The central question of the book is how does one live with one’s fate? Ji-li’s success at the start of the book makes her seem fated for—and fully in control of—a happy life, as does her name, which means “lucky” and “beautiful.” Soon, however, she curses her fate of being born to the wrong family—a family in one of the Five Black Categories, which are the “worst enemies of Communism and the common people”: “landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, criminals, and rightists” (277). Ji-li slowly and painfully realizes that what she does makes little difference in determining who she is in the context of the Cultural Revolution. If her actions have little consequence in determining her own fate, she must find a new framework for deciding how to act, moving from a focus on individual goals to family responsibility.

When Ji-li and An Yi decide to predict their futures during the year they are waiting to go to junior high school, the prediction turns out to be “some good and some bad” (155), a fate that we all share. Some good things happen and some bad things happen, and our responsibility, in the end, is to keep going, to keep making what few choices we are allowed to make in the context of our larger fates.