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."
