Chi Li Slays The Serpent Summary

China's one child policy was incredibly negative towards its people. In China, boys are culturally favored over girls, because of this the practice of infanticide has become more common due to the policy, this is stated in Imbalance and Discrimination where it is stated, "With boys being viewed as culturally preferable, the practice of female infanticide...was resumed in some areas shortly after the one-child policy went into effect" (Document E). This quote demonstrates the negative effects to come out of the one child policy, because parents can only have one child, parents in China will want a boy over a girl as it is more culturally

During one of the first examples in the novel, An-Mei sacrificed her own blood and tears for her mother because it was her way of showing

Most females are not respected and are heavily pressured by their parents. Many Chinese women are expected to be in arranged marriages and are not respected in their family or the work-place. Woman that aren’t even born yet suffer from infanticide. If the parents came to find that they were having a girl from ultrasound- they would abort that child and try for a boy causing pre-birth ultrasounds to be banned. “Negative social consequences, particularly sex discrimination. With boys being viewed as culturally preferable, the practice of female infanticide was resumed in some areas shortly after the one-child policy took effect.” (Document E) “I hate to say it but the one-child policy should party be blamed for some social issues in youth today.” “She wished she has a brother or sister to share all the attention.” (Document F) This evidence supports the claim that the one-child policy was a bad policy because women have always been culturally no preferable, causing unborn females to be aborted.

Women’s role in Ancient Chinese civilisation was always vital to society due to their role in the family and during the Tang and Song dynasty significant changes occurred, changing Chinese women’s lives forever. While it is no secret women were inferior to men in the history of China, not many are aware of the major differences of the status of women from dynasty to dynasty. The Tang-Song dynasties ruled from 618AD to 1279 AD and many distinct differences between these two dynasties can be observed. Women’s role in these dynasties primarily included domestic duties, with the introduction of new roles to the female gender. Their role was very important to society as the woman of the family ran the household and as that was the most important

Ying-Ying grew up in a society that discriminated certain behaviors between different genders. Females in her society were forced to act a certain way; subjected to a lifetime of discrimination. Males were cherished to the family, not only for their physical, substantial, and economic ability, but also as the carrier of the family name. In this story, Ying-ying isn’t allowed to “run and chase dragonflies like a boy,” but expected to “stand still so that the dragonfly can hide in the comfort of her shadow.” The words “still”, “hide”, and “shadow” in this quote symbolize the image that women are forced to have. This shows how limited

The Death of Woman Wang, by Jonathan D. Spence, paints a vivid picture of provincial China in the seventeenth century. Manly the life in the northeastern country of T’an-ch’eng. T’an-ch’eng has been through a lot including: an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry, and heavy taxation. Chinese society in Confucian terms was a patriarchal society with strict rules of conduct. The role at this time of women, however, has historically been one of repression. The traditional ideal woman was a dependent being whose behavior was governed by the "three obedience’s and four virtues". The three obedience’s were obedience to

As its title would suggest, Chi Li is the main character of this myth. She lives in “the ancient kingdom of Yueh” (WM 331), in Chiang Lo County (WM 331). At the beginning of this myth, life is anything but peaceful for “the people of Chiang Lo County” (WM 331). They are living in constant fear of a serpent who lives “in a cave that was located on a high pass between the towering peaks of the Yung Mountains” (WM 331). Certain people who live in the county have tried and failed to end the serpent’s reign of terror (WM 331). Now, they believe that their only option is to concede and give the serpent the sacrifice he requests (WM 331).

In the book of Wild Swans: Three daughter of China by Jung Chang tells about the experiences of the life of Chang’s Mother, Grandmother, and Chang herself. The book starts off with Chang’s Grandmother Yu-fang. She was forced to be a concubine for a warlord general at a young age. She eventually escapes with her child after marrying a wealthy doctor, she continue to raise her child even rejected by her husband’s family. De-hong a happy girl who grew up normal until she start getting into politics. De- hong joined the Kuomintang party until the communist beat them. She then married Wang, an officer in the army, and they both began working for the Communist party where they are prosecuted for their affiliation and sent to detention camp. Chang is born in the middle of this political turmoil, she grew up through many of the hardship of China. The role of women and family in society was important and it changes throughout the story of each woman. The time of Chang 's great-grandfather “following the custom, my great-grandfather was married young, at the fourteen, to a woman six years his senior. It was considered one of the duties of a wife to help bring up her husband.”(Chang, Jung. ""THREE-INCH GOLDEN LILIES"" In Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, 2. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.) Therefore in the lives of the three woman it will tell us about the role of women and family in the society .

