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Romance rapscallions on the cusp of modern: male courtship in Eileen Chang stories

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Romance rapscallions on the cusp of modern: male courtship in Eileen Chang stories

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ROMANCE RAPSCALLIONS ON THE CUSP OF MODERN:
MALE COURTSHIP IN FOUR EILEEN CHANG STORIES

by
Jier Dong

___________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(EAST ASIAN AREA STUDIES)

August 2013

Copyright 2013 Jier Dong

ii

Table of Contents

List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………..iii

Abstract……………………………………………………………………….………………...iv

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………...1
Male Courtship of Female.…...…………………………………………………….…...9
Men and Modernity……...…………………………………………………………….10

Chapter One: The World of Eileen Chang……………………………….…………………….12
What Is Modern…………………………………………………….………………….12
Republican Shanghai, the Right Place at the Right Time………...…………………...14
Chang’s Shanghai: the Tangible, the Intangible and the Chinese people.……………18
The Broader Social History of Republican China……………………………………..24

Chapter Two: Condition of Courtship…………………………………………………...…….27
“The Golden Cangue”………………………………...……………………………….27
“Sealed Off”………………………………………….………………………………..33
“Red Rose, White Rose”……………………………....………………………………35
“Love in a Fallen City”………………………………..………………………………38

Chapter Three: Process and Psychology of Courtship………………………………………...44
“The Golden Cangue”……………………………………..…………………………..44
“Sealed Off”……………………………………………..…………………………….49
“Red Rose White Rose”……………………………………………………………….58
“Love in a Fallen City”………………………………………………………………..75

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….99

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………104

iii

List of Figures

Figure 1: Relationship between level of modernity and level of courtship

iv

Abstract
In recent years in Mainland China, a significant portion of the scholarly discussion
surrounding Eileen Chang’s romance stories presented in academic journals has taken a black-
and-white, conveniently superficial approach that shirks dimensionality and varied, subtle
contrasts, which Chang herself once stated as her true intent and style in writing. Long maligned
by readers who sympathize with the ill-treated female protagonists, the men under Chang’s pen
in her romance fiction have especially taken the brunt of much of the aforementioned
simplistically harsh criticism. Without consideration for gradated differences and nuanced
depictions, rash and negligent analyses have pigeonholed these diverse male characters into a
single group of bad men who are just all bad in the same way. The purpose of this thesis, thus, is
to revisit the very issue of how to analyze the men under Chang’s pen in her classic romance
stories. The focal lens through which this thesis delves into the complex, intricate Eileen Chang’s
world of romance is the male courtship of female. Specifically, this thesis hones in on two salient
factors pertaining to male courtship: the man’s level of modernity and his level of courtship.
Using four classic romance stories penned by Chang during her early productive years, this
thesis argues that the male characters all differ in terms of both level of modernity as well as
level of courtship. These two gauges also share a positive relationship as the more modernity a
man embodies the higher his courtship goal or desire is. In addition, the “bad” deeds of some of
the male characters should be attributed not to intentional malevolence but rather a lack of
modernity in these men’s environment and psychological formation.

1

Eileen Chang’s Romances (Chuanqi), a collection of short stories, is among the most
sophisticated and important works of modern Chinese literature.

Kirk A. Denton
1

Zhang [Eileen Chang] is perhaps the only writer from modern China whose popular appeal
approaches that of a movie star but whose literary output is simultaneously the object of sustained
research and analysis.

Shu-mei Shih
2

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
3

Introduction
“Much has been said about Chang already: her meteoric career, her literary genius, her
linguistic gift, her troubled family and love life, her affection for her native Shanghai…” wrote
Haiyan Lee in her review of
Love in a Fallen City, the English-language collection of Eileen
Chang’s works published by New York Review Books (“Eileen Chang's Poetics of the Social”).
A legend due to her drama-like life as well as her exquisite use of language and astute perception
into the lives of ordinary people, Eileen Chang is regarded by many as one of the greatest
modern Chinese writers (Bartholomew, “Modernism”). Ever since 1943, the year when Chang
unveiled her talent to the Shanghai literary scene at the tender age of twenty-three, readers have
enthused over her delicate psychological lines and depictive precision. Seven decades after her
dramatic rise as a young celebrity of letters, Eileen Chang remains a beloved idol in the world of
modern Chinese literature with a huge devoted following in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong
Kong and Chinese-speaking communities around the world. Not only is Chang lionized by
popular support, literary critics and scholars have also hailed her works, particularly the earlier
ones in the 1940s, as classics (Thomas, “Eileen Chang”).

1
“Historical Overview,” 296.
2
The Lure of the Modern, 381.
3
Act 5, Scene 2.

