46 pages • 1 hour read
Grace LinThe Year of the Dog
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 23-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary: “A Twinkie”
After a week at the Taiwanese American Convention (TAC), Melody’s family departs. In an art class, Pacy is ridiculed by a group of girls because she does not speak Chinese or Taiwanese. They insult her by calling her a “Twinkie […] Yellow on the outside but white on the inside” (101), implying that she acts “white” and is too Americanized to understand Taiwanese or Chinese culture. Fighting tears, Pacy moves away from the girls. When the teacher praises Pacy’s drawings, the girls show their picture of a twinkie.
Back at the hotel, Pacy sobs while her mom soothes her, and her dad visits the art teacher. Her mom recalls her first friend in the United States. When Pacy’s dad went to medical school, her mother was lonely and missed her family. In her college classes, she did not speak because she feared that her English was not good enough, and she cried every day. One day, Pacy’s mom heard a knock on the door and heard someone asking about her in Chinese. The girl, Mei, became Pacy’s mother’s best friend and helped her to acclimate to life in America by helping her to learn English, make friends, and study for classes. Because of Mei, Pacy’s mom now feels more at home in the United States and confesses that this is why she wants Pacy to make more friends who share her culture. In response, Pacy confesses that she is neither Chinese enough nor American enough. Her mother suggests that she does not have to be more one than the other and that she can just be herself.
Chapter 24 Summary: “New York City”
After the conference, Pacy’s family visits Chinatown in New York City to purchase items they cannot get in their hometown in upstate New York. At the Chinese grocery store, the family fills two shopping carts. As a thank you, the store owner gives each girl a box of chocolate caramels. Afterwards, they visit a Chinese bakery for slices of thousand-layer cake.
Relishing the treat, Pacy’s mom tells a story about her brother, who loves cake. Once, a wealthy relative visited their family and brought a beautifully decorated cake. All the kids were excited, but Shin, Pacy’s uncle, was ravenous for it and declared the cake to be his. Their grandmother cut it into equal slices for everyone. However, before they could eat it, the relative departed, so they all left the kitchen to say goodbye, except for Shin. While they were gone, Shin devoured most of the cake and spat on the remainder so that no one else could eat it. Shin finished the cake, but later, he got sick.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Halloween at School”
When school begins, Melody and Pacy are in the same class. On Halloween, there is a costume contest. After much deliberation, Pacy opts to create a homemade black cat costume; she only needs her mother to buy her new stockings to go with her leotard. When Pacy changes at school, she realizes that her mom accidentally bought her blue stockings, not black; however, she decides to wear them despite worrying what others would think. No one notices, and Pacy enjoys seeing other costumes: ghosts, Santa Claus, monsters, and a robot. The class winner and Pacy’s favorite is Melody, who is dressed as a laundry basket with clothes stuck to her and piled in the basket. On the way home, Pacy tells Melody that she is lucky to have won. When Melody replies that they are both lucky because it is their “lucky year,” Pacy disagrees.
Chapter 26 Summary: “A Prize”
As Thanksgiving approaches, Pacy worries that she still has not found herself or her talent. However, one day at school, there is an announcement that her book has won fourth place out of 20,000 entries in the national contest. In addition to winning $400, she is elated, as are Melody and her parents. Pacy realizes that she is rich, not just in money, but in life, for she understands that she could be an author and an illustrator when she grows up. She finally feels lucky because she has found her talent.
Chapter 27 Summary: “American Holidays the Chinese Way”
After winning the prize, Pacy is happy and excited for the holidays. She and her sisters talk her mom into cooking a turkey on Thanksgiving, even though it is the smallest one their mother can find. Pacy’s mom also makes sweet potatoes, but instead of leaving them mashed, she forms them into small cakes sprinkled with herbs because they look prettier that way. In addition to these traditional American dishes, the table is filled with noodles, stir-fried foods, dumplings, rice, and other treats.
Pacy confesses that Christmas is similar. Her dad just throws lights on a bush outside, claiming that they look more natural when they are not evenly laid out. Also, Pacy’s mom dislikes the idea of cutting down a tree and wonders why everyone gives gifts when money would suffice. However, she relents, getting each of the girls something special. Pacy asks for a china doll so that she can pretend it is a pioneer like the ones she learned about at school. On Christmas morning, Pacy opens her gift to see a Chinese doll instead. After talking it through with her mom, she decides that she likes the doll and can still pretend that it is a pioneer.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Here Comes Chinese New Year!”
