Joy Luck Club: Kweilin Story

In what ways does her Kweilin story change? Summarize the different versions Suyuan Woo tells her daughter. Also, why do you think she changes the story she tells her daughter? What purpose or message is she trying to get across to Jing-mei "June" Woo?
     Suyuan Woo's Kweilin story went from a story of dreamed happiness and hope to a story of desperation and resignation. In the beginning, when Suyuan first told the story of Kweilin to her daughter, it was full of happiness - she described Kweilin to be more beautiful that what she had ever dreamed of and that even though many people were starving in the streets, eating rats and garbage, she was happy with her Joy Luck Club: playing mah jong, telling stories, serving banquets every week, and laughing - and the story ended with different versions of how Suyuan used the thousand-yuan note. However, when Jing-mei sulked after her mother's refusal to buy her a transistor radio, Suyuan told the story with a different ending - where she left Kweilin because the Japanese where attacking, where she have to abandon everything except for the three silk dresses that she wore, one on top of another, and finally stating that Jing-mei's father was not Suyuan's first husband and that Jing-mei was not one of the twin babies.
     I think one of the reasons Suyuan changes the story she tells her daughter is so that she can teach Jing-mei a valuable lesson. The ending of the story changed after Jing-mei told her mother that she wanted a transistor radio and was refused. Suyuan asked "'Why do you think you are missing something you never had?'" (25). In a sense, Suyuan is asking how would an individual experience the feeling of needing something when the individual has never had that something previously. The story is told to emphasize the lesson. In it is presented many things - moments of time and objects - that represents importance to Suyuan; however, as the story progresses, it tells how Suyuan has to continuously abandon those valuables one by one. In a way, it represents that Suyuan lives with a feeling of loss because she gave up on those valuables, yet Jing-mei lives with a feeling of desire because she wants something that does not hold much significance. The message she is trying to get across to Jing-mei is that as long as an individual has never possessed something of great value or importance, they will never feel the emotion of loss when living without it.