In the spring of 1997, a seven-year-old girl in Shanghai shared a secret with the narrator: she was allowed to have a sibling, something almost unheard of in their society due to China’s one-child policy. At the time, siblings were a rare concept, with most children only having cousins, and the policy had been in place since 1980. The narrator’s parents had proudly kept their One Child Honorary Certificate, a symbol of compliance. However, when the classmate explained she had a congenital disorder and her family was allowed another child due to her health, the narrator realized the profound implications of the policy. It was in that moment that the narrator stopped viewing the one-child policy as normal and began to confront its effects on their society.
