How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #1
There was never anything hanging from the rafters in his uncle's crumbling old house. But in his own there was even a leg of pork which he had bought from his neighbor Ching when he killed his pig that looked as though it were sickening for a disease […] In the midst of all this plenty they sat in the house, therefore, when the winds of winter came out of the desert to the northeast of them, winds bitter and biting. (4.12)
Wealth doesn't have to mean money. It could mean something as simple as not suffering. How does this kind of wealth differ from monetary wealth? Is it more stable? More fulfilling?
Quote #2
He would pull up the stones later and he would put his own name there—not yet, for he was not ready for people to know that he was rich enough to buy land from the great house, but later, when he was more rich, so that it did not matter what he did. And looking at that long square of land he thought to himself, “To those at the great house it means nothing, this handful of earth, but to me it means how much!" (6.6)
Even Wang Lung knows that wealth means something different to poor people from what it means to rich people. For him, gaining just one plot of the House of Hwang's land makes him feel like a millionaire.
Quote #3
It was this word "money" which suddenly brought to Wang Lung's mind a piercing clarity. Money! Aye, and he needed that! And again it came to him clearly, as a voice speaking, "Money—the child saved—the land!" (14.103)
We are not sure how many other people would be so practical thinking about what they would do with lots of money. We're guessing there would be a lot more BMWs and mansions on that list if you went around polling people on the street. Does Wang Lung keep up this kind of thinking once he actually gets money, or does his thinking change?