Autobiography Of A Chinese Girl

Hsieh Ping-Ying

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136210600
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Anthropologie

First published in 2010. At the beginning of this quarter of a century Chinese women still concealed herslef in her boudoir, and confined herself to needlework and embroidery, cooking and wahing nad sometimes composing poetry. This conservative tradition had lasted several thousand years. Only during the ned of the twenry five years a new China was born. The spirit of this period of change is expressed in the autobiography written around 1926.

Part One
MY CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER I
WHAT MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME

THE early days of autumn seemed to be even hotter than the hottest days of summer, although a tender breeze came incessantly from the courtyard through the broken paper lattice windows. The little girl, Phoenix Treasure—which is my milk name—was covered all over with perspiration. Earlier in the day I had been severely beaten by my mother with a stick, and even now there were distinct marks on all parts of my back. In the pale, soft moonlight my face must have appeared very pale and sorrowful.

Suddenly I started to sob again and eventually broke out into loud howling.

‘My little Treasure, do not cry again. If your mother hears you, she will come and beat you once more.’

My grandmother, by using threats and soft words, tried to make me good and happy.

‘I—I am not afraid of being beaten. Why doesn't she beat me to death?’

My voice was very loud, in order to provoke my mother. She was in the next room but she pretended that she did not hear me.

‘My Treasure, you mustn't be naughty any more. You must know that your mother has suffered all kinds of difficulties on account of you. Remember when you once swallowed a piece of money which stuck in your throat and would neither go down nor come up. You appeared to be almost dead, and for a while your eyes were rolled backwards showing nothing but the whites, and water came trickling from your mouth. Your mother was nearly frightened to death. She had actually to tramp over a high mountain, which is a journey of twenty li [three li equals one mile], to get a doctor. She was almost crazy. She knelt down before the doctor and said, “If you can only save my poor child, I am quite willing to give my life for her.” Later on the coin went down, and she was afraid that the copper would be absorbed into your blood and poison you. So she sent a special messenger to the city of Pao-Ching to buy a special kind of herb to cure you. Every time you went to stool she examined it very carefully to see if the coin was there.

‘Another time you climbed to the top of the house to get at the nests of the swallows, and you fell down, breaking your head. You stopped breathing for a long time and became cold, remaining unconscious for a long period. Your mother cried incessantly. Sending for the doctor on one hand, she also knelt before the Goddess of Mercy and asked for some holy water to cure you. She said, “If my Phoenix Treasure is destined to suffer some calamities, please let them fall upon me instead, for I would willingly take them all. If only you protect her and make her healthy and lively, please take my life instead, or let all the calamities fall on me.” These incidents you should really remember.’

I stopped crying and listened intently to what my grandmother was telling me.

‘Alas, my Treasure!’ she sighed and continued, ‘you are really too naughty. I do not know what to make of you. Even in the very first months after your mother conceived you, whatever she ate made her sick. Even when she drank only a drop of water or ate a single green pea, she would be sick. She had headache and stomach ache. During the last two or three months she felt so miserable that she thought of committing suicide. But when she realised that she had three boys and another daughter besides you, all of whom she had to bring up, she thought better of it and carried on.

‘When the time came for you to enter into the world, it was a matter of life and death for her. She began her labour two days before and could not rise from her bed. Apart from the fact that she could not eat any rice, not even a drop of water passed her lips. She rolled and tossed on her bed for two days, and then your little head began to make its appearance. I thought the baby would now be delivered at once, and full of expectation I was awaiting your arrival. But would you have thought that after a whole day and a whole night, all that could be seen was still only the little tuft of black hair on the top of your head! Your mother could carry on no longer and your father was not at home. I was the only one at her side and I dare not leave her for a moment, so what could I do? Later on your sixth great-aunt brought a midwife. Ah, when I remember the midwife, I feel furious. Your mother had had four children before you, and never once were we bothered with a midwife, and never had the labour lasted more than an hour when the baby was delivered. Who would have thought that this time, after so long a period of labour, you would still be undelivered! What do you think the midwife said to me? “There is no hope, you had better prepare the coffin.” The beast, she was cruel to say such horrible things. “But the baby must be born at any cost …,” your sixth great-aunt said. “You must save the mother. If you have to sacrifice the baby, it doesn't matter.”

