My Aunt

MY AUNT

We lived on the 8th floor of a high-rise building in a cul-de-sac in Kowloon when I was four to seven years old. A child at that stage is too young to appreciate the delicate nuances of gourmet home cooking but old enough to form lasting memories of dishes she ate sitting with her family around the dining table as laughter and conversations intermingled with the salivatory pursuit of each bit.

In the winter, coming home from school, my favorite snack was a bowl of hot milk sweetened with honey, in which a delicately poached egg was placed. I would sit and drink in the soothing concoction and feel warm, calm, and contented.

At dinner, at least three to four dishes would appear on the table, always accompanied by a big steamer pot of rice. The ingredients of each dish were expertly chopped to just the right size for the nuanced character of that dish, and just big enough to pick up with chopsticks with ease and small enough to place in my mouth without a struggle. I always looked forward to the sauteed eggplant topped with spicy minced pork and salted black beans. Or the silky, savory egg custard steamed with matrimonial vine. And the most simple and satisfying was the paper-thin slices of potatoes cooked to a sheer perfection topped with scallion, garlic, and just a touch of spicy bird’s eye chilis.

So many dishes have imprinted themselves into my memory, and they were all prepared by Dai Mor, she with her tiny bound feet and frail frame, yet strong sinuous dexterous hands that cooked all the meals for our family, day after day.

Drawing upon the scattered mosaic memory of my young mind, I recall a petite and graceful woman who always wore a black tunic with embroidered buttons that secured the garment from the side and loose-fitting pants that fell to her ankles just to the point where her tiny bound feet could be seen encased in their black velvet shoes that she made by cooking down the rice with water to make a thick paste that became the glue with which she used to bind several layers of canvas-like fabric together to make the soles. When they dried, she would cut black velvet cloth and sew the fabric onto the soles, thus fashioning her custom-made shoes to fit her stunted tiny feet caused by her toes being broken and tucked under the bridge of her foot at nine years old as a sign that she was of noble birth and therefore did not need to trot about like peasant women. The deranged ideal was for her feet to resemble “three-inch golden lotuses.” A barbaric practice that caused limited mobility and a lifetime of pain so that women could look like dolls swaying on ethereal stumps.

There was that afternoon when I was napping on the couch in the living room when suddenly, a live fish flopped in. It had bounced off Dai Mor’s chopping board, ricocheted out of the kitchen, and slid across the wooden floor. The fish fought with floppy contortions as we all tried to catch the slippery escapee.

That evening, it made its second appearance in a bamboo steamer under an aromatic sauce of julienned green onions, grated ginger, rice wine, and mushroom soy sauce.

And I recall that irate neighbor from the flat below us who came wearing curlers ringing our doorbell because she couldn't stand the incessant thumping from the apartment above. What were we doing?

Well, Dai Mor insisted on mincing a whole slab of meat using two choppers, left-right, left, right, in a non-stop downward motion on a thick chopping board placed on the floor so that she could swat and utilize the strength of her upper body to mince that chunk of meat!

In the limited perception of my childhood brain, Dai Mor had always been old. That was how I knew her. Now, decades later, I realize she was a fellow female born into a male-dominated world where she had to negotiate circumstances as best she could.

She was once a young bride married to my father’s oldest brother, who was then murdered, And my father vowed to take care of her for the rest of her life. Those were tribal days when a deal was sealed with a handshake, and honor meant being truly honorable.

She did not know how to read or write. So, I took it upon myself to teach her the characters that I learned at school each day.

I came home excited to teach her. Grabbing a pencil and a blank piece of paper, I would draw out dots in the forms of ‘女’ for woman, or for ‘男’ for man or ‘桌子’ for table, and took her small wrinkled right hand in mine and guided her to trace the characters by connecting the dots.

She would put on a sweet smile, follow along for a few tracings, and then suggest that it was time for peanut butter toast. And I would comply.

There were probably more peanut butter toasts eaten than characters I was able to teach her, but it didn’t matter. It was our little game by which she taught me patience, love, and nourishment. And my aunt’s name was 楊 凈 梅, which she never learned to write.

Dai Mor was left behind when our family decided to emigrate to America. The common understanding was that she didn’t want to burden us by coming along, so the decision was made to move her to a care home for seniors. But now, decades later, I feel that we abandoned her.

She couldn’t even speak the Cantonese dialect and had been with our family practically all her life, and yet, we just left her in the care of strangers with whom she could barely communicate.

There’s been a long drought in California, but the rain finally made its way to our parched state. Walking home in the pouring rain, tears came flowing down decades later.

 I see her standing at the doorway of the nursing home, bidding us goodbye and a safe journey to our new home across the ocean.

And we left her there.

It is a tendency for many women to give silently and selflessly, and yet we all tend to take their love and kindness for granted. Do you know such a woman?

Please don’t let her be forgotten and recede into the anonymity of your overcrowded memories. If she is alive, call her, send her a note, an email, a text…just let her know you appreciate her. And if she has passed, send her a warm hug from your heart.

Note on foot-binding:

Foot-binding, which caused unimaginable pain and restricted Chinese women for generations, is no longer practiced, and the last few remaining victims of this atrocious disfiguration have all died.

It is estimated that as many as 2 billion Chinese women, over the course of a millennium, broke and bound their feet in order to conform to social norms, which dictated that tiny “lotus” feet were a symbol of physical perfection.

If a woman was from a high-ranking family, her bound feet signified her status.

It also heightened her value and attractiveness to her future husband and his family. Since women thus deformed were physically restricted and could not venture far from home, foot-binding was the way to keep them dependent on men and also enforce their chastity.

There are various sources as to how this heinous practice became popular. The most accepted story is that during the 10th century, Emperor Li Yu (Southern Tang Dynasty) became completely mesmerized by a court dancer named Yao Niang, who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon and seemingly floated on her toes while she moved seductively in a six-foot golden lotus to the sounds of flutes and stringed instruments.

Altering the shape of the foot by forcing the toes to be tucked under caused a girl or woman to rely on her thigh and buttock muscles for support when she walked resulting in a swaying gait men found very alluring.

(Wearing high heels also cause a similar movement of the body, but of course, is nowhere close to the torment caused by the permanent crippling of foot-binding.)

Overtime, elite women in the court of Emperor Li Yu and beyond started foot-binding, which made the practice a status symbol. And here’s what Amanda Foreman, renowned historian notes:

“ A small foot in China, no different from a tiny waist in Victorian England, represented the height of female refinement. For families with marriageable daughters, foot size translated into its own form of currency and a means of achieving upward mobility. The most desirable bride possessed a three-inch foot, known as a “golden lotus.” It was respectable to have four-inch feet—a silver lotus—but feet five inches or longer were dismissed as iron lotuses. The marriage prospects for such a girl were dim indeed.”(1)

Gradually, girls of lower classes and poor families were also subjugated to this torture as a way to increase their “value”. And this would continue for a thousand years.

Personally, I have a very difficult time processing the unfathomable pain and impact that foot-binding had on Chinese women and society. I am doing further research and will be posting what I learn soon.

Here is a link to images of the last few women with bound feet taken by Jo Farrel, who tracked down 50 of them and photographed some for her book: Living History: Bound Feet Women of China.

Until next time,

Jia Ling

References:

1.     Foreman, A. (2015, January 21). Why Footbinding Persisted in China for a Millennium. Smithsonian Magazine.

2.     Malchik, A. (2020b, February 14). The Medical Consequences of Foot-Binding. The Atlantic.

3.     The Guardian. (2022, October 18). Unbound: China’s last “lotus feet” – in pictures.