"On the first night, he did not want to go into the wedding chamber. He went to bed in his mother's room and had to be carried in to his bride after he fell asleep. But, although he was a spoiled child and still needed help to get dressed, he know how to 'plant children,' according to his wife. My grandmother was born within a year of the wedding, on the fifth day of the fifth moon, in early summer 1990." Chap. 1, p. 23

"When he asked my grandmother if she would mind being poor, she said she would be happy just to have her daughter and himself: 'If you have love, even plain water is sweet.'" Chap. 2, p. 55

"She was a pious Buddhist and every day in her prayers asked Buddha not to reincarnate her as a woman. 'Let me become a cat or a dog, but...