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Hair-Pinning Days: The Flower-Sitting Chair

Summary: Hair-Pinning Days: The Flower-Sitting Chair

Two years later, Snow Flower comes to visit Lily for a month to help prepare for Lily’s upcoming marriage, and the two feel closer than ever. One day, Madame Wang visits and tells “The Tale of Wife Wang.” In this story, a woman marries a butcher, which is the lowest match possible for a Buddhist. Wife Wang begs her husband to stop killing animals, as it is bad karma, but her husband refuses. The King of the Afterworld sends spirits to bring Wife Wang to him. When the King sees how virtuous Wife Wang is, he sends her back to the world of the living as a boy with her real name written on her foot. As a man, Wife Wang was able to excel in all areas and, eventually, return to her husband’s village. After announcing her true identity to her husband, their family is able to enter nirvana. Lily believes this story is about her own future, as Lily can guide her husband in making wise decisions. Once Lily is married, she will go to Snow Flower’s home to prepare for Snow Flower’s marriage. Lily feels excited to finally see Snow Flower’s house and meet her family, though Snow Flower worries Lily’s expectations are too high.

On the day of a formal lunch with Lily’s family and her in-laws, Lily notices that her mother-in-law is not wearing the shoes Lily made for her and worries that she has been disgraced. Lily does not even tell Snow Flower about this, as she worries Snow Flower will be disappointed in her. That night, Lily hopes Mama will tell her what will happen on the wedding night, though Mama only says, as she did before Lily’s footbinding, that ugliness cannot be avoided and that Lily must be brave. After Mama leaves, Snow Flower comes in and assures Lily she will be an excellent wife and mother before they go to sleep. The next day, Lily says goodbye to her family members, and Snow Flower gives her their fan. In the palanquin, Lily cries, knowing she will only ever be a guest in her husband’s home. She then reads Snow Flower’s note, which says that Lily will soon learn things about Snow Flower, and Snow Flower worries Lily will stop loving her. Lily feels confused but knows nothing could ever change the way she feels about Snow Flower.

Lily arrives at the home of her in-laws, where she kneels before them and promises to obey them. She and her husband are then married. After a celebration, Lily and her husband are left alone. Lily finds him attractive, and as he puts her sleeping slippers on her feet, she finds it more intimate than when they make love. The next day, Lily wakes early, still worried about Snow Flower’s letter, and meets her servant girl, Yonggang, in the kitchen before doing her chores. On the third day of Lily’s marriage, women from her family visit to read her third-day wedding books to Lily’s in-laws. However, Lily is dismayed when Snow Flower does not come.

Analysis: Hair-Pinning Days: The Flower-Sitting Chair

As Lily prepares for her marriage, she focuses solely on herself, which is why she assumes the story Madame Wang tells is about her own fate. Although the story is clearly not related to Lily’s own marriage, as she is marrying into a family of a higher status than her own, Lily takes away from the story what she wants to, ignoring the cardinal rule of considering context when reading nu shu. In addition to the story of Wife Wang, there is a good deal of foreshadowing in this chapter. Snow Flower explicitly warns Lily against setting her expectations too high when visiting Snow Flower’s home. Even after reading Snow Flower’s letter, Lily feels worried but does not consider all she has learned from Madame Wang in order to put the pieces together. Due to what she assumes about Snow Flower’s higher social standing, Lily still views her friend on a pedestal. Despite the fact that they are closer than ever, Lily cannot bear to have Snow Flower’s sympathy, which is why she doesn’t tell her that her mother-in-law is not wearing the shoes Lily made. Lily’s adoration of Snow Flower shows how invested Lily remains in one’s worth being determined by social class.

As Lily makes the transition to marriage, she is aware that from now on, she will only live to serve the interests of her husband’s family. This is why, in hearing the tale of Wife Wang, she takes away the lesson that she can be a source of guiding wisdom for her husband. Although Lily has always known what her fate would be, she sobs at leaving her birth family, acknowledging that she will never again fully belong in either her birth home or her marital home. Even for someone like Lily, who is improving her standing in life with marriage, a woman’s suffering is ultimately unavoidable. Mama implies this by equating sex with footbinding: a necessary yet uncomfortable act that must be done to produce sons. This idea perpetuates the theme that the fate of women, one way or another, will always include suffering of some sort, even in the best of circumstances.

In this chapter, feet and shoes continue to be used as a symbol of a woman’s femininity and, by extension, her obedience. Lily is dismayed when she sees that her mother-in-law is wearing shoes made of much finer material than the ones Lily made. This shows how important shoes are as a gesture to one’s in-laws, and how Lily could be in danger of being cast out of her new family if her shoes were deemed unacceptable. However, Lily’s fears are unfounded and she is accepted by her in-laws. When Lily and her husband are alone for the first time, she feels more intimate with him as he puts her sleeping slippers on her feet than when they have sex. This is perhaps because no man has ever seen Lily’s bound feet, and so her husband is the first to bear witness to the pain and suffering she has experienced in order to become worthy of marriage.

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