This is the story of Chen Lee and Lou Chow. Chen Lee was a young woman of most ordinary features. Though she was not beautiful, she was very responsible. She had taken care of her seven younger brothers and sisters since the death of their parents some years back.

Chen Lee and her family were tenant rice farmers on a small plot of land by the river, which was the property of the mighty and powerful Lord Lu Chow. Lu Chow owned all of the land from the mountains to the river and extracted a large compensation from each of the tenants permitted to work the lands that he owned.

It came to be known to the Lord Lu Chow that the family of Chen lee owned a fine ox which had been their only inheritance from their parents. So he sent his men to collect this ox for his own. When Chen Lee's brothers and sisters saw the men dragging the ox away, they pleaded with Chen Lee to go to the Lord Lu Chow and ask for their ox, for without the beast, they could not turn the soil to plant the rice and there would be no food to fill their empty bellies in the winter months ahead.

So Chen Lee, because she felt responsible, went to the Lord Lu Chow and with great expression in her voice and a flourish of pleading motions with her hands, begged Lu Chow to return the ox to her family. Lu Chow asked the maiden what she would be willing to trade in return for the ox and she shyly replied, "Anything my lord wishes".

"Then I would have your hands and arms, for though you are a plain girl, the expression in your delicate fingers and hands fascinate me and I would have them for myself".

Chen Lee was horrified, but because she felt so responsible for the survival of her family, she agreed to the bargain. Lu Chow's men cut off her hands and arms below the elbows, seared and bound them with fire and medicinal cloths and sent Chen Lee on her way with the ox.

Chen Lee's brothers and sisters were so overjoyed to see the ox returned that they hardly noticed Chen Lee's hands and forearms were missing. Chen Lee, though somewhat restricted and often in pain was able to conceal her hurt and overcome her disability and continue looking after her family while they worked the rice paddies with their fine ox.

One day, the men of the Lord Lu Chow came riding onto the farm and swept away the youngest, most comely of Chen Lee's sisters. Lu Chow had heard of her beguiling beauty and charm and wanted her as his newest consort.

Chen Lee's brothers and sisters implored her to go and reason with Lu Chow and to beg him to return their beloved sister. If she were to be used and spoiled as a consort to Lu Chow, she would not fetch a large endowment from a prospective husband's family, and they would be left almost destitute with only the small patch of land and one ox.

So Chen Lee went again to the Lord Lu Chow and beseeched him to return her beautiful little sister. She offered herself in place of the other. Lu Chow laughed and reminded Chen Lee that she was no beauty and now with no arms or hands, she could not even bring him to ecstasy or service his needs.

Chen Lee, in desperation, showed Lu Chow her strong and slender legs and hinted that with these legs she might ride him like a wild stallion. Lu Chow, much intrigued, calmly said that he already had enough mouths to feed in his household, so he would return Chen Lee's sister, in exchange for her long, strong and slender legs.

Chen Lee despondently agreed and Lu Chow's men cut off her legs at the thigh, seared and bound the stumps with fire and medicinal cloths and sent her home with her sister.

Chen Lee's family were so exhilarated to see their little sister that they hardly noticed Chen Lee's missing legs. Chen Lee had to push herself around on a cart of sorts, using the stumps of her arms to move the wooden wheels. But somehow, and in her pain, she managed and life went on until.

One day, Lu Chow's men came and told Chen Lee that she and her brothers and sisters would have to leave the farms, since the Lord Lu Chow was going to give the land away as part of a wedding gift for his new bride.

Chen Lee's brothers and sisters bemoaned this fatal blow to their well being and once again begged her to intervene on their behalf. So, Chen Lee traveled with great difficulty to the place of Lu Chow and solicited their case.

She told Lu Chow that it was foolhardy to give away such a prosperous working parcel of land that was currently giving him a greater and more profitable return of rice for his own stores. Chen Lee was most eloquent in her persuasions and Lu Chow, captivated with her logic and the turn of her words listened. But he said, "If I let you keep and work the land, what will you give me in return, Chen Lee?"

"What would you have my Lord", she replied ever so softly.

"Why, your head of course, for it holds such an intelligent and logical mind!"

So, Lu Chow's men cut off Chen Lee's head, threw her body into the cart and dumped it onto a pile of manure on the farm of Chen Lee's family.

Chen Lee's brothers and sisters were so overwhelmed at not losing their home, they hardly noticed the headless, armless, legless body of their sister Chen Lee on the dung heap. They were so concerned for their own well being, so selfish in their needs, so dependent on their sister, that they did not even notice they were losing her a little bit at a time.

And poor Chen Lee, she was so responsible for everyone else's survival, so anxious to fulfill their needs, she gave so much of herself away, that she had nothing left to survive with.

Now, Lu Chow found he had a bunch of body parts that did not work, and realized that you must accept the person as a whole, not just the parts you like best.

©Nov 1996 Carol Sanders