I did like the sub-story of Ching and the beans:

• "Only a few of the beans did Wang Lung hide in his own hand and these he put into his own mouth and he chewed them into a soft pulp and then putting his lips to the lips of his daughter he pushed into her mouth the food, and watching her small lips move, he felt himself fed." (81)
• "'Tomorrow I will come and plough your land with my good ox.' Then Ching began to weep suddenly and Wang Lung rubbed his own eyes and cried out as if he were angry, 'Do you think I have forgotten that you gave me that handful of beans?'"
• "And it seemed that the handful of peas and seed which had passed between these two men made them brothers..." (161)

And I love descriptions (too many to share) of O-Lan's clever, consistent provident living:

• "Day after day she did one thing after another, until the three rooms seemed clean and almost prosperous..." (28)
• "Then O-lan worked in the house and made new clothes for each one and new shoes, and she made coverings of flowered cloth stuffed with warm new cotton for every bed, and when all was finished they were rich in clothing and in bedding as they had ever been." (158)

And most of all when Wang-Lung and O-Lan worked together (why did he ever give this up?):

• "Moving together in perfect rhythm, without a word, hour after hour, he fell into a union with her which took the pain from his labor.  He had no articulate thought of anything; there was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun,...They worked on, moving together--together--producing the fruit of this earth--speechless in their movement together." (29-30)