"...You never heard if ideas were better in another city, only if they were worse.  We were told stories of sons who were so influenced by bad wives that they threw their old, crying parents out into the street. So Taiyuanese mothers continued to choose their daughters-in-law, ones who would raise proper sons, care for the old people, and faithfully sweep the family burial grounds long after the old ladies had gone to their graves.
     Because I was promised to the Huang´s son for marriage, myown family began treating me as if I belonged to somebody else.  My mother would say to me when the rice bowl went up to my face too many times, "Look how much Huang Taitai´s daughter can eat."
       My mother did not treat me this way because she didn´t love me.  She would say this biting back her tounge, so she wouldn´t wish for something that was no longer hers."

(Ivy Books, 1989)