The significance of the crab dinner lies in what it tells us about Jing-mei's character.

Jing-mei's mother is cooking dinner for eleven people at the New Year's celebration. Mrs. Woo goes with her daughter to the market where she picks which crabs she's going to cook for dinner. The live crabs are in a tank, and Jing-mei's mother chooses one by spearing it. As she attempts to drag it out of the tank, the crab loses a leg. Mrs. Woo immediately rejects it, as it's considered bad luck to eat an injured crab for New Year. Eventually, however, she accepts it after the fishmonger agrees to let her have it for free.

After the dinner, Jing-mei asks her mother why she didn't touch her crab. Mrs. Woo replies that it was already dead before she cooked it, so it wasn't edible. She only cooked it because she thought it might be good and that Jing-mei wouldn't mind in any case since she would never choose the best quality.

As with so many people in life, Jing-mei is perfectly happy to settle for second best. On the positive side, this means she is a kind, virtuous person, always willing to sacrifice her interests for others. On the downside, however, it means that she can easily be pushed around by more assertive people like Waverly, who chose the best quality crab at dinner for her daughter Shoshana. Waverly's choice of crab says as much about her personality as Jing-mei's choice says about hers.