Passion of Clouds and Rain

It is a rare book about a Chinese woman's metamorphosis through cultural conflicts in love adventures. It contains five chapters. Chapter One, "e;Searching for the Music of the Soul"e;, captures the amorous encounter of two professors on a California campus. It is deeply psychological and thrilling in the vortex of self-contradictions of the protagonist concerning a woman's quest for friendship, love, and self-identity. Chapter Two, "e;On the Wings,"e; registers the narrator's first quixotic but promising adventures in America. Chapter Three, "e;An Ugly Duckling's Swan Song"e;, reveals her culture shocks, agonies and setbacks on American campuses as a graduate student and her rebellious childhood in China with her father as a figure of communist authority and traditional patriarchy. Chapter Four, "e;Sex =/=Love?"e;, shows how the protagonist Yun, a female Don Juan, embarks on the road to spiritual liberation through the separation of sex from love. In the final chapter, "e;A Separate Utopia"e;, Yun has gone through purgation in the hell of East-West value conflicts. Does she find a utopia of her own?