Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

by Lisa See

  “Beyond all of this,” the matchmaker went on, “I believe your daughter might also be eligible for a laotong relationship.”

  I knew the words and what they meant. A laotong relationship was completely different from a sworn sisterhood. It involved two girls from different villages and lasted their entire lives, while a sworn sisterhood was made up of several girls and dissolved at marriage. Never in my short life had I met a laotong or considered that I might have one. As girls, my mother and aunt had sworn sisters in their home villages. Elder Sister now had sworn sisters, while grandmother had widow friends from her husband’s village as late-life sworn sisters. I had assumed that in the normal course of my life I would have them as well. To have a laotong was very special indeed. I should have been excited, but like everyone else in the room I was aghast. This was not a subject that should be discussed in front of men. So extraordinary was the situation that my father lost himself and blurted out, “None of the women in our family has ever had a laotong.”

  “Your family has not had a lot of things—until now,” Madame Wang said, as she rose out of her chair. “Discuss these matters within your household, but remember, opportunity doesn’t step over your threshold every day. I will visit again.”

  The matchmaker and the diviner left, both with promises that they would return to check my progress. My mother and I went upstairs. As soon as we entered the women’s room, she turned and looked at me with that same expression I had just seen in the main room. Then, before I could say anything, she slapped me across the face as hard as she could.

  “Do you know how much trouble this will bring your father?” Mama asked. Harsh words, but I knew that slap was for good luck and to scare away bad spirits. After all, nothing guaranteed that my feet would turn out like golden lilies. It was equally possible that my mother would make a mistake with my feet as her mother had made with hers. She had done a fairly good job with Elder Sister, but anything could happen. Instead of being prized, I could totter about on ugly stumps, my arms constantly flapping to keep my balance, just like my mother.

  Although my face stung, inside I was happy. That slap was the first time Mama had shown me her mother love, and I had to bite my lips to keep from smiling.

  Mama did not speak to me for the rest of the day. Instead, she went back downstairs and talked with my aunt, uncle, father, and grandmother. Uncle was kindhearted, but as the second son he had no authority in our home. Aunt knew the benefits that might arise out of this situation, but as a sonless woman married to a second son, she had the lowest rank in the family. Mama also had no position, but having seen the look on her face when the matchmaker was talking, I knew what her thoughts would be. Father and Grandmother made all decisions in the household, though both could be influenced. The matchmaker’s announcement, although a good omen for me, meant that my father would have to work very hard to build a dowry appropriate for a higher marriage. If he didn’t comply with the matchmaker’s decision, he would lose face not only in the village but also in the county.

  I don’t know if they agreed on my fate on that day, but in my mind nothing was ever the same. Beautiful Moon’s future also changed with mine. I was a few months older, but it was decided that the two of us should have our feet bound at the same time as Third Sister’s. Although I still continued to do my outdoor chores, I never again went to the river with my brother. I never again felt the coolness of rushing water against my skin. Until that day Mama had never hit me, but it turned out that this was just the first of what would become many beatings over the next few years. Worst of all, my father never again looked at me the same way. No more sitting on his lap in the evenings when he smoked his pipe. In one instant I had changed from being a worthless girl into someone who might be useful to the family.

  My bindings and the special shoes my mother had made to place on the altar of Guanyin were put away, as were the bindings and shoes that had been made for Beautiful Moon. Madame Wang started to make periodic visits. Always she came in her own palanquin. Always she inspected me from head to toe. Always she questioned me about my house learning. I would not say she was kind to me in any way. I was only a means to make a profit.

  DURING THE NEXT

  year, my education in the upstairs women’s chamber began in earnest, but I already knew a lot. I knew that men rarely entered the women’s chamber; it was for us alone, where we could do our work and share our thoughts. I knew I would spend almost my entire life in a room like that. I also knew the difference between nei—the inner realm of the home—and wai—the outer realm of men—lay at the very heart of Confucian society. Whether you are rich or poor, emperor or slave, the domestic sphere is for women and the outside sphere is for men. Women should not pass beyond the inner chambers in their thoughts or in their actions. I also understood that two Confucian ideals ruled our lives. The first was the Three Obediences: “When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son.” The second was the Four Virtues, which delineate women’s behavior, speech, carriage, and occupation: “Be chaste and yielding, calm and upright in attitude; be quiet and agreeable in words; be restrained and exquisite in movement; be perfect in handiwork and embroidery.” If girls do not stray from these principles, they will grow into virtuous women.

