Reading Notes of Jade Peony

Stan Chien

April 25, 09

Reading Notes of Jade Peony

The short story which is written by Wayson Choy is a story about a Chinese family lived in chinatown Vancouver and how did the author was influenced by his grandma. The author used a couple of figurative language within the story which made suspense and attracted the readers.

Symbolism is used in this story. The cat mentions at the end of the story is the clue of the whole story. It is the symbol of grandma’s old lover. Grandma said that the cat’s eyes were pink, and the pink was also the color of her spirit. She thought the cat was sent by her old lover to take her back. The cat was also the symbol of death. After grandma saw the cat, she was already prepared to die and refused to go to the hospital, because she was a very traditional person, the cat was to bring her back, so there was no way to stop her from dying. The symbolism also shows that the tradition of grandma. For example, before grandma died, she and the author made a wind chime and grandma told the author that hang it on the window, so the family will know that when she is coming back and visit the family.

Conflict also introduced in this story. External conflict was mainly introduced in this story. When the other family members saw their grandma went to pickup garbages, they felt embarrassing. “what will other white people in Vancouver think about us?”, this sentence shows the felling about the family members. Another external conflict in this story is the conflict between the author which was the youngest child in the family and his sisters and brothers. The author was following grandma all the time and he was on her side. It can also be seen as a foreshowing that tells reader that the author was influenced by grandma’s tradition. Internal conflict was also introduced in this story. Father knew that it was not good for grandma to pick up garbage, but he did not stop her and his youngest son(author). Because grandma was the oldest person in the family and he wanted his son to protect the grandma.

To sum up, this was a very attractive story and I have been attracted. The story was very close to my life, as a person who is going to study in Canada, I can totally understand the situation of this family. They showed the realistic side of the early Chinese-Canadian’s life in the Chinatown of Vancouver. The author used a different way to talk about the tradition. He showed tradition through death and how the tradition influenced him.