Day: December 2, 2019

On this snowy day, I chose Billy Joel’s “We didn’t Start the Fire” not only to remind us that there are days in Ithaca that aren’t filled with cold but also because of Pao’s feeling at the end of the book. Though “we didn’t start the fire,” Pao has been “[trying] to fight it” all his life, seeking a better and more lawful life for the residents of Chinatown while bemoaning the dangerous ways colonialism interacts with the island.

I chose this song because it reminds me of Pao’s persistence of being a revolutionary and believing he was always doing the right thing to fight against the people who oppressed him.