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Liuli is Zhang Lin’s deceased wife. She died during the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, while she was pregnant with their child. Throughout the play, Zhang Lin interacts with Liuli through flashbacks to the protest in 1989 and apparitions of her in the present day. Whereas Liuli in 1989 was bubbly and relentlessly optimistic, the apparition of Liuli is silent, clad in a red dress. Whenever Zhang Lin is alone, he has trouble keeping her away, symbolizing how haunted he is by her loss. Zhang Lin’s visions of Liuli inspire him to record his story—and, ultimately, to rise in rebellion against the Chinese government again.
Liuli Quotes in Chimerica
The Chimerica quotes below are all either spoken by Liuli or refer to Liuli. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Act 1, Scene 4 Quotes
ZHANG LIN: Things here are okay. Better. You know how much has changed, how fast?
JOE: Sure, but seriously, this country –
ZHANG LIN: This country owns you. You don’t get to lecture us any more. I subscribe to this website, for my teaching, it sends me new American slangs and phrases each week. You know what phrase I learnt this week? Fiscal cliff.
JOE: I just, I remember being here in 1989 and there was hope, on the streets, in the square, people, like… imagining a, a, a future or whatever / and where has that –
ZHANG LIN: I don’t want to talk about this.
JOE: Yeah I know, only I saw it too –
ZHANG LIN: Yes, up in your hotel room, taking pictures. Behind your camera, plane ticket in your pocket, I was there. Down there, in the square, bullets the size of your thumb, yes? Dumdums, they open up inside you. They turned the lights out on us –
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Act 2, Scene 4 Quotes
[TESS] looks at the print [of the Tank Man photograph].
TESS: I always used to wonder about his shopping bags.
JOE: Why is everyone so hung up on that, what he bought from the store that morning?
TESS: Because I think that’s amazing. A man goes out to buy a paper, or a new shirt or something, and by the end of the day, he’s part of history.
JOE takes out his tobacco, rolls a cigarette.
JOE: Yeah but, forget the shopping, that’s not – that’s a picture of heroism, it really, it changed things, you know?
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Act 2, Scene 8 Quotes
LIULI: Let me speak to her –
YOUNG ZHANG LIN: Shh, she won’t understand you.
LIULI looks at KATE, laughs. Somewhere, speakers blast Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’. Tinny and distorted. KATE gestures to her CAMERAMAN to record LIULI. During this, coughing starts, off.
LIULI: We’re going to have a baby. It’s going to be born in the future. It’s going to be a great artist. It’s going to be a doctor. It’s going to own a shop. It’s going to have a doorbell with an electric chime. It’s going to have a car with a refrigerator in it and a rubber dinghy and three pairs of Levi’s. It’s going to have five brothers and sisters who look just like it and all my children, will be fat and happy and clever and kind. You wait. Just you wait.
KATE: Can we check that / for sound?
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Act 4, Scene 2 Quotes
GUARD: It’s only a statement. I’m trying to help you.
ZHANG LIN: Help me how?
GUARD: Help you be happy.
’
LIULI enters. The GUARD does not see her.
ZHANG LIN: I read a study recently. A scientific study, it claimed that the happiest people are the ones who are best at lying to themselves. For example, an athlete who believes, truly believes, there’s no one faster than him, is happy. Even if he comes last every time, he’s still happy.
GUARD: Is there a point to this?
ZHANG LIN: Yes. I think you are a happy man.
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Liuli Character Timeline in Chimerica
The timeline below shows where the character Liuli appears in Chimerica. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1, Scene 8
...that she’s going to die soon. Zhang Wei gives Zhang Lin a vague admonishment: “if [Liuli] were alive, she’d be so ashamed of you.”
(full context)
...1, 1989, during the Tiananmen Square protests. Onstage, his younger self appears beside his fiancée, Liuli, who is wearing a white dress. They’re participating in the protesters’ hunger strike, but Zhang...
(full context)
Act 2, Scene 3
...Beijing, Zhang Lin starts recording on his laptop again. The stage transforms into 1989, and Liuli asks young Zhang Lin to tell her the story of how they met. Zhang Lin...
(full context)
...leaves, but the door closes behind him. Zhang Lin opens the refrigerator himself. From inside, Liuli hands him a beer. Zhang Lin takes it and unplugs the refrigerator.
(full context)
Act 2, Scene 8
...“carried her home” and “told the English journalist to go away.” Young Zhang Lin and Liuli from appear onstage, and the story returns to 1989. Like before, Zhang Lin urges Liuli...
(full context)
...they laugh. Ming Xiaoli lets Zhang Lin know that she can hear him talking to Liuli through the walls, but she reassures him that she doesn’t mind. She remembers when they...
(full context)
Act 3, Scene 3
Sometime later at Zhang Lin’s apartment, Liuli shuts herself inside the refrigerator. Zhang Lin enters with Deng, a businesswoman who’s interested in...
(full context)
Act 3, Scene 5
...poster girl and her death as a Party casualty. As he writes, the apparition of Liuli appears from the trash and watches him. Many identically dressed actresses enter and crowd around...
(full context)
Act 4, Scene 2
...He wants to “help [Zhang Lin] be happy.” As Zhang Lin looks at the statement, Liuli appears and gazes at him. Zhang Lin doesn’t sign the statement; instead, he tells the...
(full context)
Act 4, Scene 6
Young Zhang Lin and Liuli appear onstage on June 3, 1989. “Ode to Joy” is playing. Young Zhang Lin, worried...
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Act 5, Scene 4
...end: June 5, 1989. Onstage, a bloodstained young Zhang Lin bleakly asks a nurse about Liuli’s body. The nurse tells him he can’t recover the body, but that he can have...
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