The doghouse had landed in a place that seemed to be farmland, too. This land, however, was all terraced along the sides of the hills, turning them into giant green stairways. Not only that, but these terraces were flooded, as though the river had overflowed it banks ... only there was no river on the hillside.

"Now that's a very odd way to try and grow crops!" Nindy exclaimed. She had grown up on a farm, so she should know. "You might as well grow them in a lake!" Someone close by giggled and Nindy clung more tightly to Jojo. "Did you hear that?" The giggling came again, louder this time. "Who IS that?"

"I'm more interested in who THAT is," Jojo observed calmly. Nindy followed his gaze and saw what looked like a large, terra cotta wine jar floating down from the clouds. Startled, since wine jars at home never displayed this strange behavior, she watched as the jug settled gently on the grass nearby and a tall woman in flowing garments stepped lightly out of it.

The woman, all dressed in green with a wreath of gold flowers and leaves around her dark hair, smiled at them. "Hello," she said. "Welcome to AncientWorlds. I'm Heraklia, the Party Demi ... and you are?"

Nindy was mesmerized until Jojo nudged her with his paw. "Oh ... I'm Nindy and this is Jojo. We're from—"

"Arf!"

"—um ... Kansas."

Heraklia the Party Demi raised one delicate eyebrow, "Kansas? I've never heard of that place. Where is it? Well, no matter. Somewhere in the Americas, I should imagine," she added when Nindy didn't respond. The invisible giggling started again.

"What is that?" Nindy asked.

"Oh, that. That's the Qin family. You're in MunchQinland. They sometimes have an unfortunate tendancy to giggle," she whispered.

"We do not! At least, not anymore than the Ashokas or the Murasakas or the Khans ... well, maybe more than the Khans." At first glance, the speaker seemed to be a young man not much older than Nindy. He was wearing what looked to her like a red silk pajama top with black pants. But when she looked at him again, she decided that now he was older than he had been the first time she looked at him. It seemed that wine jars weren't the only things that behaved strangely in this place.

"Hello, my dear," Heraklia said. "Nindy, this is Sankira Qin. You know, Sank, we really must have a festival to celebrate Nindy's arrival."

"Oh, Herky ... not another festival!" Sank moaned.

"Well, after all, she's done the entire site a great favor."

"A favor? What kind of favor?" Nindy asked.

"Your house. You dropped it on the Grumpy Demi of the East. You squished her."

Sure enough, there, sticking out from under Jojo's doghouse, were the tiniest pair of shoes Nindy had ever seen. Oh, dear ... the person who belonged to those feet couldn't have been more than two feet tall. "Oh, no! Was she a child?"

"Not at all. She was very old," Sank replied. He glanced at Heraklia once before adding, "Although, I suppose demis are timeless. Oh, you mean her Lotus shoes? Well, she grew up when foot binding was all the rage. It started back in the Sung Dynasty, you know. One of the emperor's concubines used to dance with her feet bound and others decided to imitate her. They got carried away with it, though. Eventually most of them couldn't even walk let alone dance. Like her," he added, nodding at the deceased demi. "Otherwise, I imagine she would have run away when she saw your house falling—we all did. Actually that may be what caused her to be so grumpy. I don't suppose her little feet were more than three inches long. Must have been quite painful."

Sank contemplated the Lotus shoes a moment, but soon lost interest in them. "Herky! We can't plan another festival now, we're in the middle of one already. And as much as we would like to honor you, Nindy, you really should fly your house home now. The Enforcer Demi of the Wild West won't be at all happy that you've smushed her aunt. You don't want to have her mad at you. She'll be after you with her chainsaw." He looked around as if expecting to be overheard and then whispered, "We call her the Deminator."

"But I can't fly it home!" Nindy exclaimed. "I lost control of the tornado and it flew off to the south somewhere. Besides, I don't really know where home is anymore."

"The south?" Sank mused. "Oh, dear. I hope it doesn't cause another typhoon. Jot programmed rather a lot of those this season."

"Jot! Of course! She can ask Jot," Heraklia suggested.

"Who's that?"

"He's the Wizard of AwZ. He created the site. If anyone can write the code to take you home, he can. Hmmm ... might be rather a long journey, though. Here, better take this with you. You might need it," Heraklia added, handing her a small jug.

"What's this?" Nindy asked.

"Why, that's a ruby Falernian jug," Heraklia replied. "It's from my private stock. I don't give them out to just anyone, but since we can't have a festival...."

"Did you bring a map with you?" Sank asked hopefully.

"Of AwZ? No, how could I?"

His shoulders slumped. "That's what I was afraid of. Rome is the only world that has an official map. Well then, you'll have do it the hard way. The last I heard, he was in the Jade City. All you have to do is follow the Yellow Silk Road. Just keep going sort of north and a little west and ... you'll get there eventually. I hope," he added quietly. "Now, getting in to see Jot ... well, that'll be the tricky part."

Sources:
Photo Voyage: Rice a Global Grain
The Girl with the Bound Feet
One Thousand Years of Chinese Footbinding: Its Origins, Popularity and Demise
Chinese Foot Binding
Tales of the Banko