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Why It Sucks to Be a Slave Midwife (in Qing Dynasty) — Transcript

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0:00You're 9 years old when your mother
0:01walks away. She doesn't look back.
0:04The gate latch clicks shut and then
0:06nothing.
0:07Just cooking smoke from the servants'
0:08quarters and a woman's fingers on your
0:10jaw, tilting your face toward the light.
0:13The head maidservant spreads your hands
0:15open, checks them for steadiness, forces
0:18your mouth wide, examines your teeth
0:20like she's deciding whether to keep a
0:21stray dog or drown it.
0:24Your mother sold you because your
0:25father's debts made the family liable to
0:27enslavement. By selling you first, she
0:30kept your brother free.
0:31You're nine.
0:33You understand exactly what happened.
0:35Welcome to the Qing Dynasty.
0:37You're a bondservant now, and your new
0:39household needs a slave midwife. The
0:41stone floor bites your knees the first
0:43morning.
0:44You sleep on a straw mat in the corridor
0:46outside the mistress's chambers because
0:48a yatou must be available at all hours.
0:50Your rank sits somewhere between the
0:52kitchen rats and the night soil bucket.
0:54Both are more replaceable than you'll
0:56eventually become.
0:57Not yet, though.
0:59The mistress screams if you track mud.
1:02The master's footsteps you learn before
1:03anything else.
1:05When they come down your corridor at
1:06night, you press yourself flat against
1:08the wall and stop breathing.
1:11Then there's Granny Luo,
1:12the household's aging midwife,
1:15also a bondservant.
1:17She wakes you before dawn to boil water
1:19and prepare herb bundles.
1:21Slaps your hands when you tie them
1:22wrong.
1:23But she's the closest thing you have to
1:25someone who gives a damn whether you
1:27learn anything.
1:28A kitchen girl refuses to serve the
1:30master's guest one night. 14 strokes
1:32with a bamboo switch. She stops making
1:35sounds after the third.
1:37That's how you learn the first rule.
1:39A bondservant's body belongs to the
1:41household.
1:42Your hands, your sleep, your womb.
1:45All of it.
1:473 months in and your forearms are
1:49striped with steam burns from the iron
1:51herb pot. The scars layer on each other.
1:54Granny Luo lets you taste the postpartum
1:56tonic.
1:57Bitter as tree bark.
1:59She says that's how you know it's right.
2:01By 11, you attend your first birth.
2:04Your job is holding the laboring woman's
2:06legs in position while Granny Luo works.
2:096 hours, same squat.
2:12Your shoulders lock solid. Your hands
2:14are slick with blood, and you cannot let
2:16go.
2:18You flinch during a difficult moment,
2:20and Granny Luo strikes the back of your
2:21neck hard enough to blur your vision.
2:24Flinch during a birth and two people
2:26die. Understand?
2:29You understand.
2:30Mornings start before dawn. Boil water.
2:34Prepare herb bundles. Clean the birthing
2:36tools. Eat cold rice with pickled
2:38vegetables if there's any left.
2:40Afternoons are household chores when no
2:42births are expected.
2:44Washing linens, grinding herbs, laying
2:46out the woven straw mats used under
2:48laboring women.
2:49Granny Luo quizzes you on complications
2:51while you work.
2:53Evenings, you're on call.
2:54Always on call.
2:56You sleep in your clothes with your herb
2:57bag beside you on the stone floor.
3:00Pulse reading comes first.
3:02Granny Luo places your fingers on her
3:04own wrist, then on pregnant women's,
3:06until you can feel the difference
3:08between 5 weeks and 5 months without
3:09being told.
3:11The mistress's pregnant friend slaps you
3:13for touching her wrist too firmly.
3:15Breech repositioning comes next.
3:17Practice on a cloth dummy stuffed with
3:19rice, then on real women during real
3:21labor.
3:22No simulation. No margin.
3:25If the baby dies, you're beaten.
3:27If the mother dies, you may be killed.
3:30You learn to cut an umbilical cord with
3:32a blade heated in a candle flame.
3:34Not too hot. Not too cool.
3:37You burn your fingers learning the
3:38timing.
3:39Granny Luo says the burn is better than
3:41giving a baby an infection.
