The Kitchen God's Wife

by Amy Tan

  “Sz Ma’s daughters,” she was saying, “they each inherited the worst flaws of their mother. Tst! Tst! Number one lacked generosity, the kind of person who would never put one copper into a beggar’s bowl. Number two lacked compassion, the kind of person who would throw dirt into the bowl. Number three, so greedy—you know what she would do?—steal the dirt and the bowl! So I did not buy them too many things for their dowry. Why should I, girls as bad as those?”

  I was very careful how I acted toward San Ma. I remembered she was the wife most jealous of my mother, envious of her hair, her position, her education. I did not want to give her any reason to tell my father that I was greedy.

  So when she asked me to choose a chair, I pointed to one with a very simple design, no fancy carvings. And when she asked me to choose a tea table, I pointed to the one with the plainest legs. She nodded and walked over to the salesman waiting to help us. But she did not order the pieces I had picked; she ordered others that were three grades better!

  I thanked her many times. And then I thought we had finished our shopping and would return home. That’s all I thought we would be buying, a chair and a tea table. But San Ma was already encouraging me in a gentle way to remember what a proper wife needed. “What style dressers?” she said.

  Can you imagine how I felt? Do you remember how I had been hoping and praying for a better life? And now everyone was being so good to me. I was no longer lonely. I had all that I wished. I would have no need to wish for anything else, just as the fortune-teller had predicted.

  All day long San Ma and I shopped. It was just like that game show—the one where the woman has one minute to grab onto anything she wants from the store shelf. And she has no time to decide—if she sees something, she should just take it. I was doing the same thing, only I had one whole week. So you can imagine how many things we bought, how the dreams of my future life began to grow and grow and grow.

  That day we also found a triple dresser and a triple armoire, very handsome. And this was my favorite piece: a vanity table in a modern style I had picked out myself. It had a big round mirror framed in silver. Both sides had two drawers, one short, one long. And the front of each drawer was inlaid with mahogany, oak, and mother-of-pearl in a pattern that burst open like a fan. The drawers were lined with cedar, so that the moment you opened them, a good scent flew out. The center part dipped lower than the rest. It was a square table that was also inlaid on top. And beneath the table was a little curved bench covered with green brocade. I imagined myself sitting at that vanity, looking just like my mother.

  Now you know what I am talking about, the same style of furniture I bought for you. I looked so long to find it. So you see, I didn’t buy that table to torture you. That was my favorite.

  On the second day, San Ma helped me buy fun things: a radio, a sewing machine, an RCA phonograph that changed records by itself, a porcelain fishbowl big enough for me to fit in! Wen Fu and I would have plenty of ways to have a happy life.

  On the third or fourth day, San Ma and I went shopping for my private married-lady things. Oh, I was embarrassed! I could only laugh whenever she mentioned what I needed and why. First we found a washbasin, which was really a very nice piece of furniture—a green marble top and a carved wooden cabinet. San Ma showed me the little cupboard down below for hiding female things. We used cloth napkins back then, just like diapers.

  And after that came two kinds of tubs, a tall wooden one for washing my whole body in the morning, and then a smaller porcelain one, which was for washing only my bottom and my feet. That’s what most people in China always used, because they didn’t have time to wash all over every day, only partially. San Ma said, “You should wash your bottom every night before joining your husband in bed. That way he will always welcome you.” This made sense. I remembered times when I wanted to push Peanut out of our bed.

  But then San Ma said to me, “Later at night you should do a small wash again.” And she did not explain why I had to do this. Although I began to think men were more fussy than women, and women were naturally more dirty.

  And then San Ma made me buy three chamber pots. My face burned just to look at them, to imagine that Wen Fu and I would share this as well. The pots had wooden lids and the insides were painted red, then sealed off with a very strong-smelling oil.

  On the fifth day, San Ma helped me buy travel and storage things: big suitcases, all leather, and two cedar chests. We filled the chests with pillows and quilts. And then it was as if San Ma went crazy! She insisted I buy more quilts—twenty!

  “Of course you need this many,” she said. “How else can you keep all your future children warm?” So I chose good, thick quilts—all Chinese made, with lots of fine-weave banding around the sides. Inside, they were filled with the finest cotton batting, the most expensive, beaten many times until it rose up high. And for these blankets, I chose beautiful covers, all silk, not one of them cotton. And each one was embroidered with different flower patterns, never the same pattern twice.

  On the sixth day, we bought all my things for entertaining guests and honoring ancestors: sofas and chairs, an altar table, four stools, and a short round table. This last piece was made out of very thick dark gleaming wood, and it was carved in the Chinese style with claw feet and long-life characters running around the border. Underneath the table were four smaller tables that could be pulled out, in case more guests arrived.

  On the seventh day, the last, we bought all my dishes and silver. By this time, I had been living at my father’s house long enough to know what I needed: two sets of everything!

  I got one set for banquets, one set for everyday use, ten of everything for each set. And it was not just plates and knives and forks like Americans have, one plain, one fancy. Everything was fancy! Ivory or silver. Can you imagine? This was Chinese silver, pure, soft silver, just like money you can exchange.

