I clasped my hands in the Chinese way, smiled and bowed. My Chinese
mother rose at once and took a step towards me, balancing on her tiny
feet with the aid of a thick, gold-headed cane. I saw that she was
unusually tall. Then, surprisingly, she extended her hand, American
fashion, and I shook it, the eyes of each of us still searching the
other's face. I saw in hers the look I needed for reassurance--the
mingled kindness and apprehension--a trace of the anxiety that I am sure
was the very counterpart of my own expression. I knew then that her
heart was no more certain than mine was, and that this meeting was as
important to her as it was to me.
Ah Ching brought forward my chair and we sat down together, smiling at
each other, letting our gestures speak for us. Finally she stretched
forth her right hand, palm down, measuring the height of a small child
from the floor, inclining her head towards me, her eyebrows up in a
question. I made a pillow of my two hands, laid my head upon it, eyes
closed, and then pointed up. We were both delighted at this simple
pantomime. The elderly man--her cousin--looked pleased in sympathy and
even the three solemn servants smiled a little. She asked me in gestures
where my husband was. I waved widely and comprehensively towards the
street, in the general direction of the city. She nodded, settling back
a trifle, drawing a long breath. We had reached the end of our power to
converse without the aid of an interpreter.
When I heard Chan-King's ring at the gate, I hurried out to meet him
with the news. He was even more excited than I was and hastened ahead
of me to the house. I walked very slowly in order that they might have
their first greeting undisturbed, and, when I arrived, they were beaming
upon each other and talking the South Province dialect over a very
sleepy and cherubic infant, whom Chan-King, with paternal pride, had
ordered down to greet his grandmother at once.
The retinue settled, Chan-King informed me that our mother would remain
with us for six weeks. During this time, I learned the art of pantomime
beyond anything I had ever hoped for in one of my undemonstrative
nature. My Chinese mother and I conversed with eyebrows, hands, smiles,
noddings and shakings of the head, much turning of the eyes. I had an
instant affection and admiration for her, and she adopted towards me a
gently confidential attitude that pleased me very much.
She had brought presents for us, in the Chinese way: for me, a
delicately wrought chain of Chinese gold in a box of carved sandalwood;
for Wilfred, a dozen suits of Chinese clothes in the bright patterns
worn by children of the Orient, and so becoming to the proud, wee man
that, arrayed in them, he seemed already to be coming into his heritage.
She also brought great hampers of fresh fruits--pomeloes, lichees and
dragon's-eyes--and countless jars of preserved fish and meats and
vegetables, which had been Chan-King's favourites when he was a boy at
home.
Madame Liang had the Chinese woman's love for shopping. Accompanied by
her cousin and the servants, we went from silk merchant to porcelain
dealer, and from brass worker to rug weaver, gathering treasures. Though
she carried on most of her negotiations through her cousin, she
bargained with a firmness and a sense of values that I admired very
much. In the silk shops she bought marvellous brocaded satins and
embroidered silks and she made me select the pattern I wanted for
myself. Though she preserved most carefully the distinctive features of
the dress of her own province, she was much interested in Shanghai
styles and examined my wardrobe critically, noting the short sleeves
with tight-fitting undersleeves and the skirts with seven plaits--not
five, as in Canton, for example--at each side.
Notwithstanding the popular Western fancy that fashions never change in
China, the Chinese woman is painstakingly particular as to the exact
length and fullness--or scantiness--of her coats, skirts and trousers.
She is carefully precise about the width of bias bands or braid or lace
that she uses for trimming, the number and arrangement of fastenings,
the shape and height of her collar. All of these details vary as
tyrannically from season to season--under Shanghai guidance--as certain
style features do with us under the leadership of New York or Paris.
Moreover, as against our four seasons, the fashion devotee of China
takes account of eight, each with its appropriate style and weight of
clothing.
At home Mother sewed a great deal, using her hands gracefully and very
competently in spite of the long curved fingernails on her left hand. My
American sewing-machine fascinated her. She had an excellent hand-power
machine at home, Chan-King explained, but mine worked with a treadle and
she wished to try it. I took the tiny, brightly shod feet in my hands
and set one forward and one backward on the iron trellis. And she moved
them very well, alternately, and ran several seams with energy.
Chan-King, his mother and I went to Chinese cafés together and Madame
Liang was pleased and amused to see that I not only used chopsticks with
ease but had a real taste for Chinese food. We used to treat ourselves
to all sorts of epicurean dishes: spiced chicken and duck, sharks'
fins, bird's-nest soup with pigeon eggs (my favourite delicacy), seaweed
and bamboo shoots, candied persimmons, lotus-seeds and millet pudding
with almond tea.
