never return to the rice shed and its jars of pickled snakes and the pink little bodies of baby mice.
When all was done and she was ready for her journey, Number Threereturned with a yellow water iris to wind into her hair, and a most beautiful gift. It was a sunshade, which when opened bloomed in the same bright yellow as the iris on a stalk of green bamboo. Ah-Su had found a moment when the others were engaged in readying Yik-Munn. She kissed Li-Xia and said with her secret smile, “I have gathered the rest of your mother’s things from the rice shed; I will keep them safe for you until we see each other again. Remember, my Beautiful One, your feet are your freedom. While you have them, nothing is impossible.”
CHAPTER 4
Ten Willows
I n the smoky blue mulberry groves, there were as many trees as there were scales on a snake, or so it was said among the mui-mui , the young girls who killed the moths and collected the tiny pearls of silk. The rolling hills of the Ten Willows silk farm were covered with the trees as far as could be seen from the banks of the river.
Unlike at smaller spinning mills, which depended on cocoons supplied by others, Ming-Chou, a man of great prosperity and power, had the advantage of owning his own groves. Established by his great-grandfather, they had made him the richest silk merchant in the Pearl River Delta, living in a world of lordly privilege beyond that of even the city taipans of Canton or Hong Kong.
Here, behind the high, dragon-back walls of his tranquil gardens, he employed one hundred women. Fifty of these were sau-hai , “women without men,” an ancient sisterhood born to the cult of survival. As hungry children, victims of flood and famine, mauled and molested by field hands for a handful of rice, they had been plucked from the darkest depths of despair. The oldest of them had forsaken the notion of wedlock and motherhood, banding together and welcoming any virgin girl to join their ranks and accept the traditional comb and mirror as she took the sacred oath of sau-hai .
The sisterhood cherished and protected its own as surely as nuns in a convent. It had always been the way for a poor woman of China, if her family was unable to feed her but had failed to kill her at birth, to be soldto anyone who would have her. Such lost women had sought the sisterhood and shared its strength for centuries. It offered food and shelter, but above all it promised a measure of dignity, and security from the injustices of men.
The sau-hai were much sought after as dometic servants, and any household worthy of its name was prepared to pay a little more for an amah who wore the black tzow and showed the white handkerchief of purity, her hair wound into a tight bun and caught by the wooden comb. Thus had been formed a network of secret communications that could stretch from house to house, village to village, and town to town, even from province to province. Members of the sisterhood became a constant source of information on the fortunes of rival clans and competitive households.
Ming-Chou was deeply proud that he had chosen the sisters of sauhai to become his weavers. He paid them well, saw that their conditions were pleasant, and treated them with respect. Most could not read nor write, so questioned nothing. Yet they were intelligently led and there were some among them who were of considerable breeding, whose families had been beset by disaster, or who despised or feared the male sex and preferred the company of women. Some, like Elder Sister Ah-Jeh, the Ten Willows superintendant, had great skill with the abacus, a keen eye for business, and a deep knowledge of healing the sick. The money paid to them at the end of each month was less than half of that given to men and boys, but it was wisely used or carefully saved.
Ming-Chou knew well—and did not challenge—that they created their own laws and enforced them by rules and rituals laid down by the society over the centuries.
When all was done and she was ready for her journey, Number Threereturned with a yellow water iris to wind into her hair, and a most beautiful gift. It was a sunshade, which when opened bloomed in the same bright yellow as the iris on a stalk of green bamboo. Ah-Su had found a moment when the others were engaged in readying Yik-Munn. She kissed Li-Xia and said with her secret smile, “I have gathered the rest of your mother’s things from the rice shed; I will keep them safe for you until we see each other again. Remember, my Beautiful One, your feet are your freedom. While you have them, nothing is impossible.”
CHAPTER 4
Ten Willows
I n the smoky blue mulberry groves, there were as many trees as there were scales on a snake, or so it was said among the mui-mui , the young girls who killed the moths and collected the tiny pearls of silk. The rolling hills of the Ten Willows silk farm were covered with the trees as far as could be seen from the banks of the river.
Unlike at smaller spinning mills, which depended on cocoons supplied by others, Ming-Chou, a man of great prosperity and power, had the advantage of owning his own groves. Established by his great-grandfather, they had made him the richest silk merchant in the Pearl River Delta, living in a world of lordly privilege beyond that of even the city taipans of Canton or Hong Kong.
Here, behind the high, dragon-back walls of his tranquil gardens, he employed one hundred women. Fifty of these were sau-hai , “women without men,” an ancient sisterhood born to the cult of survival. As hungry children, victims of flood and famine, mauled and molested by field hands for a handful of rice, they had been plucked from the darkest depths of despair. The oldest of them had forsaken the notion of wedlock and motherhood, banding together and welcoming any virgin girl to join their ranks and accept the traditional comb and mirror as she took the sacred oath of sau-hai .
The sisterhood cherished and protected its own as surely as nuns in a convent. It had always been the way for a poor woman of China, if her family was unable to feed her but had failed to kill her at birth, to be soldto anyone who would have her. Such lost women had sought the sisterhood and shared its strength for centuries. It offered food and shelter, but above all it promised a measure of dignity, and security from the injustices of men.
The sau-hai were much sought after as dometic servants, and any household worthy of its name was prepared to pay a little more for an amah who wore the black tzow and showed the white handkerchief of purity, her hair wound into a tight bun and caught by the wooden comb. Thus had been formed a network of secret communications that could stretch from house to house, village to village, and town to town, even from province to province. Members of the sisterhood became a constant source of information on the fortunes of rival clans and competitive households.
Ming-Chou was deeply proud that he had chosen the sisters of sauhai to become his weavers. He paid them well, saw that their conditions were pleasant, and treated them with respect. Most could not read nor write, so questioned nothing. Yet they were intelligently led and there were some among them who were of considerable breeding, whose families had been beset by disaster, or who despised or feared the male sex and preferred the company of women. Some, like Elder Sister Ah-Jeh, the Ten Willows superintendant, had great skill with the abacus, a keen eye for business, and a deep knowledge of healing the sick. The money paid to them at the end of each month was less than half of that given to men and boys, but it was wisely used or carefully saved.
Ming-Chou knew well—and did not challenge—that they created their own laws and enforced them by rules and rituals laid down by the society over the centuries.
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