Selections from The Asian-Pacific American Heritage

Selected articles from
The Asian Pacific American Heritage:
a Companion to Literature and Arts

Lunar New Year, The Moon Lady and the Moon Festival
by Molly H. Isham

Chinese New Year At Grandma's House

In the United States, even very assimilated Asian Americans still enjoy celebrating the great holiday of Lunar New Year. In San Francisco, the schools even have off, so many students-- Asian and non Asian-- love to take part. (The only other ethnic holiday as popular is Cinco de Mayo!) The United States Postal Service now issues stamps every year commemorating the new Lunar year, with Chinese calligraphy giving the year's name, and an appropriate animal symbol.

Every twelve years in the Chinese calerdar is a cycle, and each year is represented by an animal symbol. The twelve animals are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Serpent, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Boar. The year 2000 in the western calendar was the Year of the Dragon, 4698th year in the lunar calendar. 2001 is the year of the Snake. Regardless in which part of the world the Chinese people live, they always have a big celebration during the Lunar New Year. I have vivid memories of the Lunar New Year celebrations at my grandmother's place in China in the 1930's.

As a young child I lived with my parents in the British Concession of * Tianjin, North China, better known to westerners as Tientsin. My * Wai Po, maternal grandmother, lived in Peking, today's * Beijing, only a little over an hour away by * Huoche, train. During every major festival, like * Duan Wu Jie, Dragon Boat Festival, or * Zhong Qiu Jie, Moon Festival, my parents and I would go over to Grandma's house for a short stay. But, during * Zhongguo Xin Nian, the Chinese New Year, also called * Yinli Nian, Lunar New Year, we would stay and celebrate for at least a month. Weeks, even months, before the New Year, I would start counting the days and impatiently awaited its arrival.

The preparation for the New Year, actually began on * La Ba, December eighth on the Lunar calendar, and on that day my grandmother would make several big jars of * La Ba Cu ('Cu' is pronounced 'Tsu'), December 8th vinegar. She put a lot of * Suan, garlic, and a little bit of sugar into the dark brown * Zhenjiang vinegar, and they should be ready for consumption on New Year's Eve. Zhenjiang is a city in Jiangsu Province, about 137 miles west of Shanghai, famous for its high quality brown vinegar. She would also cook a big pot of * La Ba Zhou, December 8th porridge, a rice porridge eaten on that day.* La Ba Zhou is sweet, and has eight nourishing ingredients including glutinous rice, lotus seeds, dried Chinese dates, and different kinds of nuts and dried fruit. I remember how I used to love * La Ba Zhou; and if nobody stopped me, I could eat two big bowls of it.

The two weeks after * La Ba would be the busiest time for the women in the household. All the children had to have * Xin Yifu, new clothes, to wear on * Nian Chu Yi, New Year's Day. My mother and * Yima, Aunties, would go from shop to shop buying different color silks, blue for boys and maroon color for girls, to make * Mian Ao, padded jackets and * Mian Ku, padded pants for my cousins and myself. They would usually buy a new coat for Grandma and a fur hat or a warm winter vest for * Wai Gong, maternal grandfather, as well. As a rule, twice a year the family provided all the domestic servants with new clothes, once in Summer, and the other at Chinese New Year. By the time Mother got home with boxes of materials, Grandma's two favorite tailors were already in the sewing room taking the measurements of all the children. I hated to be measured, it took so long, and I was not allowed to move. Even the chirp of a bird would be an excuse for me to run outside, then have my Amah chase after me all around the courtyard.

Grandma loved to shop at the farmers' market, so during those two weeks she would stock up on * Shuiguo, fruits, and * Lingshi, between-meal nibbles, for the * Guo Pan, fruit plate, a big round bowl-shape plate with a lid, twelve to fifteen inches in diameter; it had dividers making it possible for the plate to hold nine different kinds of * Guofu, dried fruits, * Guoren, nuts, and *Guazi, melon seeds. She would take me on most of those trips, and my Amah would go along to help carry the heavy baskets. As a reward for going with her I came back loaded with all sorts of good food and toys. * Dong Shizi, frozen persimmons, has always been one of my favorites; I mixed it with powdered milk, and made it into a persimmon ice cream. This is also the time of year for people to indulge in * Tang Chao Lizi, Chestnuts roasted in sugar and fine sand, and * Kao Baishu, baked sweet potatoes. The vendors would carry their ovens on * Biandan, shoulder poles, and bake them at street corners, the hunger-provoking smell made it irresistible for passers by. As for toys, Grandma would buy me paper dolls, * Budao Weng, a roly-poly fisherman that refused to lie down, and, sometimes, * Jianzi, shuttlecocks, which I learned to kick with the inside of my ankle at a very young age.

On the 23rd of the Lunar December, offerings were laid out on the table for * Zao Wangye, the Kitchen God, and * Zao Wangnainai, the Kitchen God's wife. By evening, a male representative would be chosen to * Ketou, kowtow, to the paintings of the celestial beings who had blessed and protected the kitchen of the family for almost a year (females are not allowed to pay respect to Kitchen Gods). Then came the ceremony of seeing the Kitchen God and his wife ascend to Heaven, i.e., of burning the grease-spotted paintings in the backyard. My cousins and I loved to take part in this ceremony, because, after that we ate all the offerings. The new Kitchen God would not be 'invited' back into the kitchen until the last day of the year. To show respect, when one purchases a painting of the Kitchen God, he cannot use the word 'buy'; instead he says: "I would like to invite a Kitchen God into my house." Of course, he still needs to pay for it.

The next day, the 24th, was the beginning of a thorough house cleaning. Everything in the house was washed, swept, cleaned; all the brass candlesticks, bronze incense holders, and silverware polished. Meanwhile the food preparation went on without any interference.* Zui Ji, drunken chicken, * Xun Yu, smoked fish, * Huo Tui, ham, and various kinds of cold meat were precooked and kept for the New Year's Eve dinner. It was believed that cooking during the first few days of the lunar new year might bring bad luck to the family, so lots of * Baozi, steamed dumplings, * Mantou, steamed buns, and meat and vegetable dishes were prepared on or before the 30th, enough to last the family for a whole week.

Grandma was an exceptionally good cook; she not only mastered the technique of cooking all the well-known northern and southern dishes for everyday meals and for banquets, she also made various different kinds of * Dianxin, snacks, (Please refer to 'The Chinese Expressions in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club', hereafter, JLC, P.10, Dyansyin). She used to make wonderful * Zongzi, pyramid-shaped dumplings, of various sizes and moon cakes with different fillings. (For more detailed description please refer to JLC, P.71, Zong zi.) Some Zongzi she made were as big as Chinese rice bowls, others as tiny as ping-pong balls, which she strung together for me to hang around my neck, like a necklace. Just before Chinese New Year, she would make three or four different kinds of * Nian Gao, New Year cakes, which were made of sweet glutinous rice flour with walnut, pine nut, sesame seed or bean paste fillings. They were steamed in wooden molds, and when ready, they came out in the shape of a fish, a turtle, a plum flower, a rose, and so on.

