Your daughter,
Kwei-li
5
My Dear Mother,
We are in the midst of a most perplexing problem, and one that is hard for us to cope with, as it is so utterly new. My children seem to have formed an alliance amongst themselves in opposition to the wishes of their parents on all subjects touching the customs and traditions of the family. My son, you remember, was betrothed in childhood to the daughter of his father’s friend, the governor of Chih-li. He is a man now, and should fulfill that most solemn obligation that we, his parents, laid upon him—and he refuses. I can see you sit back aghast at his lack of filial spirit; and I, too, am aghast. I cannot understand this generation; I’m afraid that I cannot understand these, my children. My boy insists that he will marry a girl of his own choice, a girl with a foreign education like his own. We have remonstrated, we have urged, we have commanded, and now at last a compromise has been effected. We have agreed that when she comes to us, teachers shall be brought to the house and she shall be taught the new learning. Along with the duties of wife she shall see the new life around her and from it take what is best for her to know.
I can understand his desire to have a wife with whom he may talk of the things of common interest to them both, a wife who can share with him, at least in part, the life beyond the women’s courtyard. I remember how I felt when your son returned from foreign lands, filled with new sights, new thoughts in which I could not share. I had been sitting quietly behind closed doors, and I felt that I could not help in this new vision that had come to him. I could speak to only one side of his life, when I wished to speak to all; but I studied, I learned, and, as far as it is possible for a Chinese woman, I have made my steps agree with those of my husband, and we march close, side by side.
My son would like his wife to be placed in a school, the school from which my daughter has just graduated; but I will not allow it. I am not in favor of such schools for our girls. It has made of Wan-li a half-trained Western woman, who finds music in the piano instead of the lute, who quotes from Shelley, and Wordsworth, instead of from the Chinese classics, who thinks embroidery work for servants, and the ordering of her household a thing beneath her great mental status.
I, of course, wish her to marry at once; as to me that is the holiest desire of woman—to marry and give men-children to the world; but it seems the word “marry” has opened the door to floods of talk to which I can only listen in silent amazement. I never before had realized that I have the honor of bearing children with such tongues of eloquence; and I fully understand that I belong to the past, a very ancient past—the Mings, from what I hear, are my contemporaries. And all these words are poured upon me to try to persuade me to allow Wan-li to become a doctor. Can you imagine it? A daughter of the house of Liu a doctor! From whence has she received these unseemly ideas except in this foreign school that teaches the equality of the sexes to such an extent that our daughters want to compete with men in their professions! I am not so much of the past as my daughter seems to think; for I believe, within certain bounds, in the social freedom of our women: but why commercial freedom? For centuries untold, men have been able to support their wives; why enter the marketplaces? Is it not enough that they take care of the home, that they train the children and fulfill the duties of the life in which the gods place women? My daughter is not ugly, she is most beautiful; yet she says she will not marry. I tell her that when her eyes are opened to the loved one, they will be closed to all the world beside, and this desire to enter the great world of turmoil and strife will flee like dewdrops before the summer’s dawn. I also quoted her what I told Chih-peh many moons ago, when he refused to marry the wife you had chosen for him: “Man attains not by himself, nor woman by herself, but like the one-winged birds of the ancient legend, they must rise together.”
My daughter tossed her head and answered me that those were doubtless words of great wisdom, but they were written by a man long dead, and it did not affect her ideas upon the subject of her marriage.
We dare not insist, for we find, to our horror, that she has joined a band of girls who have made a vow, writing it with their blood, that—rather than become wives to husbands not of their own choice—they will cross the River of Death. Fifteen girls, all friends of my daughter, and all of whom have been studying the new education for women, have joined this sisterhood; and we, their mothers, are in despair. What can we do? Shall we insist that they return to the old regime and learn nothing but embroidery? Why can they not take what is best for Eastern woman from the learning of the West, as the bee selects honey from each flower, and leave the rest? It takes centuries of training to change the habits and thoughts of a nation. It cannot be done at once; our girls have not the foundation on which to build. Our womanhood has been trained by centuries of caressing care to look as lovely as nature allows, to learn obedience to father as a child, to husband as a wife, and to children when age comes with his frosty fingers.
Yet we all know that the last is a theory only to be read in books. Where is there one so autocratic in her own home as a Chinese mother? She lives within its four walls, but there she is supreme. Her sons obey her even when their hair is touched with silver. Did not your son have to ask your leave before he would decide that he could go with His Highness to the foreign lands? Did he not say frankly that he must consult his mother, and was he not honored and given permission to come to his home to have your blessing? Do you remember when Yuan was appointed secretary to the embassy in London, and declined the honor because his mother was old and did not wish her only son to journey overseas; he gave up willingly and cheerfully the one great opportunity of his life rather than bring sorrow to the one who bore him.
