Jing-mei’s story also deals with superstition blending into wisdom. Again, cultural tensions emerge as a motif. At the beginning of her narrative, Jing-mei describes her first reaction to the “life’s importance” pendant; she had found it garish and unstylish, yet since her mother’s death she has come to realize its meaning. Once symbolizing only a cultural difference between herself and her mother, the pendant has now become a testament to the maternal wisdom and love that Jing-mei once mistook—indeed, perhaps due to cultural differences—for superstition and criticism.