Chain Sister (蒨姐)

Chain Sister (蒨姐)

YE Meng-Hua

June 2012

The Years in Nanjing 

Chain Sister was the youngest of my three elder sisters and six years older than me. While my other two sisters mothered me all the time, Chain Sister never did.   

Once, when I was about five years old, she took me out with a couple of friends of hers at Han Kou Lu Elementary School.  They played on the swings and I stood by watching.  Somehow, one of the swings hit my head and I started bleeding.  Chain Sister asked me if I felt any pain, and I said no.  She was pleased with my answer and told me to tell our mother that I felt no pain if mother asked.  They took me to someone’s home and washed my blood stained shirt. Though they intended to get rid of the bloody evidence, the stain was only smeared and enlarged.   

Then, for a “treat,” she and her friends took me to the track field at Nanjing University to watch the executions of the enemies of the Chinese Communists, which took place at about 4:00 PM every afternoon.  There were so many executions in those days that the official execution ground was too busy to accommodate them on a daily basis.  So, the authority converted track fields of universities into temporary execution grounds.  We sat on the side of the field and observed the whole process.  Soldiers brought those enemy elements tied with ropes onto the field and fired .They fell to the ground and were dragged away.   

That afternoon when I got home, I shouted as I went upstairs, trying to help Chain Sister to cover up the bleeding incident: “Mom, Mom!  I don’t feel any pain at all!”  Chain Sister tried to stop me from reporting the case but it was too late. I was mocked for my stupidity for many years since. 

Well, I was only five years old then. Our parents were never worried about our grades in school. Actually, neither my sisters nor I did very well in elementary school.  Dad and Mom had confidence in us as well as themselves, since we carried their genes.  They also believed that stressing a brain at a young age would damage it and later lead to stupidity.   

This belief was planted in the minds of Chain Sister’s as well as mine.  From two letters to her husband on 15 and 29, July, 1971, Chain Sister wrote regarding her son, Mao Jie, who was then three years old: “It is hard to imagine that Mao Jie is already able to write characters now.  But he is too little. Don’t teach him too much.  Otherwise, his brain may be damaged when he’s grown up.” (毛捷都会写字了，简直没想到。他太小，不要教他太多。否则长大了脑子要坏的。)  And again, “Mao Jie is too little.  Be sure not to teach him to write.  My Dad and Mom both said so.  Please be sure about this.  To use the brain at too early a tender age, the brain may become stupid when grown up. (毛捷太小，千万不要教他写字。爸妈都这样说。千万千万。 太小用脑，长大了，脑子就会笨的。) 

However, Mom would still be happy when we brought home a good grade.  Once, when Chain Sister received a full mark on a test, Mom decided to celebrate by giving her a treat: a small pot of boiled water chestnuts.   Water chestnuts at that time were considered dirty because they might carry schistosome eggs. So, we rarely had them.  Mom bought them, washed them carefully, put them in a small pot usually dedicated to boiling milk, and boiled them for a long time to kill possible parasites.  I remember this vividly because I was allowed to enjoy the treat with her. The water chestnuts were delicious; sweet, juicy, and crunchy.  I have never had such tasty water chestnuts like that ever since. 

In the summer of 1956, Chain Sister and I took a cruise on the Yangtze River to join father and mother.  They were on vacation in Mount Lu (庐山), a trip organized by the Nanjing University Teacher’s Union to escape the unbearable heat waves in Nanjing. It was not only my first cruise trip but also the first time I left Nanjing for another city. Looking back, it was also the only trip I ever made with Chain Sister. 

Chain Sister and I had our own first class cabin on the ship, with two beds and an electric fan for each. The cruise trip took two days to go upstream to the city of Jiujiang (九江).  I explored every corner of the ship and enjoyed the view of the mighty river.  Sister Chain, on the contrary, slept in the cabin for the whole time.  She told me she enjoyed having a space of her own and having with two electric fans running to cool her off.  In retrospect, what she had said might have been only excuses for her sea sickness. She finally regretted it when the ship sighted a pod of Yangtze dolphins passing by.  I ran into our cabin and woke her up, but when she reached the deck the dolphins had passed. 

