ABSTRACT
Kao Ts’ai-yün was born in Wu-li Village, Tun-liu hsien, Shansi Province. She lost her mother before she was two years old. When Tun-liu hsien was stricken by a famine in the spring of 1927, her father, Kao Tseng-wen, took her to escape for their lives. He carried a pole with a large bamboo basket at either end. He put Ts’ai-yün in one basket and a shabby quilt in the other. On their journey they almost starved, and it was with great difficulty that they finally reached Ts’ao-chia-shan in Ta-ning hsien. A stranger in a strange land, Kao Tseng-wen could not find work to his liking. The best he could do was to take a job tending sheep for a landlord named Wang Wan-ch’un.
