Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai

Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai (Old Lady Ning; 1867 – after 1938) was a Chinese peasant who told her biography to Ida Pruitt. It was published as Daughter of Han: The Autobiography of a Chinese Working Woman.[1]

She was born to a family that had seen better times in Penglai in Shandong province. Her father, once a scholar, sold baked goods to support his family.[2] She contracted smallpox as a child. Her feet were bound to keep them small according to the customs of the time. When she was fifteen, she was married through an arranged marriage to an opium addict who sold all the family's possessions to support his habit. She began begging to support her family. Her husband sold one of her daughters and so she left him and became a servant to support herself and her other daughter. Later, she became a peddler. After several years, Ning moved back with her husband, who had quit his habit and she gave birth to a son. In the meantime, her daughter had married a husband who did not support his family so Ning was forced to support her daughter and grandchildren. Ning later moved in with her son in Beiping (now Beijing).[3] She told Pruitt her story during the 1930s.[4] The family remained in Beiping during the Japanese invasion but Pruitt did not know how they fared later.[3]