"The parents of Wu Fang sent for a go-between, a man who was known to be very successful in making arrangements for families with sons and daughters of the age to be married. They consulted the fortune tellers to find out whether the wedding of Chen Lien and Wu Fang would bring good luck to the young people and both their households.
"'It is best I should tell you something, O Excellent Youth,' the go-between said to Wu Fang. 'The young maiden is good. The young maiden is rich. The young maiden is fair. But still you should know that there is a flaw in her beauty.'
"But Wu Fang would not listen. 'I myself have a way of knowing that the young maiden's appearance is all I could desire,' he said. 'If there is a slight flaw, that is nothing to me. I will marry Chen Lien.' He did not wish to explain that he had looked over the wall and had seen the maiden himself, because he well knew that he had broken the rules of good behavior.
So fair did the maiden look there in the garden that the young man straightway fell in love with her
"The girl's parents were delighted with the marriage plan, for the family of Wu Fang was one of the best in the neighborhood. Also, they had secretly feared that her ugly eyebrow might prevent their daughter from making a really good match.
"Well, in due time there arrived at the bride's gate a card from the groom, giving the date of the wedding which the fortune tellers advised, and, as is the custom, there came along with it a pair of handsome fat geese whose sad white feathers had been covered with a coat of joyous red paint. The bride's family politely returned one of the geese with their consent to the date which the groom had selected.
"As the day itself drew near, the courtyard of Chen Lien's home was heaped high with presents from the groom's family. There were earrings and finger rings, bracelets and hair ornaments, rolls of fine silk, and sweet candies and cakes in handsome boxes of red lacquer.
"But Chen Lien was troubled. 'Oh, what will my bridegroom say when he sees my ugly eyebrow?' she cried to her mother.
"'No doubt the go-between has already told him, my daughter. Think no more about it,' her mother said, comforting her. But through all the preparations for the wedding, even during the painful moments when the maids were pulling out the hairs in her girlish bangs so that her forehead should be high and smooth like a wife's, the poor maiden could not put the thought of her eyebrow out of her mind.
"Now, time never stands still, little Yu Lang. " Grandmother Ling continued her tale. "The wedding day drew near. Gifts from the bride's family and the bride's own belongings arrived at the Wu gate at last. All the neighborhood gathered to see the bundles and boxes. Each red lacquered table, borne by two porters, was so heavily loaded that the men had to walk slowly.
"Next day, dressed in her bridal robe of red silk with golden patterns embroidered upon it, Chen Lien set forth in her marriage chair. Its curtains of red cloth were closed tight to shut her away from the eyes of the world. Firecrackers were set off to speed her on her way. She wept, as all good brides do, so that her family should not think she was glad to be leaving them.
"But Chen Lien wept more than is necessary for any bride. She was not even cheered by the thought of the splendid procession that accompanied her. Through cracks in the curtains she could see the two lines of men dressed in red, carrying the flying red banners, the huge red umbrellas, the lanterns, and the great golden symbols high up on poles. The sound of the music of the trumpets and horns could not drive from her mind the fear of what her new husband should say when he saw the ugly scar on her brow, where the hair would not grow.
"In this wedding all was done according to custom. The bridegroom in his scarlet robe and black over-vest came forth to meet the procession. When for the first time Chen Lien saw how handsome he was, she felt even sadder than before to think that her own beauty was spoiled. Firecrackers popped as her chair was carried into the entrance court. Wu Fang, the bridegroom, shot three dull-pointed arrows at the floor of the sedan chair so as to drive away any spirits which might bring bad luck. Chen Lien was glad that the thick veil of beads hanging from her gilt marriage crown covered her face. She bent her head modestly as the women from Wu Fang's family led her into the house.
"The ceremonies were over all too quickly for Chen Lien. She and her bridegroom met in the great Hall of the Ancestors. She dutifully knelt down on the floor beside her new husband and kowtowed to the Gods of Heaven and Earth. They bowed to the ancestors and they bowed to each other. Later they bowed to the guests and the parents. Then they drank the marriage wine from two cups tied together with the red cord of joy, and they ate the wedding rice.