The most important dinner is the one on New Year's Eve, called * Tuan Yuan Fan, the family reunion dinner. The southerners in China call it * Nian Ye Fan, New Year's Eve dinner. Since my grandparents were still alive, all my uncles and aunts with their children came to celebrate in the old people's house. The children would sit at a separate table, and have * Fan, rice, * Cai, dishes, and * Tang, soup. They wanted to get through dinner as quickly as possible, so they could attend to their * Bianpao, fire crackers and would not miss the display of the * Yanhuo, fireworks. The adults would start with * Pijiu, beer, and * Hong Putao Jiu, red grape wine, accompanied by the * Pinpan, assorted cold dishes, which would include * Jiang Nurou, beef cooked in soya sauce and the five spices, * Haizhe, jellyfish, shredded and mixed with sauces and green unions, * Pidan, thousand-year eggs, * Bai Qie Ji, white cut chicken, * Pao Cai, pickled green vegetables, * Su Ya, vegetarian duck. The hot dishes would include a huge * Huoguo, hot pot, with meat balls, fish balls and vegetables, * Sixi Rou, Four Happiness Pork, * Quan Ya, whole duck, * Xia, shrimp, and * Qingzheng Yu, steamed fish. Fish is essential on New Year's Eve, because the Chinese word for fish, * Yu, has the same sound as the word 'abundance' or 'surplus'. To eat fish, or to give a present bearing a fish, will bring good luck for the whole year.

When the clock strikes twelve at midnight, the * Jiaozi party begins. This custom is not only observed in the Beijing area, but in many other cities and provinces as well. To make Jiaozi, one uses a round shape wheat flour wrapping, stuff it with meat and vegetables, then fold it in half and press the outer edge together tightly. Jiaozi can be boiled or steamed; on New Year's Eve people usually boil them. There are a dozen different kinds of fillings we use to make Jiaozi; the most popular ones are pork and cabbage, beef and chive, mutton and scallion, and for the vegetarians, pumpkin, fennel, or * Doufu, Tofu, with spinach and mung bean thread.

Now, the whole family once more gathered by the round dining table to share the bowls of steaming hot, freshly cooked Jiaozi. We children were still sweaty from running about dodging the fire crackers, and some of us even came in holding a handful of them. Impatiently we waited in line to wash our hands, and more impatiently we waited for the Jiaozi on our plates to cool down, so we could eat them quickly. The fanciest fireworks went off after twelve o'clock. I remember seeing my uncles carrying them out, some looked like huge Quaker Oats boxes, others were in the shapes of large cookie tins or oversized shoe boxes. Once the uncles lit it, we all stood back and held our breath for what seemed to me to be nearly two minutes before there was any action. Then the bottom fell off, and the box made a hissing sound. The most exciting part was to watch colorful sparks shoot up twenty or thirty feet and gradually turn into a green * Long, dragon with yellow claws, or a bight red * Feng, phoenix with a long tail. My favorite one was called * Tiannu Sanhua, Heavenly Beauty Scattering Flower Petals, in which the beauty kept throwing out flower petals from her basket. The flowers and the basket even had a three-dimensional look to them.

After the fireworks the grown-ups go back to the house to play cards or Mahjong (Please refer to JLC, P.5., Mah jong). We children would be ushered to bed, but before we went to sleep, we had to make sure all the * Ya Sui Qian we got that night were neatly tucked under our pillows. Ya Sui Qian is the money given to children at New Year's for good luck; it comes in a small red envelope, and the Cantonese speaking people call it * Hong Bao.

On the first, second, and third days of the Lunar New Year children follow their parents around calling on relatives and friends to * Bai Nian, wish (them) a Happy New Year. Again the children may get a lot of good luck money from the families they visit. We did not have many relatives to visit in Peking, therefore, my parents would usually take me to a place called *Changdian, similar to a bazaar or a village fair. We watched the * Mu Ou Xi, puppet shows, and ate * Tang Hulu (candy-coated haws strung on a bamboo stick) that were almost three feet long. The Tang Hulu sold in stores were only seven to nine inches long; only at New Year's time, and only in Changdian did they have the extra long Tang Hulu.

At the end of the fourth day of busy activities, everybody was exhausted. A few days of quietness and recuperation was a good change. However, we couldn't rest for long. * Yuan Xiao Jie, the Lantern Festival, the fifteenth of the first Lunar month, was going to be another big celebration. Grandma, my mother and my aunts were busy shopping for ingredients, and making * Yuan Xiao, a small round dumpling, about the size of an American quarter, made of sweet rice flour with black sesame seed, red bean paste, or scented osmanthus fillings. One can easily get these in the stores in San Francisco Chinatown and eat them for breakfast, for a mid-afternoon snack, or as a desert after dinner. They are very filling and having too many of them can cause indigestion.

During that period the children would be picking out their favorite lanterns from the stores--* Long Deng, the dragon lanterns, * Zou Ma Deng, the walking horse lanterns, * Bing Deng, the ice lanterns, or, with the help of older friends, make their own lanterns. On the fifteenth, everybody would be out in the streets with a candle-lit lantern, watching, socializing, eating, or just enjoying the crowd.

Every year, after we got back to Tientsin from Grandma's place, I would be sick for a week or two. But, weighing the gains and losses, I thought the sickness was well worth the fun. When I was seven my parents moved southward to Shanghai, and we never had that kind of a * Re Nao, New Year again. 'Re Nao' literally translates into 'hot and noisy', when describing a place or a situation it means 'bustling with activity and excitement'.

I missed Chinese New Year at Grandma's so much that I often went back in my dreams.

The Moon Lady And The Moon Festival
an Asian American festival with a bright future
by Molly H. Isham

Amy Tan has already written a popular children's book about the Moon Lady. When President Clinton, in 1995, made a trip to San Francisco, he very publically stopped to buy and enjoy some delicious Moon Cakes, eaten during the Moon Festival.

The Moon Festival happens to fall each year after Back to School but before Halloween, in a long slack time with no holidays for the children, and on the West Coast all elementary school children have taken to it, since you hear a charming story and get to eat sweets stamped with pictures. There's even a friendly rabbit involved. With Lunar New Year, the Moon Lady and her festival are sure to be China's contributions to the American child's holidays.

The fifteenth of the eighth lunar month is * Zhong Qiu Jie, Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as * Yueliang Jie, Moon Festival. This date usually falls in the latter part of September of the Gregorian calendar, if there is not a lunar intercalary month. (Please see 'The Chinese Expressions in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club' P.132, under '* Lunar calendar'. Hereafter, Joy Luck Club.) The Chinese people celebrate many general and local * Jie Qi, festivals, but, except for * Zhongguo Xin Nian, the Chinese New Year, the Moon Festival is one of the most widely celebrated festivals in both the People's Republic of China, and in Taiwan. The Chinese New Year, also called * Chun Jie, Spring Festival, and the Moon Festival are holidays when families have a * Da Tuan Yuan, big reunion; and like the * Duan Wu Jie, Dragon Boat Festival (5th day of the 5th lunar month), they are times for relaxation, eating good foods, visiting, and merry-making.

