I saw Chan-King Liang for the first time on a certain Monday morning in
October. It was the opening day of college, and the preceding week had
been filled with the excitement incidental to the arrival of many
students in a small town given over to family life. Every household
possessed of a spare room was impressed with the fact that good
citizenship demanded that it harbour a student. Therefore, when I saw
trunks and boxes and bags being tumbled upon the front porch of our
next-door neighbour, I said to Mother, "Mrs. James has succumbed!" and
set out for my first class with Celia, an old friend.
As we crossed the campus, we noticed a group of boys, gathered on the
steps of College Hall and talking among themselves. Celia turned to me.
"Do you see the one with very black hair, his face turned away a
little--the one in the grey suit, Margaret? Well, that is the new
Chinese student, and the boys all say he is a wonder. My cousin knew him
last year in Chicago, where he was a freshman. Going in for
international law and political science--imagine!"
I turned and glanced with a faint interest at the foreign student, on
whose black hair the sun was shining. My first impression was of a very
young, smiling lad. "Looks well enough," I said rather ungraciously, and
we passed on.
I was a busy student, eagerly beginning my freshman year's work, and I
thought no more of the young Chinese. But a day or so later I
discovered him to be the owner of those trunks and bags I had seen
assembled on Mrs. James's porch. Chan-King was my next-door neighbour.
We were never introduced to each other, as it happened, and, though we
shared studies in German and French, we did not exchange a word for some
time. Later I found myself admiring his feat of learning two foreign
languages through the medium of English, a third, and doing it so very
well. At the same time, though I was not then aware of the fact, he was
also admiring me for proficiency in these subjects, in which I was
working hard, because I intended to teach languages.
The progress of my interest in him was gradual and founded on a sense of
his complete remoteness, an utter failure to regard him as a human being
like the rest of us. He was the first of his race I had ever seen. But
finally we spoke to one another by some chance, and, after that, it
seemed unnecessary to refuse to walk to class with him on a certain
morning when we came out of our houses at the same moment.
We parted at College Hall door with an exchange of informal little nods.
I was happily impressed, but my impulse to friendship suffered a quick
reaction from all that Chan-King was, when viewed against the background
of his race as I saw it. I had no intention whatever of continuing our
association.
Naturally, Chan-King knew nothing of this. I think I was probably a
trifle more courteous to him than was necessary. I remember being uneasy
for fear of wounding him by some thoughtless remark that would reveal my
true state of mind about China. I lost sight of the race in the
individual. I even pretended not to notice that he was waiting for me
morning after morning when I emerged, always a trifle late, hurrying to
classes. By the close of the first semester, we were making the trip
together almost daily as a matter of course.
He was gay and friendly, with a sort of frank joyousness that was his
own special endowment for living. I enjoyed his companionship, his talk,
his splendid spirit. His cheerfulness was a continual stimulant to my
moody, introspective, static temperament. I used to study his face,
which in repose had the true Oriental impassivity--a stillness that
suggested an inner silence or brooding. But this mood was rare in those
days, and I remember best his laughter, his shining eyes that never
missed the merriment to be had from the day's routine events.
For a while we were merely two very conventional young students walking
sedately together, talking with eagerness on what now seem amusingly
sober and carefully chosen subjects. We were both determined to be
dignified and impersonal. I was nineteen, and Chan-King was two years
older.
Finally, Chan-King asked to call and he appeared at the door that
evening, laden with an enormous, irregular package, a collection of
treasures that he thought might interest us. We all gathered about the
library table, where he spread a flaming array of embroidered silks,
carved ivory and sandalwood and curious little images in bronze and
blackwood. They gave out a delicious fragrance, spicy and warm and
sweet, with a bitter tang to it, a mingling of oils and lacquers and
dust of incense.
He was very proud of half a dozen neckties his mother had made him,
patterned carefully after the American one he had sent her as a
souvenir. "She sews a great deal, and everything she does is beautiful,"
he said, stroking one of the ties, fashioned of wine-coloured silk and
embroidered in a thin gold thread.
The simple words, the tangle of the exotic things lying on the table,
in that moment set the whole world between us. I saw him as alien, far
removed and unknowable; I realized how utterly transplanted he must be,
moving as he did in a country whose ideals, manners and customs must
appear, at times, grotesquely fantastic to him. "How queer we must seem
to you!" I exclaimed impulsively, lifting a solid, fat little idol in my
hand.
"Queer? Not at all--but wonderfully interesting in everything. You see,
to me it is all one world!" Our eyes met for a second. Then he offered
me a small embroidered Chinese flag. I hesitated, looking at the
writhing, fire-breathing dragon done in many-coloured silks. Again the
old prejudice swept over me. I was about to refuse. But I saw in his
eyes an expression of hesitating, half-anxious pleading, which touched
me. I took the flag, puzzled a trifle over that look I had surprised.
Chan-King became a frequent visitor at our home in the evenings, making
friends with my father and mother, with true Chinese deference. I like
to remember those times, with all of us sitting around the big table,
the shaded lamp casting a clear circle of light on the books and papers,
the rest of the room in pleasant dimness. It was during these evenings
that Chan-King told us about his father, typical Chinese product of his
clan and time, who had early perceived the limitations of a too
nationalistic point of view and had planned Western education for his
sons, of whom Chan-King was the eldest. From his talk I reconstructed a
half-picture of his home in southern China. It was a large household of
brothers and relatives and servants ruled over by his mother during the
prolonged absences of his father, whose business interests lay in a
far-away island port.
Once he brought a faded photograph of a small boy formally arrayed in
the Chinese velvets and satins of an earlier period. "Myself at the age
of six," he explained.
I examined the picture closely. "Why, Mr. Liang," I said, in wonder,
"you are wearing a--wearing a--queue!"
He smiled, delighted at my confusion. "Yes, a very nice queue it was,"
he declared, "bound with a scarlet silk cord. I remember how it waved in
the wind when I flew my kite on the hills!"
"You wore a black queue yourself, Margaret," interposed my mother, her
eyes twinkling, "shorter than this, but often tied with a red silk
ribbon."
"You see, we had that in common, at least," said Chan-King. And he
flashed a grateful smile at Mother. There was a well-established
friendship between my kindly, understanding mother and Chan-King while
my feeling for him was still uncertain.
Yet, in spite of all these reasons for close sympathy with Chan-King, I
felt towards him at times something amounting almost to dislike. Against
such states of mind my sense of personal justice, a trait I had directly
from my Scotch inheritance, instantly rebelled. I was careful in no way
to reveal my feelings, though I probably should have done so had I even
remotely realized that friendship was verging upon love. As it was, I
had an ideal of genuine comradeship, of a pleasant interlude destined to
end with our college days.
Towards the end of the winter, as our acquaintance advanced, there came
to me a series of those revulsions. I assured myself that so ephemeral a
relation as ours must be was hardly worth the time I was giving to it. I
remembered that, fine as Chan-King was, he belonged to the Chinese race.
I decided to put an end to the entire episode at once. The way in which
I carried out this plan was unnecessarily abrupt. I avoided him
unmistakably, going to class and returning home by a roundabout way, and
refusing to see him either in class or on the campus.
Then, one afternoon at the end of two weeks, he was waiting for me
before the main door of College Hall. I did not speak. He joined me
without a word and walked in silence to the campus edge. I turned
suddenly toward a side street. "Go that way if you like," I said rudely.
"I have an errand this way."
He came with me. "I wish to talk with you," he said, with an oddly
restrained, patient tone of weariness. Our eyes met, and I saw in his a
gentle and touching determination to understand and be understood, which
would have been more significant to me if I had been less engrossed in
my own emotions.
"Why do you wish to end our friendship?" he asked quietly, with his
characteristic frankness.
"I--because I thought it was best," I stammered, completely disarmed.
"It is never best to give up a friendship," he said. "But it happens
that our friendship may end soon after all. It is possible I shall
return to China. To-day I received a cablegram from my father, saying my
mother is dangerously ill. I shall know within a day or so whether I am
to go or to stay."
Human sympathy triumphed over race prejudice. "Come home with me," I
said, "and let Mother talk to you. She always knows what to say."
Another cablegram two days later brought the good news of his mother's
improvement. Chan-King's anxiety during those two days wrung me. He said
nothing, but his face was strained and lined. He walked and we talked a
good deal of other things, and he gave me definite outlines of his
"life-plan," as he called it. He regarded the diplomatic service of his
country as his final goal, but, on the way to it, he wished to take part
in constructive teaching and sociological work in China. He was keenly
enthusiastic about the ancient arts and natural beauties of China and
venerated many of her old customs. "I hope introducing modern education
will not destroy the beauty of the East," he told me, but he was solidly
convinced of the need for new ideas in all the Orient. I began to see
his country through new eyes.
We were soon going about together a great deal. I remember many happy
parties on the lantern-lighted campus, many field-days and tennis
matches, all the innocent freedom of college life that we enjoyed
together. I was rather remote in my personal friendships, and very
little was said to me regarding my association with the Chinese student.
But now I began to hear small murmurs, a vague hum of discussion, and
to observe an interested watching of us by the students and townspeople.
I could not help seeing that curious glances followed us when we entered
a tea-room or concert hall together.
Several friends of my mother's spoke disapprovingly to her of the
matter. "What if they should fall in love--marry?" asked one
conventional-minded old lady. But my mother was born without prejudices
and never sees boundary lines or nationalities. She was infinitely
tactful and kind. I know now that she was rather uneasy, for she felt
that marriage is a difficult enough relation when each person knows the
other's heritage and formulas; but she said nothing to make me
self-conscious, not even repeating the remarks of her acquaintances
until long afterwards.
However, I heard comments from other sources, which irritated me a
trifle and had the perfectly natural effect of stimulating my loyalty
to Chan-King and arousing at times a yearning tenderness to shield him
from injustice. At this time we tentatively expressed our views on
intermarriage. We were sitting in the porch late one afternoon. "I
believe marriage between alien races is a mistake," I said, in the
decisive way I cultivated at that time. "It is better to marry one's own
kind."
"No doubt there are fewer difficulties," he answered without conviction.
"It is all so much a personal problem. Marriages between Americans do
not seem to be always successful."