oes
By Ashley Redden
Copyright 2013 Ashley Redden
Image courtesy of sirikul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Lotus Shoes
I began life in a small village in the northern hills of China in the year of the monkey, April of 1824. It is said that those born in the year of the Monkey are clever, intelligent, and very inventive, solve problems easily and have a thirst for knowledge. These attributes have proven to be true throughout my life.
The exact village is unimportant save for its location. My village sat, snugly nestled within the southern part of the north china plain. My family farmed alongside our fellow villagers in the ancient floodplains of the yellow river in what many considered the cradle of Chinese civilization. Of course none of the farmers in the village knew this fact or even cared. Despite the fertility of the soil in the valley, the villagers endured a very difficult life. The people farmed by the sweat of the brow and bend of the back making the young look old and the old appear truly ancient. Though there were many villagers, all lived a coarse existence.
The name given at my birth, Mei Lian, means beautiful lotus flower. According to my mother, the lotus has the ability to rise above the vulgar mud within which it began without being sullied. They named me thus because of my beauty as a child. I have always been beautiful, especially so when young, a fact that has mattered greatly throughout my life. My appearance would prove to be a blessing and a curse. But like many things in my journey, one that I could not change directly but had to make the best of.
My mother began to bind my feet at a very young age, perhaps two, though I do not know for sure. By the time I reached my third or fourth birthday, all of my toes except the largest on each foot had been broken at least once. To say the pain remained constant, unimaginable at times, would be a tremendous understatement.
Sometimes I noticed my mother looking at me, when she thought me to be distracted, with the most terrible look upon her face. She would always smile when I turned my head as if whatever the thought that brought her such distaste had never been there. I always wondered what great wrong that I had done to cause her so much pain, but would smile my best to match hers.
My family had always told me of my great luck, over and over again as I grew. My sisters seethed with jealousy that I sat inside all day while they worked in the fields, the grueling labor giving birth to the long erosion of their youth just beginning to manifest in the tight corners of their faces and on their sun bathed arms and hands. I began, even then, to associate pain with that particular word, luck. As I sat by myself, helpless, unable to run or sometimes to even walk when my mother had tightened the bindings because my growing body remained madding1y unaware that it should stop growing, watching my sisters and brothers run and play I could only wonder at my tremendous luck.
At the age of twelve, my father sold me into marriage. I say sold, because money passed hands. The whole arrangement exchanging the one thing that I owned for commerce, myself. As it turned out, I didn’t even own that. My father bartered away my person as if I were any common good, such as rice or cotton. How much did my parents receive for me? I will never know. I did not ask then, nor would I now if I could. Some things are better left unsaid. My mother hugged me and told me to go with dignity into my new life. I smiled, even then I had learned to hide the pain in that way, and went willingly with the two unknown men into the unknown.
These men took me not to a husband, but a great bleak compound near the sea. If I thought of these men at all, I thought of them as my captors. I came to my new life with as much dignity as I could bear. My final destination would be America. My captors informed me that I must do as told, or else. Though we were never outright called slaves, we were never free. Slave, indentured servant, conscript, in the end, they are all the same.
The details of the compound are unimportant, what is important is the simple fact that I survived. In the west, cattle being pushed from one town to another are done so by means of a corral. If the human stock sent to America were the cattle then this place, this barren compound, must surely have been that corral., myself and fellow captives, the oxen reading to be shipped.
The ‘or else’ became glaringly clear soon enough. The camp had several wells located prominently in the center. The water we were given did not come from these wells, but from outside of our compound. The absence of a draw stood out as the most telling feature, no rope or bucket hung from the beams above any of the wells. The well structures were stark; each with no discernable covering and open to the elements. We were told to follow instruction or be dropped down one of the wells. Our keepers proved this many times during my stay. It didn’t matter to them, man, woman or child, if someone disobeyed, down the well they were tossed. The lucky ones died on impact. The others, who survived the initial drop, surely suffered greatly. We would hear them suffer, often for bitter days until the final touch of death released them from their agony at the bottom of those miserable wells.
It was during this time, before being sent to America, that I began to sing. The voice with which I sang sounded heavenly, another blessing with which I had done nothing to deserve, but made use of when possible. I also learned, while staying at this corral for people, the subtle art of cooperation. Many were the times when being cornered by one of the wolves that prowled within the compound I almost convinced myself that my time had come to be tossed like so much garbage into one of those hated wells. But I continued to smile and sing and do as instructed each and every time avoiding that particularly gruesome fate. I do remember that I smiled most of tmy time at the corral, every moment of which I wept miserably within.
When I finally stepped upon a ship born for America, even though my feet were still just as securely bound as they had been virtually my entire life, I felt more alive and free than ever before. I vowed to change my lot in life. I also changed my name to Ming Mei which means smart and beautiful. I decided that my looks and singing talents were the advantages that I had in this world and that my name should be reflective of this fact.
I heard more than one of my fellow captives, all girls, speak of how lucky we were to be rid of the compound, but I quietly disagreed. Luck, for me, could be considered nothing but a pox on life. I could not run, but I could walk. I could not work in the fields, but I could use my physical beauty for favors. Though my body was too fragile for certain common tasks, I focused on being a light in the dark, a pleasure in whose company I could be and a positive, stabilizing presence to anyone around me, whether deserving of good will or not. I neither needed nor wanted any luck. The others could have all of it, I would make my own way without it.
Upon entering America, I discovered that though the language and people were very different, some things did not change. If I were not very careful, America would simply be another place where an unassuming lotus flower could be used up and casually discarded making way for the next human shipment. As in my homeland, my humanity mattered little to those who dealt routinely in such traffic. I had to be very careful indeed.
I began to sing and make myself be known, to stand out from the crowd and yet do so in a positive unthreatening way. Never act as though you are not controlled, that particularly hard won lesson remained first and foremost in my mind at all times. The importance to never fight back, no matter what, could not be stressed enough, the wells with no line or bucket never wandered far from my thoughts. Many a soul had ended their existence at the bottom of one of those wretched wells for no other offense than the simple appearance of disobedience. So I sang and put on a smile and made the best of what I could.
At one stop, a man happened to be enjoying my singing, along with the crowd that usually ga
thered. My keepers did not mind this for they begged money in return for the entertainment which some of the passersby obliged. I found that as insignificant as my captors considered me, the people of America considered my captors even lower. I thought this very sad, but felt a dark delight to see my captors demeaned so. Though I am not proud of the happy feelings I experienced at such times, the small sin that I my captors were treated poorly warmed my heart. This feeling helped me to wear a bigger smile than normal which I poured into my singing.
Though I had not noticed the tall pale man standing in the throng, near the wagon upon which I sat as we prepared to continue our long journey to somewhere in the American west, though exactly where