Tomb Sweeping Quotes

“Lying there in her cramped room, in her small bed, Fufu, now eighteen, feels as though her world is the least significant seed in a pomegranate. She yearns for the whole fruit.”
― Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping

“It seems, in this case, he who grows up without want has the luxury of satisfaction. She who grows up wanting is never satiated.”
― Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping

“You can’t live without good water or air - that’s why people are so unhealthy in China these days. They have to go around wearing masks all the time, but the masks don’t do anything.”
― Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping

“Everything hit her. She was different, she was foreign, she was illegal. She couldn't qualify for the loans and scholarships to afford college. What had been the point of following the rules? Of doing well in school? Of obeying everyone when, technically, her existence itself was illegitimate?”
― Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping

“What does it mean to be mixed up?' i asked, thinking of my grandfather's accusations.

The medium laughed softly, as though to blanket a cry. 'I don't know,' he said. He drew a circle in the sand with his bare toes. 'I don't like to think of myself that way. I like, instead, to think that my parents put me in perfect symmetry with this country's history. Perhaps it's better to think that people like me are not mixed up, as some might say, but that we have access to more than one side of the story.”
― Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping

“In the direct glare of his feeling, I realized how broken Waigong had been. Though my grandfather was only twelve during the Battle of Singapore, he remembered the fear and the chaos and the hate and the revenge for the rest of his life.”
― Alexandra Chang, Tomb Sweeping