I am still learning about love. I thought I understood it--not just mother love, but the love for one's parents, for one's husband, and for one's laotong. I've experienced the other types of love--pity love, respectful love and gratitude love. But looking at our secret fan with its messages written between Snow Flower and me over many years, I see that I didn't value the most important love--deep-heart love.

Seeing something once is better than hearing about it a hundred times. Doing something once is better than seeing it a hundred times.

i would rather be married to broken jade than flawless clay

And often it would be a woman who was in her 70s or 80s who would win the beauty contest, because bound feet never age.

We're told that men are strong & brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat & bear physical & mental agony much better than men.

I love research. I'd go so far as to say I'm a research fanatic.

I’ve never thought much about whether I was happy or if I had fun as a child. I was a so-so girl who lived with a so-so family in a so-so village. I didn’t know that there might be another way to live, and I didn’t worry about it either.