Conversations with my Parents by Oanh Thi Tran

1. What is ironic about the way the author and the father become close? What has to happen to the father? The Irony of the father and the author becoming close is that they become close in sickness, but they should have been close throughout the whole of the authors life.

2. How would you characterise the conversation that the author has with her parents? The conversations the author has with her parents are always brief and they don't have much to say to each other.

3. What is it that worries the author most about these conversations? The biggest worry that the Author has is that she can never tell her parents how much she loves them, but doesn't know how to and she wants to do it before its to late.

4. There is a gap between the author’s need to express feelings common in western countries and her family’s lack of desire to express their feelings verbally. How does the family still express their feelings for their child, just not verbally? The family expresses feelings to the Author by telling her that they had a specific meal one night and telling her how much she usest to love that meal and how the meal made the family think of the author.