The Windup Girl

Hock Seng sits in the office during the early morning and thinks how he can get into Anderson’s safe, to get the papers for the Dung Lord. Mai, the little girl who assists him, appears at the door and tells Hock to come with her. She acts suspiciously, and he thinks he is about to fall into a trap. He grabs her and puts a knife to her neck, but she tells him the issue is with two of the workers near the algae vats. He finds them both ill and tells Mai to take them to a hospital. He helps load them on the cycle rickshaw and they drive away. Hock has a sense of foreboding that the algae vats have made the men sick.

Jaidee sits in a monastery and wears white robes, instead of orange, for he is not to become a real monk. His head and eyebrows have been shaved as he waits to be banished to the wastelands. He contemplates a painting of the Buddha under a bo tree and realizes the essential teaching of Buddhism: all is change and change is the only truth. He goes to see