JLC Textual Knowledge Test: Feathers from a Thousand Li Away

Total Score: _____/45

Section A: Mother-Daughter Relationships
1. ________________ _ is the mother of ____________________, [1m]

2. ________________ _ is the mother of ____________________, [1m]

3. ________________ _ is the mother of ____________________, [1m]

4. ________________ _ is the mother of ____________________, [1m]

Section B: Key Quotes

1. In the very first chapter of the book, we learn that Lindo and Suyuan were both “best
________________ _ and arch ________________ _ who spent a lifetime comparing
their children”. [2m]

2. Because Lindo constantly boasted of her daughter’s chess-playing abilities, Suyuan

felt compelled to try too “cultivate some hidden ________________ _” in her own
daughter. [2m]

3. Suyuan founded the original Joy Luck Club while awaiting the Japanese invasion of
the Chinese city of ________________ _. [1m]

4. When Suyuan flees to Chungking, she loses “everything except for three fancy silk
________________ _ which I wore one on top of the other”. Tragically, part of this
“everything” includes what is most precious to her, ________________ _. [2m]

5. The doctors said that Suyuan died of a cerebral aneurysm. According to the other
mothers of the Joy Luck Club, she also died “like a ________________ _”, with
“unfinished ________________ _ left behind”. [2m]

6. The other mothers of the Joy Luck Club appeal to Jing-mei to convey many things
about her mother to her long-lost sisters. Jing-mei realises that they do this because
“they are ________________ _”. In her they see “their own ________________ _,
who are just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have
brought to America”. [2m]

7. The chapter where An-Mei recalls her childhood is appropriately named

‘________________ _’, recalling what she sustains when a pot of boiling
________________ _ spills on her. This happens just as her mother returns in a failed
attempt to be reunited with her. [2m]

8. An-Mei’s mother brought shame to her family because she had become the
________________ _ of a rich man instead of remaining ________________ _ to her
deceased husband. Because of this, An-Mei’s grandmother told her that her mother
was a “________________ _”. [3m]
9. An-Mei’s mother nonetheless showed that she was a filial daughter when she followed
an “ancient tradition”, cutting her ________________ _ and putting it in a soup for An-
Mei’s Popo in the hopes that she would ________________ _. [2m]

10. On the day of her arranged marriage Lindo thought about ________________ _.
However, she discovers an invisible strength in herself after observing “the power of
the ________________ _”. It reminds her that despite her outward conformation to
social pressures, deep within she had “genuine ________________ _ inside that no
one could see, that no one could ever take away” from her. [3m]

11. Lindo’s fierce independence sees her refuse to fully submit to the fate of her arranged
marriage with Huang Taitai’s son, ________________ _. Her first secret act of
rebellion is blowing out the ________________ _ candle, which in Chinese tradition
is a “marriage bond…worth more than a Catholic promise not to ________________ .”
[3m]

12. Lindo cleverly manipulated her way out of her arranged marriage by convincing his
family to believe that their marriage was ________________ _. Additionally, she
persuades them that her favorite servant girl was his “true ________________ _ wife”
and secretly of “________________ _ blood”. [3m]

13. As a child, Ying-ying was in fact lively and impetuous – we see this when she mentions
that “I can remember a time when I ran and ________________ _, when I could not
stand ________________ _.” [2m]

14. The fact that Ying-ying was born in the year of the ________________ _ also
symbolises her true potential to be a strong and fierce personality. These are traits
which she sadly suppresses over the years, becoming a shadow of her younger self.
[1m]

15. Ying-ying’s gradual fading into a life-long passivity is the result of internalizing
patriarchal beliefs. These beliefs were first taught to her by her ________________ _,
who told her: it is ________________ _ to think of your own needs…a girl can
________________ _ ask, only listen”. [3m]

16. In ‘The ________________ _ Lady’ shadow play, the female protagonist laments
that while “man is…________________ _ truth lighting our minds”, woman is “the
________________ _ within, where untempered passions lie”. The lyrics reinforces
the belief that female personal desires are socially unacceptable. [3m]

17. . Ying-Ying hears this message from the play soon after a traumatic experience.
Consequently, she sees a parallel between the play and her plight. Just as the Moon
Lady was punished for desiring the magical peach with eternal ________________ _
from her husband, Ying Ying thinks that she herself is being punished for desiring
independence with her fall into the ________________ _ and eternal separation from
her________________ _. (“in one small moment, we had both lost the world, and there
was no way to get it back”). [3m]

18. Ghosts are a motif in the text. At times they symbolise that which either cannot be
talked about or people who cannot speak freely. Two people featured in this chapter
who have been referred to as ghosts are ________________ _, because she breaks
a social taboo, and ________________ _, because she becomes more subdued and
listless through the years. [2m]