Lindo Jong the red candle hye-won sacrifice my life to keep my parents promise this means nothing to you because to you promises mean nothing daata can promise to come to dinner but if she has a headache if she has a traffic jam if she wants to watch a favorite movie on TV she no longer has a promise I watched the same movie when you did not come the American soldier promised us to come back and marry the girl she is crying with a genuine feeling and he says promise promise honey sweetheart my promise is as good as gold then he pushes her onto the bed but he doesn't come back his gold is like yours it is only 14 carats to Chinese people 14 carats is in real gold feel my bracelets they must be 24 karats pure inside and out it's too late to change you but I'm telling you this because I worry about your baby I worry that someday she will say Thank You grandmother for the gold bracelet I'll never forget you but later she will forget to promise she will forget she had a grandmother in the same war movie the American soldier goes home and he falls to his knees asking another girl to marry him and the girl's eyes run back and forth so shy as if she had never considered this before and suddenly her eyes look straight down and she knows now she loves him so much she wants to cry yes she says at last and they marry forever this was not my case instead Matchmaker came to my family when I was just two years old no nobody told me this I remember it all it was summertime very hot and dusty outside and I could hear cicadas crying in the yard we were under some trees in our orchard the servants and my brothers were picking pears high above me and I was sitting in my mother's hot sticky arms I was waving my hand this way and that because in front of me floated a small bird with horns and colorful paper-thin wings and then the paper bird flew away and in front of me were two ladies I remember them because one lady made watery sure-sure sounds when I was older I came to recognize this as a Peking accent which sounds quite strange to tie in people's ears the two ladies were looking at my face without talking the lady with the watery voice had a painted face that was melting the other lady had the dry face of an old tree trunk she looked first at me then at the painted lady of course now I know the tree trunk lady was the old village matchmaker and the other was wong tai tai the mother of the boy would be forced to marry no it's not true what some Chinese say about girl babies being worthless it depends on what kind of girl baby you are in my case people could see my value I looked and smelled like a precious bun cake sweet with a good clean color the matchmaker bragged about me an earth horse for an earth sheep this is the best merit combination she patted my arm and I pushed a hand away Huang tai tai whispered in her sure-sure voice the perhaps I had an unusually bad peachy a bad temper but the matchmaker laughed and said not so not so she is a strong horse she will grow up to be a hard worker who serves you well in your old age and this is when wong tai tai looked down at me with a cloudy face as though she could penetrate my thoughts and see my future intentions i will never forget her look her eyes opened wide she searched my face carefully and then she smiled i could see a large gold tooth staring at me like the blinding sun and then the rest of her teeth opened wide as if she were going to swallow me down in one piece this is how I became be thrilled to Hong tai tai son who I later discovered was just a baby one year younger than I his name was Tian Yi Tian for sky because he was so important and Yi meaning leftovers because when he was born his father was very sick and his family thought he might die Chen Yi would be the leftover of his father's spirit but his father lived and his grandmother was scared the ghosts would turn their attention to this baby boy and take him instead so they watched him carefully made all his decisions and he became very spoiled but even if I had known I was getting such a bad husband I had no choice now or later there was how backward families in the country were we were always the last to give up stupid old-fashioned customs in other cities already a man could choose his own wife with his parent's permission of course but we were cut off from this type of new thought you never heard of ideas were better in another city only if they were worse who we were told stories of sons who were so influenced by bad wives that they through their old crying parents out into the street so Tiny's mothers continued to choose their daughters-in-law ones who would raise proper sons care for the old people and faithfully sweep the family burial grounds long after the old ladies had gone to their graves because I was promised to the Huang's son for marriage my own family began treating me as if I belonged to somebody else my mother would say to me when the rice ball went up to my face too many times look how much want I twice daughter can eat my mother did not treat me this way because she didn't love me she would say this biting back her tongue so she wouldn't wish for something that was no longer hers I was actually a very obedient child but sometimes I had a sour look on my face only because I was hot or tired or very ill this is when my mother would say such an ugly face the Huang's won't want you and our whole family will be disgraced now I would cry more to make my face uglier it's no use my mother would say we have made a contract it cannot be broken and I would cry even harder I didn't see my future husband until I was eight or nine the world that I knew was our family compound in the village outside of tae-yong my family lived in a modest two-story house with a smaller house in the same compound which was really just two side-by-side rooms for our cook and everyday