The pomegranate is a symbol of fertility in Chinese cultural traditions, and the pomegranate is like a woman's womb filled with seeds. Pomegranates and boys are also a common motif for new marriages. Women have always been given the status of being the bearers of children and the successors of the family, which is all that male-dominated society has given women. Bearing many sons, becoming a mother, and raising children is a woman's whole life.
Dressed in traditional Chinese bridal attire, Li Xinmo breaks a plate of pomegranates into pieces with her hands, then bends down and picks up the scattered pieces of pomegranates one by one with her mouth and places them on another plate, working in this way again and again until she has picked up all the broken pieces of pomegranates on the floor. This is like a metaphor for a woman's life, always pregnant, always laboring, from whole to broken, completing a process of self-sacrifice and exhaustion.
