Reading Notes A, Week 13, The Joy Luck Club

Rules of the Game: Waverly Jong daughter of Lindo Jong

I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect for others, and eventually, though neither of us knew it at the time, chess games.(89)

At home, she said, “Wise guy, he not go again wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind-poom!- North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.” (89)

“Some boy in my class said Chinese people do Chinese torture.” “Chinese people do many tings, she said simply. “Chinese people do business, do medicine, do painting. Not lazy like American people. We do torture. Best torture.” (91)

During an annual Christmas party help at the First Chinese Baptist Church near their home, her older brother, Vincent was given a chess set, Waverly got a 12 pack of Life Savers. Her older brothers played chess and she watched them and begged them to let her play, she used her Life Savers as replacements for the missing pieces they allowed her to play. Waverly studied and learned the rules for the game.

I loved the secrets I found within the sixty-four black and white squares. I carefully drew a handmade chessboard and pinned it to the wall next to my bed, where at night I would stare for hours at imaginary battles. Soon I no longer lost any games or Life Savers, but I lost my adversaries. (95)

Waverly found a man at the park to play, Lau Po, she played, learned a lot from him, and became an even better chest player.

Waverly started playing in local tournaments, and won trophy’s .

By my ninth birthday, I was a national chess champion. I was still some 429 points away from grand-master status, but I was touted as the Great American Hope, child prodigy and a girl to boot. (97)

Lindo was very proud of her daughter, Waverly, and bragged about her often to people, and she did not like that. One day she told her mom that she wished she did not do that, her and her mother argued and Waverly ran off, she was in the alley by her house. When she went home she though she would be in a lot of trouble, her parents did not yell at her, which made her unsure of the situation. She went to her room and thought about her mom and chess.