49 pages • 1 hour read
Gloria ChaoAmerican Panda
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Mandarin
Content Warning: This section discusses familial pressure and conflict and identity struggles, including references to body shaming.
Chao weaves words and phrases in Mandarin throughout the novel, both spoken by characters or in Mei’s inner monologue. While Mei directly translates some phrases, other references are bolstered by context clues to help readers decipher their meaning. Chao notes at the beginning of the novel that she uses the pinyin system of Mandarin, which features marks above the vowels to indicate pitch. She also notes that she uses the pronunciation of her own family’s accent, which may differ from other pronunciations.
Several words are particularly meaningful in Mei’s journey of identity. Mama Lu calls herself Mei’s muqin, the more formal version of “mom,” indicating her authority. Mei often feels like the pingu, or “ass,” of her own culture for not living up to her parents’ expectations. She misses being her baba’s little girl, his baobei whom he showed open affection for. Later, Mei decides that Christine is her jiejie, her “dirtier, foul-mouthed older sister” (267), when they reconnect. Even Mei’s name has a special meaning in Mandarin: It means “beautiful,” which Mama Lu expects Mei to live up to, as seen in her constant criticism of Mei’s weight and nose size.
The use of Mandarin is juxtaposed with English. Both Mei and Mama Lu switch comfortably between Mandarin and English while speaking to each other, but Mei notes that her mother feels embarrassed about speaking English to others, highlighting a common insecurity among immigrants or those who are speaking a language without native fluency. Furthermore, Mama Lu still feels more attached to her Taiwanese roots, as evidenced by her upholding of Chinese cultural traditions. Thus, for Mama Lu, the motif of Mandarin language symbolizes traditions and home. For Mei, Mandarin represents her gradual embrace of her blended cultural identity. She finds comfort in speaking Mandarin because it reminds her of her parents, but she also exists in American culture by speaking English.
The Porter Room
Upon Mei’s arrival at MIT, she seeks out a space for herself both mentally and physically. After a bad encounter with her dormmates, she stumbles upon the abandoned Porter Room and decides to make it her safe space for dancing. This moment is significant because it juxtaposes Mei failing to make human connections and finding an emotional connection with a location instead. She even personifies the room as a dancing partner named Mr. Porter, symbolizing the emotional connection between dance and MIT as home. The room is where she can escape from her overbearing parents, the guilt she feels for betraying them, and her anxieties about her future. After every bad experience, she finds herself dancing with Mr. Porter. The room is also where she practices for her dance classes and her ATS performance. In a romantic scene at the end, Mei shares a silent dance with Darren in the Porter Room, highlighting that in the end, Mei doesn’t need Mr. Porter as a dance partner anymore: She has found real human connections with Darren and her other dance students. In the end, she acknowledges that while dance and the Porter Room have been a refuge, dance can also be a celebration of identity: “Dance was where I had learned to be myself, but I no longer hid there. I danced everywhere I went, a little pas de bourree slipping in here, a tombe there” (304).
Humor
The novel often relies on the motif of humor to underscore the themes of Balancing Happiness With Family Dynamics and Parental Expectations and The Challenges of Navigating Cultural Identity and Assimilation. Mei acknowledges that she uses humor to cope with her complicated family dynamics and her cultural identity. She sometimes makes inappropriate jokes that her parents don’t understand, highlighting the generational disparity in their values and upbringing. For example, when she jokes that her father could have been a basketball player named “Lu-nar eclipse” because of his size, her family doesn’t understand the play on their last name. The only people who seem to understand her sense of humor and her reliance on it are her new friends, Darren and Nicolette, and her brother Xing. She begins letting her loud “man-laugh” shine because she realizes that it’s part of what makes her funny and unique. Additionally, the chapter titles are comedic, pithy phrases that reflect the events of the plot as well as Mei’s sense of humor.
Furthermore, Mei’s connection with Christine/Ying-Na is strengthened when Mei realizes that as a comedian, Christine also uses humor to cope with her family’s restrictive culture. In her stand-up routine, Christine claims, “Humor isn’t valued [in Chinese culture]…Because, of course, a docile, quiet obedient woman is easier to marry off than a funny one full of personality” (258). This is what Mama Lu has been trying to make Mei believe: that being subservient and quiet is more valuable than being funny, which Mei disagrees with. In the end, when Mama Lu begins cracking jokes herself, Mei realizes that her mother really has changed. Thus, a sense of humor signals the character development of Mama Lu and the hope that their relationship can survive.
