The Woman Warrior: 4. At the Western Palace Summary & Analysis

When she was around sixty-eight years old, Brave Orchid took a day off to pick up her younger sister, Moon Orchid, from the airport. Moon Orchid’s daughter accompanied her and sat with her in the airport. Brave Orchid’s American children, whom she had made come because they could drive, could not sit for very long.

Brave Orchid looked at the people around the airport. Some were soldiers and sailors. She wondered about her son in Vietnam, then asked Moon Orchid’s daughter if he was there. The daughter replied that Brave Orchid’s children had said that he was in the Philippines. She was not sure if this was true—her children may have been playing a trick on her with the cooperation of a Filipino whom they knew. When Moon Orchid’s daughter assured Brave Orchid that her son could take care of himself, Brave Orchid was doubtful, due to his old habit of sticking pencils in his ears.

Brave Orchid’s children ran to tell her that the plane had arrived. Brave Orchid pushed to the front of the waiting crowd. Brave Orchid searched for her sister and suddenly pointed out a younger woman, younger even than Moon Orchid’s daughter. She mistook this woman for her sister, due to the woman’s western clothes—she knew that Moon Orchid would wear western clothes now. When Moon Orchid’s daughter saw her mother, she called out “Mama!” Brave Orchid then saw a very tiny, very thin, nervous woman appear. Moon Orchid’s hair was in a gray knot and she wore a gray wool suit with pearls. Brave Orchid was surprised to see how old she was. The two women touched each other’s faces and looked at how much they had both changed.

Back at Brave Orchid’s home, Moon Orchid greeted Kingston’s father, the scholar whom she had once regarded as an “ideal in masculine beauty.” Moon Orchid then presented gifts to everyone. One of the gifts was a paper cutout of Fa Mu Lan that was green and beautiful.

Brave Orchid disliked that her children played with presents in front of the giver, and was further annoyed when they acted as though they did not want to eat the rock candy that she had chopped up. Moon Orchid presented her sister with “a pale green silk dress lined in wool,” which Brave Orchid regarded as useless because it was “fancy.” Moon Orchid also brought jade bracelets for the girls, which Brave Orchid insisted they not have because they were too young and would break them while playing baseball. Brave Orchid took the “useful” things that her sister had brought “into the back bedroom, where Moon Orchid would stay until they decided what she would do permanently.”

Moon Orchid walked around the house. She noticed that their grandparents’ pictures were up. Brave Orchid told her that, in America, you could have pictures of anyone you wanted on the wall. Afterward, they had dinner. Brave Orchid refused to let anyone talk during dinner, but once everyone was finished, she insisted on getting down to the “business” of reuniting Moon Orchid with Moon Orchid’s husband.

For thirty years, Moon Orchid had received money from her husband. She never told him that she wanted to move to the United States. She waited for him to suggest it, but Moon Orchid’s husband never did. So, Brave Orchid found a Chinese-American husband for Moon Orchid’s daughter who was then able to do the paperwork to bring her mother over.

Brave Orchid instructed her sister on what to do when she confronted her husband. Moon Orchid was reluctant to “bother him,” given how well-supported she had been for so many years and because he had sent their daughter to college. Brave Orchid insisted that she make Moon Orchid’s husband feel bad for marrying someone else and for leaving his parents behind in China. She insisted that Moon Orchid go to her husband’s home and install herself as First Wife.

Brave Orchid told Moon Orchid that, when she arrived at the house, she should throw out the new wife’s things and declare their sons her own. Brave Orchid also suggested that Moon Orchid get a job to show how helpful she could be, such as being a maid at a hotel. However, Brave Orchid regarded her “delicate sister” and decided that she would need “to toughen up” to find work. If Brave Orchid were in her position, she thought, she would be on the phone demanding a job in Chinatown.

Moon Orchid wondered what to do if her husband did not remember her. Brave Orchid instructed her to give details of their life together. She also told Moon Orchid to dye her hair black so as not to look so old. Moon Orchid’s daughter held her mother’s hand throughout this lecture. She, too, was unhappy after marrying a rich, tyrannical man whom her aunt had arranged for her. Brave Orchid thought her niece was like her mother, “the lovely, useless type.”

The next day, right after breakfast, Brave Orchid talked about taking the direct route into Los Angeles. She insisted that Moon Orchid make life unbearable for the second wife, if necessary. Moon Orchid countered that she would not mind if the woman stayed, for she could comb Moon Orchid’s hair, take care of the boys, and do most of the chores. This response made Brave Orchid think that her sister was not very bright. She insisted that Moon Orchid’s job as a wife was to make her expectations clear and to scold her husband into becoming a better man.

Moon Orchid hoped that “the summer would wear away while her sister talked” and that Brave Orchid would find the sudden autumn too cold for travel. In the meantime, she studied Brave Orchid’s children, recalling all of their idiosyncrasies based on what Brave Orchid had detailed about them in her letters. She followed them around, watching them while they were studying or cooking with appliances. Moon Orchid noticed that they were not happy “like the two real Chinese babies” who died. When Brave Orchid scolded them about their manners or told them to dress better, Moon Orchid defended them, thinking that they enjoyed “looking like wild animals.”

Brave Orchid and her husband woke at 6:00 AM and prepared for a day’s work at the family laundry. Brave Orchid walked Moon Orchid and her niece to the laundry via Chinatown, pointing out things along the way. Moon Orchid called the Chinese that she saw “Americans,” which Brave Orchid found stupid—they were “overseas Chinese.”

When they got to the laundry, Brave Orchid assigned Moon Orchid a task to perform, though all of the jobs seemed too difficult and Brave Orchid worried that her sister might burn herself. Moon Orchid tried ironing but burned a shirt, causing her sister to send her out for a walk because she complained of it being too hot to breathe. Moon Orchid asked her sister to accompany her back to Chinatown, but Brave Orchid insisted on working. To appease Moon Orchid, Brave Orchid set a crate out front for her sister to sit.

