Ties That Bind, Ties That Break

Author: Lensey Namioka

Reviewed by: Heng Pei Lin (Sec 4D)

“Nothing could be as bad as having bound feet.”

A firm believer of this modern idea, Ailin was one of the first few girls who rebel against feet binding. As a result, her engagement with a man was broken off by the man’s mother as she would not accept any girl with ‘feet like a peasant’. Eventually, it was quite clear that there will be no marriage unless feet were bound.

As Ailin grew up, she attended school run by American missionaries. In this school, Ailin met her closest friend, Zhang Xue Yan, who shared the same ideas about feet binding.

After Ailin’s father had passed away, her elder uncle decided that if Ailin wanted to continue school she would have to work and contribute to the family financially. The alternative was to be a farmer’s wife, a man’s concubine or a nun.

Ailin, however, decided to work as an amah (a housemaid, mainly a wet nurse) in an American missionary family. And her life as an amah begins.

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