First impressions review: Women of the Silk, by Gail Tsukiyama
This was a chance find in my favorite used bookshop. I picked it up because the back promised a story about a group of female silk workers in 1920s China striking for better working conditions. It does contain that plot thread, but there is so much more besides, including:
- The impacts of national and global events (eg. conflict between Communists and the Kuomintang, the Japanese invasion) trickling down to a small rural community
- Insights into the complicated relationship between the main character’s parents where there could have just been stereotypes
- The idea of a sisterhood of silk workers who deliberately choose that found family over marriage
- Surprise Sapphic relationship(s)…though maybe not so surprising in retrospect, given the previous point!
Pei, our main focal character, is born into a poor family that earns its living from farming fish and mulberry leaves – the latter used to feed silkworms. Her mother has borne five daughters, but only three are still living at the start of the book: an infant; the quiet, obedient Li; and the always-dirty, always-questioning Pei. Her father Pao asks a fortune-teller to predict the futures of the elder girls. Li, he says, will have two sons, but of Pei he says: “She will be loved…By more than one, but there will be difficulties.” Pao interprets this as “she won’t get married” so, when the farm runs into financial difficulties, he sells her to a silk factory in a larger village.
Note: Some **spoilers** from this point on, so just go read it if you like the sound of this so far, but want to go in blind!
It would be easy to interpret Pao as just a terrible father and husband, but Tsukiyama gives us some of the internal thoughts from him and his wife Yu-sung that challenge that idea. They are both very traditional people. Pao, like the main character of ‘The Good Earth’, is an introverted man who loves the land; he wouldn’t want to be anything but a farmer. He also loves his wife and daughters, but he has never learned how to show it openly. He checks out the silk factory before he takes Pei there, and tells himself she will be happier there, though he leaves before he can see her tears and for years afterward beats himself up about it. And when Yu-sung falls ill he is terrified that he will lose her too. Although she can write, Yu-sung doesn’t try to contact her daughters after they leave home, however empty she feels without them, because she never heard from her family again after marriage and figures that’s just how it is. However, when she discovers during the traditional 3-day-post-marriage visit that Li is covered in bruises, she reminds her she can choose to stay home, potential shame be damned; Li refuses, and returns to her abusive husband. As it turns out, Pao was right in the beginning about Pei. Joining the silk sisterhood is the right life for her, giving her far more freedom and comfort than she would have had if she had stayed home or married another villager like her sister did. But she missed her family terribly and, because their guilt kept them from contacting her, all of them suffered unnecessarily.
The life of the silk spinners is really fascinating. Although this is a child-labor operation, it isn’t quite as Dickensian as that might seem. Under the supervision of an older member of the sisterhood, Auntie Yee, and her eccentric servant/best friend Moi, the residents of the girl’s house are decently fed and clothed and given access to books and reading lesson. There are dangers in the factory, of course: the silk cocoons must be soaked in hot water, and workers can be scalded if these water vats tip over. And a big building full of silk and paper is very flammable, as is tragically demonstrated toward the end of the book. Still, not only do the girls form a new family with each other, they get to make money for themselves and are – apart from Pei - more in contact with their original families than is common for brides. However, while the sisterhood runs the day-to-day operations of the factory, they don’t own it…and that is where the strike comes in. The owner and the men who oversee the factory had been pushing the workers toward longer and longer days – fourteen hours at a stretch, sometimes – with fewer breaks. Chen Ling, one of the leaders among the workers, organizes them to fight back, and they achieve their demands, though one of the girls does not survive the effort.
I will admit, the “surprise Sapphic relationship” wasn’t a total surprise, given that whoever last owned my copy of the book decided to take a yellow highlighter to every time Pei comments on the beauty of Lin, her first friend in the factory. There was also some foreshadowing in the interactions between Chen Ling and Ming. The two are inseparable, and when Ming is injured in a factory accident Chen Ling is distraught. As soon as Ming recovers, they declare that they will undergo the “hairdressing ceremony” together to formally enter the sisterhood. This ceremony is described as being like a marriage, in which they pledge themselves to the sisterhood instead of a man. Pei is very moved by this. When Lin’s mother starts pressuring her to marry in order to clear the way for her younger brothers’ marriages, Lin instead leans toward joining the sisterhood (which would have the same effect) in part because: “Now, there’s you. What will become of you?” Pei, though, is still sad that she wouldn’t be able to be with Lin all the time when she moves to the sister’s house, and so says she wants to join too. Lin argues with her, saying that Pei is too young to throw away the chance at marriage or to know what she
wants1. I thought, however, that things might be left at the level of subtext and vague yearning. But no!
1. At the time of this conversation, Pei is 16 and Lin is 21. While we would say Pei is definitely too young, in this time period (as Lin’s arguments point out) she is considered prime marriageable age while Lin is verging on “old maid”. The age-gap is not ideal, given the amount of growing up one can do in those four years, but compared to being sold off to some 30-40 year old stranger (like her sister was), still preferable.
The turning point comes when Lin’s eldest brother gets married.
“Pei will be coming to the marriage ceremony with me…if that’s all right with you.” “If that’s what you wish,” her mother answered coolly…. “Yes, it is.” In Lin’s voice there was a slight edge of defiance Pei had never heard before.
Once in Canton, Pei is excited and a bit overwhelmed. Lin’s family is much wealthier than hers; in Lin’s old room where they are staying there are drawers full of embroidered clothes and western-style porcelain dolls with blonde hair. Lin clearly could marry well if she wished!
The truth was, sometimes she was frightened that Lin might no longer want to be with her. Because of her tall gangly body, Pei felt she must be an embarrassment for her friend when they walked down the street. And all her questions would tire anyone, even someone with Lin’s patience. Pei didn’t dare to think of life in Yung Kee without her.
For a moment, I did worry I’d been queer-baited, when Lin’s youngest brother speaks to Pei:
When Ho Young looked up and smiled, Pei was amazed at how much he resembled Lin. He had the same dark eyes and sharp features…The lines of his face were stronger and more prominent than Lin’s, and whereas her smooth skin was without a blemish, the faint dark shadow of a beard formed an outline on Ho Yung’s chin.
However, later on:
When Lin finally returned, Pei watched as she let down her tightly coiled hair, which fell like a snake down her back…As many times as Pei had seen Lin comb out her hair, watching it never failed to intrigue her… “I’m sorry you had to sit by yourself…She had no right to do that,” Lin said, her voice carrying a hard edge. Pei looked into Lin’s eyes. “How can you blame her?...my presence only reminds your mother of your decision to go against her.”…As Lin did every night, she slowly began to brush through Pei’s hair from top to bottom… “I hated the way my mother treated you!”…There was something so lovely about the way Lin’s touch made her feel that she kept silent…When Pei turned around, she saw that Lin’s eyes had filled with tears. She reached over and put her arms around Lin, feeling something she had never known before, the smallest hint of fear, gradually giving way to desire.
There’s no angst involved in this, mind you!
From the very beginning it had been so simple for her to love Lin, never dreaming she might be loved in return. Pei felt safe and comfortable in the soft, white bed. She turned around carefully and watched Lin sleeping..
We don’t get many further references to the physical side of things; it is just taken as given from that point. They return to the silk village and join the sisterhood together – conveniently being given a shared room. Or is it convenience? One gets the impression particularly close “sisters” are set up to be roommates on purpose! In any case, because they have the handy cover of “girls have really close friendships,” although western-style attitudes toward homosexuality had spread in China at that point no one ever challenges their relationship.
Sadly, Pei and Lin don't get to grow old together - though they do get eleven years as a couple and twenty total, which is not too shabby, all things considered. The first hint we get that things may turn bad is the ominous news of the Japanese army moving down from the north. Lin and her family make plans to flee to Hong Kong, and to take Pei with them. Then a young girl named Ji Shen collapses on their doorstep. The sisters nurse her back to health, and she tells them of the horrors she experienced in Nanking. Pei asks Lin if the girl can come with them. Lin smiles – she’d already written her brother to ask just that. But then, as Lin wraps up work at the silk factory, the building catches fire and she is trapped in the office: “Not now,” Lin said aloud. “It isn’t fair!” But I suppose that’s just it; In literature we expect death to have a point, but in life it is more often than not random and senseless.
Pei lost her voice after Lin died…Ji Shen stayed with her, afraid she might harm herself… “You couldn’t have saved Lin, just like I couldn’t have saved my sister! I was right there, don’t you remember, right next to my sister and there was nothing I could do!...When I first came here, you told me I had to go on living because that’s what my parents and sister would have wanted. Well, I know it’s what Lin would want!”
So, slowly, that’s what Pei does. She’s touched to discover that Lin’s brother Ho Yung still plans to help her and Ji Shen get to Hong Kong. He even notes that Lin often wrote about Pei, so he knows how happy they made each other. There is perhaps some hint that Ho Yung could someday be the other love that the fortune teller spoke of, but Tsukiyama wisely leaves that, and Pei’s future in general, open-ended:
There was Hong Kong, rising before them in all her splendor… “It’s so big!” cried Ji Shen…Pei took a deep breath and could feel Lin’s presence there beside her, watching and smiling as the boat danced upon the water”
There’s a whole array of other characters one could talk about in this book, women who have a wide variety of lives. I might be more miffed at Lin being killed off if there hadn’t been two straight women in love who also die tragically, in ways that are arguably foreshadowing. One is Pei’s other close friend Mei-li, who falls head-over-heels for the scholarly brother of another silk girl, completely missing the contempt he has for her. She ends up drowning herself when it becomes clear that she is pregnant, and that he has no intention of marrying her. This is actually the first time someone has to give Pei the “there was nothing you could do” speech. She blames herself for not dissuading Mei-li from this unwise crush or telling someone about it, but “No one could have stopped Mei-li, not if she didn’t want you to.” The other was young bride Sui Ying. She very much loves her husband, and was at the factory to help raise money for their own home. Sui Ying is randomly killed by a stray bullet during the strike, and Pei tries to comfort her grieving husband, who thanks her for her friendship and tells her to look him up if she’s ever in Hong Kong and in need. Interestingly, some of the older silk sisters like Auntie Yee are also technically married, but had a tacit arrangement that their husbands could take concubines and they in turn wouldn’t have to live with them. Moi was homeless for some time and is rougher in her manners than most of the silk girls. Auntie Yee hired her before she even knew she could cook because she saw her giving the scraps she’d gathered to a stray dog. Theirs is a platonic bond, but no less strong than Pei and Lin’s for that. Indeed, in a magical-realism touch, Moi regularly chats with Auntie Yee’s ghost, who advises her to quietly store up food for the war to come. If we take this as reality…maybe Pei is right in feeling that Lin came to Hong Kong with her.
Incidentally, I tried to look up the concept of a sisterhood of silk workers in China. I didn't find much in a quick google search. However, I did find more than one reference to Hong Kong amahs, a term for domestic workers who often help look after children. One mentioned that foreign women had “replaced the Chinese black and white Amahs, so called because they always wore a white top with a mandarin collar and loose black trousers” – the exact outfit of the sisterhood in the book – and noted that the influx of domestic workers in the 1930s was connected to the industrialization of the silk industry. So I suppose that gives us a hint of what Pei’s next job might be!
Overall recommendation: If you enjoy historical fiction, especially that which focuses on the lives of women, this is definitely worth a look.
