Previous
Ray Brinkman
Ma Sih Hsuin, who becomes Winston Ma when he moves to America, is Mimi Ma’s father. A brilliant electrical engineer, he immigrates to the U.S. to study, and also because his father Shouying insists that he escape the approaching Communist takeover. Winston graduates from college, marries Charlotte, and has three daughters: Mimi, Carmen, and Amelia. He works for a company developing a portable phone and is a prominent inventor. Winston is beloved by all as a “cute,” friendly, eclectic man who loves math, national parks, and fly fishing, and he takes copious notes about everything. He rarely speaks Chinese or discusses his past, but Mimi realizes his hidden depths one day when he shows her the family treasure of the three jade rings and the arhat scroll. Winston plants a mulberry tree in the yard of his first home in the U.S., and later becomes obsessed with saving it from disease, though he is ultimately unsuccessful. Depressed by the completion of his invention, his wife’s growing dementia, and the death of the mulberry, Winston shoots himself in the head. Even after his death he remains largely a mystery to his daughters, who are left to deal with the fallout from his suicide.
Ma Sih Hsuin/Winston Ma Quotes in The Overstory
The The Overstory quotes below are all either spoken by Ma Sih Hsuin/Winston Ma or refer to Ma Sih Hsuin/Winston Ma. 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:
).
Part 1: Roots—Mimi Ma
Quotes
“They see every answer. Nothing hurt them anymore. Emperor come and go. Qing, Ming, Yuan. Communism, too. Little insect on a giant dog. But these guy?” He clicked his tongue and held up his thumb, as if these little Buddhas were the ones to put money on, in the run of time.
At that click, a teenage Mimi lifted from her own nine-year-old shoulders to gaze at the arhats from high up and years away. Out of the gazing teen rose another, even older woman. Time was not a line unrolling in front of her. It was a column of concentric circles with herself at the core and the present floating outward along the outermost rim. Future selves stacked up above and behind her, all returning to this room for another look at the handful of men who had solved life.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Overstory LitChart as a printable PDF.
Ma Sih Hsuin/Winston Ma Quotes in The Overstory
The The Overstory quotes below are all either spoken by Ma Sih Hsuin/Winston Ma or refer to Ma Sih Hsuin/Winston Ma. 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:
).
Part 1: Roots—Mimi Ma
Quotes
“They see every answer. Nothing hurt them anymore. Emperor come and go. Qing, Ming, Yuan. Communism, too. Little insect on a giant dog. But these guy?” He clicked his tongue and held up his thumb, as if these little Buddhas were the ones to put money on, in the run of time.
At that click, a teenage Mimi lifted from her own nine-year-old shoulders to gaze at the arhats from high up and years away. Out of the gazing teen rose another, even older woman. Time was not a line unrolling in front of her. It was a column of concentric circles with herself at the core and the present floating outward along the outermost rim. Future selves stacked up above and behind her, all returning to this room for another look at the handful of men who had solved life.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