"So they were married. At last the feasting was over. The moment arrived when Chen Lien must raise her bead veil so that her husband might have his first look at her face. Of course, Little Flower, it is never good to show dismay, but who could blame the young bridegroom for starting when he saw Chen Lien's ugly eyebrow?
"'O Excellent Sir,' Chen Lien said, with tears in her eyes as she noticed the surprised look on his face, 'did not the go-between tell you about my poor ugly eyebrow? It happened when I was a child. With my honorable parents I was visiting in the courts of distant friends. As we played in the garden there, a small boy threw a stone. I am sure that he did not intend it should hit me, but it struck me full on the brow and it cut a deep gash. When the wound was healed it left this scar which, alas, will remain with me until I go to the World of Shadows.'
"'What was the name of that small boy, O Lady of Unsurpassed Sweetness?' Wu Fang asked his bride gently.
"'Noble youth,' she replied, 'I do not know. He was a guest like myself, making a visit.'
"'Were the courts in which you were playing those of the Li family in the City of Pleasant Rest?' he asked with a note of excitement in his low voice.
"'How could you know that, O Excellent Husband?' Chen Lien cried in surprise.
"'Because that boy was myself,' Wu Fang exclaimed, quite forgetting to be calm in his astonishment at the strange ways of heaven. 'My parents have often told me the story of the poor little girl whose brow was cut open by the stone I threw across the Li garden. The gods themselves must have arranged that our ankles should be joined with the red cord of marriage in order that I might repair the damage I did so many years ago. And they have put into my mind just what I must do.'
"Wu Fang called for black paint and his rabbit-hair writing brush. He dipped the brush in the black paste, and with careful strokes he painted a new eyebrow upon Chen Lien's scar. He made it just the shape of a young willow leaf. Thin and curved, it was so like her perfect eyebrow that none could tell one from the other.
"And every morning thereafter, my little Yu Lang, throughout all the happy years that Chen Lien dwelt in the Wu courtyards, her loving husband, Wu Fang, painted a new willow-leaf eyebrow upon that scar which he had caused. So did the gods bring joy out of sadness. And so perhaps did the women of China learn that the hand of man may sometimes improve on the handiwork of the gods."
VIII
TING LAN AND THE LAMB
LEANING on the arm of her maid, Huang Ying, the Old Old One led the way across the courtyards and through the gate to the Hall of the Ancestors. Behind her walked the younger women of the family, carrying bowls of rice and pots of tea and wine. Last of all came Ah Shung and Yu Lang and the other children.
"Our honorable guests from on high must be well cared for during their visit under our roofs," the old woman reminded the family every morning during the weeks of the New Year holidays. At the beginning of this festival time the Lings believed that the spirits of their forefathers floated down from the Heavenly Kingdom like spring blossoms on the breeze. They took great pains to welcome them to all the family feasts. They showed them the greatest respect in order that they might be pleased and so bring the household good luck.
In the great Hall of the Ancestors, facing the door, there was a high narrow table set against the wall, almost like a mantel shelf. Upon its shining black top there stood a number of narrow wood tablets abou
t twelve inches tall. These little tablets were lacquered bright red. Each one had upon it a raised gold word picture that stood for the name of one of the Ling ancestors. In this land of Ah Shung and Yu Lang people do not use an alphabet. Their writing is not at all like that in America. Each Chinese word has its own sign or picture.
For the New Year feast for the forefathers the Old Old One had placed a square table on which eight places were laid and about which eight chairs were set. The old woman lighted the candles upon the high table and set fire to sticks of incense, in a little bronze urn, that sweetened the air with their scented smoke. Politely she held the incense burner in her two hands and raised it as high as her bent head, as though she were offering it to her spirit guests. Then she set it down before the red-and-gold tablets.
