The primary conflict in this excerpt is between Waverly "Meimei" Jong and her mother, Lindo Jong. Meimei feels frustrated, but she's having trouble expressing her frustration without offending Lindo. A related conflict is an internal conflict happening within Meimei. Up until now, her actions have been wise and deliberate. In this scene, she's acting on pure emotion with no strategy at all. Since Meimei's motivation is to master the art of "invisible strength," her actions in this scene are not wise and do not help her reach her goal. Instead of planning out a strategy that will get her mom to stop embarrassing her, she's made a bad move. Lindo, for her part, perfectly embodies "invisible strength." Meimei makes an obviously bad move by insulting her mother with the question, "If you want to show off, then why don't you learn to play chess?" Instead of responding with equal emotion, Lindo merely stares at Meimei. Her silence does what ten shouted words could not do; they shame Meimei so badly that Meimei runs off and further embarrasses herself by running into an innocent bystander. Lindo's main motivation is to help her children succeed, and in this scene she wisely models for Meimei the appropriate tool (according to Lindo's philosophy) to use if someone is being emotionally destructive: silence.
Step-by-step explanation:
Edge 2020