It takes a certain kind of person to live in China now….Someone who can see true meanings, someone who does not only want the world better but believes it can be made better, and gets angry because it is not done, someone who is not willing to hide himself in one of the few good places left in the world–someone who is tough!

While perhaps what Ted Koppel has dubbed the “People’s Republic of Capitalism“, and its fixation on wealth accumulation, may have a hand in it, this explanation seems far too simplistic for such a large country with 1.3 billion and plenty of diversity behind it.

I should know, as my Chinese husband studied moral psychology in graduate school at Shanghai Normal University. According to his studies, values are influenced by our family environment and our upbringing, and the record is not good for Chinese families, even those from well to do families. One of his favorite books, titled 教师与家庭教育 (Teacher and Family Education) listed common errors in parenting among Chinese families. At the top of the list was this one:

重视孩子的身体素质，忽视心理素质

Value children’s physical well-being, ignore their psychological well-being.

I have seen this reality play out time and time again in many Chinese families, including my own inlaws back in China, who seem to believe that it’s simply enough to feed, clothe and house their children. This is how many Chinese families show their love, and fulfill their duty to their household. But it’s often not enough.

My husband used to work with inner-city Chinese immigrant families in Cleveland, Ohio, and he saw the result of this error in action. These parents, usually high-school (or less) educated people from Guangdong, would keep their children well-fed and well-dressed, even buying them the latest shoes that they could barely afford on their meager salaries from restaurant or factory work. But the children were completely unsocialized and lacked any sense of morality. Many of them ended up dropping out of high school and becoming delinquent.  Sure, it didn’t help that the kids were attending inner-city schools, but ultimately, if the parenting is proper, it can help to counteract these effects.

One could argue that this is a trend that came along in the age of the iPhone and BMW in a new, modern China. But the thing is, Pearl S. Buck wrote about this more than 60 years ago in a book titled The Pavillion of Women.

Madame Wu, a beauty even in middle age, is the perfect Chinese matron and head of household. She is conscientious about the Confucian hierarchy of every member of the family, giving appropriate obeisances to her husband’s mother, and making sure that her four sons and their wives are always afforded the housing and resources befitting their positions in life. She, too, understands the importance of fulfilling her duty to her household and her husband — so much so that, at the age of 40, she realizes that one duty (sleeping with her husband when he so demands it) could have such embarrassing circumstances (getting pregnant) that she decides to arrange for the perfect concubine for him, against his will, and even the will of the family.

No one understands, especially not her friend Madame Kang, whom she grew up with, and with whom Madame Wu shares a certain friendship of convenience. Madame Kang, unlike Madame Wu, is not attractive, and, with eleven children and their thirteen grandchildren (the small ones are allowed to urinate and defecate freely about the house, to the displeasure of Madame Wu on her visits), presides over a home without the peace of Madame Wu’s, even despite Madame Wu’s decision. When Madame Kang needs peace because of her visitor, once she bribes the children with an offer to have the maids and nurses buy them unshelled peanuts.

Buying an orphan girl, Chiuming, to lay with her husband truly turns Madame Wu’s house upside down. When the girl arrives, Madame Wu’s third son Fengmo accidentally sees her, and she falls in love with him, prompting a hasty and tumultuous union between him and Madame Kang’s daughter Linyi to help bury the incident. Chiuming feels unhappy in Mr. Wu’s bed, and even Mr. Wu, after she becomes pregnant, turns from her to instead find the easy, breezy pleasure of the flower house girls. Madame Wu must even endure complaints from Rulan (the wife of her second son Tsemo), who continues the harbor the belief that Madame Wu hates her for her modern ideas of educating women and having an equal partnership in marriage, as well as being older than Tsemo and older than the first son’s wife (embarrassing for the hierarchy of things).

It is Brother Andre, the priest who she engages to teach English to young Fengmo, in an effort to make him more marriagable, and later his wife Linyi, that finally sheds light on the error of Madame Wu’s ways — that she never considered the psychological and spiritual well-being of her family. It could easily have been a page from the Teachers and Family Education book of my husband’s. Brother Andre says:

“You have no considered that man is not entirely flesh….You have treated him with contempt.”

