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to him too, for I was his oldest grandson who would someday inherit his money and his business. I could never make him understand that I did not want his money and had no interest in taking over his business. I'd rather work to earn my own living and be free. Actually, I pitied him because he was such a slave of his money! Money possessed him and obsessed him! It ruined his life!”

      Father also told me that because the old man thought he was everybody's creditor but no one was paying their debts back with due love and respect, he resented everyone in the family.

      “His biggest hobby was to curse people. He had a large stock of poisonous words which, when he was in a bad mood, he would deal out to people around him generously. It was only when he was cursing others that he looked happy and satisfied!”

      Nainai must have suffered a lot at his hands, or perhaps I should say, at his tongue. Being a daughter-in-law, tradition required her to obey the old tyrant completely and be respectful all the time. Her filial duty said that she should never talk back to him or complain about him to anyone. So she put up with all the insults from her father-in-law. In the meantime, while the old man was feared, shunned, and hated more and more by members of his own family, Nainai quietly won everybody's heart.

      She was not only loved and admired by her husband and children, but also by other relatives and even servants because of her kindness and generosity. Although she was the mistress of the house, she rarely voiced her opinions. She always listened to others with patience and sympathy. Yet sooner or later, people realized that she was not a fool or a person who could be manipulated. She knew her mind as well as what was going on around her. There is an old saying: “Great wisdom appears dull-witted.” It is similar to “Still waters run deep.” Nainai seemed to exemplify such sayings.

      My opinion of Nainai was actually not my own. It reflected Aunty's opinion of her, which in its turn was influenced by the opinion of her aunt. Aunty's aunt was an old servant in my grandfather's house, who knew a great deal about her masters and mistresses. In 1950 she recommended Aunty to Nainai to take care of me. For that I am very grateful to her, although I cannot recall what she looked like.

      Seven years after Nainai married, her father died. Her mother soon followed him into the nether world. Now it was Nainai's responsibility to help her younger brother. Her brother in his youth had also studied with tutors. So he could read and write. Some said he was pretty good at calligraphy and flower-and-bird painting. But as he grew up, the idea that someday he would have to work to make a living had never crossed his mind. He wouldn't have needed to work, if the emperor had continued in power. The latter would have granted him an official position as the previous emperors did his forefathers.

      With or without an official position, he wouldn't have needed to worry about his livelihood. During the Qing dynasty all Manchu men received monthly qianliang (money and grain). Theoretically they were all in the army, so no one was supposed to have another job. This qianliang the Han people in Beijing jokingly called “crops that grow on iron stalks,” because the “harvest” of such was always guaranteed. For many decades it had enabled its recipients to idle around teahouses, wineshops, bird markets, antique stores, and opera theaters. Some of them became artists and writers. Others wasted their time. Nainai's brother grew up expecting such an easy life. After the revolution uprooted the magic crops, he was at a loss.

      Nainai tried to help him out, and providing him with a job seemed to be the most fundamental way. Of course this was not easy. On the one hand, her younger brother was not fit for any of the existing jobs in the family business. On the other hand, her father-in-law had made it clear that he'd never put any relative on the payroll unless he was really needed. So what was Nainai to do?

      Finally she came up with an idea. She persuaded my grandfather that the theater needed a reliable person to watch over it during the night and her brother was the right one to do it. All he needed to do was to sleep in the theater after the performance was over. By day he could still enjoy himself in the teahouses and wineshops. In the evening he could see as many operas as he liked. Each month he'd receive a salary, which of course would be called a gift. However, soon the brother proved that he could not deal with even a job like that. One night he caught a severe cold sleeping in the theater. A couple of months later, he joined his parents in the yellow earth.

      His death made Nainai heartbroken, for she loved her little brother. In the past the two of them had traveled in the same wagon and played on the same boat. They had studied with the same tutors and Nainai had spent many hours writing characters and memorizing ancient poems with him. When the weather changed or when he was ill, she would help her mother take care of him and over the years he had become dependent on her.

      Yet even this was not the real reason why Nainai was so sad when her brother died. The real reason was that he was the only male descendant in her family. When he died without issue, the once powerful and prominent Manchu family was extinct by Chinese standards. Nainai's children did not count in this case, for a daughter's children belonged to her husband's family.

      Nainai's own ancestors had no more offspring. After a hundred years, who would offer them delicious meals when the festivals came around? Who would repair and sweep their graves at qingming, the special day in April on which dutiful descendants visit their ancestors? Who would burn paper money and send cash into the nether world for them to spend? Who would burn incense and chant Buddhist scriptures to expiate the sins they had committed and beseech blessings for them? . . .

      Nainai's ancestors would be cold and hungry for eternity, hanging like dry leaves on a dead tree, shivering in the chilly wind of the Yin. They'd be weeping and their tears would flow out like a bitter river. But river or rain, nothing could revive this family. It was too late. Henceforth sunshine, full moon, spring wind, peaceful years, and bumper harvest, all good things belonged to other families. Nainai's ancestors were beyond help. Their relation with the human world was cut off once and for all. People would soon forget them. Their memorial tablets would be thrown out by strangers.

      That was why in China families had to have sons. The more sons the better, for the ancestors would feel safer and happier. If a man failed to produce sons, he did his ancestors a great wrong. That was why Mencius said, “There are three ways in which one fails his filial duties. Not having a son is the biggest among them.” The ancestors, I guess, could not care less about daughters whose children would take the husbands’ surnames and carry on the family lines for other families.

      5

      Why Did Father Join the Revolution?

      After Nainai married my grandfather, she gave birth to ten babies in ten years. Father and Second Uncle weighed more than seven pounds at birth. Third Aunt was less than six pounds. After her, the babies continued to come. One each year. Smaller and smaller. Nainai did not know how to stop them. Nor did she know how to save them. So the babies died in a few days or just a few hours, before they could open their eyes and see their mother's face, which was as pale as the moon.

      The heavy loss made Nainai love even more dearly the three children whom heaven allowed her to keep. She hired the best wet nurse she could find for Third Aunt, because she herself was too weak to nurse her. As for her two sons, they each had a nanny too. Yet Nainai's heart was with her children day and night to make sure that they got the tender love and proper care they needed. As a result, the three of them all grew up healthy and strong.

      The Chinese had a saying, “At the age of three, one's personality begins to show.” Father and Third Aunt turned out to be more like Nainai herself, quiet and sensitive. Second Uncle, on the other hand, inherited my grandfather's fiery temper. If he was happy, he would laugh out loud. If he was mad at someone, he would tell the person to his face how he felt. After he spoke up, he did not bear the person grudges. Soon he would forget what had happened between them and be the person's good friend once again.

      Despite the differences in their temperament, Nainai's three children had one thing in common: their love and devotion to their mother. When she was cursed by her father-in-law, the children knew how to comfort her to bring a trace of smile back onto her sad face. When she was distressed by the deaths of her parents and younger brother, the children turned her thoughts from the past to the future. Because of the children, new hopes began to sprout up in Nainai's heart.

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