81 pages • 2 hours read
Where The Mountain Meets The Moon
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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Minli is a young girl, the only daughter of her mother, Ma, and father, Ba. Together, they live in a small stick hut in a bleak, dry farming village at the intersection of the Fruitless Mountain and the Jade River. Nothing grows on the mountain, and the villagers work hard to grow rice in dry fields, soaking the ground with water and becoming mud-covered in the process. The name Minli means “quick thinking,” and Minli’s impulsiveness is a source of stress for her mother. The family’s only wealth is Minli’s: two coins in a bowl with a rabbit painted on it. The family’s low economic status distresses Ma, causing her to sigh frequently at her misfortune. Minli’s father, though weary from work, elevates his mood by telling stories. On this night, he tells “The Story of Fruitless Mountain.”
Story Summary: “The Story of Fruitless Mountain”
Once, a prideful dragon mother named Jade Dragon heard the villagers below her mountain complaining about too much rain. To punish them for their ungratefulness, she vowed to never let them see clouds or rain again—only dry, hot sun. Her children—Pearl, Yellow, Long, and Black—felt sorry for the suffering villagers and sacrificed themselves to become four rivers. Upon losing her children, Jade Dragon realized the error of her vengefulness and laid herself at the base of Fruitless Mountain to become the Jade River. The legend says that only when she reunites with one of her children will her sad soul be cured, and the mountain will become fruitful again.
Ba tells Minli that the Old Man of the Moon is the only one who can answer the question: when will rain make the mountain fertile once more?
Chapter 2 Summary
After a hard day of working in the rice fields, Minli’s parents send her home early to make dinner. Minli laments that her family works so hard and earns so little and desperately wishes she could do something to improve her family’s circumstances. Suddenly, a man appears in the road outside her house, wheeling a cart of goldfish bowls and telling customers that goldfish bring good luck. Minli’s neighbors warn her not to believe the salesman, but she ignores them and purchases one goldfish with one of her two copper coins.
Chapter 3 Summary
Story Summary: “The Story of the Old Man of the Moon”
There once was a powerful, wrathful magistrate called Magistrate Tiger, who was obsessed with joining the Imperial family and sought to marry his son into royalty. One day, Magistrate Tiger came upon the Old Man of the Moon reading from what appeared to be a book full of scribbles but was actually the Book of Fortune and contained all the knowledge in the world. The Old Man of the Moon explained how he’d tied a red string between every person in the world to all the people he or she will meet in a lifetime, and also to the person he or she will marry. He tied the magistrate’s son’s red cord is tied to someone in a nearby village—a baby, and the daughter of a grocer. This is bad news for the magistrate, who's desperate for his son to marry a princess, so he orders his soldiers to murder the infant girl and her entire family.
Many years later, Magistrate Tiger’s son marries the daughter of an emperor. When Magistrate Tiger’s son learns of his father’s murderous deed years before, he sends messengers to the girl's family to make amends and discovers that the baby girl survived the attempted murder, was subsequently adopted by the emperor, and raised as his daughter. That grocer's daughter grew up to be the princess Magistrate Tiger’s son married, just as the Old Man of the Moon had said.
Minli is convinced that the Old Man of the Moon, who lives on Never-Ending Mountain, will know how she can bring good fortune to her family. Ma discourages her daughter, feeling that Minli’s ideas aren’t grounded in reality. Ba, however, encourages Minli and offers up his own rice to feed the goldfish.
Chapter 4 Summary
Minli awakens in the night, remembering Ma’s admonishment and feeling guilty that her family has to feed the goldfish, so she releases the goldfish into the Jade River. Minli wishes aloud that she could find out how to get to Never-Ending Mountain to ask the Old Man of the Moon for help. Suddenly, the goldfish speaks. The goldfish tells Minli how the goldfish man captured her just as she was about to swim in the Jade River, which would have completed her tour through all the rivers in the world. Thankful that Minli brought her to the Jade River after all, the goldfish offers to show Minli the way to Never-Ending Mountain. Minli is shocked to be speaking to a goldfish, but the goldfish explains: “Most fish talk […] if you are willing to listen. One, of course, must want to hear” (28). The talking goldfish reminds Minli of the magical elements in Ba’s stories, so she decides to listen.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
This group of chapters contain the first four steps of Vogel’s hero’s journey: “Ordinary World,” “Call to Adventure,” “Refusal of the Call,” and “Meeting of the Mentor.” Minli’s ordinary world is a monotonous life of hard work and little pay in a farming village where rain never falls. There are no pathways for people in Minli’s village to rise above their economic station; instead, everyone just works to survive, and Minli’s own family has only just enough food to sustain them. The “Call to Adventure” comes in the form of Ba’s stories, which inspire in Minli a desire to change her family’s luck and a possible—if mythical—pathway to do so. The "Refusal of the Call” happens when Ma shames Minli for buying the fish, and Minli, feeling guilty, releases the fish into the river. The “Meeting the Mentor” step of the hero's journey happens when the goldfish speaks to Minli, sharing her experience and wisdom and giving Minli directions to Never-Ending Mountain as thanks for setting her free.
Ma acts as an antagonistic force in Minli’s life at the beginning of the narrative. She’s sympathetic because her life is hard, but she does discourage Minli and grow easily frustrated. Ba is Ma’s opposite, in that he experiences the same poverty but doesn’t complain as much, and his stories delight and inspire his daughter. Ma and Ba's differences show up most clearly in how they react to Minli purchasing the goldfish: Ma thinks it’s stupid to spend money, and Ba believes money is for spending.
Magic plays a large role in the stories Ba tells Minli, which is why when magical things happen in Minli’s real world—like the talking goldfish—she reacts with a mixture of disbelief and belief. It seems unlikely, but not impossible.
Sacrifice emerges as an early theme when Minli sacrifices her money to buy the goldfish, which she believes will bring luck into her home. In “The Story of Fruitless Mountain,” Jade Dragon’s children sacrificed themselves for the townspeople. Ba also sacrifices his rice for the new goldfish and also for Minli, so that she doesn’t have to give up her own food.
“The Story of Fruitless Mountain” sets up the fundamental problem in Minli’s village and foreshadows that Minli might be the one to find the solution. As the myth goes, if Jade Dragon could somehow reunite with one of her children, the village would again see rain and prosperity. The terms of the problem that Minli will set about to solve appear in the first chapter, creating a sense of suspense and direction for the narrative.
“The Story of the Old Man of the Moon” introduces the novel’s most clear villain: Magistrate Tiger. In the stories about him, Magistrate Tiger is greedy, selfish, power-hungry, and abusive. When Magistrate Tiger’s son eventually marries the grocer’s daughter, it appears to be a referendum on Magistrate Tiger’s pride: for all his power, he can’t change the Book of Fortune.
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