by Jennie Liu
“The drinking, the hitting, was very, very bad, yes. How it came to that . . .” Mrs. Hu woefully shakes her head. “But your ba didn’t know your brother struck his head. Bao-bao probably had some sort of internal bleeding.” She grimaces before she continues. “He was cold when your mama found him after she got home. As soon as I got there, I knew it was too late to call the hospital.”
My hands grip the stack of newspapers I’m sitting on. My heart is beating strangely in my chest and seems to echo off the cement walls of the two buildings. Mrs. Hu has paused, staring off, picturing that night, I’m sure. I stay very still so as not to distract her from her train of thought. She has more to tell me, and I know that I need to hear it.
“I saw right away how it would go if there was an inquest—your ba in trouble, a trial with press, probably prison. Your family would have been ruined. And nothing good would’ve come out of it. Your parents had already lost their child.” She closes her eyes briefly and swallows, terrible grief on her face. Remembering her own son again.
“Believe me,” she continues when she collects herself, “there is no worse thing. But to have all those problems on top of it, they didn’t need that. They wouldn’t have been able to stand that. At the time your parents didn’t care about anything. They could hardly put two words together. It was all I could do to find out what had happened.”
My tears have stopped. Mrs. Hu’s hands are gripped together. She brings them up and rests her chin on them briefly.
“My eye fell on the rat poison your mama had just brought home with her. I took the box and tore it open. It was me who . . . arranged everything.”
She looks at me with the oddest expression, frank and obdurate, with no regret for the part she played in hiding the truth. But watchful too, waiting for my reaction. I can only stare at her.
“I told your parents to let me explain it all. They were so lost in suffering. I called the police officer I know well from our neighborhood circuit. Gave him 2500 yuan to take care of the coroner. When the coroner arrived, I told them about the test scores. News about suicides always spikes up around testing time, so it wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion.” Mrs. Hu exhales, low and deep.
Mama’s debt, Min’s doubt, Mrs. Hu saying they were just trying to help him. It’s as if the last piece of a puzzle has finally clicked into place.
A silence settles between us. My head drops and my gaze lands on a crack in the cement between my feet. I don’t feel anything, can’t think anything. All the fury and horror have left me. The air is thick and humid. The alley smells of garbage and urine. A dull echo sounds from the back of the building. I imagine it’s Mr. Hu sorting the recyclables.
“Now you really know everything,” Mrs. Hu says. “What are you going to do?”
What am I going to do? I stand up and pace the alley.
Baba still killed Bao-bao.
An accident.
And Mrs. Hu helped them cover it up.
She did it out of compassion.
Nothing would be better if my parents were held legally responsible for Bao-bao’s death.
But how does knowing all that change what I’m going to do next? I picture myself going back to work with Mama at the plant, going home to the dark apartment. Day in, day out. My breath is short and quick with the suffocating notion. What will be different?
“Mrs. Hu.” I steady my breath before I turn toward her. “I’m sorry to ask when we’ve just started to pay our debt to you, but I came here tonight to see if you would loan me 350 yuan. I want to go back to school.”
Mrs. Hu purses her lips. I’m afraid she’s going to say no.
“I can’t stay here. I can’t help them.” My voice is calm. I’m surprised at my detached, level tone. “I’ve been trying all summer to help them, to be compliant and good, to take Bao-bao’s place, but it’s too late for us to have that kind of relationship. I’ve been on my own all these years, and I just know I have to go back to school now.”
Her head bobs slowly. “The money is no problem. I’ll give you the money. But have you told your parents what you want to do?”
I shake my head miserably. They’ve never considered what Bao-bao wanted, much less what I wanted. Like Mrs. Hu said, they don’t know how to do that. Even if I can get past what Baba did to Bao-bao, I don’t see how we will ever be able to relate to each other—or how I’ll ever be able to trust them again.
“The worst thing has already happened to them,” Mrs. Hu says. “They won’t want to lose another child. Give them a chance.”
29
Mrs. Hu takes me back to our building and loans me the money for my tuition. I go down to my apartment to get the rest of my things, but when I see the bed, I fall into the cool striped sheets. I let the 11:40 p.m. bus to Linfen go without me, and instead, I sleep and sleep.
In the morning the soft pinging of a text on my phone wakes me. I lean over and dig it out of my bag on the floor. The message is from Min: the photo she took of me last night standing under her exhibit, my long hair caped around my shoulders, still showing the ripples from my unbound braid. My face is tilted upward, my eyes looking plainly ahead. I don’t remember smiling, and maybe it was a trick of the flash, but there I am, looking surprisingly confident, surprisingly at peace, under the fluttering banner of radiant women.
There are more texts from Mama, the ones I ignored last night. I don’t bother to read them, but I forward the photograph of me to her and begin to type.
Mama, I’m going back to school today . . .
Author’s Note
After researching my first novel, Girls on the Line, I was struck by how China's rapid modernization has affected the country's young people. Confucian values and an authoritarian government have bred an admirable collectivistic society, but many young people wrestle with the problems and pressures of a deeply felt responsibility to family and society, often at the expense of their true selves. I have no doubt that Chinese society will continue to change and flourish. This novel aims only to highlight the struggles of one moment, one generation, in this culture.
China’s notorious National Higher Education Entrance Exam, nicknamed gaokao, high exam, is the country’s single determinant for entrance into universities and colleges. With 9.8 million students (according to 2018 statistics) competing for spots based solely on their gaokao rankings, competition is fierce. Knowing that higher education is the only way up, parents begin to chivvy their children towards academic excellence as early as preschool.
