This section of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places presented Le Ly in a new light. She decides to start fresh because she was getting uninterested in the life she is leading. When the man she is with at the time mistreats her, she decides she must have respect for her own self before she can be of any benefit to anyone else. She did this by defending herself and treating herself with dignity. For example, she did not let a man take advantage of her by fighting him, and she vowed that she would not get into a relationship unless she could see that it was going somewhere.
Chapter 12 focused greatly on respect for oneself and for others. Le Ly finally begins to treat herself with respect. She also shows her mother respect by giving her all the gifts she brought for the entire family and granting her the authority to distribute them as she pleased. There is also a growing respect for Anh for always being there to support his family and expressing desire to be involved Le Ly and his son's, Jimmy, lives.
Le Ly's mother says something that I believe sums up most people's goals in life. She said, "it's easy to be charitable when you're powerful and rich; more difficult when you're weak and needy--but that's just when it counts the most! So instead of sowing bitterness, which is what we would be reaping today, I sowed kindness, and you can see the crop we harvest." She uses a metaphor that compares being kind to people to sowing crops. She means that kindness breeds more kindness, while bitterness only breeds more hatred. Most people's main goal in life is to leave this earth a better place than when they entered it, and they can only do this by "sowing" kindness.
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