Flying Lessons & Other Stories

In “The Difficult Path,” the symbol of the ocean represents freedom and opportunity. Enslaved in the Li household, Lingsi rarely has a chance to glimpse the sea, so she can only read about it in the poetry of Li Po. When she finally sees it on her way to the Infinite Stream Temple, she is awestruck and claims, “It whispered with a quiet thunder” (32). Her statement describes the lure of the ocean, the whisper calling to her with a powerful force. Because she is trapped in a restricted life with few opportunities, the lure of the ocean represents freedom from those limitations. In fact, when Lingsi does escape her life to live among the pirates of the Red Flag Fleet, she experiences the opportunity to take on any adventure that awaits. She shares this in her writing: “Now, as I write this on a pirate ship whose red sails paint the sky, I ride the vast ocean” (39). The mere act of writing is a break from societal expectations for women, and because she is on the vast ocean, the possibilities are limitless.

In “Sol Painting, Inc.,” water represents an escape from the shame and guilt Merci feels after the girls on the private school soccer team disrespect her family. At the communal pool, after her brother explains why her father remained silent in the face of the girls’ insults, Merci struggles with her emotions and longs to scream at Roli. In that moment, the pool—the site of many happy memories from earlier in her childhood—becomes another source of shame: She sees it as a dirty communal pool in need of maintenance, a far cry from the gleaming private pools that no doubt exist in the back yards of many of those soccer girls. As Roli’s wisdom sinks in, though, she opts to “take a deep breath and let the water offer what relief it will” (59). Her anger, shame, and guilt are too much to bear, and she needs an escape. The pool provides that. Moments later, she lets go of the shame and jumps in paddling after her brother. For her, water represents an escape, not unlike the freedom the ocean provides Lingsi.