Right from the start my parents had left me to fend for myself. Apparently unaware that I was a kid, they invariably treated me like an adult, perhaps because they themselves were no spring chickens.

It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.

Once Fang took pep pills and they worked - the only time he ever ran to bed.

Do not taste food while you're cooking. You may lose your nerve to serve it.

Just because I have rice on my clothes doesn't mean I've been to a wedding. A Chinese man threw up on me.

A passport picture is a photo of a man that he can laugh at without realizing that it looks exactly the way his friends see him.

On the way to the delivery room, I almost changed my mind about having a baby. I wouldn't have found it so hard to go ahead with it if I had realized that having a baby was the only way I could ever become a grandmother.