Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [1]
When she arrives at the groom’s gate, a metal bowl on the table in the center of the courtyard is flaming with fire. The groom gets out of his sedan chair and waits for his bride, her face still concealed by her veil as she is helped out of her chair by two of his sisters. They walk together toward the table while a local wise man reads aloud an ancient poem. Few people understand it because few of them have ever gone to school. The bride and groom kneel on two bamboo mats and kowtow. The groom then takes his bride’s hands and helps her up. She cannot see the flames from the bowl on the table, but she can feel the intense heat, symbolizing the fire of passion, the fire of love.
Before the bride takes her first step with her husband, the groom’s fourth brother gently brushes the soles of her shoes with an iron filled with burning coals, to give her warmth from the end of her body right up to her heart. Led by her husband, she walks slowly toward the door, where there is a horse’s saddle. They have to cross over it together. The bride cannot see through her veil and is afraid she will trip. The saddle symbolizes hard times in life, which they will overcome together. Her husband squeezes her hand. “Stop. Now lift your foot,” he whispers. She pulls up her gown to her knees and steps over safely. But her heart sinks. She has shown her unbound feet to the entire world! Her in-laws will be disgusted.
Her husband feels her hesitation. “Let’s go to the kang,” he says gently.
On one of the corners of the kang sits a triangular wooden box. Inside are different kinds of grains: wheat, corn, rice, millet, sorghum … they represent the hope that the newlyweds will have plenty of food throughout their lives.
All day the bride has longed to remove her veil. Now she is afraid. Her husband may not like her appearance. Nervously she lifts her veil. For the first time in their lives they look at each other. The bride sees that her husband is handsome. There is something honest and humble about him too; he immediately captures her heart.
The groom, Li Tingfan, is stunned by his bride’s beauty. They sit there until their “widen your heart” noodles arrive, which symbolize acceptance of each other’s fortunes and faults. Then comes the “warming your heart” rice wine and they drink from each other’s cup with crossed arms.
The groom’s brothers, their wives, and his sisters come forward one by one to wish the newlyweds a happy life. The groom’s youngest sister, who is about the same age as Reiqing, whispers, “I’m so happy to see your big feet! I’ve got them too!” She winks at her new sister-in-law and flies out of the room, giggling. Reiqing is overjoyed.
The groom is called away to the wedding banquet, while the bride begins her “sitting through the time.” For three days she sits, legs crossed in a lotus position, back straight, for every waking hour. Many relatives, friends, and neighbors visit during those three days.
On the fourth day, the bride takes her new husband to visit her own family. They like their new son-in-law, and are happy for their daughter. “Don’t look back,” her mother tells her. “Now you belong to the Li family.”
When Reiqing gets into the back of the cart and looks back at her familiar village for the last time, she has no tears. Her name and place are changed forever. Her destiny lies ahead.
So it was for this bride and groom, my mother and father, in Qingdao in 1946. My mother looked at her strong husband in the front of the cart and felt lucky and proud. She leaned over to him to ask if she could sit beside him. Without a single word, he moved over to the side and let his new bride sit close.
ONE
Home
My parents, as newlyweds, lived in the New Village, near Qingdao, in Shandong Province. The Li family, together with all the other villagers, had been forced to move here by the Japanese invaders during World War II. The Japanese built an airport where my father’s family used to live. Now, a year after the end of that war, the village was controlled by one of the peasant communes that had been