Ning Lao’s account of her time working as a nurse maid for Mrs. Burns, a British missionary, presents a sharp contrast to her experiences working in the household of Ch’ien Lao-yeh. Despite the fact that Mrs. Burns paid Ning Lao three times as much as a Chinese mistress would have, her two years in Mrs. Burns’s employ were anything but pleasant. At the heart of the difficulties were the differences between Ning Lao’s and Mrs. Burns’s expectations about their relationship. As you read Ning Lao’s account of her time “with the missionaries,” think about how her description of Mrs. Burns compares to her characterization of Ch’ien Lao-yeh’s wife. What made the former a bad mistress and the latter a good one?

There had been foreigners living in P’englai ever since I was a child. The first time I had seen the tall man with the black beard I had thought he was a devil and had squatted in the road and hid my head in my arms. But I had gradually become used to them. The gate of our house, when my mother was alive, was only a few gates away from theirs. The room I rented from Mrs. Chang, who believed in their religion, and helped them preach it, had only a wall between my court and theirs. The foreign women had visited my mother while she was alive, and they visited the official ladies while I worked with them. Mrs. Chang had asked me to arrange the visits with my mistresses. And she had suggested me to Mrs. Burns when she wanted a new amah for her baby.

In Chinese families it is the custom for the maids to live in the house of the family they serve, and the family feeds them. In foreign families it is the custom for the maids to go home at night and to eat their own food. And even if the maid was required to live on the compound of the family for whom she worked, still she ate her own food and had a room in the back court away from the family, so that there was a semblance at least of home life. So I was glad to work for a foreign family.

But it is easier to work for a Chinese family than a foreign family. In a Chinese family, the maid brings the hot water in the morning for the mistress to wash, combs her hair for her, and brings in the meals. The rest of the day is the maid’s, to do with what she likes.

After each meal the servants in a Chinese family eat what is left and also what is prepared for them. In a foreign family there is the mopping of the wooden floors. I always thought that should have been a man’s work, but Mrs. Burns made me do it and she made me sweep the carpet. She had to teach me how to take the heavy side strokes of the foreign broom.

Cleaning in a Chinese home is simple — sweeping up the brick-paved floor with a light broom. And the making of beds in a foreign home is very fatiguing. It is hard to please some mistresses who are particular about the making of the beds. Making a Chinese bed is simple. The bedding is folded and laid in a pile on the low bench at the end of the k’ang.

Washing in Chinese families is much simpler too. To wash twice a month is enough for the garments which are not much soiled. We washed in the river whenever we could. Clothes washed in the river water were always whiter and pleasanter to touch than those washed at home. We did not waste soap either, as the modern young people do. One piece of soap would last us several months. The day before we washed we would take the ashes of the pine branches burnt under our kitchen boilers and seep water through them as water is seeped through grain for making wine. We would rinse the clothes in this liquid, and the next day wash them in the river. They would be pleasant to the touch. We would beat them on the rocks and spread them to dry on the banks. The men’s stockings and the foot wrappings of the women we would treat with starch until they were stiff and white and beautiful.

Never had I been asked to wash unclean things until I worked for the foreigner. If a Chinese woman accidentally soils her garments she rinses them out herself before she gives them to a maid to wash. It is better to use paper that can be thrown away than to use cloth that must be washed each month. Also such things we feel are private and each woman keeps such matters to herself. But Mrs. Burns did not care what she used or whose cloth. She even used her baby’s diapers. That to us Chinese was very terrible. No woman will let anyone use the diaper of her son. She is afraid that his strength will be stolen away. There are those who steal the diapers of a healthy child for disappointed mothers who have no sons. They will also steal the bowl and chopsticks out of which the child eats, in the hope of having sons of their own. In the Descendant’s Nest, the hole in the floor by the bed where the afterbirth of sons is buried, they bury the stolen diaper of one family and the stolen bowl and chopsticks of another, to hold the newborn child within the house. The afterbirth of girls is buried outside the window, for girls must leave home.

