I started reading "The Good Women of China" by Xinran. These stories were compiled by a radio journalist in China from 1989 who hosted a radio call-in show, during which she invited Chinese women to speak on the air about their lives. "Words on the Night Breeze" became famous throughout the country for its unfliching portrayal of what it meant to be a woman in modern China.

Now, is this a "Chinese thing"...to take a sad tale that stretches credibility anyway and then just for good measure throw in even more incredulity and melodrama?

The first story is called "The Girl who Kept a Fly as a Pet" and is based on a box of letters and journal entries mysteriously left at the radio station. A young girl begins to be sexually abused by her father at the age of 11. The father tells her her mother doesn't like her so she must not tell her mother or she will be jealous of her. Eventually the mother does find out but lets the situation continue to save the family's honour. The girl begins to deliberately injure herself and make herself sick so she can spend time in the hospital and be away from her father's abuse. So far, so good in terms of believability.

Then, one day when the girl is in hospital she feels a baby fly crawl up her legs and she is pleased to be so lovingly caressed in this way that she builds a little nest for the fly and keeps it as a pet. Still, not totally beyond the realm of the credible. The baby fly is squashed so then the girl befriends a large fly in her room and tries to protect it. This fly is eventually squashed. The girl becomes desperate and since she knows flies carry disease she squashes another fly into a wound which becomes infected and then she dies.

But this seemingly isn't enough. While in the hospital she has befriended a young woman with rheumatoid arthritis who was an orphan but was supported by her village to reach the achievement of being a cadre of the military. While on a walk outside the hospital our young girl sees a man and woman doing something she doesn't understand and reports to hospital staff that a man is trying to kill a woman. This was her friend who was making love with her boyfriend. They are both arrested and the young woman refuses to say her boyfriend was raping her. The boyfriend commits suicide. The young woman loses her position in the military and is marched back in shame to her village where she, of course, becomes completely ostracized.

Just a little over top don't you think. It doesn't make me inclined to read any more!