On page 221 there is a conversation between Mona and her mom Helen because Mona had sex with Seth. When Mona brings up the fact genuinely that at least she wasn't sleeping with Alfred and Helen said she would have killed herself if that happened. Then Mona called her mother a racist and Helen's reply I thought was thought-provoking:
"Racist!" Helen springs suddenly back to life, as if it is not night at all, day, day, day! "Only an American girl would think about her mother killing herself and say oh that's so racist. A Chinese girl would think whether she should kill herself too. Because that is how much she thinks about her poor mother who worked so hard and suffered so much. She wants to do everything to make the mother happy." And with that, she leaps up as if she's overslept and it's way past time to get going.
Some of the questions that occurred to me were:
1. Why does her mom feel that Mona should go to the extent of thinking to kill herself just for her mother?
2. Why does she feel Chinese girls would think this way only and American girls would think that way?
3. Is this reaction a boiling up of the things that Mona has said to her mother? Regarding her change of religion etc.
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