Page 182 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

WOMEN’S WORK AND RITUAL SPACE IN CHINA 169
You gave me satin coverlets and helped my father spread out the bedding to
add to the show.

The bride praises the impeccable weaving of the sister-in-law and her kind teaching:

In weaving, you weave close and fine.
It is you, sister-in-law, who teaches me to take pains in spinning and weaving.
(Ren 1989:74–5, ‘Thanks to the Sister-in-law’, lines 1–6, 14–15)

However, elsewhere the bride will refer ceaselessly and comically to her own poor
mastery of the skills regarded as ‘women’s work’, particularly cooking, spinning and
weaving:

I don’t know how to use the shuttle on the loom, nor do I know how to
weave cloth,
As for the shuttle of poplar wood, I know not which is front and which back,
As for the bamboo pole [on the cotton spinner], I have no idea how to hold it,
Four-pointed palm leaves [used in wrapping sticky rice]; I don’t know how
to arrange these.
(Ren 1989:23 ‘Filling the Box’ lines 377–81)

The bride claims she is too frail to bear heavy burdens like the senior women of the groom’s
house. They will surely mock her.

At their house, the Dama [wife of husband’s elder brother] has shoulders of
bronze and a waist of iron
In one pannier on her shoulders she can carry three mu of wheat…
But I, your daughter, have shoulders of beancurd and a waist of sticky
rice…
When I carry even three qian of beancurd, I wobble this way and that…
(Ren 1989:29, ‘Filling the Box’ lines 495–6, 499, 500)

Her nightmare rehearsal of what it will be like cooking for her parents-in-law will
resonate with the experience of many a young bride in China and elsewhere. In this lament,
the bride imagines the huge pots and ladles in the spacious kitchen of the groom, and the
huge stove with many burners guarded by the Stove God icon. She then expresses anxiety
at her own lack of skill:

Their chopstick holder is made from select timber,
A pair of ivory chopsticks is placed at the centre,
Silken towels hang on shiny hooks,
The rice of the sister-in-law [Dama] is fragrant as sticky rice,
The gruel she makes is sweet as dates.