Ray: "In China, medicine is poison, and poison is medicine. Every medicine is 30% poisons. But the medicine won't poison you to death. We have a saying, 'Yǐ dú gōng dú.' Attack poison with poison."

Bridge: "I hate chopsticks. I'm so bad at using them. My parents always tell me I need to improve. But chopsticks are hard. I use spoons."

Ray: ''I died once. The day I was born. My grandmother put me on the back of a tractor. when my mother picked me up, my head was split open. She told me about it. The great day when I was born. The day when I was given the gift of life twice. I still have the scars."

Alison: "I love guys with accents. English, Australian, Irish... You know, I haven't really gotten into Asian accents. Yeah, I don't think that'll happen."

Casey: "I want to be a teacher."

"Really? You?"

"I know. I'm such an introvert. And I hate nothing more than speaking in front of people."

"So why do you want to put yourself through that?"

"I just really want to be able to open people’s eyes, their minds. Chinese teachers say, ‘Close your eyes, close your minds. Open your ears to listen to me.’ For once, I want students to close their ears. Open your eyes to what’s around you. Open your mind to different thinking and open your mind to your own thoughts!”
 

Samuel: "One time, when I was really young, I scored a 80% on a math test, and my teacher made me take it home for my mom to sign. I was so ashamed, so humiliated, I couldn't show her the paper and I forged her signature."

"Wait. Did you say 80%? Like, '8' '0'?"

"Yeah. I was so ashamed, and my teacher was so disappointed with me. Everyone else had at 90%. I was pretty proud of how accurate the signature was though. I would have gotten away with it, had she not found the paper later."

Helen: "Oh, I have seen bugs in rice before. I think they are very nutritious. When I was a child, we ate bugs sometimes."

"Small ones?"

"No. This big. They live in bamboo."

Donna: "Are you full?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now I can show you the dead bug in my rice."

Andy: "Chinese grammar is much more difficult than English. It's very different."

"Like ending sentences with a verbs?"

"Yes, but more than that. In China, nothing is ever as it appears. An American can hold this pen and say, 'This is a pen. I like this pen.' In Chinese, if a man says, 'This is a pen. I like this pen,' that doesn't mean he's actually talking about a pen. He could be talking about anything. Something over there... one of his friends... anything. It's crazy! I don't know why we do that! But, it's also beautiful. If I took you to an ice festival in Beijing, you would look at the snow and say, 'Look at the beautiful snow.' I would say, 'That's not just snow. Look closer, it's in the shape of a sheep,' and you would say, 'Look at the beautiful sheep.' Then I would say, 'That's not just a sheep. That's a story.' And I could tell you the story that sheep represents. So, sometimes the complex is not just confusing. Sometimes, it's beautiful."

Alison: "I wrote a book once."

"What was it about?"

"I don't remember."