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Chapter 1

• Pei waits impatiently for her mother, Yu-sung, to give birth.

• She needs only privacy, so Pei focuses on her favorite item in the house, a silk painting depicting a scene with five birds.

• The midwife announces the birth of a baby girl.

• Pao, Pei's father, expresses his displeasure at the baby's gender because he would prefer a boy to eventually help in the fields.

• Pei has many questions, but her father is too busy with the family farm to answer them, and her mother is distracted.
• Yu-sung married Pao at 16.

• It was an arranged marriage, and she had a difficult transition into married life.

• Pao's family descends from the Hakka tribe and are taller than most Chinese, with flatter facial features.

• Pao is illiterate and quiet; Yu-Sung reads and writes and is used to a clean house and lively family life.

• Before her marriage, she had never...

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