The Joy Luck Club

Four women around a mahjong table in San Francisco, a daughter who takes her late mother’s seat and learns a secret her mother kept, a swan feather carried across an ocean, and a scar with a family story behind it.

A girl promised in marriage at two who finds her own way out, and a four-year-old who falls into a lake on the night of the Moon Festival.

A girl who learns the game of chess and her mother’s art of invisible strength, and a daughter who hears the family’s trouble through the wall.

A day at the beach that changes a family’s faith, and a piano, a talent show and a daughter who refuses to be anyone’s prodigy.

A mother who sees cracks no one else can see, and a daughter who brings her fiancé to dinner and learns her mother is not the enemy she feared.

A daughter who must decide for herself whether to fight for her house, and a New Year’s dinner, a plate of crabs and a jade pendant.

A girl who follows her mother to a rich man’s house in Tianjin and learns what her mother paid, and a mother who has waited years to speak.

A mother and daughter at the hairdresser seeing two faces in one mirror, and a daughter who takes the train into China to meet the sisters she has never known.