In the evening of the Moon Festival, it is believed, the silhouettes of * Chang E (pronounced 'chang er'), the Moon Lady (Please see Joy Luck Club P.67,68 under 'moon lady', * Chang O ), and * Tu Ye, Master Rabbit, can be seen most distinctly against the bright yellow light of the full moon. Therefore, after the feast, the whole family would gather in the * Yuanzi, courtyard to * Shang Yue, enjoy the moon, while eating * Yue Bing, moon cakes (Please see Joy Luck Club P.69. under 'moon cake'). This is a most exciting evening for children. I remember my mother was very strict about my bed time being no later than nine o'clock, but the Moon Festival was one of the very few nights she would allow me to stay up late and listen to the adults * Jiang Gushi, tell stories. It was a popular belief that Master Rabbit, a symbol for longevity, resided in the moon. My cousins claimed they could see the Rabbit and his long ears, but had a hard time locating the Moon Lady, while I had no trouble finding her. I could even see her many * Piao Dai, silk streamers, flowing in the wind. When I told my mother I saw her, she related to me the sad story of the Moon Lady:

"During the rule of * Xia, roughly 4,500 years ago, there was a skilled archer named * Hou Yi (Please see Joy Luck Club P.81. under 'Hou Yi'), and he was married to * Chang E. There came a time when the * Tai Yang, sun started to multiply into many suns. Small animals and plants couldn't stand the heat and gradually died. However, ferocious beasts and pythons grew stronger and stronger and were eating up the human race. Looking up and seeing ten suns, * Hou Yi took out his bow and arrow, and he shot down nine of them, leaving only one sun in the sky. Everything became normal again and mankind was saved.* Xi Wang Mu, the highest of the Goddesses (Please see Joy Luck Club P.239.under 'Syi Wang Mu'), gave * Hou Yi the Elixir of Immortality as a reward.* Chang E stole the Elixir for her own consumption, and then fled to the * Yueliang, moon. Soon after she arrived there, she was severely punished by the Gods, who turned her into a * Chan, toad."

I felt so sorry for her after hearing the story. My only comfort was that every Moon Festival I could still see her, frail but beautiful, bending with the wind. I never once saw the toad, the embodiment of the Moon Lady.

My * A Po, maternal grandma (Please see Joy Luck Club P.33. under * Popo), was a devout Buddhist, and on different occasions she would * Shang Gong, send up offerings, which meant putting various kinds of food on her altar table, and * Shao Xiang, burn incense, to show her respect for the Gods and ancestors. For example, * Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, was worshipped on the 19th day of the second moon and sixth moon. On the 23rd of the twelfth moon she would set her altar table full of good food to worship * Zao Wang Ye, the Kitchen God. Then every other month when the moon is full, my grandma would burn incense and * Ketou, kowtow, to her favorite God, * Lu Chun Yang, the God of Healing.* Lu Chun Yang, circa 798 A.D., also known by the name * Lu Dong Bin, was one of the legendary * Ba Xian, Eight Immortals. While wandering over land and sea he was taught the technique of using secret prescriptions by the chief of the Eight Immortals, * Zhong Li Quan. My grandma would always turn to * Lu Chun Yang for help when there was sickness in the family.

Aside from worshipping the Gods, she also had many * Zu Zong, ancestors to kowtow to. On my great grandfather's or great grandmother's birthday she would burn incense, offer food and kowtow to a portrait. Whichever deity or ancestor she was worshipping, she always had a portrait or an idol on her altar table. During the Moon Festival she made offerings to the Moon, and paid homage to Master Rabbit. So, instead of having a portrait of the Moon, she would have the maid servants help her carry the altar table out into the courtyard, where the Moon could look down on it. No male person was allowed to touch anything related to * Bai Yue, Moon-worshipping, it was strictly a female's job. On the other hand, no female should touch any food that was to be offered to the Kitchen God; that would bring bad luck to the family. On the altar table * Ah Po would stack up dozens of moon cakes and put large plates of fruit. In the center of the table sat a clay idol of Master Rabbit, bought at a specialty shop the day before. Dishes of fresh green soya beans boiled in salted water were specially prepared for Master Rabbit, because he did not care for moon cakes.

The apparel of Master Rabbit was most interesting: he had on full armor including a helmet, like a * Yong Shi, warrior; if it were not for his * Chang Erduo, long ears, and his * Huo Zui, harelip, I could hardly tell he was a rabbit. Grandma usually paid quite a lot of money for Master Rabbit, but after the offering was over, he just became one more toy, sitting among my dolls and wooden soldiers.

The ceremony and rituals would be over by the end of that day, but my fun days at Grandma's house would usually last a few days longer.* Qiu Tian, Autumn, is the best time in many parts of China as far as the climate is concerned. It is a time for picnics, boating, and * Guang Shichang, wandering around (meandering) in the bazaars. Grandma often took me to * Guozi Shi, Fruit Market, the street that got its name because every Fall all the fruit vendors gathered there to sell their freshly picked fruits. The juicy pears were as big as baseballs. The pale green * Ma Nai grapes were so delicious I could never have enough of them.* Ma Nai means horse nipple, and they got that name because they were long and juicy as though * Nai, milk, would drip from them any minute. After we had bought all the fruit we can carry, we would go to * Dong An Shichang, the Eastern Peace Market, where we would taste a variety of different * Xiao Chi, small eat, meaning snacks (Please see Joy Luck Club P.10.under 'Dyansyin'). The ones I have most vivid memories of are first, the * Tang Hetao, sugar-coated walnuts, they were crispy and sweet-smelling, and now one can buy them in Los Angeles Chinatown. Secondly, the * Wandou Huang, pea paste cakes, which were pale yellowish-green in color, and tasted like the highest quality pea soup, except they were sweet, and in the shapes of square, jelly-like cakes. Last but not least, the * Fuling Bing, a sweet snack of Chinese date paste and nuts sandwiched between very sheer rice pancakes, looked like two flat, round pieces of styrofoam, about 4 inches in diameter, enclosing some chewy, sweet filling. I have not yet been able to find the latter two sweet * Dianxin, refreshments, in America.

My Grandma was a frugal woman. Even though she bought me and my cousins (her other grandchildren) many expensive snacks, she herself would be reluctant to eat in large quantities the sweet things she really liked. She was always * She Bu De, unwilling to let herself enjoy, because of the thought of extravagance. I used to hear my mother * Quan, try to persuade, my grandma so often: "Ma, don't * She Bu De eat, and * She Bu De drink. The children are young and have many more years to taste the good things. Think of yourself now." My * Baba, Dad, was just the opposite. He was * She De eat, willing to treat himself with good food, * She De drink, and * She De spend money, bare no grudge in spending money.

One year, when my * Xiao Jiujiu, Little Uncle, my mother's younger brother, came home from college to spend the Moon Festival with us, my grandma decided to hold the ceremony on our * Chuan, boat. The boats in Peking (Please see The Different Names Used For The City of Beijing) looked very different from the boats we have here. I had seen Chinese junks or fishing boats in China, but had not known anyone who owned a sailboat. Our boat was a * Youting, pleasure-boat, kept in a boat house at * Beihai Park.One of the men-servants knew how to * Cheng Chuan, push and move a boat with a long pole, but the one who was really crazy about doing it was my Little Uncle. I suspected that might have been the reason why Grandma decided to spend the Moon Festival on the lake that year. The boat had a half-covered deck, but there was no below-deck. A long, rectangular-shaped dining table took up most of the space on deck, and there were long benches on either side of the table where people could sit and * He Cha, sip tea, or * Chi Fan, eat a meal. Amy Tan gave the best description of that kind of boat in her Joy Luck Club (p.72, paperback, 1989). She called it a 'floating teahouse'.