Needless to say, we had a great time touring Mount Lu after we joined father and mother and stayed in a fancy guest house for several days, experiencing clouds drifting into our room every morning when we opened the window.  One thing that still vividly remains in my memory was the single experience I had in China with a Western meal.  One day, father and mother took us to a restaurant in the Mount Lu Guest House （庐山宾馆） and treated us to a “Western meal.”  Unlike a Chinese meal, where all the dishes are served more or less at the same time, a Western meal was instead served strictly by courses one by one, and there was a long waiting time between courses. Even worse, the waiters took away the unfinished dishes of the previous course when the next course was served.  Sister Chain and I were not used to this kind of eating.  We got bored of waiting for the next course, so we went out play in between courses.  Unfortunately, we could not time it well, so when we returned to our table we missed some courses without even seeing or tasting them.   

When Chain Sister was in Nanjing’s 4th Female Mid/High School (四女中), the eldest sister, Yunhua, was first in the military and then at Peking University, Rong Sister was first at the 10th Mid/High School and then at Nanjing University, and I was first in an elementary school and then at the 10th Mid/High School. When Yunhua and Rong Sister left home for university, Chain Sister and I were the only siblings remaining at home in 5-15 Xiao Fen Jiao (小粉桥).  Thus, I got the tiny room on the second floor and Chain sister got the attic for herself. There were two desks in our home.  The big black one was always Dad’s.  The smaller brown one was used by Sister Rong first, then by Sister Chain when Sister Rong left for university, and later by me when Sister Chain left home for Beijing.   

 The middle drawer of the brown desk could be locked.  In it, Rong Sister and Chain Sister kept their most precious objects, things like fragile glass pigeons or chickens as well as bookmarks. However, there was a big difference between Chain Sister’s and Rong Sister’s locking of the middle drawer. Rong Sister locked the drawer to prevent me from reaching in and damaging her precious items.  Chain Sister didn’t lock the drawer just to keep me out.  One day, when our parents were not home, she let me go to the third floor and open her middle drawer.  Warning me not to tell anyone, she pulled a jicama (地瓜) out of the drawer.  She peeled a portion of it and cut a slice for me.  That was the very first time I had it in my life.  Our mother never allowed us to eat it. It was considered cheap, dirty, and full of all kinds of bacteria.  Years later, when I lived in Rochdale in Madison, Wisconsin, I was asked by an Italian housemate, Barbara Sella, about the name of some Asian root vegetable that was a lot of cheaper than but similar to water chestnut.  All of a sudden, I recalled the slice of jicama Sister Chain had fed me; juicy, crunchy, and a little sweet, but with a strong earthy flavor.   

The middle desk drawer was not the only difference between Chain Sister and Rong Sister.  Chain Sister liked instant reward.  Mom always said that her personality was opposite to that of Rong Sister.  When both of them received monthly allowances from Mom in the late 1940s, Rong Sister would save hers, adding the newly received to the existing savings.  Months later, in the hyperinflation period, Rong Sister would end up with next to nothing.  Chain Sister would go to street right away and buy her favorite preserved plums, apricots, peaches, and olives.     

In the 1950s, there were many street stands selling these in Nanjing.  Some vendors simply put a wooden box in front of a residence or a back street.  The preserves in the boxes were divided into many small compartments and covered by a piece of glass.  Other vendors pushed a cart at a main intersection or around main streets.  Chain Sister would often share with me her favorite preserved plums, apricots, peaches, and olives.  While I always enjoyed her compassion, sucking those preserved sweets were never my cup of tea; they had always been a girlish thing.     Next to Chain Sister’s school, there was a row of small restaurants along Zhujiang Lu (珠江路).  In those old days, they sold pot-stickers and all kinds of “turtle egg (乌龟子) soup,” (sweet rice dumplings the size of turtle eggs cooked in fermented glutinous rice soup (酒酿元宵)), with or without red beans or green beans.  It was one of Chain Sister’s favorite places and she took me there several times as a treat.   The place was quite dirty.  It was dark, with wooden walls and dirt floor and a few wobbling tables and stools.  It was such a treat, since Mom or my other sisters would never take me to such place. 

According to the Chinese zodiac, Yunhua is a mouse, Rong Sister a tiger, and Chain Sister a dragon.  Yunhua left home at age 15, so she did not get to spend much time with us.  Rong Sister and Chain Sister quarreled regularly when both of them were young.  Mom viewed those fights as the traditional fights between a “tiger” and a “dragon” (龙虎斗).  Occasionally she would warn them:  “You fight each other so hard today, but someday you will miss each other very much, and you will not be able to see each other!”  

