3
" Every day leaflets fall from the sky, Japanese planes whirring overhead and letting loose propaganda, all over the colony, telling the Chinese and the Indians not to fight, to join with the Japanese in a “Greater Far Eastern Co-Prosperity Sphere.” They’ve been collecting them as they fall on the ground, stacking them in piles, and Trudy wakes up on Christmas Day and declares a project, to make wallpaper out of them. In their dressing gowns, they put on Christmas carols, make hot toddies, and—in a fit of wild, Yuletide indulgence—use all the flour for pancakes, and paste the leaflets on the living room wall—a grimly ironic decoration. One has a drawing of a Chinese woman sitting on the lap of a fat Englishman, and says the English have been raping your women for years, stop it now, or something to that effect, in Chinese, or so Trudy says. "
― Janice Y.K. Lee , The Piano Teacher
5
" She will toss the leaves in a wooden bowl with a micro spray of olive oil, a drop of balsamic vinegar, the insanely expensive balsamic vinegar that she bought at the gourmet store, so viscous it drips in a slow, thick stream. A tomato. A Persian cucumber. These will emerge, pristine, from her tiny refrigerator, chilled, perfect. She will slice them thinly and fan them into beautiful patterns, a vegetable mandala, courtesy of the mandoline, a feast for the eyes. She will hand-crumple Parmigiano Reggiano onto the top, and then, from on high, she will brandish the mill and grind coarse crystals of pink salt form the Himalayas into fine, sparkly shavings that will float, like snowflakes, onto the pale green surface of her salad. "
― Janice Y.K. Lee
9
" Do you know my best quality?” she asks.
”Of your many, I could not say, my darling.”
”I see the best in people. I fall in love with people when I see a window into their beings, their shining moments. I’ve fallen in love with so many people but the trouble is I fall out of love so quickly too. I see the worst in them just as easily.
”Do you know I fell in love with you right away? That day at the Trotters’ I had noted you because you were new, of course, and then you sat down at the piano, and you played a few notes, but you played them so well, with no self consciousness, and no idea that anyone might be listening. It was in that room off the garden and you were the only one there. I was passing through on the way to the ladies’ room and saw you there. I fell in love with you right then, and so I slipped my drink all over myself so I could meet you.” "
― Janice Y.K. Lee
