"Unlike almost every other American of her generation, Pearl Buck grew up knowing China as her actual, day-to-day world, while America was the place of conjecture and simplified images. Furthermore, almost uniquely among white American writers, she spent the first half of her life as a minority person, an experience that had much to do with her lifelong passion for interracial understanding.

Since she lived for so many years in China, and spoke and read Chinese, Buck had a unique vantage point as a witness to the making of the modern Chinese nation. She was caught up in the Boxer Uprising of 1900, the 1911 Revolution, and the civil wars of the 1920s and 1930s. She knew personally some of the men and women who participated in the "science and democracy" movement and the May Fourth movement. She took part in the debates over Confucianism, and was a sympathetic observer of the Chinese struggle to emancipate women.

Similarly, Buck's American years, from the mid-1930s to her death in 1973, can only be illuminated by reference to a further list of cultural subjects: the history of American attitudes toward China; the controversy over imperialism and the debate over immigration; the problematic status of popular culture; the American civil rights and women's rights movements; the witch-hunts of the McCarthy period.

. At one time or another in the course of her eighty years, Buck's friends and adversaries included Sinclair Lewis, Margaret Mead, James T. Farrell, Chiang Kai-shek and Mme. Chiang, Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Sanger, Edgar Snow and Helen Foster Snow, Lin Yutang, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Alaine Locke, Will Rogers, Charles Lindbergh, Hu Shih, Rose Kennedy, John Kennedy, Oscar Hammerstein, II, Indira Gandhi, James Yen, Owen Lattimore, Henry Luce, Christopher Isherwood, and Jawaharlal Nehru, among many others.

James Michener, who served on the original Welcome House board of directors, recently recalled his long association with Pearl Buck: "She was a spokesman on all sorts of issues: freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the adoptability of disadvantaged children, the future of China, especially the battle for women's rights, for education. If you followed in her trail, as I did, you were put in touch with almost every major movement in the United States -- intellectual, social, and political."7 Chinese scholars and students are exhibiting a renewed interest in Pearl Buck.

When we came back from Anhwei province to Nanking, for example, we spent several evenings with Liu Haiping, the distinguished dean of the School of Foreign Studies at the University of Nanjing. During one dinner, Liu argued provocatively that Buck is the only American writer whose work is, in part at least, a product of Chinese culture. As such, she provides an almost unique case study in the complexity of cultural identity.

Beyond that, many young Chinese regard Buck's novels as a valuable historical record -- a "treasure trove," in Liu Haiping's phrase -- of China's rural life in the early twentieth century.8 I have recently received a letter from a group of scholars in Chengdu, in Szechuen (Sichuan) province, which confirms Liu's opinion. These men and women, a group called De Heng Fan, are translating Buck's novels into Chinese. "Through [these books]," they write, "we understand the Chinese farmers' hardship, struggle and happiness before the establishment of the People's Republic of China."

šjane›

As we meet the Ying Yang orb of day
lucky we chance the thoughts of Laotze.

The light of great wisdom is really at play
When our evening of childhood now covered in gray

Peaks friendship and wishes in words so cliché.
Set to music, the tune we delight and convey

Our smiles and Best wishes for a Happy Birthday.
Flourish and trumpets Yili Lin in plié,
but firstly we urge, please dance the merrengue.

(2) I was immediately struck by this from the second page: "The kitchen was made of earthen bricks as the house was, great squares of earth dug from their own fields, and thatched with straw from their own wheat." What an organic picture of the dwelling evolving up out of the very earth on which it sits.

(3)Intimations of social change: Not only is the momentous change about to take place in the life of Wang Lung, but there appear to be other changes taking place: "The new fashion is to take off the braid." I believe this was a very substantial change in Chinese society at that time. "He saw wiith an instant's disappointment that her feet were not bound." - Also an indication that change was (if you'll pardon-the-expression) afoot.

Fu Hsüan: Woman (3rd C.)
Here the theme of distance is used to emphasize the emotional isolation that is women's lot.

