was hardly time for my grandmother to give my mother a quick hug—besides, she did not want to wake her, in case she made a noise and alerted the guards. She and her sister mounted the two horses while my mother was tied onto the back of one of the horsemen, and they headed off into the night. The horsemen had been paid well, and ran fast. By dawn they were at Changli, and before the alarm could be given, they had caught the train north. When the train finally drew into Yixian towards nightfall, my grandmother fell to the ground and lay there for a long time, unable to move.
She was comparatively safe, 200 miles from Lulong and effectively out of reach of the Xue household. She could not take my mother to her house, for fear of the servants, so she asked an old school friend if she could hide my mother. The friend lived in the house of her father-in-law, a Manchu doctor called Dr Xia, who was well known as a kindly man who would never turn anyone away or betray a friend.
The Xue household would not care enough about my grandmother, a mere concubine, to pursue her. It was my mother, the blood descendant, who mattered. My grandmother sent a telegram to Lulong saying my mother had fallen ill on the train and had died. There followed an agonizing wait, during which my grandmother’s moods oscillated wildly. Sometimes she felt that the family must have believed her story. But then she would torment herself with the thought that this might not be the case, and that they were sending thugs to drag her, or her daughter, back. Finally she consoled herself with the thought that the Xue family was far too preoccupied with the impending death of the patriarch to expend energy worrying about her, and that it was probably to the women’s advantage not to have her daughter around.
Once she realized the Xue family was going to leave her alone, my grandmother settled back quietly into her house in Yixian with my mother. She did not even worry about the servants, since she knew that her ‘husband’ would not be coming. The silence from Lulong lasted over a year, until one autumn day in 1933, when a telegram arrived informing her that General Xue had died, and that she was expected at Lulong immediately for the funeral.
The general had died in Tianjin in September. His body was brought back to Lulong in a lacquered coffin covered with red embroidered silk. Accompanying him were two other coffins, one similarly lacquered and draped in the same red silk as his own, the other of plain wood with no covering. The first coffin contained the body of one of his concubines, who had swallowed opium to accompany him in death. This was considered the height of conjugal loyalty. Later a plaque inscribed by the famous warlord Wu Pei-fu was put up in her honour in General Xue’s mansion. The second coffin contained the remains of another concubine, who had died of typhoid two years before. Her corpse had been exhumed for reburial alongside General Xue, as was the custom. Her coffin was of bare wood because, having died of a horrible illness, she was considered ill fortune. Mercury and charcoal had been placed inside each of the coffins to prevent the corpses rotting, and the bodies had pearls in their mouths.
General Xue and the two concubines were buried together in the same tomb; his wife and the other concubines would eventually be interred alongside them. At a funeral, the essential duty of holding a special flag for calling the spirit of the deceased had to be performed by the dead man’s son. As the general had no son, his wife adopted his ten-year-old nephew so he could carry out the task. The boy also enacted another ritual—kneeling by the side of the coffin and calling out ‘Avoid the nails!’ Tradition held that if this was not done, the dead person would be hurt by the nails.
The tomb site had been chosen by General Xue himself according to the principles of geomancy. It was in a beautiful, tranquil spot, backing onto distant mountains to the north, while the front faced a stream set among eucalyptus trees to the south. This location expressed the desire to have solid things behind on which to lean—mountains—and the reflection of the glorious sun, symbolizing rising prosperity, in front.
But my grandmother never saw the site: she had ignored her summons, and was not at the funeral. The next thing that happened was that the manager of the pawnshop failed to turn up with her allowance. About a week later, her parents received a letter from General Xue’s wife. My grandfather’s last words had been to give my grandmother her freedom. This, for its time, was exceptionally enlightened, and she could hardly believe her good fortune.
At the age of twenty-four, she was free.
‘Even Plain Cold Water Is Sweet’
My Grandmother Marries a Manchu Doctor
1933–1938
The letter from General Xue’s wife also asked my grandmother’s parents to take her back. Though the point was couched in the traditional indirect manner, my grandmother knew that she was being ordered to move out.
Her father took her in, but with considerable reluctance. By now he had abandoned any pretence of being a family man. From the moment he had arranged the liaison with General Xue, he had risen in the world. As well as being promoted to deputy chief of the Yixian police and entering the ranks of the well-connected, he had become relatively rich, and had bought some land and taken up smoking opium.
No sooner had he been promoted than he acquired a concubine, a Mongolian woman who was presented to him by his immediate boss. Giving a concubine as a present to an up-and-coming colleague was a common practice, and the local police chief was happy to oblige a protégé of General Xue. But my great-grandfather soon began casting around for another concubine; it was good for a man in his position to have as many as possible—they showed a man’s status. He did not have to look far: the concubine had a sister.
When my grandmother returned to her parents’ house, the setup was quite different from when she had left almost a decade before. Instead of just her unhappy, downtrodden mother, there were now three spouses. One of the concubines had produced a daughter, who was the same age as my mother. My grandmother’s sister, Lan, was still unmarried at the advanced age of sixteen, which was a cause of irritation to Yang.
My grandmother had moved from one cauldron of intrigue into another. Her father was resentful of both her and her mother. He resented his wife simply for being there, and he was even more unpleasant to her now that he had the two concubines, whom he favoured over her. He took his meals with the concubines, leaving his wife to eat on her own. My grandmother he resented for returning to the house when he had successfully created a new world for himself.
He also regarded her as a jinx (ke), because she had lost her husband. In those days, a woman whose husband had died was superstitiously held responsible for his death. My great-grandfather saw his daughter as bad luck, a threat to his good fortune, and he wanted her out of the house.
The two concubines egged him on. Before my grandmother came back, they had been having things very much their own way. My great-grandmother was a gentle, even weak person. Although she was theoretically the superior of the concubines, she lived at the mercy of their whims. In 1930 she gave birth to a son, Yu-lin. This deprived the concubines of their future security, as on my great-grandfather’s death all his property would automatically go to his son. They would throw tantrums if Yang showed any affection at all to his son. From the moment Yu-lin was born, they stepped up their psychological warfare against my great-grandmother, freezing her out in her own house. They only spoke to her to nag and complain, and if they looked at her it was with cold stony faces. My great-grandmother got no support from her husband, whose contempt for her was not pacified by the fact
