samurais Ancient Japanese warriors, the samurais originated in eleventh-century Japan to enforce the laws of the imperial government, whose power was waning; their cultural dominance ended around 1700.
sandalwood a grayish brown tree native to Asia, whose wood is often used in wood carving.
scythes tools with long, curved blades used for hand-mowing or harvesting grains.
sea swallow also known as terns, graceful water birds that inhabit seacoasts and inland waters; most terns, which form breeding colonies of millions of individuals, lay their eggs on the ground, and in some parts of the world, including Malaya, their eggs are gathered for human consumption.
Seagram's 7 a brand of Canadian whiskey.
second Communist five-year plan (1958-1963) the economic program established by China's ruling Communist Party to spur the Chinese economy; this second five-year plan was marked by an experiment called the Great Leap Forward, which included a failed attempt to form agricultural communes, where peasants would live and work together to produce food for the entire country.
sedan chairs similar to palanquins.
self-immolation deliberate self-sacrifice, often by burning.
serrated jagged-edged, like a saw's teeth.
shadow geese refers to the art of contorting the hands to form different shapes, usually animals, which appear as shadows on a wall or other flat surfaces when the hands are illuminated from behind.
Shantung means "Eastern Mountains"; a northern coastal province in China, including the Shantung Peninsula, and China's third most populous province.
Shao-lin temple Shaolin, which developed in northern China, is a form of martial arts that emphasizes strength and speed. Martial arts training centers would have been called temples.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon Directed by the legendary John Ford, this 1949 Western film starred John Wayne in one of his greatest performances, as a cavalry commander who delays his retirement because of an impending war with Apaches.
Singapore an island country in Southeast Asia controlled by the British from 1824 to 1965; the city of Singapore is the country's capital.
slough a depression in the ground, often muddy because of poor water drainage.
Southern Hsiung-nu a nomadic people who lived in present-day Siberia and Mongolia; the Hsiung-nu were especially powerful from the third century B.C. through the second century A.D., repeatedly making raids into northern China, which resulted in China's building the Great Wall.
spirit money fake money that a deceased person's relatives burn to bribe the gods not to harass the deceased person's spirit.
strafed randomly attacked with machine gun or cannon fire.
strata horizontal layers of rock material, usually stacked one on top of the other.
Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) leader of the Chinese Kuomintang, a political party that overthrew the Manchu dynasty in 1911; Sun served as the first provisional president of the Republic of China (1911-12) and later as its de facto ruler (1923-25).
surfeited excessive.
"Surgary" surgery.
synonym two words that have the same, or similar, meaning; Kingston writes that in China, marriage is synonymous to "taking a daughter-in-law" because after the wedding, the husband and wife live with his family, never with hers.
Taiwan an island country less than a hundred miles southeast of mainland China; in 1949, Chinese Communist forces drove Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang, which means "national people's party," and other Chinese nationalists to this island, formerly known as Formosa, where they established the Republic of China — in contrast to the People's Republic of China, which is Communist mainland China.
talismans objects believed to hold magical powers; for example, a person who carries a rabbit's foot will be lucky.
talismans objects that supposedly give their owners magical powers; for example, a rabbit's foot is a popular good-luck talisman.
taps small metal discs attached to the soles of shoes, used to produce the metallic sounds when tap-dancing.
taro leaves leaves of the tuberous taro plant, used to wrap food.
tarry oil thick, black oil made from tar.
teak an evergreen tree, native to southeast Asia, whose wood is used for furniture because of its durability.
tetherball a game in which two people try to hit a ball attached to the top of a pole by a rope until the rope is completely wound around the pole.
therapeutics the treatment of diseases, either by medical science or holistic means.
Thorazine the trademark name of chlorpromazine, an antipsychotic drug.
to have our feet bound Beginning during the T'ang dynasty (618-906), feet-binding was an accepted cultural practice in which a female's feet were severely constricted to retard normal growth. Parents wrapped their daughters' feet with toes extended downward, stretching the instep and inhibiting the shaping of the arch. Although feet-binding was a socially elite practice that signaled a man's wealth and social position because he could afford for his wives and daughters not to work, the female's feet would become so deformed that the woman no longer could walk without being physically supported by servants. This inhumane custom ended in 1911, when the dynastic form of government was replaced with a republic.
tong ax A tong is an association of Chinese individuals in the United States, believed to be involved in organized crime; Kingston speculates that an old busboy she encounters is really a swordsman, and that this busboy-swordsman uses an ax to kill people opposed to the tong.
totem an object or animal used to represent membership in a group, clan, or family.
tractably easily led; malleable.
train trestle a bridge designed for trains to cross.
transmigration here, changing physical shape.
tubercular handkerchiefs Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by bacteria, called tubercle bacillus; because the disease can be spread from person to person, people already infected with tuberculosis would hold handkerchiefs or other material to their mouths whenever they coughed to lessen the chance of spreading the disease.
tules plants with grasslike leaves that grow in swamps and marshes.
