Lindo Jong: Double Face

Lindo explains how upset Waverly is when she tells her that she does not look Chinese. Waverly wanted to be American, so she did not listen to her mother when she tried to teach her to be Chinese. Lindo believes it is her fault because she wanted her daughter to be “American-made.” At Waverly’s beauty salon, she was told that she looked like her mother. This made her upset.

Lindo remembers looking into the mirror with her mother when they were in China. She had always wanted to look like her.  After her first marriage, she came to America and “lost her Chinese face.” She decides to tell Waverly the story. She also tells her that when she returns to China forty years later, people could tell she was not completely Chinese anymore. She was a foreigner.