Spirited Woman Blogger Team

Picking Up a Jade Bracelet

Today, we are very lucky to live in a country where we can freely pursue love.

In ancient China, marriages were arranged. A young man and woman who were going to spend the rest of their lives together were not even allowed to see each other until the moment they were to be married. The bride was told everything about being married, but sex was explained with elaborate euphemisms that gave no idea of what was about to happen.

Families paid matchmakers to select the bride and groom. But young people still met and fell in love. However, even to speak to each other was highly improper. What would happen if you met someone you really liked?

In a famous Beijing opera entitled, Picking up a Jade Bracelet, a young scholar, passes by the door of a young woman, Sun, and is at once smitten by her beauty and innocence. Afraid to talk to her in front of her household, he finally dropped his  jade bracelet in front of her door as a token of his love. Sun is just as taken with the young man as he is with her, but she needs to figure out a way to accept his token. To show love for a man, when their match was not properly arranged by a matchmaker would bring deep shame upon herself and her family. Just leaning down and snatching the bracelet would be much too forward.

The entire opera is about how Sun picks up the jade bracelet. At first she pretends to pick up something else and take the bracelet with it but just then the young scholar returns. Flustered, she lets slip, only to have to figure out another way to pick it up again. Finally, after an hour-long agonized process of picking up and dropping again, she finally succeeds. The scholar now is sure she loves him too and is able to arrange for a matchmaker to make their union respectable.

Today is Valentine’s Day, I will quote a Chinese poem from the three-thousand-year-old Book of Songs to wish you all a long, happy relationship: Let me hold your hand so we can grow old together.

And another one by the famous Tang dynasty poet Li Shangyin: So long as my body is still here, so will be my love for you.

Happy Valentine’s day!

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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Be My Valentine

The most poignant love stories in history are those that do not have a happy ending -- because the longing and passion remain in our memories.

During the Middle Ages, marriages were arranged and many a noble lady loved not her husband but one of his knights. The affair, all the more intense and poignant because it was forbidden, would take place secretly outside the city walls in a world with no artificial light. An understanding watchman would warn the lovers when the first rays of dawn showed at the horizon. This way they could slip home in the dark before daylight would expose their love-making. Many poems called aubes were written describing the sadness of the lovers at the coming of dawn. Such loves were all the more passionate because they could never have a happy ending.

In China, we celebrate Valentine’s Day on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. This commemorates the love between the Weaving Girl and the Cowherd Boy who were separated by the Milky Way. This was the heavenly maid’s punishment for falling in love with a mortal. They could only meet once every year when the heavenly magpies, touched by the couple’s true love, flew together to form a bridge across heaven so the lovers could meet in the middle.

For next week's Valentine’s Day, I will quote one of the most famous lines in Chinese poetry by the great Song dynasty poet  Su Dongpo.

Wishing  a long life for all,
Even a thousand miles apart,
We share the same moon which shines over us all.

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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The Lantern Festival

For the Chinese, two weeks after the New Year comes another celebration, the Lantern Festival. During this festival people light gaily-colored lanterns as decorations, similar to Christmas tree lights in the West.

There are also performances of gymnastics, lion dances, magic, walking on stilts, and the solving of riddles. At my home, when I was a child living in China, we would eat tang-yuan -- sweet rice flour made into sticky balls filled with sesame, red-bean or peanut butter paste. The roundness and sweetness of the food symbolizes good luck and family union.

What inspires me the most about the Lantern Festival in ancient China is not the spectacles themselves, but the freedom that was allowed. In the past, people, particularly women, were not allowed to go places freely, especially after a certain time in the evening. Therefore this was the only day that women could dress up, go out and enjoy themselves.

The Lantern Festival was also a day for romance. In the guise of appreciating lanterns, young men and women could meet freely and fall in love.

Unfortunately, unlike romance novels, love during the Lantern Festival in ancient China did not always have happy endings. Thus the famous poem by Ouyang Xiu:

Last year during the Lantern Festival the evening was lit bright as day.
As the moon quietly rose above the willow branches, men and women had rendezvous in the twilight.
This year during the Lantern Festival, the moon and the lights were the same,
But the one I met last year is nowhere to be found, leaving only tears wetting my sleeves.
        
Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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The Year of the Dragon

Yesterday (January 23, 2012) was the beginning of the Year of the Dragon. In Chinese culture, dragons are highly respected and admired mystical creatures endowed with strength, courage, and nobility. A dragon will lie low until it seizes the opportunity to soar high up in the sky.

Among the many dragon stories, I like the “Dotting the Dragon’s Eye” the best. This is about a painter who painted dragons but never dotted their eyes. When people asked him why his answer was always, “because they’ll become real and fly away!”

Some villagers did not believe this and challenged him to dot his dragon’s eyes. Tired of listening to their imprecations, the painter finally seized his brush and placed a big dot in each eye. Immediately, the dragons roared and soaring high up into the sky, leaving nothing but blank sheets of paper.

This story tells that it is the details that make all the difference in life. As the new Year of the Dragon begins, I hope we can pay attention to the details that can make us achieve our dreams.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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Duality Disappears

For my writing career, there are two things I absolutely cannot afford to be lazy about. First, of course, is to write. The other is to publicize. You have to let the world know what you’ve done. I love the former, but for the latter, it is just something that has to be done.

Whenever a new novel comes out, I have to stop other things to write guest blogs, reach out to newspapers and magazines, network at conferences. This work never comes to an end, unlike the actual writing.

Now my new novel  Skeleton Women is finished, I can finally relax a bit and begin writing my next one. Once I sat down, turned on my computer and started to type, I felt a warm happiness within. I experience again the joy I find in writing, the privilege of work that is close to my heart, something I truly love. However, enjoyment is not enough, you have to expend the utmost care and concern, like a connoisseur examining an antique, or a mother handling her newborn baby.

At a recent radio interview when the host asked me what did I enjoy the most, I said, “When I put all my heart and mind to do something, be it practicing my musical instrument, painting a Guanyin (Chinese goddess of compassion), teaching calligraphy, or writing,  the dualities - good or bad, pretty or ugly, rich or poor, simply disappear. At those joyous moments, my life feels closest to the truth.”

That’s why Zen Buddhism says “When you eat, just eat.” It is that simple, and that hard.

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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Parenting

After tiger mother Amy Chua published her book, Battle Hymm of the Tiger Mother, about parenting, the subject has become ever more popular. Now in China there are all kinds of parents – lion father, eagle mother, fox father, dog mother….

I am grateful that my parents never forced nor harassed me about learning, but let me study whatever I enjoyed. My mother didn’t care if I went to a prestigious school. She always said, “If my daughter is smart, she’ll be smart anywhere.”

I remember an anecdote about the parenting of a calligrapher and his son when the latter was a child. In order to impress his most famous father (whose calligraphy was endorsed by the emperor), the son practiced very hard but never received any praise. One day when he finished a piece and was very particularly pleased with it, he showed it to his father – expecting a big compliment. 

However, the father, after he cast a look at his son’s calligraphy, didn’t say a word, but picked up his writing brush and put a dot by one of the characters. After that, he said, “Go show this to your mother.”

After a long, careful look at the calligraphy, the mother said to the child, pointing to the dot, “Hmmm….I’m afraid in the whole piece only this dot is any good.”

The son practiced very diligently after than and finally became the second greatest calligrapher in China, after his father who was first.

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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A Child’s Vision

Chinese believe that both young children and old people nearing the end of their life’s journey see things that we are not able to see. They believe our vision is obscured by the wind and dust of this world.

That’s why Chinese like to use the eyes of children under five to see hidden things for them. Once when I was in graduate school, someone’s money disappeared and he suspected the culprit was one of the students. But there was no proof. So another professor decided to use his skill of Mysterious Light to discover the thief.

Since we were all curious about this we allowed ourselves to be gathered into a conference room for the demonstration. The professor shined a light on the wall and asked his four-year-old daughter if she saw anything. The girl nodded. “Yes, a man went in, opened the drawer, and took the cash.”

“What does he look like?”

“Old, bald, with a moustache.”

We didn’t know anyone who met this description so the suspected student’s reputation was cleared. Who took the money remains a mystery.

When Chinese are going to buy a house or an apartment, most will bring young children to the place. If the children act happy, play and laugh, then the place will be prosperous. If they sulk, cry and demand to leave right away, Chinese will not proceed with the purchase.

I know children really see things that adults can’t but I do not know if what they see is real or merely imagined. But what I do know is real is their uncontaminated, beginner’s heart and I wish I could go back to that – at least sometimes.

