a laotong relationship is made by choice...when we first looked in each other's eyes in the palanquin I felt something special pass between us--like a spark to start a fire or a seed to grow rice. But a single spark is not enough to warm a room nor is a single seed enough to grow a fruitful crop. Deep love--true-heart love--must grow.
Interpretation
A laotong relationship is a deep connection that requires nourishment and time to flourish.
In this quote, Lisa See reflects on the significance of a laotong relationship, emphasizing that the initial spark of attraction or connection between two people is just the beginning. For a true and deep love to develop, like a fire requiring kindling or a crop needing consistent care, it must be nurtured over time to blossom into something meaningful and lasting.
In practice
In a wedding speech, one might say, 'Remember that deep love must grow, just like a crop needs care over time.'
Nu shu means women's writing. And it was a secret writing system that was invented by women, used by women and kept a secret by women in one very remote county in China for a thousand years. It's the only language that was invented and used by women to have been found anywhere in the world.
I am still learning about love. I thought I understood it--not just mother love, but the love for one's parents, for one's husband, and for one's laotong. I've experienced the other types of love--pity love, respectful love and gratitude love. But looking at our secret fan with its messages written between Snow Flower and me over many years, I see that I didn't value the most important love--deep-heart love.
When I knew I couldn't suffer another moment of pain, and tears fell on my bloody bindings, my mother spoke softly into my ear, encouraging me to go one more hour, one more day, one more week, reminding me of the rewards I would have if I carried on a little longer. In this way, she taught me how to endure — not just the physical trials of footbinding and childbearing but the more torturous pain of the heart, mind, and soul.
I loved you, and my love had no return,_x000D_ _x000D_ And therefore my true love has been my death.
Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.
Love is the only thing that increases twofold every time it is shared.
Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got.
Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.
When you confuse personal love and cosmic heroism you are bound to fail in both spheres. The impossibility of the heroism undermines the love, even if it is real. This double failure is what produces the sense of utter despair that we see in modern man... Love, then, is seen a religious problem
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