How sad it is to be a woman!
Nothing on earth is held so cheap.
Boys stand leaning at the door
Like Gods fallen out of Heaven.
Their hearts brave the Four Oceans,
The wind and dust of a thousand miles.
No one is glad when a girl is born:
By her the family sets no store.
Then she grows up, she hides in her room
Afraid to look a man in the face.
No one cries when she leaves her home--
Sudden as clouds when the rain stops.
She bows her head and composes her face,
Her teeth are pressed on her red lips:
She bows and kneels countless times.
She must humble herself even to the servants.
His love is distant as the stars in Heaven,
Yet the sunflower bends toward the sun.
Their hearts more sundered than water and fire--
A hundred evils are heaped upon her.
Her face will follow the years' changes:
Her lord will find new pleasures.
They that were once like substance and shadow
Are now as far as Hu from Ch'in.
Yet Hu and Ch'in shall sooner meet
Than they whose parting is like Ts'an and Ch'en.

"It has to do with my growing up in a traditional Chinese society--I was a girl in a family if eight boys, so I was very precious to my father, which was rare, because in Traditional Chinese societies, as you may know, girls are not valued. I grew up knowing that I was one of the fortunate who were wanted and loved...China in a country with over a billion people. Its environment has been degraded completely by overpopulation. One of the horrible consequesces of this one-child policy is female infanticide...When I read this I was so outraged, so angry, that I wrote this poem. And to control my anger, I wrote it in the strictest form I could think of--a pantoun, which features a great deal of repetition. The pantoun has often been used for comic purposes because of the repetition and the structure. But I realized I could use the form to control my anger...disciplined focus; you can't allow things to spill over. You have to be very focused, like a laser that produces a powerful intensity...

First let me just tell you that one of the favorite methods of killing these little baby girls is to turn their faces over in soot. Soot is readily available in peasant homes, and you don't have to reuse it. You can throw it out with the infant."

Pantown for Chinese Woman

"At present, the phenomena of butchering, drowning
and leaving to die female infants have been very serious."
(The People's Daily, Peking, March 3rd 1983)

They say a child with two mouths in no good.
In the slippery wet, a hollow space,
Smooth, gumming, echoing wide for food.
No wonder my man is not here at his place.

In the slippery wet, a hollow space,
A slit narrowly sheathed within its hood.
No wonder my man is not here at his place:
He is digging for the dragon jar of soot.

That slit narrowly sheathed within its hood!
His mother, squatting, caughs by the fire's blaze
While he digs for the dragon jar of soot.
We have saved for a hundred days.

His mother, squatting, caughs by the fire's blaze.
The child kicks against me mewing like a flute.
We have saved ashes for a hundred days.
Knowing, if the time came, that we would.

The child kicks against me crying like a flute
Through its two weak mouths. His mother prays
Knowing when the time comes that we would,
For broken clay is never set in glaze.

Through her two weak mouths his mother prays.
She will not pluck the rooster nor serve its blood,
For broken clay is never set in glaze:
Women are made of river sand and wood.

She will not pluck the rooster nor serve its blood.
My husband frowns, pretending in his haste
Women are made of river sand and wood.
Milk soaks the bedding. I cannot bear the waste.

My husband frowns, pretending in his haste.
Oh clean the girl, dress her in ashy soot!
Milk soaks our bedding, I cannot bear the waste.
they say a child with two mouths is not good.

You may have contained the anger, but not the sadness.

I hope it's clear that the anger is not against men. The mother-in-law herself participates in the deed. The anger is at an age-old structure that refuses to change. I hope the poem is one more fist beating down that wall.

It is fascinating to see O-Lan take to her new life - and to see Wang Lung's rather astounded reactions to her abilities. Pearl Buck's gentle subtext here is a lesson.

