The short essay titled “Mencius’ Mother” really brought to light the role of women in Chinese culture. Mencius’ mother tells Mencius that a woman should cook, make clothes, take care of the children, and watch over the parents-in-law, and that is it. Outside of the home, she should have zero responsibilities. She also explains that it is never a woman’s role to take charge, but instead should always be submissive. The female should follow the “three submissions” of life, which means that a woman should be submissive to her parents during her youth, submissive to her husband while married, and then submissive to her son once she is widowed. Although I am aware we still have a long way to go in terms of equality, I can’t imagine telling a woman today in our society that this is how she must live her life. Which brings to question, is she really living her life? Throughout her entire lifetime, a woman is expected to live for her parents, then her husband, and then her son. Never is she able to live for herself or how she pleases.
The letter from Fen Yeng to his brother-in-law is again interesting because of the way women are treated. According to Fen Yeng, a man should be able to have both a wife and concubines. Surely, this would never be the case the other way around where women would be able allowed to have other partners. In fact, if it was the female having an affair, she would be shunned, called a whore, or even worse. Another thing that surprised me from this letter was how Fen Yeng made the comment that he should have “sent his wife back”. Obviously, this is not the way marriages work today in the United States. However, Fen Yeng makes it sound as if his marriage was arranged, and clearly he does not enjoy his wife. It is strange for me to think that if a man did not love his wife, he had the ability to send her back to her parents. In the United States couples get divorced and go their separate ways, but the one does not have the ability to send the other back to his/her parents.
The Bridegroom by Ha Jin was one of the more difficult stories that I have read. Huang Baowen, who works at the same sewing machine factory as Beina, suddenly proposes to her. When he doesn’t come home one night, we find out that Baowen was arrested for attending a group meeting with homosexuals. When asked what homosexuality was, Chief Miao explained, “It’s a social disease, like gambling, or prostitution, or syphilis” (95). Because of the “crime”, each man arrested was looking at 6 months to 5 years of jail time. When approached by the narrator, Baowen thinks that he is “sick” because of his sexuality. He was so ashamed about it, that he tried different things when he was younger to try and “cure” himself. Rather than going to jail, Baowen was transported to a mental hospital to get treatment. He was placed in a metal bathtub that had been filled with water and electrocuted with little pulses. He was so dedicated to being cured, that he would ask for more shocks. When the narrator left the hospital, he wanted to shake Baowen’s hand, but he didn’t because he feared that “homosexuality was communicable”. These stories barely even scratch the surface of what these people have been through, but it is eye-opening enough and hard to imagine the fear and confusion that Baowen had to live with.