Study Questions
1. What is a life’s importance?

2. Why does Jing-mei shop with her mother in Chinatown?

3. What complaints does Suyuan have against her tenants? What complaints do they have against her?

4. Why does Suyuan tell Jing-mei to put the eleventh crab back in the tank? Why do they buy it?

5. Waverly gives Shoshana the best crab on the platter. How does Shoshana react?

6. The party is ruined when Waverly and Jing-mei argue. What do they argue about, and who starts it?

7. Why doesn’t Suyuan use the dishes Jing-mei gave her?

8. How does Suyuan describe Waverly?

9. Why is Jing-mei fixing her father a spicy dish?

10. In what ways does Jing-mei show she identifies with her mother rather than competes with her?

Answers
1. It is a jade pendant that is elaborately carved with symbols.

2. They are buying crabs for that night’s Chinese New Year dinner.

3. Suyuan says the tenants use too much water, sometimes bathing twice a day, and that they put out too much garbage. The tenants claim that Suyuan poisoned their cat.

4. The eleventh crab is missing a leg, and that is bad luck on Chinese New Year. The manager makes them buy it because they are responsible for the missing leg.

5. Shoshana whines that she doesn’t like crab.

6. The argument starts when Waverly implies that Jing-mei’s beautician might have AIDS and that Jing-mei goes to him because it’s all she can afford. Then they argue about what to do with her advertising copy, which Waverly says isn’t good enough for their firm.

7. Suyuan says she forgot she had them. She was saving them for a special occasion.

8. During dinner Suyuan says Waverly was born sophisticated. Afterwards she says Waverly is like a crab that always walks sideways and crooked.

9. Suyuan believed spicy foods restore the spirit and good health. Jing-mei enjoys fixing this particular dish, and her father likes it.

10. In the final scene she takes her mother’s place in her kitchen. She has the same complaints as Suyuan about the tenants’ using too much water. She fixes a meal for her father. She tries to shoo the cat away and is equally unsuccessful.