In this episode, in which Brave Orchid waits for Moon Orchid to arrive from Hong Kong, Brave Orchid contrasts her children's behavior with her niece's. She is highly critical of her children's impatience, which she characterizes as a distinctly American trait; however, her niece's sitting with her impresses Brave Orchid as proper, respectful, Chinese deportment. "Her American children could not sit for very long," Brave Orchid muses to herself. "They did not understand sitting; they had wandering feet." She thinks of them as a "bad boy and bad girl," but her niece's opinion of her cousins is very different. For example, when Brave Orchid complains that her son in Vietnam is careless and "not normal," her niece defends him and his siblings. Speaking to her aunt, she says, "Your son can take care of himself. All your children can take care of themselves."
Brave Orchid does not understand that her children, in addition to caring for themselves, also protect her from situations that would upset her. Such is the case when Brave Orchid accuses her children of hiding letters written to her by her son in Vietnam. Because they know that Brave Orchid wanted her son to flee to Canada to avoid being drafted, and that she worries about his safety, they hide his letters to shield her from the constant threat of his being killed in war.
When Moon Orchid finally arrives at the airport, Brave Orchid is shocked by how old her sister looks. Earlier, Brave Orchid mistakenly identified a young woman as Moon Orchid, but her niece cautiously explained that Moon Orchid would look much older than the woman whom Brave Orchid believed to be her sister. Brave Orchid's initially identifying this young woman as Moon Orchid recalls the conversation between herself and Kingston at the end of "Shaman," in which Brave Orchid contended that time in China moves more slowly than in America, and that had she remained in China, she would be young still. Remembering that this previous conversation between Brave Orchid and Kingston chronologically occurs after the events in "At the Western Palace," Brave Orchid's continuing to believe in "Shaman" that time is somehow suspended in China, even after she sees how old her newly arrived, younger sister is, emphasizes how strongly ingrained are her misperceptions of her former homeland, and how wholly she identifies herself as Chinese, not Chinese American. Even during the car ride to Stockton, Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid keep saying "Aiaa! How old!" whenever they look disbelievingly at one another.
