My father said he was going to write to the Jinzhou City Party Committee asking for permission to 'talk about love'...My mother supposed it was a bit like asking permission from the head of the family...the Communist Party was the new patriarch.

I like to have Chinese furniture in my home as a constant and painful reminder of how much has been destroyed in China. The contrast between the beauty of the past and the ugliness of the modern is nowhere sharper than in China.

...boredom was as exhausting as backbreaking labor.

I remember when my mother pointed to a stone, and she said this was the kind of stone people used to place on the feet of the baby girls to stop them trying to climb away and unbind their feet.

The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings.

When I was in China, Mao was Chairman, and parents were terrified to tell their children anything that differed from the party line in case the children repeated it and endangered the whole family.

China is more prosperous than before. The people have better lives but they are not happy and confident because the scars are still there.