Women were nothing in the Chinese culture; just another mouth to feed. And, just someone to raise to send off to another man's home.
So, having four daughters was a total failure for Mother. She was easily expendable when the Chinese regime changed ram Chiang Kai-shek to Mao Zedong and the Ang family fled their ancestral home in 1949, leaving Mother to cope for herself. From then on, Mother and her three daughters are on their own as they struggle to survive in a harsh landscape. With hunger, cold, Chinese cadres always on their tails, it is just starve or eke out survival somehow.
This story is based on the author's grandmother. It was so difficult to plow my way thru as it was one disaster and failure and challenge after another. I just know that I would have been dead very early on!
I have recommended it to a couple of people because it is a look at a China at the end of Chiang Kai-shek's reign. I certainly hope many things have changed in the last 75 years.
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