Read the excerpt from "Mother Tongue." be
Lately, I've been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks. Like others, I have described it
to people as "broken" or "fractured" English. But I wince when I say that. It has always bothered me that I can
think of no other way to describe it other than "broken," as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it
lacked a certain wholeness and soundness.
How does Tan build a central idea of her story in the excerpt?
O Tan discusses her thoughts about language to build the idea that the English language does not have words to
match some Chinese terms.
O Tan discusses her relationship with her mother to build the idea that mothers and daughters in all cultures often
have misunderstandings.
Tan discusses her mother's use of English to build the idea that a form of language can be purposeful and
meaningful even if it is nonstandard.
Tan discusses the English language to build the idea that there is a lack of appropriate synonyms for the word
"broken."

"it's more of an essay than story, but perhaps it is best described as a mood-piece: it uses a lot of musical imagery, not to mention sea imagery, religious imagery, and any other imagery that suits his purpose."

the thousand and one nights – or, as i prefer to call them in the following for purely practical reasons: the arabian nights – as we perceive them three hundred years after antoine galland’s epochal french adaptation bear a distinct arabic imprint. meanwhile, the commonly accepted model for their textual history acknowledges various stages in the conceptualization and effective formation of both the collection’s characteristic frame story and the embedded repertoire. the vast majority of tales in the preserved manuscripts of the nights has been integrated into the collection during two periods of arabic influence, the so-called baghdad and cairo periods (gerhardt 1963: 115–374). these “arabic” stages are preceded by an iranian version, probably dating to pre-islamic times, which in its turn profits from both structural devices and narrative contents originating from indian tradition. considering the eminent position that iran and iranian culture hold in the early stages of the textual history of the arabian nights, surprisingly few details are known concerning the collection’s relation to and its actual position within the iranian cultural context. in the following, i will discuss links between the arabian nights and iranian culture on several levels. in surveying these links, i will treat five major areas: (1) the iranian prototype of the nights; (2) tales of alleged persian origin; (3) persian characters within the tales; (4)persian translations of the arabian nights; and (5) the position of the arabian nights in modern iran

i think the answer is "mason"