“Long ago in Song times, perhaps more than one thousand years ago,” she recounted, “Emperor Song Zhezong searched through the realm for a new concubine. He traveled far, finally coming to our county, where he heard of a farmer named Hu, a man of some learning and good sense who lived in the village of Jintian—yes, Jintian, where our Snow Flower will live when she marries out. Master Hu had a son who was a scholar, a very high-ranking young man who had done well in the imperial exams, but the person who most intrigued the emperor was the farmer’s eldest daughter. Her name was Yuxiu. She was not an entirely worthless branch, for her father had seen to her education. She could recite classical poetry and she had learned men’s writing. She could sing and dance. Her embroidery was fine and delicate. All this convinced the emperor that she would make a fine royal concubine. He visited Master Hu, negotiated for his clever daughter, and soon enough Yuxiu was on her way to the capital. A happy ending? In some ways. Master Hu received many gifts and Yuxiu was guaranteed a courtly life of jade and silk. But, girls, I tell you that even someone as bright and cultivated as Yuxiu could not avoid that sad moment of departure from her natal family. Oh, how the tears poured down her mother’s cheeks! Oh, how her sisters wept in sadness! But none of them were as sad as Yuxiu.”
We’d learned this part of the story well. Yuxiu’s separation from her family was just the beginning of her woes. Even with all her talents, she could not keep the emperor amused forever. He grew tired of her pretty moon face, her almond eyes, her cherry mouth, while her talents—as noteworthy as they were here in Yongming County—were insignificant compared to those of the other ladies of the court. Poor Yuxiu. She was no match for palace intrigues. The other wives and concubines had no use for the country girl. She was lonely and sad but had no way to communicate with her mother and sisters without others finding out. An incautious word from her could result in decapitation or being thrown into one of the palace wells to silence her forever.
“Day and night, Yuxiu kept her emotions to herself,” Aunt went on. “The wicked women of the court and the eunuchs watched her as she quietly did her embroidery or practiced her calligraphy. All the time they made fun of her work. ‘It’s too sloppy,’ they’d say. Or, ‘Look how that country monkey tries to copy men’s writing.’ Every word that came from their mouths was cruel, but Yuxiu was not trying to copy men’s writing. She was changing it, slanting it, feminizing it, and eventually creating entirely new characters that had little or nothing to do with men’s writing. She was quietly inventing a secret code so she could write home to her mother and sisters.”
Snow Flower and I had often asked how Yuxiu’s mother and sisters had been able to read the secret code, and today Aunt wove her answer into the story.
“Perhaps a sympathetic eunuch slipped out a letter from Yuxiu that explained everything. Or perhaps her sisters didn’t know what the note said, tossed it aside, and in its skewed state they saw and interpreted the italicized characters. Then, over time, the women of that family invented new phonetic characters, which they grew to understand from context, just as you girls are learning to do right now. But these are the kinds of particulars that men would care about.” She delivered this reprimand sternly, reminding us that these questions weren’t our concern. “What we should carry away from Yuxiu’s life is that she found a way to share what was happening beneath her happy surface life and that her gift has been passed down through countless generations to us.”
For a moment we were quiet, thinking of that lonely concubine. Aunt began to sing first and the three of us joined in, while Mama listened. It was a sad song, one reputed to have come straight from Hu Yuxiu’s own mouth. Our voices poured out her sorrow:
“My writing is soaked with the tears of my heart,
An invisible rebellion that no man can see.
Let our life stories become tragic art.
Oh, Mama, oh, sisters, hear me, hear me.”
The last notes floated out the lattice window and down the alley. “Remember, girls,” Aunt said. “Not all men are emperors, but all girls marry out. Yuxiu invented nu shu for the women in our county to keep our ties to our natal families.”
We picked up our needles and started embroidering. The next day, Aunt would tell us the story again.
THE YEAR SNOW Flower and I turned thirteen our learning came at us from every direction, and we were expected to help in all the usual ways. Where Snow Flower’s womenfolk had excelled in teaching her the refined arts, they had failed miserably with the domestic arts, so she shadowed me as I did my chores. We rose at dawn and started the cooking fire. After Snow Flower and I washed the dishes, we mixed the pig’s meal. At midday, we went outside for a few minutes to pick fresh vegetables from the kitchen garden; then we made lunch. Mama and Aunt once did all these tasks. Now they supervised us. Afternoons were spent in the women’s chamber. When evening came, we helped prepare and serve dinner.
Every minute of every day involved lessons. The girls in our household—and I include Snow Flower in this—tried to be good students. Beautiful Moon was best at making thread and yarn, tasks that Snow Flower and I had no patience for. I liked to cook but was less interested in weaving, sewing, and making shoes. None of us liked to clean, but Snow Flower was terrible at it. Mama and Aunt didn’t chastise her as they did my cousin and me if we didn’t sweep the floor well enough or didn’t get all of the dirt out of our fathers’ tunics. I thought they were lenient with Snow Flower because they knew she would have servants one day and would never have to do these things herself. I looked at her failure differently. She would never learn to clean properly, because she seemed to float above and apart from the practicalities of life.
We also learned from the men in my family, though not in the way you might expect. Baba and Uncle would never teach us anything directly. That would have been improper. What I mean is that I learned about men through Snow Flower’s actions and the way Baba and Uncle reacted to them. Congee is one of the easiest things to make—just rice, a lot of water, and stirring, stirring, stirring—so we let Snow Flower make this for breakfast. When she saw that Baba liked scallions, she made sure that an extra handful was added to his bowl. At dinner, Mama and Aunt had always silently put the plates on the table and let Baba and Uncle serve themselves; Snow Flower circled the table, keeping her head lowered and offering each dish, first to Baba, then Uncle, then Elder Brother, then Second Brother. She always stood just far enough away not to be too intimate but at the same time to exude graciousness. I learned that through her small attentions to them, they refrained from shoveling food in their mouths, spitting on the floor, or scratching their full stomachs. Instead, they smiled and talked to her.
My desire for knowledge went far beyond what I needed to know in the upstairs women’s chamber, in downstairs areas, or even with the study of nu shu. I wanted to know about my future. Fortunately, Snow Flower loved to talk, and she talked a lot about Tongkou. By now she had traveled often between our two villages and had learned the route well. “When you go to your husband,” she told me, “you will pass over the river and through many rice paddies, heading for the low hills that you can see from the edge of Puwei. Tongkou nestles in the arms of those hills. They will never falter and neither will we, at least that’s what my baba says. In Tongkou, we are protected from earthquake, famine, and marauders. It is feng shui perfect.”
Listening to Snow Flower, Tongkou grew in my imagination, but this was nothing compared to how I felt when she talked about my husband and my future in-laws. Neither Beautiful Moon nor I were present at the discussion that Madame Wang had with our fathers, but we were familiar with the basics: Everyone who lived in Tongkou was a Lu, and both families were prosperous. These things interested our fathers, but we wanted to know about our husbands, our mothers-in-law, and the other women in our upstairs chambers. Only Snow Flower could give us the answers.