Rules of the Game (pp. 89-103)

Questions and tasks:

1. Describe the place Waverly Jong lived in and its surroundings.

2. Speak about the annual Christmas party at the Baptist church.

3. How did it happen that Waverly Jong got a strong desire to learn to play chess?

4. How did she learn to play?

5. How did she become a Chess Champion?

6. How did her life at home change after she had become famous?

7. How did it happen that her mother got offended at her?

8. Read the last sentence. Can you predict what will happen next?

9. Why do you think the misunderstanding between the daughter and her mother occurred?

10. Read the extract about “Chinese torture” (p. 92). What is meant by “torture”? Do you think the mother’s words acquire some different meaning by the end of the story?

11. Read the extract about “American rules” (p.95). What are these rules in the mother’s understanding? How is it connected with the title?

3. Four Directions (pp. 182 – 205)

Questions and tasks:

1. How did the relations between the mother and the daughter develop since their conflict in Waverly’s childhood?

2. Why do you think the girl lost her gift of easy winning? Do you think her mother had something to do with it?

3. Why do you think the memories of the girl’s childhood included into the story?

4. Why couldn’t Waverly Jong tell her mother than she and Rick were getting married?

5. What plan did Waverly invent her mother accept Rich?

6. What was her mother’s reaction when Waverly finally told her that she and Rich were getting married?

7. How did her attitude to her mother change after that?

8. “Strategy” is the key word of the story. What “strategies” does the author speak about? How do this word and the last paragraph of the story explain the title?

Lesson VI

1. The Moon Lady (pp. 64 – 88)

Questions and tasks:

1. What can you say about Ying-Ying St. Clair’s childhood?

2. What is the Moon Festival?

3. Describe the day of the Moon Festival in 1918.

4. How and why did it happen that the little girl talked to the Moon Lady? What was the Moon Lady’s story? Describe the Moon Lady.

5. What was the girl’s wish?

6. Why does Ying-Ying St. Clair’s say that she and her daughter are lost?

2. Waiting between the Trees (pp. 274 – 287)

Questions and tasks:

1. Tell the story of Ying-ying‘s first marriage. Why wasn’t it happy? How did she change after that?

2. Speak about Ying-ying‘s life in America and her second marriage. In what way was it different from the first one?

3. Why did Ying-ying decide to confront her past? Why was it so important for her to tell Lena about her past?

4. In what way doesYing-ying symbolically resemble a tiger? What does a tiger represent in Chinese culture?

5. Explain the title of the story. Whom would you refer it to?

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