The balcony is a special place because it's where Pa and I often have important conversations.
-- Loung ("The Ung Family")

Importance: This quote reveals two important things about the narrator, Loung. It shows her childlike desire to sound mature and important, which is a trait her mother does not indulge but her father does. It also shows her close bond with her father, whom she calls Pa, because it is he who entertains conversations with her in which she is free to express curiosity about the world, about her home country, and about the smallest things that she often wonders. Her curiosity and imagination are the very traits that Pa encourages, and therefore the balcony, being the setting of these conversations, takes on the utmost importance in the mind of the little girl. She associates it with love for Pa.

Women and men carry their belongings in cloth bags on their backs and their heads...
-- Loung ("Takeover")