Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Rice-and-Salt Days: Into the Clouds & Sitting Quietly: Regret Summary & Analysis

Rice-and-Salt Days: Into the Clouds & Sitting Quietly: Regret

Summary: Rice-and-Salt Days: Into the Clouds

After eight years have passed, Snow Flower’s daughter, Spring Moon, comes to see Lily. Spring Moon tells Lily that Snow Flower is sick, and has been calling for Lily. Knowing she would look badly if she did not go, Lily quickly makes arrangements to go to Snow Flower. Lily is heartbroken to see Snow Flower so ill. Snow Flower says she has been waiting for Lily, and that her love for her never wavered. Lily keeps looking for cures, though one of the sworn sisters says she should not keep making Snow Flower suffer. Lily sees the comfort that the sworn sisters bring to Snow Flower, while still making room for Lily’s relationship with Snow Flower. One day, the servant Yonggang brings Lily things she had not destroyed when burning the flower tower, including their fan. Lily reads aloud their laotong contract and sings to Snow Flower as she dies.

After Snow Flower’s burial, the sworn sisters tell Lily that Snow Flower was not actually their sworn sister. Lily realizes she misread Snow Flower’s nu shu, as Snow Flower only said the sworn sisters would love her as she is, not that she would be joining them. Lily is horrified at her stubbornness and stupidity, as she made a grave mistake in not considering the context of nu shu. The sworn sisters tell her that Snow Flower had sex with her husband earlier than one hundred days after birth to please Lily, as Lily told her the only way to happiness was to have more sons. They say that Lily only saw what Snow Flower was worth to men and that Snow Flower was already sick when they were in the mountains. Lily thinks back to how thin and ragged Snow Flower looked, and how Lily only nagged her to be more obedient. After Lily goes home, she writes what she believes will be her final message on the fan, hoping one day she and Snow Flower will soar above the clouds together. Lily will spend the rest of her life thinking of how to make up for what she did to the person she loved most.

Summary: Sitting Quietly: Regret

Lily looks back on the time after Snow Flower’s death. She attempted to take Snow Flower’s place in Spring Moon’s wedding ceremonies, though Spring Moon killed herself on her wedding night. Lily then had her husband hire Snow Flower’s son and provide a better life for his family. Lily made an arrangement with Madame Wang for Snow Flower’s granddaughter, Peony, to marry her oldest grandson, and Lily took over Peony’s education. Lily is happy that her and Snow Flower’s blood will take over the Lu household. While teaching Peony, female villagers begin asking Lily to write down their autobiographies, which Lily does to help them see the value in their lives. These stories cause Lily to think of her own, which only makes her feel regret. She is now using her story to reach out to Snow Flower and others who witnessed how Lily treated her, hoping for forgiveness in the afterworld.

Analysis: Rice-and-Salt Days: Into the Clouds & Sitting Quietly: Regret

After years of sitting with her anger, Lily finally learns the truth: that Snow Flower did not break their laotong contract after all, and simply wanted friends who would listen to her without judgment. Lily’s short-sightedness, her failure to take context into account when reading Snow Flower’s message, and her inability to see what Snow Flower needed out of a friendship all prevented her from understanding the situation. This again shows the power of language, as understanding the intricacies of it can form lifelong bonds or can irrevocably destroy them. Lily also uses the power of language and storytelling to make up for her past failures. By telling her story, putting everything in the context of how she was raised and grew to view the world, she hopes Snow Flower and her ancestors will understand why she behaved the way she did.

Telling her own story is not the only way Lily tries to atone for her wrongs. Lily once viewed village women, like Snow Flower, as worthless. However, she learned from the sworn sisters not to view a person’s worth from a man’s point of view. Instead, by writing their stories in nu shu, Lily comes to realize that everyone’s story is worthwhile in one way or another. By learning this lesson, she hopes she has in some way earned Snow Flower’s forgiveness.

Lily also tries to make up for her actions by being a mother figure to Snow Flower’s children. In some ways, she was too late. Spring Moon likely saw a future for herself that was similar to her mother’s, which was perhaps why she killed herself as soon as she was married. This again shows the cyclical suffering of women, as Spring Moon believed herself to be better off dead than living with an abusive husband and family. Though Lily once heard Snow Flower’s admission that she wanted to die and did not take her seriously, Lily sees the very real trauma that was passed on to Snow Flower’s daughter. This allows Lily to see even more clearly the cruelty in how she treated Snow Flower. In an act that she roundly dismissed while they were in the mountains, Lily tries to create a better future for Snow Flower’s descendants by arranging a marriage between their grandchildren. This shows that Lily is finally unconcerned with social status and tradition, and is, at last, trying to be a worthy laotong.

While Snow Flower is dying, Lily finally sees what true female friendship looks like. Just as Lily never realized Snow Flower was sick while she was in the mountains, she never saw and accepted Snow Flower for who she truly was, until Snow Flower was dying. When Lily first arrives, she continues the dynamic she had with Snow Flower for years by trying to fix her, rather than allowing the situation to just be. When the sworn sisters tell Lily she is only making Snow Flower suffer more, Lily sees that she has been in the wrong. Not only do the sworn sisters offer Snow Flower comfort, they also do not try to stand between her and Lily. This reality reveals that Lily was the one who allowed other women to come between her and Snow Flower, not Snow Flower.

Previous section Rice-and-Salt Days: Letter of Vituperation Next section Full Book Summary