Shanghainese people are good negotiators, they're very persistent, and you grow up in an atmosphere like that - very competitive. That becomes part of your personality, Shanghai personality becomes part of yours.

We are the kind of people who obsess over one word... but we have only one shot to get it right in concert. It was hard the first time I practiced with them. I was so nervous that my vocal chords were paralyzed for about a half-hour.

Now I was a tiger that neither pounced nor lay waiting between the trees. I became an unseen spirit.

Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me. When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again?

And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every direction.

Only two kinds of daughters, she shouted in Chinese. Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!

I won't be what I'm not. -Jing-mei