Daughters of Shandong

Yei Yei and Father are teachers, but their salary is less. Nai Nai complains about the hardships she must endure in Taiwan. Nai Nai treats Mom like a servant and complains about the girls. When she makes Mom kneel for breaking a bowl, Hai loses her temper and defends her mother, telling Nai Nai, “She’s the one working all day while you sit and do nothing. You are the one who is a useless mouth to feed!” (310). Nai Nai strikes Hai on the face with her cane, and Hai is made to apologize for disrespecting an elder. Mom is resigned about her life but wants Hai to marry well and have a job so that she doesn’t end up like her mother.

Di is angered when she hears of this exchange, and when Nai Nai asks Father if he still sees the nurse, Di erupts. Hai joins Di in shouting at their father, blaming him for not defending them. They finally speak of all they went through, including that Hai was tortured by the Communists in Father’s place. Nai Nai orders them out of her house. Mom chides them, saying Nai Nai must be shown respect, but Hai would rather live on the street than submit to her.

To the girls’ great surprise, Father says he will move out with them. Hai feels justified in speaking out and thinks, “Silence was not the virtue that we had always been taught it was. In all these years, it had been the enemy of change” (321).

The family moves to Douliu, where Father takes a teaching job. They receive food from Christian charities. In school, the language is Mandarin, which Hai struggles to understand. She is embarrassed by the low opinion her classmates have of her and is determined to improve.

Di can’t forgive their father for leaving them in Zhucheng, though Hai is ready to move on. She understands that filial piety is an important Confucian ideal. Mom becomes pregnant again and gives birth to Li-Hua, another sister.

Hai, now 17, focuses on her studies. After eavesdropping on cram classes, she is permitted by Teacher Lu to join the class, and her grades improve. Hai thinks, “The gift of a stranger can make the difference of a lifetime” (333).

Knowing their family cannot afford to send her to high school, Hai hopes to attend the top teaching school, Shi Fan School in Taipei. Father says the entrance exam fee is too expensive. Mom decides to sell her jade bangle to pay Hai’s fees to take the exam. Hai studies hard so she might succeed, get a job, and support her mother.

Father accompanies Hai to Taipei, where she will take the exam. Hai is amused by how much Mom wants her to pack, recognizing her mother’s care for her. They dine with the Ang family. Chiao is taking his university entrance exams and is given a fish brain to eat. Hai can tell he dislikes it, but he eats it anyway. Hai is moved when Father insists she take his bed so she might be rested.

The exams go well, thanks to her preparation, and Chiao reports that Hai has been accepted into Shi Fan. When the acceptance letter comes, Hai is overjoyed, thinking, “I wasn’t just a useless mouth to feed—none of us girls were” (345). She feels she has a future and will be able to support her mother and sisters, just as she hoped.

In 1953, when she is 36, Mom gives birth to a son. Yei Yei names him Li-Ming. He is considered the Ang family heir, displacing Chiao, and Yei Yei wants Father to move back to Taipei. Hai is doing well in school and eating well in the cafeteria. At age 18, she finally has enough nutrition that she begins to menstruate. Hai reflects that Father thinks he makes his own fortune because he has choices, but women believe in fate because they are subject to the decisions of others.

Hai fights with her mother when she realizes Mom is only giving Hua rice water and saving all the formula for Ming. She shouts at her mother, “I’m ashamed to see you act this way, when you know how much we suffered because we weren’t sons!” (349). Mom says she loves her daughters, but Ming is the one who will support her when she is old, and she has a duty to him. Hai realizes of her mother, “In her mind, these injustices were part of being a woman, and bearing them was simply our fate. Men made the rules in our society, but women often enforced them” (350). Hai realizes that having her own money means she can push against the beliefs that others are trying to force on her. She decides to use her own stipend to buy Hua formula, determined to break the cycle of believing girls inferior.

Di is dating a man named Ang Li-Tang. Due to the possibility that he is a tang cousin, Yei Yei disapproves and insists Di break things off. He sets Di up on a date with Yuan Jia-Shen, with Hai to join them as chaperone. Hai finds Jia-Shen attractive and is delighted when he orders a shrimp dish she likes. Hai is embarrassed when Di leaves the restaurant without telling them, but Jia-Shen asks her to stay.

Jia-Shen’s father was a doctor in Zhucheng who was killed during the Communist takeover. The peasant who defied orders and buried his body was killed also. Jia-Shen’s connections help his career, and Hai is happy to date him. When he asks her to marry him, Hai is honest about wanting to control her own money. Jia-Shen not only agrees but also helps her pay for surgery on Lan’s legs.

Shortly after Hai marries, she discovers Di is pregnant. Li-Tang, who broke up with her, refuses to take responsibility. Mom takes Di to get an abortion. Di is heartbroken over the breakup and becomes listless. She agrees to marry the man their father selects for her. Hai fears that Di has lost her sense of self. One day, when they are shopping and see Li-Tang’s car, Hai uses her keys to carve insults into the paint. Still, Di seems to have given up her fighting spirit, and after she marries, the family sees little of her.

In June 1960, when she is 23, Hai has a child. The labor is painful, but her mother is there with her. Mom cries when she sees the baby is a girl. Mom weeps, “I just don’t want you to end up like me […] I want you to have a son, so your position is assured” (369). Hai replies that her position is secure because Mom sold the jade bangle so Hai could go to school. She is surprised that, after all they went through, Mom still has this belief about a girl’s inferior value.

Hai promises her daughter that things will be different for her. She goes on to have two sons, and she overfeeds her children so they will never be hungry. Hai is outraged to learn that Nai Nia is still making Mom kneel. She buys an apartment for her mother, who says she should give it to Ming. Only when Ming is 22 does Mom refuse to kneel when Nai Nai tells her to. Mom replies that her son is earning money and will take care of her, so she doesn’t need to rely on Nai Nai or Father any longer.

Hai is crushed by this story because she has been trying to take care of her mother for years: “[D]espite my love and support for her, in her mind it was still her son who made the difference between her servitude and her freedom” (372). Sometimes Hai wonders how her life, or Mom’s, or Di’s, would have turned out if they had stayed in Hong Kong.

Hai teaches her daughter a sense of independence and encourages education for all three of her children. Her daughter, Yun-Mei, attends First Girls’ High School. Hai takes her out on errands to show off her uniform. At her daughter’s graduation, Hai realizes: “Sometimes, success is something that happens over the course of generations, something that is built upon life after life, each one opening a path so that those coming after can walk easier, farther” (376).

Hai feels pride at the airport as she sends her daughter off to get a master’s degree in the United States. She thinks of her mother’s entrance to Qingdao and realizes, “Through her strength, I became who I was, and through that, I cannot help but feel that my daughter’s success is also hers to rejoice in” (377). She reflects that her daughter’s independence is also the freedom to find happiness. As they leave the airport, Hai feels victorious.