On Discovery

On Discovery Summary | Detailed Summary

A man named Tang Ao is searching alone for the "Golden Mountain". After crossing an ocean, he finds himself in the "Land of Women." A small group of women capture him easily, and he goes with them willingly, thinking that he has nothing to fear from them because they are women and that he may seduce them.

The women lock him up in, not in a cell, but in a room full of make-up and women's clothing. They tell him that they must prepare him to meet the queen, that his armor, coat, and boots must be removed; they shackle his wrists and ankles. Two old women walk into the room with sewing boxes and tell him that the less he struggles, the less it will hurt. While two women sit on him and a third holds his head, one of the old women prepares a needle and silken thread. She jokes that she is going to sew his lips together, but instead pierces Tang Ao's ears with the needle and threads the silk though the holes, leaving it hanging down. The women then bind his feet, breaking the bones of the feet and wrap them in tight bandages so that they become small and pointed. As they do this, they sing an old foot-binding song.

The women continue feminizing Tang Ao; for several months they feed him traditional "women's food" like tea with white chrysanthemum, that is supposed to "stir the cool female winds inside his body," chicken wings for his hair, and vinegar soup for his "womb." They put gold hoops in his pierced ears, and continue the foot-binding process, which causes so much damage to his feet, that he is more comfortable with them bound than unwrapped. He cries out for them to re-bind his feet. His bandages, which are embroidered with flowers, stink. The women make him wash them and hang them to dry, Tang Ao is embarrassed because they remind him of underwear, but he never protests or tries to escape.

The women complete the transformation by putting jade studs in Tang Ao's ears and arched shoes on his feet, removing all the hair from his face and covering it with make-up. They take him to the queen's court, and he serves dinner to a group of diners who are not identified by title or by gender. The diners admire the "woman" who serves them, and gaze lustily at Tang Ao's now tiny feet.

The story ends with a scholarly note saying that there are no taxes or wars in the "Land of Women." Scholars disagree over whether the land was first discovered during the reign of Empress Wu (AD 694-705), or earlier in AD 441, somewhere in North America.