After lunch, Brave Orchid and her sister walked back to Chinatown for some fun. She introduced Moon Orchid to her friends and told them that her sister had come back to reclaim her husband. The women had a wide range of advice to give, including blackmailing and beating him. Moon Orchid took all of this for a joke. They then played a game of Mahjong.

Moon Orchid later started visiting the laundry late in the afternoons when the towels were dry, and she could fold them. She spent most of the summer evenings continuing to observe Brave Orchid’s children. Each day, Brave Orchid asked Moon Orchid if she was ready to go reclaim her husband. Moon Orchid said that she was not. When Moon Orchid’s daughter announced that she had to return to her family in Los Angeles, Brave Orchid saw this as an opportunity to go.

Brave Orchid assigned the task of driving to her eldest son. The two old ladies and Moon Orchid’s daughter sat in the backseat. During the drive, Brave Orchid began to tell the story of the emperor’s four wives. She told Moon Orchid that she was the good Empress of the East who would free the Earth’s Emperor from the Western Palace. The second wife, like the Western Empress, had connived to win Moon Orchid’s husband; Moon Orchid had to win him back.

Moon Orchid worried over what would happen if she showed up to her husband’s house. Perhaps he would throw her out. Brave Orchid insisted that they be “routine,” though they might have to climb through the window to get into the house. Moon Orchid should behave, her sister encouraged, as though she belonged in his home and had never really left. Moon Orchid sometimes played along, saying that maybe she could be folding towels when he arrived. Then, she thought better of it and said that she could not go through with the confrontation. She tapped her nephew on the shoulder and asked him to turn back.

Moon Orchid’s daughter insisted on being dropped off at home first. Brave Orchid had tried to get her to confront her father five years earlier, but all she had done was write him a letter. He could visit her, or she could visit him, but he had not wanted to see her. When they arrived at Moon Orchid’s daughter’s home, Moon Orchid asked to see her grandchildren, but Brave Orchid insisted that they go see to Moon Orchid’s husband first. Brave Orchid’s son drove to a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles.

Moon Orchid was too nervous to go in. Brave Orchid decided to scout the building and come back out when she had a plan. She entered a doctor’s office. A woman in a pink and white uniform emerged when Brave Orchid proved unable to speak to the receptionist. She told Brave Orchid that her husband was a brain surgeon and did not take drop-in patients. It occurred to Brave Orchid that Moon Orchid’s husband had simply left her for a younger woman.

When Moon Orchid claimed to be too scared to go into his office and announce herself, Brave Orchid instructed her son to go up and claim that his “uncle” was in an accident on the street. Brave Orchid’s son found the plan ridiculous, but obeyed. Moon Orchid burst into tears at the prospect of seeing her husband. Brave Orchid insisted that she was just tired, and began to slap and pinch her sister to get blood back into her cheeks.

Brave Orchid’s son returned, accompanied by a man in a dark western suit. He saw no accident, but looked the old women’s “awful faces” and asked the “grandmothers” what was wrong. Brave Orchid was outraged that he did not recognize his wife. Moon Orchid’s husband then asked Moon Orchid what she was doing there. Brave Orchid made up a story about getting her on a Red Cross list to have her sent to California.

Moon Orchid’s husband insisted that she did not belong because she did not “have the hardness” for America. He did not wish for Moon Orchid to return to China, but he said that she could not live in his house, for he was living like an American and could get arrested if anyone knew he had another wife. He told Brave Orchid that he did not write because he had become a different person, and his family in China were like people he had read about in a book long ago. He bought them lunch, and then Brave Orchid’s son drove his aunt back to her daughter’s house, where she wanted to live. Moon Orchid never saw her husband again.

Several months went by with no letters from Moon Orchid. When she lived in Hong Kong and China, she had written “every other week.” One day Brave Orchid called, and her sister answered the phone, but she whispered about people listening to her phone calls and hung up. Moon Orchid’s daughter said that her mother had talked about Mexican ghosts plotting on her life.

Brave Orchid decided that her sister should return north to live with her. When she arrived, Moon Orchid talked about being “in disguise.” Brave Orchid tried chanting Moon Orchid’s name, her new address, and all of the names of her family members to call her spirit back. Brave Orchid concluded that her sister had “misplaced herself” and “her spirit [was] scattered all over the world.”

Despite Brave Orchid’s efforts, her sister slipped further into insanity. She said that the Mexicans had followed her to Brave Orchid’s house. She went around the house turning out the lights, as though there had been an air raid. She also became afraid for the children. To appease her sister, Brave Orchid told the children to come home straight away so as not to legitimize Moon Orchid’s worry that they would be taken away. Finally, Brave Orchid realized that the situation was hopeless, for Moon Orchid had lost all “variety” and only had one talk-story. Sane people, she told her children, had variety when they did talk-story, whereas insane people only had one story that they told over and over again.

Brave Orchid gave up when Moon Orchid started badmouthing her children. She wondered if Moon Orchid had already left her body and a mean-spirited ghost now inhabited the shell of the woman who cursed Brave Orchid’s children. Nevertheless, Moon Orchid’s daughter had her mother committed to a state asylum. Moon Orchid was happy there, because no one ever left, and they spoke “the same language.” Alas, Moon Orchid “had a new story,” but died soon thereafter.

Brave Orchid told her children that they must never allow their father to marry another woman. She did not believe that she could handle it any better than Moon Orchid did. Brave Orchid’s husband insisted that he was too old for a second wife, and Brave Orchid’s daughters decided that they would never tolerate unfaithful men—they and the rest of her children would major in science or mathematics.