My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard

Part 1.. -Preface_.

-Preface_.

A writer on things Chinese was asked why one found so little writing upon the subject of the women of China. He stopped, looked puzzled for a moment, then said, "The woman of China! One never hears about them. I believe no one ever thinks about them, except perhaps that they are the mothers of the Chinese men!"

Such is the usual attitude taken in regard to the woman of the flowery Republic. She is practically unknown, she hides herself behind her husband and her sons, yet, because of that filial piety, that almost religious veneration in which all men of Eastern races hold their parents, she really exerts an untold influence upon the deeds of the men of her race.

Less is known about Chinese women than about any other women of Oriental lands. Their home life is a sealed book to the average person visiting China. Books about China deal mainly with the lower-class Chinese, as it is chiefly with that class that the average visitor or missionary comes into contact. The tourists see only the coolie woman bearing burdens in the street, trotting along with a couple of heavy baskets swung from her shoulders, or they stop to stare at the neatly dressed mothers sitting on their low stools in the narrow alleyways, patching clothing or fondling their children. They see and hear the boat-women, the women who have the most freedom of any in all China, as they weave their sampans in and out of the crowded traffic on the canals. These same tourists visit the tea-houses and see the gaily dressed "sing-song" girls, or catch a glimpse of a gaudily painted face, as a lady is hurried along in her sedan-chair, carried on the shoulders of her chanting bearers. But the real Chinese woman, with her hopes, her fears, her romances, her children, and her religion, is still undiscovered.

I hope that this book, based on letters shown me many years after they were written, will give a faint idea of the life of a Chinese lady. The story is told in two series of letters conceived to be written by Kwei-li, the wife of a very high Chinese official, to her husband when he accompanied his master, Prince Chung, on his trip around the world.

She was the daughter of a viceroy of Chih-li, a man most advanced for his time, who was one of the forerunners of the present educational movement in China, a movement which has caused her youth to rise and demand Western methods and Western enterprise in place of the obsolete traditions and customs of their ancestors. To show his belief in the new spirit that was breaking over his country, he educated his daughter along with his sons. She was given as tutor Ling-Wing-pu, a famous poet of his province, who doubtless taught her the imagery and beauty of expression which is so truly Eastern.

Within the beautiful ancestral home of her husband, high on the mountains-side outside of the city of Su-Chau, she lived the quite, sequestered life of the high-class Chinese woman, attending to the household duties, which are not light in these patriarchal homes, where an incredible number of people live under the same rooftree. The sons bring their wives to their father's house instead of establishing separate homes for themselves, and they are all under the watchful eye of the mother, who can make a veritable prison or a palace for her daughters-in-law. In China the mother reigns supreme.

The mother-in-law of Kwei-li was an old-time conservative Chinese lady, the woman who cannot adapt herself to the changing conditions, who resents change of methods, new interpretations and fresh expressions of life. She sees in the new ideas that her sons bring from the foreign schools disturbers only of her life's ideals. She instinctively feels that they are gathering about her retreat, beating at her doors, creeping in at her closely shuttered windows, even winning her sons from her arms. She stands an implacable foe of progress and she will not admit that the world is moving on, broadening its outlook and clothing itself in a new expression. She feels that she is being left behind with her dead gods, and she cries out against the change which is surely but slowly coming to China, and especially to Chinese women, with the advent of education and the knowledge of the outside world.

In a household in China a daughter-in-law is of very little importance until she is the mother of a son. Then, from being practically a servant of her husband's mother, she rises to place of equality and is looked upon with respect. She has fulfilled her once great duty, the thing for which she was created: she has given her husband a son to worship at his grave and at the graves of his ancestors. The great prayer which rises from the heart of all Chinese women, rich and poor, peasant and princess, is to Kwan-yin, for the inestimable blessing of sons. "Sons! Give me sons!" is heard in every temple. To be childless is the greatest sorrow that can come to Chinese women, as she fully realizes that for this cause her husband is justified in putting her away for another wife, and she may not complain or cry out, except in secret, to her Goddess of Mercy, who has not answered her prayers. Understanding this, we can dimly realise the joy of Kwei-li upon the birth of her son, and her despair upon his death.

At this time, when she was in very depths of despondency, when she had turned from the gods of her people, when it was feared that her sorrow, near to madness, she would take the little round ball of sleep-- opium-- that was brought rest to so many despairing women in China, her servants brought her the Gospel of St. John, which they bought of an itinerant colporteur in the market-place, hoping that it might interest her. In the long nights when sleep would not come to her, she read it-- and found the peace she sought.

1 My Dear One, The house on the mountain-top has lost its soul. It is nothing but a palace with empty windows. I go upon the terrace and look over the valley where the sun sinks a golden red ball, casting long purple shadows on the plain. Then I remember that thou art not coming from the city to me, and I stay to myself that there can be no dawn that I care to see, and no sunset to gladden my eyes, unless I share it with thee.

But do not think I am unhappy. I do everything the same as if thou wert here, and in everything I say, "Would this please my master?" Meh-ki wished to put thy long chair away, as she said it was too big; but I did not permit. It must rest where I can look at it and imagine I see thee lying it, smoking thy water pipe; and the small table is always near by, where thou canst reach out thy hand for thy papers and the drink thou lovest. Meh-ki also brought out the dwarf pine-tree and put it on the terrace, but I remembered thou saidst it looked like an old man who had been beaten in his childhood, and I gave it to her for one of the inner courtyards. She thinks it very beautiful, and so I did once; but I have learned to see with thine eyes, and I know now that a tree made straight and beautiful and tall by the Gods is more to be regarded than one that has been bent and twisted by man.

Such a long letter I am writing thee. I am so glad that though madest me promise to write thee every seventh day, and to tell thee all that passes within my household and my heart. Thine Honourable Mother says it is not seemly to send communication from mine hand to thine. She says it was a thing unheard of in her girlhood, and that we younger generations have passed the limits of all modesty and womanliness. She wishes me to have the writer or thy brother send thee the news of thine household; but that I will not permit. It must come from me, thy wife. Each one of these strokes will come to thee bearing my message. Thou wilt not tear the covering roughly as thou didst those great official letters; nor wilt thou crush the papers quickly in thy hand, because it is the written word of Kwei-li, who sends with each stroke of brush a part of her heart.

2 My Dear One, My first letter to thee was full of sadness and longing because thou wert newly gone from me. Now a week has passed, the sadness is still in my heart, but it is buried deep for only me to know. I have my duties which must be done, my daily tasks that only I can do since thine Honourable Mother has handed me the keys of the rice-bin. I realise the great honour she does me, and that at last she trusts me and believes me no child as she did when I first entered her household.

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