Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (9 page)

Many more Chinese women sought refuge at the Presbyterian Mission Home, which took a more aggressive stance against prostitution.
As superintendent of the home from 1877 to 1897, Margaret Culbertson
devised the technique of rescue work, whereby brothels were raided with
the assistance of the police whenever a Chinese girl or woman sent word
for help. According to Donaldina Cameron, who succeeded Culbertson, approximately r,5oo girls were rescued in this way during the first
thirty years of the home's existence.78 Because of the high value placed
on prostitutes, owners went to great expense to recover their "property,"
hiring highbinders to retrieve the women or paying legal fees to file criminal charges against the women on trumped-up charges of larceny. Once
rescued, the women often had to be guarded in the home and defended
in court. As inmates, the women were subjected to strong doses of Christian doctrine and a regimented life of constant activity, the combination of which was meant to instill "virtue" in them. The day started at 7 A.M.
with roll call and morning prayer, followed by breakfast, an hour of
housework, then classes, dinner, prayer meeting, study session, and bedtime. Promptness at mealtimes was required, as was written permission
to leave the premises. Women were assigned household chores, taught
Chinese and English, trained for industrial or domestic employment, and
encouraged to work for wages either sewing in the Mission Home or
serving as domestic workers outside the institution. Some-particularly
those assigned to the home by the courts-resented the restrictions and
austerity of the Mission Home and chose to return to their former status. Others opted to return to China. A significant number, however,
agreed to marry Chinese Christians and begin life anew in America.79

Protestant missionaries provided an important service in rescuing Chinese prostitutes from a wretched life of enslavement. Indeed, they were
the only ally abused Chinese women had in the late nineteenth century,
and it was largely thanks to their efforts that Chinese prostitution declined by the turn of the century. Yet their work also had a damaging
effect on the Chinese community and on the moral psyche of the rescued women. In their zeal to rescue and transform Chinese women into
their own image, missionary women often manipulated the law and the
press to serve their ulterior motives. In the process, they not only infringed on the civil rights of an already disenfranchised population, but
also helped to perpetuate negative stereotypes of the Chinese, thus
adding fuel to anti-Chinese sentiment and legislation. This effect was
ironic, considering that Protestant missionaries were the one group that
consistently opposed the Chinese Exclusion laws. Their efforts were also
flawed by an unyielding belief in the superiority of Victorian cultural
values, to the point of self-righteous condescension. Rescued women
were often pressured into adopting gender roles that emphasized female
purity, piety, and Christian home life. Because missionary women strongly
believed that the Christian home should center on the moral authority
of the wife and not the patriarchal control of the husband, they worked
hard to turn Chinese women against traditional Chinese marriages and
family life, alienating the Chinese community and subjecting the women
to cultural conflict and social ostracism as a result. Moreover, by choosing to focus only on transforming the gender role of wives, excluding
husbands in the process of change, they further alienated the men and
jeopardized the long-term efficacy of their work.

But as Peggy Pascoe's study on missionary rescue homes recounts so
well, Chinese women who sought help from the mission homes were neither powerless victims nor entirely free agents, but women who lived
in a world with many constraints and few opportunities. Recognizing
that the Mission Home offered them a chance to change their circumstances, they went there with their own hidden agendas. A number of
entrants to the Presbyterian Mission Home between 1874 and i 88o were
prostitutes who wanted the protection of home officials in order to marry
suitors of their choice. Other women used the Mission Home as a temporary refuge from male abuse, to escape arranged marriages, or to gain
leverage in a polygynous marriage. Although they were genuinely grateful for the services of the Mission Home, many did not convert to Christianity or end up mirroring the Victorian ideals of womanhood. Rather,
as Pascoe's study points out, Chinese wives came to shape a new set of
gender relations in their Chinese American marriages.80