Due to China’s strict household registration system, which limits free education and healthcare outside of one’s home locale, an estimated 61 million children are left-behind, living in the countryside as parents migrate to cities for work. Most of these children live with grandparents, although an estimated 2 million live alone. In many cases, left-behind children have linked the absence of their parents to feelings of abandonment, low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression.
A 2014 report by a Chinese nonprofit organization, 21st Century Education Research Institute, identified suicide as the leading cause of death for youth. Because the Chinese government does not release statistics on suicide, the organization sources information from online posts and media reports. An overwhelming percent of the cases it found were linked to academic stress. The organization’s 2017 report also mentions family issues, disputes with teachers, and other interpersonal problems in the cases studied.
Some experts believe pressure from family and feelings of isolation contribute to the mental health problems of Chinese youth, most of whom grow up as singletons and can struggle to handle difficult interpersonal interactions.
Young single women, especially those who are well educated, face powerful family and societal pressures to marry. In 2007, the same year the government identified the gender imbalance created by China’s One-Child Policy as cause for concern, state-run media began widely disseminating the term shengnu—“leftovers”—into the mainstream. This kind of rhetoric essentially stigm
atizes unmarried women over 27 years old and pressures women to marry and have children earlier rather than focusing on their careers.
While young people in China are growing up in a much different country than their parents, traditional Confucian values remain vital. Respect for one’s parents still runs strong, and it is still widely considered desirable to get married and have a child.
Stigma and the pressure to conform also extend to the gay population in China. Although homosexuality was decriminalized in China in 1997 and declassified as a mental disorder in 2001, the unofficial government policy is often expressed by the Chinese idiom, not encouraging, not discouraging and not promoting. With neither support to rely on nor open persecution to rebel against, the LGBTQ+ experience is painfully isolating, and understanding and acceptance of LGBTQ+ issues remain uncommon, especially in rural areas. No firm statistics are available, but experts estimate that only 3–5 percent of the country’s 40–70 million LGBTQ+ individuals are out of the closet, and as many as 80 percent of China’s gay men marry women.
Despite the rapid transformation of China’s economic status, traditional social structures and thinking persist on a large scale. However, changes are emerging with the rise of educated youth, more progressive attitudes in urban areas, and the Internet—where, despite censorship, online communities serve as a refuge, a resource, and the seat of burgeoning activism. The government has taken small steps to research and address problems: China’s first mental health law was enacted in 2012; three ministries are conducting a joint survey to improve conditions for left-behind children; a reform of the gaokao system will be implemented in 2020 to allow more equal access to higher education for the rural population; and in 2012, three female activists wearing red-spattered white wedding gowns marched through a Beijing shopping district to raise awareness about domestic abuse, inspiring a small but growing feminist movement in China.
Acknowledgments
I’m so grateful for my conscientious and supportive first readers Ann Howell, Linda Steitler, Williamaye Jones, Annice Brown, as well as my mentor P.B. Parris. Also thanks to Shannon Hassan, amazing agent, and Amy Fitzgerald, editor, whose words are always thought provoking. Thanks to Libby Stille, publicist, and Emily Harris for the gorgeous book design.
I read so many excellent articles and nonfiction titles that fed the backdrop for this story. For further reading about the issues young people are facing in China, I especially recommend the following nonfiction books: Young China by Zak Dychtwald, Wish Lanterns by Alec Ash, Leftover Women by Leta Hong Fincher, Little Soldiers by Lenora Chu, and Under Red Skies by Karoline Kan.
Topics for Discussion
Why does Na resent Bao-bao? How did their relationship change after their parents took Bao-bao to the city?
How do traditional Chinese attitudes about children’s duty to their parents shape Na’s and Gilbert’s ideas about what they can do with their lives? How has Bao-bao pushed back against these attitudes?
Na’s family has a limited understanding of depression and other mental health issues. How might this make it difficult for Na’s parents to understand the possible effects of the various pressures they’ve put on their children?
Describe Na’s relationship with her parents. In what ways do her parents show that they love her? How does this compare to the ways your family shows affection?
How are Min and Wei different from anyone Na has met before? What does she learn about her brother through them?
Na’s father says that having a daughter is like spilled water—a waste—because a daughter will inevitably leave her family when she marries. What other kinds of waste does Na see happening in her family? What scenarios would feel like spilled water to her?
Why is Na initially uncertain about whether to accept Gilbert’s proposal? What advantages would marriage give her? What limitations would it impose on her?
How does working on Min’s project affect Na’s perspective on marriage?
Na believes that she’s nothing like the unconventional heroine of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre. But in what ways does Na defy society’s expectations for her?
How is the pressure on Gilbert to marry a woman and conceal his orientation similar to the pressures Na and Bao-bao have faced? How is it different?
Mrs. Hu wants Na to give her parents a second chance and forgive them for what happened to Bao-bao. Do you agree with Mrs. Hu? Why or why not?
What questions does the end of the novel leave open-ended? How do you think these issues will play out over the next few years of Na’s life?
About the Author
Jennie Liu is the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Having been brought up with an ear to two cultures, she has been fascinated by the attitudes, social policies, and changes in China each time she visits. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two boys. She is also the author of the young adult novel Girls on the Line.
Praise for
Girls on the Line
by Jennie Liu
“Readers will learn much from this absorbing and realistic tale.”
—Booklist
“Both poignant and agonizing, Girls on the Line is a must read.”
—starred review, Foreword Reviews
“An affecting and original thrill ride.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[E]xplores a moment of contemporary history and a culture that is underrepresented in YA realistic fiction. . . . Recommended purchase, especially for YA collections serving older teens or new adults.”
—starred review, School Library Journal