Daughters of Shandong

Nai Nai, Hai’s maternal grandmother, locks Mom out of the house because she has learned Mom is pregnant again. Hai loyally sits with her mother. The Ang family have gained prestige through government positions and they live in a palatial shiheyuan, but Nai Nai hates her daughter-in-law because she has only borne daughters: Hai, 11; Li-Di, 10, whose name means “younger brother”; and Three, who is two. “Girls,” Hai has been taught, “were nothing more than wives for other people’s sons” (7).

Nai Nai tried keeping Mom and her husband apart because a fortune teller predicted Mom would have a son when she was 36, so the pregnancy makes Nai Nai furious. Mom is treated like a servant by Nai Nai, who is hated by the peasants who work their land. Though Nai Nai is stingy, Mom sneaks food to the workers whose families are in need. Mom has no one to protect her from Nai Nai, because a woman cuts ties with her birth family when she marries.

Her cousin Chiao, who is the cherished male heir, wants Hai to play. Father returns, but he does not defend Mom to his mother. Hai says, “I saw my parents as a land animal and a sea animal chained together, forced to remain on the water’s edge—each surviving but neither thriving” (11). While their father eats the dinner she cooked, Mom is forced to kneel on the floor. Mom tells Hai she is lucky to be born to a good family; she will marry a rich man and have a comfortable life. However, Hai sees she will have to bear a son and hopes her mother-in-law is not as cruel as Nai Nai.

In July 1948, Li-Lan, a fourth daughter, is born. Di often disappears when there is work to do, so Hai is left minding Three. On a hot day, Hai takes Three to the river with their cousins, Chiao and his sister, Pei. It is Ghost Month, and Hai thinks of spirits as they play. Chiao surprises Three with a frog, and Three falls into the water.

Later, Three falls ill, and Hai believes it is her fault. Three has tuberculosis and needs a doctor, but although Mom begs on her knees, her husband and Nai Nai refuse to pay an expensive doctor’s fee on behalf of a girl. The sitting room is full of beautiful artifacts, and Hai thinks, “We were in a cage made of riches; though Mom and I could admire them, they were not ours. Inside, we were trapped, helpless as I envisioned my sister floating away” (20). Father is afraid to upset his mother, so does not speak against her. Three dies, and Hai knows her mother is consumed by guilt as well as grief.

That winter, Hai learns that the leader of the Nationalist or Kuomintang government, Chiang Kai-Shek, is losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communist army. Hai’s uncle, Jian, is a colonel in the Nationalist Army, which is retreating as Communists take over Shandong. Three of their workers, Mr. Hu, Mr. Zhang, and Mr. Wang, warn Mom that the Communists are killing landowners to redistribute their land. The Angs are on their list of enemies. They urge her to flee.

Mom tells the rest of the family. Yei Yei, Hai’s grandfather, wonders if they can bribe the Communists, just as they bribed the warlords. Nai Nai thinks the workers are lying. Father thinks they should leave. Nai Nai suggests leaving Mom behind to defend their property, since the workers like her. Hai watches as Nai Nai packs and the household departs for Qingdao, leaving them with a few bags of flour. Father leaves them a gold tael.

In the empty house, Hai has little company from Di, who spends her time looking at her trading cards and singing. Hai practices her calligraphy and wishes she could continue her schooling.

A group of Communist soldiers comes to the house looking for the Ang men. They become angry when Mom says her husband is away on business. Mr. Zhang intervenes, telling the comrades that Mom is “a miserable wife, abused by the Ang family and as oppressed as any peasant” (44). Comrade Kang says she will not be punished, but they must leave immediately.

The girls strap bags of flour under as many clothes as they can wear. Mom brings her jade bangle and ruby ring. Hai reminds herself that her father said the Communists are after landowners, not little girls. Hai worries that the cadres, the soldiers, will try to stop them from bringing along food, and she regrets leaving behind her doll. Mr. Zhang and Mr. Wang help them leave, saying other landowners have been shot or beaten to death.

