When Love First Came to China

Yajing Zhang

Professor Broadous

PAS 114B

22 February 2012

                                                    When Love First Came to China

              The year was 1924, when eyeglasses were fashionable. Society girls wore them. Even street-walkers affected glasses in order to look like girl students. It was also stylish to address girls as "Miss".

              Compared to those girls, Miss Chang was the beauty of a still life. She and a man in a boat sat facing each other on wicker seats under the flat blue awning. Cups of tea stood on the low table between them. Miss Chang was around twenty- young for high school in those days when progressive women of all ages flocked to the primary schools. The young man was Liu. Liu was tall and thin. He owned land in his home village but still taught school in Hangzhou merely as an excuse to live by the West Lake, where every scenic spot was associated with the memory of some poet or reigning beauty.

              The two had been meeting almost daily for more than a year. They would go out on the lake, have dinner at one of the restaurants along the shore, and go boating again if there was a moon. Liu would read Shelley aloud and Miss Chang closed her eyes when she felt moved. However, Liu was already married- a universal predicament. Practically everybody was married and had children before ever hearing of love. Liu admired Miss Chang's calligraphy, analyzed her personality from the handwriting. Love was such a new experience in China that a little of it went a long way.

              "Going home this weekend?" Miss Chang asked. "I suppose I can't get out of it this time," Liu answered smiling, "My mother has been complaining." Miss Chang smiled. The mention of his mother did not alter the fact that he was going back to his wife. Lately Liu had been feeling increasingly guilty about going home, while Miss Chang had allowed her resentment to become more manifest before and after each visit.

              "I have made a decision," Liu said in a low voice, looking at her. Then, when she did not ask him what it was, he said, "Miss Chang, will you wait for me? It might take years." She had turned away, her head bent. Actually she did not agree to his getting a divorce until days later. But that evening, when they dined at a restaurant famous for its sea food, Liu already felt pledged and dedicated. All the wine he drank tasted like the last cup before setting out on a long hard journey on a cold night. Meanwhile, some of the live shrimps from the plate jumped across the table, in and out of the sauce dish, and landed on Miss Chang's blouse, but she looked flushed and happy and did not seem to mind at all.

              Liu did not go home until the Saturday after that. His wife looked sheepish as her mother-in-law loudly excused her from various duties because her husband was home. He spoke to her that night about divorce. She cried all night. It was terrible, almost as if a judge were to sleep in the same bed with a condemned man. Say what he might, he knew he was consigning her to dishonorable widowhood for the rest of her life.

              His mother flew into a rage on being told. She would not hear of it. Liu went back to Hangzhou and stopped coming home altogether. His mother got his uncle to go up to Hangzhou and talk him out of his foolishness. He in turn managed to persuade a cousin to go and talk to his family. It took infernally long to negotiate through relatives who were, furthermore, unreliable transmitters of harsh words, being peacemakers at heart, especially where matrimony was concerned. To break up a marriage is a cardinal sin that automatically takes ten years off a man's given life span.

              Liu got a lawyer to write his wife an alarmingly worded request for divorce. His wife's family boiled over with rage. Even the head of the Liu clan was moved to express his anger.     Miss Chang and Liu continued to see each other. Outwardly, the divorce negotiations had not gained much ground in six years.

              Miss Chang's family never did approve. Now they kept reminding her that at twenty-six she was becoming an old maid. It was doubtful whether Liu was seriously trying to get a divorce. Also, it had been said Liu was actually quite poor because his estate left in the hands of an estranged wife.

              Miss Chou, a friend of Miss Chang told Liu confidentially that Miss Chang had been out to dinner with a pawnbroker, but she added, "It's all her family's doing." So she asked him not to blame Miss Chang.

             Unfortunately that evening Liu drank too much rice wine when they dined at a restaurant. "Congratulations, Miss Chang!" he said, "I hear you are going to invite us to your wedding feast." Miss Chang refused to join them that next day. Liu's letters were returned unopened. A week later Miss Chou reported that Miss Chang had again been dining with the pawnbroker. Everything was settled; the man had given her a big diamond engagement ring.