Foreign fairy tales often depict the eldest sister as being stupid, the second greedy, and third the prettiest.  These fairy tales did not give Chain Sister much comfort, however.  She felt that she existed only because Mom and Dad wanted a son.  By the time they got their third daughter, she must have been quite unwanted.  To this, Mom always disagreed.  She rebutted: “You four all came from my flesh and are like the four legs of a table, equally holding the table nice, flat and stable!”  Chain Sister was never convinced.   

There have been so called Confucian traditions in favor of son to daughter.  When I was nineteen, I was invited to dinner at Professor Sun Guangyuan’s home. I was invited because I was the only son of the Ye family. Chain sister was not invited because she was a daughter. However, Mom decided to let her go with me to keep me company.  At the dining table, I was well served with food and drinks, but Chain Sister was not.  She nudged me under the table to tell me to pass food to her.  I was able to sneak quite a lot to her; Professor Sun’s vision had severely deteriorated by then.  We had a great time during that dinner. 

Though Chain Sister and I got along well, the rest of the family complained about her temperament. When she was in high school, she would feel mistreated about nothing, and then give the family a long silent treatment.  When lunch was ready and everyone was called to the dining room, there would be no response from her.  There would be deadly silence or even sobbing.  Later, we found, more often than not, it was because she was facing a coming examination and nobody at home cared about it. 

Examination anxiety later became one of her famous personalities.  She was always very upset before an examination, predicting that “I will totally fail this time!”  “So, how was the examination?” Mom would ask afterwards.  She usually returned a happy smile as an answer.  In fact, she almost always ended up receiving the highest score in the class.  She eventually became the very first one admitted into Peking University from the 4th Female Middle/High School. 

Chain Sister was no doubt hydrophobic. She refused to get into the water when she had swimming classes at school.  I have never remembered swimming with her.  She might have never learned how to swim.  However, I remember that she was selected to attend a summer camp to learn to ride motorcycles, which was considered extremely prestigious in 1950s.  It was the very first time in my life I heard from her those fancy terms about breaks, clutches, and accelerators.    

The Years in Beijing 

In 1958, Chain Sister was admitted to the Chemistry Department of Peking University, where both Yunhua and Xuanwen were.  In the fall of 1963, I went to Beijing on a doctor’s suggestion that I move to the dryer northern climate to stop my severe asthma attacks. Yunhua made an arrangement for me to be a temporary transfer student at the Middle/High School attached to Peking University.  I got a chance being with Chain Sister away from home in Nanjing.  It was towards the end of the three years of the nationwide famine caused by Mao’s ridiculous policies and Haihong had just been born several months ago.  Yunhua, Chain Sister and I had quite some memorable times together. 

On campus, there was a classroom in a bungalow (平房) for overnight study, unlike the other classrooms where lights were turned off at 10:00 PM.  Since it was the only place and seats were very limited, it was not easy to get a space there.  Students who studied hard had to fight for seats by occupying it early in the afternoon.  Chain Sister told me that the classroom was her favorite place to study, especially when preparing for upcoming tests and examinations.   

Not far away from that special classroom was a campus restaurant named Shaoyuan (勺园).  The original Shaoyuan at that time was in a Western styled residential house. Chain Sister occasionally took me there for a treat.  Our favorite dish was Muxu Pork (木须肉). Maybe it was because it was less expensive yet tasty.  Maybe it was because it was a Northern Chinese dish and we had never had it in Nanjing.  

On the counter of the restaurant there were two big glass jars, one holding rose colored wine and another green colored wine.  Chain Sister was curious of how they might taste.  She wanted to try some but never did by herself since at that time the culture was against young females purchasing anything alcoholic.  It was easy to buy it with me being with her, since there was fortunately no law or cultural tradition against me, a seventeen year old, buying it.  Neither of us really enjoyed them.  However, we did feel our curiosity satisfied and a great sense of defeating cultural tradition. 

Chain Sister also took me to one of the cafeterias at Peking University and introduced her favorite braised eggplant dish to me.  To this date, I still can vividly remember it, purplish, soft, shining with grease and incredibly tasty.  Later, when I mentioned this dish to several other persons graduated from Peking University, everyone agreed that it was a signature dish indeed. 

Once, she took me to her dorm.  I found she had covered her bedside wall with pictures of gold fish that I drew. I drew those gold fish from a series of stamps when I was in Nanjing and then mailed them to her.  They did not look so good to me but Chain Sister was obviously very proud of what I did. We sat on her bunk bed together and I helped her patch several worn out socks of hers. 

