An episode that caused much merriment was Chan-King's initiation of his family into the mystery—and history—of chop suey. The rich joke of that "made-in-America" Chinese dish is penetrating to every household where the returned student is found. In Shanghai we had heard with amusement how the bewildered chef of the Y.M.C.A. café had gone down to one of the great trans-Pacific liners lying in port, to learn from the head cook on board just what this "chop suey," which all his returned student patrons were demanding, might be. Now, with memories of old college club activities prompting us, and with a skilful cook to carry out our directions, Chan-King and I introduced into the ancestral home that most misunderstood dish in all the world. The family agreed that, though vaguely familiar, it was unlike anything they had ever tried before, and they decided without dissenting vote that it was superior to fricasseed chicken, Spanish steak or hot cakes.
At this time, my husband's brother, Lin-King, came home for a brief stay. I decided from photographs that he resembled his father, who was still away. Lin-King and Madame Springtime seemed well-suited to each other and happy, although the marriage had been arranged by their families and they had never seen each other before the ceremony. I decided that the old custom had much merit, after all—for other people—and said so to my husband, adding, "When our children are grown, we must have them all marry Chinese." Chan-King looked at me long in silence and then, sighing humorously, he asked, "What of their father's example my dear?"
Since my Chinese was still bookish and unpractised in the all-important matters of tone and local idiom, I could not converse with the family, and at the dinner-table and in my mother's apartment I was as silent and meek and pleasant of manner as Madame Springtime herself. Madame Springtime served formal tea to our many guests in absolute silence, with a sweet, fixed smile at the corners of her red mouth. I watched her with consuming interest, for she was acting as first daughter-in-law in my stead.
The machinery of life ran with the smoothness of long habit and complete discipline. The meals were served, the apartments kept in exquisite order and the children cared for by a corps of servants trained in minutiæ by an exacting mistress, who knew precisely what she wanted. Our days were left free for the practice of small courtesies, the exchange of pretty attentions and the care of the ancestral altar.
From the ceremonies that took place before this altar at various times, my husband kept himself, his wife and children sedulously aloof. It was neither asked nor expected that he would do otherwise, just as our attendance at the little mission church was accepted without question. At other times, however, I had ample opportunity to study the altar and to enjoy the beauty of its massive carvings, its elaborate incense-burners and candlesticks, its exquisitely wrought embroideries. A porcelain image of the Buddhistic Goddess of Mercy in her character of Son-Giver, set within a large glass case, fascinated me by its remarkable resemblance to certain Catholic images. But the ancestral tablets interested me more, and the respect that I have always accorded objects sacred to others was in this instance mingled with profoundly personal feelings: the inter-blended characteristics of those men and women so many years dead and gone lived on in the man who was my husband; their life currents pulsed warmly in the veins of my children; perhaps some deep insight gained beyond the grave enabled them to know how truly I acknowledged my debt to them, how earnestly I hoped those children might not prove unworthy of their heritage.
With the help of Chan-King's coaching and my personal observations, I soon learned the gracious routine of the house. At ten o'clock every morning I presented myself at the door of Madame Liang's apartment and sat with her for several hours, often over tiffin, even till tea-time, if she signified a desire for my company. If the weather was fair, we would walk in the garden, she leaning lightly on my arm, her cane tapping on the flagstones. At times, also, tea was served here, with the small children joining us for hot milk and sweet cakes.
I was several days in getting the members of the household identified in their proper relations, for there were thirty persons gathered in that big, low-roofed, rambling compound behind the high, enveloping wall. They were nearly all women, and two-thirds of them servants. The quiet, soft-mannered woman relatives spent nearly all of their time in their own apartments. Madame Liang's powerful personality, silent and compelling, paled the colours of nearly all the temperaments around her. Her friend, Madame Chau, was immensely comforting to her, for she could not be persuaded to take anything very seriously. Madame Liang laughed with her more than with anyone else. While they busily embroidered, they gossiped, and I listened to their musical speech with its soft southern accents and chiming, many-toned cadences.
I used to think, as I sat in a deep-cushioned chair, nursing the small Alicia, with a pot of tea at my elbow, that Madame Liang, in her gorgeous, heavily carved, black-and-orange bed, enclosed on three sides by panels of painted silk and draped over the front with silk curtains held back by tasselled brocaded bands, was a link in the Chain of Everlasting Things. She had come into the house exactly as "new women" had done century after century, and she had lived out her life unquestioningly according to their precepts and example. There was a monumental, timeless dignity about her as she sewed and talked of simple matters. In her presence, I felt young and facile and terribly unanchored.
I talked these things over with Chan-King in the dark of the night, when all the household was silent. He was interested in my reactions, knowing they were the outcome of a profound personal love for his family and sympathy with everybody in it. Spiritually, Chan-King also was in sympathy with his family. Practically—well, as I have said, there were moments when he longed for American food, and his first deed in the house was to order the bed curtains removed from our apartment.
They were removed, and nothing was said. A wonderful spirit of courtesy and toleration prevailed in the family life, with a complete absence of that criss-cross of personal criticism that our Western freedom of speech permits. Not that there were not undercurrents, intimate antagonisms here and there, personal sacrifices and sorrows. But they were not recognized, for in Chinese life individual claims are eternally relinquished in the interest of clan peace and well-being. There was one authority, and it was vested in Madame Liang. Such a system makes for harmony and preserves the institution of the family, on which all China is founded.