A sad life.

Jenny told me that a cousin of hers died in Beixing at the age of 39 of cancer.  The details of this woman's life were sad.   

Her first child was a daughter which was of course a bad thing in the countryside.  Her second child was a boy.  After the birth, she had an operation so she could not bear any more children. 

In the countryside of China, every house has a cess pool in which all their refuse goes.  The first time I had seen one, I was sick to my stomach.  I remember seeing a dead baby piglet floating in one of these pools.   In was in one of these cesspools that the woman's son drowned.  After this, she had to undo the operation in hopes of having another son, but she had a daughter. 

The tragedy of losing a son and the operations on her must surely have contributed to her getting cancer.