Kingston's China MenMaxine Hong Kingston's China Men contains many fables and parables from Chinese culture. In "On Mortality" Kingston reveals the history of human mortality and the reason for this mortality. The story largely focuses on human emotions and reactions to the situations people find themselves in. It also raises questions about the role of women in Chinese culture and the culture's attitudes toward them. The main character, Tu Tzu-chun, is forced to undergo a series of tortures that are all illusions. He cannot speak or react to the events he witnesses, which he believes he can. It is only in the last of the nine hells that he screams in horror at the sight he encounters. As he screams, Tu is removed from the hells he is in and informed by the Taoist that he has ruined all humans' chance at being immortal. The Taoist informs Tu that "[You] overcame joy and sorrow, anger, fear and evil desire, but not love..." (121). But what constitutes this idea of ​​love? During the illusions, Tu could not "overcome love" when he was reincarnated as a woman and had to face the murder of his child, but when he was still himself he calmly watched his wife be ground into blood meal. He didn't cry out at the sight, reminding himself that it was just an illusion. How could he not react to the accident with his wife, but also react to the death of a son he doesn't yet know? Both incidents were illusions and both would seem to imply love, but Tu only reacted to one of them. Is it because she was a woman who cried at the sight of an injured child? Didn't he cry out for his wife's death because she was a woman? The role of women in this story reveals a sense of inferiority towards women. These questions raised by the story show how women were seen as inferior and weak in the eyes of Chinese culture.