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To make my waking life American-normal, I turn on the lights before anything untoward makes an appearance. I push the deformed into my dreams, which are in Chinese, the language of impossible stories. Before we can leave our parents, they stuff our heads like the suitcases which they jam-pack with homemade underwear.

This passage, from "Shaman," emphasizes the anguish and fear Kingston so often feels as a result of Brave Orchid's talk-stories and the difficulty in mixing Chinese and American cultures. Ghosts are everywhere in Brave Orchid's world of Chinese talk-stories, bothering and threatening human beings at all times. In America, however, ghosts do not fit in with Kingston's idea of a normal life; they are simply "impossible stories." In her waking hours, then, Kingston maintains an "American-normal" life, while in her dreams, the ghosts crammed in her head by her mother's talk-stories come back: deformed babies, women driven crazy and killed, strange animals and creatures. The suitcase, packed as it is with "homemade underwear," is especially appropriate, given that Kingston is living among emigrants who have picked up their lives and moved to another country. It is as if Kingston's mother, through her talk-stories, will not let her carve out a new life in America without carrying her cultural baggage of ghosts.

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