Wondering Where to Turn: New Year's Sacrifice, Upstairs in a Wineshop Summary

In New Year's Sacrifice, the narrator describes the end of the lunar year and Chinese new year celebrations and traditions; candles were set forth, food was cooked, and gods were praised. During one of the days around this time of year, an old woman named Sister Xianglin approached the narrator. She had changed the most of anyone he knew, for she was now and old, gray, beggar woman. She asked him if there really was a soul; he had no response for her. He felt uneasy about being so educated, yet unable to answer her response with much more than "can't say for sure." (p. 223). When he learned she had died, he felt a little better, although he was in the company of...