Yes, that girl, Lucy, she was Luling. That is how I met her, through the missionaries.
You see the people Luling worked for, were foreigners sent to China to "save heathens." Very silly, before the communists all trying to make people forget Buddha or Confucius, remember Christ, God. When communists came...anh...poor westerners all kicked out killed. But not these missionaries. They hid, still trying to save the people who dismissed them, still working to make everyone love Christ. They said they would feed me, give me clothes, place to sleep, keep me safe, just as long as I said that I loved Jesus, as long as I said prayers. Wah, I said, why not?
Some people, Luling said later, some people who come to missionaries starving, but still to scared, too proud to denounce their religion. Me, wah. I never liked Confucius always telling people to look down on others, women always, always at the bottom. And Buddha, was just a silly man, ate too much when he was alive. So plump!
Me, I said, why not, give me a rosary! All right, I'll eat that bread, no matter if it's body of dead man. Yes, I'll say some foreign words before I go to bed, very good, please give me food now. They even changed my name, wah, yes, again. I needed a real name they said, not a Chinese name, just like you say. So they called me Mary. No last name, no middle name. Just Mary.
I lived there for many months. There were three people running the place. Miss Grace was old and thin as wire. She had dark hair and teeny tiny eyes. Her daughter was enormous, bigger than statues of Buddha you see. She was not a young daughter, Miss Katharine; she was old like her mother, very tiny feet, the one that I saw at the door. It was these ladies that taught me my English, they taught me their western manners, and the ways to pray to their god.
It was like a school there; all us Chinese women in a big house, eating, learning, praying, being taught by these two funny women. On the other side of the house were the men, but not so many of them, maybe only four or five, and they were taught by Mister Harold, a young man, nice, glasses. Maybe you would say he was smart looking.
Me and Luling shared a room. We would talk at night like little girls, sometimes argue over little things. Wah, she let off such a stink sometimes, never washed right, I think. But we were happy, well fed, always off looking for more people who needed to be converted so they wouldn't go to hell.
"You're so pretty," Lucy said to me one night, as we were tucked in our beds.
I was raised the Chinese way, always modest, always praising some one else. "But you have such nice hair, so dark," I said back.
"Wah, I'm ugly," Lucy said. She was not being modest like me. She was being truthful. "Raised up by the Gobi desert; always hungry, always working in fields. You see blisters on my feet?"
I was quiet.
"Sometimes we couldn't eat," Lucy went on in a strangled voice. "Some--sometimes we had to beg our neighbors."
I had never heard this story before.
"So you see, that's why I found the missionaries," Lucy was speaking lightly, hiding her feelings, "And now look at me, I eat good food, I do good work, and I have best of friend." She smiled at me through the darkness.
There've been times I was so annoyed with Lucy, so, so, angry. But then, right then in the darkness, I saw her real self, the part of Luling that I liked best.
You see the people Luling worked for, were foreigners sent to China to "save heathens." Very silly, before the communists all trying to make people forget Buddha or Confucius, remember Christ, God. When communists came...anh...poor westerners all kicked out killed. But not these missionaries. They hid, still trying to save the people who dismissed them, still working to make everyone love Christ. They said they would feed me, give me clothes, place to sleep, keep me safe, just as long as I said that I loved Jesus, as long as I said prayers. Wah, I said, why not?
Some people, Luling said later, some people who come to missionaries starving, but still to scared, too proud to denounce their religion. Me, wah. I never liked Confucius always telling people to look down on others, women always, always at the bottom. And Buddha, was just a silly man, ate too much when he was alive. So plump!
Me, I said, why not, give me a rosary! All right, I'll eat that bread, no matter if it's body of dead man. Yes, I'll say some foreign words before I go to bed, very good, please give me food now. They even changed my name, wah, yes, again. I needed a real name they said, not a Chinese name, just like you say. So they called me Mary. No last name, no middle name. Just Mary.
I lived there for many months. There were three people running the place. Miss Grace was old and thin as wire. She had dark hair and teeny tiny eyes. Her daughter was enormous, bigger than statues of Buddha you see. She was not a young daughter, Miss Katharine; she was old like her mother, very tiny feet, the one that I saw at the door. It was these ladies that taught me my English, they taught me their western manners, and the ways to pray to their god.
It was like a school there; all us Chinese women in a big house, eating, learning, praying, being taught by these two funny women. On the other side of the house were the men, but not so many of them, maybe only four or five, and they were taught by Mister Harold, a young man, nice, glasses. Maybe you would say he was smart looking.
Me and Luling shared a room. We would talk at night like little girls, sometimes argue over little things. Wah, she let off such a stink sometimes, never washed right, I think. But we were happy, well fed, always off looking for more people who needed to be converted so they wouldn't go to hell.
"You're so pretty," Lucy said to me one night, as we were tucked in our beds.
I was raised the Chinese way, always modest, always praising some one else. "But you have such nice hair, so dark," I said back.
"Wah, I'm ugly," Lucy said. She was not being modest like me. She was being truthful. "Raised up by the Gobi desert; always hungry, always working in fields. You see blisters on my feet?"
I was quiet.
"Sometimes we couldn't eat," Lucy went on in a strangled voice. "Some--sometimes we had to beg our neighbors."
I had never heard this story before.
"So you see, that's why I found the missionaries," Lucy was speaking lightly, hiding her feelings, "And now look at me, I eat good food, I do good work, and I have best of friend." She smiled at me through the darkness.
There've been times I was so annoyed with Lucy, so, so, angry. But then, right then in the darkness, I saw her real self, the part of Luling that I liked best.