The simile of vultures
Meddy is a regular customer of a popular restaurant in the heart of San Gabriel Valley. However, the restaurant is very busy and always full of customers. The servers are always much occupied and rarely get customers' attention. Meddy is not good at the Mandarin language used in the restaurant, making it even harder for the waitresses to attend to her. Whenever the waitress stops, customers descend on her like vultures. Meddy says, "And once they do, customers descend like vultures and fight over the bamboo steamers inside the cart." The simile shows the dynamic nature of the restaurant. However, the customers do not frequent the restaurant because of effective customer care, but they do so because of its location.
Disappearing like a ghost
The protagonist reflects on the impact of the Chinese curse on her family. The curse that has existed for ages is that men in her family died mysteriously. For instance, her grandfather died, and her uncles and the only people remaining are females. When the protagonist's mother moved to the US, they thought the curse would not follow them, but it did in a different style. In the US, the men mysteriously disappear from the family. For instance, the protagonist recalls how her uncles vanished without a word, and her father disappeared like a ghost. The narrator says, "The second Uncle, and then it was my dad, who left without a word in the dead of night. He disappeared like a ghost." The simile of the ghost shows readers how the males in the narrator's family vanished without a trace leaving only females behind.
Golden retrievers
Meddy, Ma, and her four aunts have a crush on San Marino, a gentleman who is handsome with excellent cooking skills. Surprisingly, all these five women have interacted with San Marino not only on a dating site but also physically because since they migrated to America, they have always admired him. Second, Aunt intervenes in the conversation to remind Ma that San Marino has two dogs which she compares to magazine models. The author writes, "She brandishes a photo of two glossy golden retrievers that are so golden and so perfectly shaped; they look like they could be some pet magazine models." Everyone here wants to look good before San Marino, and the conversation about the golden retrievers emphasizes his focus on beauty.
