Part 1, Ying-Ying St. Clair, "The Moon Lady" Summary

Ying-Ying feels separated from her daughter. She believes she has lost her sense of self through the years with time washing away her pain, just as stone carvings are worn down by water. She remembers being just four years old in 1918, at the time of the Moon Festival in August, the fifteenth day of the eighth moon. The summer is terribly hot, and autumn comes without cool mornings and evenings. She wakes to the stinky smell of the burning "Five Evils"; incense burned to chase away mosquitoes and small flies.

This day Ying-Ying is dressed in new, heavy, hot tiger clothes for the Moon Festival, a ceremony held every year so that the gods do not punish the people. The Chinese light incense, make an offering to the moon...