Culturally, Brave Orchid and Kingston perceive time differently. Brave Orchid honestly believes that time in China is paced more slowly than in America: "Human beings don't work like this in China. Time goes slower there. . . . I can't sleep in this country because it doesn't shut down for the night." For her, China symbolizes youth because that is where she spent the earlier years of her life. "Time was different in China," she reasons. "One year lasted as long as my total time here. . . . I would still be young if we lived in China." For Kingston, however, "time is the same from place to place." Time is universal because geographical location is universal: We all share the same earth, no matter where on it we are physically located.
Kingston exhibits concern and caring as Brave Orchid's caregiver by helping her mother understand that China is still as much a part of her world as America is. Hoping to arouse her mother's defeated spirit, Kingston tries to reason with her: "We belong to the planet now, Mama. Does it make sense to you that if we're no longer attached to one piece of land, we belong to the planet? Wherever we happen to be standing, why, that spot belongs to us as much as any other spot." Struggling to comprehend her daughter's meaning, Brave Orchid seems to have forgotten that earlier in the chapter, while she was waiting for the Sitting Ghost to appear, she herself voiced a similar thought in relation to the moon and stars: "'That is the same moon that they see in New Society Village,' she thought, 'the same stars.'" And, in the parenthetical sentence directly following Brave Orchid's thought, Kingston notes that growing up, she heard her mother similarly say, "That is the same moon that they see in China, the same stars though shifted a little."
Although Brave Orchid remains inconsolable at the chapter's end, both she and Kingston gain a better understanding of one another from their conversation. Brave Orchid genuinely accepts that her daughter visits her only once a year because physically and emotionally she needs that separation from her parents to keep her sanity. When Kingston tells her mother, "Here I'm sick so often, I can barely work. I can't help it, Mama," Brave Orchid finally acknowledges her daughter's needs: "It's better, then, for you to stay away. . . . Of course, you must go, Little Dog." The affectionate term "Little Dog," perhaps prompted by Kingston's own use of the childlike "Mama," greatly affects Kingston, who now understands that her mother loves her, even if she doesn't say that she does. "The world is somehow lighter," Kingston contentedly writes. "She has not called me that endearment for years — a name to fool the gods."
