Charlie Friesen

Charlie Friesen

Factory Girls

Leslie T. Chang

Non-Fiction

Holiday

Pg. 336

1. Right now in my book, Chang has just returned from the village, where she was visiting Min. She also decided to visit her own ancestral village (she is Chinese too). There she visited where her old family homestead was, before it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. She also visited one of her great-aunts. She also then visited one of her grandfather's cousin's family in Beijing. At that gathering, Chang learns about another family member Zhang Hong. All she had heard of him was that he was crazy. He was trying to clear his father's name, for he had been labeled a Rightist during the Cultural Revolution. At the last scene he was again with Wu Chunming, as she was working at her construction job back in Guandong.

2. This book is starting to get more interesting. Now that she started talking about her family's past. This is actually interesting because the history she talks about goes back to the seventeenth Century. And she also writes about how her family traveled to America, which was and adventure in the twentieth Century. This section mixes up the flow of the rest of the book. It gives something different to read. Instead of just reading about teenage girls who leave their factories for another one, this section was hard to predict what would happen. But this is only a section, and the next time I blog about this book, it will probably go back to the way it was before, plain.

3. An important theme in this book in this section is hardship. Especially because she is talking about her family's past. Everyone suffered in the Cultural Revolution, and her family was not an exception. Many of her family members were sent to the countryside to do manual labor, including Zhang Hong's father, who was also labeled a Rightist. Even before the Communists took control of China, when they were battling with the national army. Chang's aunt, Nellie, had to tend the whole family, after Nellie's father (Chang's grandfather) was shot by the Communists, for working with the current government. Anyone who did not move to America before the Communists took control suffered much hardship.

4. My favorite character would have to be Leslie Chang, even though she was not really a character. I liked her mainly because I agreed with her points of view. She was the only person who you really got to know in the book. When she started talking about her family's past, she also told the reader about herself. You really got to know Chang by also learning about her own family. Also, many other characters were stuck in the past in this section, and Chang was the only person who gave a modern twist to the story. She was also the only one who was really able to dissect the situation make sense of it. Chang is the constant, you can always rely on her to make sure you understand the book.

5. My least favorite character would have to be Zhang Hong. He was too caught up in the past. He was driving himself crazy because he was trying to clear his father's name, who is dead now. This rightist label never would have affected him, in fact, the Communist Party eliminated the title Rightist from almost everyone, including Hong's father. Also, he did not seem like the nicest person to be around. Since he was always talking about his father and him wrongly being accused, it could never seem that you could actually say something to him and be paid any attention to. I do not want to be around someone who just complains, so that is why Zhang Hong is my least favorite character.

6. My prediction for the future is that Wu Chunming is probably going to keep her job in the construction industry at least for a while. She is making good money , so if she does quit, she will have something to fall back on. Chang will also talk about Min some more. She has a boyfriend now, and she might get married to him. But for now, she will continue to talk about Chunming. I am getting pretty close to the end of the book, so by the end, I expect that both girls will get married to a man, with or without their parents' consent. Chang will have some kind of final thought or epilogue that will throw a new spin on things. And now that these two girls are not girls any more, but women, they will start to settle down some, and by the end of the book, it will be another happy ending in China.