The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan Page B

secret wish fell from my lips, the Moon Lady looked at me and became a man.

    For many years, I could not remember what I wanted that night from the Moon Lady, or how it was that I was found again by my family. Both of these things seemed an illusion to me, a wish granted that could not be trusted. And so even though I was found—later that night after Amah, Baba, Uncle, and the others shouted for me along the waterway—I never believed my family found the same girl.
    And then, over the years, I forgot the rest of what happened that day: the pitiful story the Moon Lady sang, the pavilion boat, the bird with the ring on its neck, the tiny flowers blooming on my sleeve, the burning of the Five Evils.
    But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happened that day because it has happened many times in my life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness, the wonder, fear, and loneliness. How I lost myself.
    I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago. I wished to be found.

THE TWENTY-SIX MALIGNANT GATES
    â€œ D o not ride your bicycle around the corner, ” the mother had told the daughter when she was seven.
    â€œWhy not!” protested the girl.
    â€œBecause then I cannot see you and you will fall down and cry and I will not hear you. ”
    â€œHow do you know I’ll fall?” whined the girl.
    â€œIt is in a book , The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, all the bad things that can happen to you outside the protection of this house. ”
    â€œI don’t believe you. Let me see the book. ”
    â€œIt is written in Chinese. You cannot understand it. That is why you must listen to me. ”
    â€œWhat are they, then?” the girl demanded. “Tell me the twenty-six bad things. ”
    But the mother sat knitting in silence.
    â€œWhat twenty-six!” shouted the girl.
    The mother still did not answer her.
    â€œYou can’t tell me because you don’t know! You don’t know anything!” And the girl ran outside, jumped on her bicycle, and in her hurry to get away, she fell before she even reached the corner.

WAVERLY JONG
    Rules of the Game
    I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from others, and eventually, though neither of us knew it at the time, chess games.
    â€œBite back your tongue,” scolded my mother when I cried loudly, yanking her hand toward the store that sold bags of salted plums. At home, she said, “Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind—poom!—North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.”
    The next week I bit back my tongue as we entered the store with the forbidden candies. When my mother finished her shopping, she quietly plucked a small bag of plums from the rack and put it on the counter with the rest of the items.
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    My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances. We lived in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Like most of the other Chinese children who played in the back alleys of restaurants and curio shops, I didn’t think we were poor. My bowl was always full, three five-course meals every day, beginning with a soup full of mysterious things I didn’t want to know the names of.
    We lived on Waverly Place, in a warm, clean, two-bedroom flat that sat above a small Chinese bakery specializing in steamed pastries and dim sum. In the early morning, when the alley was still quiet, I could smell fragrant red beans as they were cooked down to a pasty sweetness. By daybreak, our flat was heavy with the odor of fried sesame balls and sweet curried chicken crescents. From my bed, I would listen as my father got ready for work, then locked the door behind him,