Anchee Min - Pearl of China

A view opened up. In front of me was a stand of bamboo-the same kind of golden bamboo we had in Chin-kiang.

Then I saw it, my friend’s grave, hidden among the bamboo.

My strength fled me. I dropped to my knees.

There was no English. The grave had three Chinese characters carved in the stone., meaning Pearl Sydenstricker.

My eyes filled with tears of happiness, and this time I did not fight them. I understood Pearl’s intent. Her roots in China hadn’t died. China was the final thing on her mind. China was what she took with her to eternity. It was impossible for her to remove her love, for she, in her own words, “had known the fullness of such love, which was absolute in height and depth.” A Westerner wouldn’t understand the meaning of these Chinese characters, but Pearl didn’t care. No wonder the innkeeper had said that the grave was easy to miss.

I felt as if Pearl were greeting me. I could hear her voice. “How was your journey?”

The three Chinese characters were Pearl’s signature stamp, given to her by her Chinese tutor, Mr. Kung. Pearl once explained her name to me when we were young. The first letter was pronounced Sy, as in Sydenstricker. Out of many same-tone-sounding characters, Mr. Kung chose the one with a “mansion, which has a grand roof,” and a “baby” playing underneath.

“My last name in Chinese means ‘a darling doll in the mansion.’”

Pearl was proud as she explained. “Do you like it?”

“I do,” I remembered replying, although I couldn’t read. I tried to hide this by examining the shape of the first character,. “Look,” I said.

“This is not an ordinary mansion. It is the symbol of money.”

“That’s not money,” my friend laughed. “That’s the people shape.”

“Four of them under the roof!”

“Four workers. My father said that we are all the Lord’s workers.”

“The baby is big-bellied,” I cried.

“She loves food!” Pearl laughed.

The second Chinese character,, was the picture of an oyster, but when combined with the third character,, the meaning changed into Pearl.

My friend had chosen her final resting place beside the creek on purpose. The grave faced east, demonstrating that she had followed the rule of feng shui. The surrounding garden was walled in by pines and cypresses. Besides the bamboo, there were maples, evergreen bushes, and flowers. Wild lilies were scattered alongside the creek. There was a seemingly dead old tree that looked as if it had fallen across the creek. Its trunk was about two feet in diameter and it was rotten and hollow inside. What amazed me was that the tree had a lush green canopy. In the center of the rotten trunk, a young branch was healthy and robust. Pearl must have liked this tree. It fit a line from a Chinese poem, “Spring shows its power in rotten wood and dying trees.”

I touched the cold stone and rested my cheek against it.

Dear Pearl,

Since you couldn’t go to China, I have brought China to you.

It is not the reunion I wished for for so long, but I feel blessed to have the opportunity. Because my memory is failing, and because I didn’t want to forget a thing, I have written six notes to be burned with the incense at your grave.

The first note regards the end of Madame Mao. When she denied you a visa, she was sure of her power. She believed that she would rule China after her husband. But she didn’t last. After Mao died, she was arrested and sentenced to death. It was less than four years after Nixon’s visit.

The second note regards your mother’s grave. It almost didn’t survive during the Cultural Revolution. Mao’s teenage mobs came to destroy the grave. Lilac removed the stone tablet and fooled them. In other words, what the Red Guard destroyed was not your mother’s grave. Today the town of Chin-kiang has reclaimed Carie’s status. She is officially titled the founder of the Chin-kiang middle school. Her spirit is celebrated and honored at each Spring Memorial.

The third note regards you. The mansion where your mother last lived has been turned into the Pearl Buck Residence. I can hear you say, “But that wasn’t my house!” True, however, it is important that the residence in your name be presentable. You should understand that to a Chinese, the place that houses your spirit has to be a temple. Copies of your photos, letters, and books are on permanent display. I was not happy about the display of your calligraphy, because the strokes were not yours. Your writing was touched up by a professor from Beijing College of Art and Calligraphy. It was part of the act of transforming you into a goddess so that people could worship you. I didn’t bother to fight, because I thought that it was better than calling you an American Cultural Imperialist.

The fourth note regards the people who knew you, who, as long as they lived, wondered how you did in America. I’d like to begin with Dick because he knew you well and had the worst luck. He was too close to Mao and died a horrible death. Please forgive me for being unable to report more about him. Dick knew that Hsu Chih-mo loved you. Dick wanted to congratulate you in person when he learned that you won the Nobel Prize. We were not allowed to send a telegram to America. Dick said that Hsu Chih-mo would have been so proud. He would have danced on his head. You will be pleased to know that today Hsu Chih-mo’s poems are extremely popular. Young people worship him as a poet whose voice speaks to their own generation. Newspapers continue to print stories of his affairs as if they took place yesterday, and, of course, they continue to miss the real target.

Papa kept the church going until he died. He became a fighting angel like Absalom except he fought guerrilla style. I am sure you missed Carpenter Chan and Lilac. You knew that Carpenter Chan became a Christian, converted by Absalom, but you might not have known that he joined the Communists after Mao took power. Later he went back to God and worked for Papa. I don’t think Americans are able to comprehend such a life, but you would. You lived in China and knew how things can be.

Lilac missed you so much that she could never stop talking about you. She is the town’s longevity star and is in her nineties. Her three sons inherited their father’s trade. It was a pity that you couldn’t see how they rebuilt Absalom’s church, which is called the Chin-kiang Christian Church. Lilac still fights with Vanguard, the beggar lady Soo-ching’s son, whose name used to be Confucius. This was the mother and son you found in your garden so long ago. He betrayed everyone to please Madame Mao. Soo-ching wanted to disown her son, but Papa convinced her that she’d better forgive or she wouldn’t go to heaven.

You don’t know my daughter, Rouge, but she knows everything about you. She is currently the mayor of Chin-kiang and is in charge of the Pearl Buck Scholarship and the Hsu Chih-mo Scholarship. She gave birth to one girl and adopted two girls from her husband’s previous marriage. All my granddaughters share the same middle name, Pearl. They are Pearl Delight, Pearl Bright, and Pearl Flight.

Remember Bumpkin Emperor, the warlord? He became an ardent Christian and the pastor of our church. You will be shocked. Who wouldn’t be? Like your father, Bumpkin Emperor was obsessed with converting people. He tried to save them the way your father saved him. Bumpkin Emperor remembered you as the mean, straw-haired girl. He never got tired of telling people the story of how you fooled him with that bucket of ink. The People’s Publishing House approached him with the idea of publishing a children’s comic book based on the story.