A Thousand Pieces Of You Book 2
Rosy Demorest
Thousand Pieces of Gold is a 1991 Western film starring Rosalind Chao, Chris Cooper, Dennis Dun and Michael Paul Chan, and is directed by Nancy Kelly. The film is based on a novel of the same name.
Lalu is a young Chinese woman who is sold by her impoverished family and transported against her will to the American West in 1880. Upon her arrival in California, she meets Jim, a Chinese "wife trader" who sells her to Hong King, a successful Chinese merchant who lives in an Idaho mining town. The two set off on the long journey to Idaho and eventually strike up a friendship along the way.
When they finally arrive in the rough, isolated town, she is distraught to discover that she is not going to be Hong King's wife. Instead, she is to work in his saloon as his newest prostitute under a new name, "China Polly". She is further dismayed when Jim abruptly disappears, leaving her to fend for herself.
The following night, when Hong King tries to sell her virtue to the highest bidder, Lalu violently refuses to submit to her would-be suitors and successfully avoids becoming a prostitute, thanks in part to the intervention of a kind stranger, Charlie Bemis, who turns out to be Hong King's Caucasian partner. She placates a furious Hong King and convinces him to allow her to be his servant and saloon maid in order to repay the cost of her purchase. Hong King agrees to let her buy her freedom for the impossible sum of a thousand pieces of gold.
Polly, as Lalu comes to be known, endures great hardship. At one point, she is sexually assaulted by Hong King. However, she refuses to give up. She works hard and makes friends with the local townspeople. She also grows closer to Charlie, who begins to fall deeply in love with her. Meanwhile, Hong King is beset with financial problems and decides to sell Polly to the highest bidder. In a rare stroke of luck, Charlie wins her in a game of poker. She moves in with him but insists they remain platonic and keep separate quarters.
Jim comes back and wants her to be with him but he then leaves her again when he finds out that she is living with Charlie. The "white demons" begin to run out the Chinese people from their town so it will be a purely white town and the Chinese will stop getting all of the gold.
Polly works in many jobs and saves money to go back to China and her family, but ultimately ends up falling in love with Charlie. She marries him and lives the rest of her life with him in a different area so she will not be harassed by the white demons anymore.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 88% from 43 reviews. The consensus summarizes: "Thousand Pieces of Gold's technical deficiencies are handily outweighed by sterling work from a 24-karat cast -- and a story that has a fresh perspective on the American Old West."[3]
[Chorus]
Everything can break in two, but a heart can break into a thousand pieces
It's easy, my love, careful what you touch because
Everything can break in two, but a heart can break into a thousand pieces
It's easy, my love, careful what you touch because
[Verse 1]
Everything I wanted, it was in your eyes
Shining into mine, I couldn't see the signs
Beating with your heart while you were breaking mine
(Into a thousand pieces)
We used to be kissing but now we're screaming
I try to put back the pieces, just barely alive
Oh, thought of me, I gotta leave you for a thousand reasons
[Chorus]
Everything can break in two, but a heart can break into a thousand pieces
It's easy, my love, careful what you touch because
Everything can break in two, but a heart can break into a thousand pieces
It's easy, my love, careful what you touch because
[Verse 2]
Looking back you won't find what you looking for
You can knock on my door but I don't live there anymore
You can save your tears but when it rains it pours
(Into a thousand pieces)
I used to be on your side
But now you be kicking and screaming to change my mind
I gotta me, I gotta leave you for a thousand reasons
[Chorus]
Everything can break in two (Yeah), but a heart can break into a thousand pieces
It's easy (Oh), my love, careful what you touch because
Everything can break in two, but a heart can break into a thousand pieces
It's easy, my love, careful what you touch because
I remember being embarrassed doing puzzles with my in-laws for the first time. While it took me quite a while to find a piece, they were fast because they were experienced puzzlers. After discovering the satisfaction of working on a thousand-piece puzzle, I noticed similarities with meditation and dharma practice.
If there is a messy pile in front of us, it will take longer to see connections. So, separate the puzzle pieces by color or shape. In meditation, we see connections as we return over and over to the object of our attention. That process of returning is what gives the mind a chance to calm down, rest in the present moment, and watch our thoughts. In time, we realize how we create stress for ourselves by the frenetic way we think.
Sometimes we focus on small details in the puzzle. Other times, we look at the whole picture. In observing the breath in one spot, we narrow our attention. Other times we make our awareness broad. In the Anapanasati Sutta, for example, the Buddha encourages us to make our awareness include our whole body.
At one moment, the puzzle seems easy. Another moment, we want to quit. Similarly, we may be hitting a plateau in our meditation practice or encountering a seemingly insurmountable challenge. In moments like these, patience, creativity, persistence, and a gentle touch can help.
When we learn to see thoughts come and go, we develop the attitude of the observer. This is an important step because observing our thoughts is a major goal of meditation. Otherwise, unskillful thoughts spill out in our words and actions when we are irritated.
We learn to notice that thoughts of understanding, forgiveness, generosity, compassion, and goodwill for ourselves and others have a positive impact on our emotions. How we think affects how we feel. This is the principle of cause and effect. Test it to see if it is true for you.
With more moments of mindfulness, continue observing your thoughts. Engage with thoughts when needed, or just step back and watch. By stepping back from our thoughts, we create moments of rest despite the conditions of our lives and this unjust world. Most importantly, we create positive causes for this moment and the next. The practice is to pay attention to one breath at a time, one moment of mindfulness at a time, and one thought at a time. Even when there are a thousand thoughts.
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.
Daiyu never wanted to be like the tragic heroine for whom she was named, revered for her beauty and cursed with heartbreak. But when she is kidnapped and forced across an ocean from China to America, Daiyu must relinquish the home and future she imagined for herself. Over the years that follow, she is forced to keep reinventing herself to survive. From a calligraphy school, to a San Francisco brothel, to a shop tucked into the Idaho mountains, we follow Daiyu on a desperate quest to outrun the tragedy that chases her.
Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role. Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.
Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning White boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes she's been given a challenge.
Lalu Nathoy's father called his thirteen-year-old daughter his treasure, his "thousand pieces of gold," yet when famine strikes northern China in 1871, he is forced to sell her. Polly, as Lalu is later called, is sold to a brothel, sold again to a slave merchant bound for America, auctioned to a saloonkeeper, and offered as a prize in a poker game. This biographical novel is the extraordinary story of one woman's fight for independence and dignity in the American West.
64591212e2