Mingmei Yip - Song of the Silk Road

My lover’s knowing fingers circled my breast. “Lily, what do you think people come to a hotel for? To watch TV?”

The next morning we made love again, and after that, we ordered up from room service.

He said, “Lily, I feel as if I’d been looking for you my whole life. To find you I had to travel to Xian, all along the Silk Road, into the Taklamakan Desert, even to New York.”

“Alex, but now it’s over, and you have me right here with you.”

He looked straight into my eyes, his expression serious. “Lily, will you marry me?”

I said jokingly, “I guess there are no more excuses to say no anymore?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Of course.”

Alex and I had our small but cozy wedding ceremony in a small church in lower Manhattan. Besides Lingzi Lee, Frank Luce, Donna Adler, and their respective spouses and children, we only invited a few other people including, of course, my agent and my editor, as well as a few friends and classmates. Frank, and especially Donna, seemed to have gotten over their animosity toward me. After the service they went up to congratulate us.

Donna pecked my cheek, then smiled her heavily made-up smile. “Lily, take very good care of Alex for us. He’s still a child.”

I nodded.

Frank gave me a bear hug, adding, “My son, what a lucky man!”

I nodded again, my eyes brimming with tears.

Three days after the wedding, Lingzi went back to Taiwan. Unmoved by our constant pleadings, she adamantly refused to stay.

“Life here is not for me. You two live very well, no fights, no drinking, and no cheating, eh? Also, give me grandchildren, quick! Besides, I’m getting old, I don’t want to be a ghost wandering in foreign land.”

We chuckled.

“One day, you two bring your little ones to visit me in Taiwan.”

After the wedding, I finally settled down to begin writing again—in fact to finish my second book, which was actually the first one, my coming-of-age-family-saga novel. Alex went back to graduate school in Columbia’s East Asian Studies Program. To honor our encounter, he chose the history of Silk Road travel as the subject of his thesis.

“But I doubt anyone will ever read it after the huge success of your memoir.” He smiled.

Then he looked at me seriously. “Do you really have the yin eye, Lily?”

I nodded. “Sometimes. But I need to meditate hard and channel all my energies to open it. The Silk Road has a thousand years’ worth of spirits, but here there are not so many. Anyway, now I am interested in the living, not the dead. So, I don’t want to do this anymore. But I will send some money to Keku.”

“Excellent idea!” Alex enthused.

One rainy day, after a meeting with my editor in midtown, I waited for a taxi in the heavy downpour. My one hand frantically waved at any yellow passing cars while my other hand held a wind-battered umbrella. Finally, a cab appeared in front of me. When I was about to open the door, a soaked and disheveled man tried to grab the taxi away from me.

“Asshole!” I screamed.

He turned, and I couldn’t believe who it was.

A down-and-out Chris!

“Chris, what are you doing here in the rain without an umbrella?!” I yelled.

He looked so embarrassed that his face turned the color of a tomato. “Oh, Lily, I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to…”

“But you did.”

“I just got a call from Preston’s babysitter telling me that Jenny’s sick, so I…”

“No need to explain. Is she OK?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m in such a hurry.”

“So you’re still…”

“Yes, we’re still married, if that’s what you want to know.”

“So am I now.”

“I know. I read about you.”

“OK then, go ahead, back to your wife and kid. But I suspect Jenny will recover now that I am out of your life.”

I waved to the pathetic face I’d once found so irresistible. “Good-bye.”

“Take care, Lily.”

“You bet.”

Back home I didn’t bother to tell Alex—who was busy cooking in the kitchen—about the accidental meeting, but took out Master Soaring Crane’s last pouch and read:

Maintain the balance of yin and yang and everything will last.

Then my husband came out to sit down with me. As he rested his head on my lap, he placed his hand on my stomach, feeling the someone inside me kicking.

I wondered, Would our little he or she have as many adventures as Alex and I did on the way to true love?

Anyway, we’d find out in twenty or thirty long—or short—years.

Petals from the Sky

Peach Blossom Pavilion

SONG OF THE SILK ROAD Mingmei Yip ABOUT THIS GUIDE

The questions and discussion topics that follow are intended to enhance your group’s reading of this book.

Discussion Questions

1. Why does Lily Lin finally decide to go to the Silk Road and carry out all her unknown aunt’s seemingly impossible demands? Would you do the same if given the chance?

2. What do you think about Lily’s ex-professor and lover Chris Adams? Does he care about her or just use her?

3. Lily falls in love with men very easily. How does this affect how you regard her character?

4. Alex Luce falls in love with Lily—who is eight years his senior—and chases her through some of China’s most dangerous places. Do you think love between an older woman and a younger man can end up happily?

5. Alex’s parents and Lily take an instant dislike to each other. Why do his parents disapprove of her?

6. Lily is not sure about her feelings for Lop Nor the herbalist. Does she feel romantic love for him or is she drawn to his tragic life?

7. Lily must seduce the monk Floating Cloud, but then she finds herself attracted to him. She tricks him so she can steal the treasures from his temple. Do you think her behavior is justified to help her aunt? How do you feel about their relationship?

8. Lily has to tell the blind fortune-teller Soaring Crane nothing but lies. Why?

9. According to the Subtle Purple Calculus fortune-telling described in the novel, everyone’s life is already mapped out the instant he or she is born. Is this the way things work out in the novel? To what extent are the main characters in control of their own destiny?

10. What is the significance of the jade necklace and ivory bracelet? Do you think such objects can affect the person who wears them?

11. Do you like Lily’s Muslim neighbor Keku and her son, Mito? Why?

12. Mindy Madison, Lily’s supposedly mysterious aunt, turns out to be someone else. What do you think about Mindy’s revelations near the end, and what does this say about her fundamental character?

13. Art smuggling is widespread in contemporary China. Art dealers defend themselves as protecting works that might otherwise be destroyed. Do you think removing the art from China is justified?

14. Toward the end of the novel, Chris Adams does something potentially very damaging to Lily. How do you feel about what happens to him as a result?

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Copyright © 2011 by Mingmei Yip

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ISBN: 978-0-7582-6816-7