how she felt about the matter. She agreed to be a ‘friend’ to young Mr Liu. At that time, if a boy and a girl were seen talking to each other in public, they had to be engaged, at the minimum. My mother was longing to have some fun and freedom, and to be able to make friends with men without committing herself to marriage. Dr Xia and my grandmother, knowing my mother, were cautious with the Lius, and declined all the customary presents. In the Chinese tradition, a woman’s family often did not consent to a marriage proposal immediately, as they should not appear too keen. If they accepted presents, this implicitly indicated consent. Dr Xia and my grandmother were worried about a misunderstanding.
My mother went out with young Liu for a while. She was rather taken with his urbanity, and all her relatives, friends, and neighbours said she had made a good match. Dr Xia and my grandmother thought they were a handsome couple, and had privately settled on him as their son-in-law. But my mother felt he was shallow. She noticed that he never went to Peking, but lounged around at home enjoying the life of a dilettante. One day she discovered he had not even read The Dream of the Red Chamber, the famous eighteenth-century Chinese classic, with which every literate Chinese was familiar. When she showed how disappointed she felt, young Liu said airily that the Chinese classics were not his forte, and that what he actually liked most was foreign literature. To try to reassert his superiority, he added: ‘Now, have you read Madame Bovary? That’s my all-time favourite. I consider it the greatest of Maupassant’s works.’
My mother had read Madame Bovary—and she knew it was by Flaubert, not Maupassant. This vain sally put her off Liu in a big way, but she refrained from confronting him there and then—to do so would have been considered ‘shrewish’.
Liu loved gambling, particularly mah-jongg, which bored my mother to death. One evening soon afterwards, in the middle of a game, a female servant came in and asked: ‘Which maid would Master Liu like to serve him in bed?’ In a very casual way, Liu said ‘So-and-so.’ My mother was shaking with anger, but all Liu did was to raise his eyebrow as though he was surprised at her reaction. Then he said in a supercilious way: ‘This is a perfectly common custom in Japan. Everybody does it. It’s called si-qin (“bed with service”).’ He was trying to make my mother feel she was being provincial and jealous, which was traditionally regarded in China as one of the worst vices in a woman, and grounds for a husband to disown his wife. Once again my mother said nothing, even though she was boiling with rage inside.
My mother decided she could not be happy with a husband who regarded flirtations and extramarital sex as essential aspects of ‘being a man’. She wanted someone who loved her, who would not want to hurt her by doing this sort of thing. That evening she made up her mind to end the relationship.
A few days later Mr Liu senior suddenly died. In those days a spectacular funeral was very important, particularly if the dead person had been the head of the family. A funeral which failed to meet the expectations of the relatives and of society would bring disapproval on the family. The Lius wanted an elaborate ceremony, not simply a procession from the house to the cemetery. Monks were brought in to read the Buddhist sutra of ‘putting the head down’ in the presence of the whole family. Immediately after this, the family members burst out crying. From then to the day of the burial, on the forty-ninth day after the death, the sound of weeping and wailing was supposed to be heard nonstop from early morning until midnight, accompanied by the constant burning of artificial money for the deceased to use in the other world. Many families could not keep up this marathon, and hired professionals to do the job for them. The Lius were too filial to do this, and did all the keening themselves, with the help of relatives, of whom there were many.
On the forty-second day after his death, the corpse which had been put in a beautifully carved sandalwood coffin was placed in a marquee in the courtyard. On each of the last seven nights before his interment the dead man was supposed to ascend a high mountain in the other world and look down on his whole family; he would only be happy if he saw that every member of his family was present and taken care of. Otherwise, it was believed, he would never find rest. The family wanted my mother to be there as the intended daughter-in-law.
She refused. She felt sad for old Mr Liu, who had been kind to her, but if she attended, she would never be able to get out of marrying his son. Relays of messengers from the Liu family came to the Xia house.
Dr Xia told my mother that breaking her relationship at this moment was tantamount to letting Mr Liu senior down, and that this was dishonourable. Although he would not have objected to my mother breaking up with young Mr Liu normally, he felt that under the circumstances her wishes should be subordinated to a higher imperative. My grandmother also thought she should go. In addition she said, ‘Who ever heard of a girl rejecting a man because he got the name of some foreign writer wrong, or because he had affairs? All rich young men like to have fun and sow their wild oats. Besides, you have no need to worry about concubines and maids. You’re a strong character; you can keep your husband under control.’
This was not my mother’s idea of the life she wanted, and she said so. In her heart, my grandmother agreed. But she was frightened about keeping my mother at home because of the persistent proposals from Kuomintang officers, ‘We can say no to one, but not to all of them,’ she told my mother. ‘If you don’t marry Zhang, you will have to accept Lee. Think it over: isn’t Liu much better than the others? If you marry him, no officer will be able to bother you any more. I worry day and night about what may happen to you. I won’t be able to rest until you leave the house.’ But my mother said she would rather die than marry someone who could not give her happiness—and love.
The Lius were furious with my mother, and so were Dr Xia and my grandmother. For days they argued, pleaded, cajoled, shouted, and wept, to no avail. Finally, for the first time since he had hit her as a child for sitting in his seat on the kang, Dr Xia flew into a rage with my mother. ‘What you are doing is bringing shame on the name of Xia. I don’t want a daughter like you!’ My mother stood up and flung back the words: ‘All right, then, you won’t have a daughter like me. I’m leaving!’ She stormed out of the room, packed her things, and left the house.
In my grandmother’s time, leaving home like this would have been out of the question. There were no jobs for women, except as servants, and even they had to have references. But things had changed. In 1946 women could live on their own and find work, like teaching or medicine, although working was still regarded as the last resort by most families. In my mother’s school was a teacher training department which offered free board and tuition for girls who had completed three years in the school. Apart from an exam, the only condition for entry was that the graduates had to become teachers. Most pupils in the department were either from poor families who could not afford to pay for an education or people who did not think they had a chance to get into a university, and therefore did not want to stay on at the normal high school. It was only since 1945 that women could contemplate getting into a university; under the Japanese, they could not go beyond high school, where they were mainly taught how to run a family.
Up till now my mother had never considered going to this department, which was generally looked down on as second best. She had always thought of herself as university material. The department was a little surprised when she applied, but she persuaded them of her fervent wish to join the teaching profession. She had not yet finished her obligatory three years in the school, but she was known as a star pupil. The department gladly took her after giving her an exam which she passed with little difficulty. She went to live in the school. It was not long before my grandmother rushed over to beg her to come home. My mother was glad to have a reconciliation; she promised she would go home and stay often. But she insisted on keeping her bed on the campus; she was determined not to be dependent on anyone, however much they loved her. For her, the department was ideal. It guaranteed her a job after graduation, whereas university graduates often could not find jobs. Another advantage was that it was free—and Dr Xia was already beginning to suffer the effects of the mismanagement of the economy.
The
