"Paper Menagerie" is a short story about a bi-racial boy named Jack, who has a white dad and a Chinese mom, who immigrated to America. When he is a kid, Jack's mom creates an origami menagerie for him, and when Jack's mom breathes into the origami, the menagerie comes to life, jumping and playing with him.

‘The Moustache ’ is a short story that deals with the themes of trying to grow up too fast and forgiveness. Mike, the narrator, thinks that he’s ready to be treated like an adult and grows a moustache so that he will appear older.

The story is a powerful allegory about the experience that so many children of immigrants have. But in addition to describing an allegory of how we relate to our heritage, the story is also a heartbreaking look at the ways children relate or distance themselves from their parents as they grow up.

Written By Amy Luo “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu is a short story about a boy named Jack who struggles to reconcile his biracial identity, having a white father and a Chinese mother. Growing up, Jack played with a menagerie of colorful origami animals his mother would make for him.

The moustache is a marker of caste identity. Only upper caste men could sport moustaches. All attempts to persuade Vavachan to shave off his moustache are unsuccessful. Expectedly, the upper castes are angered by his misdemeanour.

Irony in Moustache is the very heart of the story. Irony is also linked with the theme of appearance and disillusionment in Moustache.

The main theme of "The Rules of the Game" is power. Throughout the story, Waverly struggles to gain power over her controlling mother and exercise her independence. Waverly is also caught up in a power struggle between Asian and American cultural influences, which is implicit in the mother–daughter struggle.

Waverly and her mother, Lindo Jong, have an ongoing psychological battle, each surreptitiously trying to gain the upper hand. Although Waverly was born in the United States, her mother has instilled in her many Chinese rules of conduct. One important rule is that one must remain silent to win. The story’s opening focuses on silence and on how controlling one’s emotions endows one with a secret strength like the wind.

The story "My Family's Slave" is about a woman who lived as a slave and married a soldier

“Slave”, a word that takes away one’s freedom, a word that turns one into a property, a word that force one to obey... We have all seen or at least heard of this word or stories about this word. When we talk about slaves, we tend to think that they are belongings to the owners. They should not have emotion or seek their own life like normal people. All they should or can do is anything that is asked by their owners and endure all tortures unconditionally. In the passage, “My Family’s Slave” written by Alex Tizon, Lola was a slave in Tizon’s family for 56 years. She has also endured tortures from Tizon’s parents just as the slaves in our knowledge. However, Lola obtained Tizon’s care. She was not simply a belonging to Tizon.

The primary conflict of Rules of the Game revolves around the theme of "hidden strength." Hidden strength is a concept that Waverly's mother, Lindo Jong, instills in her from an early age. It is the idea that one can become victorious by remaining silent and not giving anything away. It is perhaps this lesson that allows Waverly to become a chess prodigy. As she rises through the ranks and even competes nationally, she is proud of her progress but is increasingly disturbed by her mother's tendency to fawn over her. From Waverly's perspective, Lindo is using her daughter to show off. This contention forms the primary conflict of the story and creates a tension that is very akin to the chess games that Waverly has mastered so easily.

Noticeably, instead of directly stating “Lola’s ashes”, Tizon started off with “the ashes”. The use of “the” creates a vague statement about the owner of the ashes. The readers would know that some kind of life died, but they would not be able to identify if it was a human or animal. Therefore, this vague statement here draws the readers’ interest to learn more about the story. “Black” symbolize death, evil, and mystery. The description of “a black plastic box” further enhanced the truth of death. Also, with the additional description of “the size of a toaster” and “weighed three and a half pounds”, the box that contains Lola’s ashes appears in front of the readers’ eyes vividly. Before Tizon packaged the box into his suitcase, he put the box “in a canvas tote bag”. Instead of putting the box directly into the suitcase, the additional step of putting the box into a bag implies the importance of the owner of the ashes to Tizon. He cared about how the ashes are treated even though the ashes cannot feel anything, just as we treat our mother’s remains as treasure.

The concept of War and Pool is about a War was going on and a Marshal who was playing Pool (Billiards) ordered his men to wait until his commands

The MOG is about a Marshal who was focused on his pool game and told his men to wait for his commands

The War and Pool Identity is about a war that was going on and a pool game that was happening in the same time, the Marshal was that person who was playing the pool game, he was so concentrated that he told his men to wait for his commands