Hai and Di each have dreams for themselves. Do they achieve them? If not, was there anything different that they could have or should have done?
Hai achieved her dreams, which included her dreams for her children. Di? I suspect initially she settled but also suspect she continued to pursue her wants and desires. Unsure if she was successful.
I think Hai’s dreams were achieved. She was able to get an education and become a teacher.
Her marriage was one based on love and when her female baby was born she moved away from the tradition of male babies were the only ones to be nurtured. Di on the other hand made a bad decision ended up pregnant and unwanted by the father. She felt as if she lost a sense of herself. Her dream of being with someone she loved was crushed. She felt abandoned and heart-broken. Di did become a restaurant owner which was part of her dream.
Hai longs to get an education and imagines a future where she works and supports herself, a life beyond the domestic roles. By the novel’s end, Hai succeeds in continuing her education in Hong Kong. She enrolled in school and began to shape a future with academic and professional promise. Her dream of independence through education starts to come true. Hai makes the best decisions available to her. Her resourcefulness helps her achieve her goals. Given the oppressive conditions, she succeeds not by changing her dream but by fiercely fighting for it.
Di’s dreams are tied to marriage, love, and a stable domestic life—a traditional desire. She wants to be chosen and loved rather than discarded. Di does not achieve this dream. She ends up married to a man she did not choose and lives an unsatisfying life. Although her marriage provides security, it lacks the emotional depth she longed for.
Hai’s success is hard-earned agency, while Di’s is compromise and lost potential. Together, their arcs reflect the complex range of female experience during a time when girls were taught to expect little.
Hai and Di each face unique obstacles and challenges, and their dreams are not fully realized in the traditional sense.
Hai succeeds in her goals of seeking education and Independence rather than relying on the support of others. Her most outstanding accomplishment is realizing she raised a young woman who is free to pursue her own ambitions and her own happiness.
Di’s independence and self-sufficiency are only one way that Di stands out in a culture that values communal bonds and familial affiliations over individual autonomy. While Hai as a child accepts that girls are valued below boys, Di never submits to this value system. True to her survival abilities, Di marries, but the break with her birth family is definitive. It is Hai, and not Di, who is able to adapt and thrive in the new world.
However, both sisters demonstrate resilience and strength, even if their paths are not as straightforward as they might have hoped.