There seems to be a parallel between the fundamental changes that Shu Wen undergoes as a person and the many social, military, political, and economic changes that are transpiring in China, her homeland, during the same time. During the next thirty years, Shu Wen gradually comes to adopt the Tibetan way of life and loses all connection to her previous identity. Instead of worrying about everyday matters and day-to-day concerns, Shu Wen gradually comes to adopt the Tibetan perspective that emphasizes prayer, self-reflection, and disconnection from the ordinary concerns of human beings that limit their philosophical growth.
I had mixed reactions to the book. The fact that Shu Wen lost her husband so early in their marriage was obviously very sad, but in some ways, the way that Shu Wen lost her entire way of life was even sadder to me. At the time that she first set out to find out what happened to her husband, her whole life was still in...
The way her life transition is presented in the work suggests that Shu Wen did not lament the loss of her old life and that her new way of life allowed her to grow spiritually in ways that she would never have otherwise experienced. Nevertheless, I cannot help feeling bad for her and thinking that if I had been in her position, I would have preferred to return to my native society and live my life in mainland China rather than in the spiritually preoccupied way of the Tibetans.
Ultimately, it was ironic that in order to find out information about what happened to her husband, Shu Wen had to lose her own life in a different sense. There is something poetic about the notion that death is only a change of form and that all of us continue to be part of the universe. However, I still find it difficult not to consider Shu Wen's life to have ended together with her husband's.
