The Modern Womanhood in China and Korea
Yang Zhang
March 29, 2007

The Modern Womanhood in China and Korea

I was born in the generation when the one-child policy was on its second round, Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform was just on its way for the creation of better and richer China, and China started to set its way for the formation of pioneered "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and the "socialist market economy". I am a woman, a young Chinese woman who has not yet experienced so much bitterness, yet enough for becoming aware the lives of women in modern Chinese society as well as other eastern Asian countries. Chinese had a long history of believing that males had the aptitude to think critically, whereas females had long hair but limited perception. While I have been educated in the United States of America, my perception has been broadened by reading through the novels about women’s lives in the past and present times. By closely reading, I precede my interpretations according to author’s words. Like any other children born after 1979 in China, I am the only child, the only heir to my dear parents. My father could be allowed to have a second child if he didn’t stay in the city with my mother. Unlike in some rural areas of the China where they are not under the restriction of Planned Birth Policy, urban parents overprotect their children, especially they are girls. Instead of being viewed by pearls or precious gifts, I personally think this is the sign that women are treated as the victims of the male-orientated society, where considers girls are weak in both physically and mentally. I felt the same way with the character, Yan Danzhu, in Eileen Chang’s Jasmine Tea. When Nie Chuanqing asks, “why are you always hanging around me? Aren’t girls supposed to be worried about their reputations? Shouldn’t you be wondering what your father might