October 12th 1949 Hey there! My name’s Lu Xiao Mei and I’m 16 years old. I’m from Liu Ling, but since I’m a woman and only 16 I don’t have a career. Instead I live with my husband, Wang Huang-Fu whose 19 years old, and his family and help clean up around the house and care for the youngest. In my family I have my mother, Liu Shou Mou, and my father, Liu Da Nu. Also I have my little sister, Lu Tan Rong, whose 8 and my older brother and his fiance, Li Rui Ke whose 18 and Li Zheng Xu whose 16. On my husband’s side of the family, I have my mother and father in laws, Wang Bao Yu and Wang Dao-Ming, and their youngest daughter, Wang Jia Li, whose only 5 years old. I’ve decided to start a journal because the revolution just ended and apparently things are supposed to be changing.
November 9th 1949 A lot’s been changing and fast too! Things seem to be getting a little better day by day. Before the revolution, for anyone that didn’t have a lot of money, things were pretty bad. Like most “peasants” or you know, poorer people, didn’t own land. They rented it off these powerful land owners who opted to make sure the families that rented were forever in debt. A few weeks ago, I walked around my town and I saw that everyone had their own little plots and had a lot of crops growing. When I started talking to everyone, they said they feel like it’s starting to look up and maybe one day they can start to move up in life. Now the land owners have to do work too. Our village started working together and even though the former land owners weren’t happy about it, it was just all around better for everyone. Woman can work now too! There are little day cares so woman can go out and do some type of work, even though they don’t get nearly as much as men.
November 29th 1949 So a few weeks ago I went to my brother’s wedding. I can’t remember the last time I saw him as happy as he was! I know a lot of younger adults that are happy