uth: ôPrecious Auntie, what is our name? I always meant to claim it as my own. Come help me remember. IÆm not afraid of ghosts. Are you still mad at me? DonÆt you recognize me? I am LuLing, your daughterö (Tan, 2002, p. 6).
We see that there is a tense relationship between Ruth and LuLing that began in childhood when RuthÆs mother would force her to engage in her superstitious activities. As she tells us of these incidents, ôMost of the time she thought the sand-writing was just a boring chore. Yet Ruth had gone through times when she believed that a ghost was guiding her arm, telling her what to sayö (Tan, 2002, p. 127). Ruth also despises the way her mother gave her a name that she cannot pronounce and embarrasses her in front of others with her broken dialect. She also hates that her mother is always loud and rude and gets into fights all the time. Ruth is too young to understand some of her motherÆs behaviors and too undeveloped to know there are also causes and effects working on her motherÆs character, moods and expressions.
Ruth complains of the tasks and chores she had to endure at her motherÆs expense, like being her ôbook doctorö and serving as her motherÆs ômouthpieceö (Tan, 2002, p. 50). She does not consider her mother may be too embarrassed to speak in English to professionals on the telephone; she lacks understanding and awareness of these aspects of character and only sees the negative in the behavior at this point. This makes her filled with resentment over time and she seldom takes time out to enjoy time with her mother, something that fills her mother with anger and pain. This distance i
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