I want a marriage of companions—one of shared lives and shared poems,’ he murmured. ‘If we were husband and wife, we would collect books, read, and drink tea together. As I told you before, I’d...

Every day Fu-shee, the smaller children, and I fan out in the hills around Green Dragon to strip trees of their bark and leaves, dig up roots and search for wild grass. We’ll eat anything,...

The classics tell us that, in relationships, the one between teacher and student comes second only to the one between parent and child.

He was in my hair, my eyes, my fingers, my heart. I day-dreamed about what he was doing, thinking, seeing, smelling, feeling. I could not eat for thoughts of him.

I imagined my first night alone in bed with my stranger. I conjured our future years together unhampered by worries about money or officialdom. We would enjoy the day, the night, a smile, a word,...

Our words had to be circumspect. We could not write anything too negative about our circumstances. This was tricky, since the very form of a married woman’s letter needed to include the usual complaints —...

In my life, no three miles have been flat and no three days have had sun. I’ve been brave in the past, but now I’m beyond devastated. My grief is like dense clouds that cannot...

I didn’t know you would be here last night, but you were. We can’t fight fate. Instead, we must accept that fate has given us a special opportunity.

You make choices that are good and sound, but the gods have other plans for you.

You may be desperate, but never let anyone see you as anything less than a cultivated woman.

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 problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you.

I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one in the same.

The Story of the Woman with Three Brothers”A woman once had three brothers. They all had wives, but she was not married. Though she was virtuous and hardworking, her brothers would not offer a dowry....

If it is perfectly acceptable for a widow to disfigure herself or commit suicide to save face for her husband’s family, why should a mother not be moved to extreme action by the loss of...

In that moment I understood that the cruelest words in the universe are if only.

Everyone knows that part of the spirit descends to the afterworld, while part of it remains with the family, but we have a special belief about the spirit of a young woman who has died...

In our country we call this type of mother love teng ai. My son has told me that in men’s writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love....

Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.

Perhaps he was afraid as I was that we’d be caught. Or perhaps he was breathing me in just as I was letting him come into my lungs, my eyes, my heart.