Cultural expectation
Lindsey's experience of life is more culturally complicated than usual. This means that she experiences an imagery of expectation. This imagery is like a complex network of social cues, behavioral psychology, and dialogue that Lindsey decodes to determine what people want from her. For instance, her grandmother keeps trying to set Lindsey up on a date with only Chinese boys, as if to suggest that there is a subtle, or not-so-subtle, expectation on Lindsey to marry a Chinese man. At work, the expectation is for her to be vegan.
The shapeshifter
Lindsey's character is a flower that blooms from within that complicated network of expectations, but not by trying to impress or please people. Lindsey's character is a portrayal of a shapeshifting personality. At work, she lets people believe ideas about her that are untrue, like that she is basically just American, or that she is vegan and liberal. At home, she allows her grandmother to feel the opposite way about her, that she is basically only Chinese and traditional, and perhaps even conservative. Only Lindsey knows who she is, so that her shapeshifting sometimes leads her to feel lonely or misunderstood.
Wholeness and consistency
For Lindsey, emotional health comes through an imagery of desire. She wants to reconcile her identities so that she feels one harmonious, consistent experience of self, but how will she reconcile that without creating conflict? She wants to be allowed to be American, or to eat meat, or to celebrate her cultural identity however she wants, but she is limited to navigating as best she can the social expectations placed on her. Through her prose, we see that wholeness might be a reconciliation of different feelings of self into one complete "Lindsey."
Cultural inheritance and duty
Lindsey's experience of multiple cultures goes a little deeper than just cultural interior decoration, language, and dress. Those are merely the concrete aspects of her culture, but there are abstract aspects of her culture as well. She experiences a pressure to preserve her culture. This is complicated by the actual quality of Chinese culture; since the culture is deeply honorific, there is a shame that Lindsey can feel in her mind associated to being American. The imagery of her relationship to honor and duty is experienced by her emotional relationship to shame.
