Laotong

In the story, Lily and Snow Flower are each other’s laotong. But, as each of them marry into their own respective families. With that in mind, miscommunications occur and Snow Flower ends up writing the secret message to Lily, telling her that she did not want to be close her any more. “I felt like a sword had thrust into my body. My stomach leaped at the surprise of it, then contracted into an uneasy ball. Love? Was she really talking about love with sworn sisters in our secret fan? I read the lines again, puzzled and confused. Three sworn sisters have promised to love me. But Snow Flower and I were laotong, which was a marriage of emotions strong enough to cross over great distances and long separations. Our bond was supposed to be more important than marriage to a man. We had pledged to be true and faithful until death parted us. That she seemed to be abandoning our promises in favor of a new relationship with sworn sisters hurt beyond reason. That she was suggesting that somehow we could still be friends literally took my breath away. To me what she had written was ten thousand times worse that if my husband walked in and announced he’d just taken his first concubine. And it wasn’t as though I hadn’t been given the opportunity to join a post-marriage sisterhood myself. My mother-in-law had pushed me very hard in that direction, but I had schemed and plotted to keep Snow Flower in my life. Now she was tossing me aside? It seemed that Snow Flower- this woman for whom I had deep-heart love, whom I treasured, and to whom I’d committed myself for life, did not care for me in the same way.” (220) The sisterly love between Snow Flower and Lily ran deeper than marriage. In our day and age, we would have thought that their relationship was more than just sisterly love, which is understandable because everybody needs someone. In such a strict society, where lily feet, and reputation is important, the friendships that were intertwine in the early years of life are important. As women, they have only each other to lean on. This sisterly relationship kind of displays the other half of the properties that women need in a true loving relationship. In a relationship, ideally, a women’s spouse have two sides, the strong, courageous provider, and the caring and understanding listener.

Women vs. Men

“Many of those babies die through miscarriages, at child birth, or from illnesses. Girls-so susceptible to weakness from poor food and neglect- never outgrow their vulnerability. We either die young-from foot bindings as my sister died, in giving birth, or from too much work with too little nourishment- or we outlive those we love. Baby boys, so precious, can die just as easily, their bodies too young to have taken root, their souls too tempting for spirits from the afterworld. Then, as many men, they are at risk from infections from cuts, food poisoning, problems in the fields or on roads, or hearts that can’t stand the stress of watching over an entire household. This is why there are so many widows.” (150) In this passage, the contrast between the roles of men and women are clearly seen. As a Chinese woman, you would have to constantly worry about your children, whether it’s a miscarriage that may occur anytime during the nine months of pregnancy, or death by an illness. As girls, they worry about dying due to vulnerabilities or outliving their loved ones. Boys can die when their bodies are not mature enough to be immune to the dangers around. Men worry about providing for the entire household. Looking at both sides, it seems that women and men had the same amount of worries and are at the same level of worth, but, in truth, woman are the more important gender because of their ability to give birth, while men are only favorable because they are the provider.

Pain is beauty

“I have always told you a true lady let’s no ugliness into her life,” she said, “and that only through pain will you understand beauty.” (109) This quotation from the book is going to be a very memorable one because of it’s meaning. By saying that “a true lady let’s no ugliness into her life”, conveys the idea that their isn’t any true ugliness in the first place. A lady can be considered to be “ugly” but if she is able to get past how other people view her, she is a true lady, because although other people may view her as being ugly, it did not matter; she does not care. The second part of the quotation is similar to the sayings “no pain, no gain” and “beauty is pain”. These sayings are true in all aspects. What is beauty and why do people view such importance in it? That is what beauty is. Beauty is/are the thing/s people feel are so important they consider it beauty. To some, a lean and toned body maybe considered beautiful; to others the Patriots winning the super bowl after a perfect season would have been beautiful. The lean and toned body may seem superficial, but looking deeper into the picture may change your mind. Not everyone is born with a lean and toned body. A lot of people work hard to achieve their ideal body size. If a person puts such great effort in doing something productive, shouldn’t that be considered beautiful? The Partiots worked their butt off all season, why wouldn’t it be considered beautiful if they achieve the ultimate award in the NFL. In the story, women went through crucial pain and agony to achieve their goal. The beauty was not what was achieved but the dedication they had to go through the things they did to achieve their goal. “For ten years you have trained for this moment,” she gently reassured me. “You obey the rules set down in The Women’s Classic. You are soft in your words but strong in your heart. You comb your hair in a demure manner. You don’t wear rouge or powder. You know how to spin cotton and wool, weave, sew, and embroider. You know how to cook, clean, wash, keep tea always warm and ready, and light the fire in the hearth. You take good and proper care of your feet. You remove your old binding each night before bed. You wash your feet thoroughly and use just the right amount of scent before putting on clean bindings.” (109) In this passage, not only does she have to deal with the pain of the bindings, she had to deal with learning all the duties and responsibilities she would have for the rest of her life. She is forced, by society, to go through this pain, and although this may not be something she truly desired, the fact that she endures all this, in the end, allows her to determine the important beautiful things in life.

