Five Thousand Years of Chinese Women

Granny Black Rabbit gazed at the planet, once blue-green, in the distance and murmured: "The most morally degenerate kingdom in history was Northern Qi. It produced several people famous throughout the land: King Linglan, whose beauty could topple kingdoms; Empress Dowager Hu, who kept a harem of male prostitutes for her pleasure; and Feng Xiaolian, who once lay naked across the emperor's lap... Xiaolian, oh, Xiaolian... Many years later, in the Neo-Confucian Southern Song, there was a girl named Jinlian. The fate of women in ancient China was never in their own hands. They were driven forward by the lash of their times. Faced with an irreversible fate, what kind of lives did they choose? In the Ming dynasty, there was an unnamed woman. Why did she and her husband, an official of the court, switch identities, until she became the prime minister? Amid eunuch corruption and an inept ruler, how did she meet each challenge and keep the Great Ming stable? In the Republic of China, the actress Han Xiaoyun was separated from her lover across the sea by the turmoil of the times. What fate awaited them in the end? Life is like a play, and a play is like life. Onstage, she sings Farewell My Concubine, but offstage, is she too starring in a modern-day version of the same tragedy? And what of the modern female scientist who loves to daydream? Her gaze is always distant, lost in her own world, where her imagination runs wild. A contract to be someone's lover finally forces her to face the relationship she cannot let go of. Most unforgettable of all is the baby girl, born through technology and gone because of technology. Her difficult temperament gives her mother no end of headaches, so they call her Cha Bao (Trouble). What story does she share with the young heir of a corporation obsessed with eternal life, and what choice will she make in the ultimate war between humans and machines?