Lindo Jong opens her story speaking to her daughter, telling her about the value she places on promises. Throughout the chapter we experience the trials Lindo faced while keeping the promise she made to her parents: to uphold the honor of her family by being a good wife in her arranged marriage. Lindo combines concrete details and vivid descriptions of her emotions while recounting the event of her wedding, a major changing point in her life. Lindo endured constant criticism, a scared, spoiled boy for a husband, and the sudden loss of her family all so that she could fulfill her parent's promise of a wife to the Huangs. Do we, in the twenty-first century America, honor the idea of a promise as Lindo did? In the age of divorce and the internet, it is sometimes hard to find the element of trust in human relationships that would signify a promise of devotion or friendship.
In her story, Lindo requests a simple promise: to be remembered. "I worry someday she will say, 'Thank you, Grandmother, for the gold bracelet. I'll never forget you.' But later, she will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother." I think Lindo's concern is valid and prevalent. We all want to be remembered for something we accomplished on this earth. Maybe because life after death is so uncertain, we find ourselves wanting to live on in the memories of our loved ones - a promise, a reassurance that our actions on earth were not in vain. Matthew 5:37 states, "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'." I think this is the essence of a promise. To me, integrity is the most important quality in a person. A person of integrity is a person you would expect to keep a promise. To that person, a promise is not a chore, rather a commitment.
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