              Liu's divorce action had reached the point where it began to move through its own momentum. There were signs that his wife's side was now more ready to listen to reason. He would be a laughing-stock for the rest of his life if he were to return to his wife at this stage. So he went ahead with the divorce, giving his wife a generous settlement as he had promised. As soon as the decree was final he got a professional matchmaker to approach the Wang's on his behalf. The eldest Wang girl was reported to be the prettiest girl in town.

              After an exchange of photographs and due investigation, the Wang's accepted him. Liu sold a great part of his land and bought Miss Wang a diamond ring even bigger than the one Miss Chang was said to have received. He was married after three months.

              For some reason, Miss Chang's match did not come off. Maybe the pawnbroker had his doubts about modern girls and had heard something of Miss Chang's long attachment to Liu.       In the natural course of things Liu would have run into Miss Chang sooner or later, living in the same town. Finally at one night Liu and Miss Chang met at the West Lake by chance. It stunned him how she could look just the same when so much had happened.

              After going round the lake they landed and separated. The day after, Liu received a letter addressed to him in Miss Chang's handwriting. He tore it open, his heart pounding, and found a sheet of blank paper inside. He knew instantly what she meant. She had wanted to write him but what could she say?

              Soon it was no secret among their friends that they were again seeing a lot of each other. Liu again started divorce proceedings. This time he had very few sympathizers. He now looked like a scoundrel where he had once been a pioneer. It was another long struggle. He finally had to fight it out in the courts with his wife's family. Lawsuits were expensive. Liu got his divorce at the end of five years. Though in reduced circumstances, he had built a small white house exactly the way Miss Chang and he had planned it, on a site they had chosen long ago.

              The newlyweds paid routine visits to relatives. They were usually pressed to stay for dinner and play mahjong. Liu had never known her to be fond of the game. He told his wife it was good of her to comply but there was no need to keep it up all night and promise to come back for more the next day. She answered that people teased her into it, saying she could not bear to be away from her bridegroom a single minute.

              She complained of living so far out. When she came back late from her mahjong parties she often had difficulty finding a rickshaw puller willing to take her home. Then, half the time she lay in bed cracking melon seeds, spitting the shells over the bedclothes and into her slippers on the floor. His hints at taking more interest in her appearance were at first ignored. Then she flared up and said his fussiness was unmanly, "No wonder you never get anywhere."

              Liu did his best to keep up a good front. Still he supposed that news of their quarrels got about, because one day a relative mentioned casually to him that Miss Wang had not yet remarried, "Why don't you ask her to come back?"

              Liu shook his head sadly. He needed some persuasion, but of course he knew that the Wang's would agree that this was the best way out, much as they hated him. The family's good name would suffer if their daughter took a second husband.

              His wife, Miss Chang, did not hear of the matter until all arrangements had been made. Despite scenes and threats of suicide, the day Miss Wang returned to him escorted by members of the Wang family she was there to receive them and play hostess at the small informal celebration. She apologized for the dinner, "It's difficult for us to get a good cook, living so far away from the market. Terribly inconvenient. Else I would have made him fetch back your young lady long ago. Of course she ought to come and live here. One can't be staying with parents all the time."

              Not long afterward an elder of Liu’s clan spoke to him, "I see no reason why you shouldn't ask your first wife to come back. It would only be fair." Liu could not think of any valid objection either. He went down to the country where she was living with her family and brought her back to their little house by the lake.

              Both of his ex-wives were much richer than he was after the divorce settlements. However, they never helped him out, no matter what straits he got into from providing for three women and their squabbling servants and later their children. He could not really blame them, taking everything into consideration.

              Now that he had lived down the scandal and ridicule, people envied him his glamorous blessings- extraordinary in an age that was at least nominally monogamous, for it was already 1936. On the rare occasions when he tried to tell somebody he was unhappy, the listener would laugh, "Anyhow, there are four of you- just right for a nice game of mahjong."