Joy Luck Cub- Vocabulary Flashcards
shabby
And when I arrived, I realized how shabby my dreams were, how poor my thoughts.
of substandard quality
scurried
When the sirens cried out to warn us of bombers, my neighbors and I jumped to our feet and scurried to the deep caves to hide like wild animals.
scampered; went quickly with light steps
meager
“What fine food we treated ourselves to with our meager allowances!”
small or deficient in quantity
somber
What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces?
serious
unanimously
After everybody votes unanimously for the Canada gold stock, I go into the kitchen to ask Auntie An-mei why the Joy Luck Club started investing in stocks.
completely in agreement
translucent
The white chenille bedspreads are so worn they are almost translucent.
allowing some light to pass through
cultivate
At first my mother tried to cultivate some hidden genius in me.
grow; encourage; promote
generosity
And I am embarrassed by the end-of-the-year-banquet lie my aunties have told to mask their generosity.
willingness to give; giving
bowels
Many times Popo said aloud to all who could hear that my brother and I had fallen out of the bowels of a stupid goose, two eggs that nobody wanted, not even good enough to crack over rice porridge.
intestines; insides; guts
precious
So you see, to Popo we were also very precious.
cherished; having value; beloved
vigorously
One day this bad girl shook her head so vigorously to refuse her auntie’s simple request that a little white ball fell from her ear and out poured all her brains, as clear as chicken broth.
done with force or energy
dowry
So when my brother gave her a sour look, Auntie said our mother was so thoughtless she had fled north in a big hurry, without taking the dowry furniture from her marriage to my father, without bringing her ten pairs of silver chopsticks, without paying respect to my father’s grave and those of our ancestors.
money or property brought by a bride to her husband
concubines
When my brother accused Auntie of frightening our mother away, Auntie shouted that our mother had married a man named Wu Tsing who already had a wife, two concubines, and other bad children.
secondary wives
insolent
She looked strange, too, like the missionary ladies at our school who were insolent and bossy in their too-tall shoes, foreign clothes, and short hair
arrogant; presumptuous and insulting
bloated
That she seemed to float back and forth like a ghost, dipping cool cloths to lay on Popo’s bloated face
swelled up
mute
And because I remember Popo told me not to speak her name, I stood there, mute
speechless
membranes
In the morning, Popo would use her sharp fingernails like tweezers and peel off the dead membranes.
thin layer of tissue
genuine
She is crying with a genuine feeling and he says, “Promise! Promise! Honey-sweetheart, my promise is as good as gold.”
real
cicadas
It was summertime, very hot and dusty outside, and I could hear cicadas crying in the yard.
insects that make high-pitched, droning sound
penetrate
And this is when Huang Taitai looked down at me with a cloudy face as though she could penetrate my thoughts and see my future intentions.
pierce; force into
pretense
Inside, the house held a different kind of pretense.
false appearance
felicitous
She had even commissioned someone to write felicitous messages on red banners, as if my parents themselves had draped these decorations to congratulate me on my good luck.
suitable; appropriate
invaded
They invaded Shansi province, as well as the provinces bordering us.
entered by force to conquer
declaration
The next morning the matchmaker made her proud declaration in front of Tyan-yu, his parents, and myself.
statement
remorseful
“They knew you would not believe me,” I said in a remorseful tone, “because they know I do not want to leave the comforts of my marriage.”
regretful; sorrowful
extracted
By mid-morning they had dragged the matchmaker’s servant over to our house and extracted her terrible confession.
pulled out
simmering
Everything in the room smelled of wet grass simmering in the heat.
cooking just below boiling point
acrid
And so the stale heat still remained in the shadows behind the curtains, heating up the acrid smells of my chamber pot, seeping into my pillow, chafing the back of my neck and puffing up my cheeks, so that I awoke that morning with a restless complaint.
unpleasant to the taste or smell
posterity
“The third word in the next line,” explained Baba, “was worn off the slab, its meaning washed away by centuries of rain, almost lost to posterity forever.”
future generations
transparent
Suddenly I saw a dragonfly with a large crimson body and transparent wings.
clear
presumptuous
I climbed into the rickshaw with my mother in it, which displeased Amah, because this was presumptuous behavior on my part and also because Amah loved me better than her own.
excessively forward
pavilion
Mama and the other ladies were already seated on benches around the pavilion, fanning themselves furiously and slapping the sides of each other’s heads when mosquitoes landed.
a shelter open to the air
waned
But the excitement soon waned, and the afternoon seemed to pass like any other at home
decreased
erupted
And loud clanks and hissing sounds erupted as once again the boat began to move.
became violently active; exploded
illusion
Both of these things seemed an illusion to me, a wish granted that could not be trusted.
