2024-4-10

在加拿大的 New Bruswick 博物館裡，看到下面這一張照片。照片的主人，是一個端坐了裹着小腳帶着耳環的中國大媽，膝蓋上抱着一個歐洲男孩。這張像應該是在照相館或者展銷會上擺拍的，大媽未必一定是小男孩的保姆。

博物館的注釋說明是，不知道這個女子姓甚名誰（Perkins Child and an Unidentified Chinese Woman），可是有下面一些附註：

A. Fong
Chinese
c 1865
albumen print carte-de-visite
10 cm x 6 cm
Collection of the New Brunswick Museum (1989.113.14)

於是便想起，前不久剛看過的那本《中國女人梅阿芳》（The Chinese Lady, A Fong Moy）來：

梅阿芳者，不知何地人也。於是就有了下面的故事：

• 1834年，兩個美國人行走在中國街頭，此時的中國對於他們來說還是一個神秘的國度，關於東方的神秘傳說一直都讓很多美國人感到好奇。卡恩兄弟就這樣帶着好奇心來到了中國，他們希望在中國這片土地能遇到更多的財富，然而兩兄弟一來就碰了一臉灰，中國人對黃皮膚、藍眼睛的外國人並不歡迎。這天，卡恩兄弟灰心喪氣的走在中國大街上，他們本以為這次的投資可能無望了，但兩人意外在街頭看到了乞丐女孩梅阿芳。於是兄弟倆立馬想到了一個絕佳的賺錢機會，很多美國人都沒見過中國女人，他們一定會對來自東方的神秘女人感興趣，並且中國女人還都裹着小腳，一定能成功吸引他們的注意。隨即卡恩兄弟便聯繫到了梅阿芳的父母，因為女孩的家裡非常貧困，所以當卡恩兄弟提出這個想法後，梅阿芳的父親當場就答應了對方。卡恩兄弟就這樣以一個低廉的價格將梅阿芳成功購買，並且將她不遠萬里的帶到美國。。。。一時之間，梅阿芳引起了美國上下的關注，大街小巷的人都在討論這位東方女人，梅阿芳此時也淪為了馬戲團中的小丑供美國人取樂。1837年，美國爆發了嚴重的經濟危機，梅阿芳的生活也變得急轉直下，幾年之後，她又被送到了馬戲團工作。在那裡，梅阿芳沒有自己的選擇，老闆指揮她做什麼她就必須做什麼，她還曾被逼迫和侏儒症患者做些不雅動作，但為了生存下去，梅阿芳只能乖乖聽話。後來沒多久就爆發了鴉片戰爭，此時的梅阿芳在美國已經失去了自己的人氣，美國對於東方的認知更多，大家隨即便將這個小腳女人拋擲腦後。至於後來梅阿芳到底去了哪裡，我們誰都不知道，有傳言說梅阿芳生活在紐約的華人街，也有人說她前往了其他地方，總而言之，沒有人具體知道她的下落。

• In 1834 Afong Moy was the first recognized Chinese woman to arrive in America. Through the course of her travels across the country, she became the first Chinese person to receive wide public acclaim and national recognition. While her fame was short-lived, she introduced Americans to China through her person and the goods she promoted.

• During the 17 years of Afong Moy’s visible presence in America, her treatment as a Chinese woman varied over time. When she first arrived, the public generally responded to China in a positive way. On the edge of patrician orientalism, the perceived Orient was one of exoticism, beauty, dignity, and revered history. The Carnes merchants, Francis and Nathaniel G., and the ship captain Benjamin Obear, who brought Afong Moy to America, took advantage of this perception, using the sensual stimulus that came from marketing China trade goods with an exotic. They played on, controlled, and mediated the public’s consciousness of her visual difference—her bound feet, Chinese clothing, and accessories—all to promote their goods.

• In the second phase of her experience in the later 1830s, Afong Moy made a transition from a promoter of goods to that of spectacle. During this time, she experienced the conjoining of two worlds—that of the market and the theater. Afong Moy operated simultaneously as entertainment, edification, and billboard. Her new manager occasionally set her against a panoramic backdrop of an illusionistic oriental scene, thus highlighting her cultural exceptionality through her clothing, objects, and images.

  
  

• After a heart-rending, eight-year interregnum out of the public eye, Afong Moy once again took to the stage in the late 1840s and early 1850s. P. T. Barnum, the master marketer of difference, became her manager. He recognized her promotional value as the only Chinese woman in America whose bound feet, clothing, objects, and experience signified an orientalist presence that might titillate the American public. Afong Moy’s time in America provided an additional benefit to Barnum: she no longer needed an interlocutor. Though occasionally she required an interpreter, her language skills were likely sufficient for most audience interactions. On stage she provided evidences of her dissimilarity from the use of chopsticks to the demonstration and explication of Chinese religious rituals.

我相信前面的那張照片，就是梅阿芳在1850年前後第二次復出的時候給拍照的。而且在這時候，一個更年輕的17歲的女孩，也被帶進了美國和公眾的視野：