Many things surprise Wang Lung about the city, but most of all, he is surprised at the plentitude. Unlike his homeland, where no amount of money could buy food simply because it did not exist, here there are well-fed people, meat and vegetables in the markets, and fresh fish swimming in tubs of water. Surely no man could starve in this land of plenty. They have so much food, as the man on the "firewagon" said early in Chapter 11, that for a penny one can have as much white rice gruel as his belly can hold.
Perhaps more surprising for Wang Lung is the fact that there are people that give to the poor. Surely, Wang Lung feels, these must be the best of men; surely they "must do it out of a good heart." But the guard better expresses the true motives of the gentry when he says that they do it "for a good deed for the future" or that they "may get merit in heaven" or "for righteousness that men may speak well of them." This guard's cynicism and bitterness toward the gentry sets the tone for the undercurrents of revolution in the following chapters.
The importance of family ties is again emphasized in this section when Wang Lung's father refuses to beg for food. The father points out that he has done his duty by siring a "son and son's sons"; thus it would be an insult to family ties to expect him to beg.
