(the quality of tasting good: Para. 20)

Checking Your Comprehension

1 Answer the following questions with the information contained in Text B.

1) Why did the narrator ask her boyfriend to praise her mother’s cooking?

Because her mother was proud of her skill of cooking. By asking her boyfriend to praise her mother’s cooking the narrator hoped that he would win her mother’s favor.

2) What was her mother’s first impression of Rich?

He looked rather plain with too many freckles across his nose.

3) What mistakes did Rich make at the dinner table?

At dinner he drank two full glasses of the French wine he had brought while everybody else had a half-inch ―just for taste.‖ He did not know how to use chopsticks and how to show appreciation for the food the mother cooked. He ate big portions of the dish he liked, instead of taking only a polite spoonful. He declined the tender and expensive new greens the narrator’s mother had carefully prepared. What is worse, he spoiled the flavor of the mother’s famous dish by pouring too much soy sauce into it.

4) Why did the narrator shudder when she remembered how Rich parted with her parents?

When he shook hands with her parents, Rich showed that same easy familiarity he used with nervous new clients and he addressed them by their first names, which sounded quite impolite. Nobody except a few older family friends, had ever called them by their first names.

5) What did Rich think of the evening?

He thought it was good and that everything had gone well that night. He was expecting to see the narrator’s parents again.

6) Why didn’t the narrator tell her mother that she was getting married?

Because at every possible moment when she was alone with her mother, her mother would be voicing her dissatisfaction with Rich. So the narrator did not have a chance — not even the courage — to tell her mother about her marriage plan.

7) Why couldn’t Rich understand the narrator’s mother?

It was the cultural differences that caused their misunderstanding. Rich did not know much about Chinese table manners and he took others’ words literally.

2 Read the following sentences carefully and discuss in pairs what the author intends to say by the italicised parts. 1) She can only cook looking at a recipe. (Para. 4)

She is poor at cooking and could not cook creatively; no one would enjoy the dishes she cooked.

2) Rich obviously had had a different opinion on how the evening had gone. (Para. 23)

Rich didn’t realize at all how serious his mistakes were in my parents’ eyes. Instead, he thought what he had done was proper in the situation.

3) When we got home that night, I was still shuddering, remembering how Rich had firmly shaken both my parents’ hands with that same easy familiarity he used with nervous new clients. (Para. 23)

He did not realize that he had shaken my parents’ hands in a way that had irritated them.

4) How long does it take to say, Mom, Dad, I’m getting married? (Para. 26)

It is extremely easy to tell them that you are getting married.

Enhance Your Language Awareness Words in Action

Working with Words and Expressions

1 In the boxes below are some of the words you have learned in this unit. Complete the following sentences with the words given. Change the form where necessary.

Text A abroad dictate reject transmit transplant tremendous Text B burst delay flavor proof slice slippery splash tender

1) Do you have any proof that it was Jeremy who stole the bike?

2) Could you slice a piece of cake for me? I want to taste it.

3) A large number of trains were delayed because of bad weather conditions.

4) Laura rejected all her parents’ offers of financial help and started to make an independent living.

5) The company has increased its share of the market both at home and

abroad .

6) The tennis club rules dictate that suitable tennis shoes must be worn on the courts.

7) I’m afraid I’d have to throw away my T-shirt because there are splashes of paint on it.

8) To make the meat tender enough for my grandmother, I cooked it for a long time.

9) It has been raining for a whole week and the dam is likely to burst under the heavy weight of water.

10) The food we had last night had no flavor at all; perhaps we should go to another restaurant next time.

11) Some diseases are transmitted from parents to children; they are called hereditary diseases.

12) My uncle has spent a tremendous amount of money on that house — much greater than he had expected.

13) The stepping-stones (踏脚石) look really slippery ; I don’t think I will be able to get across the stream without getting wet.

14) Adults are often less flexible (随遇而安的), so they need more time to adapt themselves to the new surroundings when they are transplanted to another place.

2 In the boxes below are some of the expressions you have learned in this unit. Do you know how to use them in the proper context? Now check for yourself by doing the blank-filling exercise. Change the form where necessary.

Text A a fish out of water as such build up by means of enter into get over identify oneself with open up orient oneself to result from

Text B from head to toe hold one’s breath on the … side win over