nts of life] them myself---the long separation, being sold, my escape, etc.---none of these events are without happiness. So you needn't feel sorry for me. You must be able to take things easy" (Lau 50). Her attitude would please Confucius, who wants people to accept life as it is without causing social turmoil. Women who might protest in any meaningful way would not be acting according to Confucian moral ideals. The merchant's wife is not only a slave to society, accepting whatever abuse it heaps upon her and rationalizing it as the source of happiness, but she is a slave to the internal master who tells her that she has no right or need to protest her abuse.
The story "Rice" by Yeh Shao-chun has nothing to do with women so it is difficult to discuss its depiction of women's roles, except insofar as the absence of any meaningful mention of women in a village's crisis indicates once again their peripheral social nature. The teacher is a man and the superintendent is a man. Both are positions of some power, although clearly the superint
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