Blog Post #9

A Daughter of Han / Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI

By- Ava Daniels

This short excerpt was personally very hard for me to read just like some of the other ones in the past. This excerpt starts by Ning describing how her and her husband beg for food and money just to get by and live. That alone was already a lot because that is in no way, shape, or form a steady way of income. This introduction to this reading highlights just how poor the family is, this is why when Ning hears rumors of her husband trying to sell their kids, I was not surprised. Money can often be more important than family when people are in a rough situation or part in their life. "He is trying to sell your child" He tells people his wife died at the end of the Seventh month" (631). This comes from a man at the gruel station where the couple used to eat after seeing the husband give Ning her baby. This must've been very hard for her to hear seeing as she asked him about it once and he claimed it had been a rumor. Later in the reading when the husband had sold their daughter, the way that it is described in the excerpt by Ning almost made me feel as if I was in her position because of hw well her feelings were described. In the end, the daughter was given to a good family, however, Ning only got to see her a few times before the family had moved. Ning said that the next the she saw her after that, she had a granddaughter and was happy the way her daughters life turned out. I think that it was extremely sad what happened to her and her family, but I think that Ning knows that she and her husband were not fit to raise children given their financial state. 

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