The Woman Warrior

Most of this part of the book is shown through Brave Orchid’s eyes. Moon Orchid, her sister, is coming over to California from China at last; her husband has been living in the United States for some time but has not sent for her, so Brave Orchid has paid her passage. Brave Orchid and her niece (Moon Orchid’s daughter) go to pick her up at the airport and have difficulty recognizing her at first: Brave Orchid expects her sister to be much younger.

When Moon Orchid arrives, Brave Orchid is unsurprised to find her much as she ever was—in Brave Orchid’s estimation, silly and ineffectual. Moon Orchid has brought her nieces and nephews many gifts, all of them beautiful and impractical: paper dolls, elegant dresses, jewelry. The children mostly greet these gifts with indifference (though they are taken with the strange delicacy of the paper dolls). Brave Orchid is annoyed by their “barbarian” rudeness, and Moon Orchid is surprised by their Americanized manners. The children, for their part, spend a lot of time hiding from their mother’s judgment and their aunt’s clingy attention.

Brave Orchid is less interested in presents than in Moon Orchid’s straying husband.