We women...

"We women are expected to love our children as soon as they leave our bodies, but who among us has not felt disappointment at the sight of a daughter or felt the dark gloom that settles upon the mind even when holding a precious son, if he does nothing but cry and makes your mother-in-law look at you as though your milk were sour? We may love our daughters with all our hearts, but we must train them through pain. We love our sons most of all, but we can never be a part of their world, the outer realm of men. We are expected to love our husbands from the day of Contracting Kin, though we will not see their faces for another six years. We are told to love our in-laws, but we enter those families as strangers, as the lowest person in the household, just one step on the ladder above a servant... All these types of love come out of duty, respect, and gratitude. Most of them, as the women in my country know, are sources of sadness, rupture, and brutality. " (59) It’s a universal expectation for a mother to love her children. But, it was interesting to find out that in the Chinese culture, the strains that a woman went through just in loving her children, as a mother. Of course a mother would love her daughter, having a strong bond just because of the commonality of being women, but it is understandable for the mother to have some kind of disappointment of not having a son. Let’s face it, in their time, sons were so cherished, it was hard not to be inclined to have a boy. This passage explains the role of the common Chinese women. As women they are already given a fate according to the norms of the society in Chinese culture. They, themselves, must have felt the unfairness of being a girl, but all they could have done was deal with it. Looking at their daughter’s unfair life, they can say ‘been there done that’ but all they can do for their daughters is to set a good example of how women “should” be in their society, in hopes of having them accept their fate. With all these expectations, they are pressured to fall into being a slave for others and in the end become slaves to their own emotions, having such limited freedom. This must be the reason for why they created secret messages, which was there escape from the suppression of their daily lives. Notice how Lily says “All these types of love come out of duty, respect, and gratitude…” She emphasizes a lot about love from duty, respect, and gratitude, but she leaves out true love; love that comes from just pure emotions. Interestingly enough, Chinese women today learned to live life loving with more emotion, which is evident in their drama serials.

What is beauty...?

" The girl is indeed very lovely, but golden lilies are far more important in life than a pretty face. A lovely face is a gift from Heaven, but tiny feet can improve social standing. On this we can all agree. What happens beyond this is really for Father to decide." (21)

The saying goes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in this passage, it would not matter because feet are more important. Although it is disturbing how feet, as small as three inches, were viewed as a sign of beauty in China, everyone has their own idea of what beauty is. Now a days, many people think stick skinny is the way to be, while others like to have some meat on them. No matter what is viewed as beauty in life, physical features should have the power to determine a person’s life. People should be in control of their own lives. In most cases, most people did not choose to be born the way they were to grow up and look the way they look. Since it was not their choice and is not in their control (excluding modern technology), physical appearance should not play such an important part in someone’s life.

Sizing up

In earlier times, Chinese marriages were more than just a marriage between two people. It was the union between two families. Families sought out matchmakers to be introduced to an in-law family that best matched in status and wealth. But, the process of choosing a daughter-in-law was much like a shopping trip. She had to be looked at all angles. Being a woman at this time, you would have had to deal with serving and obeying your parents as a child, and then later live up to your in-law’s expectation as a wife and daughter-in-law. The Chinese girls must have felt like slaves being traded between families. Their situation was not as cruel as what the slaves in the United States had to face. But, both group of people had experienced how it felt like to be chosen like mindless pieces of meat.


" Your daughter presents us with a special circumstance, " he said " I saw something in her yesterday, and Madame Wang, who brings additional expertise, agrees. Your daughter's face is long and slender like a rice seed. Her full earlobes tell us she is generous in spirit . But most important are her feet. " (20)



In this passage, Lily undergo the scrutiny of the matchmaker, who points out her better features, that may enhance her worth. It may seem like it’s a positive thing to have the matchmaker discovers her good features, but having the matchmaker observe her at all is not right. This person is controlling what happens to her for the rest of her life. Her fate is decided by who the matchmaker decides to introduce her to, which she determines by her physical outer appearance.

Insight in Footbinding

In the Sung Dynasty, about 1100 AD, a fashion started at the emperor's court for women to bind their feet. Women thought that to be beautiful they needed little tiny feet, only about three inches long. They got these tiny feet by wrapping tight bandages around the feet of little girls, about five or six years old. The bandages were so tight they broke the girls’ toes and bent them underneath their feet and then they had to walk on them like that. The girls spent most of their time crying for two or three years and then the feet stopped hurting so much. Women with bound feet couldn’t walk very well at all, and when they had to work in the fields often they would crawl. The earliest versions of the story of Cinderella come from Sung Dynasty China. In these versions, the point of the story is that the Prince loves Cinderella because she has the smallest feet of any girl in the kingdom, so the slipper will only fit her. (http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/clothing/index.htm)

Heres a link to a video of someone walking with bound feet