess strategies and its rules.
When the girl, Meimei, say she’s seven in America but 8 in Chinese, this made me wonder how it works. Like, if I am 18 in America, then that mean I am 19 in Chinese? The story also mentioned that Vincent, Meimei’s brother, has deaf ears. Does that mean he always ignores people?
Why would the mother name her daughter as, Meimei, Waverly Place Jong? I think that is silly to name her daughter after Waverly Place. I could understand if she named her daughter only Waverly Jong.
I want to know why Meimei’s mom is very explicated in details. Such as saying that the girl was hit by the cab and “was smashed flat.” (Tan, 1997, p. 39) She also told her daughter that Chinese do torture people. Why tell this to 7-8 years old girl? Are Chinese very open-minded people?
When the mother and daughter mentioned about Chinese torture, that made me think of my conversation with my friend. We were talking about Chinese torture, and it was of dripping water on the bind person’s forehead all day, all night, driving the person crazy. This is a psychological torture, well it seemed to me that it is psychological. This torture is called Chinese Water Torture. It is said that after a while, this could cause people having mental retardation. Also, there are picture listed below of torture equipment.
I thought it was wonderful that a young girl loves to play chess. This shows that even a young child could play very well if the game is in their interest area. I thought it was hilarious that Meimei used many excuses to get out of something or get her ways. Such as getting her brothers move out of the bedroom, or not eating all of her supper. This really is normal behavior of young kids.
Seeing that Meimei’s language is very good while her mother doesn’t. I think that Meimei’s mother was born and raised in Chinese. Then she moved to Chinatown in San Francisco, while Meimei was born and raised in Chinatown. It also makes me think that Meimei goes to American’s school.
I can kind of relate to Meimei on her mother showing her off. My mom does that most of the time with the people and me. Sometimes this bothers me because I do not want my mom to make people mad at me. Sometime I tell my mom to shout up. Yes, I actually do say shut up to my mom.
I thought the end of this story was very strange. I wonder why Meimei imagined her opponent as her mother? I never could imagine my mom as my opponent even if I was mad at her.
This story was not bad, it just was too detailed for me and my eyes. I kept reading on the same lines over and over. But this story made me want to learn more about Chinese’s ages to American’s ages. That’s one positive thing about this story.
Prawn picture:
Sanddabs picture:
http://www.eatsforone.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/citharichthys_sordidus.jpg
Chinese torture picture:
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