I am reading the novel, The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling, by Wai Chin and so far I have read up to page 218. It is about a Chinese girl, Anna, struggling to balance her home life with her school life and social life. At the beginning of the book, the mom encounters a big black dog that seemed to be a bad omen. Perhaps the big black dog symbolizes the hardship that the protagonist has to go through every day. I’ve noticed that the chapter numbers have the Cantonese pronunciation of the number underneath. Throughout the book, many of the characters can also speak Cantonese using the Cantonese pronunciation. I noticed that the author only wrote the pronunciation of Cantonese shows that the protagonist herself can only understand spoken Chinese, not written Chinese. I also find it interesting how the protagonist hates the school subject, English, which further connects to the protagonist not understanding written language.