Free Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco by Judy Yung

they were protected by law from flagrant
abuse and breach of contract, mui tsai enjoyed no such protection. There
was no guarantee that their contracts would be honored-that they
would obtain freedom through marriage when they came of age. Indeed, depending on the family's economic situation, a mui tsai could
be resold into prostitution for a handsome sum.

    Some mui tsai who immigrated with merchant families later fulfilled
their role as bond servants in America and were then freed for marriage.
I believe that is what happened in the case of my great-grandmother's
mui tsai, Ali Kum. However, in the absence of other details about Ah
Kum's life in America, the life story of Quan Laan Fan, who immigrated
as a mui tsai in the 18 8os, serves as a better example. In an oral history
interview in 1974, Laan Fan explained that when she was seven, her family's litter of pigs died and the family went into debt .84 Her parents then
sold her to Quan Seung's family, with whom she lived a comfortable life.
Seung was the second wife of Wong, a Gold Mountain man, and because she did not have bound feet like the first wife, she was chosen to
join him in America. "Seung wanted me to come over to be their errand girl. That's how I came to America," said Laan Fan.
    Immigration to America put an end to Laan Fan's comfortable life.
Wong owned a grocery store on Washington Street near Ross Alley in
San Francisco, and it became Laan Fan's job to fetch meals from there
daily for her mistress. "Everyday I would go and bring our meals back
from the store," she recalled. "Just the two of us would eat together
[Seung and herself]. We didn't have to cook. I'd go out by myself at
nine o'clock in the morning to get our daytime meal and at four o'clock
for the evening meal." This was no easy task for a girl. "The pot had
three layers to it," Laan Fan said. "Two layers were for soong [main dishes]
and the third layer was for rice. Sometimes, I'd have another pot for soup
which I carried home or else it was included in the big pot. I was so
short, I dragged the pot home everyday until I wore a hole in it!" She
also rolled cigarettes at home for income, sending most of the money
she earned to her mother in China, keeping some for clothes and shoes.
She was allowed to study Chinese and English with teachers from the
Baptist Church. Then, at eighteen or nineteen, she was married to Sam.
Although he was much older than she, and poor, the marriage endured.
They first tried growing flowers in nearby Belmont, but then moved back to San Francisco, where she worked as a telephone operator in Chinatown to help support their family of eight children.

    The outcome of Quan Laan Fan's life fulfilled the original intent of
the mui tsai system. Both she and her family gained by the sale; she was
well treated by Seung's family and was properly married off, albeit to an
old man, when she came of age. Yet newspaper accounts and missionary records typically painted a different picture of the fates of mui tsai.
According to these sources, brothel owners often purchased young girls
from China with the intention of using them first as domestic servants
and then as prostitutes when they became older, thus maximizing their
investment. Wu Tien Fu, rescued by Protestant missionaries in 1894,
was such a mui tsai:85
    I was six when I came to this country in 18 9 3. My worthless father gambled every cent away, and so, left us poor. I think my mother's family was
well-to-do, because our grandmother used to dress in silk and satin and
always brought us lots of things. And the day my father took me, he fibbed
and said he was taking me to see my grandmother, that I was very fond
of, you know, and I got on the ferry boat with him, and Mother was
crying, and I couldn't understand why she should cry if I go to see
Grandma. She gave me a new toothbrush and a new washrag in a blue
bag when I left her. When I saw her cry I said, "Don't cry, Mother, I'm