The comedy of the film reaches an apogee when Yamei concentrates her energies on becoming a radio operator for the army. Although still hard of hearing, as someone who is more red, that is politically reliable, than expert, or technically competent, Yamei is a model worker. She takes her place at the front line of battle as a communications operative who, among other things, connects the local PLA command to Beijing.

In reality, throughout the Cultural Revolution era the PLA was, relative to other segments of society, spared the corroding excesses of popular revolutionary enthusiasm, and its leaders jealously guarded its professionalism. Yamei might have gotten a job in a fanciful Xie Jin propaganda piece, but in real life she probably would have been shunted off to work in a cotton mill where the cacophony would have soon reduced her to aphony once more.