A White Woman Who Married a Chinaman
View a copy of the original publication of “A White Woman Who Married a Chinaman.”The Independent 10 Mar 1910, 518-23. (via Issuu)
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Why did I marry Liu Kanghi, a Chinaman? Well, in the first place, because I loved him; in the second place, because I was weary of working, struggling and fighting with the world; in the third place, because my child needed a home.
My first husband was an American fifteen years older than myself. For a few months I was very happy with him. I had been a working girl—a stenographer. A home of my own filled my heart with joy. It was a pleasure to me to wait upon James, cook him nice little dinners and suppers, read to him little pieces from the papers and magazines and sing and play to him my little songs and melodies. And for a few months he seemed to be perfectly contented. I suppose I was a novelty to him, he having lived a bachelor existence until he was thirty-four. But it was not long before he left off smiling at my little jokes, grew restive and cross when I teased him, and when I tried to get him to listen to a story in which I was interested and longed to communicate, he would bid me not bother him. I was quick to see the change and realize that there was a gulf of differences between us. Nevertheless, I loved and was proud of him.
It was hard work, but I persevered until one day. It was about six months after our marriage. My husband came home a little earlier than usual, and found me engaged in trying to work out problems in subtraction and addition. He laughed sneeringly: “Give it up, Minnie," said he. "You weren't built for anything but taking care of children. But there's a woman at our place who has a head for figures that makes her worth over a hundred dollars a month. Her husband would have a chance to develop himself."
This speech wounded me. I knew it was James's ambition to write a book on social reform.
The next day, unbeknown to my husband, I called upon the wife of the man who had employed me as stenographer before I was married, and enquired of her whether she thought 1 could get back my old position. "But, my dear," she exclaimed, "Your husband is receiving a good salary. Why should you work?"
I told her that my husband had in mind the writing of a book on social reform and I wished to help him in his ambition by earning some money toward its publication.
"Social reform!" she echoed, "What sort of social reformer is he who would allow his wife to work when he is well able to support her!"
She bade me go home and think no more of an office position. I was disappointed. I said: "Oh, I wish I could earn some money for James. If I were earning money, perhaps he would not think me so stupid."
“Stupid, my dear girl. You are one of the brightest little women I know," kindly comforted Mrs. Rogers. But I knew differently and went on to tell her of my inability to figure with my husband how much he had made on certain sates, of my lack of' interest in politics, labor questions, woman suffrage and world reformation. "Oh!" I cried, "I am a narrow-minded woman. All I care for is for my husband to love me and be kind to me, for life to be pleasant and easy, and to be able to help a wee bit the poor and sick around me."
Mrs. Rogers looked very serious as she told me that there were differences of opinion as to what was meant by "narrow-mindedness," and that the majority of men had no wish to drag their wives into all their business perplexities, and found more comfort in a woman who was more unlike than like themselves. Only that morning her husband had said to her: "I hate a woman who tries to get into every kink of a man's mind and who must be forever at his elbow meddling with all his affairs."
I went home comforted. Perhaps after a while James would feel and see as did Mr. Rogers. Vain hope!
My child was six weeks old when I entered business life again as a stenographer for Rutherford & Rutherford. My salary was $50 a month—more than I had ever earned before, and James was well pleased, for he had feared that it would be difficult for me to obtain a paying place after having been out of practice for so long. This $50 paid for all our living expenses, with the exception of rent, so that James would be able to put by his balance against the time when his book would be ready for publication.
He began writing his book, and Miss Moran, the young woman bookkeeper at his place, collaborated with him.
One evening I left James and Miss Moran engaged with their work and went across the street to see a sick friend. When I returned I let myself into the house very softly for fear of awakening the baby whom I had left sleeping. As I stood in the hall, I heard my husband's voice in the sitting room. This is what he was saying:
"I am a lonely man. There is no companionship between me and my wife."
