The dominant theme in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is also the primary lesson Minli learns on her journey and Ma learns in Minli’s absence: the value of gratitude. At the beginning of the novel, Minli’s family experiences the struggle of hard work and low reward, and their neighbors constantly battle tough natural conditions just to farm enough rice to eat. Still, the main problem is Ma’s discontent with her surroundings, which plants in Minli a sense of anxiety over their future and a desire to fix things. This discontentment is the catalyst for her journey, and it’s also the problem that the journey solves. When Minli finally reads glimpses the secret word on the paper of happiness, it’s thankfulness.

Minli arrives at this interpretation of happiness as a result of her interactions with other characters. She learns it from characters who have less than even she, like the buffalo boy. Though Minli feels sorry for the buffalo boy, he doesn’t feel sorry for himself; what’s more, he actually feels that he’s lucky because of his friendship with the weaver girl. Minli feels empathy for Dragon, who grew up without a family—something she has never had to go without.