原英文版本

Paifang (memorial archway edifice)

White! Everything is white!
What a contrast from the all-red coloring just two days ago.
Two days!
For me, it is the whole lifetime
I was sent here as a bride.
Now, I am a widow from a marriage of one night.
I knew I had no choice, that in matters of matrimony, my father is the only one who has any say.
I knew he was sick, the man selected to be my husband. The marriage was supposed to bring miracle for recovery; a belief held by many that the festive atmosphere would scare away the evil spirit causing his long coughing and blood spitting.
It did not work.
If at all, the tiresome ceremony hastened his death.
I was sent into his room, my face covered by a piece of red silk. There I waited until he was carried in. The red silk was lifted and I saw a young man with such sad eyes and a face pale as a ghost. He did what he was told to do, helping me to undress, mounting me amid his gasps for air and incessant coughing. He tried hard, but the task was beyond him. When he finally collapsed on my naked body, panting, I was still a virgin.
He died in my arms in the morning.
I knew what it meant: that I had become a widow.
I was supposed to cry my heart out. I could not. How could I cry for a husband whom I had never met before in my life and who died on me the morning after we were wed. I felt pity for him, not grief.
I had wondered why my father chose this family to marry me into. We were not rich but far from dirt poor. My two elder brothers had reached adulthood, taken wives. True, my father had three daughters, I being the eldest and it was never easy to feed so many mouths. But there was always food on the table. My father is a scholar, teaching in the village school, respected for his knowledge and high morality and could count on a stable though meager income. I am good-looking, healthy and have learned all skills needed to become a good wife, or a concubine to some wealthy men who would not care about dowry and might even improve the lot of my father and my two younger sisters. But he chose the Liang family, of little means and with only a very sick son.
I could not understand.
Now I do.
The three things put on the table of my room speak of his intent: an eight feet rope, a pair of scissors and a flask of poison.
At least, he gave me a choice.
How can a father be so cruel?
How can he marry off his daughter who has been filial all her life, knowing well this will be the bitter end?
Now I understood why he stared at those Paifangs every time he passed them, a strange expression on his face, a mixture of envy and guilt. The Paifangs, memorial archway edifice erected at the order of the Emperor for any women of exceptional chastity to glorify the family she belonged to. She might be a woman who preferred death than dishonor. She might be a young widow who would live in abject poverty for decades caring for the parents of her deceased husband and died in old age with her name sublime. Better still, she could be a young widow who upon the death of her husband, took her own life as a mark of loyalty! People would glorify her and her family would be looked upon with awe and respect. And if the case was heard by the Emperor, another Paifang would be erected, making her immortal!
It would also mean material gain from the imperial court as a policy to encourage chaste behavior among womenfolk and an inviolable right to secure a teaching post for the rest of the father’s life!
It would also mean that my other two sisters could be ensured to find eager offers for their hands as their sister had been exemplary in chastity!
My father has chosen Liang as my husband because he knew Liang would die.
And he has made sure that I, his own flesh and blood, will follow.
I was shocked when my mind finally woke up to this but it did not really surprise me.
I was not the first daughter so sacrificed for the benefit and glory of the family.
In our village alone, there were twenty-three such Paifangs. There is a ghost of a helpless woman under each of those cold structures.
I cannot even hope for the sad fate of living out my life in poverty and take care of his parents. He had two brothers and their wives who were more than sufficient to take up the tasks. My responsibility was to die a heart-broken wife and preserve a good name for both families.
I can hear them now.
They are sitting in the small front hall, drinking tea, waiting and making sure I will do what they expect me to do while cutting off any chance of me running away.
They do not have to worry. There is nowhere in the land for me to run to. If I can really succeed to run away, no one will shelter me. If I am caught, I will bring disgrace to both families and will be drowned at the deep pool outside the village for being a disloyal wife and a disobedient daughter.
I know what they will do if I do not choose quickly.
They will come in, tie me up and force me to take poison or just hang me on the ceiling beam. They have enough men out there to do it: his father, his brothers, my own father and my eldest brother. My second brother has been sent away as there is a chance he may fight for me. But I know even if he is here, he will eventually have to submit or being overpowered and just have to watch helplessly his sister die
There is no escape me.
The whole village is in this altogether for besides family prestige, the village can also boast another Paifang has been erected, outshining surrounding hamlets, which in time will try to do better by another sacrifice.
I brush over the three instruments of death on the table with my fingers.
I am no longer crying as I know all the tears in the world cannot save me.
My only wish is that my two younger sisters, Cui-er and Min-er, will not suffer the same fate.
Qian-er is still too young to understand this but Cui-er will be of marriageable age within one to two years. A shudder goes through my body as I imagine what can happen then. I know they are not beneath to repeat this once they get want they want from my death.
I go to the bedside cabinet and take out a wooden cock, the gift Cui-er has given me as a keepsake before seeing me out of the family threshold. It is the only plaything we have and I can still remember the happy times we play together with it. I also remember something that only she and I know…

