To June Woo, the mothers who treasure the evenings that they spend together at the Joy Luck Club seem little more than elderly, middle-class women in their "slacks, bright print blouses, and different versions of sturdy walking shoes." Yet we know now that the life of June's mother, Suyuan, was repeatedly torn by tragedy. In a similar fashion, this chapter illustrates that the same is true of An-mei, the woman who sits in the south corner of the mah jong game, the woman characterized by June Woo as a "short bent woman in her seventies, with a heavy bosom and thin, shapeless legs." An-mei suffered tragedies of her own, just as did her own mother.
In a flashback to An-mei's childhood, we see that An-mei's mother was not the "fallen woman" that people told little An-mei that she was. Rather than being cold and uncaring, she deeply loved her small daughter — despite the fact that she abandoned An-mei, and the little girl had to be raised by her grandmother, Popo, her younger brother, and her uncle and aunt in their large, cold house in Ningpo.
In the flashback, An-mei's father is dead, and Popo wants An-mei to also think of her mother as dead because she brought great disgrace to the family by becoming a number-three concubine. It is clear that Popo loves her granddaughter, but she doesn't realize that her scary stories about children who do not obey adult authority frighten little An-mei and her brother.
