The house of life.

Abstract

The story is set in a Chinese village, during 1970s. Souyuen, a woman in her forties, is the mother of two sons and three daughters. The Chinese tradition of males carrying the family name has given Souyuen, and her mother-in-law, Grandmother, the determination to obtain a grandson. However, the one-child policy comes out with the return of Mee, the elder son, from an army camp. It has become an emergency to get Mee married and have a son before the policy is enforced. Souyuen and Grandmother set up a trap for Mee and Pyieng, who is a remote relative and a childhood acquaintance of Mee, in order to make them marry. Later, though, Mee confesses he has a girlfriend, the family insists he should marry Pyieng to save her reputation. The pressure from Liongtan, Souyuen's husband, and the intervention of Souyuen and Grandmother forces Mee into marriage with Pyieng. When the first child of the couple turns out to be a girl, Souyuen shifts her attention to Xee, her second son, who lives in the city. But Xee's first child is also a girl. Defeated, Souyuen returns to her home, not knowing that what awaits is the failure of Mee's marriage, and a mistress that revealed the crime she committed more than twenty years ago.