Page 183 - Chinese Woman Living and Working
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170 ANNE E.MCLAREN


              Her beancurd tastes like salty meat,
              But the rice I make has grass and seeds in it, My skin is too rough and dirty,
                   how can I be a match for this?
                                                                 (lines 47–50)

              In the bottom are river snails,
              In the middle is raw rice,
              The rice is cooked on the top and raw underneath.
              I eat the hard uncooked rice,
              The mother-in-law likes her rice a little hard,
              The father-in-law likes his rice a little soft,
              So how can I manage, how can I cook for them?
                                                                 (lines 58–68)

            These laments demonstrate the importance of the acquisition of female domestic skills for
            the ‘face’ of her natal family and for the proper functioning of the marriage system, which
            relied on the importation of female labour through marriage. The bride’s work here is
            constructed primarily as service to the parents-in-law and adaptation to their household
            customs and protocols. Above all, the bride fears the carping judgement of the senior
            women in the household. Women here are  assessed by  their physical strength, and
            competency at household skills and diplomacy The hyperbolic and often comic
            protestations of the bride at her ineptness need not be taken literally. Nonetheless, the
            anxieties of the bride, at this crucial turning point in her life, are very real.
              Another women’s cult that reflected the anxiety of young women about marriage is the
            cult to the Maiden of the Lavatory. One of the humblest tasks carried out by women in
            China was the carrying of the buckets of human waste from the house to a manure pit. In
            the case of the lower Yangtze delta, the manure pit is a clay vat sunk deep into the ground
            in  land at the  rear of the  residence.  After a few days it can  be used as fertilizer, an
            essential ingredient in crop production. The second case to be examined here deals with a
            cult surrounding women’s essential  work in supplying the manure pit. From 1999 to
            2000, Chen Qinjian of East China Normal University, Shanghai, carried out an
            investigation of the cult to the Kengsan Maiden, the Goddess of the Lavatory, in two
            villages in Songjiang County outside Shanghai. 11
              In these villages the goddess of the pit is known as Keng San guniang or Lavatory Pit
                      12
            Third Maiden.   It is believed that this cult was prevalent in many areas of China before
                13
            1949.   Chen interviewed women in their forties and fifties who had participated in the
            Keng San Maiden cult in their youth. The ritual performance was carried out annually on
            the fifteenth day of the Chinese New Year, a day that marks the formal end of New Year
            celebrations.  The activity is called  by the  participants ‘Inviting  [down] the Kengsan
            maiden’ (qing Kengsan guniang). Only young unmarried girls took part in the cult. The
            girls meet in the living room of someone’s home. Rice bran is scattered on the dining
            table. Two girls would then take an empty bamboo basket used for holding rice and carry
            it to the lavatory pit. They would stand on both sides of the basket and hold it with one
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