Generational trauma affected all of the members of the Wang family. Long before she was born, her father confronted violence and abuse during the Cultural Revolution, during which his family was ostracized from their community. The pain Ba Ba’s family endured colored the choices he later made, his perspective on the world, and his actions. As Ma Ma explained to Qian, Ba Ba’s “childhood left in him a fear so big that it eclipsed everything, even the people he loved most” (204). Qian did not fully see how trauma affected her own life until she was able to look back “through an adult lens” (98)—the point of view of the adult Wang writing this memoir. Ba Ba’s experiences became an inheritance of fear and frustration which Qian struggled to escape.

Ba Ba’s trauma exhibited itself through cruelty to others and self-denigration. On the one hand, Ba Ba became increasingly violent and mean to his family: He was abusive to his wife and incredibly discouraging of his daughter’s intellect and ambitions. In turn, Qian mimicked this coping mechanism through her treatment of her school friends.