2

In addition to sheer talent in the use of language and dissection of human relationship,
Chang’s success as a famed female writer who published without interference from the Japanese
censors during the politically and socially volatile Republican China years in Shanghai is also
noteworthy—regardless of (or because of) her gender and the various political pressures felt in
her city, she saw and understood, in her own way, the city folks around her. The physical and
temporal settings of her world acted as an incubator for her impressive debut in the Shanghai
literary scene in 1943, most represented by stories that (to varying degrees) touched on the
subject of male-female romance.
She began her writing career with appreciable attention to the romances of her fellow
Shanghai denizens: the everyday trouble of lovers pressured by societal or cultural norms, family
duty, money, and life’s other practical demands. The vivid, believable, and sometimes
heartbreaking stories gained Chang fervent recognition and admiration. Metropolitan readers
especially appreciated the accurate descriptions of urban people’s drives, conflicts, and
emotional turmoil ("The Life of Eileen Chang"). Whether Eileen Chang intended it or not, she
owed her sudden rise to stardom, as well as later lifelong and posthumous admiration and fame,
to these romance stories written during the beginning of her professional career in the early
1940s.
4
They not only inaugurated but have also been sustaining the past several decades of
“Chang craze”—though written by a fledgling newcomer, they have unfailingly continued to
attract fans and offer them a way to visualize the meshing and clashing in romantic relationships
within the social contexts precisely articulated by Chang.
As previously mentioned, today’s literary critics and scholars also hold especially high
regard for these initial works in the early 1940s and acclaim them as classics. These particular

4
I understand and admit that I am taking liberty in classifying these writings as “romance stories,” given that “The
Golden Cangue,” a hallmark work selected by this paper for analysis, ventured well beyond the topic of male-female
romance and encapsulated several different subjects pertaining to the human experience.

3

pieces of romance stories that have so captured people’s hearts and minds are those written in the
years 1943 and 1944, and gathered in the collection Romances (Chuanqi). As Kirk A. Denton
remarked in The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature, Romances is “among
the most sophisticated and important works of modern Chinese literature” (296). Echoing
Denton’s appraisal, Karen S. Kingsbury, the translator responsible for the compilation, and the
majority of the translation, of works presented in NYRB collection Love in a Fallen City,
expressly focused on writings in Romances. Her justification reflected a broad consensus on the
assessment of Chang’s lifelong works: “Many readers feel this is the point at which Chang’s
talent shone most brightly; it is at any rate the period for which she has become a cultural icon”
(Kingsbury xv). As the cream of the crop, Love in a Fallen City featured four novellas and two
short stories from Romances: "Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier" (1943), "Love in a Fallen
City" (1943), "The Golden Cangue" (1943) and "Red Rose, White Rose" (1944) as the four
novellas;
5
“Jasmine Tea” (1943) and “Sealed Off” (1943) as the two short stories.
The selection of these particular pieces of writing to render a representation of Eileen
Chang to English-language readers undoubtedly reflected their significance. Kingsbury herself
unreservedly stated, “The four novellas that form the core of this collection are the most
sustained and widely acclaimed efforts in Chang’s first volume of fiction, Chuanqi [Romances].”
She also described the two short stories to be “of great interest” and complementary to the
novellas (xv). After all, it was after reading “Sealed Off” that Hu Lancheng, Chang’s first
husband, decided to make her acquaintance. C. T. Hsia, the renowned literary critic and scholar
of modern Chinese literature, repeatedly proclaimed “The Golden Cangue” to be “the greatest

5
Of the six texts, all were written in 1943 except "Red Rose, White Rose," which was written in the following year
of 1944. Due to such discrepancy in timeline, the original Romances collection (1944) featured the five texts from
1943 but not “Red Rose, White Rose.” A later updated edition of Romances (1947) expanded to include “Red Rose,
White Rose,” among a few other stories.

4

novelette in the history of Chinese literature.”
6
Liu Zaifu, formerly of the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences and an influential critic of contemporary Chinese literature who not long ago
sparred with C. T. Hsia regarding some of Hsia’s viewpoints on Eileen Chang’s writings,
affirmed that "The Golden Cangue" and "Love in a Fallen City" are “her best works” and
“remarkable masterpieces” (“Eileen Chang’s Fiction”). In fact, both inside and outside of
academia, all of the stories showcased in the Love in a Fallen City collection have been praised
and analyzed through and through, especially on the topics of character portrayal and male-
female relations.
7

Given the overwhelming amount of past discussions and existing literature on these
romance stories, specially broadcasted assessments from authoritative figures in the field of
modern Chinese literature, a very salient question arises regarding any further attempt to analyze
Chang’s romance fiction: is the path so beaten that there now remains no more reason or need to
revisit any of these stories? As its existence already indicates, this paper considers existing
analyses of Eileen Chang’s romance fiction, however large and wide in size and scope, to be
nonetheless incomplete. It finds inadequacies in the angles of analyses previously employed to
examine Chang’s hallmark romance fictions in Romances (i.e., those featured in the NYRB
collection Love in a Fallen City), especially those used by contemporary scholars in Mainland
China today. It is this paper’s intention to address their inadequacies. Specifically, when
reviewing the broad landscape of literature written about these well-known stories that touch on
the sensitive topic of male-female romance, especially academic and educational publications in
Mainland China, there appears to be two general ways of approach in analysis. The first is to

6
Hsia first made such claim in A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (1971). He then referred to it once more in
Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas, 1919-1949 (1981): “I have maintained in History that ‘The Golden Cangue’
is the greatest novelette in the history of Chinese literature” (398).
7
Essays and books by the Taiwanese author Shuijing serve as excellent examples.

