I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.

I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic.

People there only dream that it is China, because if you are Chinese you can never let go of China in your mind.

All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. -Ying Ying

Each person is made of five different elements, she told me. Too much fire and you had a bad temper. That was like my father, whom my mother always critized for his cigarette habit and who always shouted back that she should feel guilty that he didn't let my mother speak her mind. Too little wood and you bent too quickly to listen to other people's ideas, unable to stand on your own. This was like my Auntie An-mei. Too much water and you flowed in too many different directions. like myself.

Language is the tool of my trade -and I use them all - all the Englishes I grew up with

So much of history is mystery. We don't know what is lost forever, what will surface again. All objects exist in a moment of time. And that fragment of time is preserved or lost or found in mysterious ways. Mystery is a wonderful part of life.