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4/3/12
Modern China
Paper 2 Topic B
women like Ning Lao, her position in life was greatly affected by pressures
and conflicts both from within traditional China from the modern world
outside her small city home. In the early part of her life in the 1880s life in
China is still pre-modern and this is seen in how Ning Lao and her sister is
married. In finding a husband basic economic questions are asked like if the
potential husband knows a trade or has a job; then age is considered; and
thats the extent of it. These types of arrangements led to misery for her
sister as she is described as being too young to leave the house. Later Ning
Lao tells of how she was found a husband: the man who carted away night
soil made the match for me. He was a professional matchmaker. He did not
care how the marriage turned out. (Pruitt, 33) She explains how he hid the
true age from her family for the money they paid him. She was a child bride
of 15; exemplarily of such a system which treats women as property more
than spouses. Much later in her life, Ning Laos daughter Mantze finds herself
also in such a terrible marriage which leads her to make poor mistakes,
perhaps only possible due to the shifting social attitudes of others as she
elopes with a already married man as a mistress. Other results include
suicides and abuse; such occurrences are often mentioned in her stories.
Such are these traditions which even today linger in some parts of the world.
Included in such narratives is Ning Laoss marriage which failed as well
with causes and results which have equal value worth mentioning. Her
husband, rather quickly, became an opium addict. The drug, and import and
sign of the outside worlds pressure regarding trade and the vulnerabilities of
Chinese society. The use of it is everywhere as every other person Ning Lao
knows uses it to some small extent. From the notables she works for, to
those who rob her of what little she has. The addiction of her husband drives
him to sell all of their things and then finally her one of their daughters. This
event is a clash of the honorable, the modern and the opium habit of her
husband; an entirely new condition thrust into the traditional household of
Ning Lao, upending it completely.
Her life is then forced t take a turn for the non-traditional as she
speeds most of her life working out of the home to support herself; either as
a maid, taking care of others children and even peddling. This could be a
sign of a societal shift of women working out of the home, but even her doing
this is not too important in the face of the myriad rules women needed to
follow to be proper. There were rules as well as the business of foot binding
which restricted women to the home, but during her time there was a new
custom of gate standing and talking to anyone who passed by rather than
staying inside.. Ning Lao discusses this and other rules when talking about
her neighbors: A woman could not visit on the first or fifthteenth of the
month. When visiting she could not lean on any door framemust not stand
or sit on the doorstepto do these things might give her power over the
family and ruin them. Women were not considered clean.(Pruitt, 179).
Superstitions like these are woven into most of her stories and everything
she does. A mind set such as this is the epitome of pre-modern, a mindset
held her whole life.
talk. This here is the culmination of my point. That China became modern,
or rather changed so much, so fast, that her granddaughter may as well be
living on the moon. As the Japanese take Beijing, Ning Lao, ever thinking in
pre-modern terms considers that the Japanese might now have the mandate
of Heaven as the Qing did before and it would be better to keep the family
together and accept what comes. The Difference between her and her
grandchild who leaves to fight for the nation are an entire age apart. Such
change can only leave Ning Lao and anyone else like her in the dust. The
transformations, the pain and suffering she has witnessed attest to the
bitter transition China made into being a modern country. (Mitter, 40)
The coming of the modern experience to China was a shock to the
system. Traditions were thrown into crisis and have yet to find balance with
the ways of the 20th century. Perhaps they will adjust better with the 21st.
Having a life spanning two completely different centuries as well; maybe
Ning Lao Tai Tai would have something to say about that.