5

focus on mainly the female characters, who usually are the main protagonists of these stories, but
without meaningful investigation on the male side. The second is to direct attention to the male
characters but categorize them into a single camp of rapscallions who are all the same. This
paper finds fault in both approaches.
With respect to the first approach, even if the characters to whom the majority of the
story’s words were dedicated were women, this paper argues that the understanding of women
requires the understanding of men, specifically their courtship of women. As previously
mentioned, the classics collected in Romances and recently featured in Love in a Fallen City
were written between 1943 and 1944, during the tumultuous years of Republican China, a topic
that would be further expounded in chapter one. Drawing on what she knew best, Eileen Chang
noticeably favored the use of Republican China, specifically Republican Shanghai, as the setting
for her fictions. It should be of no debate that the society in which the young Eileen Chang lived
when writing these stories, as well as the society in which stories’ female protagonists lived,
were patriarchal. Even though Republican Shanghai was an icon of material modernity for the
whole world, the effort to overcome the cultural forces of old “feudal” China and shake its
patriarchal Confucian-esque foundation was still underway
8
—men held power over women on
many levels and in many forms. One Chinese scholar pungently noted:
The significance of Eileen Chang’s characterization of the vulgar, vile, wretched,
hypocritical, selfish, heartless men [in her romance fictions] is to expose the
sorrow and horror of when women entrust their fate to men. The men were the
women’s life goal, economic and social mainstay, and hunted target; the men
were all that the women thought about, talked about, sighed about… To see the

8
To err on the side of over-clarification, the use and application of the word “feudal” within the context of
contemporary Chinese verbiage are different from what would be the accepted standard in European history.
Specifically, “feudal” functions as a label for what is considered old (i.e., passed down from previous generations)
and unscientific—“feudal” is the antithesis of “modern.” Beginning in the Republican years, “feudal China” has also
become synonymous with imperial China, especially Qing China. As a result, opium addiction, a hallmark of late
Qing China, is frequently associated with the term “feudal society.” The Shanghai Eileen Chang knew since
childhood was a Shanghai in turmoil, squeezed between the old and the new, the feudal and the modern, the
traditional and the foreign.

6

status of women from men’s standpoint, it is not difficult to see: in a patriarchal
society, women’ roles were just odds and ends that served the male society.
9

Whilst this paper disagrees with the (excessively) rancorous perception, a point later explicated,
such severe recapitulation of the male image in Chang’s romance fictions does illustrate the
importance of men in relation to women. Namely, women were portrayed in relation to men.
Therefore, in addition to examining women in and of themselves, a comprehensive analysis
stipulates that women also need to be understood in relation to men. The foundation and drive
for the plot of any romance story is the male courtship of females. Thus, to fully understand
Chang’s romance stories, one must understand the male courtships in these stories.
With respect to the second approach, although it directs justified attention to the men, its
main perspective of analysis remains excessively gynocentric. Granted, women are without
question the focal actors on Eileen Chang’s stage. However, the opinion set forth to lump the
male characters into a single camp of rapscallions who are all the same is produced from the sole
perspective of seeing how these men, as the male sex, are so objectionable in treating women,
the other sex (a case in point being the diatribe quoted above). Like the female characters, this
paper asserts that the male characters also need to be examined in and of themselves (instead of
whether they live up to the female fantasy of them). In other words, the issue with the second
approach can be viewed as the opposite of the issue with the first approach: whereas the first
approach places too much emphasis on women by themselves and not enough attention on
women in relation to men, the second approach places too much emphasis on men in relation to
women and not enough attention on men by themselves. It is certainly true that Eileen Chang’s
romance stories are well known for their revelation of men’s flaws. Physically, mentally or
morally weak, the men under Chang’s pen were molded in the casts of deadbeat, philanderer,

9
Liu Xiaonan, “Shilun Zhang Ailing bixia de nanxing xingxiang,” 29. My translation.

7

opium addict, liar and overall rapscallion in life. This paper’s purpose is not to extol them as
good men—they are not. It does, however, intend to counter the collective categorization of
these men as a single group of dissolute rascals who are all the same by presenting an
investigation of male characters that focuses more on these men themselves. Specifically, the
question is one of depth and multi-dimensionality—the male characters must not be interpreted
as flat or one-dimensional, because they are not. In her very own words, Eileen Chang claims
that her preferred writing style is one with mixed, varied and subtle comparisons and contrasts
(cancha de duizhao 参差的对照).
10
This thesis finds previous analyses of Chang’s male
characters, particularly those presented in academic journals in Mainland China, to be doing the
very opposite.
11
Here it is important to note this paper’s own limitation: its discussion of male
characters encompasses only Chinese men and not White and mixed-blood Eurasian men.
12

Within such delineated scope, this paper argues that the Chinese men who shared the main stage
with the female protagonists, albeit all in a very negative light, exhibited significant differences
in courting the opposite sex. In addition, although much analyses have been done on the subject
of modernity in Chang’s works, its manifestation in shaping the male characters’ courtships of
females has not received due attention. In consideration of the comparison between un-modern
men and modern men, which during the Republican years was essentially the contrast between
the native (Chinese) world and the foreign (Western) world, this paper proposes that the Chinese
male characters in Eileen Chang’s romance fictions be categorized into two distinct groups:
native Chinese men and overseas Chinese men. Thus, the solution to this second flawed

10
“Ziji de wenzhang,” 18. Original text: “我喜歡參差的對照的寫法，因爲它是較接近事實的. ”
11
For examples of the kind of analyses that this thesis refutes, please see Chang Bin’s “Leixing geyi de nanxing
shijie: Zhang Ailing xiaoshuo lun” as well as Zhu Yibing’s “Jiedu Zhang Ailing bixia de nanxing xingxiang.”
12
This paper intentionally shies away from White and mixed-blood Eurasian male characters for two reasons. First,
their very limited presence does not allow for much textual analysis. Second, their inclusion would add layers of
complexities that are outside the scope of this paper. The discussion of mixed-blood men alone, especially vis-à-vis
modernity, is in and of itself a complicated topic that merits a full-scale study.