THE PIVOTAL STATUS OF MUI TSAI

Not far from the reaches of prostitution were mui tsaigirls who were brought from China to work as domestic servants in affluent Chinese homes or brothels, or young daughters of prostitutes who
worked in this capacity in brothels. Although John W. Stephens, in his
study of the manuscript censuses, estimates that only 2. percent of Chinese women were listed as "young servants" in the 1870 census, their
presence and role were more significant than that.81 The mui tsai system, a cultural carryover from China, was generally regarded by the Chinese as a form of charity for impoverished girls. The term itself comes
from the Cantonese dialect and means "little sister." Under this age-old
system, poor parents would sell a young daughter into domestic service,
usually stipulating in a deed of sale that she be freed through marriage
when she turned eighteen. Meanwhile, the girl received no wages for
her labor, was not at liberty to leave of her own free will, and had no legal recourse for complaint should she be mistreated, raped, or forced
into an unhappy marriage. In China, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, where
the system continued until the 1940s, girls sold to rich and benevolent
owners supposedly benefited from the system. Well fed, clothed, and sheltered, they were known to establish long-lasting affectionate relationships with their mistresses. Many mui tsai, however, did not fare as well.
Treated as "work horses," they had to take care of children not much
younger than themselves, perform heavy household chores, and often
suffer the sexual advances of their masters or the physical abuses of their
mistresses.82 Their hard lives paralleled that of European female inden tured servants, who made up one-third of the indentured population in
antebellum America. Like mui tsai, these women were on call twentyfour hours a day and responsible for a wide range of domestic chores
and child care.83 But whereas they were protected by law from flagrant
abuse and breach of contract, mui tsai enjoyed no such protection. There
was no guarantee that their contracts would be honored-that they
would obtain freedom through marriage when they came of age. Indeed, depending on the family's economic situation, a mui tsai could
be resold into prostitution for a handsome sum.

Some mui tsai who immigrated with merchant families later fulfilled
their role as bond servants in America and were then freed for marriage.
I believe that is what happened in the case of my great-grandmother's
mui tsai, Ali Kum. However, in the absence of other details about Ah
Kum's life in America, the life story of Quan Laan Fan, who immigrated
as a mui tsai in the 18 8os, serves as a better example. In an oral history
interview in 1974, Laan Fan explained that when she was seven, her family's litter of pigs died and the family went into debt .84 Her parents then
sold her to Quan Seung's family, with whom she lived a comfortable life.
Seung was the second wife of Wong, a Gold Mountain man, and because she did not have bound feet like the first wife, she was chosen to
join him in America. "Seung wanted me to come over to be their errand girl. That's how I came to America," said Laan Fan.

Immigration to America put an end to Laan Fan's comfortable life.
Wong owned a grocery store on Washington Street near Ross Alley in
San Francisco, and it became Laan Fan's job to fetch meals from there
daily for her mistress. "Everyday I would go and bring our meals back
from the store," she recalled. "Just the two of us would eat together
[Seung and herself]. We didn't have to cook. I'd go out by myself at
nine o'clock in the morning to get our daytime meal and at four o'clock
for the evening meal." This was no easy task for a girl. "The pot had
three layers to it," Laan Fan said. "Two layers were for soong [main dishes]
and the third layer was for rice. Sometimes, I'd have another pot for soup
which I carried home or else it was included in the big pot. I was so
short, I dragged the pot home everyday until I wore a hole in it!" She
also rolled cigarettes at home for income, sending most of the money
she earned to her mother in China, keeping some for clothes and shoes.
She was allowed to study Chinese and English with teachers from the
Baptist Church. Then, at eighteen or nineteen, she was married to Sam.
Although he was much older than she, and poor, the marriage endured.
They first tried growing flowers in nearby Belmont, but then moved back to San Francisco, where she worked as a telephone operator in Chinatown to help support their family of eight children.

