Post #4 Form B

I want to take this post as an opportunity to express how glad I am that I did not grow up in China during this era. So far nothing about their lives, especially the lives of women, has made me want to live through that time. I hope you don’t mind but I am just going to list some of the examples which strengthen my resolve to not want to live during that era.

“The first coffin contained the body of one of his concubines, who had swallowed opium to accompany him in death. This was considered the height of conjugal loyalty.” (41)
Basically this woman killed herself in order to show her loyalty and subservience to her ‘husband’. I’m sorry but that is so not on my list of goals in life.

“In those days, a woman whose husband had died was superstitiously held responsible for his death. My great-grandfather saw his daughter as bad luck, a threat to his good fortune, and he wanted her out of the house.” (44)
The poor woman’s husband died and because of it her father doesn’t want her around. That’s really unfair to her. She suffers loss and then is hated by her family.

“A Japanese guard had spotted rice in his vomit and he had been arrested as an “economic criminal” and hauled off to a camp. In hi weakened state, he survived only a few days.” (65)
This man was arrested and allowed to die just because he had eaten rice. (The Japanese, who were controlling Manchukuo, had banned the consumption of rice.)

These were just a few examples of why I find this era to be unfair and why I wouldn’t want to live there.