送交者: gentleWave 于 May 31, 2009 21:29:32:

In 1940s, fleeing the war, my grandparents moved to Sichuan. Along came a maid they started to hire in BeiJing.

The maid fell in love with a local gangster chief. My grandmother tried to stop the relationship, telling the maid that the gangster chief was already married, a second marriage would only result in cumcubine status. My grandmother actually tried to hook the maid up with some other people. But apparently, the gangster chief was more charming. Seeing that his marriage was being stopped, gangster chief put out words: Even though I am a lowly gangster, I could still give you some hard time if you keep getting in the way.

In the end, the maid married the gangster chief. The representative of brides family were my grandparents, though they were not related at all. Shortly after 1949, the gangster chief was put in jail and executed for crimes he committed aginast ordinary people.

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My grandmother's family was a large family, and a very forward thinking, practical business/revolutionary family at the beginning of 1900s. They were the ones who organized and staged armed revolution in an area of a few counties in 1911. After taking control of a few county goverments, they heard the advancing manchus army were heading their way. They prepared for the worst. They dispersed all servants, gave each servant a sizable amount of money, and asked the servants to take kids from the family as their own. Also asked the servants to flee, the farther, the better.

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What I saw was very healthy, respectful relationship between people of different social, economic status. I saw bond and trust. I dont know if this kind of relationship was more common then or is more common now. All I read on intenet is atrocious social injustice in China, I hope they were just small number of cases, not the majority number of cases.