Things Fall Apart (Part I)

This story seems to be one from rags to riches. Okonkwo, who started with next to nothing, rose to one of the higher positions in his clans. While almost striving to overcome everything his father represents, he rules his family with an iron fist taking no excuses for laziness. When a adjacent clan commits an offense on their clan, Okonkwo takes in a boy, Ikemefuna, from their clan to later be sacrificed. After 3 years, Ikemefuna has almost become part of their family, but the time has come to sacrifice him. Not wanting to be seen as weak Okonkwo goes to participate. Time goes on and at a funeral for one of the clansmen, Okonkwo's gun goes off and kills a boy. Now him and his family must be exiled from the clan for some time.

This story seems to focus around sadness for me. A man who has worked hard for everything he has and is striving to become the clan leader has it all taken away in an instant due to a freak accident.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Part II)

The village headman was gone for a while so Luo decided to take this opportunity to visit the Little Seamstress each night and read the recently stolen books to her, all while the narrator would stay in their home and read the rest of the books to himself. They had decided not to work in the field whilst the headman was gone. One day the narrator came with Luo to the Seamstress's village. On the way there, he realized the danger Luo was facing daily to see her (a narrow, long, high path). This journey promptly gave the narrator a nightmare the next night. In this, the Little Seamstress fell off the ledge while prancing over it. The headman returned after having a wrong molar removed by a less than qualified dentist. He tried to get Luo to fill the problem tooth for him, but Luo refused. A few days later, the tailor came to the village. He stayed in the narrator and Luo's house upon hearing from his daughter that they could tell stories. For the next few days, the narrator told him the story of The Count of Monte Cristo. When he was nearing the end of the story, the headman took the narrator and threatened to take him to the secrurity office for spreading "reactionary trash". The headman bargained with Luo that if he'd fix his tooth, he wouldn't take the narrator. Luo accepted.

The two boys took this opportunity as a sort of revenge on the headmaster. Knowing that this would be very painful without an electric drill, they made it even more-so by going slowly.

After this, the book goes into a story told from three different perspectives, the old miller's, Luo's and the little seamstress's, to the narrator. The old miler's is told from a Leafy bush overlooking a pool of water where Luo and the seamstress were "swimming". He watched them for a while being sure that they would not notice him.
Luo's deals more with the seamstress's ability to swim and a keyring he would have her dive after from time to time. Then "today" the lost his keyring and something happened when the seamsress went to look for it that made Luo never want to come to that place again. After he had gotten back to his village that day, he learned that his mother had been rushed to the hospital and he needed to be by he side. The village headman gave Luo a month off to go because of the success of his dental treatment.
The seamstress tells of the day that they had lost Luo's keyring. Beforehand, they had eaten lunch and read some of The Count of Monte Cristo and proceeded to act out one of the more tragic scenes. After this, Luo threw his keyring into the water. The first time she tried to retrieve it, she had touched a snake at the bottom of the pool. The final time she almost had the key, but was then bitten by the snake which is the cause for their hesitance to return.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Part I)

This story starts out in a small village on a mountain known as the Phoenix in the Sky. Two teenagers, Luo and the narrator, are sent there for reeducation, basically to work. The village headmaster is examining a violin to figure out what it is, the narrator has to explain to him that it is a musical instrument. The boys' parents are persecuted during the Chinese Cultural Revolution for being doctors. During this "reeducation" they lived in a house on stilts with only two beds and an alarm clock that captivated many of the villagers and especially that of the headman. The boys usually worked by carring waste in buckets, but would occasionally tell stories to the villagers. This led to the headman sending them to see a movie in town and coming back and describing it to them.
This going to the city is what led the boys to meet the little seamstress. She would stay in her home and sew on her machine while her father would travel to the different villages to make clothes. When they talked to her for the first time, it seemed as if Luo was attracted to her. For a couple of months, the boys were sent to work in a coal mine on the mountain. It was dangerous work and eventually, Luo developed Malaria. The day he got it, Luo recieved a letter from the seamstress telling them that she had gotten permission for them to tell the story of one of the movies to her village.
When they arrived at the village, they told the stroy of "The Little Flower Seller". Luo told the better part of the story because he had a gift for storytelling. By the end of their performance, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Luo was struck down by the Malaria, enough to where they (the seamstress and the narrator) had soceresses come to watch over him.