A full nine-course meal was cooked and brought to the boat, but my Dad and my Little Uncle still bought a lot of * Haochide, goodies, from * Fang Shan, a famous restaurant in * Beihai Park that used to cook for * Xi Tai Hou, the Princess Dowager. I had the same palate as the Princess Dowager, my aunt used to say to me, because I loved the * Xiao Wotou, a sweet, pyramid-shaped bun made of ground chestnuts, which was the Princess Dowager's favorite, too. That night at * Beihai Park, Little Uncle and I had so much fun, and we stayed so late, until the Moon even got tired and began to sink into the West.

To my deepest sorrow, that night was the last time I saw my Little Uncle. After graduating from college in 1940, he joined the Chinese Air Force to fight the Japanese who had invaded our country. He died in a accident while he was in the last stage of his training at the Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, Arizona.

Further Reading:
Cheng Manchao, The Origin of Chinese Dieties. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1995.
de Bary, William Theodore, East Asian Civilizations: A Dialogue in Five Stages. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Mu Lan, the Woman Warrior and her legend, with evaluations of her use by Maxine Hong Kingston and by Walt Disney by George Leonard and Amy Ling

Mu Lan is China's legendary "woman warrior," heroine of a folk ballad in which a brave girl takes her aged father's place in the army by disguising herself as a man. (See Chapter 43 for Maxine Hong Kingston's use in The Woman Warrior.)

Her story was little known in the West until 1998, when the Walt Disney company put its awesome cultural might behind a "summer blockbuster," the feature-length cartoon, Mu Lan-- with Lea Salonga and Donny Osmond singing songs about Mu Lan by Stevie Wonder, and Eddie Murphy doing the voice of a comic dragon sidekick, "Mushu." When the movie opened, there were Mu Lan Happy Meals at McDonald's, Nancy Kwan ice-skating on TV in a Mu Lan special, and three pages of Mu Lan stuffed toys and pajamas in the Disney catalog. Until this apotheosis, Mu Lan's ballad, "Mu Lan's Farewell," was so little studied, that we have done a new translation (below) for the scholar's convenience.

Amy Ling, who researched Mu Lan for her work on Kingston, writes: "Mu Lan (variously known as Fa Mu Lan or Hua Mu Lan--Hua/Fa means flower and Mu Lan means magnolia) is the heroine of a folk ballad that mothers traditionally sang to their children in China. When the Emperor goes to war against Northern invaders, the Hu, he drafts a son from each family. Mu Lan's family has no son old enough to fight, so her elderly father gets drafted. Mu Lan disguises herself as a man and takes his place.

"The new army takes the attack to the Hu, high up in their snowy Yen Mountain strongholds. Mu Lan fights for over a decade without being discovered, and so valiantly, that the Emperor himself, bestowing medals, titles and land grants after the War, offers to make her a Minister of State. She asks only to go home. There, she reopens the wing of her house that has been sealed for ten years, puts on her woman's dress again, and emerges, to the amazement of her old comrades-at-arms.

"Westerners perhaps too automatically compare Hua Mu Lan to Joan of Arc-- although in the deepest sense, her actions are as pious as Joan's. But Mu Lan's religion is Confucianism: she doesn't hear the voice of God, but of her conscience, commanding this loving duty to her father. Nor is it possible to imagine the ballad's Mu Lan, so eager to regain her womanhood and already the model of family duty, not proceeding on to marriage and motherhood. Indeed, the poem dwells on her rather amazing ability to effortlessly return to femininity, fashionable 'beauty patches' and all. Joan of Arc revels in the battlefield, and it is impossible to imagine her wishing to return to village life; Mu Lan, offered a government Ministry, asks only for a camel to take her home. Though modern accounts, even Disney's, tend to present Mu Lan's army service as a feminist achievement, in the Chinese ballad war seems (realistically) a catastrophe for everyone, men and women, soldiers and generals alike. Mu Lan's long years in the army are presented only as a terrible sacrifice to spare her father from going through them, and she resumes her peaceful former life with relief.

"A few historical reports exist of women disguising themselves as men, in order to fight. Women, however, were not commonly trained in martial arts-- nor educated for any profession, in fact. There are stories of women disguising themselves as men in order to be educated (for instance, 'The Butterfly Lovers'). The poem is potent myth, not history."

The following translation, by George and Simei Leonard was made from the Chinese text in Selected Chinese Poems, ed. Ch'en Hui-Wen (Taibei, Hua Lien Publishing Co. 1968) which Prof. Ling furnished. They write, "This is the best known of many versions of the Mu Lan story, dating back at least to the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD). Even in anti-Confucian Maoist times, PRC children like Simei had to learn it by heart from their fifth grade readers, and recite it in class together.

"How old is 'Mu Lan's Farewell?' The poem refers to the Emperor sitting in the 'Ming tang,' or 'Ming Hall' but the term, our sources tell us, is no reference to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD). The word 'Ming' means 'Brilliant' or even 'Splendid' and the term 'Ming tang' for some Hall of Splendour in which imperial rituals are conducted, can be found all the way back to the Zhou Dynasty (founded, 1111 BC).

"Nor is the Hu invasion a clue. They're described as a tribe of Northern horsemen, and such tribes perpetually menaced China. The Great Wall, stretching across the tops of China's mountains from East to West, was built as a bulwark against such Northern tribes in the 200's BC. The Disney movie calls the Hu people the 'Huns,' but without foundation. Rather, 'Hu people' is a catchall term much like the Greek 'Barbarian.' China called any menacing northern barbarian tribes the 'Hu' and each dynasty since the Han (206 BC-265 AD) used 'Hu' for whomever its northern barbarian opponent happened to be.

"Our best clue to this poem's age is that while this version refers to the Emperor as 'the Son of Heaven,' --a standard designation-- it also calls him, twice, 'the Khan.' Since no-one but the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty (c. 1206 1368 AD) would have used that term for the emperor, this version could not be older than 1206, and was most likely written in those years. (Or less likely, set in those years.) Mu Lan's Farewell, then, is probably a folk ballad from the 1200-1300s AD, nearly 800 years old.

Our translation, while faithful to sense, and even usually to word order, attempts to capture the folk ballad quality of the original. Language of homely simplicity-- far too concise for English to capture-- alternates with flights of Homeric fancy. You don't have an 'audience' with the Emperor, you simply 'meet' him, as you would anyone; but a camel who could last out a long trip draws the fanciful epithet 'thousand-mile-footed.' The original is unrhymed, but strongly rhythmic. 'Folk poetry' does not mean 'amateur poetry.' Notice the poet's sophisticated parallel constructions, in which Line B will repeat the pattern of Line A, but contrast it: the cries of Mu Lan's parents are replaced by the terrifying sound of the enemy's horses. The poet (in that society, almost certainly a man) moves the story quickly, with startling jump cuts, and an impressionistic appeal to many senses. He dares to start with a sound effect, then, as his first shot, positions you outside Mu Lan's door, watching her. As you dolly in, Mu Lan's sighs drown out the noise of the loom. At poem's end, as she returns in victory, you stand outside the door again, watching her older sister put on 'red makeup' in Mu Lan's honor. The poet sketches years of battle in the mountains with a few sharp details uniting sound, sight, and touch-- the feel of the cold mountain wind. The poet spends no time on patriotic fervor or moral outrage against the enemy, merely accepting that war is a job which someone has to do. Lots of people die; if you can make it back alive you'll be rewarded; but what you want most is to get it over with, and pick up life where you left off.

