Now we are lead right into a discussion about Madame Zhou.

We now know what the deal was there in her palace and can look back on it in retrospect and see the game and the pawns unfold. The thing that haunted me when I read it, and still haunts me now as I type about it is this bit of the story.......

Inside the pink hand made paper envelope that Rajan handed Lin was the B&W photo of Madame Zhou in her throne-chair..............poised as if in a royal wave and stamped across the bottom of the pic in red block letters was : "MADAME ZHOU IS HAPPY NOW."

At the time, what did you think she meant? What was she implying? What game was she playing? What was the affect on others?

The Madame has me baffled! I'm eager to read everyone else's insights because I really don't have a clue! She seems completely twisted, sadistic and demented to me, with very little grounding in reality. Not that I doubt such people exist, I just can't wrap my mind around their socio-psycho-pathology to relate to 'em!
What would make a person like that 'happy'? :unsure:
And what in the world would induce a young European girl to go to work for such a person?? Like I said before, the word 'desperate' comes to mind...

She still reminds me of the Empress Dowager of The Last Emperor. Have you seen that movie? At the end she dies, and they stick a marble in her mouth.

Well, Perhaps Mme. Zhou wanted to see what real love looks like before she dies. The damsel in distress, and the knight rushing in to save the damsel ? She'd forced and seen many things/events, but never love.

The writing didn't really come off as that to me, the first reading. This time I'm reading much more sloooowly, so haven't gotten there yet.

Madame Zhou is a tough character to figure out. She's had me stumpted on both readings.

The madame is a puzzle to say the least and the only thing I could think of that would make this woman happy was the power she thought she had over people's lives.

I interpreted the picture of her and the note to Lin as 'here I am, I am unapproachable, I am powerful and you should fear me'. 'I am happy for now and you don't want to see me otherwise'.

I'll jump in here, I agree that Zhou feels she has power over anyone coming into her "palace." I also thought it was a message to Lin that he may think he has "won", but that she will be the winner in the end. I didn't get to finish rereading the entire book, but isn't she the one that caused Lin to be arrested?

Yes she was and I'm glad you mentioned it because I'm still not sure why she did it!
And I really couldn't wait to see what Lin was going to do to her but when he saw her after the fire, he knew she was finished anyway, and left it at that. Don't know if I could have just walked away if someone put me through an ordeal like that!
Wonder what happened to her?

I think it was strictly for revenge against Lin for freeing Lisa from under her control. That's why I believed she gave him the picture, knowing she would get back at him.

Yes, I too thought it was because of freeing Lisa, but since I'd only read the book once, I thought that there might have been more to it or something I missed.
I even thought at one point that she wanted to split Lin and Karla up, in case it was a serious involvement.

I just got to that part of the book where Lin reads Didier's letter about Madame Zhou turning him in. (pg. 674) I still can't figure out why though, unless she made a deal with Karla to trade Lin for Lisa's release...is this cleared up later in the book and I've forgotten? Anyway, I guess knowing that someone was going to be arrested and thrown into prison for no good reason would be something that would make Madame Zhou 'happy'.

I'm glad it isn't just me (except, I have only read the book once!)

Maybe she likes watching people fight for their survival.