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The Bonesetter
Pan Kai Jing is LuLing’s first husband. She meets him while working as an assistant for his father, Teacher Pan, at the orphanage. Kai Jing is a geologist who works with other scientists in the quarry to find “dragon bones,” which are extremely valuable since Westerners discovered that the bones are likely ancient human remains. Pan Kai Jing is a kind, gentle man who admires LuLing’s calligraphy skills and strength. Their relationship is loving and romantic. Kai Jing respects and sympathizes with LuLing’s past but urges her not to be so beholden to it, insisting that there are such things as curses and that tragedy can strike arbitrarily. After World War Two breaks out, Kai Jing and two of his fellow scientists are captured and executed by Japanese soldiers. LuLing mourns Kai Jing’s death and initially contemplates suicide. However, she doesn’t tell Ruth about Kai Jing, and Ruth only learns that her father, Edwin Young, was LuLing’s second husband after she reads LuLing’s handwritten account of her life in China.
Pan Kai Jing Quotes in The Bonesetter’s Daughter
The The Bonesetter’s Daughter quotes below are all either spoken by Pan Kai Jing or refer to Pan Kai Jing. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Truth
Quotes
Why can’t I see it now? I’ve pushed a hundred family names through my mouth, and none comes back with the belch of memory. Was the name uncommon? Did I lose it because I kept it a secret too long? Maybe I lost it the same way I lost all my favorite things—the jacket GaoLing gave me when I left for the orphan school, the dress my second husband said made me look like a movie star, the first baby dress that Luyi outgrew. Each time I loved something with a special ache, I put it in my trunk of best things. I hid those things for so long I almost forgot I had them.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part One: Chapter Seven
Quotes
That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
Part Two: Effortless
Quotes
“There are no such things as curses,” Kai Jing later told me. “Those are superstitions, and a superstition is a needless fear. The only curses are worries you can’t get rid of.”
“But Precious Auntie told me this, and she was very smart.”
“She was self-taught, exposed to only the old ideas. She had no chance to learn about science, to go to a university like me.”
“Then why did my father die? Why did Precious Auntie die?”
“Your father died because of an accident. Precious Auntie killed herself. You said so yourself.”
“But why did the way of heaven lead to these things?”
“It’s not the way of heaven. There is no reason.”
Get the entire The Bonesetter’s Daughter LitChart as a printable PDF.
Pan Kai Jing Quotes in The Bonesetter’s Daughter
The The Bonesetter’s Daughter quotes below are all either spoken by Pan Kai Jing or refer to Pan Kai Jing. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Truth
Quotes
Why can’t I see it now? I’ve pushed a hundred family names through my mouth, and none comes back with the belch of memory. Was the name uncommon? Did I lose it because I kept it a secret too long? Maybe I lost it the same way I lost all my favorite things—the jacket GaoLing gave me when I left for the orphan school, the dress my second husband said made me look like a movie star, the first baby dress that Luyi outgrew. Each time I loved something with a special ache, I put it in my trunk of best things. I hid those things for so long I almost forgot I had them.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part One: Chapter Seven
Quotes
That was how dishonesty and betrayal started, not in big lies but in small secrets.
Part Two: Effortless
Quotes
“There are no such things as curses,” Kai Jing later told me. “Those are superstitions, and a superstition is a needless fear. The only curses are worries you can’t get rid of.”
“But Precious Auntie told me this, and she was very smart.”
“She was self-taught, exposed to only the old ideas. She had no chance to learn about science, to go to a university like me.”
“Then why did my father die? Why did Precious Auntie die?”
“Your father died because of an accident. Precious Auntie killed herself. You said so yourself.”
“But why did the way of heaven lead to these things?”
“It’s not the way of heaven. There is no reason.”
