These readings all circulate around traditional gender roles, sexuality, and familial values in China. In the Ha Jin readings, I found a lot of Chinese values regarding what a family should be like and how each member should act. In the story “Alive,” the main character Guhan forgets his family after he suffers from amnesia after a deadly earthquake. Although he makes a new family by marrying a widow and adopting an orphan, he returns to his original family once he remembers his past life. Although he is happy to be back with them, he wonders if he made the right decision by leaving his new family. I think this expresses the idea that even if you follow tradition by staying with your original family, it is still important to value anyone who has been close to you. In the Ha Jin stories “Broken” and “The Bridegroom,” as well as the stories about Mencius’s Mother and the Letter from Feng Yen, we can observe a lot of the expected roles by women in China. In Broken, a young woman, Tingting, is constantly sexualized by her male coworkers and is slut-shamed by the entire company after she is manipulated into sleeping with one of the older male workers. During the investigation, she is reprimanded for seducing the man and is asked very personal questions about their sexual affair. In The Bridegroom, a similar occurrence happens involving Baowen, who is arrested for being romantically interested in men. He is sent to a mental hospital even though there is no “cure” for his “disease.” In both these stories, we can see how women and homosexual men are silenced and seen as perpetrators in their societies. In contrast, the stories about Mencius’s mother are meant to highlight what women should do for their sons. While she is full of wisdom, she is expected to take care of the children and the household. She is also supposed to submit to three people: her parents, her husband, and her son. This story reinforces the idea of patriarchy and heterosexual relationships in China. In the Letter from Feng Yen, he explains to his brother-in-law that women cannot dominate the household and can never tell their husbands what to do. He complains that his wife does not clean the house and is rude to every person she interacts with. For these reasons, he says that he will abandon his wealthy life and leave his wife in order to be away from her aggressive nature. Once again, we can conclude that women have very specific roles designed for them in traditional Chinese society and are never meant to speak their opinions or act out of their expectations. Lastly, the documentary explored the lives of some village women who don’t conform to traditional values. Not only do many of them use birth control in order to never become mothers, but we learn that many women have jobs outside of the house now. The more conservative people in the film say that having a daughter is a small happiness while having a son is a big happiness. Women weren’t able to leave the house and start professional careers like men could. The practice of foot binding in the early 20th century further subjugated women, since it hurt to even walk on their binded feet. Although gender and sexuality equality is growing in China, their traditions, which date all the way back to Mencius and Confucius’s eras, define specific gender, sexuality, and familial values that perpetuate patriarchy and undermine female and other sexualities’ powers.