In Order to Live

When I wasn’t reading or studying with my tutors, I listened to English audiobooks and TED talks—even in my sleep. I downloaded all ten seasons of the American TV comedy Friends. Ask me anything about Ross and Rachel, and I can tell you. The only drawback, as far as my tutors were concerned, was that I was developing an American accent and speaking in 1980s slang.

I learned something else that day: we all have our own deserts. They may not be the same as my desert, but we all have to cross them to find a purpose in life and be free.

I never knew that happiness could come from knowledge.

I put my face in my hands and wept. Finally someone believed in me.

One woman told us about love. She said that if you say “I love you” to plants, they grow more healthily. So it was very important to let someone you care about hear that word from you.

Now I realized that I had to think all the time—and it was exhausting.

According to news reports that we never heard, Beijing responded by rounding up anybody who might embarrass the government and ruin China’s great international triumph.

Then he threw my mother to the ground and raped her right in front of me, like an animal. I saw such fear in her eyes, but there was nothing I could do except stand there and shiver, begging silently for it to end. That was my introduction to sex.

Still, I learned something important from my short time as a market vendor: once you start trading for yourself, you start thinking for yourself. Before the public distribution system collapsed, the government alone decided who would survive and who would starve. The markets took away the government’s control. My small market transactions made me realize that I had some control over my own fate. It gave me another tiny taste of freedom.

Lots of children like to chase after dragonflies; when I caught them, I ate them.