'The parable of the rabbits at the end draws the moral. In ordinary times (it claims) you can tell a male rabbit from a female by its behavior. But in a crisis, when they're running, you can't tell which is which. The female runs just as well as the male. Hua Mu Lan's popular ballad does not so much reflect historical reality, as the reality of women's dreams and aspirations-- not an aspiration to shed blood, but an aspiration to be recognized as people who, when the need arises, can do deeds as valiant as can any man. That the author of this modern-sounding moral was very likely a man, and a medieval man; that this story has been popular among the Chinese people for a millennium, and is even memorized in school--all this should be taken into account before anyone summarizes traditional Chinese culture's attitude to women."

Mu Lan's Farewell Clickity-clack.Again: Clickity Clack.

Selected articles from
The Asian Pacific American Heritage:
a Companion to Literature and Arts

Lunar New Year, The Moon Lady and the Moon Festival
by Molly H. Isham

Chinese New Year At Grandma's House

I missed Chinese New Year at Grandma's so much that I often went back in my dreams.

The Moon Lady And The Moon Festival
an Asian American festival with a bright future
by Molly H. Isham

Mu Lan, the Woman Warrior and her legend, with evaluations of her use by Maxine Hong Kingston and by Walt Disney by George Leonard and Amy Ling

Mu Lan's Farewell Clickity-clack.Again: Clickity Clack.

Through the open door, you can see Mu Lan weaving.
But no sound can you hear of her loom
The only sounds you can hear are her sighs.

Ask the girl, "What is on your mind?"
Ask the girl, "What is it you can't forget?"
The girl says, "Nothing is on my mind."
The girl says, "Nothing I can't forget."

Last night she saw the army scrolls
The Khan is calling up his men
From the army has come 12 separate scrolls
And every scroll has her father's name.

The father has no grownup son
Mu Lan has no older brother
She'll go to the market for horse and saddle
She'll take to the road in place of her father.

She goes to East Market to buy her a charger
She goes to West Market to buy her a saddle
She goes to South Market to buy the bridle
She goes to North Market to buy the long whip.

In the morning, farewell to Father and Mother
At night, she sleeps by the Yellow River
Hearing no longer the cries of her parents
Hearing the rushing of the Yellow River.

In the morning, farewell to the Yellow River
In the dark, to the Black River's source she comes
No sound of the parents
Crying for their daughter
Just the Yen Mountain Hu tribe's
Warhorses snorting. ["singing 'Cheu! Cheu!'"]

Ten thousand leagues she marches to the battles
Through the mountain strongholds the warriors fly
On the cold north air blows the sound of metal clashing,
Flashing cold light off the chain link mail.

Generals and soldiers die in a hundred battles
The heroes who live come back in ten years.

Those still alive will meet the Son of Heaven
In the Hall of Splendour, the Son of Heaven sits.
Awarded-- the medals
To all the twelve ranks
Granted-- a hundred thousand acres of land.

The Khan asks, "What is your desire?"
Mu Lan doesn't need to be a High Official
Wishes only to borrow a sharp-eyed camel--
Thousand-mile-footed!--
To send the son back to his home village.

When Father and Mother hear Daughter is coming
They help each other hobble outside the city wall
When Older Sister hears Younger Sister is coming
Through the door you can see her putting on red makeup
When Little Brother hears that Sister is coming
He whets his knife--"Snick!"-- chases pig and lamb.

"I open the door to my eastern pavilion.
I sit on my bed in the western room.
I take off
My chain link armor.
I put on
My dress of old."

Through the window
you can see her let down the clouds of hair
At her mirror
She stands, putting on her adornments ('beauty patches')
Out the door
she comes, to see her fighting comrades
And all her fighting comrades are amazed.
For twelve years they marched together
And never knew Mu Lan was a girl.

A male rabbit restlessly thumps the ground
A female rabbit shyly looks away
But when they run, how can you tell me,
Which is the male, which is the female?

My Grandfather's Concubines: A First Generation Woman Remembers Life in Peking
by Molly H. Isham

The phonetic system used in this article is the official * Hanyu Pinyin system used in the People's Republic of China since 1958 (See * Pinyin). The pronunciation of the six difficult symbols is explained as follows: Q like 'ch' in 'cheese'; X like 'sh' in 'sheep'; Z like 'ds' in 'beds'; C like 'ts' in 'cats'; Zh like 'dg' in 'edge'; E like the 'e' in 'the' before a consonant.

1.The Traditional Peking Courtyard House

Three years ago I saw Asian American director Peter Wang's film The Great Wall. A lot of the Beijing scenes were shot in a Peking courtyard house; all at once my childhood experiences returned to me.

It has been forty years since I lived in a * Sihe Yuar, a typical Peking style courtyard house, but a child's memory of a dwelling, of delicious things to eat, of fun things to play with, will never vanish, regardless how long ago it may have been. I remember the beauty and fragrance in * Chun Tian, Spring, when the pink crabapple flowers, and the purple lilacs were in full bloom; and * Xia Tian, Summer, always came with the sweetest and juiciest * Da Xigua, big watermelons. Everyday I ate a quarter of a watermelon after my nap, listening to the cicadas hum. Those two things effected me in a strange way, while the watermelon made me feel wide awake, the cicadas often made me sleepy. The melancholy serenity of * Qiu Tian, Autumn, with the quietly falling leaves sometimes brought tears to my eyes. But when * Dong Tian, Winter, came, the fun I had making a snowman, in the yard or in the inner garden was unforgettable.

I was born in a Peking courtyard house that belonged to my * Yeye, paternal grandfather, and * Nainai, paternal grandmother. I lived there until the age of six, then left with my * Muqin, Mother, and * Fuqin, father, for another city. My grandfather was a scholar and a * Qing dynasty official. When the * Qing government was overthrown by the * Kuomintang (P.Y. * Guomindang), a political party that ruled China between 1911 and 1949., my grandfather bought this large house to settle down and raise a family. The house used to belong to an ex-Qing Prince, and was situated in a nicely kept-up * Hutong, alley. With just a few exceptions, all the Hutongs in Peking are through roads, some are quite wide, nicely paved, and even have buses running through them.

The name * Sihe Yuar, refers to the architectural style: * Si is four, * He means closed, and * Yuar is a courtyard; thus, four buildings join into a square shape with a courtyard in the center. The basic design and arrangement of all the Peking courtyard houses are mostly identical except for minor differences. First, the sizes of the courtyards may be different. Then the number of rooms may differ. Aside from that, the courtyard houses all look alike. The building bordering the north side of the yard, called * Bei Fang, north building, has all its windows facing south. It usually has five rooms--a combined eating and sitting room in the center called * Tang Wu (used more like a family room), two * Wo Fang, bedrooms, one on each side of the family room; then a * Ce Suo, toilet, and a storeroom at the two extreme ends. The last two rooms have lower roofs, and they looked like ears, thus, also called * Er Fang, ear-rooms. Sometimes the toilet is in the outhouse. The north building is usually occupied by the oldest and most important people in the family, such as the grandparents. The building on the south side of the courtyard is * Nan Fang, south building. Since its windows face north, those rooms are cold in winter and stuffy in summer, and, if located close to the front gate, they provide living quarters for men-servants. The other two buildings with windows facing east and west are called * Xiang Fang, wings. Though they are not as pleasant to live in as the north building, they are still much better than the south building. The wings on the two sides usually have two to three rooms each, and are occupied by the children of the family and the maid servants who take care of the children.

