Quote 1
The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, My mother was right. I am becoming Chinese. (IV.4.1)
According to Suyuan, Chinese-ness is passed on in the blood and lies dormant until the bearer (Jing-mei) enters China.
Quote 2
The gray-green surface changes to the bright colors of our three images, sharpening and deepening all at once. And although we don’t speak, I know we all see it: Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish. (IV.4.146)
Collectively, the meeting of Jing-mei and her sisters evoke their mother’s spirit.
Quote 3
And then we get to the room in the back, which was once shared by the three Hsu girls. We were all childhood friends. And now they’ve all grown and married and I’m here to play in their room again. Except for the smell of camphor, it feels the same – as if Rose, Ruth, and Janice might soon walk in with their hair rolled up in big orange-juice cans and plop down on their identical narrow beds. (I.1.72)
Jing-mei’s memories and early life are inextricably bound to the Hsu family.