From China Connection, a national independent newsletter for China-adoptive families (Oct.-Nov., 1996 issue):

Roses in Her Hair

Some passages from Autobiography of a Chinese Young Girl, by Chen Nan-Hua (Peiping [Beijing], China. September, 1935 [book gave no further publishing information]) were sent by N.Y. subscriber Connie Clemmons, who discovered the book in a university library.

Nan-Hua grew up in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. Her father was an official and her mother a recognized artist. In the following excerpt, Nan-Hua tells of her activities when she was about six.

I was the second child in the family. My elder sister, who was three years my senior, was very obedient and never adventurous. My younger sister was only a crying baby when I was at my naughtiest age. Besides hiding myself in the grottoes of the hill-sides on the brink of the pond, I often scared my mother by climbing up the tall ladder that our gardener put against the high wall, which was covered with roses from some very old and tall rose-bushes. I always loved to put flowers on my hair, and because those roses on top of the wall were reddest as well as biggest, I often risked my neck to get them. My mother then forbade the act, and told the gardener to put down the ladder after he was through with his work. After this decree of taboo was declared, I tried to get up very early in the morning, and half threatening, half imploring, I always succeeded in making the gardener put up the ladder again; and when my mother was up, my scanty hair was already covered with fresh red roses from the top of the wall.

 

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