3:43The first time you see a woman flood,
3:46blood soaking through the straw mat onto
3:47the stone floor, you freeze.
3:50Granny Luo doesn't freeze. She packs
3:52compresses and talks the woman's body
3:54back from the edge. The bleeding slows.
3:57The color returns to the woman's face.
3:59Something shifts in you.
4:01This is real.
4:02Your hands can do this.
4:04By 13, you can turn a baby inside the
4:07womb by feel alone.
4:09You can tell how far along labor is by
4:11the sound of breathing.
4:13Short gasps mean hours left.
4:16Low moans mean minutes.
4:18You learn to read a room, too.
4:20Which women will panic, which will go
4:22quiet.
4:23Which will fight your hands because
4:24they've only ever been touched by men.
4:27And in the dark, yours feel the same.
4:29You learn to talk them down.
4:31Voice low.
4:32Hands steady.
4:34Even when yours aren't.
4:36Your hands are cracked from constant lye
4:38washing.
4:39Your knees grind from years on stone.
4:41You sleep 4 hours on good nights.
4:44Granny Luo tells you something one night
4:46on the corridor mat.
4:48A midwife she knew,
4:49different household.
4:5130 years of service, not a single dead
4:53mother, and the master gave her a letter
4:55of release.
4:56She walked out the gate free.
4:59You're 13. You lie awake doing the math.
5:0230 years from now, you'll be 43.
5:05You decide you'll do it faster.
5:08Brew a tonic too weak, and you kneel on
5:10raw rice grains for 2 hours in the
5:11courtyard.
5:13Your kneecaps carry the dents for weeks.
5:15Fall asleep during a long labor, and
5:18they pour cold water over your head.
5:20Then you keep working.
5:22Shivering.
5:23Wet. Awake.
5:25The Qing Code classifies you as legally
5:27equivalent to livestock.
5:30Which is reassuring because livestock
5:31don't have to deliver breech babies at
5:333:00 in the morning. Your hands are
5:35still wet from the morning's herb pot
5:36when the mistress says one word, "Go."
5:40Granny Luo's fever is too high to stand.
5:42A merchant's wife two streets away is in
5:44labor.
5:45You're 15.
5:46No ceremony, no preparation.
5:49You wash the soot off your face with
5:51cold water and that's it.
5:53Same coarse cotton tunic you wear every
5:55day.
5:56Hair tied back with a strip of rag.
5:58Shoes so thin you feel every stone on
6:00the walk over.
6:01The herb bag digs into your shoulder and
6:03the knot in your stomach says you are
6:05not ready.
6:07You arrive and the woman is screaming.
6:09Her mother-in-law takes one look at you
6:11and says what everyone in the room is
6:12thinking.
6:13This is the midwife? She's a child.
6:17Two servant girls watch from the
6:18doorway.
6:20A male physician has been called but
6:22hasn't arrived.
6:23They see a skinny 15-year-old bond
6:25servant with rough hands and no
6:27credentials.
6:28You see a baby whose position is wrong
6:30and you have maybe 40 minutes. Your
6:32hands know what to do. Granny Luo taught
6:35them.
6:35You reposition the baby by feel, the way
6:38you practiced on the cloth dummy. Except
6:40now it's real and warm and alive. And
6:43the mother is gripping your arm hard
6:45enough to leave bruises.
6:47The baby comes. The baby breathes.
6:50The mother doesn't bleed.
6:52Afterward, she grabs your hand and
6:54squeezes.
6:55Nobody has touched you gently in 7
6:57years.
6:58You walk home in the dark.
7:00The physician never showed.
7:02Granny Luo from her mat asks one
7:04question.
7:06Both alive?
7:07You nod.
7:09She closes her eyes.
7:11That's the closest thing to praise
7:12you'll get from her.
7:14In the birth room, authority.
7:17In the corridor, property.
7:19Your hand finds Granny Luo's shoulder on
7:21a cold morning and the skin is wrong.
7:24Still not warm.
7:26You're 17. She's dead.
7:29They wrap her in a reed mat and two
7:31servants carry her out before noon.
7:3430 years as the household midwife and
7:36that's what 30 years buys you.
7:38A reed mat and a shallow grave.
7:40You're the only midwife the household
7:42has now.
7:43Three or four births a month.
7:45Call to neighboring households when
7:47their women go into labor.
7:48Your master charges them a fee. You see
7:50none of it.
7:52A servant in a neighboring household
7:53tells you about a bond servant cook who
7:55was freed after 20 years, given a small
7:57sum and a letter of release. You ask
8:00three times if it's true. She swears. 20
8:03years of service. You've done eight. 12
8:06more. If you become indispensable
8:08enough, the master has to let you go.
8:11That's how the math works.
8:13At 21, you've delivered over 100 babies.
8:16Not a single dead mother.
8:18The mistress lets you eat the family's
8:20leftover dishes.
8:21Pork fat on rice. Feels like a
8:23promotion. It's scraps.
8:26But then the master's wife goes into
8:27labor.
8:28Breach.
8:30The male physician who's been visiting
8:31the household panics and leaves the
8:33room.
8:34You turn the baby with your hands. Both
8:37survive.
8:38The master gives you a bolt of blue
8:39cloth.
8:40The first thing you have ever owned. You
8:42fold it under your sleeping mat.
8:44You count it as proof.
8:46If skill can buy cloth, skill can buy a
8:48name. 100 births, zero dead mothers.
8:53The math is working.
8:55You start training a younger bond
8:57servant as your assistant. She's 11.
8:59Flinches at blood. Reminds you of
9:02yourself.
9:03You hit her less than Granny Luo hit
9:05you.
9:06Not sure if that's kindness or
9:07exhaustion.
9:08At 23, the master mentions to a guest
9:11that his household midwife has hands
9:13blessed by Guanyin.
9:15Guanyin, the goddess of mercy.
9:18You wonder if she sees the irony.
9:20He says it as a boast about his own
9:21property, not about you.
9:24But you hear it through the wall.
9:25He values the skill.
9:27Not you.
9:29But if the skill is valuable enough,
9:31maybe the person attached to it becomes
9:32too expensive to keep caged.
9:35You charge families nothing.
9:36Your master charges them plenty.
9:39Economists would later call this a
9:40markup. What they'd call you is
9:42overhead. Then the physician starts
9:44coming around more often, a male doctor.
9:47He prescribes herbs for the mistress's
9:49digestion.
9:50He has never delivered a baby, but he
9:52has opinions about women who do.
9:54Tells the master that traditional
9:56midwives are dangerous and uneducated.
9:58That credentialed men should oversee all
10:00births.
10:01He doesn't look at you when he says
10:03this.
10:04He doesn't need to.
10:05You've seen this look before.
10:07The butcher deciding what to do with the
10:09dog.
10:11After difficult births, you shake.
10:14Alone in your corridor, on your straw
10:16mat, hands trembling against your knees.
10:19In the birth room, calm hands, quiet
10:22voice.
10:23You walk into a room where a woman is
10:25screaming and you make her believe she
10:27will survive.
10:28In the corridor, you're property
10:30counting down the years until you're a
10:31person again.
10:33By 24, 160 births, not one dead mother.
10:38The bolt of blue cloth folded under your
10:40sleeping mat.
10:4112 years of service.
10:43The physician has his books. You have
10:45your record. You're close. You can feel
10:48it.
10:49You're 24, kneeling on a blood-soaked
10:51straw mat, hands still shaking from 14
10:54hours of work.
10:55The concubine is alive. You saved her.
10:59The master enters the birth room. He
11:01doesn't look at you. He looks at the
11:03bundle on the straw that isn't moving.
11:05The baby is stillborn.
11:07A boy.
11:09The male physician arrives after it's
11:10over. The one with the books and the
11:12opinions. Clean hands. Never delivered a
11:16baby in his life.
11:17He tells the master that a proper doctor
11:19would have saved the child. He's read
11:21about it in a book written by a man who
11:24also never delivered a baby. The master
11:26doesn't speak to you. He speaks to the
11:28physician.
11:29Get rid of her.
11:31Sold the next morning.
11:33The blue cloth still folded under your
11:34sleeping mat in a corridor you'll never
11:36see again.
11:37The girl you trained standing in the
11:39courtyard watching you go. She's 14. She
11:42doesn't understand. You can't explain.