  At the store they had a big long table, and we set the table with all the things I was choosing. I danced around the store, picking this, picking that, as if I had done this every day of my life, no cares about how much money everything cost. I had silver cups for holding soy sauce, silver cups for drinking tea, silver cups for drinking wine, a silver dish only for holding a little soup spoon. And I had many sizes of spoons, one for drinking a meat soup, one for sipping dessert, like the lily-flower seed soup I loved so much, then two more sizes, one small, one big, although I cannot remember what their purposes were. And to match those I had four sizes of soup bowls, not in silver, but only because then they would be too hot to hold. But they were made out of very good porcelain, painted around the edge in gold. Then I had two sizes of plates, one small, another smaller than that, because as San Ma pointed out, “If you choose a plate that is too big, it is as if you are saying you will never get another chance to eat again.”

  My chopsticks were the best, silver too, each pair connected by a little chain, so they could never be separated, never lost. And just when I thought I was done with my shopping, the salesman showed me a small silver piece, shaped like a fish leaping up. And I knew right away I needed to have that too, because this little ornament was a place for resting your chopsticks, a way to stop eating for a few moments, to admire your table, to look at your guests, to congratulate yourself, and say, How lucky am I.

  On the seventh day of my dowry shopping, only a few weeks before my wedding, that was precisely what I was thinking: How lucky am I. I had nothing but good thoughts in my head. I was sure that my life had changed, was getting better every moment, that my happiness would never stop. And now I would have to pray to the gods every day, but only to offer my never-ending thanks for so many never-ending blessings.

  Imagine me in that store, smiling, sitting at the long, long table with all my things. I tried out my happiness with San Ma and the salesman watching. I picked up my silver chopsticks. I pretended to pluck a delicate morsel off a silver plate. I turned to one side, and I was imagining myself saying, “Husband, you eat this, the best p
art of the best fish. No, not for me, for you, you take it.”

  That was how I was, dreaming of all the ways I would respect my husband. And I can admit this: I was also thinking of ways to show off—all the banquets I would hold. One for my father, whom I now respected so much. One for San Ma, to respect her as my honorary mother. One for my future mother-in-law and father-in-law, whom I was sure I would learn to respect. One to welcome my first son, when he chose to be born. One in honor of Old Aunt and New Aunt, for letting me go. And one for Peanut, maybe even her, when I chose to forgive her.

  I found out later: San Ma had bought a dowry five times bigger and better for Sz Ma’s daughters. I found out: My father knew all along the Wen family character was not so good. So by allowing me to marry into the family, he was saying I was not so good either.

  But I’m sure even he could not imagine just how bad the Wen family really was. All that dowry furniture I had chosen over those seven days?—Wen Fu’s family took it all, shipped everything to America and England as part of their overseas export business.

  The quilts and their silk covers?—Wen Fu’s sisters and his brothers’ wives took them all. And the wedding gifts from other family and friends, the fancy silver picture frames, the heavy silver hair-brush and mirror, the pretty English basins and painted pitchers?—Wen Fu’s mother put those on top of tables in her own room.

  There was only one thing from my dowry they did not steal—because someone else stole it first. It happened the day a servant left to care for her sick mother in the south. And Wen Fu’s mother, who never liked this servant in the first place, soon came to an angry conclusion. While she was cursing this runaway thief for stealing her ten pairs of silver chopsticks, I was hiding those same things under the lining of my suitcase.

  For many years after that, when times were bad, I would take out a pair of those chopsticks and hold them in my hand. I would feel the weight of the silver resting in my palm, solid and unbreakable, just like my hopes. I would dangle the chain that meant a pair could never be separated, never lost. I would pluck at the air, at nothing.

  Can you imagine how innocent I was, how strong my innocence? I was still waiting for the day I could finally bring those silver chopsticks out in the open, no longer a secret. I was still dreaming of celebrations I would hold, of happiness yet to come.

  8

  TOO MUCH YIN

  Now you see how I once was. I was not always negative-thinking, the way you and Helen say. When I was young, I wanted to believe in something good. And when that good thing started to go away, I still wanted to grab it, make it stay.

  Now I am a little more careful. I don’t know why Helen criticizes me about this. She should criticize herself! You see how she is. She sees something good—her children acting nice—she thinks something bad. I’m asking you, isn’t that negative thinking, to think you are going to die because everyone is nice? We have the same expression in Chinese, daomei thinking, only maybe it is even worse. If you think daomei, daomei will happen. If Helen thinks she is going to die—well, we shouldn’t even say these words.

  All I am saying is this: I know how it is to hear bad stories and believe they are true. You’re lucky this has never happened to you. But that’s what happened to my marriage—right from the start.

  Of course, maybe my marriage never really had a chance. If you marry a no-good husband, you have a no-good marriage, no avoiding this. But without the worries Peanut put in my head, maybe I would have found a few moments of happiness before all the truth came out.

  So this is what happened: Three days before my wedding, Peanut did a very bad thing. She fed me news about the Wen family that soured in my stomach. And the next day, she told me a secret story, about the dangers of loving Wen Fu too much. And the day after that, I left for Shanghai to get ready for my wedding, already worried that my marriage was doomed.

