Summary
The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, now with a new introduction from the author. A record of Mao's impact on China, a window on the female experience in the modern world, and a tale of courage and... Full description
- "Three-inch golden lilies": Concubine to a warlord general (1909-1933)
- "Even plain cold water is sweet": My grandmother marries a Manchu doctor (1933-1938)
- "They all say what a happy place Manchukuo is": Life under the Japanese (1938-1945)
- "Slaves who have no country of your own": Ruled by different masters (1945-1947)
- "Daughter for sale for 10 kilos of rice": In battle for a New China (1947-1948)
- "Talking about love": A revolutionary marriage (1948-1949)
- "Going through the Five Mountain Passes": My mother's long march (1949-1950)
- "Returning home robed in embroidered silk": To family and bandits (1949-1951)
- "When a man gets power, even his chickens and dogs rise in heaven": Living with an incorruptible man (1951-1953)
- "Suffering will make you a better communist": My mother falls under suspicion (1953-1956)
- "After the Anti-Rightist campaign no one opens their mouth": China silenced (1958-1962)
- "Capable women can make a meal without food": Famine (1958-1962)
- "Thousand-gold little precious": In a privileged cocoon (1958-1965)
- "Father is close, Mother is close, but neither is as close as Chairman Mao": The cult of Mao (1964-1965)
- "Destroy first, and construction will look after itself": The Cultural Revolution begins (1956-1966)
- "Soar to heaven, and pierce the Earth": Mao's Red Guards (June-August 1966)
- "Do you want our children to become 'Blacks'?": My parents' dilemma (August-October 1966)
- "More than gigantic wonderful news": Pilgrimage to Peking (October-December 1966)
- "Where there is a will to condemn, there is evidence": My parents tormented (December 1966-1967)
- "I will not sell my soul": My father arrested (1967-1968)
- "Giving charcoal in snow": My siblings and my friends (1967-1968)
- "Thought reform through labor": To the edge of the Himalayas (January-June 1969)
- "The more books you read, the more stupid you become": I work as a peasant and a barefoot doctor (June 1969-1971)
- "Please accept my apologies that come a lifetime too late": My parents in camps (1969-1972)
- "The fragrance of sweet wind": A new life with The Electricians' Manual and Six Crises (1972-1973)
- "Sniffing after foreigners' farts and calling them sweet": Learning English in Mao's wake (1972-1974)
- "If this is paradise, what then is hell?": The death of my father (1974-1976)
- Fighting to take wing (1976-1978).