  My studies now branched out to include the practical arts. I learned how to thread a needle, choose a thread color, and make my stitches small and even. This was important, as Beautiful Moon, Third Sister, and I began working on the shoes that would carry us through the two-year footbinding process. We needed shoes for day, special slippers for sleep, and several pairs of tight socks. We worked chronologically, starting with things that would fit our feet now and moving to smaller and smaller sizes.

  Most important, my aunt began to teach me nu shu. At the time, I didn’t fully understand why she took a special interest in me. I foolishly believed that if I was diligent, I would inspire Beautiful Moon to be diligent too. And if she was diligent, perhaps she would marry better than her mother had. But my aunt was actually hoping to bring the secret writing into our lives so that Beautiful Moon and I could share it forever. I also did not perceive that this caused conflict between my aunt and my mother and grandmother, both of whom were illiterate in nu shu just as my father and uncle were illiterate in men’s writing.

  Back then I had yet to see men’s writing, so I had nothing to compare it with. But now I can say that men’s writing is bold, with each character easily contained within a square, while our nu shu looks like mosquito legs or bird prints in dust. Unlike men’s writing, a nu shu character does not represent a specific word. Rather, our characters are phonetic in nature. As a result, one character can represent every spoken word with that same sound. So while a character might make a sound that creates the words for “pare,” “pair,” or “pear,” context usually makes the meaning clear. Still, much care has to be taken to make sure we do not misinterpret meaning. Many women—like my mother and grandmother—never learn the writing, but they still know some of the songs and stories, many of which resonate with a ta dum, ta dum, ta dum rhythm.

  Aunt instructed me on the special rules that govern nu shu. It can be used to write letters, songs, autobiographies, lessons on womanly duties, prayers to the goddess, and, of course, popular stories. It can be written with brush and ink on paper or on a fan; it can be embroidered onto a handkerchief or woven into cloth. It can and should be sung before an audience of other women and girls, but it can also be something that is read and treasured alone. But the two most important rules are these: Men must never know that it exists, and men must not touch it in any form.

  THINGS CONTINUED THIS

  way—with Beautiful Moon and me learning new skills every day—until my seventh birthday, when the diviner returned. This time he had to find a single date for three girls—Beautiful Moon, myself, and Third Sister, the only one of us to be the proper age—to begin our binding. He hemmed and hawed. He consulted our eight characters. But
when all was said and done, he settled on the typical day for girls in our region—the twenty-fourth day of the eighth lunar month—when those who are to have their feet bound say prayers and make final offerings to the Tiny-Footed Maiden, the goddess who oversees footbinding.

  Mama and Aunt resumed their pre-binding activities, making more bandages. They fed us red-bean dumplings, to help soften our bones to the consistency of a dumpling and inspire us to achieve a size for our feet that would be no larger than a dumpling. In the days leading up to our binding, many women in our village came to visit us in the upstairs chamber. Elder Sister’s sworn sisters wished us luck, brought us more sweets, and congratulated us on our official entry into womanhood. Sounds of celebration filled our room. Everyone was happy, singing, laughing, talking. Now I know there were many things no one said. (No one said I could die. It wasn’t until I moved to my husband’s home that my mother-in-law told me that one out of ten girls died from footbinding, not only in our county but across the whole of China.)