In the same way Lao Lao offered each of the eight cups of wine, which she poured from a porcelain pot that Huang Ying had brought her, and each of the eight rice bowls, which she set on the square table with her own hands.
As head of the family, Grandmother Ling was the first to kneel on the floor before the honorable ancestors. She kowtowed three times. Then she rose and took her place at the side of the room, while each member of the family in turn made his low bows. Back and forth! Back and forth! Back and forth! As they knelt before the red-and-gold tablets Ah Shung and Yu Lang bent their small bodies until their foreheads almost touched the gray tiles of the floor.
For about ten minutes the Lings all stood in a row at the side of the room, silent in order that the forefathers might not be disturbed as they partook of the feast. Then Grandmother Ling lifted a cup of hot tea and offered it to the ancestors. Then slowly she pushed back its saucerlike cover and let three drops of the tea fall on the ground. In the same way she poured out three drops of wine. These were offerings for the gods, whom the Lings always wished to please.
Ah Shung and Yu Lang enjoyed the New Year feasts of the ancestors, but in secret they told each other that the part they liked best was when the farewell kowtows had been made and the forefathers' rice had been reheated and served at their own table in the family hall.
"Whenever I go into the Hall of the Ancestors and see their honorable tablets, I remember Ting Lan and the lamb," Grandmother Ling said, while she was resting for a few moments before starting back toward the family hall. "Stand close to my chair, my small ones, and I will tell you about them.
"This tale of Ting Lan and the lamb comes from the ancient great teacher, Confucius. So it is well worth remembering. It happened, in times long gone by, that there lived a youth named Ting Lan. O-yo, he was a worthless fellow. A wicked young man and cruel, too, he was. He often beat his old mother so hard that her cries could be heard all through his village. In every way he could think of he made her life miserable. She had fed him and clothed him and cared for him tenderly when he was a child. But Ting Lan, it seemed, never thought of all that.
"One day the cruel young man was tending his flock of sheep out on a hillside beside a swift river. As he watched them, he noticed a hungry lamb go to its mother. He saw the little white creature kneel humbly at the side of the ewe in order to drink the milk from her bag.
"'How sweetly that little lamb kneels to its mother! And how different is the treatment my poor mother receives!' Ting Lan thought to himself. And as he sat there on the grass, watching the lamb, the youth was suddenly ashamed. 'From this moment I shall be different,' he declared. 'I shall remember this lamb. I, too, shall be gentle. All the rest of my life I shall try to make up to my mother for my wicked treatment of her.'
"Just then the old woman herself came over the hill. When he saw her the youth jumped to his feet and started toward her.
"'I shall kneel to my good mother now,' he decided. 'I shall tell her how ashamed I am of my past behavior. I shall ask her to forgive me. And I shall promise to be a dutiful son in the future.'
"But his mother could not see inside her son's mind. She could not know that the cruel youth had changed his ways. She thought he was running toward her in order to beat her, and she was afraid that she would soon feel the staff he held in his hand upon her old back. So she, too, began to run. She sped down the hillside and jumped into the swirling water of the swift river.
"Ting Lan was filled with sorrow and dismay. He jumped in after his mother and swam about, trying to find her. He searched and he searched but with no success. She had disappeared. No doubt the good dragon who lived in the river had received her as his guest.
"But on the top of the water, at the exact spot where his mother had jumped in from the river bank, there floated a small piece of flat wood, oblong in shape.
"'I shall take home this bit of wood to remind me of my poor mother,' Ting Lan said to himself. He carved her name upon the wood tablet and he set it in the place of greatest honor inside his house. He never forgot to kowtow nor to set out bowls of food and wine before it at each festival time. The spirit of Ting Lan's mother must have been pleased, for good luck followed the youth all through his life.
"People say that the piece of wood which Ting Lan took from the stream was the very first tablet to an ancestor. They think it was about the same shape and size of those on our table here."