“You have considered only the filling of his stomach and the softness of his bed….And even worse than this, you have bought a young woman as you would buy a pound of pork. But a woman, any woman, is more than that, and of all women you should know it.”

Ultimately, there is more to running a family then simply providing for the basic needs, as many Chinese families do — there needs to be something much more. In the end, Madame Wu makes a stunning transformation, and discovers that duty is much more than feeding, clothing, housing and mating her family members.
Her own transformation restores peace and unity in the household, and provides Madame Wu with the greatest freedom of all.

Clearly, the issues of family education are nothing new in China, as Buck’s novel will attest to. But confronting them may be the key to making social transformation in China — and going beyond the “getting rich is glorious” emptiness of modern life in the Middle Kingdom.

Perhaps then, days such as these, there is nothing more comforting than literature that not only understands us, but uplifts us with the resilience of humanity in the face of hardship. Or, to put it simply, misery loves company.

If you’re looking for such a literary companion — and specifically a China-related one — you may enjoy Pearl S. Buck’s Dragon Seed. (Note to loyal readers — yes, I’m stuck on Buck as it were, and no, I have no idea when this love affair with her writing will end.)

Dragon Seed takes place on the eve of the Japanese invasion in East China (what seems to be the Shanghai area and surrounding environs), so it has all of the makings of a glorious disaster, far worse than our own. Yet, it is the perspective that gives the story its charm — that of Ling Tan, a farmer so fiercely devoted to the Earth that he even believes his earth stretches all the way to the other side of the planet (beware foreigners on the opposite side), and his family, which consists of his wife, Ling Sao, three sons (Lao Ta, Lao Er, Lao San) and two daughters (X and Panhsiao).  When the first signs of war — bombers flying over Ling Tan’s home — touch the land, no one, not even Ling Tan, believes there is anything of great concern to farmers like him. A country like China, with thousands of restless years of rebellion, infighting, warlords restling for power and the like, has endured regime change so often that people like Ling Tan only care for the safety of his land and family. But this time, it is much more than a new set of rulers sweeping out the old — it is ruthless destruction, completely divorced from all of the mores and values that, in good times, embody humanity. Soon Ling Tan finds his two prized possessions — land and family — in jeopardy, and can no longer hide from the pain of war.  It truly pales in comparison to our economic losses.

If the East-Ocean people (as the Japanese are referred to in the story) aim to dehumanize the area, it is Buck herself who saves humanity by bringing us such vivid, delightful characters who represent Chinese culture, yet have personality of their own. Naturally, being the feminist I am, I adore the strong women. There is the fiercely independent Jade, wife of Lao Er, who persuades him to buy her a book even if he cannot read, and who marches with her husband to the West, heavy with child, to escape the oncoming soldiers. There is also Ling Sao, Ling Tan’s wife, who, while occupying herself with many of the typical duties of a housewife is nevertheless stubborn and independent in her own right (refusing to leave the home, despite Ling Tan’s pleading at one point) and still the loveliest woman in the world to her dear husband. Panhsiao, while an unplanned child for the family, still longs to learn how to read and write even if she is a girl.

Along the way, complicated characters make trouble for Ling Tan in his fervent quest to save his land and family. There is a dodgy opium-addicted cousin, a somewhat traitorous merchant son-in-law, and even the war-torn personalities that emerge from his oldest and youngest son.

The story ends with Ling Tan asking “Is there not promise of rain?” — only to be told “only a promise” by his son. Things are never the same after a crisis, and so it must be for Ling Tan as he rises like a phoenix from the ashes of conflict. But just as we must face economic difficulties before us, no matter what, there is always a promise of something better, if only we have the patience to wait for it.

Happy reading!

But yet, there was always one part of the book I found heartbreaking, perhaps for personal reasons. In “A House Divided”, the character Yuan goes to the US to study, and nearly falls in love with the daughter of a Christian family — a soulful girl with penetrating dark eyes and hair, who somehow felt a connection with this “son of Han” from a country far away. I say Yuan “nearly” falls in love with her, because after a while, he decides against the idea of a union with a foreigner. Of course, this decision is understandable. Even today, the idea of marrying a foreign women is still met with reservations. Some see us as too casual or “complicated” (a euphemism the parent of a Chinese friend used to refer to questionable sexual orientation) than Chinese, or wonder if we could accept the Confucian family structure. Yet part of me still longed to find a literary counterpart in Buck’s stories, a foreign girl who could indeed marry a Chinese man and overcome the barriers to somehow still live “happily ever after”.

I only wish I had found “East Wind: West Wind”, a story where the ardent love between a Chinese man and foreign woman challenges the traditional Chinese family structure and view of the world, all that sooner.

Even better, “East Wind: West Wind” is a welcome read for any feminist (right here!) because the narrator is a woman. Specifically, Kwei-lan, the sister of the Chinese man who falls in love with the foreign woman. If you’ve read “House of Earth” and longed to get the woman’s perspective, here’s your chance. Ironically, though, it’s not Kwei-lan, but rather her foreign-schooled husband, who calls into question all of the traditional practices in Chinese society that quietly promote the inferiority of women. Certainly, there are the usual suspects, such as when he persuades her to unbind her feet (“How you have suffered!” he proclaims as he helps her with the painful process). But he also addresses more subtle, yet insidious, issues, such as the slavish deference of women to their husbands (“I shall never force you to anything. You are not my possession — my chattel. You may be my friend, if you will.”). For a woman such as Kwei-lan, whose entire childhood was in preparation for quiet servitude to the man she was long betrothed to, it is as painful as unbinding those “tiny lotuses” she learned to walk on long ago. The specters of this old world still linger on with each visit home, where her mother is confined to the bitter existence as a first wife, while her often absent father is drawn away by the next concubine or conveniently planned business trip that removes him from any domestic disputes.

The changes in Kwei-lan and her life are certainly cause for concern from her mother. But it is Kwei-lan’s brother, and his foreign wife, Mary, who create a seismic rift within the family structure.

As the wife of a Chinese man, I’ve often wondered about how people in China perceive my relationship. While it’s certainly not the last word, and perhaps somewhat dated (roughly set in the 1930s/1940s), East Wind: West Wind offers many clues to that end. I had to laugh, for example, at how Kwei-lan is shocked in Mary being much taller than her husband (same for me), or in Mary’s freedom (“But most of all, she likes to sit in the garden dreaming, doing nothing at all. I have not once seen any embroidery in her hands.”) or especially, in the ways that Mary and her husband display their affection openly (“She avows her love for my brother as simply as a child may seek its playmate. There is nothing hidden or subtle in her. How strange this is!”).

But even stranger to Kwei-lan is how she must become an ambassador for her brother and Mary, in their attempt to gain acceptance to the family. This whole chapter in the story is almost a rite of passage for any foreign wife of a Chinese man, and I relish it with a certain nostalgia, even when my husband had to make such declarations outwardly: “Although in her veins is foreign blood, she wishes me to tell our honorable mother that since she is married to me, her heart has become Chinese.” Mary’s eventual move with her husband into his old family home is much more of a cultural clash than I ever experienced when spending Chinese New Year at my husband’s family home. But while I may not have known the stinging seclusion imposed upon Mary, the situation made me reminisce on those frigid nights alone in my then-boyfriend’s old unheated bedroom, wondering what my potential future in-laws thought of me, or why people looked upon me so curiously. I only wish I had such a devoted friend as Kwei-lan, who defends Mary’s honor. In response to the suggestion that Mary is “so ridiculous and inhuman in appearance” that she “must expect to be looked at — and laughed at”, Kwei-lan declares “Nevertheless, she is human, and she has feelings like ours.”

And in the end, isn’t that what we all hope for — a universal acceptance and understanding that transcends countries and cultures? I think Buck puts it best in the words of Kwei-lan’s husband, who declares the joy of the marriage between her brother and Mary: “Those two hearts, with all of their difference in birth and rearing — differences existing centuries ago! What union!”