Then she drives her sword into two fatal spots, the back of the head and through the creature’s neck. It takes quite a bit of physical strength to accomplish such a feat. She retreats, preparing to battle the serpent again, but this proves unnecessary. Chi Li’s first strikes had fatally wounded the monster. Chi Li then finds the skulls of the monster’s nine victims and returns to her village in victory. She respects the dead enough to recover their remains, but also chastises them for being “too timid to put up a fight” (333). Her many uncommon qualities are what makes her so unique in history. Prior to the 20th century, women in China were considered essentially different from men. Despite the association of women with yin and men with yang, two qualities considered equally important, women were believed to occupy a lower position than men in the hierarchical order of the universe. Women were to be submissive and obedient to men and were not allowed to participate in government or community

In the early China, honoring your family and elders was very important. Once a person dishonored their family it was as if they no longer existed nor were you a part of their life. The short story “Scar” by Amy Tan tells the story of a girl, An-Mei, who never got the chance to truly know her mother, but learns that the bond between her and her mother is so strong it proves that real love is invincible even in a time where dishonor among families was looked at to be very wrong. Amy Tan shows this using the characters and many different symbols throughout the story.

Due to Patriarchal families, the husband and/or father in a family was the head of the house. This provided him with less extreme punishments and control over his wife’s life. In addition, the sons, and most importantly the eldest son, took precedence over any daughter that was in the family. The class structure was very specific in China. At the top, there were the landowning aristocrats and educated bureaucrats. Next there were peasants, laboring masses, artisans, and at the very bottom, there were people with meaningless skills (performers) and

Men and women have always been different. Society shaped men into the breadwinners, gave them the ability to progress past their social status no matter how bad of a reputation he may have had, and ultimately they have the ability to not be tied down by anyone. Women will remain loyal throughout every peak and pitfall with her husband. In the story, “The Journey of the Corpse”, it depicts the life of a man by the name of Wu Pao-an, who so desperately wants to save the life of one of his friends. He leaves his wife and one-year-old child with no home and no money so he could go out and find his friend Chung-hsiang, who was taken for ransom by barbarians. Sometimes, the need to help a friend or remain loyal to him can trump a mans loyalty to his family, as is done in Chung-hsiangs story. Later in the story, after Madam Chang, Wu Pao-an’s wife, has fought for ten years to survive all alone with her child, she has the

Women in Ancient China during the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty lived in oppressed lives. Society perceived them as inferior to their husbands and parents-in-law. Their role in the family were to be housewives taking care of their family and maintaining the household chores. They were always under the instructions of their husbands and parents-in-law in they were treated like servants. They also had no control in their personal decisions because they were not allowed to decide who they were going to marry and what they wanted to do in their careers. Parents of daughters would also force their daughters to foot-binding because it would attract potential wealthy husbands. This paper argues that although the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty were known as the golden periods for China, nevertheless, it was overlooked by historians that women during the time were victims of gender inequality because they lived with no control over their personal lives and were expected to be submissive to their husbands.

The second story, “White Tigers”, is a mythical tale of a female warrior who disguises herself as a male and fights in the place of the father. The story completely contradicts the conventional role of woman in Chinese society. It places a woman in a position of bravery and heroism, which are traditionally reserved for men.

Women did not have any power in Chinese culture. Kingston describes how a man intimidates her aunt by telling her that he will beat and kill her if she tells anyone. It shows men dominance over women because the man is making Kingston’s aunt do anything he wants. In paragraph fifteen, “women in the old China did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil” (623). It adds to how women in China did not have any voice and were supposed to comply with any thing men said. Women had to be protective mothers. Kingston states, “as a last act of responsibility: She would protect this child as she had protect its father… mothers who love their children take them along” (629). This quote means that women would protect their children and always look out for the best interest for them. Women had to provide food for their family and their gods. In paragraph thirteen, “she plants vegetables gardens rather than lawns; she carries the odd-shaped tomatoes home from the fields and eats food left for the gods” (622). It shows one duty of women in Chinese culture and the role they had to follow.