8

approach of painting all the men in one broad stroke is to discern that due to clear differences in
modernity (in terms of physical lifestyle as well as psychology), these bad boys meaningfully
differed in their courtships of women.
In summary, to address the previously mentioned inadequacies in existing literature as
well as to offer a more careful examination of the men under Chang’s pen, this paper has two
goals. First, it aims to demonstrate significant differences in modernity between native Chinese
men and overseas Chinese men. Second, building upon the first goal, this paper aims to establish
a connection between modernity and male courtship: discrepancy in modernity leads to
divergence in courtship of women—the less-modern native Chinese men’s courtship of women
differ from that of the more-modern overseas Chinese men. Specifically, it is posited that with a
higher level of modernity, a man will pursue a higher level of courtship in terms of the
courtship’s desire and result, i.e., the favor-affection-love tri-level distinction discussed in the
next section—and vice versa. In other words, the courtship from a man of low modernity is for
favor; whereas that from a man of high modernity is for love—level of modernity directly
influences what a courting male seeks, how he seeks it, and whether he gets what he seeks. To
accomplish these two goals, this paper analyzes four classics from Romances that are also
featured in Love in a Fallen City: “The Golden Cangue,” “Sealed Off,” “Red Rose, White Rose,”
and “Love in a Fallen City” (hereinafter collectively referred to as "the four stories"). In addition
to serving as the core of the famed Romances collection as well as Love in a Fallen City and
garnering decades of widespread admiration from critics, scholars and casual readers alike, these
four of the most representative, seminal works of Eileen Chang are particularly important to this
paper because they present a vivid image of Chang’s semicolonial modern Shanghai, where the
salvo of modernity met face-to-face with the obstinate forces of old traditional China, where the

9

age-old dances of male courting female unfolded. Logically, the textual analyses of these four
monumental works by Eileen Chang form the core of this paper.

Male Courtship of Female
The abovementioned two goals dictate that male courtship of female and modernity are
the two pillars of this paper. One definition for “to court (or woo) someone,” in the context of a
man courting a woman, is “to seek the favor, affection, or love of” someone.
13
The tri-level
gradation, or escalation, in what the man seeks from the woman—from favor to affection to
love—will prove to be of paramount value to the textual analyses in chapter two. Thus, within
the context of this paper, male courtship is defined as a man’s pursuit of a woman’s favor,
affection, or love. These three courtship objectives—favor, affection, love—call to mind the
equally variable intentions of the middle-class courtships in Jane Austen’s novels. As one knows
from Jane Austen’s novels, the courtship process could be highly elastic and be channeled on a
spectrum toward either a “high” noble end or a “low” vulgar end: on the “high” end, it could
become the facilitator and stage for the unfolding of genuine love; on the “low” end, it could be a
cover for a calculating scheme, acting as an avenue for people to seek gains and favors (Lu 89).
Between the two is, of course, affection. The four pieces of Chang’s romance fiction that are
featured in this thesis will serve to elucidate that Eileen Chang fully exploits the elasticity of the
courtship process.
As the previous paragraphs firmly propose, the subject of male courtship is highly
significant in the study of Eileen Chang’s romance fictions not only because it is an important
engine for these stories but also because it reveals meaningful differences amongst their male
characters. Dissimilarity in courtship objectives functions as a glaring marker of these inter-male

13
"woo." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc.

10

differences, along with, of course, differentiation in courtship process. In other words, the
various male courtships in the four stories analyzed in this paper differ in two ways: what the
man pursues and how he pursues. Given this paper’s formulation of two distinct groups of men,
native Chinese men and overseas Chinese men, the investigation of divergence in courtship will
be conducted both intra- and inter-group. The comparison and contrast of courtship differences
utilize two windows of analysis: the condition of courtship and, the process and psychology of
courtship, the latter of which will form the bulk of the textual analyses.
14

Men and Modernity
The other pillar of this paper is the subject of modernity. Due to the historical and social
backdrop of the four stories this paper selects for analyses, one cannot adequately examine them
without delving into this momentous topic. As a matter of fact, existing academic literature and
certain publications for the general audience already provide abundant discussions regarding the
“modern” elements, as well as their major role, in Eileen Chang’s own life and in many of her
great works. Given this paper’s staunch intention to differentiate amongst the men under Chang’s
pen who are altogether labeled a group of the same cast, modernity can also be used as a
yardstick to measure differences amongst these various men—namely, the previously mentioned
distinction between native Chinese and overseas Chinese. Aside from the mere experience of
living outside of China, overseas Chinese men’s comparatively augmented modernity sets them
apart and shapes their distinctive courtship, which will be explored in later chapters. It is
inappropriate to conceptualize modernity as a black-and-white notion that would allow a person

14
The approach to combine process and psychology of courtship was due to the inextricability of the two. First, it is
difficult and unnatural to separate the two given the psychological nature of Eileen Chang’s descriptive lines.
Second, it is basic human nature that any and all courtship processes involve psychological underpinnings and
motives.

