Chapter 9  Chinese New Year

The author told us why she started writing in this chapter.

In China ,new clothes were worn on New Year's Day to signal a new beginning.We all got the new clothes,but ours were Chinese style while fourth brother and little sister's clothes were western style."It is blatant inequality  between her children and us."The inequality also exist in meals.We were supposed to eat only three meals a day with congee and preserved vegetables for breakfast every morning,but Niang's children eat bacon,eggs ,toast and so on.This made us decided to write a anonymous letter to father.The letter was not finished because of Niang's appearance.Then Niang recruted our leader-Big sisiter.Fromthen on doing homework was the only way to cushion me from the harrowing uncerintied all around.

In school ,I was the one who studied hard and got perfect report cards.I started writing by accident.To me ,writing was pure pleasure.It thrilled me to be able to escaoe the horror of my daily life in such a simple way.In the face of schoolmates ,I was despsrate to keep up the pretence make-believe that I came from a normai,loving family.