  All I knew was that footbinding would make me more marriageable and therefore bring me closer to the greatest love and greatest joy in a woman’s life—a son. To that end, my goal was to achieve a pair of perfectly bound feet with seven distinct attributes: They should be small, narrow, straight, pointed, and arched, yet still fragrant and soft in texture. Of these requirements, length is most important. Seven centimeters—about the length of a thumb—is the ideal. Shape comes next. A perfect foot should be shaped like the bud of a lotus. It should be full and round at the heel, come to a point at the front, with all weight borne by the big toe alone. This means that the toes and arch of the foot must be broken and bent under to meet the heel. Finally, the cleft formed by the forefoot and heel should be deep enough to hide a large cash piece perpendicularly within its folds. If I could attain all that, happiness would be my reward.

  On the morning of the twenty-fourth day of the eighth lunar month, we offered the Tiny-Footed Maiden glutinous rice balls, while our mothers placed the miniature shoes they had made before a small statue of Guanyin. After this, Mama and Aunt gathered together alum, astringent, scissors, special nail clippers, needles, and thread. They pulled out the long bandages they had made; each was five centimeters wide, three meters long, and lightly starched. Then all the women in the household came upstairs. Elder Sister arrived last, with a bucket of boiled water in which mulberry root, ground almonds, urine, herbs, and roots steeped.

  As the eldest, I went first, and I was determined to show how brave I could be. Mama washed my feet and rubbed them with alum, to contract the tissue and limit the inevitable secretions of blood and pus. She cut my toenails as short as possible. During this time, my bandages were soaked, so that when they dried on my skin, they would tighten even more. Next, Mama took one end of a bandage, placed it on my instep, then pulled it over my four smallest toes to begin the process of rolling them underneath my foot. From here she wrapped the bandage back around my heel. Another loop around the ankle helped to secure and stabilize the first two loops. The idea was to get my toes and heel to meet, creating the cleft, but leaving my big toe to walk on. Mama repeated these steps until the entire bandage was used; Aunt and Grandmother looked over her shoulder the entire time, making sure no wrinkles saw their way into those loops. Finally, Mama sewed the end tightly shut so the bindings would not loosen and I would not be able to work my foot free.

  She repeated the process on my other foot; then Aunt started on Beautiful Moon. During the binding, Third Sister said she wanted a drink of water and went downstairs. Once Beautiful Moon’s feet were done, Mama called for my sister, but she didn’t answer. An hour before, I would have been told to go and find her, but for the next two years I would not be allowed to walk down our stairs. Mama and Aunt searched the house and then went outside. I wanted to run to the lattice window and peek out, but already my feet ached as the pressure on my bones built and the tightness of the bindings blocked my blood’s circulation. I looked over at Beautiful Moon, and her face was as white as her name implied. Twin streams of tears ran down her cheeks.

  From outside, Mama’s and Aunt’s voices carried up to us as they called, “Third Sister, Third Sister.”

  Grandmother and Elder Sister moved to the lattice window and looked out.

  “Aiya,” Grandmother muttered.

  Elder Sister glanced back at us. “Mama and Aunt are in the neighbors’ house. Can you hear Third Sister squealing?”

  Beautiful Moon and I shook our heads no.

  “Mama’s dragging Third Sister down the alley,” Elder Sister reported.

  Now we heard Third Sister yell, “No, I won’t go, I won’t do it!”

  Mama scolded her loudly. “You’re a worthless nothing. You’re an embarrassment to our ancestors.” These were ugly words but not uncommon; they were heard almost every day in our village.

  Third Sister was pushed into the room, but as soon as she fell to the floor she clambered to her feet, ran to a corner, and cowered there.

  “This will happen. You have no choice,” Mama declared, as Third Sister’s eyes darted frantically around the room, looking for a place to hide. She was trapped and nothing could stop the inevitable. Mama and Aunt advanced on her. She made one final effort to scramble under their outstretched arms, but Elder Sister grabbed her. Third Sister was only six years old, but she struggled and fought as hard as she could. Elder Sister, Aunt, and Grandmother held her down, while Mama hurriedly applied the bandages. The whole while, Third Sister screamed. A few times an arm broke free, only to be restricted again. For one second, Mama loosened her grip on Third Sister’s foot, and soon that entire leg flailed, the long bandage twirling through the air like an acrobat’s ribbon. Beautiful Moon and I were horrified. This was not the way someone in our family should act. But all we could do was sit and stare, because by now growing daggers of pain were shooting from our feet up our legs. Finally, Mama finished her task. She threw Third Sister’s wrapped foot to the floor, stood, looked down at her youngest daughter with disgust, and spat out a single word: “Worthless!”