To work for foreigners was more difficult than to work for Chinese officials, and paid less. The only advantage was that I could live at home. I thought that I would get more money with Mrs. Burns. But though Mrs. Burns paid me three thousand cash a month and the Chinese only one thousand, I saved money with the Chinese and lost with Mrs. Burns. With my Chinese mistress I got my room, my food and that of my child, heat and water. With my wages I bought clothes and saved the tips. I had about thirty thousand cash saved, but I used it all when I started working for Mrs. Burns. I used it for getting my home established, but I got it back working for my former mistress at night when her husband died. Working for the foreigner and living at home, l had to pay rent, pay for my own food and heat and light, as well as for my clothes.

With the foreigner there was no idle moment until I went home, and then I had my own work to do. Mrs. Burns was very exacting and not always just.

She went to Chefoo on a journey and took me along to care for the baby. After we had got started and were in the inn where we had stopped for the first meal, she said, “How are you going to eat?”

I said that I did not know, that I would listen to her words.

“But did you not bring food?” she said.

“No.”

“Did you not travel with your Chinese mistress into Manchuria?”

And I answered that I had. “But what she ate I ate.”

Then said Mrs. Burns, “I will lend you money to buy your food”

But she gave the boy his food and I did not think this fair. And when we got to Chefoo the eating was not convenient. The missionaries lived on the top of a hill, and the food stores were all at the bottom of the hill. I did not know which shops to go to, nor did I have time to go, I was kept so busy, and so was often hungry. The boy ate with the cook of the family they were visiting, and had an easy time. I was not happy.

One day Mrs. Burns said to me, “Why is it that you are always angry since we came to Chefoo?”

And I told her and she said that such was the custom, and from one word we went to another. It was the first time I had ever passed words with her. Truly had my old mistress said that my temper was bad, and I had tried to restrain it.

But now I was truly angry, and I said, “When we get back to P’englai you can find another woman. I shall find a Chinese position.” She did not think I meant it.

In Chefoo also we had had words about my sewing on Sunday. I was standing by the washhouse door sewing on a shoe sole. The boy was inside doing some ironing. The door of the washhouse was opposite the door of the chapel, and I was watching the worshipers going in. One of the missionaries saw us and told Mrs. Burns that her people were breaking the Sabbath. Mrs. Burns came over to see us. I saw her coming and slipped the sewing up the wide sleeve of my coat. Our sleeves were very wide in those days. But the boy had his back to the door and was intent on the ironing and so she caught him.

She said, “Why do you iron on Sunday?”

“Because you demand clothes.”

“But I do not want them today. You must not iron today. It is the Sabbath.” And so she scolded him.

She did not scold me, for she knew I was not a believer. But she had seen the sewing before I had slipped it up my sleeve, and when we got to her room she asked me not to sew on Sundays where people could see me. And I asked her why, if their God was one that could see everywhere, it should be wrong for me to sew in one place and not in another. Were the laws that were to be kept not God’s laws?

Then one Sunday when I went into her room to make the bed she was mending her son’s stockings. I walked around the bed to the other side where she could see that I could see, and I smiled. And she said, “Ai, but what can I do? Half his leg was showing.” But she never said anything to me again about sewing on Sundays.

At that time we had not yet quarreled. But it added to my feeling, and when we did quarrel I said that I would get a Chinese position when we returned to P’englai. Like a man hanging, killed by his own weight, I insisted on quarreling. I had used all my money, two thousand cash. I had not enough to live on. We came to bitter words.

“Never since I came to China have I hated anyone so much as you.”

“Never since I went out to work have I had so bad a place.”

“I wanted to make of you a very useful woman.”

“It is as you say. I have always been a person of no use.”

Mrs. Burns did not think that I meant it, but when we got back to P’englai I went to my sworn mother and I told her my story.

“Give me a day or two,” she said. And in two days she had found a very good place for me. One of the officials was leaving town and would take me and my child, and he also had a place for my old opium sot. We would be fed and clothed and have a journey too.

I went and told Mrs. Burns, and she wept and held my arm and begged me not to go. My friends also begged me not to go so far from home. I had many debts which had to be settled and many people owed me money which I had to collect. By the time I had settled my affairs the official had gone, but I had decided to stay anyway.

Source: Ida Pruitt, A Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945), pp. 145–150. Copyright 1945, Yale University Press. Used by permission of Yale University Press.

Questions to Consider