“I Can’t Read, but I Can Reckon”: Work, Emotion, and Calculation among Early Twentieth-Century Sichuan Girls

在筆者對四川年長婦女進行關於她們少女時期之勞動與纏足經驗的訪談中，發現了纏足所造成的活動限制與超越一般村莊文盲的算術能力之間的強烈關連。那些從事像紡棉紗這種重複性工作的女性，從七歲一直到十八歲左右結婚的這期間裡，是其家庭收入的主要貢獻者；而她們也因纏足得以免除了最辛苦和萬下賤的勞動工作。這算文章探討在孩童的成長與好奇心最旺盛的時期，少女因活動範圍受限所可能產生的心理影響。筆者認為生理及心智驅力的受挫與纏足所造成的痛苦和無助，正足以創造出適合專注於數字遊戲與發展無師自通之算術能力的情境。因此我們在探討文化實踐時，不應忽略了人類生理的普同性，如此兩者並進，方能對這些實踐之結果有充分的理解。

In interviews with elderly Sichuan women, their girlhood experiences with work and footbinding showed a storing connection between the relative immobility of the footbound and skills in counting and simple calculation beyond what might have been expected of village illiterates. Those who performed repetitive work such as cotton yarn spinning from about age 7 to marriage at about age 18 were important contributors to their family’s cash flow and were also protected by footbinding form the hardest and most demeaning forms of labor. The paper addresses the likely psychological impact of the resulting narrowing of girls’ horizons during a period when children’s growth and curiosity are vigorous. I suggest that frustration of physical and intellectual urges, combined with the pain and helplessness caused by footbinding created circumstances will suited to concentration on number play and the untaught development of numeracy. Human biological universal should be investigated along with cultural practices in reaching an understanding of the outcomes of such practices.