‘I felt hopeless. Your mother, who was always self-possessed, said to me through her sobs, “Mother, please pray to the holy god of the Sacred South Mountain. If the baby should be a boy I will send him on a pilgrimage to the holy god when he reaches the age of sixteen; and should it be a girl, then I will take her personally to the Great Mountain when she reaches the age of twenty.”

‘When I heard what she said I knelt down and prayed earnestly promising this sacred pilgrimage. Let god be praised, for at daybreak oil the third day you were born, crying. You had a very loud voice which had probably disturbed all the people in the neighbourhood. Your little eyes were like two brilliant lamps and you could roll them very rapidly. You shook your little fists and kicked incessantly. Your sixth great-aunt sighed and said, “What a pity that this is a girl. Had it been a boy I am sure he would have become a great official. Look at the quick-moving eyes.”

‘Your mother did not approve of her words and said: “What difference does it make whether it is a boy or a girl: they are the same to me.” So you should know that your mother, although having suffered so much for your sake, loved you the instant you were born. My Treasure, from henceforth you must not annoy her, and you must remember her sufferings and her agonies for you.’

Though I was only six years of age I was quite intelligent, and could understand all my grandmother said. In my little mind I could picture to myself the sufferings my mother underwent when she gave me life. But curiously enough there was in my mind at the same time a deep impression of my mother beating me very severely on that same day. Above all, my little brain was working very quickly, and I had a suspicion that the remark attributed to my sixth great-aunt about sacrificing the life of the baby had really been made by my grandmother herself. But I knew my grandmother loved me very dearly and I had no intention of quarrelling with her. Above all, my life had not been sacrificed.

‘A—Ahem! Since my mother loved me so devotedly, why should she beat me so severely? Are children not human beings? Should they not be allowed to think for themselves? Should they bow down to every little whim of the grown-ups?’ These thoughts would keep coming in my mind.

Yes, I confess I was a very naughty child. I constantly caused my mother to be angry. But she was a dominating person, who could control quite a lot of the people around her. It was said that she could even control all the people, male and female, old and young, indeed everybody in my native village of Hsieh-To-San. But she could not control me—a little monster full of mischief! This was the only thing which annoyed her. Sometimes she was so desperate about me that she would say to my father, ‘Please take her away from me for ever. This child does not belong to me.’ Or she would say, ‘Let us marry her off as early as possible and it will be a good riddance,’ and so when I was only three years of age I was affianced to the son of one of my father's friends. When I was still a little baby in my mother's arms, my future Was determined by the arrangements of other people.

CHAPTER II
MY FAMILY

MY father was an only child, and he was born in most poor circumstances into the family of a farm labourer. This was what my grandmother told me about her marriage to my grandfather:

‘ugh my family was poor before I married your grandfather, your family was even poorer than mine. Even if there had been sufficient rice to eat, I do not think there was more than one bowl to put it in.’

‘What do you men, Grandma?’ I asked.

‘Well, let me tell you. Your great-grandfather had six sons, and your grandfather was the second. When your great-grandfather died, he bequeathed to each of his sons a very small portion of rice, one bench and one bowl, and that was the entire inheritance which your grandfather received. So you see that your grandfather had not more than one bowl to put the rice in. What could we have done if I had married your grandfather then?’

‘You could have bought another bowl.’

