Sora Mimi Green - Stories from another land
Often a traditional tale will
begin with “Once upon a time” and “there was a little boy/girl”, this is not
one of those stories. This is not a fairy tale or a tale of suspense and
intrigue. Nor will it contain excitements of adventures on the high seas. We
often find that things are easier defined by what it is not, rather than trying
to define what it is. It’s like asking you to define the colour ‘white’. It is
not black or blue or gold or purple. Yes, that was a bad metaphor. Buit the
stories need to be set. Storytellers always want to set the scene, set up the
audience, the readership for a story of their lifetime, so we begin as how we
were taught to read or were read to.
Once upon a time, in another
land, across the ocean and far away from here, there was a large family living
on a farmstead. It was a rather large family and they had many acres of lands.
The family was prosperous and was counted as one of the firsts in the village
in prestige, knowledge and wealth. The head of the family had five children.
Each of these grew up, married. When they married and started their own
families, they were given parcels of the land to keep as their own so the
wealth generated would support them and their children. Dowries of land or
goods came with a new bride and dowries were given away with the daughters.
Even in the days of the grandchildren, the family was still considered wealthy.
Many of the children were well-educated, but the fifth child grew up to be
spoilt. Let’s call him Ah-Wu (literally “number-Five”). He did grow older and
got married and had his own children. This is not the story of Ah-Wu and how he
squandered away the wealth which was a fifth of the family lands. This is not
even the story of Ah-Wu’s brothers and sisters who tried to help him to stop
gambling and be a man who supports his family. This is a story of Ah-Wu’s youngest
daughter, Wu-Niu, literally “the-girl-child-of-Five”. She was the fifth
daughter of the fifth son.
Fairy tales always talk about the
seventh son of the seventh son or the seventh daughter having a destiny of
their own. That’s not the case in real life. Oh, did I not tell you this was a
real story? Well, it’s not fiction. Not all the stories here are the truth, but
none of them are lies as I know it. But then, I’m only the storyteller. I
didn’t live during the time of Ah-Wu and I didn’t know Wu-Niu as she was known
then.
So Wu-Niu grew up in an age where
good and pretty daughters had their feet bound so their lotus shoes will fit
and they will marry well. Despite no longer having the wealth to provide a
significant dowry, she was still apart of an influential family. Ah-Wu’s oldest
brother’s oldest son (Da-Ge) and his first wife took Wu-Niu under their wing.
So great were the ages between Ah-Wu and his brothers and sisters that Da-Ge had a daughter of similar age to
Wu-Niu. Their feet were bound each day together in the mornings. Da-Ge’s daughter would obediently sit, cry patiently and silently through the pain and boredom. Or maybe she learnt to embroider and sew during those dreary hours. Wu-Niu cut the bindings and ran away to play in the fields outside of the estate walls with the peasant children in the village. This small rebellious act would ultimately separate this pair of little girls and change their destinies.
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