"You're husband is going to have to see you. We'll make him recognize you. Ha. Won't it be fun to see his face? You'll go to his house. And when his wife answers the door, you say, 'I want to speak to my husband,' and you name his personal name. 'Tell him I'll be sitting in the family room.' Walk past her as if she were a servant. She'll scold him when he comes home from work, and it'll serve him right. You yell at him too."
"I'm scared," said Moon Orchid.
"We know his address. He's living in Los Angeles with his second wife, and they have three children. Claim your rights. Those are your children. He's got two sons. You have two sons. You take them away from her. You become their mother."
"Do you really think I can be a mother to sons? Don't you think they'll be loyal to her, since she gave birth to them?"
"The children will go to their true mother - you," said Brave Orchid. "That's the way it is with mothers and children... You have to ask him why he didn't come home. Why he turned into a barbarian. Make him feel bad about leaving his mother and father. Scare him. Walk right into his house with your suitcase and boxes. Move right into the bedroom. Throw her stuff out of the drawers and put yours in. Say, 'I am the first wife, and she is our servant.'"
"Oh, no, I can't do that. I can't do that at all. That's terrible."
"You walk right into the bedroom, and you open the second wife's closet. Take whatever clothes you like. That will give you an American wardrobe."
"Oh, I can't do that."
"Make life unbearable for the second wife, and she'll leave. He'll have to build her a second house."
"I wouldn't mind if she stays," said Moon Orchid. "She can comb my hair and keep house. She can wash the dishes and serve our meals. And she can take care of the little boys."
Weeks later Brave Orchid take Moon Orchid to Los Angeles to confront the husband. The whole 500 miles to LA, Brave Orchid is giving her sister last minute instructions on how she should comport herself during the grand encounter after 30 years. Moon Orchid, timid and delicate, finds it difficult to agree with anything her enthusiastic, hard-driven older sister suggests. Once in LA and they get to the address, they realize it's an awfully big building, which possibly the renegade man owns, especially as they do know that the husband has some kind of job important to the Americans. Brave Orchid went inside the building for reconnosiance. She realized the brother-in-law is some kind of doctor, and when she fakes a flu, she meets a very young and pretty Chinese woman who speaks Chinese worse than her children. Ah, so she realizes, this is the wife! She goes back to her sister waiting in the car.
"I met his second wife," she said.
"What's she like?" asked Moon Orchid. "Is she pretty?"
"She's very pretty and very young; just a girl. She's his nurse. What a terrible, faithless man. You'll have to scold him for years, but first you need to sit up straight. Use my powder. Be as pretty as you can. Otherwise you won't be able to compete. You do have one advantage, however. Notice he has her be his worker. She is like a servant, so you have room to be the wife. She works at the office; you work at the house... What a petty man he turned out to be. Giving up responsibility for a pretty face."
The above are excerpts taken sporadically from the chapter "At the Western Palace" in The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston. This is a prime example of projecting one's own culture on the new culture which creates confusion, anger, hatred and withdrawal; communication needs and expectations are not met and huge misunderstandings result. Moon Orchid was later admitted to an insane asylum for having her expectations thwarted and becoming detached from her perceived reality.
