The Strength of Water, An Asian American Coming of Age Memoir is an immigrant daughter’s record of her transpacific odyssey, rich in exquisite details of early 20th century Chinese immigrant and village life and exploring first-generation and women’s issues. The Strength of Water is especially for those interested in history from a woman’s perspective and tales of how people lived. It is available on Amazon, Bookshop, and wherever books are sold online.

This reading group guide includes a plot overview, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club meeting. If you would like me to join your meeting in person or over Zoom, please contact me! I love to meet readers.

Plot Overview

Water is fluid, soft, yielding. But water will wear away rock…what is soft is strong.—Lao Tzu

In 1920s Detroit, King Ying lives in a small apartment behind her parents’ laundry business, where she stands on a box to iron clothes, endures taunts of Ching-Ching Chinaman on the playground, and tries to reconcile what passes for normal in jazz-age America with her father’s vastly different cultural values.

She dreams of a real home, the elegance of her Jane Arden paper dolls, and winning her stern father’s affection. But when Ba, as she calls him, incurs steep debts during the Great Depression, he sends her far from hope to live in his ancestral village.

In Tai Ting Pong village, she feels as foreign in the land of her heritage as in the country of her birth and must survive hunger, folklore as a dangerous substitute for health care, and Japanese invasion as the Sino-Japanese War commences.

When she finally returns to the U.S. with the help of guardian angels, it’s a chance to seize her American dream…if she can overcome mid-20^th century racism, those who prey on the economically vulnerable, and toxic cultural expectations about marriage.

In this debut memoir, Karin K. Jensen records her mother’s transpacific quest for identity, survival, and new world dreams. 

Discussion Questions

I offer these suggested questions to help your book club find interesting angles for discussion and hope they enrich your conversation.

1. Throughout The Strength of Water, the kindness of strangers is critical to King Ying’s fate. What kindnesses made an impression on you? Have you ever received or given a small kindness that made a big difference?
2. The book details King Ying’s early life in 1920s and ‘30s Detroit. What were ways in which she felt both welcomed and rejected as an immigrant’s daughter? What made it hard for her to reconcile her father’s moral views with American culture?
3. Having a son was critical to King Ying’s parents. How did the higher value placed on sons over daughters affect King Ying’s life and her parents’ and siblings’ lives?
4. How was Ba a product of his culture, his upbringing, and his circumstances? How did he both positively and negatively affect King Ying’s life? How did King Ying’s parenting differ from his?
5. How does the death of King Ying’s mother shape the trajectory of her life, her sense of self, and how she treats her siblings?
6. In moving from Detroit to her father’s ancestral village in the 1930s, King Ying steps back 100 years in development. What did you find most shocking, revelatory, or enlightening in King Ying’s village experience?
7. How does King Ying’s family and culture influence what she believes is possible for herself? Why was it so hard to defy those norms even when some were harmful to her?
8. Tom and Helen (King Ying) married at a time when interracial marriage was still illegal in much of the U.S. What was your impression of how Tom’s Mid-Western Caucasian family welcomed Helen (King Ying) into their family? What was your impression of how Helen’s Chinese American family welcomed Tom?
9. The author interviewed her mother, aunts, uncle, sister, and father to write The Strength of Water. Have you ever interviewed older relatives about their experiences? Were they willing or reluctant to share stories of the past? Did you find their stories insightful?
10. The author hopes The Strength of Water inspires you to hold onto dreams and understand the power of small kindnesses. She hopes it inspires you if you’ve ever felt downtrodden. She hopes you enjoy walking in the shoes of someone who lived 50 to 100 years ago in the U.S. and China. She hopes it inspires compassion for the immigrant experience and interest in Asian American history, which is part of American history. What was your principal takeaway from the story?

Enhancing Your Book Club Meeting

Here are a few ideas for enhancing your Book Club meeting:

1. Kick off your meeting with Chinese dim sum and jasmine or oolong tea!
2. Enjoy this Spotify playlist, specially curated to accompany The Strength of Water.
3. Enjoy these supplemental photos from King Ying’s life.