11

to be unambiguously discerned as either completely modern or completely non-modern. Instead
it lies on a gradated spectrum in that people who possess more non-modern qualities are less
modern whilst those who possess more modern qualities are more modern. Similar to the
investigation of divergence in courtship, the investigation of disparity in each man’s modernity
will also be conducted both intra- and inter-group—level of modernity would be expected to
vary not only between the native Chinese group and the overseas Chinese group, but also
between the members of each group—there would be differences between the two groups and
within each group. The qualifications and definitions of “modernity” and “overseas Chinese” are
considered in the next chapter. In terms of the four Eileen Chang stories analyzed in this paper,
Chiang Chi-tse of “The Golden Cangue” and Lu Zongzhen of “Sealed Off” form the group of
native Chinese men; Tong Zhenbao of “Red Rose, White Rose” and Fan Liuyuan of “Love in a
Fallen City” form the group of overseas Chinese men.
15
Through analyzing their dissimilarities
in courtship in conjunction with their differentiations in modernity, this paper intends to reveal
that these two groups of men are in fact two different animals, even if cloaked in the same
appearance.

15
I will concede here that such categorization will be considered by some to be either a stretch or too stiff of a
grouping. However, as chapters one and two will show, intra- and inter-group differences in terms of modernity and
courtship—how each man differs from the others—will not be neglected.

12

Chapter One: The World of Eileen Chang
The name “Eileen Chang” signifies a literary giant and a cultural icon in the Chinese-
speaking world, to the extent that the story of her own personal life has been discussed as much
as her written works, if not more. This chapter does not endeavor to recount the ups and downs
of the much-discussed dramatic life of Eileen Chang, but instead intend to provide a
comprehensive context to the four romance stories analyzed in the ensuing two chapters. Given
the scope and complexity of the matters encompassed in the four selected stories—ranging from
historic societal revolutions, transformations in municipal amenities, to Chang’s own literary
perspectives—this chapter presents a rendering of the world in which not only Eileen Chang
herself lived, but the characters in her stories also inhabited.

What is Modern
This paper’s heavy emphasis on the subject of modernity prompts a very critical
question: what is modernity, or modern, in the eyes of Eileen Chang? After much consideration,
this paper views Chang’s sense of modern through the lenses of two seminal scholars on this
topic: Fredric Jameson and Marshall Berman. In Fredric Jameson’s book Postmodernism, the use
of “modernization” or “to modernize” refers to the whole set of transformations that are
commonly identified by the public as modernization: urbanization, technological advances for
both civilians and industries, rise of capitalism and private enterprises, and the fall of aristocracy
and feudalism. For Marshall Berman, another noted scholar of modernity, the word
“modernization” is also used to refer to the material processes and social projects that brought
about great changes during the modern period.

13

Although the definition of “modernity” is more varied among theorists and scholars, for
Berman “modernity” refers to the body of experiences lived by people in this modern period.
Specifically, Berman’s interpretation of “to be modern” is “to find ourselves in an environment
that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world—and,
at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything
we are” (Lu 6). Fredric Jameson concurs in Postmodernism. To quote him exactly, modernity is
“the way ‘modern’ people feel about themselves; the word would seem to have something to do
not with the products (either cultural or industrial) but with the producers and the consumers, and
how they feel either producing the products or living among them. This modern feeling now
seems to consist in the conviction that we ourselves are somehow new, that a new age is
beginning, that everything is possible and nothing can ever be the same again; nor do we want
anything to be the same again, we want to ‘make it new,’ get rid of all those old objects, values,
mentalities, and ways of doing things, and to be somehow transfigured” (310).
Such are also the sense of modern and modernity in Eileen Chang’s writings, as well as in
her physical home world of Republican Shanghai, except one very distinct personal touch.
Compared to Berman, who in his work devotes equal space to the discussion of modernity as a
body of experiences and modernization as the social processes that bring the modern experience
into being, Chang’s emphasis is noticeably on modernity as experience, not on the process of
modernization. As Lu Yingjiu notes, Chang used the word “modern” (xiandai) in most of the
above-named associated meanings—as a kind of new experience, as a new social condition, and
as a cultural ethos—but rarely did she discuss modernization as material processes and social
projects (5-6). In the famous essay “Writing of One’s Own” (Ziji de wenzhang, 1944), in which
Chang described her mission and outlook as a writer, she had her eyes fixed on the experience of

14

people in the modern age, whom she called “modern people.” Regarding these modern people’s
modern experience, Chang claimed in the essay that she wanted her fiction to represent the
experience of the ordinary, not heroic, modern men and women who were more representative of
“the totality” of her era (shidai de zongliang) than heroic figures—the ordinary could better
represent Chang’s world than the extraordinary.
16
In this context Chang referred to the female
protagonist Bai Liusu, and her romance with an overseas Chinese man educated in Britain, Fan
Liuyuan, in the novella “Love in a Fallen City,” one of the four Chang writings examined in this
paper. From this unique perspective that the ordinary folks could represent her era and world
more than the heroes, Chang infused in her works the strong impression that the experiences of
the ordinary modern people could be quite vital and adventurous. In short, the discussion of
modernity, as a body of experiences, far outweighs Chang’s discussion of modernization, if there
was any at all. As Lu Yingjiu explains:
This conceptual imbalance is due to the fact that Zhang’s [Chang’s] view of the
modern experience comes from a particular angle and is based on the experience
of a particular social group. Different from the intelligentsia that actively
advocates the project of modernization, or capitalists and industrialists that
actively exploit the economic opportunities of modernization, the ordinary, not so
heroic, urban people that Zhang is interested in depicting are those that are not
conscious about modernization as such but simply live its consequences and live
them on the most immediate personal level.
17

