Mustard Seeds

Abstract

Having grown up in a peasant home characterized by poverty and domestic violence, Wen longed for a freeing love. She witnessed how her father, a victim of structural injustice in the economy, could also subject his own home to physical oppression. Uneducated, Wen’s mother found a language in the Bible to express the unspeakable pains in life. Wen’s peasant parents worked hard to purchase her a township hukou, hoping for her to break free from the bondage of inherited class status. She succeeded academically and became a member of the urban professional community. But wounded by two failed romances, Wen’s hope for marriage became a bird with broken wings. She lives with the pains of culturally despised singlehood.