The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

Characters
San Francisco – current day	Changmian - 1864	Changmian – current day
Olivia – narrator Parents – Jack Yee and Louise Kenfield Brothers – Kevin and Tommy   Kwan – half-sister George – Kwan’s husband Virgie – George’s cousin from Canada living with them   Simon Bishop – Olivia’s husband Elza – Simon’s deceased girlfriend   Samantha – Olivia and Simon’s daughter   Bob Laguini – Louise’s 2nd husband   Yin people	Miss Banner Nunumu    Yiban Johnson   General Cape   Lao Lu   Zeng   Missionaries	Big Ma – died in accident day Kwan arrived   Du Yun/Du Lili Buncake – Du Lili’s deceased  daughter   Kwan (Pancake)   Andy – Boston grad student         SPOILER ALERT!  Chart at end with reincarnations

 For discussion:

NOTE:  Page numbers are from paperback edition.

1. Miss Banner learned to sense the world like a Chinese person (sight, touch, hear, smell, taste) but was never able to eliminate “her American sense of importance.”  (Chapter 3, page 49)  How did this affect Miss Banner and Nunumu?

2. A visitor found Changmian populated and vibrant one month after the Manchu soldiers set fires at the cave entrances.  Were the people real or ghosts?  If real, how did they survive?  (Chapter 22, page 339)

3. Do you think Kwan is really Olivia’s half sister or was she switched with Buncake?  (End of Chapter 17)

4. What did you think about Simon’s sterility and Elza’s pregnancy?  At the end of the book he was not sterile and the doctor’s thought the diagnosis had been a mistake.  Did you think Elza was lying or that she was pregnant by someone else?

5. What is the difference between tradition and superstition?   (Chinese tying rooster to lid of coffin to help ghost body fly away and American tales about Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy)

 
6. The Chinese and Americans had different reactions after witnessing the accident on the way to Changmian.  Kwan says that in China, the driver is always at fault, but Olivia says that “A dead pedestrian is a dead pedestrian, no matter whose fault.”     Kwan told Olivia and Simon that, “In China you always responsible for someone else, no matter what.  You get run over, this my fault…”  (Chapter 14, page 199)    Can you understand this difference in view?  What is your opinion?

7. Would you be willing to go to Changmian and live and explore like Olivia and Simon?  Would Olivia have gone if she had known the actual conditions?

8. Did Kwan and Olivia really see ghosts?   At one point Kwan pretended to see Elza but Olivia really saw her and heard her say, “Simon, wait for me.”  What alternative explanations are there?  (Pages 105, 107)

9. Do you think Kwan has been reincarnated in Samantha?

Reincarnations: Olivia was Miss Banner Olivia; Elza was Olivia’s mother two lifetimes ago Simon was Yiban Johnson Kwan was Nunumu George was Zeng