For Ma, the difficulty and foreignness of life in the U.S. provides the justification for clinging to Chinese customs and language as much as possible. Some of my mistakes wind up being the most interesting work I have ever done.”, “if you do not speak, no one will ever hear you.”, “Any time I had a teacher in elementary or high school who’d taught Sylvie, they’d say, “Ah, you’re Sylvie Lee’s little sister,” rife with anticipation. I had heard Mrs. Avery using it for Annette. "Never forget, we owe Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob a great debt. ', and 'Nobody can change who you are, except for you.' "Those who are strong-willed may fight the storm and possibly choose their own road, while the weak must go where they are blown. Pa and I began our marriage with the strength of a tiger’s head but it slowly transformed into the weak tail of the snake. Understanding Girls Quotes Gallagher Girls Quotes Lost In Translation Quotes Hindi Quotes With English Translation Abraham Lincoln Quotes Albert Einstein Quotes Bill Gates Quotes Bob Marley Quotes Bruce Lee Quotes Buddha Quotes Confucius Quotes John F. Kennedy Quotes "At least I'm not a potato with incense sticks for legs," I whispered. Importance: Kim recognizes that she is the one who still has the potential to lift herself and her mother out of poverty. He leaned in to pretend to kiss my cheek and said softly, "You're a rake filled with dirt." For Kim, being an immigrant entails rejecting many of the conventions surrounding how to be properly female and Chinese in order to be successful at school. I thought, Pa, I wish you were here to help us. "How long we've dreamed of this," she said. Teachers and parents! She asked me what I did after school, and when I answered that I was usually working at the factory, she went home and asked her father about it. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class.”, LitCharts uses cookies to personalize our services. Our stance is the posture of infinity: not tense but relaxed and upright, expectant. The fact that she's able to go on to become a doctor, have a seemingly well-adjusted bilingual son, and care for Ma in a fancy house in the epilogue is a testament to the power of openness about her conflicting identities to remedy some of the struggles she experiences as a result. Welcome back. Just cut them all off!”, “I am in love with imperfection. I was so startled by the word "honey" that I obeyed. For both Kim and Ma, being in the United States means having to learn a new language. (including. No matter how well I did in my classes or how well I managed to fake belonging to the cool circle, I knew I was not one of them. You can be more in love with someone in your mind than with the person you see every day. About Girl in Translation. ", "I play for myself too," she'd answered. Jean Kwok Kwok, Jean. This is exacerbated by the fact that Hong Kong was a British colony, which means that the little English she does know is British English. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of “Girl In Translation” by Jean Kwok. Ma is not learning English, so Kim recognizes that she is the one who must learn English and succeed in school. She's also completely lost when Annette explains various American slang terms, most notably that being called a know-it-all is an insult, something that goes against everything Kim has ever been taught about the importance of education and knowledge. From the start, Kim struggles to come to terms with the fact that while she was a star student in Hong Kong and the top of her class, in the U.S., her inability to understand English means that she receives extremely poor grades (except for in math and physical sciences) for the first few years in school. For the first time, I did not see a dishwasher.”, “No matter how flawed someone else may be, that doesn't give us the right to be less than we are.”, “The core power of tai chi begins with awareness. I didn't say anything more, but I thought about the fathers and brothers of the kids at the factory who worked as waiters […] What would they have done if they'd had to pay for such an expensive meal out of their tips? It confused me because wasn't it a good thing to know so much? Girl in Translation Quotes. Aunt Paula walked us to our workstation, passing an enormous table I hadn't seen earlier. Our living conditions didn't change but with time, I stopped allowing myself to be conscious of my own unhappiness. Ma and Matt were right next to me. I say I have not been so much pushed by winds as pulled forward by the force of my decisions.”, “When I’m with you, I could drink water and be full.”, “It may not seem like much - a few kisses in the dark - but it was enough to burn a hole like an ulcer in my heart.”, “Dice un proverbio chino que el destino es como un temporal de vientos que, provenientes de todos los rincones, azotan nuestras vidas y nos empujan por las sendas del tiempo; quienes posean fuerza de voluntad, lucharán contra la tormenta y podrán escoger su propio camino, mientras que los débiles acabarán allá adonde los lleve la tempestad.”, “But I learned that if you do not speak, no one will ever hear you.”, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”, “I began to see beauty as something that could be unleashed from within a person rather than a set of physical features like a perfect nose or big eyes.”, “I was beginning to realize that I had kept myself so busy to avoid examining my life, and now that I had the chance, I did not like it at all.”, “Now, many years later, I was note sure if we had truly loved each other or merely the versions of ourselves we had seen reflected in the other's eyes-as if we had acted out a play together, both of us audience and player alike.”, “I would have chosen statistical probabilities over luck any day.”, “It felt as if the rest of the world knew something I didn't...”, “Once, Nina had pretended to be Dominic teaching a dance session. 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