How can we not create a fantasy in our minds when the reality is so hard?

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

All these types of love come out of duty, respect, and gratitude. Most of them, as the women in my county know, are sources of sadness, rupture, and brutality.

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.

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming -- weren't our dreams what gave us strength, hope, and desire?

Having a baby is painful in order to show how serious a thing life is.

People come in and out of our lives, and the true test of friendship is whether you can pick back up right where you left off the last time you saw each other.