“Fish Cheeks”
Amy Tan
I fell in love with the minister’s son the winter I turned fourteen. He was not Chinese, but as white as
Mary in the manger. For Christmas I prayed for this blond-haired boy, Robert, and a slim new American
nose.
When I found out that my parents had invited the minister’s family over for Christmas Eve dinner, I
cried. What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas? What would he think of our noisy
Chinese relatives who lacked proper American manners? What terrible disappointment would he feel upon
seeing not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food?
On Christmas Eve I saw that my mother had outdone herself in creating a strange menu. She was
pulling black veins out of the backs of fleshy prawns. The kitchen was littered with appalling mounds of raw
food: A slimy rock cod with bulging fish eyes that pleaded not to be thrown into a pan of hot oil. Tofu, which
looked like stacked wedges of rubbery white sponges. A howl soaking dried fungus back to life. A plate of
squid, their backs crisscrossed with knife markings so they resembled bicycle tires.
And then they arrived -- the minister’s family and all my relatives in a clamor of doorbells and rumpled
Christmas packages. Robert grunted hello, and 1 pretended he was not worthy of existence.
Dinner threw me deeper into despair. My relatives licked the ends of their chopsticks and reached
across the table, dipping them into the dozen or so plates of food. Robert and their family waited patiently
for platters to be passed to them. My relatives murmured with pleasure when my mother brought out the
whole steamed fish. Robert grimaced. Then my father poked his chopsticks just below the fish eye and
plucked out the soft meat. “Amy, your favorite,” he said, offering me the tender fish cheek. I wanted to
disappear.
At the end of the meal, my father leaned back and belched loudly, thanking my mother for her fine
cooking. “It’s a polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfied,” explained my father to our astonished
guests. Robert was looking at his plate with a reddened face. The minister managed to muster up a quiet
burp. I was stunned into silence for the rest of the night.
After everyone had gone, my mother said to me. “You want to be the same as American girls on the
outside.” She handed me an early gift. It was a miniskirt in beige tweed. “But in side you must always be
Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame.”
And even though I didn’t agree with her then, I knew that she understood how much I had suffered
during the evening’s dinner It wasn’t until many years later -- long after 1 had gotten over my crush on
Robert -- that I was able to fully appreciate her lesson and the true purpose behind our particular menu. For
Christmas Eve that year, she had chosen all my favorite foods.
from “Piedra”
Gary Soto
Piedra. River of rock, place where our family went for a Saturday picnic. It was a fifteen-mile drive past
plum and almod orchard, diaries, the town with its green sign, Minkler-population 35, Mexicanos pruning
orange trees on ladders, and our mother’s talk that if our grades didn’t improve we would be like those
people. Past cows with grassy jaws, past fallen fences, groceries, tractors itching with rust, the Griffin ranch
with its mowed pasture and white fence proclaimed he was a gentleman farmer. We gawked at his ranch,
and counted his cows, which seemed cleaner, better looking than the fly-specked ones we had passed
earlier.
I dreamed about Griffin’s daughters. I imagined that their hair was tied inn ponytails and bounced
crazily when they rode horses in knee high grass near the river. They were the stuff of romance novels, sad
and lonely girls who were in love with the stable boy, who was also sad and lonely but too poor for the
father’s liking, because he himself had once been poor but now was rich and liked to whip horses, cuss,
and chase gasping foxes at daybreak.
My dreaming stopped when the road narrowed, gravel ticked under a fender, and we began our climb
through the foot-hills.
Comprehension
DIRECTIONS Answer these questions about
“Fish Cheeks.”
1. What is the narrator’s main conflict?
a. She is afraid Robert won’t like her when
he sees how her family celebrates
Christmas.
b. She wishes she had a slim nose like
those of the American girls.
c. She doesn’t like any of the food that her
mother is preparing for Christmas Eve
dinner.
d. She doesn’t want to spend Christmas
Eve with people that she hardly knows.
2. Why is the narrator worried about her
mother’s Christmas Eve dinner menu?
a. She doesn’t like any of the foods on the
menu.
b. She thinks the food will seem strange to
her guests.
c. She worries that her mother doesn’t
know how to prepare all the unusual
dishes.
d. She wishes that the food choices were
healthier.
