“So,” continued the mandarin, looking rather proud of himself, “the government has given me a problem. I need someone to be a foot inspector. A man would not do, because men are not to look at a woman’s feet. I need a female foot inspector. But where, I asked myself, would I find a woman who could travel on foot over rough roads and climb mountains to reach the small villages to make sure every girl’s feet have been unbound? Only a woman with unbound feet could do that. And I asked myself, in all of China, who is the woman who speaks the Yangcheng dialect and has unbound feet? That woman will be my foot inspector.”
The mandarin stopped for a moment to smile at his logic. Then he proceeded. “There is only one such woman in the whole district, and it is you, Gladys Aylward!”
Gladys smiled weakly, trying to grasp what she was hearing. Was the mandarin offering her a job or giving her a command? She wasn’t sure.
Before she could decide, the mandarin continued. “Two of my soldiers will go with you, and I will give you a mule to ride. When you speak, people will listen to you as if I myself were speaking. To disobey you is to disobey me.” He looked down at his sword, and Gladys knew exactly what he meant.
“I will pay you for your service. Do you have any questions?” the mandarin added.
Gladys knew she had a million questions inside, if she could just think straight for a moment. “But,” she finally stammered, “I’m a Christian, not a foot inspector.”
As she spoke, a thought flashed through her mind. As a foot inspector, she would get to visit every village and every farm in the district with an escort from the mandarin. Not to mention getting paid for it. She thought of all the Bible stories she could tell along the way. She could use her position to spread the gospel message throughout the entire district. But would the mandarin let her do that? Gladys had to find out.
“Wherever I went on behalf of your excellency,” she continued more boldly now, “I would speak of my God and my faith, and I would try to make others believe as I do.”
She stood, her heart thumping, waiting for the mandarin’s reply. The mandarin stroked his mustache for a few moments. Only the crying of a baby in a distant house broke the silence.
Gladys began to wonder whether she had said something insulting. The mandarin had complete power over the people of Yangcheng and the surrounding district. What if she had offended him with her boldness? Would her head be the next one on the wall?
Finally the mandarin spoke. “It is most important that foot binding stop immediately. As to your religion, it is not of any importance to me. Speak of what you will. If the women become Christians, they will want their daughters to have unbound feet like you, and that will be a good thing.”
Gladys bowed gratefully.
“I will send the soldiers and the mule for you in the morning to begin your work. I expect you to report to me regularly on your progress. Come to the yamen, and my secretary will arrange an audience with me.”
With that, the mandarin bowed to Gladys, turned, and climbed back into his sedan chair. Gladys bowed deeply and watched the procession move back along the street. As it moved out of sight, Gladys let out a deep sigh of relief. After worrying so hard about money to live on and to keep the inn going, she had her answer, and it was a much better answer than anything she’d been able to come up with on her own.
The next morning, Gladys was up early and waiting in the courtyard for her escorts to arrive with the mule. As she waited, she tried to imagine how she might go about getting mothers and fathers to unbind their daughters’ feet. After all, binding the feet of baby girls had been going on in China for countless generations. People probably weren’t going to take kindly to being told by a foreign devil to stop the practice. Gladys decided that this could well turn out to be a more challenging task for her than dragging the mules into the courtyard of the Inn of Eight Happinesses as she’d had to in the beginning.
The feet of baby girls were wrapped tight with linen bandages. Since the bones in a baby’s feet are soft and pliable, the feet slowly doubled over until the toes and front half of the foot were tucked underneath. By the time a girl was twelve or thirteen years of age, her feet were permanently doubled in half. By then, all a girl could do on them was hobble around slowly. Girls couldn’t run or play like the boys did. But the new Nationalist government had sensibly decided that the practice needed to end. It outlawed the binding of the feet of girls under age ten. That way, a whole generation of girls would grow up without bound feet, and the men, who had been taught that bound feet were desirable, would have no choice but to marry girls with “big” feet.
Gladys heard the clip-clop of a mule’s hooves on cobblestones, and soon the mule and two soldiers were standing in the courtyard. The soldiers bowed to Gladys, and with a flourish, one of them lifted her onto the mule litter, and they were on their way over the barren mountains.
The first village Gladys came to was located on the side of a steep river gorge. The cramped houses were made of mud and had green tiled roofs. News traveled around the village fast, and within a few minutes of entering the gate, the village elder was bowing to Gladys. The soldiers told the elder why they had come to his village, and the elder called the village together in the marketplace. Soon women with baskets of laundry, men with hoes, and little children with runny noses were all assembled.
The elder introduced Gladys. “This is the honorable foot inspector for the mandarin,” he began. “She is here to inspect the feet of every girl in the village. She has orders to see that every girl under age ten has her feet unbound, and she will come back to see they stay that way.”
A shocked silence came over the crowd.
“Furthermore,” the elder added, “if this new law is not carried out, the father involved will be sent to prison. The foot inspector is to be obeyed.”
Finally, there was a gasp from the audience, followed by a rumble of complaints, not loud enough for the elder to identify individuals but loud enough to frighten Gladys. Despite what the elder had just said, Gladys had doubts about how she was going to get the people to obey her.
