“On Discovery” by Maxine Hong
...keup, mirrors, and a woman’s clothes. They physically changed his appearance or transformed from a man to a woman for prepare to meet the queen. Tang Ao was transformed from a man to woman, physically, psychologically, and socially. As author tells us in the story when women told Tang to follow and said “We have to prepare you to meet the queen. (13)” I am sure he didn’t realize what they meant by it. They changed his appearance by punctured his ears, plucked out each hair on his face, powdered him white, painted his eyebrows like a moth’s wings, painted his cheeks and lips red. He was psychologically transformed into woman because of the way he was fed and lived. “…[T]hey fed him on women’s food: the tea was thick with white-chrysanthemums and stirred the cool female winds inside his body; chicken wings made his hair shine; vinegar soup improved...