The Great Matriarch says to Mei Ling, “I’ll give you three bananas in the morning and two in the evening.” Then she says to Moonie, “I’ll give you two bananas in the morning and three in the evening.”
Moonie sulks for half a day, unhappy with her lot, and says, “Granny, you must treat us equally; we’re in America now. We’re no longer in colonized Hong Kong or feudal China. We must abolish the class system. There must be equal justice for all.”
So the Great Matriarch says, “All right, I’ll give you three bananas in the morning and two in the evening.” And Moonie walks away satisfied, believing that she has set things right for herself and for others in the same predicament.
Later, when the Great Matriarch revisits this episode to tutor young girls, she refers to this lesson as “the deceptive equanimity of all things.”