Ying-Ying and Lena

No, Lena's husband did not physically abuse her, but he saw she was weak, he saw she did not dare speak up on her own behalf--he was arrogant and unfeeling and as cold as the house he designed. He put what was supposed to be a loving marriage into the context of 50-50, like some kind of business deal--there WAS NOT LOVE there, except him liking her presence there to serve him in one way or another. That scene with her mother was one of the best in the movie, for Ying-Ying tells her daugher: HE does not matter--ASK for what you want, and if you don't get it, get the hell outta there...and thank God, in the next scene you see her with a loving man, ready to even take Mama out on vacation with them. Emotional damage, using someone, having no respect for them, can have a long-lasting, life-draining effect. You can kill someone with this kind of thing, and her mother KNEW that if Lena did not leave, she would become the empty shell that she herself had been for so long...