2. “No Name Woman”
 “„You must not tell anyone,‟ my mother said, „what I
am about to tell you‟” p. 3
 “My aunt haunts me- her ghost drawn to me
because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone
devote pages of paper to her” p. 16

3. “White Tigers”
 “She said I would grow up a wife and a slave, but
she taught me the song of the warrior woman, Fa
Mu Lan. I would have to grow up a woman warrior”
p. 20
 “'You can go back right now if you like…or you can
stay with us and learn how to fight barbarians and
bandits. You can avenge your village,' said the old
woman. 'You can recapture the harvests the thieves
have taken. You can be remembered by the Han
people for your dutifulness.‟” p.22

4. “White Tigers”
 “The swordsman and I are not so dissimilar... What
we have in common are the words at our backs...
The reporting is the vengeance - not the
beheading, not the gutting, but the words. And I
have so many words - 'chink' words and 'gook'
words too - that they do not fit on my skin” p.53

5. “Shaman”
 “You will not win, Boulder…I will see to it that you leave.
When morning comes, only one of us will control this
room, Ghost, and that one will be me” p. 70
 “This mother can carry a hundred pounds of Texas rice
up and downstairs. She could work at the laundry from
6:30 a.m. until midnight: p. 104
 “She would walk to Skid Row and stand in line with the
hobos, the winos, the junkies, and the Mexicans until the
farm buses came and the farmers picked out the workers
they wanted” p. 103

6. “Shaman”
 “my mother became a good doctor. She could cure
the most spectacular diseases” p. 82
 “I am really a Dragon, as she is a Dragon, both of us
born in dragon years” p. 109
 “My mother may have been afraid but she would be
a dragoness… During danger she fanned out her
dragon claws and riffled her red sequin scales and
unfolded her coiling green stripes” p. 67

7. “At the Western Palace”
 “„I‟ll hit him. I‟ll protect you. I‟ll hit him back. The two
of us will knock him down and make him listen.‟
Brave Orchid chuckled as if she were looking
forward to a fight” p. 145
 “„Don‟t be afraid to sleep,” she said. “Rest. I‟ll be
here beside you. I‟ll help your spirit find the place to
come back to. I‟ll call it for you; you go to sleep” p.
157

8. “At the Western Palace”
 “Beware,” she‟d warn. “Beware. Turn off your lights
so you won‟t be found. Turn off the lights before they
come for us” p.158
 “The next odd thing Moon Orchid did was to cry
whenever anyone left the house. She held on to
them, pulled at their clothes, begged them not to go”
p. 158

9. “A Song for a Barbarian
Reed Pipe”
 “I am not going to be a slave or a wife, Even if I am
stupid and talk funny and get sick, I won‟t let you
turn me into a slave or wife. I‟m getting out of here”
p. 201
 “Ts‟ai Yen fought desultorily when the fighting was at
a distance, and she cut down anyone in her path
during the madness of close combat” p. 208