For a pair of small bound feet, shed a vat of tears. - Chinese proverb
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Dalian, Manchuria, 1927. Yafong is eight years old when Mingjie first sees her. Ten years later, they catch sight of each other and she takes his breath away. But he is already a husband and a father. Pinshin, the daughter of a handyman and Yafong's personal handmaid, yearns for love that is not reciprocated. Their destinies are bound together when Pinshin and Mingjie walk into Yafong's life.
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My maternal grandparents passed away when I was very young. The stories of their loving relationship and their lives together in Manchuria before and during World War II always fascinated me. Often I would asked my parents to tell me about my graceful and enchanting grandmother's bound feet, my dashing and handsome grandfather's medical practice, their luxurious lifestyle, and the most intriguing mystery—that my grandmother was not the biological parent of my mommy and her two siblings. Word had it that my grandmother's handmaid was the one who bore their children and that she left after finally giving birth to a male heir.
Bound is not a memoir of my grandparents. It is a work of fiction in which I imagined how their stories might have unfolded. And it is mostly based on actual historical events and geographical settings.
Sufen Adams
