Orphan of Asia by Zhuoliu Wu

Author:Zhuoliu Wu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary Criticism/Asian/General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2012-01-13T05:00:00+00:00

5. Friction

Their married life began with the new year. Shuchun, who was to graduate in March, still had some course work and continued to attend Jinling University. Taiming went on teaching, now as a means rather than an end. A maid whom they hired managed the household.

Taiming was quite satisfied. Up to his neck in married happiness, as if in a tub of water at just the right temperature, he asked nothing more: Shuchun was the answer to all his problems. Although he finally seemed to have kicked his old habit of endlessly cogitating and brooding, this happy state did not last long.

After Shuchun graduated, the couple discovered that they held contradictory views regarding her future. The man wanted his wife to settle down and become a good housewife, whereas the woman insisted on pursuing a career.

She said, “When it comes to crucial matters, you’re as feudal as a grandpa. I didn’t intend to give up my freedom when I married, and I don’t want to be tied to the hearth. Marriage isn’t a business contract, you know. Or by any chance do you believe, like most men, that a wife is just a prostitute with a long-term contract?”

Taiming found such radical assertions very depressing.

Unyielding, Shuchun ignored all his suggestions, decided to go into politics, and landed a job in the Diplomatic Bureau with the help of her university. Taiming feared such a path was especially inimical to a happy home life, and his fears were borne out. Little by little, Shuchun’s tastes and lifestyle began to diverge from his. In vain he recited his favorite lines from the Romance of the Western Chamber and Dreams of the Red Chamber, but she didn’t want to discuss them anymore. The countryside ceased to appeal to her, and she did not want to take walks with him, not even on Sundays. Her new pleasures were dancing, playing mahjong, and going to the theater.

She was always surrounded by her favorite colleagues, all of them young men. One of them was Lai, who had entered the Bureau of Propaganda, just as he had wished. Shuchun’s colleagues met in Taiming’s own house, which, before he could do anything about it, had become a sort of club for them. Shuchun flourished, so aware was she now of her beauty, and she behaved like a queen. Mahjong tiles clinked night after night in the Hu Club. At first, the proprietor participated in the gambling, too, but only because he had to, for he actually hated the opiate. The more accustomed the clubmen grew to the place, the less gentlemanly they became. At one point, they began to exchange obscenities, and the queen did not stop them, for her religious faith in liberty and equality did not permit intolerance of any kind. Moreover, the absolute equality of the sexes in all matters meant that she did not care what her husband thought or felt. Because her minions were always ready to pay tribute to her—mostly cosmetics and ornaments—the principle visibly enriched her everyday life.

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