from a rich family—at least, for that time period, they were considered rich. His father was the general manager of a state-owned construction company. He was well placed in the Communist Party, and one of his older brothers was a high-level party chief in Guangdong Province. So the Zhous received the concession to build the new school in our village, and Fang Min was sent to oversee the construction. It was his summer job. Back then, I was in my final year of secondary school and working nights as a waitress in the only bar in our village, so that is how I met him. Now, up till this time I had spent my entire life in this small village outside of Zhuhai. I had never even left our province, so you can only imagine what it was like when this twenty-three-year-old man with slick black hair came into the bar, dressed in Western-style clothes—I remember his shirts were all Sergio Tacchini or Fred Perry, and he wore a gold Rolex. What’s more, Fang Min had an expensive motorbike and chain-smoked Kent cigarettes smuggled into the country by one of his cousins, and he would brag to me about his family’s big house and big Japanese car, and tell me tales of his holidays in Shanghai, Beijing, and Xi’an. I had never met a more handsome or sophisticated man, and I fell head over heels in love. Of course, back then, I had very long hair and fair skin, so Fang Min took an interest in me.
“Now, when my parents heard that this rich man was coming to the bar every night, taking an interest in me, they tried to put a stop to it. My parents were not like other parents—they did not care that he came from a rich family; they wanted me to concentrate on my studies so I could qualify for university. It was so hard to get into university in those days, especially if you were a girl, and that was my parents’ sole dream—to have a child that got into university. But after so many years of being the perfect daughter and doing nothing but studying, I rebelled. Fang Min started taking me on his motorcycle in secret to Guangzhou, the biggest city in the province, and there I discovered a whole other world. I had no idea there was an entire class of people like Fang Min—the children of other high-ranking Communist Party members, who got to dine in special restaurants and shop in special stores. Fang Min treated me to expensive meals and expensive clothes. I became intoxicated by this world, and my parents noticed that, bit by bit, I was changing. When they found out he had taken me to Guangzhou, they forbid me to see him, which of course made me want to be with him even more. It was like Romeo and Juliet. I would sneak out of our flat late at night to meet him, get caught and punished, but a few days later I would do it again.
“Then, a few months later, when the construction project was finished and Fang Min was heading back to Xiamen, we made plans for me to run away with him. That’s why I never finished my studies. I ran away to Xiamen, and we quickly got married. My parents were devastated, but I thought all my dreams had come true. Here I was living in a big house with his rich and important parents, getting to ride in a big Nissan sedan that had white curtains on the back windows. See, Rachel, you are not the only one who has experience dating a rich boy. But my dream quickly turned sour. I soon found out how awful his family was. His mother was one of these extremely traditional women, and she was a northerner, from Henan. So she was very snobbish, and she never let me forget that I was just a village girl who got very, very lucky because of my looks. At the same time, I was expected to perform a million and one daughter-in-law duties, like preparing tea for her every morning, reading the newspapers to her, and rubbing her shoulders and feet after dinner every night. I had gone from being a student to being a servant. Then the pressure started for me to get pregnant, but I was having trouble conceiving. So it made my mother-in-law very upset—she wanted a grandchild desperately. What use was a