THE POWER OF TOGETHERNESS

By Lynn Wong

The DeW retreat in November 2022 was a real eyeopener. It was the first time that I had experienced the power of a group of women in its rawest sense. It was 2.5 days that oozed with a camaraderie that I had never seen before - a room filled with 130 women, all of whom had their own stories – some happy, but many more which were deeply sad, disturbing and traumatic.

Brave women poured out their hearts to a captive audience and shared some of the most intimate details about their lives, whilst the rest of us sat, often in stunned silence and with tear-filled eyes. For those who have suffered, they were the lucky ones, as they were there to recount their story. They had found the strength to pick themselves up, they had conquered, and they were survivors. Their stories made me think of my late mother, and I would like to share her story with you.

Throughout my childhood, I would often hear from the Chinese society around me that women were both unworthy and inferior to men. Although those comments may now be made more quietly, it is nevertheless a mindset that has been slow to change.

My mother was born in a poor farming village in Hong Kong in 1935. At the time of her birth, malaria, dysentery, and typhoid rampaged throughout the territory, where disease was so rife that it all became an entangled web, such that it was impossible to distinguish one disease from another. Poverty and squalid living conditions led to many sicknesses, and many died. There was no money for doctors, and urgent care simply didn’t exist. People didn’t know what disease they were inflicted with, and, with no access to modern medicine, when people got sick, family members would go into the mountains to dig up roots and forage for leaves and berries from known medicinal plants. That was all they had, and they simply hoped for the best.

The struggle to survive meant that it was not uncommon for families to sell their daughters into wealthier families. The practice of selling girls had been going on for many generations and was a form of slavery that was technically outlawed by the time my mother was born, but it was a tradition that continued, nevertheless.

These girls were known as “bondservants”. If they were lucky, they were kept and used by their owners as domestic help; if not, they would end up being sold into prostitution. More rarely, when a family with more than one son could not afford to keep a male child, the “surplus” sons were sold into a family which had no male heir to continue the family name, which was regarded as of utmost importance - an attitude that continues to prevail in the minds of many of the older generation to this day. Boys were luckier, as they were deemed adopted by their new family as prized sons. Girls, on the other hand, were regarded as worthless chattels, and, upon marriage, they became part of their husband’s families. Even today, once married, a girl addresses her mother-in-law as “the mother of the family,” and where her own mother becomes known as “the outside mother”. As a child, I would spend a lot of time at my mother’s side. We talked a lot, and she would tell me stories of her childhood.

My mother was sold at the tender age of three because her own family could not afford to keep her – and also because she was a girl. Despite the squalor in her own family home, things did not improve when she was sold into my father’s family. My father’s father died when my father was two years old, and he was raised by his mother, his two older siblings had died of mysterious childhood illnesses some years previously. My grandmother bought my mother to carry out domestic duties and to work in the fields.

Although my mother did not resent the sweat and toil, she resented the treatment she received from her new “sibling” (my father, who later became her husband) and my grandmother. They starved her and fed her only enough to survive; they tormented her and were physically cruel. As a child, she would be kicked around by my father and struck with hard objects by my grandmother. She was made to feel worthless and told that no one wanted her. She remained ashamed, even in later life, when she recounted that she wore rags for clothes into her teenage years and had no shoes on her feet; she was so malnourished that her periods had still not started when she and my father married when she turned 17.

As a child, she would sometimes come across her own mother, but my mother never acknowledged her and would not turn to face the woman who had sold her. She never forgave her mother, and for the rest of her life, would often ask, “Why me, why not my sisters?” and “What did I ever do in a past life to deserve the life I’ve had?”.

As a child, I spent many hours rubbing the parts of her body that my mother was unable to reach with smelly Chinese embrocation oils, as she suffered from a myriad of physical pains which stemmed from the beatings she’d endured as a child.

My mother also lived through the terrifying period when Hong Kong was occupied by the Japanese during World War II. Not only was there widespread starvation but there were beatings from soldiers, who also raped, mutilated, and executed the locals; and who also shot and wounded my grandmother because she refused to bow her head to those who now occupied her homeland.

There were many times in her life when my mother wanted to commit suicide. On one occasion, she’d had everything prepared to do the deed when she was discovered by a neighbor who talked her out of it. In spite of everything life threw at her, my mother found the strength to carry on; much of that strength came from the knowledge that she had her own children, who needed her.

Not only did she grow up being deprived of love and comfort, but my mother was deprived of the one thing she wanted most – an education. She used to beg my grandmother to be allowed to go to school, but my grandmother would admonish her and tell her that school was no place for a girl.

My mother had three daughters, as well as raising a boy who was “gifted” to my parents by an extended family member on my father’s side. They had too many children, and my mother had not borne my father a male heir, a matter for which she was made to hold her head in shame. That boy became my parents’ “prized son” and my younger brother. It’s shocking how such archaic practices continued into the 1970s.

In my teens and twenties, many Chinese girls of the same age were still facing the prospect of arranged marriages, but I knew that it was something that was never going to happen to me. My mother had suffered such atrocities in my father’s household, that she instilled in me that it was okay to be unmarried; that if I did wish to marry, I had to be certain it was what I wanted; and where I was better off being on my own than being with someone who treated me badly.

My mother wanted her daughters to be educated and to be able to stand on their own two feet; she did not want us to be second-class citizens in the world or to be a slave to any man – she wanted us to be equals. She often talked of the things she would have loved to have done had she had a formal education. She understood that education gave women the ability to be free, to be able to take control of their own destiny, and to have the confidence to make their own decisions. If she’d had an education, she would have walked away from my father and his family many years before; but the lack of an education meant that she was helpless and had nowhere to go.

Despite never having had a formal education, my mother was an incredibly practical and intelligent woman, and when she was in her 70s, her oldest grandson, who at the time was training as an aeronautical engineer, used to joke that if grandma had her time again, she’d probably cut it as a rocket scientist! It was only when my father died in 1999 that my mother felt that she had been emancipated from lifelong servitude, and she became a much more contented person as she grew into old age.

For the first time in her life, she had freedom to do, think and say as she wished; and to live and enjoy her life. By this stage, she had raised four children who loved her, worried about her, and who looked after her, and she had grandchildren who gave her immense joy. She was content because, as a mother, she had achieved what she’d set out to achieve, having given all of her children an education, enabling them to be self-sufficient, independent and capable of not only making decisions but being able to act on them.

The word “education” has its roots in Latin and literally means “to lead out”. As a child, my mother could never have imagined how life could be so different for her own daughters – education is the one single thing that has enabled the changes to take place in the time span of a single generation.

My mother’s love, strength, resilience, and guidance have made me the person I am today. She was selfless, and throughout her life, whatever little she had, she would give away to the person who needed it more. She knew what it meant to have absolutely nothing.

Why did the DeW retreat make me think of my mother? It was because of the power in the room. For many DeWs, the friendships they’d uncovered in this body of special women had helped them in their darkest hours. It had helped them to persevere and to carry on living - in some cases, literally. We listened; we understood; we comforted; we shared; and we learned what it meant to be part of a tribe. The many struggles of women may not be quite the same as they were in my mother’s day, but the need to be there for each other remains.

We are strong, and our power is in our togetherness.

About the author:

Lynn is a corporate lawyer and fund manager by background, who subsequently found her way into working with early stage technology companies, as an advisor, and as a board member. In 2020, she co-founded vTail Healthcare Telecommunications. For healthcare companies, vTail provides a new and efficient way to support and engage with clinicians across the USA. For clinicians, vTail saves them time by providing free, simple and secure access to product information and support, as well as providing a forum for learning and peer-to-peer engagement, leading to overall better patient care. More information about vTail may be found at www.vtail.co and Lynn can be reached at lynn@vtail.co