Some nights the girl gets bored waiting for her mother. She can't sleep yet she is afraid to go out. She lies in bed quietly. After midnight she hears bullets being fired. She counts the shots so she will know how many people have been killed.

My number always matches the number of heads that hang on the gate of the town the next day. My schoolmates talk to each other like this: I'll slaughter you and hang your head on a hook and then I'll stick an opium pipe between your teeth.

I hate school. I am an object of attack because I have no father and have a mother who works at jobs that arouse suspicion. I beg my mother to transfer me to a different school. But the situation doesn't change. It gets so bad that one day a classmate unleashes a dog.

Madame Mao later uses the incident in both a ballet and opera of the same title, The Women of the Red Detachment. The villains come with vicious-looking dogs to chase the slave girl. A close-up of the dog teeth and a closeup of the wound. The bleeding body parts.

My mother's face becomes unrecognizable. Her pretty cheekbones start to protrude and her eyes have deep pockets. She is so sick that she can't walk far. Yet we are still on the run. She has been fired from her job. She can't talk, she whispers in between breaths. She writes a letter and begs her parents for shelter and food. I wonder why she hasn't done that earlier. She won't explain. I sense that she wasn't her parents' favorite. There are probably bad memories of the past. But now she has no choice.

My grandparents live in Jinan. It is the capital of Shan-dong Province. Compared to the town of Zhu, it is a fancy city. It is on the south side of the Yellow River, about nine miles away. The city is a center of business and politics. It is very old. The names of the streets reflect its past glory: Court Street, Financial Street, Military Street. There are magnificent temples and dazzling opera houses. I don't know until later that many of the opera houses are in fact whorehouses.