she died just like a rabbit Suyuan's stroke occurred in her brain, killing her instantly, just as one would club a rabbit in the head—without warning. She had no symptoms. One moment she was alive; the next, she was dead.
her first marriage . . . before the Japanese came As early as 1920, Japan tried to conquer China. On September 18, 1931, they seized all of Manchuria. The following spring, they set up a puppet government, Manchukuo. In 1937, Japan and China plunged into full-scale war.
the Kuomintang From 1928 to 1949, the Kuomintang was the main political party of China; founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1911 and later led by General Chiang Kai-shek, it has been the main political party of Taiwan since 1949.
mah jong an ancient Chinese game introduced to America in 1920. The game is played with dice, racks, and 144 domino-like tiles, divided into seven suits—bamboos (bams), circles (dots), characters (cracks), dragons, winds, seasons, and flowers. The game is usually played by four people. After the tiles are mixed, each player builds a wall two tiles high and about seventeen tiles long. The walls are pushed together to form a square. Players take tiles from the square to form specific combinations.
