We had a good discussion of The Good Earth., by Pearl Buck. Lots of ideas came out. We seemed to focus a lot on the female characters and how they were treated at the time of the book in Chinese society. It’s a tribute to the author that we were able to dig into the characters – there was a lot there to discuss! A high point of the discussion was near the end, when a young Chinese mother who was sitting near us in the café came over to us and said she had been listening to our discussion and found it interesting. She said women were doing much better in China now, even saying that women are having their revenge. I don’t know exactly what that means, except that maybe they are still treated as being special but are also getting rights. She drew some Chinese characters for us, for man and woman, and showed us that the symbol showing a house with a man and woman in it means “peace,” and a house with two women in it means “war.”

The café is new for us – let’s consider it an opportunity! The tables were nice for talking over and having our snacks. The acoustics were a little echoey, and it was a little hard to hear each other. We might change some things for next time.