Beautiful Country: A Memoir

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-8

Chapters 9-13

Chapters 14-18

Chapters 19-24

Chapter 25-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Loss of Voice

Loss of voice is a powerful and persistent motif throughout the memoir. Qian often felt squelched: Ma Ma frequently admonished Qian be quiet, a refrain that punctuated her childhood. At the employment agency, the man behind the desk did not listen when Qian tried to defend her mother’s abilities. At home, her parents told Qian to be quiet during dinner to stymie their eavesdropping landlady. Before starting school in America, Ba Ba told Qian that she must not say anything about her upbringing in China—that she should always lie that she grew up in the United States.

Qian was not the only one who experienced this loss of voice. Ba Ba, once a joyful and vibrant English professor, was silenced by his experiences in the United States. Qian watched as her father acted deferentially toward Lao Jim and the surgeon at the hospital; his interactions with white men revealed his own loss of voice.

In the memoir’s opening chapter, “How It Began,” Wang writes that Trump’s presidency inspired her to recapture her voice and share her story. Her memoir explores the importance of that voice and the value in speaking up.

Loss of Trust

Ba Ba’s actions have a significant effect on Qian’s ability to trust him and others. While in China, Ba Ba tricked her into going to school after lying and saying he would take her to the zoo instead. Later, in the US, when Ba Ba promised to take care of Qian’s cat Marilyn, he got rid of her instead. As makes sense for a young child, Qian would try her best to reinvest trust in her father; however, over and over again, once he regained it, he would lose her trust anew.

This loss of trust in her father skewed Qian’s perspective on other people in her life. She treated everyone as though they were a potential threat. Sometimes, this was the right attitude: The scary, predatory men she encountered on the streets and on the subway really were potential trapdoors. But often, her distrust precluded potentially positive relationships. Her friendships were hard-won and easily lost, uniformed professionals that she should have been able to trust were the enemy, classmates were sources of derision or envy.

Reversal of Parent/Child Roles

As soon as Ba Ba left for the United States, Qian felt like she was supposed to be her mother’s protector. On the plane to the US, Qian knew that it was her job to ensure her mother was safe, calling herself Ma Ma’s “little doctor” (154). Ma Ma exacerbated this inappropriate loss of childhood, confiding adult secrets to Qian and placing great responsibility upon her shoulders. Because she tried so hard to take on a role she was never meant to fill, Qian perceived her family’s hardships as indicative of her failure. When Ma Ma asked Qian what she should do and Qian suggested hair styling, Qian felt guilty that this job brought her mother so much strife, feeling like her advice had trapped Ma Ma in a degrading position—a belief her mother did little to dispel. Instead, Ma Ma piled her anxiety, stress—and at her worst moment, her suicidality—onto her ten year old, leading Qian to feel as though she was both responsible for and inadequate to care for her mother.

Even in her imaginative play, Qian took on the role of parent or protector. When Qian was a child, she played a game called Mother Hen. In the game, it was her job to protect her little chicks. Later, Qian took in stray cats and cared for them, feeling like a failure whenever something happened to disrupt this quasi-pet relationship. Before high school, when Ba Ba gifted Qian with a Tamagotchi, Qian used the digital pet to play out her family’s disintegration. As Ma Ma and Ba Ba’s marriage fell apart, Qian relished letting the Tamagotchi chick die; however, when Ma Ma finally took on the role of mother and moved Qian away from the United States, Qian felt as though she could let the Tamagotchi live.