The Sound of Drums and Gongs
- It's summertime, but Ji-li isn't enjoying it very much.
- For one thing, there are posters everywhere to destroy your four olds; Red Guards are at the ready to search your house for these relics of a different era, too.
- One store gets a da-zi-bao on the front, and the next thing everyone knows, it's shut down because the owners had four olds there.
- There are a few searches on Ji-li's street. They find jewelry at their neighbor's house.
- Ji-li's parents let Song Po-po go. She likes working as a housekeeper, but times are too tough to keep her. People are jumping down their throats for keeping a housekeeper when it's supposed to be a class-less society.
- Even though she doesn't work for them anymore, Song Po-po still lives downstairs and wants to stay in touch with the family.
- With Song Po-po gone, Ji-li has a lot more to do. She's in charge of going to the market and getting the food for their meals.
- At first she doesn't know what to get, and when she tries cooking, Ji-li messes up.
- She figures she'll get better with more practice.
- One day, Ji-li's grandma needs to go to the acupuncturist for her arthritis. Before they would have called a cab, but now that's not allowed.
- Ji-yong says they can borrow a pedicab (translation: bike with a chariot) if your family is sick, so he runs around the corner and fetches one.
- Before they know it, all three kids are helping take their grandma to the doc. It's hard work, but they manage to get her there and home without getting in an accident (barely).
- Since four olds aren't allowed anymore, Ji-li's family burns or paints over all of theirs. Her grandma's old leather trunks with brass locks? Painted black. The old expensive clothes? Burned.
- Ji-li starts to worry: If they have to burn all this stuff, what would the Red Guards do if they searched the place?