The most incredible thing about the Woman in the Purple Skirt is that whatever reaction she gets from people around her, it makes absolutely no difference — she just continues on her way.

Back then, a sense of something more — like Oh, there must be something more! — was always nagging at me, like I was waiting, like my situation and my relationships were unimportant because of their seeming transience.

Looking at the office workers suspended high above us, I sensed for the first time my father’s desire to leave China and to live in a foreign country. It was the anonymity. He wanted to be unknown, unpossessed by others’ knowledge of him. That was freedom.