Taiming's home
When Taiming returns to his home, he is presented with an image of decay, and it seems like his family does not have the energy to preserve it: “The furniture and utensils in the Hu household seemed—was Taiming imagining?—darker with age. The ceremonial hall, where twenty years ago a few hundred Hus had assembled to celebrate, was now completely dilapidated and covered with the children’s scribbling; the loosened gold leaf no longer read ‘summum bonum,’ and the candlesticks, heavy with the wax that had collected on them, sat on a dust-caked altar.”
Tokyo
Taiming’s description of Tokyo conveys a sense of angst and hostility because there is an apparent lack of empathy and compassion: “The traffic was frightening—the masses of people and the busy machines, streetcars and automobiles—moving aggressively in an endless stream. Unwary pedestrians were bumped into, even on the sidewalk, by other people.”
Taiming's hometown
When Taiming returns to his hometown another time, he is shocked by the image of misery and despair, which is painted by the description of his family members and fellow villagers: “His father, Hu Wenqing, seemed to have aged a decade in the year that Taiming had not seen him. The villagers showed definite signs of malnutrition. Their cheekbones protruded, their eyes were hollow, and their complexions were wan. Their tattered clothing made them look all the more haggard. The onepieces that had been popular for a while when the economy was good had disappeared, and everyone had returned to wearing traditional Taiwanese clothes.”
Taiwanese cadets and women in kimonos
When Taiming and Sato are walking down a street, they see a foreboding image of Taiwanese cadets marching along, singing a Pacific War marching song. “They were marching in four orderly columns, but their uniforms were in tatters and their appearance in general was almost pathetic,” which indicates that the army is in a desolate state. At the same time, however, Taiming and Sato see a “group of Japanese women walking along the road in their finest kimono,” which emphasizes that the Japanese populace is oblivious to their country’s imminent defeat.
