Xinran has written a moving story about female orphans in China. It is very shocking that as a result of China’s strict one-child policy, ancient gender biased traditional values and village land regulations female new born babies are either abandoned or killed in different villages in some provinces of China. Female orphans are a grim reality there and only recently foreigners have started adopting little ones.

The need of male-heir and extra plot of land that gets added in the new-born boy’s name is driving poor parents to abandon new born daughters or even drown them in pail of water. This shocking reality also reflects the extreme poverty in rural China and also high level of ignorance which comes from lack of education.

Google’s conflict with China’s iron wall is making news for quite some time. It is obvious that China desperately wants to uphold censorship and keep the iron curtain down. The stories of gross human rights abuse, injustice, government’s shocking policies are already trickling out. It will be difficult for China to keep its darkest of secrets in the modern days of internet and social networking.

Before raising a toast to communist China’s rapid progress and economic growth it is time to pause and calculate human cost of this development. Let us all wish and pray that Xinran finds her Little Snow who has a teardrop birthmark on her forehead some day!