  Now I will write about the next few minutes and weeks, the length of which in a lifetime as long as mine should be insignificant but to me were an eternity.

  Mama looked at me first, because I was the eldest. “Get up!”

  The idea was beyond my comprehension. My feet were throbbing. Just a few minutes ago I had been so sure of my courage. Now I did my best to hold back my tears and failed.

  Aunt tapped Beautiful Moon’s shoulder. “Stand up and walk.”

  Third Sister still wailed on the floor.

  Mama yanked me out of the chair. The word pain does not begin to describe the feeling. My toes were locked under my feet so that my body weight fell entirely on the top of those appendages. I tried to balance backward on my heels. When Mama saw this, she hit me.

  “Walk!”

  I did the best I could. As I shuffled toward the window, Mama reached down and pulled Third Sister to her feet, dragged her to Elder Sister, and said, “Take her back and forth across the room ten times.” Hearing this, I understood what was in store for me, and it was nearly unfathomable. Seeing what was happening and being the lowest-ranked person in the household, my aunt roughly took her daughter’s hand and pulled her up and out of the chair. Tears coursed down my face as Mama led me back and forth across the women’s chamber. I heard myself whimpering. Third Sister kept hollering and trying to wrestle away from Elder Sister. Grandmother, whose duty as the most important woman in our household was merely to oversee these activities, took Third Sister’s other arm. Flanked by two people much stronger than she, Third Sister’s physical body had to obey, but this did not mean that her verbal complaints lessened in any way. Only Beautiful Moon buried her feelings, showing that she was a good daughter, even if she too was lowly in our household.

  After our ten round-trips, Mama, Aunt, and Grandmother left us alone. We three girls were nearly paralyzed from our physical torment, yet our trial had b
arely begun. We could not eat. Even with empty stomachs, we vomited out our agony. Finally, everyone in the household went to bed. What a reprieve it was to lie down. Even to have our feet on the same level as the rest of our bodies was a relief. But as the hours passed a new kind of suffering overtook us. Our feet burned as though they lay among the coals of the brazier. Strange mewling sounds escaped from our mouths. Poor Elder Sister had to share the room with us. She tried her best to comfort us with fairy stories and reminded us in the most gentle way possible that every girl of any standing throughout the great country of China went through what we were going through to become women, wives, and mothers of worth.

  None of us slept that night, but whatever we thought we felt on the first day was twice as bad on the second. All three of us tried to rip our bindings, but only Third Sister actually freed a foot. Mama beat her on her arms and legs, rewrapped the foot, and made her walk an extra ten rounds across the room as punishment. Over and over, Mama shook her roughly and demanded, “Do you want to become a little daughter-in-law? It’s not too late. That future can be yours.”

  Our whole lives we had heard this threat, but none of us had ever seen a little daughter-in-law. Puwei was too poor for people to take in an unwanted, stubborn, big-footed girl, but we hadn’t seen a fox spirit either and we believed fully in those. So Mama threatened and Third Sister temporarily surrendered.

  On the fourth day, we soaked our bandaged feet in a bucket of hot water. The bindings were then removed, and Mama and Aunt checked our toenails, shaved calluses, scrubbed away dead skin, dabbed on more alum and perfume to disguise the odor of our putrefying flesh, and wrapped new clean bindings, even tighter this time. Every day the same. Every fourth day the same. Every two weeks a new pair of shoes, each pair smaller. The neighbor women visited, bringing us red-bean dumplings, in hopes that our bones would soften faster, or dried chili peppers, in hopes that our feet would adopt that slim and pointed shape. Elder Sister’s sworn sisters arrived with little gifts that had helped them during their footbinding. “Bite the end of my calligraphy brush. The tip is thin and delicate. This will help your feet to become thin and delicate too.” Or, “Eat these water chestnuts. They will tell your flesh to think small.”