Page "The Woman Warrior" Paragraph 25

Using her mother ’ s old diplomas and photos from her years in China, Kingston recounts the story of her mother ’ s life as a lady scholar.

“ Not many women got to live out the daydream of women — to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself ” – the To Keung School of Midwifery made this all possible.

Her mother “ quickly built a reputation for being brilliant, a natural scholar who could glance at a book and know it .” Her schoolmates are all afraid of the ghosts that lurk in the building.

To show that there is nothing to be afraid of, she sleeps in the ghost room of the dormitory.

She fights and ultimately ignores a Sitting Ghost, which has “ thick short hair like an animal ’ s coat .” With the help of her peers, she lights buckets of alcohol and oil on fire and sings a song to banish the Sitting Ghost: