Welcome to Stories of Courage,
I'm Helen Chan.
The Fearless Golden Lotus For a little person who's articulate in babble and who's just learnt how to totter,
She oozed a colossal personality,
Or she was on the rise to world domination,
The domination of her world that is.
And as she grew up,
Her vivaciousness only flourished,
But it was subdued under the blanket of an overbearing society.
Her parents were traditional,
I mean really traditional,
The old school type.
They still practiced the art of foot binding,
For it was a mark of status,
A symbol of beauty,
The currency of marriage.
And for the daughters of the culture,
Well,
It was just sheer torture.
But for this daughter,
No,
She wasn't going to allow the binds of society to define her.
Her father held a revered standing in the community,
But he never saw the fearlessness in her eyes,
A fearlessness that he himself had never beheld.
However,
The dragon within she withheld,
For she could not dishonor,
Disrespect her baba,
Her father in the eyes of his peers.
The loss of faith would be far too great.
And so the foot binding continued.
It was unable to escape,
And thus bloomed a pair of golden lotus.
Ironically,
The euphemistic term for the distortion of her feet.
But as the years progressed,
Her intellect equaled that of her father's,
And she was able to debate her way out of an impressive practice.
This was her first step to creating a world of her own choosing.
And if you see her today,
You'd notice a little limp in her step,
But you'd have to look closely because she walks tall and her stature,
Her radiating stature will blind you like a golden lotus drenched in the late afternoon sun.
