As Shanshan recounted, the writings in the journal had a deep effect on any reader. Shanshan's thinking is significant due to the reason that it expresses the change that took place in the Chinese culture. During the last decades, people began to crave for independence as each person had wanted to express more freely and independently.

Shanshan and her mother, Zhong Yu, had both hoped true love would come find them, but each refrained from acting in order to attain it. In addition to that, both Shanshan and her mother had been accustomed to dodging any chance to true love that they got. In their opinion, love had almost been a wonderful dream which could not become true for them. A reason for their fear of being in love might be that they had been in fact afraid from making a change in their lives. The respective change would not be an ordinary...

It would outreach far beyond the two women's souls, it would prove to be a step forward concerning the modernization of the whole Chinese culture at the time.
In the case of Zhong Yu, the reason for her self-restraint had been that she had been afraid of what society might think. Indeed, China during the 1960s had been based on traditional values, and, a woman would be seen as being immoral if she chose to engage in a relationship with a married man.

Shanshan concepts are different than her mother's, as she does not fear retaliation from her fellow countrymen. However, the two women are connected through the fact that they both forbid themselves the right of truly being in love. Unlike her mother, Shanshan is actually scared of finding true love because she believes that she wouldn't know what to do.