  At the time, I did not think Peanut was telling me these things to get revenge for my marrying Wen Fu. After I returned from my father’s house, she began to act friendly again toward me. She showed me an American magazine with pictures of brides, told me what style wedding dress would be best for me, a white satin one with a train ten feet long. She pointed to the dress she thought she should wear, even though I had not asked her to be my brides-maid.

  I told her Old Aunt had already picked out my wedding dress: a long red chipao with an embroidered jacket. Peanut wrinkled her nose. “Villager wedding clothes,” she said, and sniffed. “You must have a Western wedding dress. No respectable Shanghai girl gets married in only Chinese clothes anymore. How old-fashioned! Look at this magazine.” Peanut was always that way, rebellious toward the old customs, but with no new ideas of her own.

  “Old-fashioned or not,” I said, “Old Aunt will never agree to a white wedding dress.”

  “Only uneducated people think white is for mourning,” Peanut argued. “If you let her decide everything, she’ll have you going to your wedding in a red sedan chair—with the village band clanging up a parade of beggars along the way! And all those important friends of your father’s will get out of their automobiles and laugh.” Peanut laughed out loud like a horse to let me know what I would hear on my wedding day.

  I had never thought of this.

  “Eh! Don’t look so serious,” she said. “I’m going to talk to my mother about this right away. Also why we must both wear makeup for the wedding. Girls from the best families wear makeup, not just singers and actresses and low-class girls. Look at the Soong sisters.”

  Now that Peanut had told me she was going to help me, I let my excitement about the wedding come out a little bit at a time. I told her about the two banquets that would be given, one at a good restaurant owned by friends of the Wen family, the other at the YMCA, which was a modern, very stylish building in Shanghai, at least this was the case in 1937. Now the name does not sound so good, but I am telling you, back then it was a very good place to hold a banquet.

  I also told Peanut about some of the furniture my father had bought me for my dowry, about the vanity table with the inlaid fan design—the same things I told you. I told her that Wen Fu’s family had given four thousand yuan as a money gift. “See how generous they are. See how much they value me,” I said. And here, I knew I was bragging just a little.

  “I expect my future family to pay at least forty thousand,” Peanut said, a smug look on her face.

  Her remark was like a slap. I stared at her.

  “You remember what the fortune-teller said,” Peanut added. “My marriage will be to a wealthy family in Shanghai, much richer than the local marriage I gave up.”

  And then I realized: She was telling me that it was her choice, long before my marriage proposal, to give up Wen Fu for someone better. So in this way she was saving both our faces, hers for losing Wen Fu, mine for taking him away from her.

  I thought this was very generous of her, to find an excuse to let both of us accept what had happened. And that’s how we came to be as close as sisters once again for the rest of the time I had left with my family. In fact, from that day forward, until I was married, we called each other tang jie, “sugar sister,” the friendly way to refer to a girl cousin.

  But all that talk about money was not the bad thing Peanut told me. That only made me think she was sincere.

  Three days before the wedding, our house was crowded with relatives who had come from far away—Old Aunt’s people, New Aunt’s people, cousins connected to us by complicated marriages. With so many people, it was too noisy to sleep after the noontime meal. So Peanut went outside for a walk, and I began to pack my clothes and wrap my jewelry in soft cloths.

  A few days before, many things had been presented to me at a big family dinner: an oval jade ring from my father’s mother, a gold necklace from my father, two gold bracelets, one each from Old Aunt and New Aunt. And there was something else; Old Aunt gave this to me when nobody was looking: the imperial jade earrings that had once belonged to my mother, the ones she said would s
omeday be mine.

  I was trying them on, remembering what my mother had said—about the worth of the earrings, the worth of my words—when Peanut ran back to our room. She whispered she had to tell me something, that we should go to the greenhouse to talk. Right away I stopped what I was doing and we walked outside. Secrets told in the greenhouse were always the best, dangerous to know, dangerous to others. We wound our way past the broken pots, then found our childhood tea furniture, two wooden lawn chairs with the backs broken off.

  Peanut said she had been sitting on the front steps of the New West part of the house. And behind her, in the screened porch, she could hear the men relatives talking. Old Aunt had kicked them out of the sitting room, because they had been smoking cigars, and she discovered a few of them liked to spit on the rug as well. So there they were, in the porch, smoking and spitting.

  Peanut said she had heard them talking about the same boring things: the new Japanese premier, factory explosions, strikes, and then a new subject—la-sa, or garbage, businesses.

  “One uncle was saying how people in Shanghai were crazy to find any kind of way to get rich off foreign la-sa. The Americans, the British, the French—they’re always throwing away leftovers from their businesses, throwing away food, just because they made too much. They pack things in wooden boxes, and when they unpack they throw the boxes away. They abandon furniture when they go back to their foreign countries.

  “Uncle said it’s easy to get rich off foreigners. You don’t have to be so smart. You tell them, ‘For a small fee, I can take your garbage away—your old clothes, your wood scraps, leftover furniture.’ And after they pay you, you turn around and sell these same throwaway things to someone else. That’s how you can make three generations’ worth of fortune almost overnight.”