The Little Feminist Seamstress

I found Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress on a post-election booklist beside Orwell's 1984. It was a part of my last big Amazon purchase before I committed to the boycott (see Trump products and allies to boycott at #grabyourwallet).

The fact that I ordered it at all -- let alone picked it up shortly after it came in the mail -- makes me a little sheepish. At one point in my life, half of my male friends were dating Asian women. I'd scoffed at their sudden, put-on interest in everything Asian.

Now here I am dating a Korean woman and genuinely drawn to Asian-themed news stories, books and arts. Drawn, I should add, in a mostly white fashion: I'm curious about all of Asia, regardless of region or ethnic group. The exception is news stories about modern-day Korea.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is set in Communist China, when two city boys from middle-class families are sent to the countryside to be "re-educated." The center of the book is a young seamstress, raised by her father, just discovering her womanhood and power, alongside the two boys and a handful of Western classics in Chinese translation.

Spoiler alert.

I loved everything about this book: the vivid descriptions of the Chinese countryside, the dailiness of rights infringement in a totalitarian society and the way in which people resist oppression, in big and small ways.

We see the girl's strength when she handles an unplanned pregnancy without consulting her boyfriend. It's a powerful picture: this slip of a girl, all of eighteen, from the middle of nowhere with no education, pulling herself together to get an illegal abortion and high-tail it out of town, leaving the boys in the ancient dust.

So I resisted the last line: "She said she had learned one thing from Balzac: that a woman's beauty is a treasure beyond price."

That's not the lesson! It's anti-feminist! It's objectifying!

Then I took a breath. The last lines come to us through her rejected love, and may be unfair or inaccurate.

Another breath. Beauty and power are not mutually exclusive, and the journey to confidence often contains both, especially for young women.

One Small Beauty or Happiness

I'm back. And still finding my voice, the voice of this blog.

The next experiment: less than 200 words, one small beauty or happiness each day.

Christmas 2015: Sonia and I did not send Christmas cards; we weren't living together. We went to my parents' house for Christmas Day brunch. It was just the four of us. There were many silences, my parents' and Sonia's. I carried the conversation, resentful that no one else seemed to be making much of an effort. We exchanged gifts awkwardly and ducked out quickly, avoiding the extended family gathering later that day. Sonia went to her own parents' dinner alone in the evening.

Christmas 2016: Sonia and I sent Christmas cards to my entire extended family, signed with both our names. Christmas morning, we popped into her friend's engagement party then drove 90 minutes to my aunt's house, where everyone was polite. Even the Evangelical relatives were kind and welcoming. My mother was still wound as tight as a spring, but I was at ease with Sonia by my side.

The effect of that -- the simple presence of her, the confidence and calm it carries -- is entirely new. I'm so grateful.