The outcome of Quan Laan Fan's life fulfilled the original intent of
the mui tsai system. Both she and her family gained by the sale; she was
well treated by Seung's family and was properly married off, albeit to an
old man, when she came of age. Yet newspaper accounts and missionary records typically painted a different picture of the fates of mui tsai.
According to these sources, brothel owners often purchased young girls
from China with the intention of using them first as domestic servants
and then as prostitutes when they became older, thus maximizing their
investment. Wu Tien Fu, rescued by Protestant missionaries in 1894,
was such a mui tsai:85

I was six when I came to this country in 18 9 3. My worthless father gambled every cent away, and so, left us poor. I think my mother's family was
well-to-do, because our grandmother used to dress in silk and satin and
always brought us lots of things. And the day my father took me, he fibbed
and said he was taking me to see my grandmother, that I was very fond
of, you know, and I got on the ferry boat with him, and Mother was
crying, and I couldn't understand why she should cry if I go to see
Grandma. She gave me a new toothbrush and a new washrag in a blue
bag when I left her. When I saw her cry I said, "Don't cry, Mother, I'm
just going to see Grandma and be right back." And that worthless father,
my own father, imagine, had every inclination to sell me, and he sold me
on the ferry boat. Locked me in the cabin while he was negotiating my
sale. And I kicked and screamed and screamed and they wouldn't open
the door till after some time, you see, I suppose he had made his bargain
and had left the steamer. Then they opened the door and let me out and
I went up and down, up and down, here and there, couldn't find him.

She was later taken to San Francisco and resold to a brothel, where she
worked as a mui tsai:

[My owner] used to make me carry a big fat baby on my back and make
me to wash his diapers. And you know, to wash you have to stoop over,
and then he pulls you back, and cry and cry. Oh, I got desperate, I didn't
care what happened to me, I just pinched his cheek, his seat, you know,
just gave it to him. Then of course I got it back. She, his mother, went
and burned a red hot iron tong and burnt me on the arm.

Fortunately for Tien Fu, someone reported her situation to Donaldina
Cameron at the Presbyterian Mission Home, who subsequently rescued
her and brought her to live at the home. She told about the rescue:

They described me much bigger than I was so when they came they didn't
recognize me. And then the woman who had reported to the mission
said, "Why didn't you take her? She's the girl." They said, "She looked
too small," and then they came back again. But even then, they weren't
sure that I was the one, so they undressed me and examined my body
and found where the woman had beaten me black and blue all over. And
then they took me to the home. Oh, it was in the pouring rain! I was
scared to death. You know, change from change, and all strangers, and I
didn't know where I was going. Away from my own people and in the
pouring rain. And they took me, a fat policeman carried me all the way
from Jackson Street, where I was staying, to Sacramento Street to the
mission, Cameron House. So I got my freedom there.

With the help of a benefactor, H. C. Coleman of Morristown, New Jersey, Tien Fu was able to attend the Stevens' School in Germantown,
Pennsylvania, for four years, and the Toronto Bible School for another
two years. She saved enough money to return to China, but, unable to
find her family, she returned and devoted the rest of her life to the goals
of the Mission Home, assisting Donaldina Cameron in rescues, interpreting for her in court, and taking charge of the nursery department.
She never married but remained Cameron's constant companion even
after she retired from mission work in 119511. When Tien Fu passed away
in 11975, she was buried beside Cameron, who had predeceased her in
11968.

As in China, mui tsai were pivotal in defining women's social status
in Chinatown. At best, a mui tsai could hope to be married to a man
who would provide for her; at worst, she could be resold into prostitution. Until she became of marrying age, she was at the mercy of her
owners, who could abuse her at will. In this sense, merchant wives, who
held control over the fate of their mui tsai, were in a position similar to
that of Chinese madams vis-a-vis their slave girls. As it was for prostitutes, life for mui tsai in America proved to be a double-edged sword.
Far away from China, they lacked the protection and support of family
and kin, but there were more avenues of escape available to them. Along
with the Mission Homes, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children looked after their interests and offered them help.86 The lack
of accurate statistics makes it difficult to gauge the number of mui tsai
in San Francisco or their outcomes. Given the small number of merchant
families that could afford mui tsai, and the large number of prostitutes,
the nineteenth century probably saw more Wu Tien Fus than Quan Laan
Fans. After all, it was more profitable for owners of mui tsai to satisfy the demand for prostitutes than for wives.87 Nevertheless, like organized
prostitution, the mui tsai system had all but vanished by the 192os thanks
to the efforts of missionary women and Chinese social reformers intent
on modernizing Chinatown-this in a country, it should be noted, where
slavery had been abolished in 1865 and contract labor in 1885.