Cinderella Has No Magic Wand

[Short Story: Jicheng Anecdotes Series, Part Three]

A comment on Douban about the movie Carnival reads: "A case of sexual assault against a teenage girl. It's easy to sympathize, and not hard to tear the criminals apart, but what then? Compared with unforgivable evil, the greater blight hanging over Chinese society is the crime of not recognizing one's own wrongdoing. It goes hand in hand with the increasingly powerful patriarchy of the present day."

Adapted from a post I read two years ago. It left a deep impression on me.

The seventeen-year-old girl saves herself, but the secondary harm inflicted by the outside world is even worse, leaving her no choice but to move far away.

Fortunately, her story, both in real life and in fiction, finally gets a happy ending.

But she is merely one of the lucky ones among countless tragic stories. Beneath that enormous iceberg of silence, the voices of many more girls have gone unheard. For them, speaking up is itself almost impossible.

Jicheng Anecdotes Series:

Mai's hometown is Jinan, Shandong. After moving to the capital for school, she misses more and more the hometown that so many people were fooled into imagining by Lao She's Winter in Jinan. This mild, unassuming city holds countless untold stories, ordinary and extraordinary alike, hidden among its street corners and alleyways, in its streams of cars and crowds of people. This is a series of short stories, all adapted from true stories, whether heard from others or drawn from Mai's own experiences. I hope they resonate with you.

Click the author's page for other stories in the series.

Theme: Women's self-redemption and growth.