Summary
Sek-Lung's section of the novel begins in 1939, when he is 6 years old. He is often scolded by family members for being "brainless," as he has troubles with language and using the correct words. Sek-Lung has always been a sickly child, and he has not yet begun attending school because of his ill health. Sek-Lung is also often confused by the complex dynamics and relationships within his family. He does not fully understand why Stepmother is called "Stepmother," even though she is the biological mother of both Jook-Liang and Sek-Lung. It seems to be related to ensuring that Stepmother has a subordinate position, and is not presented as the equal of Father's first wife (Kiam's mother). Sek-Lung's confusion and difficulties are compounded by his struggle to speak various Chinese dialects, and finding it simpler to speak in English. He is particularly aware of the challenges of being torn between Canadian and Chinese cultures, and not feeling truly comfortable with either. Sometimes, he also hears his older siblings complaining about having to attend both Chinese and English schools, and learn Mandarin as well as Cantonese.
Stepmother spent time in a Christian missionary school in China, before she emigrated to China. While there, she became close with another girl named Chen Suling ("Suling"). Stepmother and Suling have remained close friends, and Stepmother hopes that one day, Suling will come to Canada. This desire is especially urgent because when Suling writes to Stepmother, she describes the dangers she faces. By this time, the second Sino-Japanese war was raging, and many people in China faced violence and death. Sek-Lung does not like the idea of Suling coming to Canada, because Stepmother often tells him that Suling will teach him to be more Chinese, and be very strict with him. When he hears that Suling is being sponsored by one of his uncles to come to Canada, Sek-Lung even comes up with a plan to sabotage the false papers being used to bring Suling over, and get her sent back to China.
Sek-Lung loves reading and studying English, and spends a lot of his time doing so. Sometimes he gets in trouble for making it clear that he values learning English more than studying Chinese and learning Chinese cultural traditions. One day, when Sek-Lung and Stepmother are the only people at home, a package is delivered. Since Sek-Lung speaks better English than his mother, he helps her to sign for it, and then watches her open it. The package contains a green silk jacket, a Chinese-English bible, some photos, and a letter. The letter is in English, so Sek-Lung must read and translate it for his mother. The letter states that Suling has been killed in a bombing. The bible has an inscription from Suling, in which she notes that she is giving the book and the jacket to Sek-Lung, the son of her beloved friend.
Sek-Lung attempts to begin school in both the autumns of 1939 and 1940, but both times he is sent home due to ill health, and told to try again the following year. His older siblings tutor him at home, but are often impatient with him. Sek-Lung longs to begin going to school, and Grandmother promises that she will help him to get stronger so that he can go.
In 1940, when Grandmother is 83, and Sek-Lung is almost 7, she becomes much more ill. This is particularly distressing for Sek-Lung, because he has spent almost all of his time with her. Sek-Lung has many loving memories of Grandmother, including her telling him the story of how, when she was a young girl in China, she met an acrobat who taught her to juggle. The acrobat gave her a beautiful wind chime, which included the jade peony, and even though the wind chime eventually fell apart, Grandmother has always kept the carved jade ornament. Grandmother loves to make her own wind chimes, and happily rummages through garbage to find objects she can use, but other members of the family find this embarrassing and try to force her to stop. Nonetheless, Grandmother and Sek-Lung continue to rifle through garbage in secret, and then make wind chimes.
With Grandmother's health declining, she and Sek-Lung set to work on a final wind chime, which she tells him will guide her spirit back to the house to say goodbye after her death. When the wind chime is complete, she explains that the chime must not be allowed to make a sound until after her death. Then, it can be hung in her window so that her ghost will find it, and be able to say goodbye. After the wind chime has been completed, in late September, Grandmother sees a white cat outside one evening. She takes this as an omen, because the white cat reminds her of the pale skin of the acrobat. Grandmother predicts that her life will soon come to an end, and a few days later, she goes to the hospital, where dies from pneumonia. Immediately after her death, Father hangs the wind chime. Grandmother leaves the carved jade peony to Sek-Lung.
After Grandmother dies, Sek-Lung misses her deeply, and cannot accept that she is truly gone. He is resentful when Stepmother promises that Jook-Liang can eventually move into Grandmother's old room. Sek-Lung also believes that Grandmother's ghost will fulfill her promise of helping him heal, so that he can start school in the autumn of 1941. Grandmother has always told Sek-Lung that ghosts exist, so he does not think that the spirits of the dead are very far away. Beginning in January 1941, strange incidents begin to happen in the house, which Sek-Lung insists are the work of Grandmother's ghost. He also claims he can sometimes see her in the house. No one knows what to make of this, because the other members of the family neither believe in ghosts, nor fully discount this idea.