...this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods. The earth lay rich and dark, and fell apart lightly under the points of their hoes. Sometimes they turned up a bit of brick, a splinter of wood. It was nothing. Some time, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood there, had fallen, and gone back into the earth. So would also their house, some time, return into the earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together--together--producing the fruit of this earth--speechless in their movement together.

Betty: Only meant Wang Lung's DESIRE was very un-Buddah like.

After the spontaneous generation of Hun Dun (Hundun), the primal blob, and its transformation through Pon Ghu (Pan Gu) into heaven and earth, Shewah (Nü Wa) is born into paradise, having hatched from the primal egg. She marries her twin brother, Fuh He (Fu Xi), is seduced by the river god, Huh Boa (He Bo), has an affair with the sky god, Hoh Yih (Hou Yi), and then creates human beings before finally vanquishing the water demon, Gongong (Gong Gong), and repairing the devastated world for her human descendants.

Fu Xi and Nü Wa

The fragments of myth that describe the sibling rulers Fu Xi and Nü Wa are relatively abundant, as are pictorial representations of their intertwined half-dragon, half-human forms. The derivation of their names is unclear but in the case of Fu Xi seems to point to the "hunter" or the "cook."

The sister's name is the character for "woman," plus a second unique character containing the "woman" classifier in its ideographic make-up. If the "worm" classifier is substituted for this "woman" then the common word for "snail" results. Perhaps this is suggestive of the physical appearance of Nü Wa. The fact that the ideograph of her name is so predominantly feminine has prompted some scholars to speculate that remnants of her myth are evidence of an ancient matriarchal culture.

Although Fu Xi is normally considered the first of the legendary rulers (reigned 2852-2737 BCE), some registers indicate that Nü Wa came before him. Nü Wa is credited with establishing the rites of marriage and inventing the reed pipe, while her brother is the inventor of nets and baskets, hunting and cooking, the zither, and sometimes fire. While the sister is best known for creating human beings, her brother is most famous for the discovery of the bagua, or eight trigrams, of the Book of Changes The Book of Changes is commonly refered to as the I Ching and the 64 hexigrams is said to have first been divined from the turtle shell)

Hundun

One of the most intriguing myths relates the story of the sad demise of Hundun. The Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi (370-301 BCE) records the earliest reference to this mythical being.

Zhuangzi uses this tale as a parable to illustrate the benefit of ridding the body of desires. The statement of a Daoist master could just as easily be applied to this passage: "I demonstrated to him how it was before first emerging from our Ancestor." Early commentators described Hundun as the primal Oneness which first divided into heaven, earth and the ten-thousand things. An even more terse account appears in chapter 42 of the Laozi: "Dao begat the one; one begat two; two begat three; three begat the ten-thousand things."

What is perhaps most intriguing is the fact that the world was not perceived as beginning in chaos. Hundun did not impose order upon the preexistent confusion and thus bring law into being. Hundun, or the Dao, was the pre-cosmic order.

In the state of Hundun heaven and earth were like an egg. Pan Gu was born in the midst. After eighteen-thousand years, the heavens split from the firmament as yang cleared and yin became turbid. In its midst Pan Gu in one day completed nine transformations.

Pan Gu Pan Gu was the firstborn. When about to die, he underwent transformation. Breath became the wind and clouds. Voice was thunder. The left eye was the sun, right eye the moon. The four limbs and body became the four directions and the mountain peaks. Blood was river and stream. Tendons were the mountain paths and roads, while flesh and muscle were the arable lands.

Mane and beard became the stars, while fur was grass and trees. Teeth and bones were precious ores. Sperm was pearl and marrow jade; sweat became the quenching rains. The vermin crawling on its body, influenced by the vapors, changed into the black-haired masses.

After there are Heaven and Earth, then are born the myriad things.
After the myriad things, then there are the sexes.
After male and female, then there are husband and wife.
After marriage, then there are father and son.

The Ninth Wing

O-WAH
TA-GU
SI-AM
The back of my neck still gets warm...

