Created in 1945 at the Lu Xun Academy of Arts in
延安, from a folk legend of a 'white-haired goddess' in the hills of northern China. The tenant farmer's daughter
喜儿 flees the landlord
黄世仁, lives in a mountain cave until her hair turns white, and is saved when the Eighth Route Army arrives. Its message was summed up as 'the old society turned people into ghosts, the new society turns ghosts back into people'.