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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My Memories with Ah Han

When I was a child in Hong Kong, white bread toast with butter and a drink called Ovaltine were breakfast for most middle class people. It fed the poor also, who received the neatly cut crust we didn’t want, for a few cents.

In those days we had a maid, as did all but the very poorest families in Hong Kong. Every morning our maid Ah Han would prepare this wonderful meal for me. I would slurp the milked sweet drink and gobble the toast with relish as she fussed over my hair or my face -- probably thinking, what an easy child to please.

Then my taste changed when one time Ah Han cooked a new dish for lunch. I found this so exotic and tasty that I consumed the entire dish so that the plate looked like a mirror reflecting my childish eagerness. With a grand gesture, I named this wonderful food the “Immortal’s Flesh.” To me, it was so delicious that it could only be compared to something eternal. I demanded Ah Han to cook this for me everyday. Later when my mother learned from Ah Han that my favorite dish, the immortal’s flesh, was nothing but fried tofu in soy sauce, she laughed happily, probably also thinking, what an easy child to please.

Ah Han doted on me even more than my mother. Not only would she indulge me in whatever I demanded of her, but she also put up with my childish act. One time she bruised her arm and screamed. Somehow I found the sound so appealing that I playfully pinched her so she’d scream again. As enamored of her scream as of the immortal’s flesh, I never tired of pinching her harder each time so she’d scream more – to please me.

I don’t think she minded this game because she was never mean to me and never told my mother about my naughty behavior. Now, as an adult, decades have past and as much as I want to see her kind face again, she is nowhere to be found. If still alive, she would be in her eighties.  

Although Ah Han may be gone, not long ago I rediscovered Ovaltine in Chinatown, I was pleased beyond words. Now, I’d take a big bite of the white toast spread with butter, sip my steaming Ovaltine with milk and sugar, and savor my “immortal’s” life with Ah Han, who was so kind to me. 

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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Poverty

I grew up with the fear of there being no food on the table the next day. Not that we were actually poor but because my father was a compulsive gambler. The money we had for tomorrow’s meals might disappear at the racetrack today. So when I was old enough, I would take odd jobs whenever I could.

Yet, I considered myself one of the lucky ones. Everyday, just looking out the window of my Hong Kong apartment I would see people a hundred times worse off than me.

My window gave a clear view of the street and the grocery store facing my building. Most afternoons, a girl of about nine or ten would appear searching for discarded bread crusts and begging. What got my attention was not simply that she was a beggar, but that she was topless. Seemingly embarrassed, she would always wrap her arms around her chest as she lowered her head and begged. I always wondered how her family could be so poor as to be unable to afford a top?

One time when I was eating at a diner, a teenager came in with her little brother and ordered a bowl of roast pork over rice. The order took a long time because she bargained hard. She told the waiter that she had only enough money to pay for the food but nothing left for the tea, condiments and tips. Even though she was salivating over the food, she let her starving brother devour the whole bowl without taking a grain of rice for herself.

It is told that during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, there were families that could only afford one pair of pants, so they had to take turns going out. One day the father got to wear the pants, then the next day it was the son’s turn. Yet, some in the world are even worse off. Many years ago when I traveled in India, I was stunned to see an entire family walking on the street completely naked.

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
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Confucius’ Shame

Two weeks ago I attended a conference where my husband presented a paper during the session about Confucius’ Concept of Shame.

There were lots of interesting discussions about how people were shamed and how Confucius thought that shame could actually be a motivation to be courageous.

Sometimes people are shamed for no reason and the shame has nothing to do with virtue. I remember when I was ten or eleven my mother, a thrifty woman, made me wear my brother’s pants with a zipper in front. In that era a girl wearing a boy’s pants was unheard of and attracted much attention. Though I was made fun of, it didn’t bother me a bit. Somehow I knew that it was not I who did something wrong but those who tried to humiliate me.

When one of my girlfriends was one or two, she picked up some dog excrement on the sidewalk in front of her house and put it inside her mouth. Her mother dragged her back into the house, stripped off her clothes, then beat her severely. My girlfriend, who also did not do anything wrong, couldn’t get over the humiliation for a long time.

Confucius knew shame is a complex emotion. Sometimes it guides us toward correct behavior, others it causes us to feel needlessly miserable.

Mingmei Yip, http://www.mingmeiyip.com
Click here to read more of Mingmei's posts.