Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to her weekly writers' group for kindness and criticism during the writing of this book. Special thanks also to Louis DeMattei, Robert Foothorap, Gretchen Schields, Amy Hempel, Jennifer Barth, and my family in China and America. And a thousand flowers each to three people whom I have had the joy and the luck to know: my editor, Faith Sale, for her belief in this book; my agent, Sandra Dijkstra, for saving my life; and my teacher, Molly Giles, who told me to start over again and then patiently guided me to the end.
The Joy Luck Club The mothers, and the daughters:
Suyuan Woo—Jing-mei "June" Woo
An-mei Hsu—Rose Hsu Jordan
Lindo Jong—Waverly Jong
Ying-ying St. Clair—Lena St. Clair
Feathers From a Thousand LI Away
The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look!
—it is too beautiful to eat.