A similar case came to our ears but a few days ago. Some priests of a foreign mission came to my husband and wished him to intercede as governor and command the Taotai of Soochow to sell to them a piece of land on which to erect a temple of their faith. When the Taotai was asked why he was so persistent in his refusal, he told the governor that the temple where his mother worshiped was in a direct line with the proposed new foreign house of worship. His mother feared that a spire would be placed upon its rooftree that would intercept the good spirits of the air and keep them from bringing the blessings from the temple directly to her family rooftree. My husband tried to persuade him that the superstitions of a woman long in years should not stand in the way of a possible quarrel with men of a foreign power, but the Taotai only shrugged his shoulders and said, “What can I do? She is my mother. I cannot go against her expressed commands” and—the temple to the foreign god will not be built.
But it is as foolish to talk to Wan-li as “to ask the loan of a comb from a Buddhist nun.” She will not listen; or, if she does, a smile lies in the open lily of her face, and she bows her head in mock submission; then instantly lifts it again with new arguments learned from foreign books, and arguments that I in my ignorance cannot refute.
I feel that I am alone on a strange sea with this, my household; and I am in deadly fear that she will do some shocking thing, like those girls from the school in Foochow who, dressed in their brothers’ clothing, came to Nanking and asked to be allowed to fight on the side of the republic. Patriotism is a virtue, but the battlefield is a man’s place. Let the women stay at home and make the bandages to bind the wounded, and keep the braziers lighted to warm returning men.
I will not write you more of troubles, but I will tell you that your box of clothing came and is most welcome; also the cooking oil, which gave our food the taste of former days. The oils and sauces bought at shops are not so pure as those your servants make within the compound, nor does the cook here prepare things to my taste. Can you send me Feng-yi, who understands our customs? Your son has no great appetite, and I hope that food prepared in homely ways may tempt him to linger at the table longer. He is greatly overworked, and if he eats not well, with enjoyment of his rice, the summer will quite likely find him ill.
Your daughter an
d your family who touch your hand,
Kwei-li
6
My Dear Mother,
Your letter came, and I thank you for your advice. It is most difficult to act upon. I cannot shut Wan-li within an inner chamber, nor can I keep her without rice until she sees the wisdom of her ways. The times are truly different; we mothers of the present have lost our power to control our children, and cannot as in former days compel obedience. I can only talk to her; she laughs. I quote to her the words of the Sage: “Is any blessing better than to give a man a son, man’s prime desire by which he and his name shall live beyond himself; a foot for him to stand on, a hand to stop his falling, so that in his son’s youth he will be young again, and in his strength be strong.” Be the mother of men; and I hear that that is China’s trouble. She has too many children, too many thousands of clutching baby fingers, too many tiny mouths asking for their daily food. I am told, by this learned daughter of mine, that China has given no new thing to the world for many tens of centuries. She has no time to write, no time to think of new inventions; she must work for the morrow’s rice. “How have you eaten?” is the salutation that one Chinese makes to another when meeting on a pathway; and in that question is the root of our greatest need. I am told that we are a nation of rank materialists; that we pray only for benefits that we may feel or see, instead of asking for the blessings of the Spirit to be sent us from above; that the women of my time and kind are the ruins of the country, with our cry of sons, sons!
But if our girls flaunt motherhood, if this thought of each one for himself prevails, what will become of us, a nation that depends upon its worship of the ancestors for its only practical religion? The loosening of the family bonds, the greater liberty of the single person, means the lessening of the restraining power of this old religion which depends upon the family life and the unity of that life. To do away with it is to do away with the greatest influence for good in China today. What will become of the filial piety that has been the backbone of our country? This family life has always been, from time immemorial, the foundation stone of our empire, and filial piety is the foundation stone of the family life that binds the Chinese people in bonds strong as ropes of twisted bamboo.
Our boys and girls will not listen; they are trying to be what they are not, trying to wear clothes not made for them, trying to be like nations and people utterly foreign to them; and they will not succeed. But, “into a sack holding a ri only a ri will go,” and these sacks of our young people are full to overflowing with this, which seems to me dearly acquired knowledge, and there is not room for more. Time will help, and they will learn caution and discretion in life’s halls of experience, and we can only guard their footsteps as best we may.
In the meantime, Mother of mine, my days are full and worried, and I, as in the olden time, can only come to you with my rice bowl filled with troubles and pour them all into your kindly lap. It is my only comfort, as your son is bitter and will not talk with patience, and it would not be seemly for me to open wide my heart to strangers; but I know you love me and are full of years and knowledge and will help me find the way.
Kwei-li
7
My Dear Mother,
These are most troubled times, and your son is harassed to the verge of sickness. Shanghai is filled with Chinese who come seeking foreign protection. Within the narrow confines of the foreign settlements, it is said, there are nearly a million Chinese, half of them refugees from their home provinces, fearing for their money or their lives, or both. The great red houses on the fashionable streets, built by the English for their homes, are sold at fabulous prices to these gentlemen, who have brought their families and their silver to the only place they know where the foreign hand is strong enough to protect them from their own people. There are many queer tales; some are simply the breath of the unkind winds that seem to blow from nowhere but gain in volume with each thing they touch. Tan Toatai, who paid 300,000 taels for his position as Taotai of Shanghai, and who left for his home province with 3,000,000 taels, as the gossips say, was asked to contribute from his plenty for the new government. He promised; then changed his mind, and carefully gathered all his treasures together and left secretly one night for Shanghai. Now he is in fear of his life and dares not leave the compound walls of the foreigner who has befriended him.
