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I sent for Madame Wang just as the girl’s feet were about to be bound. The old womanwas escorted into the main room by two big-footed girls, which told me that even thoughother matchmakers now had more business, she had put away enough money to live well.Still, the years had not been kind to Madame Wang. Her face had wizened. Her eyes werewhite with blindness. She was toothless. She had very little hair. Her body had shrunk asher back hunched. She was so frail and deformed she could barely walk on her lily feet. Iknew then that I didn’t want to live so long, yet here I am.

I offered tea and sweetmeats. We made small talk. I believed she didn’t remember who I

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was. I thought I could use this to my advantage. We chatted some more, then I came to thepoint.

“I’m looking for a good match for my grandson.”

“Shouldn’t I be speaking to the boy’s father?” Madame Wang asked. “He is away andrequested that I negotiate on his behalf.”

The old woman closed her eyes as she thought about this. Either that or she drifted off tosleep.

“I hear there is a good prospect in Jintian,” I went on loudly. “She is the daughter of therent collector.”

What Madame Wang said next told me that she knew exactly who I was.

“Why not bring in the girl as a little daughter-in-law?” she asked. “Your threshold is veryhigh. I’m sure your son and daughter-in-law would be happy with that arrangement.”

Actually, they were quite displeased with what I was doing. But what could they do? Myson was a scholar. He had just passed the next level of the imperial examinations tobecome a juren at the very young age of thirty. Either his head was in the clouds or hewas traveling the countryside. He rarely came home, and when he did it was withoutlandish stories of what he’d seen: tall, grotesque foreigners with red beards, who hadwives with waists so constricted that the couldn’t breathe and huge feet that flipfloppedlike just-caught fish. These tales aside, my

yy son was filial and did what his father wanted,while my daughter-in-law had to obey me. Nevertheless, she had removed herself fromthese discussions entirely and retired to her room to weep.

“I’m not looking for a big-footed girl,” I said. “I want to marry in a girl who has the mostperfect feet in the county.”

“This child has not begun that process. There are no guarantees—”

“But you have seen these feet, am I correct, Madame Wang? You are a good judge. Whatdo you think the result will be?”

“The child’s mother may not know how to do a good job—”

“Then I will see to it myself.”

“You can’t bring the girl into this house if you intend a marriage,” Madame Wang saidquerulously. “It would be improper for your grandson to see his future wife.”

She had not changed, but then neither had I.

“You are right, Madame. I will visit the girl’s home.”

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“That is hardly appropriatee—”

“I will be visiting often. I have many things to teach her.” I watched Madame Wang mullthat over. Then I leaned forward and covered the old woman’s hand with my own. “Ibelieve, Auntie, that the girl’s grandmother would have approved.”

Tears welled in the matchmaker’s eyes.

“This girl will need to learn the womanly arts,” I continued hurriedly. “She will need totravel—not so far as to give her ambitions outside the women’s realm, but I think youwould agree that she should visit the Temple of Gupo every year. They tell me there oncewas a man who made a special taro treat. I hear his grandson continues the legacy.” Iersisted in the negotiation, and Snow Flower’s granddaughter came under myp

pprotection. I personally bound her feet. I showed her all the mother love I could possiblygive as I made her walk back and forth across the upstairs chamber of her natal home.Peony’s feet came to be perfect golden lilies, identical in size to my own. During the longmonths that Peony’s bones set, I visited her nearly every day. Her parents loved her verymuch, but her father tried not to think about the past and her mother did not know it. So Italked to the girl, weaving stories about her grandmother and her laotong, about writingand singing, about friendship and hardship.

“Your grandmother was born of an educated family,” I told her. “You will learn what shetaught me—needlework, dignity, and, most important, our secret women’s writing.”

Peony was dili ent in her studies, but one day she said to me, “My writing is crude. I hopeyou will be forg

ggiving of me and it.” She was Snow Flower’s granddaughter, but how couldI not see myself in her too?

i sometimes wonder which was worse, watching Snow Flower or my husband die. Bothsuffered greatly. Only one had a funeral procession in which three sons went on theirknees all the way to the grave site. I was fifty-seven when my husband went to theafterworld, too old for my sons to think about having me marry out again or even worryabout whether or not I would be a chaste widow. I was chaste. I had been for many years,only now I was doubly a widow. I have not written much about my hus-band in thesepages. All of that is in my official autobiography. But I will say this: He gave me reasons tocontinue day after day. I had to make sure his meals were provided. I had to think ofclever things to amuse him. With him gone, I ate less and less. I no longer cared to be anexemplar of womanhood in the county. Days drifted into weeks. I forgot about time. Iignored the cycles of the seasons. Years folded into decades.

