Land of Big Numbers is haunting in a beautiful, subtle way. Te-Ping Chen manages, in each story in this collection, to create characters that are completely relatable yet grappling with life that is different in communist China or trying to adapt to a completely different approach to life in America. Chen ranges all over the place but addresses common themes that we all deal with, no matter how or where we were raised - generational differences, promises from the government of a better life for future generations, misunderstanding in romantic relationships, the desire for freedom and escape from the life you know. I'm not generally a fan of short story collections, feeling like they often drop you into a person's life with limited backstory and little resolution. But the writing here was so beautiful and the underlying themes and messages so thought provoking that I stretched this out and savored it, trying to limit myself to one story a day and then thinking about how it made me feel. Bravo!