Our good conversation started innocently. I brought a book for her to read, Wild Swans. I let her know that if she liked it, she could borrow it, but, if she wasn't going to read it, I did not want her to have it. She started reading it right then, as I had asked, to see if she liked it. Though she knows Chinese history and it is not a restricted topic to write about anymore, she said she found it interesting because it was written in English and she did not know how to explain the things in English. For example, how marriages were more about responsibility toward one's family and that love was not the main purpose.

Then she started talking about her family. She started by telling me about her grandparents on her father's side. They were from Shanghai and were landlords. Her grandmother treated her children badly, and Shelly did not like her because when Shelly was sick (for much of her childhood) her grandmother would never visit. As far as she could see her grandmother did not know how to love. Her grandmother criticized everyone's choices in marriage, including her father marrying her mother.

I asked about her family's experience during the Cultural Revolution. She said her grandparents were paraded through town, derided, like many of the more educated chinese, because they were landlords. Her grandfather had special skills in printing, so, though he lost much during the those years, he was later able to make a good living.

Though Shelly dislikes her grandmother, she chooses to give money to her and is the only one of her grandchildren or children to do so. Her father doesn't like that she does this, but says she can do what she wants since it is her money. Shelly does it to show her grandmother that look, you treated me so badly, but now I can give you money, and am intelligent, etc., despite lack of the grandmother's care. She also visits her grandmother, the only one of the many grandchildren to do so. Shelly noted that her mother also treats her mother-in-law well, to set an example that parents should be respected. Otherwise, maybe when she is older she will not be respected.

Shelly talked emotionally about her family for over an hour, mostly about her grandmother. We then talked about America and the hatred towards it, the Cultural Revolution, and the relationship of envy to many world problems. I said how I thought there is always going to be envy and that the problems that currently exist will very likely not go away.