false perception of reality
strategy
It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from others, and eventually, though neither of us knew it at the time, chess games.
plan
eluded
It was said that he once cured a woman dying of an ancestral curse that had eluded the best of American doctors.
escaped the understanding of
deftly
Inside, the butchers with their bloodstained white smocks deftly gutted the fish while customers cried out their orders and shouted, “Give me your freshest,” to which the butchers always protested, “All are freshest.”
skillfully
benefactor
My mother graciously thanked the unknown benefactor, saying, “Too good. Cost too much.”
one who gives aid, esp. financial aid
distract
“Throw sand from the East to distract him.”
divert
touted
I was still some 429 points away from grand-master status, but I was touted as the Great American Hope, a child prodigy and a girl to boot
publicly praised
phlegmy
I was playing in a large high school auditorium that echoed with phlegmy coughs and the squeaky rubber knobs of chair legs sliding across freshly waxed wooden floors.
full of mucus
malodorous
He wore a dark, malodorous suit.
bad-smelling
concessions
My parents made many concessions to allow me to practice.
compromises
chasm
And it became so mysterious that I spent all my energies unraveling this door, until the day I was finally able to pry it open with my small fingers, only to immediately fall headlong into the dark chasm.
abyss; gorge; steep-sided hole
Caucasian
My father said they didn’t have rules for dealing with the Chinese wife of a Caucasian citizen
ght-skinned; often a person of European descent
jauntily
In fact, as I watched her, she seemed quite happy, her two brown braids bouncing jauntily in rhythm to her walk.
having a buoyant or self-confident attitude
pardon
And then she looked at me, in a strange way, as if she were begging me for her life, as if I could pardon her.
forgive
cautiously
I opened the door cautiously, then swung it wide open with surprise.
carefully
stagnant
Maybe she had listened through the wall and heard nothing, the stagnant silence of our unhappy house.
motionless
stunned
I was stunned.
astounded; dazed
babbling
I would watch my mother lying in her bed, babbling to herself as she sat on the sofa
talking in nonsense
ironic
I think it’s ironic that my mother wants me to fight the divorce.
contrary to what is expected
chagrined
Seventeen years ago she was chagrined when I started dating Ted.
distressed; put out; ill at ease
verbatim
When he pressed me, I told him what his mother had said, verbatim, without comment
word for word
obsessing
I preferred to ignore the world around me, obsessing only over what was in front of me: my T-square, my X-acto knife, my blue pencil.
thinking continually about something
trivial
He asked me to decide on the most trivial matters, as if he were baiting me.
of little importance
regal
Her hair, her clothes, they were all heavy with the cold water, but she stood quietly, calm and regal as a mermaid queen who had just arrived out of the sea.
royal
sentinel
And she would stand straight as a sentinel, until three times her eyesight failed her and Bing turned into a dark spot of churning seaweed.
guard
taut
The line became taut and she strained to hold on tight.
tight
prodigy
We didn’t immediately pick the right kind of prodigy.
exceptional talents or person with exceptional talents
bellows
I got so bored I started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas.
very loud, deep sounds
mesmerizing
She seemed entranced by the music, a little frenzied piano piece with this mesmerizing quality, sort of quick passages and then teasing lilting ones before it returned to the quick playful parts.
hypnotizing
sauciness
The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple.
quality of being impossible to control or repress
encore
The little Chinese girl sat down also to play an encore of “Anitra’s Dance” by Grieg.
additional performance in response to the demand
of the audience
inevitable
So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable.
unavoidable; bound to happen
laments
But now she laments that she never did anything to stop them.
regrets
remorse
This would have been a funny incident to remember from my childhood, but it is actually a memory I recall from time to time with a mixture of nausea and remorse.
feeling of regret for one’s misdeeds or sins
vehemence
Their faces were covered with every kind of misery I could imagine: pits and pustules, cracks and bumps, and fissures that I was sure erupted with the same vehemence as snails writhing in a bed of salt.
intensity
podiatrist
He had just been accepted to Cal State Hayward and was planning to become a podiatrist.
foot doctor
retching
And later, for several hours after that, I sat hunched on the fire escape landing outside my bedroom, retching back into the ice cream container.
vomiting
exasperated
Harold puts his magazine down, now wearing his open-mouthed exasperated look.
at the end of patience; irritated
radically
It was fashionable, yet not radically so.
departing from the norm; extremely
disparaging
“Nothing is wrong with my heart,” she huffed as she kept a disparaging eye on the waiter
belittling
pristine
And so I watched her, seeing her reaction to the changes in my apartment-from the pristine habitat I maintained after the divorce, when all of a sudden I had too much time to keep my life in order-to this present chaos, a home full of life and love.
