You probably can't tell much of the details of this photo, but there's quite a bit going on. There's a steamboat docked in the bay, a train is passing through, the sun is setting, and I have the sounds of waterfalls and the train in my ears.

I just finished the novel, Shanghai Girls. I've been on a popular fiction kick lately. It was well written, but very sad as most novels about Chinese women seem to be. It also gives insight into what life was like for Chinese immigrants in America in the early 20th century. Let's just say it was rough.

I've been trying to figure a way to incorporate this passage into a blip, but it isn't happening and I need to return the book soon so here it is. Side note: I had a dream last night that I had an arranged marriage. Guess that's what happens when you read stories like this lol.

"So often we're told that women's stories are unimportant. After all, what does it matter what happens in the main room, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom? Who cares about the relationships between mother, daughter, and sister? A baby's illness, the sorrows and pains of childbirth, keeping the family together during war, poverty, or even in the best of days are considered small and insignificant compared with the stories of men, who fight against nature to grow their crops, who wage battles to secure their homelands, who struggle to look inward in search of the perfect man. We're told that men are strong and brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat, and bear physical and mental agony much better than men. The men in my life faced, to one degree or another, those great male battles, but their hearts--so fragile--wilted, buckled, crippled, corrupted, broke, or shattered when confronted with the losses women face every day. As men, they have to put a brave face on tragedy and obstacles, but they are as easily bruised as flower petals."