Number Three, Garden Road Summary

Meilan moved into Number Three Garden Road forty-five years ago when it was a new construction in a relatively undeveloped area. At the time it had been government housing and all the tenants had been given government furniture with which to furnish it. On the day they moved in, Meilan remembers her baby sister calling a neighbor, Mr. Chang, Uncle Fatty. Meilan has always thought the name to be unfortunate because the man was not fat. Meilan also remembers the man's wife, a beautiful woman who had been deeply sympathetic to her husband. Meilan and her family live just below the Changs and she can also remember listening to him play his musical instruments from her windows below him or from the staircase outside his apartment.

Much has changed in forty-five years. There are now two high...