“Nonsense!" answered Miss Moran, as I thought a little impatiently, "Look over this paragraph, please, and tell me if you do not think it would be well to have it follow after the one ending with the words "ultimate concord," in place of that beginning with "These great principles.”
“I cannot settle my mind upon the work tonight," said James in a sort of thick, tired voice, "I want to talk to you—to win your sympathy—your love."
I heard a chair pushed back. I knew Miss Moran had arisen.
"Good night!" I heard her say. "Much as I would like to see this work accomplished, I shall come no more!”
"But, my God! you cannot throw the thing up at this late date."
"I can and I will. Let me pass, sir."
"If there were no millstone around my neck, you would not say, 'Let me pass, sir' in that tone of voice."
The next I heard was a heavy fall. Miss Moran had knocked my big husband down.
I pushed open the door. Miss Moran, cool and collected, was pulling on her
gloves. James was struggling to his feet.
"Oh, Mrs. Carson!" exclaimed the former, "Your husband fell over that stool. Wasn't it stupid of him!"
James, of course, got his divorce six months after I deserted him. He did not ask for the child and I was allowed to keep it.
I was on my way to the water front, the baby in my arms. I was walking quickly, for my state of mind was such that I could have borne twice my burden and not have felt it. Just as I turned down a hill which led to the docks, someone touched my arm and I heard a voice say:
“Pardon me, lady; but you have dropped your baby's shoe!"
"Oh, yes!" I answered, taking the shoe mechanically from an outstretched hand, and pushing on.
I could hear the waves lapping against the pier when the voice again fell upon my ear.
"If you go any further, lady, you will fall into the water!”
My answer was a step forward.
A strong hand was laid upon my arm and I was swung around against my will. "Poor little baby," went on the voice, which was unusually soft for a man's. "Let me hold him!"
I surrendered my child to the voice.
"Better come over where it is light and you can see where to walk!"
I allowed myself to be led into the light.
Thus I met Liu Kanghi, the Chinese who afterward became my husband. I followed him, obeyed him, trusted him from the very first. It never occurred to me to ask myself what manner of man was succoring me. I only knew that he was a man and that I was being cared for as no one had ever cared for me since my father died. And my grim determination to leave a world which had been cruel to me passed away—and in its place I experienced a strange calmness and content.
"I am going to take you to the house of a friend of mine," he said as he preceded me up the hill, the baby in his arms.
"You will not mind living with Chinese people?" he added.
An electric light under which we were passing flashed across his face.
I did not recoil—not even at first. It may have been because he was wearing American clothes, wore his hair cut, and even to my American eyes appeared a good looking young man—and it may have been because of my troubles; but whatever it was, I answered him and I meant it: "I would much rather live with Chinese than Americans."
He did not ask me why and I did not tell him until long afterward the story of my unhappy marriage, my desertion of the man who had made it impossible for me to remain under his roof; the shame of the divorce, the averted faces of those who had been my friends; the cruelty of the world; the awful struggle for an existence for myself and child; sickness followed by despair.
The Chinese family with which he placed me were kind, simple folk. The father had been living in America for more than twenty years. The family consisted of his wife, a grown daughter and several small sons and daughters, al1 of whom had been born in America. They made me very welcome and adored the baby. Liu Jusong, the father, was a working jeweler; but because of an accident by which he had lost the use of one hand, was partially incapacitated for work. Therefore, their family depended for maintenance chiefly upon their kinsman, Liu Kanghi, the Chinese who had brought me to them.
"We love much our cousin," said, one of the little girls to me one day. "He teaches us so many games and brings us toys and sweets."
As soon as I recovered from the attack of nervous prostration which laid me low for over a month after being received into the Liu home, my mind began to form plans for my own and my child's maintenance. One morning I put on my hat and jacket and told Mrs. Liu I would go down town and make an application for work as a stenographer at the different typewriting offices. She pleaded with me to wait a week longer until, as she said, "your limbs are more fortified with strength," but I assured her that I felt myself well able to begin to do for myself, and that I was anxious to repay some little part of the expense I had been to them.