Republican Shanghai, the Right Place at the Right Time
For Eileen Chang, not being a blatant enthusiast regarding material modernization did not
preclude her from being a keen observer of material modernization. In fact, her exquisite
descriptive lines often naturally but conspicuously imbued her stories with the physical
characteristics of the modern Shanghai metropolis. After all, it was her beloved hometown that

16
“Ziji de wenzhang,” 19. Original text: 但正是这些凡人比英雄更能代表这时代的总量.
17
Lu, Vernacular Modernism, 8.

15

served as the physical and cultural backdrop to the four romance masterworks examined in this
paper—and Eileen Chang’s Shanghai in the 1940s was modernized to the extent that even the
ordinary folks, who could represent the era’s totality more than heroes could and thus were the
focus of her pen, lived and breathed in the midst of tangible manifestations of modernization. In
addition to its inextricable role in Chang’s writings, the 1940s Republican Shanghai was also the
irreplaceable incubating ground that fostered Chang’s meteoric rise to stardom. Unlike many of
the couples in her fictions, Eileen Chang and the Shanghai of her time were a match made in
heaven. That is, Shanghai’s literary scene needed someone like Eileen Chang; and Eileen Chang
had to depend on Shanghai to not only begin but also sustain her literary career.
A significant concentration of literary activity took shape in Shanghai in the early years
of Republican China, when Eileen Chang was growing up. Shanghai’s rapid urban development
and westernization, as well as growing consumer base for popular fiction, turned it into a hotbed
for intellectual openness and consumption. However, in 1940 in the dead heat of the Second
Sino-Japanese War, Shanghai officially fell under Japanese imperial rule when the Japanese
authorities set up the puppet regime Reorganized National Government of China (a.k.a. the
Nanjing Nationalist Government). During the Japanese occupation, harsh government censorship
forced many writers to either leave Shanghai or refrain from publication—Eileen Chang herself
knew at least one editor who was detained in an infamous prison—thus draining the city’s
intellectual and cultural vibrancy. “Chang stepped into that silence like a diva entering the
limelight” (Kingsbury xii). She stayed out of trouble with the authorities and gained success with
the public by focusing on current manners and mores, avoiding any mention of war or politics.
Chang’s focus on, and appreciation of, ordinary people’s ordinary lives fortunately helped
masquerade herself as a light, unserious writer (Kingsbury xiii).

16

In her tour de force book The Lure of the Modern, Shu-mei Shih provides a further in-
depth account of two explanations for the spectacular Eileen Chang phenomenon in 1940s
Shanghai—how was it that this bustling city of political and societal turmoil became so many
talented intellectuals’ Waterloo and yet produced a female literary luminary known for what
appeared to be trite writings that aimed for merely casual entertainment. The first explanation,
interestingly enough, entails Chinese nationalism, a topic quite distant from Chang’s
representative classics. During the Sino-Japanese War, from the educated public arose a fervent
call to use popular literature as a vehicle for anti-Japanese propaganda. Prompted by the rising
demand that was initially created by anti-Japanese nationalistic concerns, traditional popular
forms of literature such as serialized novels, essays, plays, and even comic books populated the
literary scene. Against such backdrop, Chang’s stories would not have seemed an anomaly, even
if in content they appeared to have nothing to do with national salvation. In an ironic twist, the
surge of nationalist literary values also tolerated the return of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies
fiction that earlier came under severe attack for being non-ideological and lacking social
engagement, thus making room for “frivolous” or “trivial” romance fictions such as those by
Eileen Chang.
18
Furthermore, in the tumultuous ideological landscape of politics in 1940s
Republican Shanghai, the apparent lack of social consciousness in Chang’s works shielded her
from political persecution by both Chinese (whether Nationalist- or Communist-sponsored) and
Japanese authorities. Paradoxically, in a society marked by ardent social activism and

18
The May Fourth New Culturalists derisively labeled certain works and authors as "Mandarin Ducks and
Butterflies" (MDB) for their perceived lack of social engagement in the societal calling for a “new modern China.”
Although Eileen Chang was not a poster-child of this MDB label, certain facets of her writing did align well with
this rather vague and political branding. For example, Chang’s writings were not motivated by the desire to convey a
certain ideology. Entertaining and moving the readers was as important as any instruction. In addition, Chang
understood old China and did not intend to ostracize it in her writing—instead she embedded in her stories a fusion
between the old and new, the feudal and modern. This, of course, contradicted the general atmosphere of utterly
rejecting the old and feudal and dedicatedly embracing the new and modern.