Once, in a roof-garden café, where I was wearing American clothes, my
use of chopsticks aroused considerable interest among neighbouring
groups of diners, and stray comments reached us, for the Chinese are
always pleased to see foreigners familiar with their customs. "No doubt
she is a missionary lady," a young woman remarked in my husband's native
dialect. Hearing and understanding, Mother immediately said, in clear,
gracious tones, "My son, perhaps your wife would like to have some
American food now." Chan-King translated for me both comment and
suggestion, and I felt pleased to learn that, at any rate, my Chinese
mother was not ashamed, in a public place, to acknowledge her American
daughter.
Mother was fond of the drama and, since Shanghai had some excellent
theatres, we made up several parties during her stay.
The great semicircular stage on which a famous old historical play that
we saw was acted was hung with gorgeous embroideries, laid with a thick
Peking rug of immense size and brilliantly lighted by electricity--as
was the entire theatre. The actors wore the magnificent official and
military robes of an early dynasty. As on the Elizabethan stage, women's
parts were taken by men, who achieved by cleverly constructed shoes the
effect of bound feet. I found the deafening drums and gongs a little
trying, at moments, and the crude property makeshifts somewhat
incongruous with the wonderfully elaborate hangings and costumes. But,
being familiar with the story, I understood the action and so evidently
enjoyed it that Mother was surprised anew, as Chan-King afterwards told
me. We sat in our balcony box, above the vague tiers of lower seats
packed with a restless audience of men, women and many children in the
arms of their _amahs_. On the wide front rail of our box was the
inevitable pot of tea, with room also for such fruits, sugar-cane,
melon-seeds, or meat-and-rice dishes as we wished to purchase from the
endless variety offered by eager boys in round caps and blue cotton
gowns. Now and then an attendant came with a huge teakettle to refill
our teapot, and once he offered us the usual steaming hot towels for
sticky fingers. Chan-King waved these away energetically. "Awful
custom," he said to me. "Unhygienic. How can they do it?" And he added
something of the kind to his mother in Chinese. She regarded him with
comprehension, a tiny gleam of superior wisdom in her eyes. But she made
no reply.
She had taken a fancy to Wilfred, who by this time had a fair vocabulary
of Chinese, which he always used in talking to his _amah_. He was a
handsome child, typically Chinese, very charming in his manner, very
fond of his _amah_ and his indulgent grandmother. Madame Liang would
take his chin in her hands and study his features intently, nodding her
head with approval. Then she would stroke his round black poll and give
him melon-seeds or almonds from her pocket. Wilfred used a weird mixture
of dialects--a confusion of Mandarin and the Shanghai vernacular, with a
dash of Cantonese from his _amah_. Madame Liang set out patiently to
teach him her own dialect as well.
When her visit was ended, our mother said to Chan-King, "This is a
Chinese house, with a Chinese wife in it. Everything is Chinese. I could
never have believed it without seeing, for I thought your wife was a
Western woman. I am happy." And she told him again that we must come and
visit her, for she needed us.
Chan-King's father, a member of an old, established firm in the import
and export trade in the Philippines, was away, looking after his
business or exchanging visits with friends of his own age and rank. His
home-comings were in the nature of a vacation. The management of the
household depended on Madame Liang.
As she talked, I realized by her face, by Chan-King's answers, by all
that I knew of Chinese family life, that we were a part of that clan and
should be so always. A hint of the solidarity I now feel with my
husband's family came to me. We were not separate from them; nor should
we be.
After our mother was gone, Chan-King said something of this sort to me,
quoting what she had said about my not being Western. "But I love you to
be Western in this sense," he told me, "that you and I have
companionship and freedom and equality in our love. That is what makes
me happiest."
Before Chan-King and I closed the house in Shanghai to depart for the
southern hills, our second son, Alfred, was born. An American woman
asked me, when he was about six weeks old, if I did not feel a sense of
alienation at the sight of the wee, Oriental face at my breast. Quite
simply and truthfully I answered no. My husband was not in any way alien
to me. How, then, could our child be so?
His coming provided me with a welcome excuse to remain at home quietly
for a short while. I now attempted to learn, at the same time, both
Mandarin and the dialect of Chan-King's province--a method of study that
hampered me constantly at first. But my husband was an encouraging
teacher, and I began uncertainly to use my new knowledge, trying it
mostly on my young son Wilfred, who was the real linguist of the family.
He took my Chinese very seriously. I cannot say so much for Chan-King,
who was greatly amused at my inflection.
Towards the close of the year, I decided to take a place as teacher of
English and history in a Chinese girls' high school. Chan-King was
surprised when I told him that I wished to teach, but he offered no
objection, and watched with interest my progress through the year. I
loved my teaching. Still more I loved the girls in my classes.
Collectively and individually I found them supremely worth while in
spirit and mind. I cannot say how lovely the young womanhood of China
seemed to me. I began to yearn for a daughter, and when, towards the
close of the second term, I found that I might, perhaps, have my heart's
desire, I realized that my husband shared it.
