THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES, BY AMY TAN (reading experience)

THE HUNDRED SECRET SENSES, BY AMY TAN

Title            : The Hundred Secret Senses

Author        : Amy Tan

Number of Pages  : 321

Genre         : Fiction

My Stars     : *****

Synopsis:

“Olivia Yee is only five years old when Kwan, her older sister from China, comes to live with the family and turns her life upside down, bombarding her day and night with ghostly stories of strange ancestors from the world of Yin. Olivia just wants to lead a normal American life.

For the next thirty years, Olivia endures visits from Kwan and her ghosts, who appear in the living world to offer advice on everything from restaurants to Olivia’s failed marriage. But just when she cannot bear it anymore, the revelations of a tragic family secret finally open her mind to the startling truths hidden in Kwan’s unorthodox vision of the world.”

My Experience:

          Okay, firstly, I want to say that it was the Research Methods class which I take in this semester that made me interested in reading Chinese novel, especially Amy Tan. I always wonder when I could read such a wonderful story. This story talked about a girl, Olivia, who had new sister who came from China, which had yin eyes (eyes that could see dead people). It was interesting to see how Tan made this incredible story in such way. At the first time, I was quite confused because this story talked back and forth of Kwan’s life (yes it quite confusing at first because I didn’t know that Kwan was talking about her last lifetime –I mean, Chinese people believe in reincarnation, don’t they?- and there was Kwan, retold her story of her last lifetime to Olivia). But then, I found it really interesting. That is why I love this kind of story, I mean when the story told me about what culture the world has, and it makes me do the cross-cultural understanding. I do really love surprise, especially when it’s something about culture.

          Well, do you know what a hundred secret senses is? In this book, it was said that:

          “What’s a secret sense?”|”How can I say? Memory, seeing, hearing, feeling, all come together, then you know something true in your heart. Like one sense, I don’t know how say, maybe sense of tingle. You know this: Tingly bones mean rain coming, refreshen mind. Tingly skin on arms, something scaring you, close you up, still pop out lots a goose bump. Tingly skin top a you brain, oh-oh, now you know something true, leak into your heart, still you don’t want believe it. Then you also have tingly hair in you nose. Tingly skin under you arm. Tingly spot in back of you brain –that one, you don’t watch out, you got a big disaster come, mm-hm. You use you secret sense, sometimes can get message back and forth fast between two people, living, dead, doesn’t matter, same sense”.

And here the other one:

“Don’t just use tongue, lip, teeth for speaking. Use hundred secret senses. The senses that are related to primitive instincts, what humans had before their brains developed language and the higher functions –the ability to equivocate, make excuses, and lie. Spine chills and musky scents, goose bumps and blushing cheeks –those are the vocabulary of the secret senses”.

I love this novel, because this made me understand about Chinese culture, their food, their beliefs, and how do they view things. For example, they believe in reincarnation (people will re-born in the next lifetime after death and being in the world of yin). I interested in this thing because it makes me curious, I love something that beyond imagination. Because of this ‘reincarnation thing’, they believe that if we make a mistake that we truly regret, we could ask what we would be in the next lifetime. For example I killed you in this lifetime, and I felt that it was wrong and I would owe you so much in the next lifetime, I could wish to be your wife or children so I could take care of you. For me, it is interesting. In page 127, it was said that in yin world,

“Lao Lu said that you must stay together with Simon. This is your yinyuan, the fate that brings lovers together.” | “and why is this my fate?” |”because in your last lifetime together, you loved someone else before Simon. Later, Simon trusted you with his whole life that you loved him too.”

 And in this novel, Kwan also lived in her friend’s body, which for me didn’t make any sense, but this explanation was interesting one:

“there’s a ghost inside this girl.” | “what can we do?” | “nothing. The girl who lived in this body before doesn’t want to come back. And the girl who lives in it now can’t leave until she finds her”.

Maybe, for us this doesn’t make sense. But this thing is what I love about Chinese: they live in a world that seems like fairytale for me. There are so many superstitious. One more interesting opinion I could find in this book is when there was an accident and no one care.

“It’s not good to interfere, especially since you’re foreigners. Don’t worry, the police will be along soon. You’re Americans, you’re not used to seeing tragedies. You pity us, yes, because you can later go home to a comfortable life and forget what you’ve seen. For us, this type of disaster is commonplace. We have so many people. This is our life, always crowded bus, everyone trying to squeeze in for himself, no air to breathe, no room left for pity.”

That was really explain what happened there in China. I was questioning when once I watched video that showed me an accident but no one cared about the victim. By this explanation, I could understand them, and that’s why I love this novel. And the most interesting one, this novel surprised me most at the ending. I do really love this novel! =)

MY FAVORITE QUOTES FROM THIS BOOK:

·         “Libby-ah, do you know what loyalty is? | “what?” | “it’s like this. If you ask someone to cut off his hand to save you from flying off with the roof, he immediately cuts off both hands to show he is more than glad to do so.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “Living people always more trouble than ghost. Living people bother you because angry. Ghost make trouble only because sad, lost, confused.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “But to pretend that all was right with the world, I first had to know what was wrong.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “Life’s always a big fucking compromise. You don’t always get what you want, no matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how good you are. That’s a myth. We’re all hanging in the best we can.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “Well, if everyone thought I was bad, I’d show them what bad was.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “I belonged to no one else, only myself.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “The world’s changed. It’s hip to be ethnic.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “When you save a person’s life, that person becomes a part of you.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “I am like a falling star who has finally found her place next to another in a lovely constellation, where we will sparkle in the heavens forever.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “You can’t stop young girls from wishing. No! Everyone must dream. We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming –well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate. Isn’t that true?” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “You can’t stop people from hoping for a better life.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “You can’t stop people from wishing. They can’t help trying. As long as they can see sky, they’ll always want to go as high as they can.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “Why do you always think it’s best not to say anything?” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “No one’s to blame. Anyway, regrets are useless, always too late.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “To you, this may sound clumsy, not so romantic. But if someone offers to save your life, isn’t that as good as going to church in a white dress and saying ‘I do’?” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “I know too late what I have truly lost.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “Well, you know what they say about people who are married, how we become more and more alike over the years.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “Once a person has the bad habit of being scared of ghosts, it’s hard to break.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “How much can a ghost stand before he turns to revenge?” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “Between life and dead, there is a place where one can balance the impossible, we’re searching for that point.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “I knew that what I believed was what I’d find.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “I now believe truth lies not in logic but in hope, both past and future. I believe hope can surprise you. It can survive the odds against it, all sorts of contradictions, and certainly any skeptic’s rationale of relying of proof through fact.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “What’s a family name if not a claim to being connected in the future to someone from the past.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan

·         “I think Kwan intended to show me the world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul is nothing more than love, limitless, endless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true. I once thought love was supposed to be nothing but bliss. I now know it is also worry and grief, hope and trust. And believing in ghosts –that’s believing that love never dies. If people we love die, then they are lost only to our ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses.” –The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan