A response to "Women on the March-Hsiao Jau-jiun Pushes for a Revolution in Customs and Culture" (March domestic edition)

My father died in May of last year. It was just seven months after he had learned that he had liver cancer. Beginning with my father's diagnosis, my youngest brother and I (I'm the second of five and the only daughter) were the most involved in his care. I was there for it all-from helping him find doctors, seek treatment, and move into the hospital, to watching him take his last breath. But after my father passed away, I deeply felt what Professor Hsiao had said: "One of the most important functions of a [funeral] ceremony is to ease grief. But [the way the] custom [is traditionally practiced] cruelly ignores women's needs and deprives them of their rights."

First, there was the obituary notice. In the rough draft the children were clearly listed as my older brother, me, and then my three younger brothers (there was no mention of my sisters-in-law even though they provided just as much care as my brothers). But when I went to the funereal printers, I was astonished to discover that my name had been erased, on the grounds that according to custom one can't describe married daughters as "being at a parent's side."

When my brothers went to the ossuary to select the urn for my father's ashes, they all said I needn't come.

Then it came to dividing my father's estate. My father had left a will in which he spelled out that it was his wish that I give up any claim to the farmland that was his most valuable asset, but he did clearly write that if a piece of factory land that he also owned was converted to residential uses that he hoped, "My sons would consent to give a piece of it to my daughter." Here we have the traditional custom of "pushing down the daughters to pull up the sons"!

At my father's funeral, in accordance with Taiwanese custom, I helped support umbrellas over my father's eldest grandson, who was carrying his remains. As we closed the coffin, walked through the ceremony, and thanked friends and relatives for coming, I could clearly feel our father's spirit with us. For the funeral, because I was grieving, I had no energy to cause a commotion and I also didn't want to upset my mother. Thus, "for the sake of family harmony," I didn't argue for my name to be put on the obituary. I also have respected my father's wishes as explained in his will, not fighting with my brothers over my full share of the inheritance, to which I have a right under law. And yet emotionally, I have truly felt that my role as a daughter has been discarded by these customs.

Take, for instance, Tomb Sweeping Day. My brothers told me that this year "the family" would sweep the tomb "by themselves," and no one asked me if I wanted to come. My older brother even said that no daughters go back for Tomb Sweeping Day, and that all sorts of bad things might befall the family if I did. His comment brought back memories: Because I lived in Taipei, to avoid the traffic we would often go back to my parents' in Taichung on New Year's Day instead of the second day of the year, as is customary when visiting the wife's side of the family. I discovered later that my father would often have to explain to friends and family that he didn't believe in the old superstitions that the family would suffer if the daughter returned on New Year's Day. I hadn't realized that my father had been catching a lot of flak for my "deviance."

Customs that devalue daughters are still observed today in corners of society where the government exercises no control. From birth to death (and even beyond), these customs continually oppress women. I am simply one of millions. Hence, I was very happy to read in Taiwan Panorama that Hsiao Jau-jiun had taken a step toward breaking these oppressive customs by leading a ceremony at her family's ancestral temple. It was news that assuaged my own sense of grievance. But I also understood even more fully that in the face of these deeply rooted customs, I was only at the stage of acknowledging them. By taking the initiative to battle them, Professor Hsiao had become news-and had surely moved many women like me.