"For all we have done for you," she answered, "our cousin has paid us doublefold."
No money can recompense your kindness to myself and child," I replied, "but if it is your cousin to whom I am indebted for board and lodging, all the greater is my anxiety to repay what I owe."
When I returned to the house that evening, tired out with my quest for work, I found Liu Kanghi tossing ball with little Fong in the front porch.
Mrs. Liu bustled out to meet me and began scolding in motherly fashion.
“Oh, why you go down town before you strong enough? See! You look all sick again!" said she.
She turned to Liu Kanghi and said something in Chinese. He threw the ball back to the boy and came toward me, his face grave and concerned.
"Please be so good as to take my cousin's advice," he urged.
"I am well enough to work now," I replied, "and I cannot sink deeper into your debt.”
"You need not," said he. "I know a way by which you can quickly pay me off and earn a good living without wearing yourself out and leaving the baby all day. My cousin tells me that you can create most beautiful flowers on silk, velvet and linen. Why not then you do some of that work for my store? I will buy all you can make."
“Oh!” I exclaimed, “I should be only too glad to do such work. But do you really think I can earn a living in that way?"
“You certainly can," was his reply, “I am requiring an embroiderer, and if you will do the work for me I will try to pay you what it is worth."
So I gladly gave up my quest for office work. I lived in the Liu Jusong house and worked for Liu Kanghi. The days, weeks and months passed peacefully and happily. Artistic needlework had always been my favorite occupation, and when it became a source both of remuneration and pleasure, I began to feel that life was worth living after all. I watched with complacency my child, grow among the little Chinese children. My life's experience had taught me that the virtues do not all belong to the whites. I was interested in all that concerned the Liu household, became acquainted with all their friends and lost altogether the prejudice against the foreigner in which I had been reared.
I had been living thus more than a year when one afternoon, as I was walking home from Liu Kanghi's store on Kearney street, a parcel of silks and floss under my arm, and my little girl trudging by my side, I came face to face with James Carson.
"Well, now," said he, planting himself in front of me, "You are looking pretty well. How are you making out?"
I caught up my child and pushed past him without a word. When I reached the Liu house I was trembling in every limb, so great was my dislike and fear of the man who had been my husband.
About a week later a letter came to the house addressed to me. It read:
"Dear Minnie—If you are willing to forget the past and make up, I am too. I was surprised to see you the other day, prettier than ever—and much more of a woman. Let me know your mind at an early date.
"Your affectionate husband,
“JAMES,
“204 Buchanan street."
I ignored this letter, but a heavy fear opprest me. Liu Kanghi, who called the evening of the day I received it, remarked as he arose to greet me that I was looking troubled and hoped that it was not the embroidery flowers.
“It is the shadow from my big hat," I answered lightly. I was dressed for going down town with Mrs. Liu, who was preparing her eldest daughter's trousseau.
"Some day," said Liu Kanghi earnestly, "I hope that you will tell to me all that is in your heart and mind."
I found comfort in his kind face.
"If you will wait until I return I will tell you all tonight,” I answered.
Strange as it may seem, altho I had known Liu Kanghi now for more than a year, I had had little talk alone with him, and all he knew about me was what he had learned from Mrs. Liu, namely, that I was a divorced woman, who, when saved from self-destruction, was homeless and starving.
That night, however, after hearing my story, he asked me to be his wife. He said: “I love you and would protect you from all trouble. Your child shall be as my own."
I replied: “I appreciate your love and kindness, but I cannot answer you just yet. Be my friend for a little while longer."
“Do you have for me the love feeling?" he asked.
"I do not know," I answered truthfully.
Another letter came. It was written in a different spirit from the first and contained a threat about the child.
There seemed but one course open to me. That was to leave my Chinese friends. I did. With much sorrow and regret I bade them good bye and took lodgings in a part of the city far removed from the outskirts of Chinatown where my home had been with the Liu's.
