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In the Pond demonstrates the family and social life behind a politically active artist at the end of China’s Cultural Revolution. While being one of the first to question the communist Chinese bureaucrats with cartoons, Bin, the lead character, has to learn to deal with his family and work at the same time. Although the 1970’s in China are not considered as progressive as they were in America, Bin treats his wife, Meilan, with substantial respect for her and her ideas. This book’s plot line is a sort of chain reaction, starting with Bin and Meilan arguing over whether they should give a gift to Bin’s boss, who will assign new apartments to workers, and Bin is stubbornly against it. This sort of family dispute, leading to a long political fight with his bosses, is influenced throughout the entire book by Bin’s Family. The theme of family, feeling the impact of China’s Cultural Revolution, in In the Pond is self evidently exemplified with several examples. Meilan, marrying below herself with the villagers remarking “a beauty loves a scholar indeed” (Jin 2), she decided to take the route of most women in the years immediately after Mao Tse-tung’s death, as a house wife. While she accomplishes a housewife