In big mansions the kitchens, pantries and dish-washing rooms are not located in the same courtyard as the bedrooms, at least not near the important people's bedrooms, because the noise and the smell can be disturbing to them. For the same reasons the * Fan Ting, dining-room, and * Ke Ting, guest hall, which is the official sitting-room shared by the family, are also far away from the living quarters. In the case of my grandfather's house, after entering the main gates, one saw that the first two courtyards were servants' quarters and storage rooms; then one came to the * Ying Bi, a screen-like wall facing the gates block the path of entry. This screen wall is an important feature of the traditional Chinese architecture, because any visitor entering the house would have to walk around it before the rest of the buildings come into view. Evil spirits as well as unwelcomed visitors, I was told, were stopped by it. The second function was, when there was a big celebration and the main gates were left wide open, no passers-by could see right through to the inner courtyards. The third courtyard had a very large north building, serving as the living-room, and the fourth courtyard had the dining-room, kitchen, and a storage room for food. Only after walking through those four courtyards would one see my grandfather's and grandmother's courtyards. Every Building was connected by * Zou Lang, roofed walkways on the courtyard side, and nobody needed to get wet on rainy days walking from one building to another, or one courtyard to the next.

It was the Chinese tradition to have three or four generations living in the same house. If a wealthy man had many * Erzi, sons and * Sunzi, grandsons, and managed to have * Wu Dai Tong Tang, five generations sharing the same * Tang, the main room of a house, (somewhat like an important family room), he would be considered very fortunate, and win respect in his community. On the other hand, if a man had no sons, only * Nu Er, daughters, then he presumably had done something * Que De, morally lacking, or mean, in his past life; so * Lao Tian Ye, Old Heaven Master, was punishing him by giving him no sons to carry on his ancestors' name. When Chinese people quarrel, one of the very strong curses is: " * Ni Juezi Juesun", you shall have no sons and no grandsons.

My grandfather, with the help of his * Da Taitai, first wife, or lawfully wedded wife, and four * Yi Taitai, concubines, fathered 14 sons and 9 daughters (Please refer to Joy Luck Club, P.43. under * Huang Taitai, and P.71, under 'Concubines'). On his 94th birthday when we, his direct descendants, had to line up and take turns to kowtow to him, I estimated there to be at least sixty or seventy of us, including the spouses, the thirty-six grand-children, and the four great grand children.

Only four of grandpa's sons and one unmarried daughter lived in his * Jia, home, the others were working in different cities. Since there were 14 courtyards in the house, there was plenty of room for each small family to have a whole courtyard to themselves, and thus, have some privacy, although the old-fashioned Chinese really did not know the word 'privacy' in our sense. Even today, a Chinese mother would consider it perfectly natural for her to open and read her grown-up children's mail before the latter got them, or ask to examine how much money they brought back on pay day. In the New English-Chinese Dictionary, published by the Commercial Press, 1987, the three Chinese definitions given under the word 'privacy' were: 'to live in seclusion', 'to conceal', 'to be a hermit'.

After spending many years away from the place where I was born, I went back as a teenager to live in grandpa's house while I was attending * Gao Zhong, senior high school, in Peking. Since I was an unmarried young girl, I was only allowed to live in one of the courtyards farthest away from the main gate. I chose the up-stairs of a two-storied building to the north of the inner garden, in spite of the fact that my * Wubo, Fifth Uncle on my father's side, repeatedly assured me it was haunted by * Huli Jing, the Fox Spirit, and other ghosts (please see Joy Luck Club, P.33, under 'Ghost'). The building I chose had been vacant for six or seven years at the time I moved in, and I knew two of my * Tang Jiejie, female cousins on my father's side, had tried but were scared away by the strange noises at night. However, there was a pleasant view from my window: directly underneath, a fish pond full of * Hong Liyu, red carp; to the right, a * Jia Shan, man-made rocky hill, topped with a red, green and gray pavilion; further ahead there were a few rows of tall * Zi Zhu, purple bamboos, through which I could see the roof of my grandfather's * Shu Fang, study, which he tastefully named * Xule Tang, the Hall to Discuss Happiness. The inner garden, or back garden as some call it, was different from all the courtyards in the house. It had no buildings on the other three sides, so I was the only one in an area of about 5,000 sq. ft., and I enjoyed total privacy. I did occasionally hear foot-steps on my veranda, but when I peeked through the window, it was just a * Huang Shu Lang, yellow weasel, frolicking with his mate. I had heard many stories about the weasel visiting old houses and vacant places, and they were harmless to human beings; so I didn't mind having them play outside my rooms at all. During the first eighteen months I was living there I never saw a single ghost or Fox Spirit.

By that time, everybody, including the servants, in that big family was praising me for my * Dan Liang, courage. I was all ready to go to my Fifth Uncle and tell him he should not be so * Mi Xin, superstitious, when something happened. One night, I almost fainted.

It was the middle of June, and I was preparing for my * Biye Kaoshi, graduation exam. The night air was hot and stuffy, and I was trying to cram a lot of knowledge into my head at the last moment. Because of the heat I had turned out all the ceiling lights and the light in the hallway, keeping only my desk lamp lit. Suddenly I heard a rustle by the entrance of my room. I looked towards the darkness, and there was a figure, in a loose white shirt and no legs, floating into my room. It had a long rectangular-shaped face. I thought I was hallucinating. I blinked and looked again. The figure was still there, only this time, its mouth was open. I screamed. The figure jumped slightly, and mumbled something.

"* Ai-ya! Xiasi Wole." Oh! You scare me to death, the figure said quietly, emerging from my dark doorway (Please see Joy Luck Club, P. 23 under * Aii-ya). Only then did I realized it was my grandma's maid, who was dressed in white cotton tops and black pants. She had come to tell me that my grandma wanted me to go over for mid-night snack, because she knew I was staying up late to study.

We Chinese have a saying: * Ren Xia Ren, Xia Si Ren, only a human being can scare another human being to death. And that is quite true!

Two days later, as soon as my final exam was over, I moved out of the 'haunted' building.

2. My Grandfather's concubines: traditional Chinese family roles in the first part of the century.

The family I have been describing undoubtedly seems strange to you, and perhaps even ìimmoral,î by contemporary Judeo-Christian standards. But Grandfather was a thorougly upright and upstanding member of society. Since many contemporary Chinese films are set back in that period, and Chinese American films and literature love to flash back to that time, it is worth explaining.

In Mainland China, up to 1949, it was fairly common for rich men to 'take in' * Yi Taitai, concubines. A man's lawfully wedded wife is called his * Taitai. The word * Yi with the second tone has the following definitions: (1) one's wife's sister, (2) one's mother's older or younger sister, (3) a maternal aunt, (4) a father's concubine, so called by his children. (See the Chinese Encyclopedia * Ci Hai, Sea of Words, P.1101, published by the Shanghai Ci Shu Publishing House, Shanghai, China, 1979 edition.) It does make sense to address the concubines as * Yi Taitai, and I will tell you why I think so.