I tell them that I would take poison and there are signs of relief on every face. I only make one request: sending the wooden cock back to my sister as I know she will miss me and she can remember her sister who dies in honour whenever she holds the toy in her hands. They are too eager to agree as they have already got what they want.

I smile and fall on my knees and kowtow three times to my parents-in-law and then to my father. It is cold comfort to me to see tears streaming down his face as I know if he is given the chance to choose again, he will still send me to this end without the least hesitation. Failing to succeed in open examination to become an official serving the emperor and thus bring glory to the family-name, I am the only route for him to secure respectability.

I forgive him. He can never understand what he is doing and he only does what is meant to be done, thinking this is the best thing that can happen.

I hand him the wooden cock and go back to my own room. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I put my hand on the sheets on which my one-night husband and I have lain. I cannot love him but I know he is also a victim in this case, of the hypocrisy of a people blinded by ignorance and greed.

They will bury me with him, no doubt. It does not matter now. I have never loved any man in my life and it does not make any difference as to who will lie next to me in my grave.

I take the lid off the bottle and down its contents.

Then I straighten myself on the bed and wait. It should not be long…

(Epilog)

Cui-Er got the wooden cock after they told her that her sister, Qian-Er had died in honour. Cui-Er, numbed by the news, quietly returned to the small room where she had shared with Qian-Er and Min-Er since childhood. Then, from a hidden hollow inside the wooden cock, she fingered out the letter written in blood by her beloved sister, telling her what had happened.

Two months later, Cui-Er disappeared. They knew she must have run off. But in order to keep a good face, they circulated that she must have drowned in the river and her body carried downstream. The Imperial Edict came finally, authorizing the erection of a new Paifang in honour of the chaste widow. The families were overjoyed and so was the village. The village elders agreed to take up the cost as they now could boast they had the most numerous Paifangs in the vicinity. But their euphoria was short-lived. Before construction work could begin, the news of revolution reached the village. There would be no more emperors and hence a Paifang bestowed by an overturned emperor had lost all its meaning.

Cui-Er turned up, many years later in the uniform of an officer in the Revolutionary Army. She ordered all the Paifangs blasted away in front of the village elders.

(End)


Postscript:
According to a book about the lives of Hakka villages and the lives of women then by scholar Xie Zhong-guang, it was stated that the scholar gentries of the Ming and Qing dynasties, followers of the teachings of the Sung Confucius masters, it was better to be starved to death than to lose one’s chastity. This applies especially to women and any woman who died protecting her chastity is the most honourable while the men could visit brothels and take concubines freely. This includes widows who are not allowed to remarry after their husbands died and in many cases, these women were forced to commit suicide to prove they were loyal wives. As an encouragement, the imperial court would bestow titles and the right to erect Paifangs so that everyone would know how glorious these families were. Paifangs mushroomed. In the small city of Meizhou alone, there were 136 of these.
The families of the widows were often willing accomplices of this cruel acts, either for material benefit or respect from peers.