Hai’s mom makes many difficult decisions. Do you think she regrets any of them? Do you think she is happy at the end of her life?
The Mother has many difficult decisions to make, sometimes not know which is the right decision. There are times she questions her decision, but most of the time just surviving is what most on her mind. The culture she was brought up in didn’t deal with women being happy. The interesting part about her was that after everything she had been through she still only felt validated after having a son. I think this fact will bring up many varied and interesting Book club discussions
I was glad that she finally said no to her mother-in-law. I think she was happy. She should have been very proud of herself bringing her family to safety.
I don’t know if you could say Hai was “happy” after all she had been through, but she seems determined to break the cycle of oppression against women. She sees how the traditions that subjugate women can be rejected. The book does end on an uplifting note.
I hope that in some inner space she recognized the greatness of their survival due to her courage and relentless determination … in spite of her husband and in-laws.
I don’t know if “happy” was something she thought about, but I think-hope—she felt contented, having saved the lives of her family through her cleverness and resourcefulness and incredible strength. And I hope that contentment wasn’t simply relief that she finally birthed a boy, the least of her achievements, but given the world she lived in, I’m sure that was a significant part of it.
She inherited the deeply traditional beliefs of her youth that regard girls as beings of inferior value who must be subservient within the family. She sacrificed her needs for her children. Mom chooses to remain trapped in old beliefs, staking her future on her son, whose duty will be to care for her in her old age. I don’t think she regrets her decisions but did what she thought to survive.
She regretted not demanding that the family take Hai and the girls with them when they fled. I wonder if she ever regretted marrying the man she married? I cannot believe she did not. Early in the book there are sections that talk about what she had hopes for and how her marriage was not what she thought it would be, and how the MIL conspired to make her hub. lose interest in her and they no longer had anything to talk about. I would find it hard to believe that every day of her life she was not cursing having married him, and cursing that wretched MIL, while perhaps not always on her lips but certainly somewhere in her mind. I know I would have been.
I agree that Mom was happy in the end because she she knew that her daughters were on their way back to the life that they deserved and she wanted them to have.
I think Hal was happy after everything she and her daughters have been through to survive but she does see hope on the future for women to have more respected place in society if they resist the old ways.
I think the mom did what she could to protect her children. I don’t think she regrets the decisions since she simply had to move forward in next steps to make life better for them. At the end of her life, I do think she is happy. Her son stepped up to support her even though Hai would have done so. She was able to move into her own apartment away from tyranny. The mom was steeped in tradition of being subservient which affected all that she did to help her children.
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Difficult decisions, many. Regret, hard to say. She was forced to live in the moment. She was in survival mode for most of her life. Her love for her daughters forced her to make the decisions she made. Decisions were moment to moment, day to day. She did what she had to do to get them to Taiwan and she did. Regret, probably not. Happy at the end of her life, questionable. Hopeful, definitely! She had hope for the future especially for women in the changing world.