contracts labor contracts, specifying the length and wages of work; by 1924, when Kingston’s male relatives left China to work in other countries, the United States had severely limited the number of male Chinese emigrants allowed into the country. Only men who met a strict set of criteria were allowed to enter, but their wives, sons, and daughters were not allowed to come with them.
Bali an Indonesian island, approximately 1500 miles southeast of Vietnam, and directly east of Java; during the early-twentieth century, Chinese emigrants on Bali probably worked mainly for Dutch-owned private plantations.
bunds here, low walls of dirt, used to enclose water in which rice is grown.
loom a hand-operated apparatus used to weave cloth.
earthenware jugs containers made from either clay or heavy soil; once the material is sculpted into form, the container is cooked over flames and then set to cool.
acrid foul-smelling.
birth in the pigsty Giving birth in a pigsty reflects the superstitious belief that if a mother gives birth in a house and is proud of her baby, evil or envious gods might take the child from its mother; frequently, newborn babies were called pigs to trick the gods into thinking that the babies were ugly or deformed and, therefore, not worth stealing.
Oh, You Beautiful Doll a 1949 musical film about a songwriter who whimsically rewrites a serious composer’s songs as popular tunes; Betty Grable did not appear in the film as Kingston suggests.
Betty Grable (1916-73) An American actress and film star, she was the most popular pin-up girl of World War II; she costarred with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in The Gay Divorcee (1934) and later appeared in such films as The Pin-up Girl (1944) and Moon Over Miami (1941).
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.
John Wayne (1907-79) American actor known for his ruggedness as a self-styled individualist in Western films.
gizzard lining refers to the thickly lined gizzard, found mainly in birds; located directly behind the stomach, the gizzard holds ingested gravel or some other grit-like material that birds must use to digest their food.
prodigal wastefully extravagant.
tractably easily led; malleable.
proxy a stand-in, or substitute; although the rooster that No Name Woman’s soon-to-be-husband sends to her is intended to be a goodwill gesture, that he sends a rooster rather than meeting her himself indicates traditional China’s low regard for women.
commensal tradition a way of life in which one group of people gain something from another, unaffected group of people; Kingston condemns how Chinese families punish wrongdoers by treating the offenders as pariahs, forced to eat leftovers at an “outcast table.”
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.
geishas a Japanese class of indentured women who entertain men; usually, a young girl is sold by her parents to a geisha organization, which then trains her in the duties of being a geisha.
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.
blunt-cut to cut hair to an even, sharply defined length around the entire head; the term “blunt-cut” implies a woman’s de-feminizing her appearance.
bob a short-clipped haircut.
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.
depilatory hair-removing.
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.
almanac typically, an annual reference book used to predict the future; predictions are based on the positions and movements of the stars.
peroxide a chemical solution used as a disinfectant to kill germs.
whorls spirals; Kingston compares women who carried many objects on their backs to snails’ coiled shells.
greatcoat an overcoat.
efface to erase or eliminate.
miens appearances.
pigeon-toed feet turned inward, in the shape of an inverted “V.”
incest sex between blood-related kin.
atavism characteristics that reappear over time; Kingston likens herself to her aunt, No Name Woman: Both women share “an atavism deeper than fear,” an unnamable anxiety about relationships with men.
brides’ prices payments made to brides’ families by grooms, as a gesture that brides will be treated well by their husbands.
dowries any material wealth that brides bring to their husbands at marriage.
maelstrom an incredibly violent and threatening storm, or situation.
moon cakes round pastries eaten during full moon of the eighth month of the lunar year.
talismans objects believed to hold magical powers; for example, a person who carries a rabbit’s foot will be lucky.
fatalism a belief system whose adherents believe that all events are predetermined; a person cannot make personal choices because freewill does not exist.
culpability deserving of blame; guiltiness.
gall generally, resentment, or bitterness; because No Name Woman unknowingly goes into labor immediately after her family disowns her and kicks her out of the house, she fears that the pain racking her body is physically caused by her family’s throwing her out.
agoraphobia a fear of open spaces or public places.
flayed here, stripped of all protective emotions; left completely vulnerable.
spirit money fake money that a deceased person’s relatives burn to bribe the gods not to harass the deceased person’s spirit.
incense here, a pleasant odor.
Chairman Mao Mao Zedong (1893-1976), founder of the Chinese Communist Party (1921), and the first chairman (1949-1959) of the People’s Republic of China; even after his retirement as chairman, he retained control of the Chinese Communist Party, which in turn controlled the country.
origamied from the Japanese art of origami, which entails folding paper into different shapes without cutting or using adhesives.
