I felt foolish and tired, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind to discover there was no one there.

You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying. -An-mei

It was a distorted form of inverse logic: If hopes never come true, then hope for what you don't want.

I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents' promiise. This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing... But later, she will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother.

My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes. She sees those who have died and now dwell in the world of Yin, ghosts who leave the mists just to visit her kitchen on Balboa Street in San Francisco.

But later that day, the streets of Kweilin were strewn with newspapers reporting great Kuomintang victories, and on top of these papers, like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people - men, women and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead.

For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.