White Lily (4 page)
Authors: Ting-Xing Ye
White Lily, kneeling side by side with Fu-gui, marveled at her brother’s eloquence. She watched as her father stood and looked down at Fu-gui with emotion.
“Son, I have thought this matter over. I am proud of you for what you and your sister have done.” He then turned to White Lily, his voice softened. “And I am particularly proud of you, White Lily. Yes, let your feet be free and your mind too.”
“Father,” White Lily quickly jumped to her feet, her eyes sparkling, “are you saying …?” She stopped, pressed her lips together as if trying to weigh the rest of the words before they were let out.
Her father smiled.
“Yes, White Lily,” Fu-gui interrupted, “you are going …” But before her brother completed his sentence, White Lily dashed out of the study and charged into the sitting room where Mother and Nai-nai watched her wide-eyed, unable to believe what they saw.
“Mother, Nai-nai,” the cheerful girl burst out, “Father said that I am going to school to learn to read and write.”
Nai-nai mumbled, sadly shaking her head. “I have never heard such a thing in my whole life. You can’t possibly —”
“Yes, you can,” Mother said firmly as she stood up and held White Lily in her arms. “My daughter, I am so happy for you. I wish I had had your courage when I was your age.”
“Mother, you
do
have courage. No other mothers would have done what you did for me. I knew it all along,” White Lily whispered.
With her mother and Nai-nai each placing a hand on one of White Lily’s shoulders for support, the three of them made their way to the courtyard. They stopped in front of the lily pond, where White Lily took a deep breath before she looked up at the clear evening sky. She shouted,
the hardest she ever did: “I am free! I am going to school with my brother, Fu-gui!” Her ringing voice traveled over the rice paddies, across lily ponds and canals, and into the distance. It was even louder than the blasts of the firecrackers.
Afterword
L
egend says that the custom of binding women’s feet started during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). A concubine who danced in front of the emperor swirled around on feet that were wrapped tightly with strips of silk cloth. Her graceful steps, light as feathers and swift as clouds, were attributed to her bound feet. She gave such pleasure to the emperor that other women began to bind their feet. The practice became widespread during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). By the Ming era (1368–1644), foot-binding was the norm, especially among women of “good family.” In fact, some feudal rulers issued decrees against unbinding.
The process began when a girl was four or five years old, before the bones of her feet were
fully formed. Her four small toes had to be bent under and against the sole of the foot; her big toe was also folded in. The foot was then tightly wrapped with strips of cloth to hold the toes in place, at the same time to prevent the foot from growing. By all accounts, the pain was constant and excruciating, lasting for years as the girl matured, and continuing to give discomfort all her life.
The misshapen feet were called “golden lilies” by the Chinese. “Three-inch feet” (about ten centimeters) were a sign of subordination and considered a mark of a woman’s beauty. The smaller the pointed feet were, the better. Of course, “golden lilies” were also a symbol of caste, showing a woman’s social class.
Not only were her feet distorted, the woman could not walk normally. Her walk was very slow and awkward; her legs were bowed, her feet pointed outward. Therefore, she had to stay in or near her home.
Although opposition to the custom swelled with the revolutions of 1911 and 1919, not until the Liberation in 1949, when the communists took power, was foot-binding abolished.
My story takes place in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), the last imperial kingdom in Chinese history, which produced ten emperors in nine generations over 267 years.
White Lily may have escaped the suffering, but many women did not. And one of them was my Great-Aunt Phoenix Sister, whose memory accompanied me as I was creating the story.
I was brought up mainly by Great-Aunt. In spite of her so-called “quality of appearance” and her bound feet, she didn’t have a “good marriage and secure future,” as was predicted when she begged her parents to take off the painful bandages. Instead, after her two failed arranged marriages, Great-Aunt was cast out of her family and village, and ended up living with my family as an “old maid” at the age of twenty-three.
Great-Aunt never once called her bound feet “Three-Inch Golden Lilies” or “Teardrops.” As a little girl I called them “Ginger-roots” instead, because that was how they appeared to me: wrinkled and twisted, and often giving off an unpleasant smell. I recall many nights when, before going to bed, I watched Great-Aunt soak
her tired feet in a wooden basin. On many occasions, I sat with her in total silence because that was what she preferred. She ignored my curiosity and my many whys.
When I was older, I was able to help her. On cold winter nights, for instance, I would bring her a thermos bottle or add hot water to the basin to keep her feet warm. Yet when sweltering summer nights arrived in Shanghai, when the temperature stayed above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the soaking of her feet became a miserable ordeal. I would then, holding an oversized banana leaf in each of my hands, fan Great-Aunt as she tended to her feet.
Soaking was essential, Great-Aunt explained to me. The softened feet would make her task a bit easier: trimming off the old skin around her heels and clipping ingrown toenails. Since she walked on her heels, partially supported by her four bent-under toes, her moving around produced a remarkable pounding on the wooden floor in our apartment. My family lived on the second level, and the neighbors below told us they were able to trace the whereabouts of Great-Aunt when she was at home. But they
never made any fuss about the thumping over their heads.
How I wish that Great-Aunt were still alive so she would know that I, after all these years, wrote a story about bound feet, telling of the suffering and misery she and many women endured. But most of all, telling of a girl in her time who won her freedom.
Author’s note
“Nai-nai” is “grandmother” on the paternal side: “ai” pronounced as “eye;” Fu-gui, pronounced
Foog-way
(“ui” as in “away”), means “rich and precious.”
Text copyright © Ting-xing Ye 2000
Text illustrations copyright © Bernadette Lau 2000
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WHITE LILY
Seal Books/published by arrangement with Doubleday Canada
Doubleday Canada edition published 2000
Seal Books edition published February 2003
eISBN: 978-0-385-67413-3
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