Questions:
“A Boy with His Hands over His Ears”
1.What can you infer from the very first sentence of this chapter,especially concerning the subject of the novel?
2.What did “Everywhere there are limits” mean? How was it related to the Chinese expressions Ting de jian and Ting bu jian? Were there similar expressions in American English? If not, in what way did it reveal the difference between traditional Chinese culture and modern American culture?
3.What kind of family was Ralph born into in China? What were his father and mother?
4.Why did Ralph always press his hands over his ears? How did his father look at him and his elder sister respectively?
5.What goals did Ralph set out for himself on the way to America?What were the cultural assumptions underlying these goals? Are there any similar lists of aims in American classics? Do they have the same underlying cultural assumptions as Ralph’s list?
6.What were Ralph’s first impressions of the Golden Gate Bridge and New York City?
“Grover at the Wheel”
7.What did the conversation between Grover, Old Chao, and Ralph reveal about themselves? How did Old Chao fit in with the “Model Minority” stereotype of Asian Americans?
8.Is there any symbolic meaning in the description of the scenery along the way as Grover and Ralph drove to New Jersey? What is implied in “Background, say, for some larger drama”?
9.What can you tell about Grover from his unasked drive, his driving skills, his treat for Ralph, and his sexual intercourse with the waitress?How did they impact on Ralph?
10.What had Grover done for a living before he became a millionaire?What can you tell about the race relations and the importance of money in American society from “That’s what you are in this country, if you got no dough, a singing Chinaman”?
11.How did Grover become a millionaire? What was his first business? What lessons did he teach Ralph, with his own success as a case study? Was Ralph impressed?
12.Why did Grover invest in a lot of businesses instead of focusing on one of them and making it big? Was it hinted that illegal practice was involved in his businesses?
13.What were the secrets that Grover told Ralph about a self-made man? Do you think they are taken from Grover’s own experience or the myth of the American dream?
“Chang-kees”
14.How do you understand the first paragraph of this chapter?
15.How many years had passed since Ralph arrived in the United States? And what changes had taken place in the family?
16.What is the implied meaning of “The language of outside the house had seeped well inside…?
17.Did Ralph feel happy with his family life and everything else?How did he react when Theresa confessed about her scholarship and the furnace?
18.Were the Changs’ ever prejudiced against by white Americans?What was their reaction?
19.Why did the Changs’ decide to buy a car? What was their decision concerning the education of Callie and Mona?
20.In what way is Ralph’s naming his family “Chang-kees”significant? Are there any thematic implications in the name“Chang-kees”?
“Mystery”
21.What questions did Ralph ask himself when he was trying to find out his motivations for calling Grover again after years of no contact? How did Ralph account for his motivations?
22.What is your comment upon Ralph’s finding that in America, “a lot of people wondered who they were quite seriously” while in China,“people had worried more about being recognized…Who we are being so many hard facts … ”? What does the contrast tell about the difference between traditional Chinese culture and modern American culture?
23.How did Ralph feel in the summer when he got tenure? What happened to Ralph in September when the new school year began?
24.How was the classroom for Ralph’s first class with tenure? Why did Ralph recall his father’s words “they had crawled into the tip of a bull’s horn”?
25.What made Ralph’s first day of the new school year so unbearable to him?
26.What was Ralph thinking of on his drive home in the rain? What did he mean when he thought, “Freedom and justice for all, the greatness of America”?
27.What can you tell about Ralph’s attitude toward Old Chao?
28.What did Ralph remember at the end of the chapter? What does it imply about his next move in life?
“Faith”
29.What does the title “Faith” imply? What did Ralph begin to have faith in?
30.What did Ralph’s recollection of his playing on the seesaw with Theresa as a child indicate about his feeling for Theresa?
31.What occurred to Ralph as he stood waiting for a cab, trapped in his coat? How is it related to the thematic concern of the novel?
32.How does the novel end? What does the ending imply about the change in Ralph’s attitude toward Theresa and her love affair with Old Chao?