Sterilization, abortion, and even contraception were difficult. The Communists had started promoting family planning in 1954, and my mother was in charge of the program in her district. She was then in an advanced stage of pregnancy with Xiao-her, and often started her meetings with a good-humored self-criticism. But Mao turned against birth control. He wanted a big, powerful China, based on a large population. He said that if the Americans dropped atomic bombs on China, the Chinese would 'just go on reproducing' and reconstitute their numbers at great speed. He also shared the traditional Chinese peasant's attitude toward children: the more hands the better. In 1957, he personally named a famous Peking University professor who had advocated birth control as a rightist. After that, family planning was seldom mentioned.

My mother had become pregnant in 1959, and had written to the Party asking for permission to have an abortion.

This was the standard procedure. One reason the Party had to give its consent was that the operation was a dangerous one at the time. My mother had said that she was busy working for the revolution, and could serve the people better if she did not have another baby. She was granted an abortion, which was dreadfully painful because the method used was primitive. When she became pregnant again in 1961, another abortion was out of the question in the opinion of the doctors, my mother herself, and the Party., which stipulated a minimum three-year gap between abortions.

Our maid was also pregnant. She had married my father's former manservant, who was now working in a factory. My grandmother cooked both of them the eggs and soybeans which could be obtained with my parents' coupons, as well as the fish which my father and his colleague caught.

Our maid gave birth to a boy at the end of 1961 and left to set up her own home with her husband. When she was still with us, she would go to the canteens to fetch our food. One day my father saw her walking along a garden path stuffing some meat into her mouth and chewing voraciously. He turned and walked away in case she saw him and was embarrassed. He did not tell anyone until years later when he was ruminating over how differently things had turned out from the dreams of his youth, the main one of which had been putting an end to hunger.

When the maid left, my family could not afford another one, because of the food situation. Those who wanted the job women from the countryside were not entitled to a food allocation. So my grandmother and my aunt had to look after the five of us.

My youngest brother, Xiao-fang, was born on 17 January 1962. He was the only one of us who was breast-fed by my mother. Before he was born, my mother had wanted to give him away, but by the time he arrived she had become deeply attached to him, and he became the favorite. We all played with him as though he were a big toy. He grew up surrounded by loving crowds, which, my mother believed, accounted for his ease and confidence. My father spent a lot of time with him, which he had never done with his other children. When Xiao-fang was old enough to play with toys, my father carried him every Saturday to the department store at the top of the street and bought him a new toy. The moment Xiao-fang started to cry, for any reason, my father would drop everything and rush to comfort him.

By the beginning of 1961, tens of millions of deaths had finally forced Mao to give up his economic policies. Reluctantly, he allowed the pragmatic President Liu and Deng Xiaoping, general secretary of the Party, more control over the country. Mao was forced to make self-criticisms, but they were full of self-pity, and were always phrased in such a way that it sounded as if he was carrying the cross for incompetent officials all over China. He further magnanimously instructed the Party to 'draw lessons' from the disastrous experience, but what the lessons were was not left to the judgment of the lowly officials: Mao told them they had become divorced from the people, and had made decisions which did not reflect ordinary people's feelings.

Starting from Mao, the endless self-criticisms masked the real responsibility, which no one pursued.

Nevertheless, things began to improve. The pragmatists put through a succession of major reforms. It was in this context that Deng Xiaoping made the remark: "It doesn't matter whether the cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice." There was to be no more mass production of steel. A stop was put to crazy economic goals, and realistic policies were introduced. Public canteens were abolished, and peasants' income was now related to their work. They were given back household property, which had been confiscated by the communes, including farm implements and domestic animals. They were also allowed small plots of land to till privately. In some areas, land was effectively leased out to peasant households. In industry and commerce, elements of a market economy were officially sanctioned, and within a couple of years the economy was flourishing again.

Hand in hand with the loosening up of the economy, there was also political liberalization. Many landlords had the label of 'class enemy' removed. A large number of people who had been purged in the various political campaigns were 'rehabilitated." These included the counterrevolution ari from 1955, 'rightists' from 1957, and 'rightist opportunists' from 1959. Because my mother had received a warning for her 'right-wing tendencies' in 1959, in 1962 she was raised from Grade 17 to Grade 16 in her civil service rank as compensation. There was greater literary and artistic freedom. A more relaxed general atmosphere prevailed. For my father and mother, as for many others, the regime seemed to be showing it could correct and learn from its mistakes and that it could work and this restored their confidence in it.

While all this was going on I lived in a cocoon behind the high walls of the government compound. I had no direct contact with tragedy. It was with these 'noises off' that I embarked on my teens.

When my mother took me to register at primary school in 1958, I was wearing a new pink cord jacket and green flannel trousers with a huge pink ribbon in my hair. We went straight into the office of the headmistress, who was waiting for us with the academic supervisor and one of the teachers. They were all smiling, and they addressed my mother respectfully as "Director Xia' and treated her like a V.I.P. Later I learned that the school came under my mother's department.

I had this special interview because I was six, and nor really they only took children from the age of seven, as there was a shortage of schools. But even my father did not mind the rules being bent this time, as he and my mother both wanted me to start school early. My fluent recitation of classical poems and my handsome calligraphy convinced the school I was advanced enough. After I had satisfied the headmistress and her colleagues in the standard entrance test, I was accepted as a special case. My parents were tremendously proud of me. Many of their children had been turned down by this school.

Everyone wanted to get their children into this school because it was the best in Chengdu, and the top 'key' school for the whole province. It was very difficult to get into the key schools and universities. Entrance was strictly on merit, and children from officials' families were not given priority.

Whenever I was introduced to a new teacher, it was always as 'the daughter of Director Chang and Director Xia." My mother often came to the school on her bicycle as part of her job, to check on how it was being run. One day the weather suddenly turned cold, and she brought a warm green cord jacket with flowers embroidered on the front for me. The headmistress herself came to my classroom to give it to me. I was terribly embarrassed with all my classmates staring at me. Like most children, I just wanted to belong and to be accepted as part of my peer group.