Moon+Minhyo

Ying Ying and Lena St. Clair On the surface, the mother and daughter St. Clair seem to share no similar features about their personalities. Unable to communicate in a vivid sense due to cultural differences, the mother and daughter are incapable of understanding each other. Their superficial relationship conveys to readers that Lena and Ying Ying haven’t much similarity in their life. For example, Lena was culturally, and physically different to be similar to her Chinese mother. Being a half Chinese and half English-Irish, Lena “... didn’t tell anyone about the things I(she) saw, not even my(her) mother”(106). Even so, if you dig under their veils, you can see how close they are actually related, such as their submissive nature towards their husbands, having the “invisible powers” to predict the future, and their pessimistic view of the world. The factor that truly distinguishes Lena as an American translation of her mother is the fact that she is very submissive to her husband. Ying Ying, who was taught since early age, that woman should be docile and compliant, carries on this cultural facet even to her marriage with Clifford St. Clair, an American. Mainly because she was taught such way, and thought that she was “destined” to marry him, she remained quiet whether Clifford was right or wrong. Ying Ying has always let Clifford make all the decisions, and did not change until Clifford’s death. Likewise, Lena was also like her mother, always passive and submissive to her marriage. For example, when Harold brings out ice cream from the freezer, he does not realize that Lena, who had lived with him for months, hates ice cream. This proves that not only has Harold been insensitive and unaware, but also Lena remained silent about her detestation of ice cream. Due to this, Lena’s mother tells her “she like a ghost, disappear” (177). Because Lena cannot decide on what to do, and is always listening to what Harold has to say, Lena does not speak up for things she thinks is wrong, therefore dividing up the total budget for each other’s use. The two women’s pessimistic world view is another similarity that they share. You can clearly see that Ying Ying is never calm nor settled. In the house she moves around furniture’s, rearranges things on the wall often. This is because she believes the house does not meet the requirements of fengshui, and will bring huge misfortune. Lastly, Ying-Ying and Lena are also share the trait of being able to know what the future holds for them, but they both choose to do nothing about it. When Ying-Ying was in China she know that she was going to end up marring a bad man, and she did nothing to stop it even though she didn’t want to marry him. Ying-Ying also knew that her husband in China was having an affair with someone because he would go to the north, and the north winds are the coldest which is a bad sign. like Ying-Ying Lena knew that her marriage was failing and that is was going down hill. When Lena’s mother came she stayed in the guest room that had a marble table with a vase on it, that symbolized Lena’s marriage. One night when Ying-Ying was in her room “the marble end table collapsed on top of its spindly black legs. Off to the side [was] the black vase, the smooth cylinder broken in half, the freesias strewn in a puddle of water.” This is when Lena says ” I knew it would happen” (67) and her mother replies back asking her why she didn’t stop it. This shows that both the mother and daughter act the same way, they don’t stop the bad stuff before it happens. Even though the two don’t seem to be much alike on the outside, they soon realized their similarities are in their shoo- is skin deep, in their bones. Culturally different, but generally the same; Ying Ying and Lena are very much alike.