The Jinzhou City Party Committee speedily gave its written permission, but because of my father's position, clearance also had to come from the Party Committee for the province of West Liaoning. Assuming there would be no problem, my parents set the wedding day for 4 May, my mother's eighteenth birthday. On that day my mother wrapped up her bedroll and her clothes and got ready to move into my father's quarters. She wore her favorite pale blue gown and a white silk scarf. My grandmother was appalled. It was unheard of for a bride to walk to the bridegroom's house. The man had to get a sedan chair to carry her over. For a woman to walk was a sign that she was worthless and that the man did not really want her. "Who cares about all that stuff now?" said my mother as she tied up her bedroll. But my grandmother was more dismayed at the thought that her daughter was not going to have a magnificent traditional wedding. From the moment a baby girl was born, her mother would start putting things aside for her dowry. Following the custom, my mother's trousseau contained a dozen satin-covered quilts and pillows with embroidered mandarin ducks, as well as curtains and a decorated pelmet for a four-poster bed. But my mother regarded a traditional ceremony as old-fashioned and redundant. Both she and my father wanted to get rid of rituals like that, which they felt had nothing to do with their feelings. Love was the only thing that mattered to these two revolutionaries.