11:4512 years,
11:46160 births, not one dead mother,
11:50and one dead baby erased all of it.
11:53The future you'd been building in your
11:54head, indispensable skill earns freedom,
11:5812 more years and the math works out.
12:01It was never real.
12:02You were never earning anything.
12:04You were just useful livestock that
12:06hadn't broken yet.
12:07Every birth you counted as proof you
12:09were getting closer.
12:11The system was counting something else
12:13entirely.
12:14Your hands sink into greasy dishwater
12:16the first morning at the new household.
12:18They don't need a midwife. They need a
12:20kitchen servant.
12:22Your hands, trained for breech
12:24repositioning and pulse reading, now
12:26scrub pots and gut fish.
12:28The lye burns from childhood have
12:30scarred over, and your fingers stiffen
12:32in cold weather.
12:34The fine motor control you needed for
12:36turning babies is fading.
12:38Your knees grind when you squat over the
12:40washbasin.
12:41Years of kneeling on stone during births
12:44left a debt your body is collecting now.
12:46Your back, hunched from years of leaning
12:49over laboring women, stays hunched over
12:51different basins.
12:53The pain doesn't change, just the reason
12:56for it.
12:57Kitchen smoke settles in your lungs.
12:59The cough that started last winter never
13:01stopped.
13:02You're 28 when the kitchen cook dies.
13:04You take over her duties. More work,
13:07same nothing.
13:09You stop thinking about births, almost.
13:12By 30, the household hires a trained Zuo
13:14Chanshi.
13:16Formally educated, credentialed,
13:18literate, young.
13:20You hear her through the kitchen wall
13:21instructing a servant on postpartum
13:23care.
13:24She's saying things Granny Luo taught
13:26you 15 years ago in fancier language.
13:29She has a certificate. You have 160
13:32living babies.
13:33But the certificate is the thing that
13:35goes on the wall.
13:36By 32, your cough is worse.
13:39Your hands shake.
13:40Not from nerves anymore.
13:42From something inside breaking down.
13:45Your hands shake.
13:46The hands that turned babies.
13:48You're not a midwife anymore.
13:50You're not anything.
13:52Granny Luo died in a corridor like this
13:54one.
13:55Coughing.
13:56Alone.
13:58You swore you'd be different.
14:00You won't be different.
14:02You die at 34.
14:04Lung disease.
14:06Worsened by years of kitchen smoke and
14:08cold corridors, and not enough rest, and
14:10not enough food, and not enough of
14:11anything.
14:13You die in the servants' quarters of a
14:14household that never knew what your
14:15hands could do.
14:17They wrap you in a reed mat.
14:19Same as Granny Luo.
14:20Buried outside the city walls with the
14:22other servants.
14:23No name marker. No record. No funeral.
14:27You were nine when they bought you.
14:2925 years in the system. At your peak,
14:31the household midwife whose hands the
14:33master called blessed by Guanyin.
14:36160 deliveries. Not a single dead
14:39mother. At the end, a kitchen servant
14:41who died coughing. Buried in a reed mat.
14:44No name on anything. The male physician
14:46who ended your career went on
14:47practicing. His name appears in
14:50documents. Yours doesn't. Medical texts
14:53from this period were written by men who
14:54observed women's bodies from across the
14:56room.
14:57The women who actually caught the
14:58babies, who turned them by feel in the
15:00dark, who stopped the bleeding with
15:02their own hands pressed against another
15:04woman's body.
15:05Those women don't appear in any record.
15:08You delivered 160 babies into the world.
15:11Some of them grew up,
15:12had children of their own,
15:14had their own midwives kneel on stone
15:16floors and work through the night. Not
15:18one of them will ever know your name.
15:20Because the system never cared how good
15:22you were. It cared who owned you.
15:24And the answer to that question was
15:26never you.
15:27At least the slave midwife got to hand
15:29the baby back. In the Ottoman Empire,
15:31they don't let you.
15:33They make you feed someone else's child
15:35with your own milk, bond with it, love
15:37it, and then they take it away. Watch
15:40your life as an Ottoman wet nurse slave
15:42next. You don't even get to say goodbye.

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