Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

by Jung Chang

To save money, they turned their oil lamps down to the absolute minimum, causing lasting damage to their eyes.

Being the second daughter, she was simply called “Number Two Girl” (Er-ya-tou).

Traditionally, an important way in which a woman expressed her love for her man was by agreeing with him in everything, and this came naturally to my grandmother.

In 1989 an official who had been working in famine relief told me that he believed that the total number of people who had died in Sichuan was seven million. This would be 10 percent of the entire population of a rich province. An accepted estimate for the death toll for the whole country is around thirty million.

We went down to the railway station to try to help old ladies with their luggage, as Lei Feng had done. We sometimes had to grab their bundles from them forcibly because some countrywomen thought we were thieves.

“Home? What home? I share a tiny room with my two grandsons. I have a corner surrounded by a bamboo curtain. Just for the bed. That’s all. When the kids are home I come here for some peace and quiet. Why do you have to take this away from me?” His words filled me with shock and shame. This was the first time I had heard a firsthand account of such miserable living conditions. I turned and walked away.

I realized then that when people are happy they become kind.

It was stated that I had violated these because my eyes looked “too interested,” I “smiled too often,” and when I did so I opened my mouth “too wide.” I was also criticized for using hand gestures: we women students were supposed to keep our hands under the table and sit motionless.

I realized it must be an unprecedented disaster, because the media normally did not report bad news.