by Wayson Choy
I slowly walked into the hallway, past the pot-bellied stove, turned left, and stopped before Meiying’s bedroom. I pushed between the doorway and Stepmother. She was too stunned to stop me. I looked down, half directed by Stepmother’s eyes, and saw Meiying.
She lay curled up, head to knee, beside her cot, her hair dishevelled like unravelled silk threads, her eyes shut tight against some paralyzing pain, her thin body angled across the peeling linoleum floor. One arm, caught between her legs, seemed to float on a spreading pool of blood.
Recovering, Stepmother started to yank me back out of the room.
“An ambulance! Tell Mr. O’Connor to phone for an ambulance! Hurry!”
I stumbled, fell, slipping on a thin line of blood. Stepmother took hold of me, her grip as tight as steel, furiously turning me away. In that push and shove, something else caught my eye: two long knitting needles glinting between Meiying’s legs.
“Run, Sekky!” Stepmother shouted. “Run!”
I ran down the stairs, half jumping each plank as Meiying had taught me how, unafraid. Mr. O’Connor told the metallic voice on his phone to send an ambulance to our street. He gave Mrs. Lim’s address and Mrs. Lim’s name. Then he shut the door behind him. Mrs. O’Connor peeked through a crack in the window.
We waited and waited. Perhaps the ambulance was slow because it was wartime, but I still recall Mrs. Lim saying, between bitter tears, “We are Chinese; they take their time.”
And then they finally arrived.
One of the ambulance men seemed gruff, as if we were unclean, as if the task was crazy, climbing up those two rickety flights of stairs. The other man was polite and had a kind voice. But it did not matter. When they reached Meiying’s room, there was no movement, except Stepmother’s nodding head.
LATER, Stepmother said they put a blanket over Meiying; the one with the kind voice said he would have to get more straps and a different dolly from the ambulance. There was no hurry, the other said. First the police would have to come, then a doctor. And after all, they didn’t want to break their necks over these dangerous stairs.
Stepmother came down and took my hand and walked with me back into our house. Mrs. Lim, sobbing, came with us. Father held her hand. Kiam had taken Liang and Jung to Third Uncle’s place in Chinatown.
Stepmother went upstairs to her bedroom.
I thought of Meiying and her whispering together in that room, sitting before the dresser mirror, sharing Three Flowers perfume, easily chatting away, fluttering voices, like butterflies of palest amber, gossiping.
I followed her upstairs.
She was looking in the dresser mirror, with an old silk shawl around her shoulders. It was the one with gold flowers that her girlhood friend in Old China had given her when she herself was just a girl, a shawl Meiying had once admired, as girls will. I thought, as Meiying must have often thought, how lovely she looked. Her eyes were wet.
“Mother,” I said. “I’m here.”
She reached out to me. I took her hand and pressed into her palm the carved pendant Grandmama had left to me.
acknowledgements
FOR EARLY ENCOURAGEMENT and support, heartfelt acknowledgement to Earle Birney, Jan de Bruyn, William and Alice McConnell, Cherie Smith, and Jacob Zilber.
For her identification of the dozen dialects extant during Vancouver’s early Chinatown history, I wish to acknowledge Amy Tang of the Language Institute (Canton). For their generous advice, colloquial translations, evocative late-night discussions of the past, and for information on Old China and North American Chinese phrases and sayings, I thank Kathleen Chim, Richard Fung, Paul Andrew Kay, Toy Lowe, Paul Yee, and my colleague Alfred Shin. Thanks also to Marsha Ablowitz, Lena Chow, Randy Enomoto, Angela Fina, King Lee, Ann McNeil, Patricia Reid, Almeta Speaks, Earle Toppings, and Larry Wong.
Appreciation to Patsy Aldana, Ray Jones, Judith Knelman, Saeko Usukawa, Jim Wong-Chu, and not least, Denise Bukowski. And for her unstinting, frank advice throughout my struggles with this first book, I especially thank Mary Jo Morris.
Appreciation to friends and relatives of my Vancouver Chinatown years; and to my former associates at Cahoots Theatre Projects, and to the many supportive colleagues and friends at Humber College, Toronto.
Grateful acknowledgement to the Toronto Arts Council for their award of a writer’s grant in support of the early stages of this work.
And, not least, appreciation to the members of my extended families, the Noseworthys, Schweishelms and Zilbers, and to certain loyal companions throughout the decades—you have kept me going, always.
Readers interested in Chinese Canadian communities in British Columbia can view digitized photographs and documents from several archived collections at the University of British Columbia Library’s Web site: www.library.ubc.ca/chineseinbc.
A Reading Group Guide for The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy
We hope that these questions will inspire your reading group to explore new and interesting topics for discussing The Jade Peony. This guide is also available on-line at www.douglas-mcintyre.com.
The Jade Peony refers to historical events such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923, the Depression and the Second World War. How do these events affect the private lives of the characters?
In Part One, Jook-Liang is fascinated by Wong Suk because he reminds her of the Monkey King in Chinese legends as well as Tarzan’s Cheetah. What do the links between these stories from East and West suggest about Jook-Liang’s identity and growing up in a bicultural environment?
Grandmother (Poh-Poh) reminds Jook-Liang repeatedly that a girlchild is mo yung, or useless. How does this kind of traditional Chinese thinking affect the young girl? How is she able to resist this negative view?
Storytelling is an important way of transmitting cultural heritage while entertaining the young. Examine moments in the novel where myths and stories are told. What are their effects on the children?
Poh-Poh remarks that Jung-Sum is “different” and that he is “the moon.” In Part Two, what are some ways in which issues of gender identity and masculinity are questioned or raised? What are the implications of being “different”?
Early Chinese immigrants to Canada were men who came as labourers, mostly by themselves without wives or children. What is the impact of a predominantly male community on the early immigrants’ sense of home and belonging?
Wong Suk has a birth certificate that states that he is seventy-five, and another document that makes him seventy. What is the significance of these documents, of references to “paper years” and “paper sons”?
“Nothing much happens” in The Jade Peony, some readers say. Wayson Choy, like a number of contemporary Canadian authors such as Carol Shields and Alice Munro, focusses on the quotidian and the trivial. What is revealed about the lives of the characters through seemingly small, insignificant details?
In Part Three, what is the effect of telling the “Romeo and Juliet” love story between Meiying and Kazuo through the eyes of a child?
In Chinese culture, as in many Native communities, the elders in the family are revered and respected for their wisdom. What is the function of Poh-Poh or Grandmother in the three sections of the novel?
Sek-Lung thinks, “But even if I was born in Vancouver, even if I should salute the Union Jack a hundred million times, even if I had the cleanest hands in all the Dominion of Canada and prayed forever, I would still be Chinese.” What are some of the pressures of being a racial other at the time the novel took place? Are there differences in the way children of immigrants see themselves today as opposed to fifty years ago?
In Part Two, Jung-Sum says, “Grandmother told that story, and then another, each story brief and sad and marvellous. There were seven pieces of jade, carved in the shape of ancient symbols. The one she held most dear, we knew, was a coin-sized one, an exquisitely carved peony of translucent white and pinkish jade; its petals were outlined in a simple, carved relief against a perfect round of stone.” In the light of t
his quotation, discuss the significance of “the jade peony” as the title of the novel.
Questions compiled by Eleanor Ty, Professor and Chair, Department of English and Film Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University
