"A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" by Yiyun Li *****

• Rochester Arts & Lectures author, May 2015
• Chinese author
• Originally published in 2005
• Debut
• Short Stories
• "Extra":  A child and love late in life
• p.22..."The three thousand yuan of dismissal compensation is safe in the lunch pail, as are several unopened packages of socks, colorful with floral patterns, souvenirs of her brief love story."
• "After A Life":  loyalty after a life with another person
• p.26..."..Mr. Sua believes that for each drop of water one received, one has to repay with a well."
• "Immortality": a town's tradition of providing eunuchs, or "Great Papas" to the powerful
• Child born with face of the emperor...
• a scholar thrown in jail for predicting a population explosion and recommending population control
• Killing off of sparrows actually happened in 1958
• Great Papas reunited with their severed penises so they would be whole and go to Heaven
• "The Princess of Nebraska":
• Two people love the same man.....one's pregnancy provides hope
• "Love in the Marketplace": universal tale of mother/daughter relationship
• Sansan's plan to make it to America, as her lover betrays promise
• "Son":
• a "diamond bachelor"...living in America earning big dollars
• p.112..."What I'm saying is that many things are circulated and recycled.  Language is one of them.  Faith is another one.".....after becoming a disillusioned idealist
• p.112..."It's not easy to shut up in America.  They value you not by what's inside you, but by what's pouring out of your mouth."
• His mother once burned a Bible which had been a gift, and now she is converted
• p.126.."Her  god is just like a Chinese parent, never running out of excuses to love a son."
• "The Arrangement":  Loss of innocence
• p.135..."...being a woman is an illness"
• "Death is Not a Bad Joke If Told the Right Way":  passage of time, tact, how to soften loss
• child with two families, her own and the family of her former nanny
• Japanese brands are "the symbol of modern life in Beijing"
• Complicated rules of a good death v. a bad death
• p.177..."She was plump, and healthy, and never made a sound when Lao Da beat her for good or bad reasons, or for no reason at all.  Our wives are not as perfect."
• "Persimmons":  Life being squeezed like a soft persimmon
• "A Thousand Years of good Prayers":  the surprising arrival of love requiring a thousand years of prayers
• p.188...."Life provides more happiness than we know.  We just have to look for it."
• Intimate conversation is "like riding with an unreined horse, you don't know where you end up and you don't have to think about it".
• Review:  Are you curious about life in China?  Not the lives reported to us by the Chinese government, but as shared by someone who grew up there?  This collection of short stories, the author's debut and winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, is absolutely wonderful.  Each story offers up insight into the everyday lives of average Chinese, both in China, and after immigrating to the United States.  YiYun Li's prose is peaceful and eloquent.  The reader learns about the ways the Revolution impacts the daily lives and belief systems of the Chinese, from their beliefs of right and wrong to their beliefs about life and death.  The title story is exquisite in its simplicity and poignancy. Read this!!