When she started school in 1960 at age seven (the age that marks the evolution from wild monkeys to remotely civilized little humans), she was then called by her full name, a school rule that everybody simply had to abide by. She became Yuan Feng, Yuan being her mother’s family name. It was a deal, she was told, that her parents had struck before she was born, a prehistorical arrangement that the firstborn would assume Mother’s family name, and the rest, Father’s. But Father’s family name, Wang, never saw the light of day, as they didn’t have any other children. The end of the story.
