Leung’s mother bullied Tai Po about her failure to produce an

heir, stirring up trouble in the mourning household. It was cruel,

but grounded in a real fear – China was a patrilineal society and

Leung’s six daughters were growing up with no rights over their

own inheritance, so if there was no son, the family lost every entitlement

to its own property, land and business. When my

great-grandfather Leung died, everything he owned would be

passed to his nearest male descendant – probably a nephew –

leaving my grandmother and her sisters at the mercy of fate.

While Leung still lived the family bloodline continued, and

when his parents died he and Tai Po came into sole possession of

the house and the land around it. Its walls were made of dried, plastered

mud and its roof was straw. There was only one room, which

had a stone floor where the children played and where work was

done during the day. At night, sleeping mats were rolled out, and

each person found their narrow patch of floor.

The cramped conditions meant that the hut was infested with

lice and other parasites which crawled over any bits of skin that

poked out from under blankets and clothing. They crawled

through the family’s hair and bit into their scalps and ears, raising

lumps. When they shook out the cloth sheets in the morning

before folding them away, my grandmother told me you could hear

the clicking noise of the insects hitting the stone floor, swollen and

red with the blood they’d sucked.