It makes one wonder what the use is of these fortunes that bring endless sorrow by the misery of winning them, guarding them, and the fear of losing them. They who work for them are as the water buffalo who turns the waterwheel and gets but his daily food and the straw-thatched hut in which he rests. For the sake of this food and lodging, which falls to the lot of all, man wastes his true happiness—which is so hard to win.
These Chinese of the foreign settlements seem alien to me. Yuan called upon your son the other day, and had the temerity to ask for me—a most unheard-of thing. I watched him as he went away, dressed in European clothes, as nearly all our younger men are clothed these days, and one would never know that he had worn his hair otherwise than short. There are no more neatly plaited braids hanging down the back, and the beautiful silks and satins, furs and peacock feathers are things of the past. These peacock feathers, emblems of our old officialdom, are now bought by foreign ladies as a trimming on their hats. Shades of Li Hung-chang and Chang Chih-tung! What will they say if looking over the barriers they see the insignia of their rank and office gracing the flowing headgear of the tourists who form great parties and come racing from over the seas to look at us as queer animals from another world?
It is not only the men who are copying the foreign customs and clothing. Our women are now seen in public, driving with their husbands, or walking arm in arm upon the public street. I even saw a Chinese woman driving that “devil machine,” a motor car, with her own hands. She did not seem a woman, but an unsexed thing that had as little of womanhood as the car that took her along so swiftly. I promised to send Tah-li the new hair ornaments worn now. The old jewels are laid aside, the jade and pearls are things of the past. The hair is puffed and knotted in a way most unbecoming to the face. It is neither of the East nor of the West, but a half-caste thing, that brands its wearer as a woman of no race.
Do you remember the story over which the Chinese in all the empire laughed within their sleeves? Her Majesty, the Empress Dowager, was on most friendly terms with the wife of the Minister of the United States of America, and on one occasion gave her as a gift a set of combs enclosed within a box of silver. The foreign lady was delighted, and did not see the delicate sarcasm hidden within the present. Combs—the foreign ladies need them! We Chinese like the locks most smoothly brushed and made to glisten and shine with the scented elm, but they, the foreign ladies, allow them to straggle in rude disorder around their long, grave faces, which are so ugly in our eyes.
You asked me for the latest style in dress. It is impossible to say the latest style. Some women wear a jacket far too short and trousers tight as a coat sleeve. The modest ones still cover them with skirts; but I have seen women walking along the street who should certainly stay within the inner courtyard and hide their shame. For those who wear the skirt, the old, wide-pleated model has gone by, and a long black skirt that is nearly European is now worn. It is not graceful, but it is far better than the trousers worn by women who walk along so stiffly upon their “golden lilies.” These tiny feet to me are beautiful, when covered with gay embroidery they peep from scarlet skirts; but they too are passing, and we hear no more the crying of the children in the courtyards. I am told that the small-footed woman of China is one of the past, along with the long fingernails of our gentlemen and scholars; and I am asked why I do not unbind my feet. I say, “I am too old; I have suffered in the binding, why suffer in the unbinding?” I have conceded to the new order by allowing unbound feet to all my girls, and everywhere my family is held up as an example of the new Chinese. They do not know of the many bitter tears I have shed over the thought that my daughters would look like women of t
he servant class and perhaps not make a good marriage; but I was forced to yield to their father, whose foreign travel taught him to see beauty in the ugly, natural feet. Even now when I see Wan-li striding across the grass, I blush for her and wish she could walk more gracefully. My feet caused me many moons of pain, but they are one of the great marks of my ladyhood, and I yet feel proud as I come into a room with the gentle swaying motions of the bamboo in a breeze; although my daughter who supports me takes one great step to five of mine.
The curse of foot binding does not fall so heavily upon women like myself, who may sit and embroider the whole day through, or, if needs must travel, can be borne upon the shoulder of their chair bearers, but it is a bane to the poor girl whose parents hope to have one in the family who may marry above their station, and hoping thus, bind her feet. If this marriage fails and she is forced to work within her household, or, even worse, if she is forced to toil within the fields or add her mite gained by most heavy labor to help fill the many eager mouths at home, then she should have our pity. We have all seen the small-footed women pulling heavy boats along the towpath, or leaning on their hoes to rest their tired feet while working in the fields of cotton. To her each day is a day of pain; and this new law forbidding the binding of the feet of children will come as Heaven’s blessing. But it will not cease at once, as so many loudly now proclaim. It will take at least three generations; her children’s children will all quite likely have natural feet. The people far in the country, far from the noise and change and progress, will not feel immediately that they can wander so far afield from the old ideas of what is beautiful in their womanhood.
I notice, as I open wide my casement, that the rain has come, and across the distant fields it is falling upon the new-sown rice and seems to charm the earth into the thought that spring is here, bringing forth the faint green buds on magnolia, ash, and willow. Do you remember the verse we used to sing:
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