Quote- "As she rubbed this spot, I became very still. It was though she was rubbing the memory back into my skin." (46)
When An-mei was a young girl, she lived with her aunt, uncle, grandmother, and brother at her aunt and uncle's family home in Ningpo. Her mother left to be the concubine of a man named Wu-Tsing, consequently, An-Mei had lost all memory of her mother. When An-Mei was four, her mother arrived at An-Mei's aunt's home and begged to get An-Mei back. During her stay, a boiling pot of soup fell and spilled on An-Mei's neck, causing it to scar. An-Mei's grandmother and aunt chased her mother away after this incident. Her mother returned five years later because An-Mei's grandmother, Popo, had fallen deathly ill. While brushing her hair, An-Mei's mother began to rub the scar on An-Mei's neck. This causes all of An-Mei's memories of her mother to come back to her and she remembers that her mother had come back for her years before. From this night forward, An-Mei loves her mother once again. This quote sets up the relationship between An-Mei and her mother for the rest of the story. A movie that relates to this theme of memory is "The Notebook". Throughout the movie, Noah reads a story to his wife Allie, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. Allie doesn't know that the man reading her the story is her husband or that the story is actually her life. At the end of the movie Allie remembers that Noah is her husband and the story he tells her is of their life together. She recalls this memory after Noah finishes the story and they spend the night together. Both An-Mei and Allie recall memories from their past after the ones that they love spend time with them.
Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~ The Wonder Years
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