3. In what part of the plot does the narrator
describe the unusual food that awaits the
minister’s family?
a. exposition
b. rising action
c. climax
d. falling action
4. In the rising action, which of these events
complicates the conflict?
a. The narrator ignores the minister’s son.
b. The narrator cries about Christmas Eve
dinner
c. The narrator’s relatives murmur with
pleasure.
d. The narrator’s father offers her the fish
cheeks.
5. Which of the following would the narrator
probably do when she sees Robert at school
after Christmas?
a. wave at him and shout hello
b. say something rude to him
c. try to avoid meeting his eyes
d. invite him back to her house
6. The resolution of the plot occurs when
a. The narrator’s father belches
b. The narrator’s mother gives her a
miniskirt
c. The narrator is in love with Robert
d. The narrator is an adult
7. In the resolution of the story, the narrator
realizes that
a. She never agreed with her mother
b. Her mother was a superb cook
c. She should be proud to be Chinese
d. She preferred Chinese food after all
DIRECTIONS Answer these questions about
the excerpt from “Piedra.”
8. Why does the other tell her children to get
better grades?
a. She wants them to do as well as the tree
pruners they saw.
b. She wants them to have better paying
jobs than pruning trees.
c. She wants them to be smarter than their
friends.
d. She wants them to learn how to run a
ranch.
9. What do you learn about the main character
in this excerpt?
a. He would like to get good grades.
b. He admires the Griffin ranch.
c. He and his family live in a city.
d. He wants to be a farmer.
10. The rising action of the plot begins when
a. They go through MInkler
b. They drive past Griffin’s ranch
c. The narrator daydreams about girls
d. They climb through the foothills
11. What prompts the narrator to begin
daydreaming?
a. seeing the green MInkler sign
b. passing the people who prune trees for a
living
c. seeing a ranch that is better than all the
others
d. feeling the car start its climb through the
foothills
DIRECTIONS Answer these questions about
both selections.
12. Which is seems more important to the
mother in “Fish Cheeks” than to the mother
in “Piedra?”
a. money
b. tradition
c. school
d. friendship
13. In what way are the narrator’s in both
selections alike?
a. Both narrators are parents who care
about their children.
b. They are both students who want to get
better grades.
c. Both narrators are children who disobey
their parents.
d. They both long for something they do not
have.
Vocabulary
DIRECTIONS Use you knowledge of synonyms
to answer the following questions.
14. Choose the word that is a synonym of the
underlined word in the following sentence
from “Fish Cheeks.”
And then they arrived – the minister’s family
and all my relatives in a clamor of doorbells
and rumpled packages.
a. crowd
b. shabbiness
c. noise
d. offering
15. Choose the word that is a synonym of the
underlined phrase in the following sentence
from “Fish Cheeks.”
The minister managed to muster up a quiet
burp.
a. hide
b. echo
c. produce
d. excuse
DIRECTIONS Use you knowledge of antonyms
to answer question 16
16. Choose the word that is an antonym of the
underlined word in the following sentence
from “Fish Cheeks.”
Diner threw me deeper into despair. My relatives
licked the end of their chopsticks and reached
across the table, dipping them into the dozen or
so plates of food. Robert and his family waited
patiently for platters to be passed to them. My
relatives murmured with pleasure when my
mother brought out the whole steamed fish.
Robert grimaced.
a. laughed
b. smiled
c. growled
d. gasped
DIRECTIONS Use your knowledge of
vocabulary and the Latin word roots given to
answer the following questions.
17. The root pall means “pale.” Which word in
“Fish Cheeks” may have something to with
making a person turn pale and probably
comes from the Latin root pall?
a. disappear
b. appalling
c. polite
d. pleaded
18. The word resembled in line 15 of “Fish
Cheeks” comes from the Latin root simil.
What does this root probably mean?
a. like
b. inflated
c. tread
d. shame
19. The word polite in line 27 of “Fish Cheeks”
comes from the Latin root polit. What does
this root probably mean?
a. pretend
b. polish
c. pluck
d. platter
20. The Latin root clam means “cry out.” Which
word in “Piedra” likely comes from the root
clam?
a. counted
b. gawked
c. climb
d. proclaim