Chapter Two
1
The twenty-sixth year of the Guangxu reign of the Great Qing, the Manchu dynasty, the year 1900 in the Western calendar.
My maternal grandfather, Lu Wuluan, was a martial arts practitioner who barely left footprints when he walked. As a leader of the Red Spears, he was active in training and arming troops and in building bunkers and moats to ward off attacks by foreign troops. But after several months of uneventful waiting, the local forces’ vigilance had slackened, and on the foggy seventh morning of the eighth lunar month, German forces under the leadership of County Magistrate Ji Guifen surrounded Sandy Nest Village in Northeast Gaomi Township. When the day’s battle was over, nearly four hundred Sandy Nest residents lay dead. That included my grandfather, who was killed by German soldiers after burying his spear in the belly of their comrade, and his wife, who had hidden her daughter, Xuan’er, in a large flour vat before hanging herself from the rafter to preserve her chastity. My mother, now an orphan, was six months old on that day.
On the following day, my aunt and uncle found my mother in the flour vat, barely alive, her body coated with flour. After clearing the baby’s mouth and nose and patting her on the back, my aunt was relieved to hear her little niece cough and begin to cry.
2
When Lu Xuan’er reached the age of five, her aunt fetched some bamboo strips, a wooden mallet, and some heavy white cloth. “Xuan’er,” she said to her niece, “you’re five years old, time to have your feet bound.”
“Why do I have to do that?”
“A woman without bound feet cannot find a husband.”
“Why do I have to find a husband?”
“You don’t expect me to look after you for the rest of your life, do you?” her aunt replied.
Mother’s uncle, Big Paw Yu, was an easygoing gambling man. Fearless and swaggering out in society, at home he was docile as a kitten. He was sitting in front of a fire roasting some tiny fish to go with what he was drinking. His huge hands were not nearly as clumsy as they looked. The tantalizing aroma of the sizzling fish drifted into Xuan’er’s nostrils. She was particularly fond of this lazy uncle, because every time her aunt went out to work, he stayed home to eat what and when he wasn’t supposed to. Sometimes he’d fry eggs, at other times it was dried meat, but there was always something for Xuan’er, on condition that she didn’t say a word to her aunt.
After scaling the little fish with his fingernails, he peeled off a strip, placed it on his tongue, and washed it down with a drink. “Your aunt’s right,” he said. “Girls who don’t bind their feet grow up to be big-footed spinsters that nobody wants.”
“Did you hear what he said?”
“Xuan’er, do you know why I married your aunt?”
“Because she’s a good person.”
“No,” Big Paw Yu said, “it’s because she has such tiny feet.”
Xuan’er looked down at her aunt’s feet and then her own. “Will my feet look like yours?”
“That depends on you. If you do as I say, yours will be even smaller.”
Every time Mother talked about having her feet bound, it was a mixture of blood-and-tears indictment and personal glory.
She told us that her aunt’s steely resolve and dexterity were renowned throughout Northeast Gaomi Township. Everyone knew she was the head of the household, and that Big Paw Yu was good for gambling and bird-hunting only. The fifty acres of land, the two donkeys that worked it, the household chores, and the hiring of workers all fell to Mother’s aunt, who was barely five feet tall and never weighed more than ninety pounds. That such a small person could get so much done was a mystery to everyone. When she promised to raise her niece into a fine young lady, she certainly was not about to cut corners on foot binding. First she bent the toes back with bamboo strips and wrapped them tightly, wrenching loud squeals of protest from her niece. Then she wrapped the feet tightly with the alum-treated white cloth, one layer after another. Once that was done, she pounded the toes with her wooden mallet. Mother said the pain was like banging her head against the wall.
“Please, not so tight,” Mother beseeched her aunt.
“It’s tight because I love you,” her aunt said with a piercing glare. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t care how loose they were. One day, when you have a perfect pair of golden lotuses, you’ll thank me.”
“Then I won’t get married, all right?” Mother pleaded tearfully. “I’ll take care of you and Uncle for the rest of your lives.”
Hearing this, her uncle softened. “Maybe you can loosen them a little, don’t you think?”
“Get out of here, you lazy dog!” her aunt said as she picked up a broom and threw it at him.
He jumped to his feet, picked up a string of coins, and ran out of the house.
In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the Great Qing fell and was replaced by a republic. Xuan’er was now sixteen and the possessor of perfect lotus feet.
Her uncle, who took great pride in Xuan’er’s tiny bound feet and viewed his uncommonly beautiful niece as a truly marketable treasure, hung a plaque over the front gate. “Fragrant Lotus Hall,” it read. “Our Xuan’er will marry a zhuangyuan, top scholar at the Imperial Examination,” he announced. “Big Paw,” they said, “the Manchu dynasty has fallen. There are no more zhuangyuan.” “Then she’ll marry a provincial military governor, and if not that, a county magistrate.”
It was the summer of 1917. Upon taking office, the newly appointed magistrate of Gaomi, Niu Tengxiao, banned the smoking of and trade in opium, outlawed gambling, vowed to annihilate bandits, and prohibited foot binding. The sale of opium went underground, gambling continued unabated, and annihilating bandits proved impossible. That left only foot binding, which hardly anyone opposed. So County Magistrate Niu personally went down into the villages to promote the ban, which earned him considerable prestige.
It happened during the seventh month, on one of those rare clear days. An open sedan drove into the town of Dalan. The county magistrate summoned the town head, who summoned the community heads, who summoned the neighborhood heads, who summoned the residents, all of whom were to gather at the threshing ground – men, women, young, and old. Nonattendees would be fined a peck of grain.
As the crowd gathered, Magistrate Niu spotted the plaque above Uncle Big Paw’s gate. “I’m surprised to see such sentiments at a peasant’s house,” he said. “There is a perfect pair of golden lotuses at that house, Magistrate,” the town head said fawningly. “Depraved tastes have become a national illness. Those so-called fragrant lotuses were once nothing but stinky feet.”
Eventually, the crowd settled down to hear what Magistrate Niu had to say. Mother told us that he was wearing a black high-collar tunic and a brown top hat. He had a dark mustache and wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses. A pocket watch chain dangled in front of his tunic, and he carried a walking stick. His voice was raspy, almost ducklike, but even though she had no idea what he was saying, she was sure he spoke with great eloquence.
Shy and timid, Mother clung to her aunt’s clothes. Once the foot binding process had begun, she’d stopped going outside, spending nearly all her time weaving nets or doing embroidery. She had never seen so many people before, and was too frightened to look around. She felt that everyone’s eyes were on her tiny bound feet. Mother told us she was wearing a leek green satin jacket, with wide sleeves and borders of fine silk. Her glossy black braid hung down nearly to her knees. Her trousers were cerise, also with hand-sewn borders. On her feet a pair of high-heeled red-embroidered shoes with wooden soles peeked out from beneath her trousers from time to time and clicked on the roadway when she walked. Since she had trouble standing, she had to hold on to her aunt.