17

consciousness as well as intense ideological competition between Chinese Nationalists, Chinese
Communists and the reigning Japanese imperial establishment, having no ideological motive or
utility was in a way good and welcomed, and facilitated not only survival but even success. Also,
popular fiction about the lives of average citizens was arguably the most innocuous to Japanese
censorship (Shih 381). Thus were the conditions in which Eileen Chang’s red-carpet runway to
fame formed.
The second explanation, according to Shih, is related to Chang’s female gender and has
to do with the contradictory relationship between women and nationalism. In the male territory
of literary activity in the preceding decades, the topography of which was largely determined by
May Fourth enlightenment discourse and Westernized literary standards, Chang could easily
have been dismissed as another Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies acolyte without serious literary
appeal.
19
But, in Shih’s words, “the Japanese occupation brought a temporary end to the
hegemony of such a gendered territorialization of culture, and the cultural imaginary was left
open for reinscription, even though this reinscription had to accommodate Japanese meddling.”
This way, the male-dominant May Fourth master narratives of social revolution and national
cultural rejuvenation were no longer desirable or permitted. Instead, “we see Zhang [Chang]
exploring life’s most quotidian and even banal moments with irony and pathos, subtly
elaborating their profound and symbolic implications” (Shih 382). Thus, due to these converging
factors and circumstances in the Republican years, both before and during Eileen Chang’s time,

19
The "Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies” (MDB) label was first applied (somewhat loosely) to love stories in
parallel prose style that enjoyed immense popularity during the 1910s. Later, members of the May Fourth
Movement re-defined it as a derogative phrase because they rejected MDB-style works as socially irresponsible and
mere frivolous, commercial entertainment. They widened the label's meaning to include all kinds of contemporary
popular fiction that did not align with the May Fourth Movement’s political goals. Thus the motivation for the MDB
label became clearly political. Changes in political strategy from time to time determined whether a certain writer
was considered (and derided) as a MDB writer (Xu 1-3).

18

popular fiction and female writers came to flourish in the city of Shanghai, thus creating the
milieu that incubated and celebrated Chang’s works (Xu 11).

Eileen Chang’s Republican Shanghai: The Tangible, the Intangible, and the Chinese
People
As an earlier part of this paper intimates, when Republican Shanghai modernized into a
world-class metropolis, a schism resulted within it: Old Shanghai vs. Modern Shanghai. Both
sides intertwined to create the material and cultural societal fabrics that staged the stories
featured in this paper. Old Shanghai was to a certain degree just a reflection of old feudal
China—opium, sedan chair (a.k.a. palanquin), arranged marriage, concubinage, strict
hierarchical social protocol that bound interpersonal conduct, and specially Confucian-esque
mores that restricted romance and affection. Modern Shanghai was of course Old Shanghai’s
antithesis. It sought and absorbed Western ideas that directly contradicted Old Shanghai’s beliefs,
such as a more liberal and open attitude toward male-female relationships and support for
women’s rights in education, employment and marriage (as well as divorce). New Shanghai
valued foreign (mostly Western) culture and pursued the modern. It had cafes and movie theaters
instead of tea houses and opium dens, rickshaws and trams instead of sedan chairs, along with
young men and women who sought education from Western-style institutions either in Shanghai
or abroad as opposed to those who stayed home and read ancient Chinese classics. It was in this
hybrid Shanghai that Eileen Chang lived and wrote the four stories and it was this hybrid
Shanghai that she used exquisitely as the setting for the stories.
By 1930, when Eileen Chang was 10 years old, the outmoded, backward ways of old
Chinese society had already given way to Shanghai’s new identity as a bustling cosmopolitan

19

metropolis: the fifth largest city in the world, China’s largest harbor and treaty port, the
internationally hailed “Paris of Asia.” In the words of Leo Lee, it was “a world of splendid
modernity set apart from the still tradition-bound countryside that was China” (6). In his book
Shanghai Modern, Lee enumerates the dazzling material emblems of Shanghai’s advancing
modernity: cars, electric lights and fans, radios, foreign-style mansions, sofas, guns, cigars,
perfume, high-heeled shoes, as well as forms of pastime, such as fox-trot and tango dancing in
clubs and dancing halls along with discussions about Balzac and Hugo over Arabica coffee
served at French cafes (4-5). In extraterritorial zones, where the modern concentrated, Chinese
and foreigners shared city space but mostly led different lives. Outside of these foreign
concessions, in the old city, Chinese neighborhoods carried on in a seemingly different world.
Old Shanghai and New Shanghai, as well as Chinese neighborhoods and foreign concessions,
were bound together by bridges, tram and trolley routes, and public streets and roads built by
Western powers that extended beyond their concession boundaries. Western economic and
cultural presence saturated parts of the city in the forms of banks, office buildings for
international trading companies, hotels, churches, clubs, cinemas, theaters, parks, coffeehouses,
restaurants, deluxe apartments, and a racecourse (Lee 6). The lives of ordinary city dwellers,
Shanghai’s Chinese denizens, were thus conveniently exposed to the leisure and entertainment of
the Western variety. Particularly, the cinemas, cafes and dance halls provided an alternative to
the traditional places of fun for native residents—the local opera houses, restaurants and
teahouses in the old city, as well as the houses of prostitution, which continued to hold sway in
the Chinese sections of the city (Lee 17). Eileen Chang, just like the characters under her pen,
lived and breathed in such contrast of old and new, Chinese and Western.