servant and their families our house set on a little hill we called this hill three steps to heaven but it was really just centuries of hardened layers of mud washed up by the Fen River on the east wall of our compound was the river which my father said liked to swallow little children he said it had once swallowed the whole town of Tai Yin the river ran brown in the summer in the winter the river was Bluegreen in the narrow fast-moving spots in the wider places it was frozen still white with cold oh I can remember the New Year when my family went to the river and caught many fish giant slippery creatures plucked while they were still sleeping in their frozen riverbed so fresh that even after they were gutted they would dance on their tails when thrown into the hot pan that was also the year I first saw my husband as a little boy who and the firecrackers went off he cried loud waha with a big open mouth even though he was not a baby later I would see him at red egg ceremonies when one month old boy babies were given their real names he would sit on his grandmother's old knees almost cracking them with his weight and he would refuse to eat everything offered to him always turning his nose away as though someone were offering him a stinky pickle and not a sweet cake so I didn't have instant love for my future husband the way you see on television today I thought of this boy more like a troublesome cousin I learned to be polite to the Wong's and especially to Huang Tai hai my mother would push me toward wong tai tai and say what do you say to your mother and i would be confused not knowing which mother she meant so i would turn to my real mother and say excuse me ma and then i would turn to Hwang tae tae and present her with a little goodie to eat saying for you mother I remember it was once a lump of shumai a little dumpling I love to eat my mother told wong tai tai i had made this dumpling especially for her even though I had only poked its steamy sides with my finger when the cook poured it onto the serving plate my life changed completely when I was 12 the some of the heavy rains came the Fen river which ran through the middle of my family's land flooded the plains it destroyed all the wheat my family had planted that year and made the land useless for years to come even our house on top of the little Hill became unlivable when we came down from the second storey we saw the floors and furniture were covered with sticky mud the courtyards were littered with uprooted trees broken bits of walls and dead chickens we were so poor in all this mess you couldn't go to an insurance company back then and say somebody did this damage pay me a million dollars in those days you were unlucky if you had exhausted your own possibilities my father said we had no choice but to move the family to wushi to the south near Shanghai when my mother's brother owned a small flour mill my father explained that the whole family except for me would leave immediately I was 12 years old old enough to separate from my family and live with the Wong's the roads were so muddy and filled with giant potholes that no truck was willing to come to the house ah the heavy furniture and bedding had to be left behind and these were promised to the Wong's as my dowry in this way my family was quite practical the dowry was enough more than enough that my father but he could not stop my mother from giving me her Chong a necklace made out of a tablet of red Jade when she put it around my neck she acted very stern so I knew she was very sad obey your family do not disgrace us she said act happy when you arrive really you are very lucky the Wong's house also set next to the river while our house had been flooded their house was untouched this is because their house set higher up in the valley and this was the first time I realized the Wong's had a much better position than my family they looked down on us which made me understand why wong tai tai and tian yi had such long noses when i passed under the Wong's stone and wood gateway arch I saw a large courtyard with three or four rows of small low buildings some were for storing supplies others for servants and their families behind these modest buildings stood the main house I walked closer instead at the house that would be my home for the rest of my life the house had been in the family for many generations it was not really so all the remarkable but I could see it had grown up along with the family there were four stories one for each generation great-grandparents grandparents parents and children the house had a confused look it had been hastily built and then rooms and floors and wings and decorations had been added on in every which manner reflecting too many opinions the first level was built of river rocks held together by straw filled mud the second and third levels were made of smooth bricks with an exposed walkway to give it the look of a palace tower and the top level had gray slab walls topped with a red tile roof to make the house seem important there were two large round pillars holding up a veranda entrance to the front door these pillars were painted red as with a wooden window borders someone probably hung tight I had added imperial dragon heads at the corners of the roof inside the house held a different kind of pretense the only nice room was a parlor on the first floor which the Wong's used to receive guests this room contained tables and chairs carved out of red lacquer fine pillows embroidered with the Huang family name in the ancient style and many precious things I gave the look of wealth and old prestige the rest of the house was plain and uncomfortable and noisy with the complain of 20 relatives I think with these generation the house had grown smaller inside more crowded each room had been cut in half to make to no big celebration was held when I