The Fairy Tale of Snow White and her Evil Stepmother

“The wicked queen dressed in a peasant woman’s clothing and went to the
seven dwarfs’ house. She knocked on the door and Snow White put her head out of
the window. “I cannot let you in. The seven dwarfs prohibited me to let anyone
in,” Snow White said. The wicked queen told Snow White that she was just selling
some apple and would let her try one, “I will cut the apple into two and eat the
white half, so you can trust that there is no poison in the apple. Now you can
eat the red half.”

I was anxious that I could not tell Snow White the red half of the apple was the poison half, but not the white half. I did not remember what message my parents wanted us to learn through the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (there was always a message of some sort); however, the one really drilled in my mind was the evilness of Snow White’s stepmother. To me at the age of seven or eight, someone could kill innocent Snow White simply because her beauty was beyond my comprehension. From then on, “stepmother” was synonymous to evil.

The process of growing up was parallel with the process of learning: learn from parents and adults around us, from books and schools, and sometimes from friends and other children; but learning was also a process of developing concepts, challenging them, and then denying and tossing some of those concepts away or approving and retaining the others. However, my concept of evil stepmother was never challenged. Growing up in Suzhou in the 80s and even the early 90s, remarriage was a foreign concept for most people. It usually happened to someone’s friend’s relative or someone else’s relative’s friend—a kind of urban legend. The story often ended with the stepmother either mistreating their stepchildren or trying to separate the children from their fathers. Although these stories revealed that the stepmothers did not really kill their stepchildren (thanks god), they certainly confirmed the evil-stepmother image. Little did I know at the time that I would become one of these “evil women.”

The relationship with my husband began as a friendship—he needed a friend in Suzhou and I needed an opportunity to learn English. Through our friendship, I fell in love with him for he was, unquestionably, my Mr. Right. However, there was one thing about Mr. Right was not right for me—he had two children and one of them was his twelve-year-old daughter. I would become that wicked queen stepmother if we got married, I thought, who would mistreat his “Snow White” or try to separate him from his children. Despite the belief that I could never be someone like that, I would become a stepmother though; and based on my knowledge, stepmothers were evil—I was confused.

During one of his visits home, my husband, then my boyfriend, called me and told me that he had to bring his daughter with him to China due to a family situation—“Maybe you guys can meet and see how you like each other,” he told me on the phone. I hesitated, but then “how bad can it be?” I thought. “Since I am not her stepmother yet, it might be easier for both of us to try it out.”

Though I took on the challenge, I still did not know what exactly a stepmother would do—would there be an evil power come with the role? Or would I start to talk to a mirror on the wall? I tried to do some research before their arrival—unfortunately to discover that there weren’t much of information I could find (not many people had that kind of experience in China, I suppose), so I spent many nights watching the movie “Stepmom”—one of the a few resources I found. The only thing I learned was that there was not any existing formula I could go by as a candidate of a future stepmother.

Without the confident feeling of “I am ready,” my stepdaughter, or future stepdaughter as I thought then, arrived in Suzhou the spring of 1999. She spent much time with me visiting various sites in Suzhou and meeting my friends; at the same time, she introduced me to her new friends—two baby turtles named “Rose” and “Thorn.” We went on trips to Beijing, Hong Kong, and Thailand to create an enjoyable visit for her, but the most memorable trips, to me, were the strange weekend pizza-hunting trips to Shanghai--so my American girl and her American dad could have the chances to enjoy some pepperoni pizza. I also remember the anguished comments like “I hate you” at the time when I did not agree to her requests and the hugs and kisses when I was on her side during the quarrels between her and her father.

Through the three months experience with my “future stepdaughter,” I learned that we could actually have a mutually enjoyable relationship. That did not mean she would accept me as her mother (she already had a mother and I had no desire to replace her or become the second one) or I would be her best friend as demonstrated in the movies. It only means that we would have a relationship that is comfortable for both of us. However, the most important thing I realized was that there were more intricate issues in the relationship between stepparents and stepchildren than simply who was evil and who was Snow White.

Later, my Snow White returned to China and stayed with us, not in a fairy tale but in the real world, for another three months. I did not acquire super evil powers, nor did I own a magic mirror, but I did learn a bit about being a stepmother.