Gradually, the other family members move on with their lives. They are particularly preoccupied because World War II is making everything more stressful than usual for them. Jook-Liang is the only one who is interested in listening to Sek-Lung talk about Grandmother, but she sometimes annoys him because she focuses on the story about Grandmother and the acrobat, and imagines it as a love story. She also insists that Grandmother is dead and gone, telling Sek-Lung to consult with Kiam if he doesn't understand. Kiam is an excellent student, and the other family members often defer to his knowledge on various subjects. Kiam is dismissive of any idea of ghosts; Sek-Lung's uncles also tell him firmly that she is gone forever. However, one of the uncles does tell Father that he hasn't fully observed all of the proper rituals and customs to mark the end of Grandmother's life.
One day, Mrs. Lim (an elderly Chinese woman who is very traditional and who was very close with Grandmother) comes to the house, along with two men. They are going to participate in the final ritual. However, even after the ritual, Sek-Lung continues to see his grandmother. He tells his family that he thinks Grandmother wants more rituals honoring her, and the family reluctantly agrees. In April, they complete a ritual thanking Grandmother, and asking her to watch over and protect the family. After this ritual, Sek-Lung begins to be significantly healthier. He does not tell his family that he continues to see Grandmother, because he now feels they have done enough to honor her memory.
Analysis
Of the three narrators, Sek-Lung is arguably the most reflective and psychologically complex. His section of the novel also spans a period when more complex events occur both within the family (Grandmother's death) and the world around them (World War II), intertwining personal and political histories. Because of the context in which he narrates his memories, Sek-Lung pays the most attention to the ambivalence and tensions surrounding his identity as a Chinese-Canadian. Sek-Lung's role as the youngest child also heightens this tension for him: he has the closest relationship with Grandmother, because he spends most of his time with her. As a result, he is somewhat more connected to traditional Chinese customs and beliefs than his siblings are. But, because he is the youngest, Sek-Lung is also the most connected to the Canadian context, and becomes symbolic of the debates about how the younger generation of Chinese-Canadians will grow up caught between two worlds.
Because of his intense bond with Grandmother, Sek-Lung does not start to form bonds outside of the immediate family until after her death. As a substitute, the first episode in his narrative focuses not on a friendship, but on enmity that he imagines between himself and Suling. Like Jook-Liang's bond with Wong Suk, and Jung-Sum's bond with Frank, Suling is connected to Stepmother through a close bond and strong attachment. Up until this point, Choy has provided very little insight into Stepmother's thoughts, feelings, or experiences, but she becomes a much more significant character in Sek-Lung's narrative. Stepmother's affection for Suling and desire to bring her friend to Canada reveals that she has her own past, memories, and sense of identity that preceded her marriage and move to Canada. Sek-Lung resents Suling because to him she symbolizes ideals of learning and intellection that he feels he is failing at. He shows a childish fierceness in his fantasies of driving Suling away from him and the family, but this somewhat comical enmity also foreshadows the subsequent xenophobia and violence as World War II continues. Sek-Lung has grown up in a context where there is commonly talk of violence against "outsiders" and he absorbs this rhetoric to apply it to people he perceives as a threat to him (this attitude will also show up when Sek-Lung conceives a fierce dislike towards Mrs. Lim when he learns that she is going to babysit him). However, the episode focused on Sek-Lung's anger and frustration about Suling's seemingly imminent arrival in Canada ends in tragic irony when Suling dies in China.
Suling's death parallels other episodes in the novel where characters lose a beloved friend (Jook-Liang's loss of Wong Suk, and Jung-Sum's loss of Frank Yuen) because Stepmother was hoping to soon be reunited with her friend, but ended up losing her entirely. Suling's death also foreshadows the subsequent death of Meiying Lim; while the other children have "lost" people who were very important to them, these losses occurred through separation and not death. Death (with the exception of the stillborn baby) has not been a significant presence in the novel until readers come to Sek-Lung's section, and then his narrative is marked by three significant deaths: first Suling, then Grandmother, and then Meiying.
Because of Sek-Lung's close bond with Grandmother, her death is particularly significant for him. While his older siblings achieve a new stage of maturity by losing individuals outside of their family, Grandmother's death is a key milestone in Sek-Lung's young life. While the jade peony, one of the central images and symbols in the novel, is mentioned earlier, it comes to prominence in this section, reflecting the depths of Grandmother's memories and identities. By passing the jade peony along to Sek-Lung, Grandmother symbolically cements their bond, revealing Sek-Lung as her favorite grandchild, and the one with whom she shared herself most honestly.
While their closeness is powerful, it also leads to Sek-Lung finding it hard to let go of Grandmother. His insistence on the presence of Grandmother's ghost reveals his deeper level of connection to Chinese customs and traditions. Other family members, particularly his older siblings, are disinterested in trying to keep Grandmother's presence active in the household, but Sek-Lung cannot bear the idea of Grandmother becoming distant and obscure. Because Grandmother always kept her own memories alive, he wants to see her memory kept alive as well. Sek-Lung's fixation on Grandmother's ghost also reflects the idea that he had more intimate access to her stories and past than other characters; as Huai-Yang Lim writes in a discussion of Choy's autobiography, "In this context of silence and secrets perpetuated by multiple subjects, ghosts seem to function as persistent reminders of occluded pasts that attempt to break the silence" (252).