The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you. Ioutlived nearly everyone—my parents, my aunt and uncle, my siblings, Madame Wang,my husband, my dau hter, two of my sons, all of my daughters-in-law, even Yonggang. Myeldest son became a g

ggongsheng and then a jinshi scholar. The emperor himself read hiseight-legged essay. As a court official, my son is away most of the time, but he has secured

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the Lu family’s position for generations to come. He is filial, and I know he will never forget his duties. He has even bought a coffin—big and lacquered—for me to rest in after I die. His name—along with those of his great-uncle Lu and Snow Flower’s greatgrandfather—

hangs in proud men’s characters in Tongkou’s ancestral temple. Those three names will be there until the building crumbles.

Peony is now thirty-seven, six years older than I was when I became Lady Lu. As the wifeof my eldest grandson, she will become the new Lady Lu when I die. She has two sons,three daughters, and may yet have more children. Her eldest son married in a girl from another village. She recently gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. In their faces I see Snow Flower, but I also see myself. As girls we are told that we are useless branches, because we will not carry on our natal family names but only the names of the families we marry out to, if we are lucky enough to bear sons. In this way, a woman belongs to her husband’sfamily forever, whether she is alive or dead. All of this is true, and yet these days my contentment comes from knowing that Snow Flower’s and my blood will soon rule thehouse of Lu.

I have always believed the old saying that cautions, “A woman without knowledge isbetter than a woman with an education.” My entire life I tried to shut my ears to whathappened in the outside realm and I didn’t aspire to learn men’s writing, but I did learn women’s ways, stories, and nu shu. Years ago, when I was in Jintian teaching Peony andher sworn sisters the strokes that make up our secret code, many women asked if I wouldcopy down their autobiographies. I could not say no. Of course, I charged them a fee— three eggs and a piece of cash. I didn’t need the eggs or the money, but I was Lady Lu and they needed to respect my position. But it went beyond that. I wanted them to place a value on their lives, which for the most part were dismal. They were from poor and ungrateful families, who married them out at tender ages. They suffered the heartache ofseparation from their parents, the loss of children, and the indignities of having thelowest position in their in-laws’ homes, and far too many of them had husbands who beatthem. I know a lot about women and their suffering, but I still know almost nothing aboutmen. If a man does not value his wife upon marriage, why would he treasure her after? Ifhe sees his wife as no better than a chicken who can provide an endless supply of eggs or a water buffalo who can bear an endless amount of weight upon its shoulders, why wouldhe value her any more than those animals? He might appreciate her even less, since she isnot as brave, strong, tolerant, or able to scavenge on her own.

Having heard so many stories, I thought of my own. For forty years, the past only arousedregret in me. Only one person ever truly mattered to me, but I was worse to her than theworst husband. After Snow Flower asked me to be an aunt to her children, she said—and these were the last words she ever spoke to me—“Though I was not as good as you, Ibelieve that heavenly spirits joined us. We will be together forever.” So many times I’ve thought back on that. Was she speaking the truth? What if the afterworld has no sympathy? But if the dead continue to have the needs and desires of the living, then I’mreaching out to Snow Flower and the others who witnessed it all. Please hear my words.

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Please forgive me.

Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

one day in the 1960s, an old woman fainted in a rural Chinese train station. When thepolice searched her belongings in an effort to identify her, they came across papers withwhat looked to be a secret code written on them. This being the height of the CulturalRevolution, the woman was arrested and detained on suspicion of being a spy. The scholars who came to decipher the code realized almost at once that this was notsomething related to international intrigue. Rather, it was a written language used solelyby women and it had been kept a “secret” from men for a thousand years. Those scholars were promptly sent to labor camp.