During my one semester at the Middle/High School in Beijing, I also met Chain Sister’s boyfriend, MAO Xuewen, several times. The relationship with Xuewen was not approved by Dad and Mom.  I recall that Chain Sister, Dad and Mom had a closed door conversation on the matter during one of her home visits.  I sensed the seriousness and unpleasantness of the conversation.  Later, Mom told me that they were concerned that Xuewen had too many younger brothers and sisters.  They were also concerned about differences between family backgrounds and the cultural differences between Northwest China and South of Yangtze River. Mom told me that Chain Sister was angry on those parents’ concerns, and replied: “All your concerns boil down to a single one: you think he is too poor!  I will be begging with him if one day he has to go begging for a living!”  With this reply, Dad and Mom said no more. 

Upon her graduation in 1964, she was assigned a job at the Research Institute of Petroleum Processing in Beijing.  I was told that she was the person who first made synthesized lubrication oil for watches made in China.  

Chain Sister once wrote in a letter to our parents:  “Dad gives us three treasures (三大法宝): good eye vision, English, and mathematics.”  Aside from mathematics, which was not used much in chemistry in her days, she said she greatly benefited from the other two.  As for me, she was absolutely correct in that I have benefited from all three. 

Both Chain Sister and I loved to learn foreign languages.  Once in 1965 when I was in my last year of high school and she had just graduated from Beida and started working, we decided to learn German together.  We thought it would make it easier and more interesting when both of us learned the same language at the same time.  We both purchased German textbooks and dictionaries, and at one point, I recall we even wrote each other letters in German. 

In the fall of 1965, I went to Xi’an Jiaotong University.  Chain Sister and I wrote letters to each other regularly.  Once, a friend of hers, 闽璇美, who she met in Renqiu Oil Field when they had worked there briefly, moved to Xi’an for a new job position.  Chain Sister asked her to bring a full bag of fruits to me, especially her favorite watery Ya Pears (鸭梨) and white Beijing pears (京白梨).  

*** 

In September 1966, after I divorced myself from the Culture Revolution, I made a trip to Beijing and stayed at Yunhua’s home.  At that time, Yunhua’s husband, Xuenwen, was studying in Lyon, France and their daughter, three year old Haihong (originally named LI Hong and nicknamed Honghong at birth) was in Nanjing being cared for by my parents. Yunhua was denounced in the Chemistry Department and sent somewhere near Beijing to do physical labor work.  Father and mother were denounced at Nanjing University and our home was searched with things confiscated.  On one hand, it was considered improper for Haihong to stay in Nanjing anymore, and on the other hand, Haihong’s return to Beijing might provide company to her suffering mother, Yunhua.   

When Haihong was sent back to Beijing by a Grand Aunt (姨婆), I was in Beijing at the time and Yunhua was not.  So I went to the train station and picked up Haihong.  Haihong was happy.  She remembered me since I saw her in Nanjing in the Spring Festival in 1966, less than a year ago.  She also somehow remembered her parents’ home and even the place where her father’s slippers were – she ran into the room, took her father’s slippers under a bed and offered them to me when we walked in the room.  However, she did not remember Chain Sister.  When bedtime came, she refused to sleep with Chain Sister and insisted on letting me to take care of her.  So, I had to put her to sleep first and then switch with Chain Sister.  Overnight, when Haihong woke up and found it was not me beside her, she would cry loudly and Chain Sister and I would switch once more to put her to sleep again.  Chain Sister and I took care of Haihong for a day or two before Yunhua returned home.  

Chain Sister was married to Xuewen on March 18, 1967.  I must have visited her newlywed room at the Research Institute of Petroleum Processing, sometime in the fall of 1967.  Xuewen was absent during my brief visit. The room was clean, organized but without much real furniture in it. She piled on top of each other two or three suitcases with a wooden one on the top, covered with a table cloth to make a counter so she could put things on it.  I saw a lot of fruits, especially the watery Ya Pears (鸭梨) and white Beijing pears (京白梨).  Counting the months, she must have been pregnant with MAO Jie at the time.  