in perfect condition
irrevocable
can’t be changed back
benevolent
Because the sponsors and the benevolent associations would start calling her, asking, shouting, pleading to make me play again
characterized by being or doing good
sonorous
He made everyone laugh and his own laugh was deep, sonorous, masculinely sexy.
full, deep or rich in sound
vulnerable
So that with him I was completely naked, and when I was feeling the most vulnerable when the wrong word would have sent me flying out the door forever-he always said exactly the right thing at the right moment.
able to be hurt
inventory
I had started to inventory the bookshelves when I got a letter from Ted, a note actually, written hurriedly in ballpoint on his prescription notepad.
take a count of
version
And in almost every case, the American version was much better.
description or account from one point of view
foyer
The big oak door that opens into a foyer filled with stained-glass windows
entrance hall
irrational
And I knew he had done that, not out of any concern for me, but because when he wants something, he gets impatient and irrational about people who make him wait.
not reasonable
despicable
And then without missing a beat, he proceeded to say what he really wanted, which was more despicable than all the terrible things I had imagined.
deserving strong dislike; vile
surveyed
Ted was shivering in his sports jacket as he surveyed the damage to the garden
looked over
anchored
Others had anchored on the side of the house.
attached; held on to
covenant
It’s as though we were all sworn to the same secret covenant, so secret we don’t even know what we belong to.
agreement
evict
Two years ago, she had tried to evict them on the pretext that relatives from China were coming to live there.
to put out, throw out or expel
ruse
But the couple saw through her ruse to get around rent control.
a crafty strategy or plan
preamble
Judging by his preamble of snorts and leg slaps, I figured he must have practiced this joke
many times: “I tell my daughter, Hey, why be poor? Marry rich!”
introductory occurrence or statement
paranoid
Maybe I’m being paranoid, being a mother, but you just can’t be too safe these days.”
characterized by extreme fear or distrust of others
remnants
My father poked at the remnants of his crab.
left-over
chastise
I waited for her to chastise me
criticize; punish; reprimand
bazaars
She told me about narrow streets with crowded bazaars.
street markets
porter
My mother gave quick instructions to our porter, pointed to our two small trunks and handed him money, as if she had done this every day of her life.
person who carries baggage
canopy
roof-like covering
extravagant
This was a wonderful clock to see, but after I heard it that first hour, then the next, and then always, this clock became an extravagant nuisance.
beyond necessary; luxurious
simpering
She was looking behind at everyone with a simpering smile, as if they were there to honor her
silly or self-conscious
nirvana
And two delicate slippers with the softest leather soles and two giant pearls on each toe, to light her way to nirvana.
place of perfect happiness
revere
He promised to revere her as if she had been First Wife, his only wife
treat with respect
smirk
I wore a smirk on my face.
offensively self-satisfied smile
chided
“His mother will treat you like a servant” chided one half-sister upon hearing the other’s choice.
scold mildly to correct or improve
vain
But I was too vain to think any one boy was good enough for me.
conceited; proud
tapered
He had long tapered fingers, fat earlobes, and slick hair that rose high to reveal a large forehead
gradually smaller from one end to the other
loathing
Later still, when I overcame my grief and came to have nothing in my heart but loathing despair, my youngest aunt told me of others.
great dislike
abandoned
That I became abandoned goods
deserted; left
cunning
The black side stands still with cunning hiding its gold between trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come.
deceitful cleverness
uncanny
Then he says something to my daughter that really displeases her: “It’s uncanny how much you two look alike!”
mysteriously strange
longevity
Our longevity will be adequate, not cut off too soon, not so long we become a burden.
length of life
theology
And next to the word OCCUPATION, I wrote student of theology.
study of religion
pagodas
I saw two pagodas, one on each side of the street, as though they were the entrance to a great Buddha temple.
tall towers erected as a memorial or shrine
spouse
It said, “A house is not home when a spouse is not at home.”
wife or husband
devious
“What is this word, ‘devious,’” I ask.
sneaky
prospect
I don’t know whether it’s the prospect of seeing his aunt or if it’s because he’s back in China, but now he looks like he’s a young boy, so innocent and happy I want to button his sweater and pat his head.
something expected
scheming
One minute she was talking to my father, complaining about the tenants upstairs, scheming how to evict them under the pretense that relatives from China were moving in.
plotting to achieve an evil or illegal end
reviving
And so they couldn’t help but think of some miracle, some possible way of reviving her from the dead, so my mother could fulfill her dream.
bringing back to life
engulfed
“Oh, that must be Mama, no?” one of my sisters would whisper excitedly, pointing to another small woman completely engulfed in a tower of presents.
surrounded by something almost to the point of
being lost in it
drab
I see platforms crowded with people wearing drab Western clothes, with spots of bright colors: little children wearing pink and yellow, red and peach.
dull