Clocks Like Horses

From what I gather, this is a story of a man who used to be obsessed with watches. He still enjoys the watches he's inheireted, but not as much as previously. He takes one of the nice ones and carries it around with him one day. While at a restaraunt, his waiter asks him the time. He pulls out the watch, knowing that it didn't work, and before he told the waiter that it wasn't in proper working order, the waiter had taken it into his hands and was examining it. He told him of a man in the Fao region that would be the only one who could fix a watch like this. The man takes the watch there where he finds a man with many many clocks in his house all set to different times. Upon seeing his watch, the man wants to fix it and whilst doing so, he tells stories of his past life as a sailor who traded horses.

The Coffee-Cart Girl

This story starts out with a strike going on in front of the Metropolitan Steel Windows Ltd. In the midst of the crowd of people are several coffee carts and one in particular, is run by the story's protagonist, nicknamed Pinkie eventually. While the crowd of strikers are combating the police force that is trying to suppress them, some of the coffee carts start collapsing because of all of the people. A man, nicknamed China, pulls the girl out of her coffee cart and wheels it away just as another collapses. She thanks him and promises to give him free coffee and pancakes. Eventually, China becomes a regular to Pinkie's cart, but being without a job, barely has the money to pay for his food. Pinkie offers him free pancakes and coffee anytime he doesn't have the money to buy food. CHina graceously accepts, but rarely takes up on the offer. When China gets a job, he takes her to a cheapjack, Naidoo, and lets her pick out anything she wants. After this day, Naidoo also becomes a frequent customer to Pinkie's cart. One day, China notices a new ring in Pinkie's finger. When he asks her about it, she tells him Naidoo gave it to her for payment of three days of coffee and cakes. China doesn't believe this and gets jealous to the point he threatens to kill Pinkie. When he can't bring himself to do it, he apologizes and goes away. Scared to return, China contemplates how he'll talk to Pinkie after this. After three days, he goes back only to find her cart empty. He asks Naidoo about it and apparently the government restricted carts run by blacks. He sat in her empty coffee cart and thought of how or if he'd meet her again.

Papa, Snake & I

This story is told from the perspective of a boy in a family. After a meal, this boy went outside where he overheard his mother and father talking of a snake in their chicken run who had been killing their birds. His father said he would get someone to kill it the next day and they both went on their ways (the father to work, the mother to her sister's home). While they were gone, the boy started looking for the snake with his "brother". When he finds it, he just leaves it there. Eventually, two dogs (one theirs, another owned by a man named Senhor Castro) start to bark and paw at the snake. The snake bites the dog owned by Senhor Castro and the dog runs back to it's own home. At this point, the boy gets one of his brothers to throw a cloth over the snake while he beats it with a broomstick. After a short while, the father and mother come back and the boy shows the father the snake. Then, Senhor Castro comes over demanding that the father compensate him for his dead dog. The father agrees after a short discussion. Then the father and son talk about things and eventually the son goes to sleep.

The Betrayal

This story is told around a well respected doctor/polititian and his dealings with a rival political group that is being newly formed. Doctor Kamal was the president of a political group known as the Oriental Front. When a new group starts to form, he sees them as a threat to thye Oriental Front and hints to one of his subbordinates about taking them down. Salim Rashid, the one Dr. Kamal hints towards, gets together the Youth League to annihilate this new group. Dr. Kamal only says a few words of encouragement to the group before-hand. The next day, they are all present at the first meeting of the new group. During the discussion, members of the Orient Front interject with ideas of their own trying to disrupt the preceedings. Eventually, this all leads to the Youth Group rushing to the front an supposedly, start to beat the members of the new group. Dr. Kamal escapes, as to not be associated with this violence, and the police are called. Dr. Kamal gets curious and re-enters the room where everything is going on only to be "horrified at the new dimension added to the battle" which I can only assume is gunfire from the police.