Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

As Japan is finally forced out of China in defeat, the Japanese who remained were killed or committed suicide. De-hong recalls a teacher, Miss Tanaka, who had never hit the Chinese children and who cried at the execution of one of the girls. De-hong gains her parents' permission to have Miss Tanaka, posing as a cousin of the family, stay with them. The Japanese are replaced by Soviets who were almost as bad. They pillaged and raped, taking what they wanted and dismantling entire factories. The Communists were the next army to occupy China, followed by the Kuomintang. The Chinese hope these soldiers will maintain order but the soldiers call the Chinese "slaves who have no country of your own" and believed the Chinese owed them love and loyalty.

De-hong was fifteen and "highly marriageable". Offers pour in but De-hong is...