rendering of the same situation. In her poem, Lim
describes the pregnant mother-to-be, her hus-
band, and his mother saving ashes for three
months, so that if the baby was a girl, they
would know what to do. The image is incom-
plete, such that it requires that the reader under-
stand the unspoken meaning of the ashes. The
three months of saving ashes are the last trimester
of the wife’s pregnancy. This is a time when the
baby is fully formed; he or she is growing and
moving in the mother’s womb. All of this is
implied but not stated, as the poet only alludes
to the possible interpretations through an image.
It is up to the reader to fill in the details. Poetry,
then, is typically not as easy as prose. Kingston
leaves no room for misinterpretation, as she does
not require that the reader create his or her own
meaning.
Kingston’s memoir presents another example
of how a daughter can be eliminated from the
household, when she depicts an episode that
occurs in the marketplace. The narrator describes
her mother walking through the Canton markets
and coming upon a scene where parents are sell-
ing their daughters to be slaves. These were ‘‘the
sellers of little girls.’’ Sometimes there was only a
father selling his daughter, but other times ‘‘there
were fathers and mothers selling their daughters,
whom they pushed forward’’ as potential buyers
walked by them. The implication in these descrip-
tions is clear. Girls can be assigned so little value
as to be sold like merchandise, a commodity to be
disposed of like vegetables from the garden or
furniture marketed for sale. Lim also creates an
image of girls as valueless or as useless members
of the family, but her description has hidden
meanings and depth not available to prose writ-
ers. Lim describes a girl as a child with two
mouths, a child who is no good. The child with
two mouths is a child that is doubly wasteful. No
infant contributes productivity to a household,
but a boy will grow up to help on the farm or in
the business. He will care for his parents in their
old age, but a girl contributes nothing. She just
eats food and needs clothing and wastes resour-
ces. She will marry and then belong to her hus-
band’s family. The value assigned to girls is made
clear in Kingston’s image of parents selling their
daughters; but Lim’s image of two mouths carries
meaning that must be deciphered, and every
person who reads the poem finds different mean-
ing in it.WHAT
DO I READ
NEXT? Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-
American Memoir of Homelands(2000) is
Lim’s memoir. It includes her memories of
life in Malaysia and of life after immigrating
to the United States.
Lim’s second novel,Sister Swing(2006), is
the story of three sisters whose Chinese
ancestry continues to become the focus of
their new lives in the United States.
Transnational Asia Pacific: Gender, Cul-
ture, and the Public Sphere(1999), edited
by Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Larry E. Smith,
and Wimal Dissanayake, is a collection of
essays that explore the ways in which global-
ization influences culture and society, espe-
cially the ways in which women’s identities
are impacted.
Home to Stay: Asian American Women’s Fic-
tion(1990), edited by Sylvia Watanabe and
Carol Bruchac, is a collection of short sto-
ries by twenty-nine different Asian Ameri-
can women writers.
An Interethnic Companion to Asian Ameri-
can Literature(1997), edited by King-Kok
Cheung, offers writings that explore the cul-
tural identity of Asian American writers.
The collection of eleven essays explores gen-
der, immigration, and critical theory as well
as other topics that contribute to an under-
standing of the cultural context of Asian
American poetry.LIM’S USE OF IMAGERY IN ‘PANTOUN FOR CHI-
NESE WOMEN’ CREATES AND ENRICHES THE MEANINGS
THAT ARE HIDDEN WITHIN THE POEM.’’Pantoun for Chinese Women