The lawfully wedded wife in an old-fashioned Chinese * Jia Ting, family, was not unwilling to allow one or more concubines to join as family members, and to come and live in the household. There was more than one reason why a wife would allow or encourage her * Zhang Fu, husband, to take in concubines: one, she could not * Sheng Erzi, give birth to sons; two, to please her husband; three, to keep him away from * Ji Nu, prostitutes and * Ge Nu, sing-song girls; four, under some situations, to have someone to wait on herself. The first wife and the concubines would each have a separate bedroom, and the * Lao Ye, old master, would make the choice as to whose bedroom he would spend the night in. The first wife and the concubines would eat at the same table, play * Majiang (Please see The Chinese Expressions in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club, P.5. under Mah jong. Hereafter Joy Luck Club) together, or go to the * Miao, temples, and worship the Buddhas as a group. They sometimes gave people the impression they were sisters, addressing each other as * San Mei, number 3 younger sister, or * Er Jie, number 2 older sister; at other times they plotted against one another behind the back and acted as if they were implacable enemies. The children would call the lawfully wedded wife 'Mama', mother, and call the concubines 'Yi', aunt. The Chinese film Raise High the Big Red Lanterns offered examples of the lives of the old-fashioned Chinese concubines.

My * Zu Fu, grandfather, or colloquially, * Yeye, grandpa, had one wife and four concubines in his life time. When he was a young man his family was very poor and he could not afford to study in school. At eighteen, his parents had him betrothed to my * Zu Mu, grandmother, colloquially called * Nainai, grandma. My grandma, who was a few years older than my grandpa, was not only more mature, but also extremely capable. During the day time she served her * Gonggong, father-in-law, and * Popo, mother-in-law, did the household chores, handled the shopping and cooking, washing and cleaning. When night came, and the old people were asleep, she worked under an oil lamp making wicker baskets and straw hats to sell in the * Shi Chang, market place. Night after night she worked long hours, with no weekends, no holidays, to save up some money so my grandfather could buy * Shu, books, * Zhi, paper, and * Bi Mo, ink and brush pens. I must have heard my mother relate to me more than a dozen times the episodes of my grandfather's determination in self-study and my grandma's thriftiness in keeping house. Whenever I became wasteful in my mother's eyes, or I complained too much, she repeated the following story:

"When your grandpa and grandma were young, they shared one * You Deng, oil lamp, to study and work at night. They used only one lampwick, because they * She Bu De, were reluctant, to use two lampwicks to make the light brighter. Eventually their eyes deteriorated so quickly, they had to take turns using the oil lamp. One would sleep the first half of the night, and the other, the second half. For seven years your grandma mended your grandpa's * Yifu, clothes and * Xie Wa, shoes and socks, over and over again. Not until the time he was ready to go to * Sheng Cheng, the provincial capital, to take the examination, did she make him a suit of * Xin Yifu, new clothes. He was determined to pass the exam, and she was firm in supporting him. And he did pass it with honors, and became a * Ju Ren. Later he was appointed to a post in Hebei Province." (Hebei, formerly known as Hopei, is located in North China. Both Beijing and Tianjin are in Hebei Province.)

My mother, in her story telling, never mentioned a word about my grandfather's concubines. She came from a * Yang Pai, westernized, family, and she couldn't stand the idea of somebody having a concubine. Nevertheless, she had great respect for my grandma, so whatever my grandma wished, she put up with it. My grandma, born in 1848, was a very old-fashioned Chinese housewife. She not only accepted concubines into her family, she sometimes made it her job to get a concubine for her husband. Many teachings of the ancient Chinese Sage, * Kong Fu Zi, Confucius, stuck tenaciously to the Chinese mind. " * Bu Xiao You San", there are three acts marking a person unfilial (not a dutiful child), said Confucius, "* Wu Hou Wei Da", the most serious one, is not to have an heir; an heir refers to a male child, because only he can carry on the family name. On several occasions when I found my grandma in a low-spirited, self-blaming mood, she repeated Confucius' words to me and bade me remember them when I * Zhang Da, grew up. "Don't be like me," I could hear the pain in her voice when she said that, "I tried so hard to give your grandfather * Erzi, a son, but only gave birth to four * Nu Er, daughters.

During the ninth year of their marriage, when my grandma's only son died in infancy, she decided to buy my grandfather his first concubine. Everybody called her * Da Yi Tai, Big Concubine.* Da, big, very often in the Chinese language means 'first' or 'oldest.'

The Chinese say * Qu Qi, wed a wife, and * Na Qie, admit, or take in, a concubine, because the ceremonies are totally different. There is usually a big celebration at the wedding of the * Da Taitai, first wife. If it is in a village, not only the friends and relatives of the * Xin Niang, bride, and * Xin Lang, groom, are present, but the whole village will be invited to a feast that may lasts three days. The groom's family sends over a * Hua Jiao, bridal sedan chair, (please see Joy Luck Club P.52, under 'Palanquin') to pick up the bride on the day of the wedding; and the bridal procession will also include a wind and percussion band, and a team of hired hands carrying the * Jia Zhuang, dowry. When the bride arrives at the scene, all the guests are already there, lined up to welcome her. However, nobody gets to see what she looks like, because her head is covered with a large piece of red * Chou, silk, or * Bu, cloth, which is kept on all through the wedding ceremony including * Bai Tian Di, kowtowing to Heaven and Earth, and kowtowing to * Zu Zong, ancestors. After the banquet, when the new couple get into the * Dong Fang, bridal chamber, the groom will take away the red veil and see the face of his lawfully wedded wife for the first time.

The concubines--however many there may be--are 'taken in' quietly, without * Hunli, the wedding ceremonies. They do not have to come from comparable families, nor do they need to be educated women. On the arranged date, a concubine would come to the house on her own, or be accompanied by a * Mei Po, matchmaker (please see Joy Luck Club, P.43, under 'Matchmaker'), put away her little bag of personal belongings, and settle down to serve her husband's family for the rest of her life. Sometimes, a concubine is chosen from one of the * Ya Tou, unmarried servant girls sold to a rich family at a very young age; in that case she will already be in the house when she is made a concubine. That was a common practice in many households, because the first wife felt she had more control over a servant girl, and knew the new concubine would serve her well.

Two out of the four concubines my grandfather had were chosen from young servant girls in the family. Since my grandfather was a Qing dynasty * Guan, official, as well as a * Xue Zhe, scholar, he had no time to sit in teahouses or wander about in brothels, from which places men often brought back concubines for themselves. He just relied on my grandmother to pick the right ones for him. First Concubine gave birth to two sons, one of whom died as an infant, the other lived; but she herself died quite young. After many long years of hoping and trying, my grandfather finally had one son, but my grandma was still worried: what if that only son died before he arrived at the marital age. Infant mortality in China, even in big cities, was extremely high in those years.

There was a pleasant, hard-working girl among the servant girls that my grandma had been observing for quite a while, and she wanted to make her * Er Yi Tai, Second Concubine. So one night, when grandpa walked into his bedroom, he was surprised to see a familiar-looking yet unknown young girl sitting on the edge of his bed. "* Lao Ye," she addressed my grandfather, Old Master, as though she were still a servant, " * Taitai (servants address the mistress of the household as 'Taitai'. Please see Joy Luck Club P. 43, under 'Huang Taitai') told me to come and wait on you." was all she said. And she stared hard at her toes. The next morning, when my grandpa did not get up at his usual hour, grandma knew that he was pleased with her choice of a second concubine.

