Rules of the Game

“Rules of the Game” is a story in Amy Tan’s 1989 collection, The Joy Luck Club, which was adapted into a film by the same name. Tan was born in California to Chinese immigrant parents and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. She wrote the short story in response to an article she read about Chinese Americans playing chess.

The story is told by Waverly Place Jong, the daughter of Chinese immigrants living in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1950s. Waverly is the youngest of three children and the only daughter, so her family calls her Meimei, or “Little Sister.” Waverly and her two older brothers (Winston and Vincent) explore Chinatown, while she makes detailed and evocative observations of the area’s culture and the lives of its inhabitants.

Waverly and her brothers attend a Christmas party at the First Chinese Baptist Church in 1958. They each get to select one gift: Waverly walks away with some Life Savers; Winston chooses a replica of a World War II submarine; and Vincent brings home a used chess board. While the brothers soon lose interest in the game, Waverly remains enthralled with it, learning all she can from the tattered rule book and players in a local park. Eventually, her skills are noticed, and she is invited to play in a tournament. She wins tournament after tournament, becoming a national chess champion by the age of nine.

Waverly says that she loves the “secrets within the sixty-four black and white squares” (Paragraph 31). She eventually dedicates all her free time to practicing her newfound skill: “I went to school, then directly home to learn new chess secrets, cleverly concealed advantages, more escape routes” (Paragraph 56). She earns trophies and accolades and respect from her community but grows weary of her mother’s tendency to put her on display when out in public. She runs away while shopping with her mother and stays away from home for several hours.

When Waverly returns, her mother instructs the family to ignore her. Waverly goes to her room and imagines an elaborate chess game, her mother as her opponent, and contemplates her “next move” (Paragraph 79).