Soon it is time to celebrate the Chinese New Year again, so Pacy’s family prepares by thoroughly cleaning the house and hanging decorations. Additionally, their mom buys the girls new clothes and gives them each a haircut. Pacy’s mom then launches into a story about getting her hair cut at school. She reminds them how strict the schools were in Taiwan. Every day, their uniforms and hair were inspected before they could enter the building. If their hair was longer than their ears, they would get in trouble, and this happened to Pacy’s mom. On the day she arrived with hair just slightly too long, a teacher pulled out scissors and cut one side of her hair very short; all day, she had to endure the horrible haircut.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Good-bye, Year of the Dog”
Chinese New Year is on a Friday, so the family plans to stay up late and celebrate with Melody’s family. Pacy and Lissy help their mother prepare food while Ki-Ki fills the candy tray with a mixture of Chinese candy and M&Ms and their dad pulls out special wine glasses. After all the preparations, Melody’s family arrives with oranges, which are supposed to bring good luck, and Pacy’s extended family calls on the phone. Then they sit down to the ocean of food that Pacy’s mom has prepared. As they usher in the Year of the Pig, they reflect on how good the Year of the Dog has been and say goodbye to the year.
Chapters 23-29 Analysis
In these chapters, Pacy’s experiences continue to explore the Challenges and Rewards of a Bicultural Upbringing, and the protagonist encounters both positive and negative moments. At the Taiwanese American Convention (TAC), when Pacy attends art class, she encounters girls who judge her for her inability to speak Chinese or Taiwanese. They call her “a Twinkie […] Yellow on the outside but white on the inside” (101), and this insult emphasizes their criticism that Pacy is Americanized and acts “white” even though she is not. The deeper harm of this exchange becomes clear as Pacy shamefully slinks away, and even when her mother tries to comfort her with the story of her first friend in America, Pacy says, “To Americans, I’m too Chinese, and to Chinese people, I’m too American. So which one am I supposed to be?” (105). Embedded in this question is Pacy’s dilemma that she never feels like she is enough, and as a result, she struggles to belong to either cultural group. Despite this challenge, her mother suggests a silver lining and a benefit of embracing both cultures. In response to Pacy’s question, she says, “Neither and both […] You don’t have to be more one than the other, you’re Chinese American” (106). Pacy’s mom suggests that Pacy does not have to be defined by these two identities because she is more than each of them. When she says “both,” she makes it clear that both cultures are important to her own life as well. At the core of her mother’s response is the notion that Pacy does not have to choose one identity over the other, because they intersect to provide her with a unique identity. Pacy’s experience at TAC therefore highlights the fact that the challenges of growing up with multiple cultures can become a strength when she learns to embrace all aspects of her identity instead of trying to favor one over the other.
Pacy’s struggle with her bicultural upbringing also manifests in the Chinese doll, which represents her efforts to forge a unique identity. For Christmas, Pacy asks her mother for a china doll, and what she has in mind is a clay doll that is dressed in a calico dress and has a porcelain face; she longs to pretend that the doll is a pioneer. However, her mother misunderstands and gives Pacy a black-haired Chinese doll adorned in a silk dress. After explaining the misunderstanding to her mother, Pacy says, “I guess I can pretend I’m a pioneer girl in China” (126). This concession represents Pacy’s quest to figure out where she belongs. Throughout the past year, she has often asked her mom how to identify herself, complaining that she never feels American enough or Taiwanese enough. Her mom’s response encourages Pacy to forge her own identity instead of conforming fully to one culture or the other, and the doll represents this idea, for it can be both a Chinese girl and a pioneer. Pacy’s acceptance of the doll therefore suggests that she is learning to embrace her true self and her bicultural identity.
In addition to this lesson, Pacy also learns through the experiences and memories of others, highlighting in The Impact of Stories on Identity. When Pacy is upset about the way the girls at TAC treat her, her mother admits that she encouraged Pacy to attend the class because she “thought it would be good for [Pacy] to have friends from [her] own culture” (103). When she follows this observation with a story of her first friend in the United States, Mei, who helped her to learn English and navigate life in America, she emphasizes that making connections with people who have the same cultural background makes it possible to find a deeper form of social support. When Pacy confesses that she has no one like Mei, her mother reminds her of her friendship with Melody. This story therefore helps Pacy to understand who and what is most important to her, and she further develops her identity. Her friendship with Melody also allows her to learn more about her Taiwanese customs and traditions as the family prepares for another Chinese New Year celebration, for she learns from Melody’s family that oranges are another symbol of good luck.
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