The irony of Bao's political opinion
Bao's political opinion is surprising and it's jarring. One should expect that since she is the daughter of a woman whose entire life is basically one long depiction of China's need for feminism, that perhaps Bao might be open-minded and enlightened, but ironically, she becomes committed to Mao Zedong's Communism and she joins the Red Army. Why should a disenfranchised person want to be in the very army that is disenfranchising them? Because her father is a General, and because she has a broken perspective on her own value as a woman.
Bao's ironic "sacrifice"
Bao decides that the journey to Nanjing is ultimately worth it, even if it costs her the agony it does. Her feet are destroyed (like her mothers) and yet she keeps going. She keeps walking even past the point of exhaustion. Why? So she can receive military training—an ironic goal for such a painful journey. She even goes past exhaustion so much that she loses her baby. It costs her her marriage too, because she wasn't concerned with the family. Ironically, Bao isn't much of a mother, but who could blame her? She was raised by a father who didn't even know her mother really, except that he used her for sex and owned her as property. Her associations to reality are deeply damaged by her cultural background.
Yu-Fang's feet
Yu-Fang's feet were bound according to old Chinese custom, because men thought petite tiny feet were more attractive than big feet, and then that got blown way out of proportion, so that by Yu-Fang's birth, girls feet are bound as young as two years old. Ironically, Yu-Fang is tortured this way by her own family, for the ironic reason of profiting some money and a better life, and ironically, it doesn't even matter, because they sell her to a powerful General as a concubine. She is completely disenfranchised, abused, and treated as property, by her very own family.
The irony of changing culture
Even though China changed, it didn't necessarily bring better tides for the Chang family. Her mom was brutally tortured alongside her father in from of the whole Community because of her former associations to Communism and the Red Army. Bao is judged by both the old culture, which asks so much of her she literally sacrifices her own blood, and by the new culture, which doesn't acknowledge the suffering at the center of her opinions. Ironically, the change did not bring good for this family.
The irony of education
Although to most people, education is just school, and it's something done almost begrudgingly, that is certainly not Jung Chang's opinion. Chang believes that education was like a portal for her, because she was able to practice a new language and gain entrance to a new country (it was difficult for citizens of China to travel outside of the country, but education opened those doors for her). It was more than just school; it was the hope of a different future.
