Rules Of The Game by Amy Tan, 1986
The magic trick:
Using chess as a means of framing a mother-daughter rivalry
This is a story pulled from Amy Tan’s famed novel-of-short-stories The Joy Luck Club.
In it, we get the story of young American-born Waverly knocking heads with her Chinese-born mother.
The story neatly uses Waverly’s burgeoning talent for chess as the playing field for the mother-daughter battle.
And that’s quite a trick on Tan’s part.
The selection:
My older brother Vincent was the one who actually got the chess set. We had gone to the annual Christmas party held at the First Chinese Baptist Church at the end of the alley. The missionary ladies had put together a Santa bag of gifts donated by members of another church. None of the gifts had names on them. There were separate sacks for boys and girls of different ages. One of the Chinese parishioners had donned a Santa Claus costume and a stiff paper beard with cotton balls glued to it. I think the only children who thought he was the real thing were too young to know that Santa Claus was not Chinese. When my turn came up, the Santa man asked me how old I was. I thought it was a trick question; I was seven according to the American formula and eight by the Chinese calendar. I said I was born on March 17, 1951. That seemed to satisfy him. He then solemnly asked if I had been a very, very good girl this year and did I believe in Jesus Christ and obey my parents. I knew the only answer to that. I nodded back with equal solemnity.
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