A young socialist group was created under the name of "Red Guards" which is hunting down the "road-capitalists" who are guilty of the "Four Olds" who are old customs, old habits, old thoughts or old culture. This is shown when the village chef goes to Fugui to get rid of the puppets because everyone knows they are part of the ancient culture and although the puppets remind Jiazhen of her son Yongqing, the family burns them. The audience is shown that the communist party has infiltrated people's homes, and the propaganda is also present in the wedding song between Fengxia and Erxi. It is known that at this moment the Revolution is at its peak. It is described that education does not matter and this turns out to be a disaster as later in the film, during Fengxia's birth, the doctors are gone and only the students remain. It is noted that these students are all young women and the communist party is trying to make gender roles equal for these young women, however it is clear that since the doctors were the only ones educated to help this poses the death of Fengxia who dies of blood loss after giving birth to her son Mantou. Fengxia which is mute and regarded in China as a disability in Chinese culture as a “disgrace” since disabilities were considered that no doctor or nurse would treat them, especially because they didn't know how. This part of the film is symbolic for this part of China at that time as it shows both children, Youqing and Fengxia, being victims of the Communist Party's policies. Finally, when Erxi buys her son a box full of chicks, which they decide to keep in the chest previously used for shadow puppet props. It involves the history of puppetry in Chinese culture, as it was made for an emperor who had lost a loved one and so an officer made him a shadow puppet and when he presented him to the emperor he was overjoyed to be able to see his loved one again.