Summary​:

Mr. Shi, retired from China, always tells people he meets that he used to work as a rocket
scientist before he moved to America. His divorced daughter, working as a librarian in the East
Asian department in a college library, is the only family he has left after his wife died. He is so
concerned about her well being after the failed marriage that he talks about her with his new
Iranian friend whom he calls ‘Madam’ despite the fact that they communicate with different
languages as neither of them can speak fluent English. Chatting with Madam makes him feels
more comfortable and more talkative, so he eventually starts to pressure his own daughter to stop
being quiet and talk to him more about her life. However, when she starts to talk, it turns out that
Mr. Shi is the one who is hiding the truth about his life from everyone, even his own family.

Literary Device:
Foreshadowing, which can be clearly observed since the beginning of YiYun Li’s
realistic short story ​A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, ​influences the tone of the whole story to
demonstrate the hidden truth behind words. The phrase “A rocket scientist” is the first thing
mentioned in the first line of the first page. This occupation is not commonly seen in a non
science fiction story, so it is a sign telling the reader that there is a reason why the writer decides
to pick this profession for the main character, Mr. Shi. The term ‘rocket scientist’ is repeatedly
used throughout the story as Mr. Shi seems to be very attached to the fact that he used to work in
that field when he was back in China. But when he says about his daughter’s annual salary as a
librarian in a college library that it is higher than what he could make in twenty years, the readers
can easily picked up that there must be something wrong with his work in the past which will
probably be revealed in the later part of the story. It is a bit more suspicious when Mr. Shi is
described with the sentence, “it is never his habit to talk about the past,” after it is stated that he
likes to talk about his profession as a ‘rocket scientist’ whenever possible. There is a bit of a
contrast in the ideas that affects the readers to think about this in the back of their minds when
they are reading the story. There is also a part where the narrator mentions “America makes Mr.
Shi a new person, a rocket scientist, a good conventionalist, a loving father, a happy man,” that
adds more doubt to the readers about Mr. Shi’s past whether or not he used to be none of those
before he moved to America. To add to that, the topic of the conversation he constantly has with
his daughter also ends up with his work as a ‘rocket scientist’ and how confidential it was. It
seems like that same thing makes him befriend with the new people he meets in the new country
but keeps him away from his own daughter since she was young. As all that has been mentioned,
foreshadowing appears in the story in order to create shifts in the tone. It creates excitement and
enthusiasm in the beginning part, then curiosity and doubt throughout the story. The phrase
‘rocket scientist’ causes the readers to expect something unordinary that would come after so that
they are drawn to carefully read through the sentences to find clues that might be hidden by the
writer. In the later part, when the tension is built from the foreshadowing until it reaches its
climax, the truth about the past has been revealed. It seems that both the main character and his
daughter are hiding something from one another and the truths are what amaze the readers. Even
with the clues and the foreshadowing given, the readers’ first expectations are still different from
the actual events written in the story. This leaves the readers to reflect on the story and how the
writer composes her ideas into each of the sentences. Words might hide much more than only its
definition as they can also have another layer of meaning underneath.
Response (Rewrite as a Poem):

“Xiu bai shi ke tong zhou;

There’s a reason relations occur.
A thousand years of prayers
Destined a father with his daughter.”

Ex-rocket scientist from China

Visits his daughter in America.
In the nearby park, he meets
An Iranian ​‘Madam,’​ so sweet.
Different yet understand
In a foreign happy land.

They converse about their life,

And his daughter who was a wife.
“Seven-year marriage just end
But she never speak the pain.”
She eats less, talks less to him;
He realizes her light is dimmed.

Bringing back that light, he prays

‘Til he hears her call one day.
The divorce was all on her
And her Romanian lover.
He accuses her for lying,
So she points at him the same thing:

“You were never a scientist

Like you told me as a kid.
No matter how hard you tried,
Everyone knows it’s a lie.
You never said what’s true,
But people — they talked about you.”

Reference:
Li, Y. (2006).​ A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.​ New York: Random House.