‘Yes, in a way. Your grandfather was an honest and diligent labourer at the farm, so his master was very kind to him. He earned a little money, and slaved it all, so not only could he buy another bowl, but he was able to have enough money to marry me eventually. When I first married into your family I had to weave cloth and do all kinds of hard jobs for other people in order to earn our living. By and by we began to buy farm implements for ourselves, and from his former master your grandfather borrowed a little money to buy an ox. From henceforth we leased a few acres of land to plough and till. Alas, talking about ploughing and tilling I cannot forget the boyhood of your father. When he was only seven or eight years of age he gained an immense love of reading. Every day when he went to look after the cow he always took books with him. The moment he arrived in the open field he sat down and started to read, not caring whether the cow went astray and ate other people's wheat or cabbage or beans. He would not have cared even if the heavens fell.

‘One day when he was reading the ox strayed, and he went crying in the fields all the evening, not daring to come home. When a neighbour found the ox for him and sent it back, your grandfather was very pleased and did not punish the boy for nearly losing so valuable an animal. He could see the boy was not born to be a cow-herd but a bookworm, so he decided to send him to school. He said that if your father were diligent in his studies he might even enter him for the State Examinations later on. When your father heard these words he was almost crazy with delight. He studied in the daytime and also at night. When there was no moon he would light a pine twig and hold it in his hand. Sometimes he was so absorbed in his book that he got his fingers scorched and burnt and would never notice.

‘In the year of Shin-Chiu (1901) he went to the capital of the Province to attend his examination. He had no decent clothes for the occasion, and I had to give him my worn and ragged underclothes for him to wear beneath the new gown which I had made for him. Your grandfather had to carry the luggage for him, and in the inn where they stayed the inn-keeper thought your grandfather was your father's servant and would not even speak to him. Later on, when your father was successful in the examination and became a “Raised Personality,” nobody thought that the baggage porter was the honourable father of a “Raised Personality!”’

I knew quite a number of stories about my father. When Viceroy Chang Chih-Tung established the Academy of Hunan and Hupeh, he went there to study. His thoughts after that were moulded entirely on those of Confucius and Mencius, and he liked to study the works of the Sung Dynasty scholars. He maintained that a wise and sagacious person should keep himself aloof from entanglements, and he kept away from politics all his life. During the end of the Manchurian period, the Viceroy of Kwantung and Kwangsi, Wei Wu-Chwan, recommended six scholars to attend a special Imperial examination on the subject of Economics. Five of them went, but not my father. He was an ardent advocate of the old system, and held that to one's father and mother one must be absolutely obedient. His filial piety to his parents excelled that of the Philosopher Tseng. To all other persons he was always gentle, humble, respectful and kind, so there was no one who did not like to be with him; but to his children, especially in those things concerning studies and dealings with other people, his instruction was on the strictest principles, even more so than a severe teacher. Otherwise he was very kind to us, and much more gentle and loving than our mother.

It is curious to think that, although he had the most old-fashioned brain I have ever known, there were a few new ideas which he did not oppose. For instance, when my second elder brother was studying English in his middle school days, my father encouraged him to pay as much attention to the foreign language as to his mother-tongue. He had been for twenty-seven years the headmaster of the Shin-Fa Middle School, and had engaged most of the masters to teach various scientific subjects, and all these men were graduates from modern colleges. Of course, on the other hand he was a great supporter of the classical language and a protector of the old moral code. So even when I was a tiny little girl spending most of my time in my father's arms, I was taught to read classical poetry and essays by old masters.

As for my mother, she had a very strong personality. She was a brave woman and was not afraid of anything in heaven or on earth.

Her mother had no sons but only three daughters, my mother being the eldest, and she was allowed to run the whole household at sixteen. After she married my father she became the most prominent figure in the village of Hsieh-To-San. She was extremely clever, and seemed specially endowed for managing affairs. In her mind she followed the old teachings of the ‘three obeys’ and the ‘four virtues’ of the model woman. (The ‘three obeys’ are to obey your father when you are a girl, to obey your husband when you are married, and to obey your children when you are a mother. The ‘four virtues’ are to be virtuous, to be discreet in your speech, to be tidy and to be diligent in your work.) She also had the fixed idea that the man is higher than the woman. She held the old-fashioned mor...