by Amy Kwei
wind organ — Organ.
wood shaving water — A viscous liquid obtained by soaking wood shavings. It was used to make hair shiny and manageable.
Xian incident — See “Zhang Hsueh-liang”. Chiang Kai-shek referred to the Xian incident as the beginning of Communist victory. Most Westerners find Marshal Zhang’s behavior quixotic and inexplicable. Yet, Marshal Zhang was behaving in the most inspired Confucian tradition of the scholar official who braves torture and death to inveigh the Emperor on his misrule, and lead him on to a course of virtue.
yin and yan — The male and female principles of the universe. Yin stands for the feminine, dampness and the dark side of things. Yan stands for the masculine, the sunny and bright side of things. The balance of yin and yan, and the cyclical nature of the universe is basic to Chinese belief.
Zhang Hsueh-liang (1901—2001) — Zhang is the ping ying spelling for Chang. He was the son of the Manchurian warlord Chang Tso-lin. The elder Chang was assassinated by the Japanese in 1928. The young Marshal brought his Manchurian troops under the Chinese Nationalist flag after the Xian incident, and he was recognized as the leader of the Northeastern (Manchurian) forces. When the Generalissimo came to Xian to ensure the Northeastern (Manchurian) forces’ role in his sixth campaign to exterminate the Communists. Zhang Hueh-liang kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek, and forced him to join with the Chinese Communists in a united effort to drive the Japanese invaders out of Manchuria. On December 1936, the Generalissimo agreed to form a coalition. In classic Confucian tradition, the young marshal returned to Nanking with Chang Kai-shek to give the Generalissimo face and to ensure the success of the coalition. The marshal had been kept under house arrest by the Nationalist government until both Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo were dead. He visited the United States in 1991. On June 14, Harrison Salisbury reported “Young Marshal Zhang Xueliang has embarked on a new crusade — to bring Beijing and Taiwan into a unified China.”
Amy S. Kwei — A graduate of St. John’s University (BA) and Vassar College (MA). She is retired from teaching in Bennett College and Dutchess Community College. She has twice won the Talespinner Competition sponsored by the Poughkeepsie Journal. One of the judges, Michael Korda, commented: “Has a very strong cultural appeal, and gives the reader a quick, instant understanding of Chinese values, and how they differ from our own. As well, it is simply written, perhaps the best written of all the stories here.”
Her young adult novel Intrigue in the House of Wong was published in 2009. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Prima Materia, Short Story International, CAAC Inflight magazine, Westchester Family, Dutchess Magazine, The Country, and Dutchess Mature Life. Andover Green published one of her children’s stories in Six Inches to England.
Amy is working on Under the Red Moon— a sequel to A Concubine for the Family. An excerpt from the book was published as a short story in the Skollie magazine of the Aspen Writers Foundation.
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