In the early autumn, our mother wrote and asked us to come south for the
cold season. She also expressed the hope that the coming grandchild
might be born in her own province. Chan-King had been encouragingly
strong for over a year, but he had always found the northern winters
hard. We decided that the time had come to fulfil our promise of
visiting the ancestral home. Chan-King secured six months' leave of
absence.
Within ten days we had closed our affairs temporarily, dismissed the
servants, with the exception of the _amah_ and the faithful Ah Ching,
got our boxes together and bidden our friends farewell. The leaves were
falling in the avenue; the plants were shrivelled at the edges in the
sun porch; the winds blew ominously shrill under the eaves. Chan-King
grew pale and began to cough again. Out of the teeth of the terrible
Shanghai winter we fled into the hospitable softness of the South.
By a large steamship we started out on what was ordinarily a brief
journey. But, by those war-time schedules, changes and delays were the
invariable rule. After three unforeseen changes and as many delays we
reached a port just over the line in my husband's province. There we
stopped, intending to go on three days later by the little, battered,
tramp steamer that puffed noisily at the dock, putting off dried fruits
and dyes, taking on rice and cloth and sandalwood. But we did not go on,
as it happened. Instead, a tiny, smiling, competent woman physician,
wearing the southern costume and possessed of a curious fund of
practical wisdom in medical matters, attended me in her native hospital
at the birth of our daughter Alicia.
On a vaguely grey, gently stimulating winter morning, ten days later,
our bouncing little ship--for I had cajoled Chan-King into allowing me
to travel--stood to, out from port, and sampans came to meet us. Like
giant fish, bobbing and dipping and swaying upon the waves, these
sampans with their great eyes painted on each side of the prow and their
curious, up-curved sterns, came towards us in a gala-fleet, rowed by
lean, over-muscled men in faded blue cotton garments. I was very gay and
much exhilarated by the soft sunshine that broke through the mist as I
climbed down with Chan-King's help into one of these boats.
The harbour was busy with small craft--flat-bottomed gigs or
baggage-boats besides the junks, whose square brown sails swung creaking
in the wind. Two Chinese men-of-war rose over us, their vast, bulky
sides painted battle-ship grey.
Out and beyond, an island not more than a mile long turned its irregular
profile towards us, a long mass of huge grey boulders jutting abruptly
from a sparkling sea. As we were being rowed in to the mainland, we were
near enough to the island to see quite plainly the tile-roofed houses
surrounded by arched verandas, repeated again and again in long,
undulating lines that gave a pleasantly lacy effect. The island was
shaded with trees in winter foliage, not the brilliant green of summer,
but the sage-green and pale tan of November. Through this intermittent
curtain the walls of the houses shone in dull blue and coral pink and
clear grey. Jagged cacti shot up among the bulbous rocks and everywhere
the scarlet poinsettia set the hills aglow with patches of brilliant
colour. I loved this island instantly. I said to Chan-King, "This is our
Island of the Blest, where we shall live when we are old."
At the jetty, Ah Ching went up to hail sedan-chair bearers, and soon I
was borne rapidly along a few yards ahead of my husband's chair.
I was filled with a delicious elation at being in Chan-King's province,
so near to the very village that he knew as a little boy. With enormous
curiosity, I peeped through the curtain-flaps, which were transparent
from within. We were passing through the town that lay along the water's
edge--a bright, open little place, where the small houses, with curved
tiled roofs, hugged the ground. We went through the crooked streets,
which were really nothing more than broad paths, at a steady pace. We
left the ragged edges of the town and began to ascend the hills. I
raised my curtains a trifle and ventured to look out freely. Emotion
surged up in me. I wished to cry for joy in this home-coming, for it was
our real home-coming together, and I felt a secret share in all the life
my husband had known here.
Up the narrow, twisting path we wound, toward the hills, which were
covered with a smoky, amber mist. Scattered closely along the upward
road, apart from the dwellings, were small terraces enclosing plots of
cultivated ground, filled with growing things. Wherever the folk could
find a lush, flat place on the stony hills, robbed by deforestation of
all but grass, they had planted their vegetables. These little patches
of colour, coaxed by thrifty gardeners out of the soil washed into the
hill-pockets, added a festive, humorous note to the winter landscape,
otherwise so brown and sear. I thought frivolously of a solemn giant
wearing his party nosegays. The hills billowed away immensely, until
they were silhouettes against the dull orange and ashy purple of the
morning sun struggling through the clouds. Solid, steeply curved, narrow
bridges of stone made us a path over the frequent streams that rushed
downward to the valley.
