"This was a pond in our courtyard and I often poked a stick in the still water to make the turtle swim out from underneath the rocks" (216). The setting of this narrative is at the pond in the courtyard where the turtle lives. An-mei's mother speaks of the turtle and how the turtle feeds on their thoughts, and that she once cried into the pond, and the trutle ate her tears then opened its mouth and poured out seven eggs. These eggs produced magpies that laughed in her face.
Her mother wants to take An-mei with her to live together, but the uncle does not wish for her to go. An-mei's mother gives her the option to come and she goes with her, but they must leave her brother behind. An-mei now lived in a giant house with her mother, the other wives, their children, and Wu Tsing. An-mei is told her mother's story by Yan Chang. She realizes so much more about her mother's life now that she has heard the story. Her mother commits suicide two days before the Lunar New Year; An-mei took the necklace Second Wife had given her and crushed it infront of her.
First Wife had two daughter. "And yet she could only see her two daughters, two spinsters beyond the marriageable age; they were atleast twenty-five" (232). The marrying age for women in the past was a lot younger than today's society, because it was belief that women were more fertile in their younger years. It is strange to look at the age difference for married people back then and today.
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