Summary

“Everyone Talked Loudly in Chinatown” by Anne Jew tells the story of Lin. She is coming home from school with Todd, a popular boy whom she likes. She and Todd have been getting closer lately, to the envy of other girls in school. At home, Lin watches TV with her brother and falls asleep until her mother wakes her up to feed her grandmother. The grandmother is ill and dying and can no longer take care of herself. Lin dreads feeding her and remembers the times when she was a child and her grandmother used to take her to Chinatown.

Lin remembers everything was very loud there and her grandmother very popular. She recalls the faces of women, men, and children. But as time passed, she distanced herself from Chinese culture and started befriending other people, like a German girl, cal...