Here we came full upon the ancestral village of my husband's family. It
lay, compact and many-roofed, upon the side of a hill, as intricately
woven and inevitable-looking as a colony of birds' nests, as naturally a
part of the earth as though it had sprung from planted seeds. Rows of
walls ran along the main thoroughfare. There were few people astir yet
and the doors were closed in all the low-eaved plaster and stone houses.
Our chairs were set down before a tall, hooded gate in a wall of
stone-grey. Ah Ching knocked. The gates were opened, and servants came
hurrying out, accompanied by three leaping black Chow-dogs, which barked
in frantic challenge till Chan-King spoke to them and changed their
menace into joyous welcome.
We entered a spacious courtyard and crossed an exquisite garden, one of
the most beautiful I saw in China. An artificial lake rippled placidly,
disturbed only by the darting goldfish. Laurel- and magnolia-trees
darkened the paths. A thicket of bamboo wavered and cast its reflection
in the water at the edge of the lake.
Chan-King helped me from the chair and together we passed into the main
hall through the wide-flung doors. Madame Liang, early apprised of our
arrival, was standing there, and my first sight of her gave me a renewed
sense of home-coming. I was dimly aware of a large hall, at the back of
which stood a high altar, with wreaths of sweet-smelling smoke rising in
straight columns before lettered tablets and brilliant images under
glass cases. The glitter of golden and scarlet embroideries against the
wall splintered the dimness with rays of light like sunshine through a
prism. Heavily carved blackwood chairs with tea-tables and also
marble-topped stools with gay, brocaded cushions were ranged about the
room.
We passed through this main hall into the apartment of Madame Liang,
where I was given a chair, and I sat down, suddenly remembering that I
was very tired.
Other members of the family, distant relatives and first cousins, and
guests, all women, came in and I was presented to them. Madame
Springtime, wife of the second son, did first honours for the family.
She was so very youthful--only seventeen--and so wistfully other-worldly
that among those mature housewives, clever and practical managers of
their households and husbands' estates, she seemed like a branch of
peach-bloom. In festal garb of jade-green and lavender, embroidered
shoes on her tiny feet and an embroidered head-dress crowning her
shining black hair and framing the oval of her shy, smiling face, with
its sloe-black eyes, she came bearing a lacquered tray and presenting to
each of us sweet tea, in cups of finest porcelain with standards and
covers of silver and with tiny silver spoons having flower-shaped bowls.
The pretty little tea ceremony was then repeated by various members of
the family, while the small sons were given hot milk and cakes. An eager
group gathered about the tiny new daughter, still sleeping peacefully.
A bubbling, busy little lady, about the age of Madame Liang, leaned over
me, with a quizzical smile, and bobbed her gay, pretty head emphatically
at me when my mother introduced her as Madame Chau. Elaborately dressed
in rich colours, in direct contrast to my soberly garbed mother, she was
as merry as Madame Liang was grave and she tripped about on her almost
invisible "golden lily" feet with an energy that yet did not destroy the
grace of her "willow walk."
But the many-coloured costumes, the great curtained bed on one side, the
voices--all suddenly seemed far away. And, as I wavered, smiling
determinedly, I heard my husband's voice. "Mother thinks you are tired;
so this woman will show you to your room, where you must lie down and
rest."
Some time later, as I lay resting--with Alicia sleeping on my arm--on
the bed, which had purple curtains and soft white blankets, Chan-King
stepped quietly into the room.
"Feel as comfortable as you look?" he asked and, when I nodded drowsily,
he touched a box of cakes.
"These were brought to you by Madame Chau, the busy little lady out
there. You know"--he hesitated a moment--"she would have been my
mother-in-law, if I hadn't insisted on your mother instead!" and he gave
my cheek a gentle pinch.
I was now wide-awake. "The little bird-lady out there--mother of
Li-Ying?" I asked. "Where is Li-Ying, then?"
"They didn't tell me anything directly," Chan-King answered. "But I
gather from several pointed conversations carried on in my hearing that
Madame Chau has just returned from her daughter's house in Singapore.
Just imagine: little Li-Ying is married too, and also has three
children--two girls and a boy. I think," said my Chinese husband, with
charming complacence, putting a hand over mine and stooping to kiss
Alicia's pink, sleeping face, "our arrangement is much better. Sons
should be older; then daughters are properly appreciated!"
At noon, after an hour's quiet sleep, I was again aroused by Chan-King,
who stood beside a maidservant with a tray.
I sat up. "I expected to be out for luncheon," I said, preparing to
rise.
Chan-King looked perturbed. "Stay where you are," he warned. "My mother
has just been scolding me for allowing you to travel with a ten-days-old
baby. 'As if I could do anything about it!' I told her, blaming it all
on Eve in the most approved Christian fashion! She admires your spirit,
but thinks that, for your health's sake, you should rest two weeks
longer at least!"