Mr. Zhang lets them stay in a shed behind his house, which they share with a donkey, chickens, and Mr. Zhang’s dog. Mom says she will write to Father and he will bring them to Qingdao. Other workers bring food.

The New Year passes, and Chiang Kai-Shek retreats to Taiwan. Hai fears that Father has abandoned them, thinking, “Now that [Mao] was the new god of red China, blood was going to rain. My family was going to drown” (55). The cadres insist that, in Father’s absence, one of the Ang women must be held accountable for the family’s crimes. Comrade Lao sees that because Mom has callused hands, she, too, is a victim of the old system. Since Hai has soft hands, she is taken to stand in place of her father.

Hai is taken to Wildflower Field, where she used to play. Other landowners are there, tied and forced to kneel on the frozen ground. The comrade tells Hai she must atone to move forward into liberation. A sign is hung around her neck identifying her as a reactionary and enemy of the people. Hai is horrified when she becomes the target of insults and people throwing dirt and snow. She suspects her Father knew this was coming and that is why he left. She fears the blows have killed the Lins beside her.

Comrade Cheng says her family is not in Qingdao; the house there is empty. He demands to know where her father and grandfather are and strikes Hai when she cannot say. After beating her, Cheng takes out a knife. Hai screams, “We can’t control my father or my grandfather. We cannot question them! We have no power. We are girls!” (73). The interrogation continues, and the other landowners are killed. Mrs. Wu, a widow, is given to one of the cadres as a wife.

Mr. Hu helps take Hai back to the shed, where Mom sobs to see her. She tends Hai with the help of the Zhangs. Hai is glad to have survived but wonders if she deserves what happened to her.

The bruises fade, but Hai’s knees have been damaged from kneeling on the frozen ground, and she feels ashamed of the names she was called.

Mom decides that they must leave, and Qingdao is a place where they can hide who they are. Hai feels hope. One day she sees Di eating a stolen egg and is angry at Di’s selfishness. Di protests that she is adapting. They need a travel permit, and Mom believes they can make one themselves.

Mom trades a bag of flour for red ink and barters for paper and soap. Hai forges a travel permit and its red stamp. They bake flatbread for their journey. One night, Mom doesn’t return, and Hai begins to fear something has happened to her. The girls are overjoyed when their mother returns with a wheelbarrow she stole from their property, which the cadres are now living in.

It is a walk of 150 kilometers to Qingdao. They set out early in the morning, and Mr. Zhang’s dog follows them. Mr. Zhang says the dog will come back, but he doesn’t; he follows the family on their long journey, so Hai names him Lucky.

Their journey is exhausting, and Hai is terrified when the cadres stop them. She realizes that the cadres are illiterate and don’t know their travel permit is a forgery. Dusty and ragged, they look just like peasants, so the cadres let them go, giving them travel advice.

As they walk they forage for jicai, a wild vegetable. Hai wraps rags around her feet when her shoes wear out. They reach Jiaozhou Bay, which Mom says smells like home. Hai realizes her name, which means “ocean,” signifies what the sea means to her mother. One cadre gives them money, and they buy fish soup from a vendor. Hai thinks “the meal itself [was] a beacon of light in a time of darkness” (108).

The travelers hear that the Communist Party is advancing and taking over more cities in the south. The road becomes more crowded as they near Qingdao, which is not yet under Communist control due to the presence of the United States Navy. They pass through several checkpoints, and while several cadres are kind to them, Hai knows she will always feel afraid when she sees that uniform.

At one checkpoint, the cadre calls for Comrade Lao, and Hai panics. However, it is a different man, and the soldiers decide that the Zhucheng office does not yet know the standards for issuing travel permits. Hai has a panic attack and collapses; Mom puts her in the wheelbarrow to enter Qingdao. Hai thinks that Mom “looked like a warrior who was about to overtake a city—not for the Nationalists, not for the Communists, but for herself and her daughters” (114). They pass through the entrance arch into Qingdao.