arrived Huang tight I didn't have red banners greeting me in the fancy room on the first floor Tian Yi was not there to greet me instead Huang tight I hurried me upstairs to the second floor and into the kitchen which was a place where family children didn't usually go this was a place for cooks and servants so I knew my standing first day I stood in my best padded dress at the low wooden table and began to chop vegetables I could not keep my hand steady I missed my family and my stomach felt bad knowing I had finally arrived when my life said I belonged but I was also determined to honor my parents words so wanted I could never accuse my mother of losing face she would not win that from our family as I was thinking this I saw an old servant woman stooping over the same load table gutting a fish looking at me from the corner of her eye I was crying and I was afraid she would tell want a tie so I give a big smile and shouted what a lucky girl I am I'm going to have the best life and in this quick thinking way I must have waved my knife too close to her nose because she cried angrily Shama pandaren what kind of fool are you and I knew right away this was a warning because when I shouted that declaration of happiness I almost tricked myself into thinking it might come true I saw to you at the evening meal I was still a few inches taller than he but he acted like a big warlord I knew what kind of husband he would be because he made special efforts to make me cry he complained the soup was not hot enough and then spilled the bowl as if it were an accident he waited until I had sat down to eat and then would demand another bowl of rice he asked why I had such an unpleasant face when looking at him over the next few years Huang Di instructed the other servants to teach me how to sew sharp corners on pillowcases and to embroider my future family's name how can a wife keep her husband's household in order if she has never dirty her own hands Huang Tata used to say as she introduced me to a new task I don't think wong tai tai ever soiled her hand but she was very good at calling out orders and criticism teach her to wash rice properly so that the water runs clear her husband cannot eat muddy rice she said to her cook servant another time she told her servant to show me how to clean a chamber pot make her put her own nose to the barrel to make sure it's clean that was how I learned to be an obedient wife I learned to cook so well that I could smell if the meat stuffing was too salty before I even tasted it I could sew such small stitches it looked as if the embroidery had been painted on an even want I I complained in a pretend manner that she could scarcely throw a dirty blouse on the floor before it was cleaned and on her back once again causing her to wear the same clothes every day after a while I didn't think it was a terrible life no not really after a while I heard so much I didn't feel any difference what was happier than seeing everybody gobbled down the shiny mushrooms and bamboo shoots I had helped to prepare that day what was more satisfying than having hwang tae tae nod and pat my head when I had finished combing her hair 100 strokes how much happier could I be after seeing Tian Yu eat a whole bowl of noodles without once complaining about its taste all my looks it's like those ladies you see on American TV these days the ones were so happy they have washed out a stain so the clothes look better than new can you see how the Wong's almost washed their thinking into my skin now I came to think of Chen Yi as a God someone whose opinions were worth much more than my own life I came to think of wong tai tai as my real mother someone i wanted to please someone i should follow and obey without question when I turned 16 on the Lunar New Year Huang tai tai told me she was ready to welcome a grandson by nick spring even if i had not wanted to marry where would i go live instead even though i was strong as a horse how could i run away the japanese were in every corner of china the Japanese showed up as uninvited guests said Chinese grandmother and that's why nobody else came wong tai tai had made elaborate plans but our wedding was very small she had asked the entire village and friends and family from other cities as well in those days you didn't do our SVP it was not polite not to come Huang tight I didn't think the war would change people's good manners so the cook and her helpers prepared hundreds of dishes my family's old furniture had been shined up into an impressive dowry and placed in the front parlor Hwang tae tae had taken care to remove all the water and mud marks she had even commissioned someone to write felicitous messages on red banners as if my parents themselves had draped these decorations to congratulate me on my good luck and she had arranged to rent a red Pelin keen to carry me from her neighbor's house to the wedding ceremony a lot of that luck fell on our wedding day even though the matchmaker had chosen a lucky day the 15th day of the eighth moon when the moon is perfectly round and bigger than any other time of the year but the week before the moon arrived the Japanese came they invaded Shanxi province as well as the provinces bordering us people were nervous in the morning of the 15th on the day of the wedding celebration it began to rain a very bad sign when the thunder and lightning began people confused it with Japanese bombs and would not leave their houses I heard later that poor wong tai tai waited many hours for more people to come and finally when she could not ring any more guests out of her hands she decided to stop the ceremony what could she do she could not change the wall I was at the neighbor's house when they called me to come down and ride the red Palin King I was sitting at a small dressing table by an open window I began to cry and thought bit