I first came across a brief mention of nu shu when I wrote a review of Wang Ping’s Achingfor Beauty for the Los Angeles Times. I became intrigued and then obsessed with nu shuand the culture that rose up around it. I discovered that few nu shu documents—whether letters, stories, weavings, or embroideries—have survived, since most were burned atgrave sites for metaphysical and practical reasons. In the 1930s, Japanese soldiers destroyed many pieces that had been kept as family heirlooms. During the CulturalRevolution, the zealous Red Guard burned even more texts, then banned the local women from attending religious festivals or making the annual pilgrimage to the Temple of Gupo.In the following years, the Public Security Bureau’s scrutiny further diminished interestin learning or preserving the language. During the last half of the twentieth century, nushu nearly became extinct, as the primary reasons that women used it disappeared.

After I chatted about nu shu in an e-mail with Michelle Yang, a fan of my work, she very sweetly took it upon herself to look up and then forward to me what she found on theInternet about the subject. That was enough for me to begin to plan a trip to Jiangyong (previously called Yongming) County, where I went in the fall of 2002, with the help ofthe brilliant and prudent planning of Paul Moore of Crown Travel. When I arrived, I was told I was only the second foreigner to go there, although I knew of a couple of others who had apparently flown under the radar. I can honestly say that this area is still as remote as ever. For this reason, I must thank Mr. Li, who not only was a great driver (which is hard to find in China) but who also proved to be very patient when his car gotstuck in one muddy track after another as we traveled from village to village. I was extremely lucky to have Chen Yi Zhong as my interpreter. His friendly manner, eagerness to walk unannounced into houses, subtlety with the local dialect, familiarity with classicalChinese and history, and enthusiastic interest in nu shu—something that he had notknown existed—helped make my journey especially fruitful. He translated conversations in alleys and kitchens, as well as nu shu stories that had been collected by the nu shumuseum. (Let me now offer my appreciation to the director of that museum, who mostgenerously opened display cases and let me peruse the collection.) I have relied on Chen’scolloquial translation of many things, including the Tang dynasty poem that Lily and Snow Flower wrote on each other’s bodies. Since this region is still closed to foreigners, it第 187 页 共 189 页

was necessary to travel in the company of a county official, also named Chen. He openedmany doors, and his relationship with his bright, beautiful, and cherished daughtershowed me more than any article or speech how the status of little girls has changed inChina.

the company of a county official, also named Chen. He openedmany doors, and his relationship with his bright, beautiful, and cherished daughtershowed me more than any article or speech how the status of little girls has changed inChina.

Together, Messieurs Li, Chen, and Chen took me by car, pony-pulled cart, sampan, andfoot to see and do everything I wanted. We went to Tong Shan Li Village to meet YangHuanyi, who was then age ninety-six and the oldest living nu shu writer. Her feet hadbeen bound when she was a girl and she told me about that experience, as well as herwedding ceremonies and festivities. (Although anti-footbinding activities began in thelate nineteenth century, the practice lingered in rural areas well into the twentieth. Onlyin 1951, when Mao Zedong’s armies finally liberated Jiangyong County, did the practiceend in the nu shu region.)

Recently, the People’s Republic of China reversed its previous stance and now considersnu shu to be an important element of the Chinese people’s revolutionary struggle against

o pression. To that end, the government is making an effort to keep the language alive byop

ppening a nu shu school in Puwei. It was there that I met and interviewed Hu Mei Yue, thenew teacher, and her family. She shared with me tales about her grandmothers and howthey taught her nu shu.

Even today, the village of Tongkou is an extraordinary place. The architecture, paintingson the houses, and what remains of the ancestral temple all attest to the high quality oflife that was once enjoyed by the people who lived there. Interestingly, although todaythe village is poor and remote by any measure, the temple lists four men from this areawho became imperial scholars of the highest rank during the reign of Emperor Daoguang.Beyond what I learned in the public buildings, I would like to thank the many people ofTongkou who let me wander freely in their homes and answered endless questions. I’malso grateful to the people of Qianjiadong—believed to be the Thousand Family Village ofYao lore rediscovered by Chinese scholars in the 1980s—who also treated me as anhonored guest.

On my first day back home, I sent an e-mail to Cathy Silber, a professor at WilliamsCollege, who in 1988 did field research on nu shu for her dissertation, to say howimpressed I was that she had lived for six months in such an isolated and physicallyuncomfortable area. Since then, we have spoken by phone and through e-mail about nushu, the lives of the women writers, and Tongkou. I was also helped tremendously by HuiDawn Li, who answered countless questions about ceremonies, language, and domesticlife. I am immensely grateful for their knowledge, openness, and enthusiasm.