单家开着烧酒锅，以廉价高粱为原料酿造优质白酒，方圆百里都有名。
As distillery owners, the Shans used cheap sorghum to produce a strong, high-quality white wine that was famous throughout the area.
东北乡地势低洼，往往秋水泛滥，高粱高秆防涝，被广泛种植，年年丰产。
Northeast Gaomi Township is largely swampy land that is flooded by autumn rains; but since the tall sorghum stalks resist waterlogging, it was planted everywhere and invariably produced a bumper crop.
单家利用廉价原料酿酒牟利，富甲一方。
By using cheap grain to make wine, the Shan family made a very good living, and marrying my grandma off to them was a real feather in Great-Granddad's cap.
我奶奶能嫁给单扁郎，是我外曾祖父的荣耀。
By using cheap grain to make wine, the Shan family made a very good living, and marrying my grandma off to them was a real feather in Great-Granddad's cap.
当时，多少人家都渴望着和单家攀亲，尽管风传着单扁郎早就染上了麻风病。
Many local families had dreamed of marrying into the Shan family, despite rumours that Shan Bianlang had leprosy.
单廷秀是个干干巴巴的小老头，脑后翘着一支枯干的小辫子。
His father was a wizened little man who sported a scrawny queue on the back of his head, and even though his cupboards overflowed with gold and silver, he wore tattered, dirty clothes, often using a length of rope as a belt.
他家里金钱满柜，却穿得破衣烂袄，腰里常常扎一条草绳。
His father was a wizened little man who sported a scrawny queue on the back of his head, and even though his cupboards overflowed with gold and silver, he wore tattered, dirty clothes, often using a length of rope as a belt.
奶奶嫁到单家，其实也是天意。
Grandma's marriage into the Shan family was the will of heaven, implemented on a day when she and some of her playmates, with their tiny bound feet and long pigtails, were playing beside a set of swings.
It was Qingming, the day set aside to attend ancestral graves; peach trees were in full red bloom, willows were green, a fine rain was falling, and the girls' faces looked like peach blossoms.
It was a day of freedom for them.
那天，我奶奶在秋千架旁与一些尖足长辫的大闺女耍笑游戏，那天是清明节，桃红柳绿，细雨霏霏，人面桃花，女儿解放。
Grandma's marriage into the Shan family was the will of heaven, implemented on a day when she and some of her playmates, with their tiny bound feet and long pigtails, were playing beside a set of swings.
It was Qingming, the day set aside to attend ancestral graves; peach trees were in full red bloom, willows were green, a fine rain was falling, and the girls' faces looked like peach blossoms.
It was a day of freedom for them.
奶奶那年身高一米六零，体重六十公斤，上穿碎花洋布褂子，下穿绿色缎裤，脚脖子上扎着深红色的绸带子。
That year Grandma was five feet four inches tall and weighed about 130 pounds.
She was wearing a cotton print jacket over green satin trousers, with scarlet bands of silk tied around her ankles.
由于下小雨，奶奶穿了一双用桐油浸泡过十几遍的绣花油鞋，一走克郎克郎地响。
Since it was drizzling, she had put on a pair of embroidered slippers soaked a dozen times in tong oil, which made a squishing sound when she walked.
奶奶脑后垂着一根油光光的大辫子，脖子上挂着一个沉甸甸的银锁——我外曾祖父是个打造银器的小匠人。
Her long shiny braids shone, and a heavy silver necklace hung around her neck – Great-Granddad was a silversmith.
外曾祖母是个破落地主的女儿，知道小脚对于女人的重要意义。
Great-Grandma, the daughter of a landlord who had fallen on hard times, knew the importance of bound feet to a girl, and had begun binding her daughter's feet when she was six years old, tightening the bindings every day.
奶奶不到六岁就开始缠脚，日日加紧。
Great-Grandma, the daughter of a landlord who had fallen on hard times, knew the importance of bound feet to a girl, and had begun binding her daughter's feet when she was six years old, tightening the bindings every day.
一根裹脚布，长一丈余，外曾祖母用它，勒断了奶奶的脚骨，把八个脚趾，折断在脚底，真惨！
A yard in length, the cloth bindings were wound around all but the big toes until the bones cracked and the toes turned under.
The pain was excruciating.
我的母亲也是小脚，我每次看到她的脚，就心中难过，就恨不得高呼：打倒封建主义！
My mother also had bound feet, and just seeing them saddened me so much that I felt compelled to shout: 'Down with feudalism!
人脚自由万岁！
Long live liberated feet!'
奶奶受尽苦难，终于裹就一双三寸金莲。
The results of Grandma's suffering were two three-inch golden lotuses, and by the age of sixteen she had grown into a well-developed beauty.
When she walked, swinging her arms freely, her body swayed like a willow in the wind.
十六岁那年，奶奶已经出落得丰满秀丽，走起路来双臂挥舞，身腰扭动，好似风中招飐的杨柳。
The results of Grandma's suffering were two three-inch golden lotuses, and by the age of sixteen she had grown into a well-developed beauty.
When she walked, swinging her arms freely, her body swayed like a willow in the wind.
单廷秀那天挎着粪筐子到我外曾祖父村里转圈，从众多的花朵中，一眼看中了我奶奶。
Shan Tingxiu, the groom's father, was walking around Great-Granddad's village, dung basket in hand, when he spotted Grandma among the other local flowers.
三个月后，一乘花轿就把我奶奶抬走了。
Three months later, a bridal sedan chair would come to carry her away.
奶奶坐在憋闷的花轿里，头晕眼眩。
Grandma was lightheaded and dizzy inside the stuffy sedan chair, her view blocked by a red curtain that gave off a pungent mildewy odour.
罩头的红布把她的双眼遮住，红布上散着一股强烈的霉馊味。
Grandma was lightheaded and dizzy inside the stuffy sedan chair, her view blocked by a red curtain that gave off a pungent mildewy odour.
她抬起手，掀起红布——外祖母曾千叮咛万嘱咐，不许她自己揭动罩头红布——一只沉甸甸的绞丝银镯子滑到小臂上，奶奶看着镯子上的蛇形花纹，心里纷乱如麻。
She reached out to lift it a crack – Great-Granddad had told her not to remove her red veil.
A heavy bracelet of twisted silver slid down to her wrist, and as she looked at the coiled-snake design her thoughts grew chaotic and disoriented.