Gladys decided she needed to do something impressive to get everyone’s attention, so she gestured for the soldiers to follow her. She walked boldly over to the nearest house. Through the open door she saw a little girl of about three sitting on the k’ang. As Gladys walked in, a woman scooped up the little girl and held her on her knee. Two other women appeared at the doorway to watch.
“Unbind that girl’s feet immediately,” commanded Gladys in her most official-sounding voice.
The woman began to unwrap the linen bandages. Soon the little girl’s feet were free. Even at three years of age, the girl’s toes were folded over, and her feet were white from a lack of blood reaching them. Gladys had never actually seen bound feet without their linen wrap before. The sight of the little girl’s feet made her feel sick to her stomach. She knelt in front of the girl and began to massage her feet. Slowly a pink color began to return to them, and the girl’s toes began to uncurl into their proper position.
“See these little feet. God made this little girl’s feet just like a little boy’s feet.” Gladys glanced around to make sure the soldiers were still outside before she continued. “If I come back and find that anyone has bound this girl’s feet again, that person will be put in prison.”
Gladys stood and walked out the door. She entered the next house, and the house after that, and repeated the procedure. By mid-afternoon, she was satisfied that the feet of all the young girls in the village had been unbound. The elder invited her to spend the night at his house, and so Gladys spent a pleasant evening telling him stories from the Bible.
The next morning, Gladys and the soldiers were off to the next village, keeping a watchful eye out as they looked for families living in the caves dotted throughout the mountains. At the next village, the same scene repeated itself, only this time, Gladys was feeling a little braver. Wherever she went, she was respected and obeyed.
It took Gladys several months to visit every village and every family in the district. After she had been through the district once, she reported to the mandarin that there were no more young girls with bound feet in his domain. However, the mandarin was a cautious man, and he insisted Gladys continue her rounds of the district, checking up on everyone. This suited Gladys just fine, because she’d discovered that once a little girl’s feet were unbound and she was able to walk around normally, most parents wondered why they had ever bound them in the first place. They agreed that it was a silly custom, and they were glad to be rid of it. Big feet, they decided were useful, not ugly. This change of heart meant that Gladys had nothing to do but travel around with an escort of soldiers and tell Bible stories. It wasn’t long before the villagers all looked forward with great delight to the foot inspector’s visit.
The year rolled by. When Gladys was away on her trips, Yang looked after things at the inn. And with no Mrs. Lawson around to talk to in English, Gladys was soon fluent in the Yangcheng dialect. In fact, she spoke it better than many of the locals did. And her storytelling was producing results. Soon small bands of Christians began to form in the villages she visited.
Things couldn’t have worked out better for Gladys. She visited the mandarin regularly, and he seemed to be impressed with the job she had done. As it turned out, he was so impressed that when he needed the services of the bravest person in Yangcheng, he summoned Gladys.
Chapter 10
Ai-weh-deh
Running the Inn of Eight Happinesses kept Yang very busy when Gladys was away on her foot-inspection trips. It was a great relief to them both when Mrs. Smith in Tsechow sent Lu Yung-cheng, a new convert, to help with the work at the inn. Mrs. Smith even paid Lu’s monthly salary so that he was not a financial burden on Gladys. Lu Yung-cheng was a good worker, and Gladys enjoyed having the extra pair of hands around to help with the work. She enjoyed Lu’s company, too, and was relieved to have someone around who could make sure Yang’s stories in the evenings came out the way they were recorded in the Bible.
Several days after returning from a foot-inspection trip to some of the villages west of Yangcheng, Gladys stood in the kitchen stirring a pot of soup. Lu Yung-cheng was also in the kitchen preparing vegetables. They were busy talking about how things were going around the inn, when they heard a commotion in the courtyard. Suddenly, a messenger from the mandarin burst into the house. He waved a piece of red paper and began talking. He spoke so fast that no one could understand what he was saying, so Gladys had him slow down and repeat himself. It seemed there was a riot going on at the prison, and the prisoners were killing each other. As a result, the mandarin had summoned Gladys to the prison.
Gladys shook her head. “That’s crazy. I’ve never been near the prison in my life. There’s nothing I could do there. You must have the wrong house.”
“But he has an official summons,” said Lu, pointing at the red paper the messenger was holding.
The messenger waved the paper at Gladys. Lu Yung-cheng reached out, took the paper, and looked at it. “It definitely says the mandarin has sent for you,” he confirmed.
Gladys couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was the official foot inspector. What could foot inspection possibly have to do with a prison riot?
“You go,” she urged Lu Yung-cheng. “There must be a mistake. You can straighten it out. The prison is a place for men, not for a woman.”
Lu shook his head. “You have to go. You have been summoned. If you don’t go, you’ll end up in prison for disobeying an official summons.”
Gladys sighed. She was still weary from all her traveling, and the last thing she wanted to do was go near the prison. Still, she reached for her jacket and hurriedly followed the messenger to the eastern wall of town where the prison was located. As she got closer to the prison, bloodcurdling screams and cries for help grew louder and louder. The messenger led Gladys through the crowd that had gathered outside the prison and into the prison office located on the outer wall of the prison. Inside, standing with six soldiers, was the governor of the prison. A look of relief came over his face when he saw Gladys.