Second Concubine got along very well with my grandma who, of course, was still in total control. She was good at bearing children, and had three sons in the course of five years, and they were my * Wu Bo, Fifth Uncle, * Liu Bo, Sixth Uncle, and * Jiu Shu, Ninth Uncle. Paternal uncles that are older than one's father are called * Bobo, those younger are called * Shushu. In a large family not only the * Xiong Di, brothers, and * Jie Mei, sisters, born of the same father but different mothers are sequentially numbered, male and female cousins, too, are numbered according to their ages. For example I have eleven female cousins, six of them older than I; I was, therefore, Number Seven Sister.

Twenty years after my grandparents were married, my grandpa, then 38, through the arrangement of a matchmaker, took in his * San Yi Tai, Third Concubine. The third concubine, also known as * Si Taitai, Fourth wife, was a young lady from a well-to-do family, and had a lot of * Ku Shui, bitter water, to spit out when she came to my grandpa's household. To spit out bitter water means to pour out one's stories of misery and torture. Her father was a well-educated man and one of the advisors in a provincial office; she and her three * Gege, older brothers, had all received a decent education. At the age of 19, she was betrothed to the son of a rich * Shangren, merchant, and a propitious date, was chosen for the big wedding ceremony. However, two weeks before the lucky day, the groom-to-be died suddenly of an unknown disease. Regardless what happened, the two families had to keep their vows, so the wedding took place anyway with the bride going through the ceremony alone, holding her husband's * Pai Wei, a memorial tablet made of wood with a name written on it. From that day on she was clad in white, in mourning of a husband she had never met. The third concubine's mother-in-law, was a mean woman. When a fortune teller mentioned to her, it was due to the character of her new daughter-in-law that her son died, she used that as an excuse to mistreat her daughter-in-law. All day the young widow was made to work like a slave; at night she was ordered to sew or embroider by the side of her mother-in-law. As soon as she dozed off due to fatigue, the * Lao Taitai, old lady would drill into her thigh with an awl, or burn the back of her hand with incense. At first the young widow blamed it on * Ming, fate, that Heaven had mapped out for her; but when it became beyond endurance, she wrote a letter to her * Fu Mu, parents, describing the tortures she had to put up with, and begged them to find an excuse to invite her home for a visit. She gathered all the * Yin Yuan, silver dollars, she had, and gave them to a * Yong Ren, servant, asking him to find a carrier who might be willing to deliver the letter to her parents two cities away. A few weeks later, when her father-in-law came home from a business trip, he ordered her whipped by two servants while kneeling in front of him. She cried and demanded an explanation from him. He said, "This is for telling blatant lies about your mother-in law. No one in my household will get away easily when spreading rumors like that." She knew at that moment the servant had betrayed her. The next day she was thrown into a dark room where she was given * Leng Fan, cold food, and * Leng Shui, cold water, and was ordered to sleep on the cold ground.

The neighbors heard her continuous * Ku Sheng, weeping sound, and words soon reached the matchmaker who was responsible for her marriage. The matchmaker approached the family with a 'bright idea' to make some more money for herself and, possibly, to save the young widow.

"Since you no longer have a son, your * Er Xi Fu, daughter-in-law will not do you any good remaining in your house. She is still a * Huanghua Guinu, virgin, I know a rich man who might want her as a concubine. That way, at least you can get a lot of money for her." The old couple agreed that it was a good way to get rid of her. The matchmaker came to speak to my grandma, and out of * Hao Xin, kind-heartedness, she agreed to take in another concubine for my grandfather.

The fourth wife was my grandfather's favorite, and he spent a lot of time with her. With her educational background, they found much to do together; they even wrote * Shi, poems, to each other. She gave birth to three sons and a daughter. One of her sons, the number seven son, was my * Baba, father.

My grandfather's fifth wife--Fourth Concubine--was again a servant girl sold to the family. She was forty-five years younger than the old man, but she was smart and managed to have a good relationship with everyone, including the servants. She gave birth to five sons and two daughters. Thus, at the age of seventy-five, my grandfather had fathered fourteen sons and nine daughters, many of whom did not live to be adults. When he died a natural death at the age of ninety-seven, his * Da Erzi, oldest son, had he lived, would have been seventy-five, and his * Zui Xiaode, youngest son, was only twenty-one.

A Footnote:

The Different Names Used For The City of Beijing

It must be confusing for an English speaking person to see four different names used in reference to the capital of the People's Republic of China, and frustrating, not knowing which is the right one to use. In official Chinese documents and publications in the People's Republic of China, one sees the name * Beijing; in articles written by westerners earlier in the century, Peking; in writings published in Taiwan, Peiping; and in books mentioning the city in its old historical context, Beiping.

The two Chinese characters * Bei and * Jing literally mean northern capital. The earliest settlement in the Beijing area dates back to c. 2,000 B.C. Historically when the city was made the capital, it was called Beijing; when a kingdom or dynasty did not choose Beijing as its capital, the leaders gave Beijing a different name. For example, at the beginning of the * Ming dynasty (1368 A.D.), a city in southeast China, * Nanjing, southern capital, was made the capital, so the northern capital was renamed * Beiping, northern peace.

Once in history the city of Beijing was burned to the ground by fires of war (13th century). Another time the whole city, including the palaces, sank thirty meters under the ground level during a big earthquake. It was not until mid-Ming dynasty (1441 A.D.), when the Emperor * Yongle, Forever Happy, formally announced Beiping to be once more the national capital and changed its name back to Beijing, that the city started to flourish with its many architectural splendors, including * Gu Gong, the Imperial Palace, * Tiananmen, the Gates of Heavenly Peace, and * Tiantan, the Temple of Heaven.

In 1911 the * Qing dynasty was overthrown by the * Kuomintang (KMT for short), the Nationalist party, and the KMT government moved its capital to * Nanjing, then known to westerners as Nanking. In 1928 the city of Beijing was once more renamed * Beiping, northern peace; however, it was spelled Peiping. In December, 1948 when the Chinese Communist troops were rapidly taking over most of the mainland, the KMT government and the majority of its officials and military personnel left for the island of Taiwan, currently known as the Republic of China.

In October, 1949, with the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Beijing became the capital, and the name Peiping was eliminated.

During the latter part of the 19th century, with the wide acceptance of the Wade-Giles system of transliterating Chinese characters, Beijing came to be spelled as Peking, both in the western world and in China herself. For a little more than two decades, between 1928 and 1949, this ancient city was known in English by two names: Peiping and Peking. After 1949, westerners and English speaking Chinese continued to refer to the capital as Peking, until 1958, when the PRC government announced the nation-wide use of the new phonetic symbols * Hanyu Pinyin, the Han Dialect Phonetic Spelling, only then did the official spelling of all the proper nouns change. Peking became Beijing.

Actually, the Chinese characters for Beijing and Peking are the same. The difference in spelling is attributed to the two kinds of phonetic system: Beijing and Beiping are spelled according to the Chinese * Pinyin; while Peking and Peiping are spelled according to the Wade-Giles phonetic system. Today publications in Taiwan still use Peiping instead of Beijing. Peking, as a name, is widely known to westerners and frequently found in English language publications, thus, Peking Man, Peking University, Peking Union Medical College (PUMC), Peking Duck, names familiar to the West for three quarters of a century, are still used today.

Further Reading:
Chan, Charis, Imperial China. London: Penguin Books, 1991.
Cheng, Manchao, The Origins of Chinese Deities. Beijing: Foreign Language Press,1995.
Morton, W. Scott, China: Its History and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
Sites With Stories in Old Beijing. Beijing: Chinese Literature Press Panda Books, 1990.