Jessica Zhan Mei Yu > Quotes

“My mother's gifts were like instruments no one would ever dare to teach her how to play. She did whatever she wanted with them and made life dance for her over and over again. She had a natural charisma that made her seem taller than the sun. Sometimes it felt like she had by the mystery of transubstantiation made something out of nothing and that something was herself and the nothing was what she had. She was never joyless or afraid. At least that's what she wanted me to believe and, for the most part, I believed her.”
― Jessica Zhan Mei Yu, But the Girl

“My Ah Ma told me all the time that she loved me. Though I don't know if you would call 'love' what she called 'love'. 'Love' is such a promiscuous, easy word in English. The 'love' in 'I love tomatoes' is the same 'love' in 'to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death'. It's strange and unnatural to say that unsayable word in Chinese unless you are a crying actress in a soap opera or a pop star with a new single to promote. Love is expressed in Chinese the way a poet writes about flowers - slantwise, in riddles, in rhymes, coyly. You have to read between the lines, be an intelligent interpreter of literature, to really understand it. Sometimes you have to read against the grain of the author's intention and sometimes you think you're crazy for imagining that love is even there. So, it's hard to explain what I mean when I say she loved me - or as she said when she was especially angry at me - she sayang me.”
― Jessica Zhan Mei Yu, But the Girl