Not only in the cadence but in the parable like nature of its intent. I wonder if, being a child of missionaries, she learned to read (and think) in a biblical voice.

Also, Ella, good point about placing this in the context of the times. I think you're right that this accounted for its universal popularity.

"They cannot take the land from me. The labor of my body and the fruit of the fields I have put into that which cannot be taken away. If I had the silver, they would have taken it. If I had bought with the silver to store it, they would have taken it all. I have the land still, and it is mine."

also a basic belief within the Four Noble Truths is that desire often leads to suffering- one suffers when one cannot have what one wants (desires) or when you get it because phenomenon is transitory sooner or later you lose it and thus suffer. - the endless cycle

I have enjoy all here, Thank you

Lurker, Ginger

Notice how everyone's always inviting themselves to Ginny's???

Ginger

It's easy, it's fun said Scheherazade.
We'll needn't pick apples nor golden rod,
Our fingers and eye will hunt as Nimrod.
The hucksters they call, skilled as Hesiod

With promise of silver and cinnabar.
Running our rickshaw as an isobar
We weave his dream and play his charade
The cold wind grieves loss as did Abelard.

Gorging our wants we wear a brassard
Marking the blossoms of our boneyard.
While butterflys linger over his Asgard,
Will we dance our song in the waiting vineyard?

Hungry with autumn, goblins line a scorecard.
Sparce are the stars, fireflies disregard.
Dew beads in moonlight, blow a vanguard
To old ghosts complaining, in promenade.

The jewels of Hwang hiding in our timberyard
Quietly waiting, loom weaving Jacquard
Caught between warp and woof calling-- Regard,
The rivers and lakes are tumbling roughshod.

Sweet on your brow, sow drifts to Archernar,
Drop diamonds in corners with songs of Aisha.
Harvest your glory, offer ribbons peau de soie,
With prayer whispered softly to the great Amen-Ra.

ED:  I wish that I were closer to  Pa. so I could go to this art alliance discussion on Ms. Buck.   Anybody here going to be able to make it?

Mal and Betty and CAROL:   Don't you feel that their religion was   "the good earth?"   That was what they were devoted to and worshiped.  Their land was sacred to them & they took a spiritual delight in it.  Such imagery.  < What else could PB possibly have named this novel?

BARBARA  says:  But my concern reading this story has awakened for me the hunger of our spirit rather then the body.  This is great stuff ladies!!!  Do you think he sold his soul, Barb?  what a provocative statement you've made about "feeling needy when you not the stewart of your skills, time and energy."  I understand that completly.

GINGER:  We miss your input.  Are you still lurking?

YiLi:  You have written-- " What I liked about my perception of O-Lan is that she was a woman who did and did not as a result of her own choice- she did not whine about a choiceless society or rage at the gods, she simply acknowledged the "absolute" (famine, flood, Lotus)and created a relative reality that met her and her family's survival needs."
Recently Derpok Chopar (?sp) said that one needs to ignore the negative influences around them.  <b>By ignoring them, they become unimportant, lessened in severity.  They lose power and energy and will become insignificant.&lt   Do you believe that was what o-lan was attempting?  
 
 
 
 

The land is very important to all nations as our food comes from it. My people all farmers, lumberjacks etc. all aprieciated the land, the weather and were very thankfull for a good crop, so we have (thanksgiving day) in this nation.

I have recently been told that if you have lots of land in England you are thought to be very rich. WE will understand all of our thoughts on how we use our land in the very near future as we are abusing it so much in so many ways. Ginger

The spring brings rising discontent to these city dwellers living just the other side of the wall, the great divide, the thin line between riches and subsistence, their resentment is as a river swollen by the winter snows. Their savage desire. WL desires nothing but his land under his feet again. Their hammer and sickle. His plow and scythe.

Mal:  Wang, unlike your friend John , Wang did not WANT to be educated .  His only knowledge or skills were "of" the land and he was contented to remain uneducated.

