For generations, the Lee family has lived in the same villa. When he was a boy, elderly Wei explored the city of Guangzhou with his nanny, but for the past decade—since he retired from his University position to avoid the attention of the Communist Party—he has barely left its walls. When his son, Sheng, is arrested and sent to a labor camp in Luoyang, 1,000 miles to the north, the family struggles to comprehend the distance. But the book suggests that while being rooted in one place can certainly provide stability, it can also cause a person to stagnate. Only by leaving home and striking off on one’s own, A Hundred Flowers suggests, can a person mature and discover who they truly are. This journey need not be long—Song and Suyin, for instance, each make a relatively short journey from their girlhood homes in Old Guangzhou to the Dongshan neighborhood. But growth requires movement.
Kai Ying demonstrated this when she came to Guangzhou as a teenager from her own village outside of Zhaoqing. Away from home, she learned to care for herself and to navigate the world independently, skills she leans on in the present to keep her family afloat. Tian’s trip between Guangzhou and Luoyang helps him to put his past grief to rest. And, of course, Wei’s lifechanging trip north helps him to become a version of loving, supportive father he wishes he had been when Sheng was young. In the process, he learns that many of the things he once valued mean little to him now. And, crucially, he learns to live his life in a better, more selfless way than before. When he walks through the villa’s gates at the end, changed for the better, he offers the hope that growth is available to all who will risk striking out on their own.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Journeys and Growth ThemeTracker
Journeys and Growth Quotes in A Hundred Flowers
What Tao would never tell anyone, including his father, was what he really felt the day he fell from the kapok, how for just a moment he was flying instead of falling, and how happy it made him feel. Even now, he envisioned soaring through the gates and beyond the Ming garden wall, high above the narrow, crowded alleyways where he used to run and over the wide, tree-lined streets that led to far-off places he’d never seen. Tao felt so certain that if he had just kept on flying, he’d have reached White Cloud Mountain.
“Do you want to hear the story of Huoyi and Chang’e now?” his grandfather asked.
Tao turned around and shook his head. “There’s no moon,” he answered.
“There’s still the story.”
“It’s not the same without the moon.”
His grandfather stroked his whiskers. “But we know the moon is still up there, beyond the rain and clouds.”
What good was the moon if you couldn’t see it? Tao thought. If it wasn’t there to help his ba ba to find his way home again? But, he nodded and limped back to the table and sat down, no longer caring which version of the myth his grandfather was going to tell him.
Wei felt suddenly vigorous and confident again as he hurried off to fetch Mrs. Lu. As he fought against the wind and rain, slowly making his way down the street, the line had returned to him again, Even so, the world intrudes. It must have been a line from some famous Tang dynasty poem he had long ago memorized. It bothered him even more that he couldn’t remember the lines that followed. When Wei returned home, he would scour his books of poetry until he found the poem. He’d spent most of his life avoiding the world, but ironically, it had landed right there at their doorstep.
By the time he returned with Mrs. Lu, the baby had already come into the world.
Wei avoided the crowded main boulevards, instead turning onto the smaller side streets as he walked in and out of the narrow alleyways. He found himself following the same route he had walked for over forty years of teaching and Lingnan University. Old habits were a way of life for him. He knew the maze of intimate streets by heart and couldn’t bear the large crowds and bicyclists that used to push him along in directions he didn’t want to go. Wei was never comfortable being around too many people outside of the classroom, and over the years, he’d found ways to avoid them and move along at his own pace while remaining as inconspicuous as possible.
He was secretly happy Suyin was waiting for him after school. She wasn’t so sickly-looking anymore and her skin had cleared. Walking next to her, he realized she was almost as tall as his mother and thin all over. […] She usually wore a dark cotton tunic and pants and he recognized one of his mother’s sweaters that she was wearing.
Tao liked walking home with Suyin; it made him feel older. He liked the way she nodded at him without saying a word, without making a fuss the way Auntie Song did trying to help him with his books or forcing him to put on his jacket as the days grew cooler. Suyin kept things simple and to the point. If he didn’t feel like talking to her, she never pushed.
“Ready to go?” she said.
Tao nodded that he was.
Dongshan appeared different now that she was actually living there, the villas behind the tall walls no longer a mystery. They were filled with families and problems just like in Old Guangzhou. But instead of the multitude of voices screaming all at once from the crowded apartments, there was a quiet seething just below the surface in Dongshan. Upon closer scrutiny, she saw the cracks in the stone walls, the big houses crumbling slowly behind them in need of repair or paint or new tiles. All Suyin’s illusions of grandeur had suddenly disappeared. She would never be the same wide-eyed schoolgirl walking down the street for the very first time, and the thought brought both a sigh of relief and a moment of sorrow.
But rather than remain antagonistic, Wei decided to change his tactics and thanked the clerk politely. “Yes, of course, I understand,” he said, almost cordial.
“I see you’re learning,” Tian had said, leaning in close and teasing him.
It surprised Wei how easy it was to talk to Tian, who had been a stranger to him less than a week ago.
Wei cleared his throat and said, “Have you heard the saying, ‘The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher’? It seems I’ve been the pitcher most of my life. I’ve forgotten how to be fluid. It feels as if I’m finally learning now,” he said.
Tian smiled. “You remind me of my own father,” he said, “although I’m afraid he never did learn.”