In the end of December 1967, my belongings in my dormitory at Jiaoda were searched, and a couple of notebooks were confiscated in order to find “evidence” to prove that I was indeed a counter revolutionary/reactionary student. It was followed by a denouncing meeting held by my classmates. I went to Nanjing in January 1968 right after Chain Sister had just delivered her son MAO Jie on January 6.  I was told that it was a last minute decision that she would deliver in our Nanjing home rather than Beijing. It might have been the darkest period my parents had ever experienced in their lives.  Dad was surprised and almost angry when he opened the door and saw me. “Why are you coming home at this time?” He asked, full of disapproval.  The original townhouse my parents lived in was now occupied with three additional families. Dad and Mom stayed in the old living room.  There were beds squeezed in every inch of the room with a size of about 12 square meters.  Dad, Mom, Chain Sister, MAO Jie, and I all slept in that room during my visit.   The atmosphere was heavy, filled with sadness and darkness, despite the newborn in the room.  I told them what I had experienced in Xi’an and they thought I should go to Beijing to seek justice.  My stay was very short this time. That was the last time I saw Chain Sister before I was arrested and put in jail for more than two years and she became deadly sick. 

The Final Years 

I was released from the Shaanxi Provincial No. 1 Prison in April 1971 and sent back to Jiaotong University to do labor work, first making bricks and then building dugouts (防空洞) as a brick layer.  I sent a letter to the old address of my parents’ home, not knowing they had moved and that Chain Sister was at home with Dad and Mom.  I did not receive any response from home for quite a while until one day I received a telegram sent by father and Chain Sister. The telegram had only one sentence, the most famous (or infamous) slogan of the time: “Long Live Chairman Mao!” The meaning was immediately clear to me: father, mother, and Chain Sister were very happy for my release.  However, it was not politically correct to congratulate the release of a reactionary son in any other possible words that could avoid adverse effects on both sides.    

Up to this date, it is still not clear how my letter eventually ended up in Dad’s hands, given that my parents’ townhouse had been burned down.  Father told me it was the English professor SHEN Tongqia (沈同恰) who handed the letter to him, without a single word, when both of them were punished by doing physical work at a university cafeteria (named 500 Canteen).  The question was: how did he get the letter?  Who passed the letter to him?  We could only guess.  Professor SHEN was one of our neighbors on another row of townhouses in the old compound for professors, before the townhouse burned. Dad told me that he never had the courage, nor did he think it was wise and necessary, to ask Professor SHEN how he got the letter. After all, both professors were viewed as if they were criminals in a labor camp at the canteen and it was common knowledge that I was a reactionary student and put in jail in Xi’an.  Professor SHEN must have known the implication of the letter. Dad was simply forever thankful to him in his heart, without a single word as well. 

Later on, they told me, father, mother and Chain Sister had a meeting after they got the letter from me.  They came up with the brilliant idea to send a “Long Live Chairman Mao!” telegram immediately, and then mail a big package of food to me. Although none of them or people they directly knew had been in a Chinese communist jail, it was quite well known that prisoners got little food there.  This was absolutely true as I experienced.  The prison I was in was considered one of the best in terms of how prisoners were fed.  Nevertheless, being constantly hungry was the most severe challenge I had to face on daily basis for more than two year I was there.  To replenish my 25 year old body with much needed nutrition was indeed the primary concern upon release. The package of food from Chain Sister and my parents was just right in serving its purpose. 

Meanwhile, I found out that Chain Sister had been sick and was being treated in Nanjing. I was finally allowed to visit home on September 8, 1972. What a different scene it was!  My parents had been moved into a single room facing north in a dormitory.  Many families shared a kitchen converted from a regular dorm room, and two public lavatories were shared by both men and women on a whole floor. Dad was no longer the mathematics department chair or a professor, but a cook’s helper managing the cooking fire in one of the university canteens.  Mom was no longer the director of the Nanking University Kindergarten but also a cook’s helper in another university’s canteen.  Chain Sister, being the most beautiful and healthiest member of the whole family, now looked very old and sick. 

 Looking back, it was quite a reunion, given what each of us had experienced in the past few years. Despite that dark background, the reunion was happy and our spirits were high.   

Now that I had been released from jail, the family’s major concern was Chain Sister’s health problem caused perhaps by exposures to 1, 3 - dibromobenzene in her laboratory work. Chain Sister had been hospitalized at Nanjing Workers’ Hospital since July 22, 1971.  At first, she could take one or two days off to make occasional visits to our parents at home.  I do not recall telling her much of the details of the hell I went through in those separated years, nor did she tell me of what she went through.  We simply tried to have a good time together.  