"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far abovr rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall hve no need of spoil.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands...she bringeth her food from afar..
She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
...with the fruit of her hands she plantesh a vineyard.
She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff...
She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
She maketh herself coverings of tapestery; her clothing is silk and purple..."

The wind drives across heaven:
The image of the taming power of the small.
Thus the superior man
Refines the outward aspect of his nature.

the expination - the wind can indeed drive the clouds together in the sky; yet, being nothing but air, without solid body, it does not produce great or lasting effects. So also an individual, in times when he can produce no great effect in the outer world, can do nothing except refine the expression of his nature in small ways.

This is followed by a small distinction with the change of the 6 lines. The information is cryptic and written with mostly symbols of nature that are then discribed and discribed further to make sense to the western mind by the translater.

Well and then. On the other hand, sometimes its only necessary to stick ny finger right in the wall socket to kind of catch the drift.

(I need to deep breath , yoga stretch, meditate, visualize, etc) just to keep up with you,  Betty.

I understand your enjoyment of the folks that you warm to- the new agers, etc.  I feel it's because they bring a different dimension to OUR thinking.  Thought Provoking!  You listen, you learn, and weidh their words  BUT your credo is "show me the study."  You have the mind of a scientist, obviously, and like all good scientists,  enjoy the banter.

Charles;we will NOT discuss the IRS. It makes me angry  and very blue today.

Ginny:   Come on TELL US!!!  What weakness?  An error?   Tell us,  tell us please.

Betty:  Thank you , but it is NOT a compassionate view that I  have of Wang,  merely an observation.  The angrier HE gets the angrier I get at him.  I hate self-destruction.  As I read on, I could almost feel the countdown to his destruction- 10-9-8-7-6-5-4----  He stayed more and more in the house and he could never have his fill of wonder at this, that here in these courts where the great family of Hwang once lived now he lived with his wife and sons - & their wives.  Pride was the fall of the angels wasn't it?

Barb:  This information on the buyers "beware" of symbols floors me.  What an engaging concept.  I can just picture a highly educated man and wife, stalling negotioations with the realtor because of their need to consult their Chinese families, before the final decision is made.  Puts a whole diffent slant on aggressive real estate. J

And so the old man woke from his aged and fitful sleepimg with a sort of cunning hatred against Lotus. He would go to the doorway of her court and shout suddenly into the air,

"Harlot!"

Or he would draw aside the curtain into her court and then spit furiously upon the tiles. And he would hurl small stones and throw them with his feeble arm into the little pool to scare the fish, and in the mean ways of a mischievous child he expressed his anger.

I mention this because it put me in mind of the reactions on Ran Su's wife in Waiting, every time she saw Manna or Lin.

Passing them, the skinny little woman spat to the ground and said out loud, "Self-delivery."...

From then on, whenever the little woman saw Manna she would call her "Self-delivery" or shout, "Poked by a man!"

"One great weakness in the novel is the author's sense of time...For example, the youngest daugher is not quite ten when she is betrothed. Then, apparently, many years pass during which much happens. Nevertheless, she is not quite thirteen when she is attacked by the uncle's son. Than, again, many years apparently pass during which much more happens. But, when the youngest son--this girl's twin, and therefore the same age-appears before the father, he is stil a young boy."

I am confused.  How do the Chinese bury their dead?  Does anyone know?  Is YiliLin still here with us?  Is there really a hierarchy of ascent with the coffins? a particular arrangement based on the status of the deceased in the family?

Mal:  Thanks for your search on the entombment question.  Another question  I had in an earlier post was not addressed by anyone, either.  In the first chapters when Wang went for his shave, he became agitated when the barber good-naturedly threatened to cut off his "tail".  Is that symbolic in Chinese families?  He fearfully squealed that he would have to check with his father before he could allow that.  I didn't understand if that was an insult or merely playful teasing on the part of the barber.

Heresy: I think this was, historically, written on the right subject at the right time - hence it's place in literary history.

Welcome

Ginger