Nancy Duke Lay's mother used to tell her stories about girls she'd known in Southern China who took vows of celibacy at ages 10-13 and went off to work in the world--some traveling in groups as far as Singapore. It wasn't until Nancy was much older that she realized how unusual this story was. For young women in rural China half a century ago, life was an unbroken chain of obedience: first to father, then to husband, and then to adult sons if widowed. To refuse to marry was a radical act.

These girls were workers in silk factories, where they earned good wages and tasted economic power and freedom. Nancy explains, "They lived in a society in which daughters were unimportant, and many saw their mothers mistreated by fathers who spent their money on gambling, opium, and other women. Death from childbirth was common. Taking celibacy vows may have looked better than taking their chances marrying men they'd never met." Many went on to become nannies, some in foreign lands, and sent home money to the mothers whose lives they chose not to imitate.

Now a CUNY professor and Chairman of the English as a Second Language Department, Nancy has the perspective to appreciate the story of the Golden Orchid Sisters. She has gone to China and filmed interviews with fourteen of the women, now elderly, and is editing them into a documentary. She hopes to preview the film at The Asia Society in New York.

She will then further develop the project into a teaching tool, creating a study guide for teachers to use with the film in New York public schools, perhaps as part of a ninth-grade global studies course. She hopes the film will be a point of departure for students to learn about a disappearing tradition, and that they'll use the story as a context for practicing their English language skills. Students could learn about oral history research, and follow up by going home and interviewing their own parents and grandparents, and writing down their stories in turn.

"They lived in a society in which daughters were unimportant..."
- Nancy Duke Lay