I tell Ah Zhao, “I’d heard Niang speaking to Baba about choosing an auspicious day to bind my feet. She spoke of my foot-binding as a momentous and special occasion; a sort of combined feast day/name day/celebration holiday when I would shed the cocoon of my infancy and turn into Mei Lan (Beautiful Orchid). I would become as lovely as my niang.“She told Baba and me that all her wealthy friends were binding their daughters’ feet, and that only poor peasant girls ended up with big, ugly, natural feet these days. My bound feet would announce to the world that I have a wealthy father and far-sighted mother. Matchmakers would be clamoring to represent me.“I had no idea what foot-binding involved, but I couldn’t wait to be as beautiful as Niang!“In those days I thought she loved me.“In the autumn of the Year of the Ox (1097), when I was six years old, an important monk came from the Buddhist Temple to our house in a palanquin carried by four young apprentices. All five men had shaven heads and were dressed in coarse brown robes.