The children looked at the red-and-gold tablets with even more respect and interest when their grandmother told them that the spirits of their grandfather and their great-grandparents really dwelt beside the oblong pieces of wood.
"When I myself go to the World of Shadows," the Old Old One explained, rising from her chair, "my spirit will divide itself into three parts. One part will go to be a guest of the Heavenly Emperor. One part will remain with my body under a heap of earth out among the shady grave mounds in the midst of our family fields. The third part will often come to rest beside the little red tablet which will have my name upon it and which will be placed here in the Hall of the Ancestors.
"Remember the story of Ting Lan and the lamb, my children," Lao Lao said as she made her way to the door leaning up on Huang Ying's arm. "Obey your parents if you would keep sadness away from your doors. Act toward them as gently as Ting Lan's little lamb. And do not forget to do them honor when they have become guests on high and when their spirits, too, have joined the ancestors here."
IX
THE DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON KING
HOW WAS IT with Scholar Shih in the hall of learning today, Ah Shung?" asked Grandmother Ling one winter afternoon as she sat with her grandchildren gathered about her.
"It was good, Lao Lao," the boy answered. "Scholar Shih was graciously pleased with me. With my back turned so that I could not get help from his face, I could repeat without stopping four whole pages of the sayings of our wise teacher, Confucius. I have brought you some of the words I made with my writing brush."
The boy unrolled a strip of thin paper upon which he had painted a column of large word symbols, one below the other. Each stroke and dot was carefully done. Yu Lang looked at them admiringly. The little girl thought her brother's words looked as beautiful as the writing in the scroll poems that hung on the walls of the family hall. Indeed, all the younger children looked up to Ah Shung because he was learning to read and to write.
"You have done well, Little Bear," Grandmother Ling said, nodding her head in approval. "Your words are well made. " The old woman was a beautiful writer herself. When she wrote she took as great care with each brush stroke as when she painted delicate pictures on strips of thin silk. Much pleased with her grandson, she rose from her chair and crossed the room to a red lacquer cabinet. From one of its many small drawers she took out a folded piece of soft yellow silk.
"This is for the young scholar, a reward for good work," she said, and she put the silk into the boy's hands. The other children gathered about him as he unfolded it. It was a triangle of yellow with a gorgeous green dragon twisting its snaky body about on it and trying to grasp a pearl with its curving claws.
"Our flag!" Ah Shung exclaimed in delight. "I shall hang it over our brick bed, Yu Lang. It will be good
to have this dragon there to protect us from the bad spirits."
These Chinese children loved dragons. They believed that these fairy-tale creatures really lived down under the waters, back in the mountains, and up in the sky. Just because they had never met a live dragon did not prove to Ah Shung and Yu Lang that they did not exist. They had seen dragons embroidered on satins and silks. Dragons were carved on the tables and chairs in the Hall of the Ancestors, and even on the bed frame in the Old Old One's room. Dragons on pictures, dragons painted on china, and dragons in their grandmother's stories made these flying serpents real to them.
Ah Shung and Yu Lang knew that dragons fighting in the sky made the thunder and shook the rain out of the clouds. Dragons brought good luck and kept unfriendly spirits away. The Emperor himself had chosen the dragon as his own special sign. The dragon was the national animal of all the land, and no one in the Flowery Kingdom doubted its goodness or power.
"Tell us a story about a dragon, Lao Lao," Yu Lang asked her grandmother, as Ah Shung laid his dragon flag across the side of a small table where everyone could admire it.
"Let me think," the old woman said, smiling. "Well then, I will tell you the tale of the Dragon King's daughter and how she rewarded the youth named Liu Ye.
"In a certain part of our land there was long, long ago a family named Liu. Their son, Liu Ye, had studied and studied to prepare for the examinations that were held every year by order of the Emperor. He hoped, when he had passed them, to receive a government position that would bring him much money.
Tales of a Chinese Grandmother Page 5
