my great grandparents

a picture of my grandpa and his brother with their kids. 

My grandparents used to tell me stories about their parents when I was little. According to my memories, my grandma’s parents (on my mother’s side) dead early when China fought Japan in the 1930s. My grandma was raised by her sister with sweet potatoes. My grandma said they so poor that they can't afford rice and only live with sweet potatoes. Grandma and her sister would dig sweet potatoes from the field and eat them plain. She always tells me not to waste food because she lived through the hard life when people staved to death everyday.

My grandpa told me that his parents (on my mother’s side as well, I don't know much about my grandparents on father’s side) fought with the Japanese. My grandparents were set up by the match makers according to their birth dates. They got married after they met each other once.

They had four kids and my mother was the youngest and the only girl in the family. (She is the one on the bottom left in the picture). Back in my grandparents’ days, when the Chinese were fighting with the Japanese, the Chinese population decreased dramatically. Therefore, Mao encouraged all mothers to have as many babies as they can. And we called those mothers who had many children “Hero Mothers.” However, this eventually led to a huge population in China and the government had to start the Only Child policy.