The most vivid parts of the chapter are those in which Kingston lets her imagination about her aunt run free. She depicts in exquisite detail the careful manner in which her aunt "in Kingston's imagination, of course "plucked hairs from her forehead to attract a suitor. She also imagines her aunt's sufferings in heartbreaking detail, first as a mother giving birth and then as a ghost begging for scraps. The most interesting and imaginative stylistic techniques of the chapter are Kingston's metaphors, such as the round cakes and doorways meant to represent the "circle" or "roundness" of Chinese life "the idea that all the villagers are connected and responsible for one another's lives.
Chapter Two: White Tigers .
Summary .
The first section of "White Tigers" is Kingston's childhood fantasy of living the life of Fa Mu Lan, the woman warrior "a story that derives from one of Brave Orchid's talk-stories. (Note that the fantasy is written in the first-person, in the present tense. For convenience, this summary uses "Kingston" to stand for what might be more accurately described as "the narrator," "the girl," or even "Fa Mu Lan.").
In the fantasy, Kingston follows a bird up into the mountains until she comes to the hut of an old couple, who want to train her to become a great warrior. As part of her training she spends years alone on the mountain of the white tigers, fasting for days and then eating only roots and vegetables and drinking only melted snow. At Kingston's hungriest moment, a rabbit jumps into the fire to sacrifice himself to appease her hunger. Kingston's self-imposed starvation causes her to have hallucinations and revelations about the world.
When Kingston returns from the mountain, at the age of fourteen, her mentors teach her to fight. They also show her images of her family in a gourd of water. In the first scene her parents are arranging, in her absence, her marriage to a childhood friend.