In the entryway of my home, just outside my office, hangs a portrait of a woman that reminds me of the “Parable of the Ten Virgins.” It held pride of place at our home in China too, hanging on the central landing where we would all pass it every day, just outside our living room where a little congregation gathered for church every Sunday.

It wasn’t an expensive painting, maybe $30-$35. I bought it one night on the street in Guilin, China, from the artist who was selling his wares. Nearly everything he showed were landscapes, understandable because Guilin is famous for its hauntingly beautiful limestone mounds, lakes, rivers, and breathtaking underground caverns. What tourist wouldn’t want to snatch such a memory to hang on the wall at home, except me who’s never been much for secondhand scenery, unless the specific location held a special personal meaning. But there in a pile of unframed paintings, in the corner of the back table, I spied something different, the portrait of a woman gazing out from a black canvas, lit only by the candles in her hand.

I was just walking alone, not intending to shop, so I hadn’t brought much money. I shied away at first, hesitant to offer for fear of insulting the artist. Yet I lingered, caught, as though the woman in the painting had grabbed my hands and spoken to me. I could not let her go. I walked around the stand and looked again, noticing the date under the artist’s signature, 2011, the same year I’d moved to China and my life had begun to lurch drunkenly side to side as I held white-knuckled to the helm, hoping the storm would pass. The artist had been holding onto the painting for a couple of years, possibly loathe to sell it, but there was also the possibility it was “old inventory” and he’d be willing to unload it cheap. I didn’t dicker, just offered everything I had. He looked at me and nodded wordlessly. The bargain was struck, and he rolled the canvas, tying it off with a little Chinese bow knot. To keep it safe, I carried it in my hands through the airport, on the plane, and down the freeway all the way home to Suzhou. I’ve done my best to keep it near me ever since.

It’s just a tourist painting, nothing valuable. It could easily have been painted from a copy of a copy of a copy, but I don’t care. The woman in the portrait is likely of the Miao people, one of the four major ethnic groups in Guilin, each with their own distinctive look, costume, and traditions. She is very beautiful with an elaborate beaten silver headdress and jewelry that is an important part of a Miao funeral or springtime celebration, but utterly essential for a wedding. A Miao woman will begin collecting silver jewelry when she is still a small child, so that on her wedding day she will be prepared to enter her groom’s family possessing her own independent wealth and standing. But it wasn’t the jewelry that caught me, it was the expression on her face.