Four Eyes

Finally Reaching the Dream

by Connor Corcoran


Propaganda Mao uses to "brain wash" the youth.

The youth in China don’t have much to look forward at the moment as our decade of the 1960’s has been dark. There are some boys who can look forward like the one I am writing about. Before he was born no one would call his lucky and unlikely occurrence a dream, but today we think otherwise. People call him Four Eyes here on Phoenix Mountain. Mao Zedong has put young men, the country’s youth, into “re-education” which is euphemism to say the least. It is actually a new type of lifestyle, one of labor and simplicity. Four Eyes was finally set free from his re-education today and can go back home to a better life with his mom. He was set free because he worked hard carrying rice, poop, and growing crops. Not only was he successful with his loyalty but he earned respect form the adults on the mountain.
At the scene one could see how happy he was and the jealousy of all of the other boys. I felt a sense of sympathy for the young men who weren’t so lucky as to have undergone the situation of Four Eyes. The young boy seemed arrogant though for he didn’t even acknowledge the others around them and wasn’t full of life and gratitude. I believe that the others would have been much more enlightened by such a situation. Four Eyes worked harder than them though. The other boys could have stepped it up a level but it is hard in such depressing times. His mother was noticeably happy and very enthusiastic to be around her son again.
He tells me that he plans on going back to the city to write for a literary journal, he loves to write and composed a few verses while he was here on the mountains. Now that he can go back he can look forward to freedom, more learning, and a career of his desire. It is sad to say almost every other boy his age will never reach that fate and will continue to live out this life of labor and poverty as they do here in the mountains.

Seamstress Article

Young Women Are Trapped By Chairman Mao’s Laws
by Connor Corcoran

Young women worrying in China for their friend in the middle.

Now is not the time to be pregnant in China especially in early youth. The new laws of birth control made by Chairman Mao are brutal like the one making it illegal to become pregnant before the age of twenty five. Mao has also made abortions are illegal, a law many women don’t like at the moment. If you become pregnant you have no way out because abortion isn’t an option unless you sneak around the rules and work out a deal. One young lady known as the Little Seamstress became pregnant not long ago. She has undergone a stressful time and was fearful. She says she has felt trapped in life before but never like she did these past few days. Her friend Ma has helped her get through the situation. The law has really made many young women nervous but they also have to deal with their fathers too so if abortion is illegal there is no where to go and no way to make the situation better.

We have witnessed many women scrutinized for failing to comply with Mao’s family planning ideals. The Little Seamstress wanted to avoid such embarrassment and escape punishments like jail or death. Ma was able to persuade a doctor who knew of his father to perform an abortion for his vulnerable friend the Seamstress. He offered him a forbidden piece of literature and helped with a medical procedure in order to do so. She like many others here snuck into the hospital for an illegal abortion, but many others have been unlucky and had uglier fates. The Little Seamstress is relieved now not only because of her safety from the law but also from the potential punishment from her strict father. It is nice that some people can get by in these times of limited opportunity and sparse nurturing.

Similar Stories

Similar Stories
by Connor Corcoran

















The Characters from both stories pursue the seamstress and Pao-yu.

In the story The Red Chamber two young ones, Pao-yu and Tai-yu, both fall in love. Pao-yu is also getting attention from Pao-chai, another young girl. This book like Balzac takes you on an adventure of flirtation and social interaction of young adults. One major similarity is that two girls are interacting with Pao-yu. It is vice versa in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress as two boys do so with the little seamstress. Luo and Ma have a similar plot with the seamstress as Pao-chai and Pao-yu do with Pao-yu. Only one of the two “competitors” in both stories wins the heart of the seamstress and one wins Pao-yu’s. These writings make love seem painful and hard to achieve which many times it is. There is a real intense drama that these Chinese stories have through out the plots.
Like Luo did with the seamstress, Tai-yu mutually falls in love with Pao-yu. Unhappy endings destroy the poor young characters in Balzac and The Red Chamber. Due to arranged marriages in China, Pao-yu is forced to marry Pao-Chai which breaks the two lover’s hearts. This story of love is rough because no one gets what they want in the end. Tai-yu dies and then Pao-yu dies too. He dies from the pain leaving a lonely Pao-Chai on their wedding day. The ending in Balzac is sad too. The Little Seamstress, after lots of intimacy with Luo, runs away in the end never to return or see him again. He is hurt by this and Ma is let down too, as Pao-Chai was at the end.
There are major differences between the two books though. The Red Chamber takes place in the years way before Christ. Balzac takes place 60 to 70 years ago. Also the characters in The Red Chamber are wealthy unlike the poor characters in Balzac. Both books go to prove how the human nature of love today is what is was thousands of years ago. Both are great books to read to get more oriented with the culture of China. These books are special and unique literary works.