At 23:08 on May 24th, Shenzhou-23 soared straight into the heavens trailing a golden plume of flame, embarking on a voyage to the sea of stars. The Chinese space station "Tiangong" welcomed a special family member: Hong Kong payload specialist Lai Ka-ying. This marks the first time in China's manned spaceflight history that a homegrown Hong Kong astronaut has entered China's home in space. Yes, she is yet another "daughter of Shunde."

This gentle water town has always been able to nurture resilient, indomitable, and great women who fear no hardship. From Li Wanfang, a Qing Dynasty scholar who advocated that "women, too, should be educated," to Zhong Yuzheng, a member of the PLA's first generation of female anti-chemical soldiers and a technical general, and Pan Jiamin, a gold medalist at the Paris Paralympics—they twinkle one after another in the galaxy of time, converging into a radiant stellar river unique to the women of Shunde.

Inside Bingyutang in Jun'an, Shunde—the nation's only surviving, completely preserved, and authentically used residence for "comb-up women" (Zishu nü)—the life traces of this group of women are still preserved. Among them, some raised the national leaders of foreign countries, while others donated all the hard-earned savings they gathered abroad to schools and hospitals in their hometown...

Take Ouyang Huanyan, for instance, a respected "Gutai" (comb-up amah) who has been fondly remembered by the family of the Singaporean Prime Minister for half their lives. Venturing to Nanyang (Southeast Asia) at the age of fourteen, she supported her family with a lifetime of hard work. During the War of Resistance, she risked her life to protect the daughter of Tan Kah Kee, a patriotic overseas Chinese leader. When the nation was in peril, she sold her personal jewelry and donated the proceeds to the motherland to support the resistance against Japanese aggression.

If the comb-up women "set the template" for the independent struggle of Shunde women through their unadorned labor, it was Shunde's unique cultural soil that allowed this spiritual power to take root and flourish.

Since the Ming Dynasty, Shunde has developed a highly intensive "mulberry-dike and fish-pond" ecological agriculture system, where women have historically been the main force of production. By the era of the industrialized silk-reeling industry in modern times, Shunde women gained unprecedented opportunities for economic independence, securing the right to make their own life choices.

As a renowned ancestral hometown for overseas Chinese adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao, Shunde boasts a global diaspora of over 2 million. Transnational mobility broadened their horizons; what the overseas Chinese brought back was not merely silver dollars, but modern concepts of equality and openness.

More importantly, Shunde has a long-standing tradition of valuing education and scholarship. The overseas Chinese were exceptionally philanthropic, eagerly donating money and materials to build schools. The long-term investment in modern education provided women with relatively abundant schooling opportunities and a pathway for upward mobility through knowledge. Nourished by such cultural soil, generations of Shunde women have been able to step out of the water town and stride into a much broader world.

为什么是顺德？这片水乡走出了中国最飒的女性

5月24日23时08分，神舟二十三号拖着金色尾焰直冲云霄，奔赴星辰大海。中国空间站“天宫”迎来了一位特别的家人——来自香港的载荷专家黎家盈。这是中国载人航天史上，首次有“港产航天员”进驻太空家园。是的，又是一位“顺德女儿”。

这片温柔水乡，总能孕育出坚韧不拔、不畏困难的伟大女性，从清代提出“女子亦当有学”的李晚芳，到我军第一代女防化兵、技术女将军钟玉征，再到巴黎残奥会金牌得主潘嘉敏，她们在时间的银河里次第闪烁，汇聚成一条属于顺德女性的璀璨星河。

在顺德均安冰玉堂里，这座全国现存唯一一座保存完整且真实使用过的自梳女居所，仍留存着这群女性的生命痕迹。她们之中，有人养大了异国的国家领导人，有人将在他乡辛苦攒下的积蓄都捐给了家乡的学校和医院……

那个被新加坡总理一家牵挂半生的姑太欧阳焕燕，十四岁下南洋，用辛勤的一生撑起自己的家；抗战期间，冒着生命危险保护爱国华侨领袖陈嘉庚的女儿；国难当头时，变卖自己的首饰，捐给祖国支援抗日。

如果说自梳女是用朴实的劳动，为顺德女性的独立奋斗“打了个样”。那么顺德独特的文化土壤，则让这种精神力量得以生根发芽。

自明代起，顺德就发展出高度集约化的桑基鱼塘生态农业，女性自古就是生产主力军。到了近代缫丝业工业化时期，顺德女性更是获得了前所未有的经济独立机会，拥有了一定的人生选择权。

作为毗邻港澳的著名侨乡，顺德拥有超过200万海外华侨。跨国流动开阔了华侨的视野，华侨们带回的不仅是银元，还有平等、开放的现代观念。

更重要的是，顺德素有“崇文重教”的传统，海外华侨更是乐善好施，纷纷捐钱捐物兴建学校，近代教育的长期投入，为女性提供了相对较多的受教育机会与知识上升通道。正是在这样的土壤滋养下，一代代顺德女性得以走出水乡，走向更广阔的世界。

文 | 记者 杨苑莹
译 | 陈冠臻
英文审校 | 曾敏