It’s like magic, fairy tale, and reality put together. I wish I could put all the quotes that caught me here, but then I would give the book content away.

I couldn’t get enough of the book that I even read the Cliffnote of it! (Note: Cliffnote is a deep analyze of a usually famous literature by another author. Unfortunately, Amy Tan thinks that a lot of things written in the cliffnotes of her book are not accurate.)

There’s a movie made based on this book. I’d love to watch that when I can find it.

~ Finished it on 30 April 2004

Memorable Quotes

“I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents’ promise. This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing. A daughter can promise to come to dinner, but if she has a headache, if she she has a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on TV, she no longer has a promise.

I watched this same movie when you did not come. The American soldier promises to come back and marry the girl. She is crying with a genuine feeling and he says, “Promise! Promise! Honey-sweetheart, my promise is as good as gold.” Then he pushes her onto the bed. But he doesn’t come back. His gold is like yours, it is only fourteen carats.

To Chinese people, fourteen carats isn’t real gold. Feel my bracelets. They must be twenty-four carats, pure inside and out.

It’s too late to change you, but I’m telling you this because I worry about your baby. I worry that someday she will say, “Thank you, Grandmother, for the gold bracelete. I’ll never forget you.” But later, she will forget her promise. She will forget she had a grandmother.”

“My mother believed in God’s will for many years. It was as if she had turned on a celestial faucet and goodness kept pouring out. She said it was faith that kept all these good things coming our way, only I thought she said “fate”, because she couldn’t pronounce that “th” sound in “faith”.

And later, I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you’re in control. I found out the most I could have was hope, and with that I was not denying any possibility, good or bad. I was just saying, If there is a choice, dear God or whatever you are, here’s where the odds should be placed.”