Secrets and Companionship(pgs 92-168)

The conditions keep worsening for the residents of New Qian and a dilemma emerges for Noria and those in the community: Should one withhold information and keep secrets to save one’s self and dignity or is there an obligation to help others even if this presents dangers? As the front of the book indicates, “knowledge is power,” and this is becoming more evident as the situation becomes more dire. The section primarily seems to be about this struggle of secrets and what people are willing to reveal to others. Noria reveals this insight when she’s in the spring with Sanja.

“On the surface nothing will shift, but slowly our life settles around the things we cannot tell anyone, molds itself into their shape (167).”

What Noria is saying here is that our appearance to others, our persona (the surface of who we are) may be static but our life changes according to what we do not reveal, our secrets. This mode of life is particularly apparent with a number of characters in the section. Sanja does not reveal the severity of her family’s situation to Noria and neither does she initially reveal the illegal water pipe she was building. This seems to change the dynamics of her relationship with Noria, causing some rifts between them. Likewise, Noria does not reveal the spring to Sanja until the end of the chapter and has to contemplate guilt and regret on not sharing it with others who needed the water. Ninia, Jukara’s wife, still has the same appearance to Noria and Sanja, but underneath that appearance her life has changed for the worse, and she does not reveal that she has to siphon contaminated water from the plastic grave just to support her family.

In a more abstract way this is relevant to the past tea masters as well, as they have not imparted sufficient knowledge to Noria to make her understand the entirety of the teamaster philosophy. In a way they continue to live on, their spirits and legacies morphing as their knowledge fades.

It will be interesting to see how companionship changes for the better or worse as the situation becomes more desperate. Will friends turn to each other or seek to save themselves? We shall see…