Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
pet lovers believe, possess innocence and moral purity. They do not
deserve cruelty.
If only Miss Rong could have posed the situation in better English
and with more comprehensible cases of comparison: For a man who
rapes and murders little girls, what is a satisfactory punishment?
Should he not be turned into a beast of burden who lives in mud and
is whipped every waking hour so that he might learn what suffering
is and thus become a better being in his next incarnation? Or should
the villain be paraded about town to the jeers of a crowd, as they do
in some countries, placed in a burlap bag, tossed over a cliff, and then
dismembered so that he will have to walk sans penis in hell? On the
other hand, as has been described in both Christian and Chinese
hells, would it be more just if he were consigned to a vat of oil, one
that boils eternally and in which each moment is as unbearable as the
first dip of the toe, so that his horror is endless, without any hope
whatsoever of redeeming himself? Given my present state, I weighed
which of these various hells was least horrific and thus most appeal­
ing, and I hoped that my current state of limbo would not lead to my
learning which was true. I hoped I would not come back as a mud-
smashing water buffalo.
Thus saddened by this tour of Buffalo Torture, the travelers con­
tinued their bus journey to the grottoes. As the road climbed into the
mountains, Marlena and Harry were interested in taking note of the
scenery. It was an excuse to lean their faces together and make small
talk. “Those are poplars, I believe. . . .” “Look, eucalyptus.” “What
are those?”
Moff, who was sitting behind them, answered in a bored voice:
“Willows.”
“Are you sure?” Harry said. “They don’t look it.”
“Not all willows are the grand weeping variety.”
He was right. These willows were a scrubby, fast-growing kind
that can be cut back often for kindling. Higher up, the willows gave
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