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month before, the household committee had sent me for a physical examination. The process would have shocked me if I hadn’t been preparing myself. It took place on the south side of Peking, in a palace surrounded by a large formal garden. The house and grounds had once been used as a vacation palace for the emperors. There was a small pond in the middle of the courtyard.
    I met many girls whose beauty I didn’t have words to even begin to describe. Each maiden was one of a kind. The girls from the southern provinces were slender, had swan-like necks, long limbs and small breasts. The girls from the north were like ripe fruit. They had breasts like gourds and pumpkin-sized buttocks.
    The eunuchs checked our birth signs, star charts, height, weight, the shape of our hands and feet, our hair. They counted our teeth. Everything had to match the Emperor’s own charts.
    We were instructed to undress and line up. One by one we were examined by a head eunuch, who had an assistant recording his words in a book.
    “Uneven eyebrows,” the head eunuch pronounced as he walked past us, “crooked shoulders, a laborer’s hands, earlobes too small, jaw too narrow, lips too thin, puffy eyelids, square toes, legs too short, thighs too fat.” Those girls were instantly dismissed.
    Hours later we were guided to a hall with peach-flower-patterned curtains. A group of eunuchs came holding tapes. My body was measured by three eunuchs. I was pinched and squeezed.
    There was no place to hide. “Shrink or stick out your head—either way you won’t escape the dropping ax.” The head eunuch pushed my shoulders and yelled, “Straighten up!”
    I closed my eyes and tried to convince myself that the eunuchs were not men. When I opened my eyes again I found this to be true. In the countryside men drooled at the sight of an attractive girl even when she was fully clothed. Here the eunuchs acted as if my nakedness made no difference. I wondered if they were truly unfeeling or simply pretending to be.
    After being measured we were taken to a bigger hall and ordered to walk. The girls who were marked down as lacking grace were dismissed. Those who passed waited for the next test. By evening there were still girls waiting outside to be examined.
    Finally I was instructed to put my clothes back on and I was sent home.
    Early the next morning, I was brought back to the mansion. Most of the girls I had met the day before were gone. The survivors were regrouped. We were instructed to recite our name, age and place of birth and our father’s name in a clear voice. The girls who sounded too loud or too soft were dismissed.
    Before breakfast we were guided to the back of the palace where several tents were set up in the open garden area. Inside each tent were tables made of bamboo. When I entered, the eunuchs told me to lie down on one of the tables. Four senior court ladies appeared. Their painted faces were expressionless. They stuck out their noses and began to smell me all over. They went from my hair to my ears, from my nose to my mouth, from my armpits to my private parts. They checked between my fingers and toes. One lady dipped her middle finger in an oil jar and stuck it inside my rear end. It hurt but I tried not to make any noise. When the lady pulled her finger out, all the other ladies jumped up to smell it.
    The last month went by in an eyeblink. “Tomorrow His Majesty shall decide my fate,” I told Mother.
    Without saying a word, she went to light incense sticks and knelt down before a picture of Buddha on the wall.
    “What’s on your mind, Orchid?” Rong asked.
    “My dream of visiting the Forbidden City will come true,” I replied, thinking of Big Sister Fann’s words:
A glimpse of such beauty makes one
feel that one’s life has been worthy.
“I will never be an ordinary person again.”
    My mother stayed up all night. Before I went to bed, she explained the meaning of
yuan
in Taoism. It was about how I should follow my destiny