The Last Rose of Shanghai

It’s big, and it’s so hard. You must come sit on it. It’s not my chair.

love that couldn’t accept a lover’s flaws was a selfish love. He wouldn’t be selfish. He would love her, all of her, her beauty, her smiles, her secrets, her mistakes, and her faults.

a family without a mother was like a pearl necklace without a string.

Jazz makes us feel alive; it helps us forget about reality. Classical music is different; it’s about remembering.

There is a kind of love that strikes like a thunderbolt; it blinds you, yet opens your eyes to see the world anew.

We built a barbed wire fence between ourselves and turned away from the suffering of others, but we forgot the immunity to pain was delusional.

But the music was kind; it sought no destruction, only comfort, as its magnificent cascade slowed and eased and dipped, gently like a rock falling into the embrace of a river, to a tender drip. When the notes murmured and finally faded in the air, a pocket

And on the edge of the black sky, where the dawn’s light had just squeezed through, a fleet of bombers, like bats, sailed through a bed of pale clouds and dove toward the Huangpu River, the art deco buildings, the Customs House, and the high-rises on the waterfront. American B-29s.

We were what the tangle of the past made us, which trapped us, forcing us to be ensnared in a future we could never be set free from.

A love that couldn’t accept a lover’s flaws was a selfish love.

waiting for his chance, the rhythm of freedom, the metronome of life.

Don’t give a man fish; teach the man how to fish.

A warning, Aiyi. Falling in love is like teetering on the edge of a precipice blindfolded. It’s wonderful, but it might cause life-threatening injuries.

For though salt and sugar we might be, we all had blood in the veins and a heart in the chest, and we all died when hit by a bomb.

wished I had the right to kick him out, but instead I was forced to stay calm for

This was what I wanted, his face, his voice, his arms, his embrace, all of him. I kissed him, leaning against his shoulders, close to his heart, to his skin.

He loved to see her like this, and he held her gaze, his heart humming. A space filled with infinite happiness seemed to grow between them, transforming into a bridge of delicate, unsung notes.

Ernest and I made the perfect winning pair; we were meant to be. When he played, I couldn’t take my eyes off him, drinking in his music, his smile, his rapt face.

People say old age tames us and dulls our tempers, but old age for me is like a key to a Cadillac that permits me to wreak havoc.

A man was an honorable being. A man should cry, but also laugh; should suffer, but also forgive; should dream, but also remember. Above all, a man should be given a chance to make things right again.

I missed her. Life was not the same without her. Each day I got out of bed, thinking of this hard truth: a family without a mother was like a pearl necklace without a string.

truck passed a pawnshop where a wooden

How strange we humans were. We built a barbed wire fence between ourselves and turned away from the suffering of others, but we forgot the immunity to pain was delusional. For though salt and sugar we might be, we all had blood in the veins and a heart in the chest, and we all died when hit by a bomb.

Silence was a noise with teeth; it gnawed on my skin and left deep marks. Silence was a noise with arms and legs; it crawled across the rafters and spread its spawns of spells. Silence was a noise with a face, a face of dust and doom.