People write to me all the time, and I write back.

We hug, but there are no tears. For every awful thing that's been said and done, she is my sister. Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life. She is the only person left in the world who shares my memories of our childhood, our parents, our Shanghai, our struggles, our sorrows, and, yes, even our moments of happiness and triumph. My sister is the one person who truly knows me, as I know her. The last thing May says to me is 'When our hair is white, we'll still have our sister love.

Snow Flower was my old same for life. I had a greater and deeper love for her than I could ever feel for a person who was my husband.

Parents die, daughters grow up and marry out, but sisters are for life.

It used to happen in villages and towns in China that they would have - I guess you'd call them beauty contests - where all of the women of a particular village or town would be seated behind these screens or curtains with only their feet showing.

While she is lovely, we need to remember that her face is not what distinguishes her. Her beauty is a reflection of the virtue and talent she keeps inside.

Maybe we're all like that with our mothers. They seem ordinary until one day they're extraordinary.