She Travelled Around the World With Half Bound Feet

Meet my Nanna Tao (‘Tao Nai Nai’ in Mandarin or just ‘Nai Nai’ to me).

This is my dad’s mum. My beautiful ‘Nai Nai’ was born in 1919 and left us in 2008 at 89 years old. We miss her greatly, but her impact is still felt.

When my dad started his Chinese restaurant business in Cambridge in the UK, we were very poor. My dad was the chef, and my mum was front of house. I was just three years old in 1985 when our first restaurant in Cambridge opened its doors, ‘The Shao Tao’.

This was also my first home in Cambridge as we were so poor we couldn’t afford to rent anywhere else. So we slept in the basement by putting the restaurant tables together. I remember being bundled up and pinned together with layers of duvets so I wouldn’t get ill. I hated it as it was hot and I literally couldn’t move!

My Nai Nai eventually caught a bad cold due to the damp and cold conditions in the basement. She was my dad’s motivation to quickly buy and move into a proper house, which he achieved within nine months.

When my parents brought our first house in Cambridge, and we moved out of the basement, I hardly saw them as they worked all hours of the day. It was my Nai Nai who would look after my younger brother and me. She would regale countless tales of her youth spent in China, and when she fled with my grandad to Taiwan during the Communist Revolution carrying a massive chest of gold.

Her father (my Great Great Grandfather) was a major landlord and owned vast farming lands, fields and real estate. Money was not an issue, and my Nai Nai was brought up in a large wealthy household. Unfortunately, due to the Communist regime that unfolded from 1945 onwards and the subsequent Chinese Civil War, landowners and landlords were one of the first classes to be targeted, tormented and persecuted (and murdered) as the Communist Party wanted their land under the title of ‘Redistribution’. Probably not dissimilar to how they have seized control and shares over some of China’s current largest global enterprises in our generation (think of Jack Ma).

My Great Great Grandfather was lucky in so far as his tenants refused to torment and kill him as he had always been kind to them. However, he eventually died from coughing up blood from a burst blood vessel due to the anger and stress from losing everything. Yes, during the Communist Revolution, all of our families lands and wealth were confiscated. Other family members were not so lucky and were either tormented or killed by the Communist party.

Those who lived to tell their stories were women of the household who didn’t make it out of China on time. It would be another 40 years before Nai Nai would be reunited with her sisters. But that’s a story for another time, which I will write if you are interested in hearing about our experience visiting China in the early 1990s.

One of Nai Nai’s biggest regrets was not being able to read or write. She begged her father to be tutored with her brothers, but her wishes fell on deaf ears as education for women was regarded as useless during those times. Instead, they tried to bind her feet which is an ancient custom and sign of beauty but would mean she wouldn’t walk. Her feet did not get bound all the way. Hence, she was able to run away whilst her home was getting bombed. Indeed, she escaped to Taiwan with my grandfather, where she gave birth to 3 sons (including twin boys) and two daughters, who unfortunately passed away when they were still young. Later, these half bound feet, would see my Nai Nai visit her sons in America, London and eventually settle in the UK with her youngest son ‘Shao Tao’, my dad.

Those half bound precious feet also attended my last graduation when I was awarded a Masters in Law (LLM) in 2005. She was 86 years old then. My Nai Nai was sat proudly with her best clothing on and walking stick, accompanied by my mum and brother. She had terminal cancer at that point, so this was a lot of effort for her, but I was the first girl she could see graduate with a Masters Degree, and there was no way she was missing out. One of her last words at the graduation, which has been etched in me and my mother’s hearts since “we finally have a girl who can study”.

Yes, I went all the way through school, university, Masters and Law School. Not because I was particularly academic but purely because I was given the opportunity and decided to keep pushing through. Whenever I wanted to give up, I would remember that my Nai Nai was never given this opportunity, and in my mind, I felt that I was studying for both of us. I carried her story of being refused an education just because she was a girl with me. I wanted to show Nai Nai that women can strive for equality and equal opportunity in our generation.

Now about the big chest of gold. Nai Nai had to lie about what was in the chest to the people carrying it on and off the boats. She also had to dirty her face with mud all the way to Taiwan so no man took a fancy to her (as she was a looker). Although she made in to Taiwan in one piece and so did the massive chest of gold, the latter didn't last for very long. My grandfather was an army general for the Nationalist party, which fled to Taiwan. He couldn’t get involved with businesses directly as that was in direct conflict with his army duties, so he invested my Nai Nai’s gold in ventures they didn’t fully control or manage, including a failed hotel and mining venture. My Nai Nai strongly believed that her business fate would have been different had she been able to read and write instead of just handing money over to the men of the household.

Nai Nai returned to China in her last remaining years despite living aboard for over 70 years. It has now been 13 years since Nai Nai left us, but her fighting spirit and her stories are forever etched in our memories and us. To that extent, I still carry her with me.