My little girl pined for her Chinese playmates, and I myself felt strange and lonely; but I knew that if I wished to keep my child I could no longer remain with my friends.
I still continued working for Liu Kanghi, and carried my embroidery to his store in the evening after the little one had been put to sleep. He usually escorted me back; but never asked to be allowed, and I never invited him to visit me, or even enter the house. I was a young woman, and alone, and what I had suffered from scandal since I had left James Carson had made me wise.
It was a cold, wet evening in November when he accosted me once again. I had run over to a delicatessen store at the corner of the block where I lived. As I stepped out, his burly figure loomed up in the gloom before me. I started back with a little cry, but he grasped my arm and held it.
“Walk beside me quietly if you do not wish to attract attention,” said he, and by God if you do, I will take the kid tonight.”
“You dare not!” I answered. “You have no right to her whatever. She is my child and I have supported her for the last two years alone.”
“Alone! What will the courts say when I tell them about the Chinaman?”
“What will the courts say?” I echoed. “What can they say? Is there any disgrace in working for a Chinese merchant and receiving pay for my labor?”
“And walking in the evening with him, and living for a year in a house for which he paid the rent!”
He had evidently been making inquiries concerning the Liu family and also watching me for some time. How a woman can loathe and hate the man she has once loved!
We were nearing my lodgings. Perhaps the child had awakened and was crying for me. I would not, however, have entered the house, had he not stopped at the door and pushed it open.
“Lead the way upstairs!” said he, “I want to see the kid.”
“You shall not,” I cried. In my desperation I wrenched myself from his grasp and faced him blocking the stairs.
“If you use violence,” I declared, “the lodgers will come to my assistance. They know me.”
He released my arm.
“Bah!” said he. “I have no use for the kid. It is you I’m after getting reconciled to. Don’t you know, Minnie, that once your husband, always your husband. Since I saw you the other day in the street I have been more in love with you than ever before. Supposed we forget all and begin over again!”
Tho the tone of his voice had softened, my fear of him grew greater. I would have fled up the stairs had he not again laid his hand on my arm.
“Answer me, girl,” said he.
And in spite of my fear, I shook off his hand and said:
“No husband of mine are you, either legally or morally. And I have no feeling whatever for you other than contempt.”
“Ah! So you have sunk!”—his expression was evil. “The oily little Chink has won you!”
I was no longer afraid of him.
“Won me!” I cried, unheeding who heard me. “Yes, honorably and like a man. And what are you that dare sneer at one like him? For all your six feet of grossness, your small soul cannot measure up to his great one. You were unwilling to protect an care for the woman who was your wife of the little child you caused to come into this world; but he succored and saved the stranger woman, treated hr as woman, with reverence and respect; gave her child a home—and made both independent—not only of others, but of himself. Now, hearing you insult him behind his back, I know, what I did not know before—that I love him—and all I have to say to you is, Go!”
And James Carson went. I heard of him again but once. That was when the papers reported his death of apoplexy while exercising at a public gymnasium.
Loving Liu Kanghi, I became his wife, and tho it is true that there are many Americans who look down upon me for so becoming, I have never regretted it. No, not even when men cast upon me the glances they cast upon sporting women. I accept the lot of the American wife of an humble Chinaman in America. The happiness of the man who loves me is more to me than the approval or disapproval of those who in my dark days left me to die like a dog. My Chinese husband has his faults. He is hot tempered, and at times arbitrary; but he is always a man, and has never sought to take away from me the privilege of being but a woman. I can lean upon and trust in him. I feel him behind me, protecting and caring for me, and that, to an ordinary woman like myself, means more than anything else.
Only when the son of Liu Kanghi lays his little head upon my bosom do I question whether I have done wisely. For my boy the son of the Chinese man, is possessed of a childish wisdom which brings the tears to my eyes—and as he stands between his father and myself, like yet unlike us both, so will he stand in after years, between his father’s and his mother’s people, and if there is no kindliness nor understanding between them, what will my boy’s fate be?
Seattle, Wash.