Compare And Contrast Two Sisters

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The difference between the life experiences of the two sisters is their vastly different lifestyles. The main difference is the amount of freedom they had. The first sister lived in China. The women brought up in the Chinese culture “never left home” and had freedom “stolen from them at birth”. This shows us that the first sister led a very restricted lifestyle under the influence of a strict culture. The ability “to move freely was a luxury” as they had to go through foot binding. After their feet had been binded, they had to “[gather] patience” and “[learn] to walk in shoes the size of teacups, without breaking”, while learning to be more feminine. This tells us about the hardships that the first sister had to go through to ensure that she followed the Chinese culture closely. The first sister essentially traded her freedom for the culture in China. On the other hand, the second sister lived in America. The American culture is more carefree and gives women an opportunity to experience freedom as “there are many roads”. All of them are also allowed to have a feel of how being a first class citizen is like. The experience is described as “a sister across the ocean, who relinquished her name”, giving me the impression that the American culture rebelliously rejects the culture in China by “diluting jade green with the blue of the Pacific”. Furthermore, in America, “women can stride along with men” which shows that men and women were treated equally in America’s society.