One thing sticking out in my memory was a can of abalones I brought home from Xi’an to share with Chain Sister and my parents.  Mom complained that it was too expensive; there were only several small pieces so that each piece cost the same as about a quarter of a famous Nanking duck.  I bought it because Dad had described to us many times his experience of enjoying abalones in California in 1948 when he was in the U.S.   But neither Dad nor any of us knew how to deal with those abalones in the can.  For one thing, we thought all canned food was cooked and ready to eat. This can of abalones smelled strongly when we opened it. None of us found any good flavor in it after we tasted one or two pieces.  I had an instant asthma attack. Dad was severely allergic to it and his lips became swollen. Chain Sister showed strong allergic reactions to it as well – she had a rubella rash appear all over her body.  It turned out that Mom was the only person who could consume it without any adverse consequences.  The whole abalone experience was awfully disastrous, but we had great quality time together.  

When Chain Sister was in the hospital, we took turns visiting her.  We also brought homemade dishes to her.  Dad encouraged me to visit and take food to Chain Sister as often as possible.  Dad said he had observed that every time when I visited her she was much happier. 

Before long, I returned to Jiaotong University’s “Labor Camp” on September 20, 1972.  It did not occur to me at the time that it would be the last time I was with Chain Sister with her being conscious. 

On January 26, 1972, I rushed back to Nanjing to say final goodbyes to Chain Sister.  Dad sent Yunhua to the train station to pick me up.  “Dad wants me to tell you Chain Hua’s condition so you can be emotionally prepared before you see her,” she said to me. Chain Sister had already lost consciousness when I got to her bed side.  She died in the evening when Yunhua and I were around her. 

The funeral ceremony was held at the Nanking Cremation Compound.  It was a very windy and cold day.  Hubei May 7th Cadre School sent Mr. LIU Zhiqiang (刘智强) to attend the ceremony.  He told me that everyone at the Cadre School had liked Chain Hua and felt extremely sad about Chain Sister’s death.  He insisted in holding the elegiac wreath and parading through the windy street to the cremation compound.  He said he did not know what else he could do to express his sorrow.   We were all moved by him and finally convinced him to take a tricycle rickshaw instead. 

Chain Sister’s son was unaware of what had happened. At three years old, he did not understand what his mother’s death meant to his life.  

After the ceremony, I left to witness the whole cremation process, seeing my dearest sister turn into ashes. I carried the ashes home.  Mom sobbed, “The four children of mine liked four legs of a table.  Now the table is not right any more with only three legs!”  Mom sighed, “How much I have to endure!  I had to experience the Japanese invasion, had my son jailed, had my home burned down, and now have my youngest daughter died young!”   

Epilogue 

It is hard to believe that this is all I can remember about Chain Sister now.  I thought I had much more in my memory, even with the fact that Chain Sister only had a short 32 years of life.  Now I realize that much in my memories are feelings, not necessarily supported by events or stories.  Or maybe it is simply because I am getting old and those events and stories have been filtered by time so there are only feelings left.  As I wrap up this article, I am disappointed in myself for remembering so little, on one hand.  But on the other hand, I finally got a chance to air my sorrow and anger cumulated and suppressed for so many years and I feel as if I had a chance to recall our time together with Chain Sister once more.   

Many agreed with what Dad said, “Chain-Hua was too naïve!”  Dad always tried to push Chain Hua to read the classics Three Kingdoms (三国演义) and Water Margin (水浒传). He said, Three Kingdoms would make readers less simple minded about things and Water Margin would make readers able to tell good people from bad ones.  Well, it was the most painful thing to force Chain Sister to read novels, not to mention those thick classic ones. In the end, I don’t think she never finished any significant amount of these books.  Actually, I don’t recall she ever read any novels or literature.  Had she read some, would it make her more sophisticated?  Towards her final years, I found there were poems written by Xuewen on one of her notebooks.  I showed them to Dad and commented that I did not like some of the verses.  Dad looked at those verses and sighed: “How could Chain Hua understand them?” 

When Mom looked back at Chain Sister’s life, she said: “She had never had a chance to build a nest for her family.”  The three members in her family were constantly in separation one way or the other.  MAO Jie died tragically in Lanzhou in July 1997 at age 29. Yes, there are always inevitable and irresistible factors, called fate or destiny, as well as excusable and forgivable mistakes made in life. Nonetheless, there are also always personal choices to be made, even during the darkest period of Cultural Revolution. Having said this, there is no doubt that the evil Cultural Revolution was indeed the root of all tragedies.   

【This article is written in English so Guoya may be able to read it.  It turned out she was the person who carefully edited the whole article.】