20

Clearly, the Republican Shanghai that incubated and elevated Eileen Chang was in some
very meaningful ways a “foreign” city, produced by imperialism and capitalism, and set apart
from the rest of China. While such a perception lays the blame for Shanghai’s problems on
imperialism, it also paradoxically attributes to imperialism the success of Shanghai as a capitalist
paradise and a modernizing agent in China. Imperialism in the end brought the blessings of
modernizing development. In Western scholarship on pre-1949 Shanghai, Shanghai appeared as
“a city of sin,” the “site of China’s modernism,” a “paradise of adventurers,” a “capitalists’
paradise,” and a city where everything was “for sale.” All these descriptions of Shanghai
flaunted its capitalism and its capitalist culture of modernity (Shih 235).
It would be remiss to mention Shanghai’s Western façade without further delving into the
topic of semi-colonialism. After all, it was the foreign powers’ incursion on Chinese soil that
allowed for Shanghai’s modernization and its people’s modernity. Semi-colonialism was
important because it can be argued that Chinese modernity was in someway emblematic of Third
World modernities in general, as a by-product of Western colonialism and capitalism (Shih ix, 9).
From all the previous descriptions of Republican-era Shanghai, it is plain to see that the city was
modern in being both transnational and cosmopolitan—thanks to Western forces. In the literary
world, the Republican era had representative cosmopolitan and modernist writers, who were
markedly westernized. In addition to what Rey Chow calls “cultural expansionism,” Western
modernism (as an aesthetic response to modernity) was also inevitably coupled with
imperialism.
20
Besides formal and thematic links between Western modernism and imperialist
politics, Western modernism as a historical formation would not have been possible without
imperialism as an economic agenda. Raymond Williams remarks that the specific historical form

20
See Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1993), 55.

21

of modernism was made possible by “the magnetic concentration of wealth and power in
imperial capitals and the simultaneous cosmopolitan access to a wide variety of subordinate
cultures”—not the least of these subordinate cultures was China (44). As is ubiquitously taught
in today’s history classes, Britain, the US, Japan, France, and several other “Western” nations
had competing economic interests in China throughout the late-Qing and Republican periods.
These foreign powers appropriated Chinese territory along the coast into pockets of
extraterritoriality, each serving as a direct portal of commerce between China and the metropole.
Such direct access to China and Chinese culture that was afforded by economic activities was
significant for the formation of Western modernism (Shih 7). In short, semi-colonialism
encouraged cosmopolitan modernism in Republican China and hence was instrumental in the
formation of the modernity of Eileen Chang’s fellow modern Shanghai denizens.
Western modernity or modernism came and formed in contrast to Chinese non-modern-
ness. Western modernism fed on Chinese backwardness—China’s barbarism and old-fashioned
traditions made and let shine Western modernism. Hence it was next to old China that the
Western modern civility came to be modern, civil, and advanced, especially in the eyes of the
Chinese populace: the new made newer by the old, the old made older by the new.
21
Arguably
the most important city with foreign concessions, the biggest trading hub on China’s coastline,
and the heaviest concentration of multinational residents and influences, Eileen Chang’s
Shanghai was therefore the quintessential site of not only Chinese citizenry who observed
Western modernity in and from Whites and Japanese, but also certain westernized Chinese who
themselves absorbed it and became exhibitors or even representatives of Western modernity.
These westernized modern Chinese people, who stood in-between traditional Chinese and

21
The Chinese intellectual class wanted to strengthen their nation’s position by embracing western models of
modernity. With the external threat of imperialist encroachment, China’s weaknesses as a nation had been
exposed (Zhu 2).

22

modern foreigners, formed an indelible nuance in the folds of modern-versus-non-modern. That
is, the phenomenon of old traditions mingling and clashing with new evolutions did not just
happen simply in the framework of the national or racial dichotomy of Chinese versus non-
Chinese—it also took place within the Chinese “race” in the contrast of “enlightened”
westernized modern Chinese versus Chinese people who continued to hold on to traditional ideas
and practices from feudal Qing China.
The comparison between Chinese who were relatively more modern and those who were
relatively less modern of course directly has to do with this paper’s division of Chang’s male
characters into overseas Chinese and native Chinese. Again, it is important to note that
modernity is not gauged by a black-and-white, all-or-nothing threshold but instead lies on a
gradated spectrum or continuum. Given all the previous descriptions of Shanghai’s modern
Western aspects, some Chinese natives of Republican Shanghai could indeed embody a certain
degree of modernity even though they never left China.
22
However, given the attractive and
forceful sway of imperialism and capitalism, some Chinese blood and genes did leave China and
went overseas to Western countries, due to various voluntary and involuntary reasons. There
were ethnic Chinese of full Chinese blood and lineage who were born or grew up overseas
because of family, as well as native Chinese who went overseas as adults for educational or
financial gains and in the process were minted a new type of Chinese that then distinguished
them from their former selves as well as from the Chinese compatriots left behind back in
China.
23
Either way, such breed of what would be generally termed “overseas Chinese” directly
took in Western modernity straight from its source. Among these foreign-branded Chinese, some

22
For detailed explanation and examples, refer to early domestic westernization agents called “treaty port men” in
Rhoads Murphey’s The Treaty Ports and China’s Modernization as well as “The Treaty Ports and China’s
Modernization.”
23
This paper purposely shies away from the topic of forced or indentured laborers, such as coolies, because such
characters are not discussed in Eileen Chang’s stories and thus outside of the scope of this paper.

23

migrated back to the Chinese motherland and naturally brought with them Western modernity,
thus marking their appreciable difference from the homebound native Chinese.
Given the weight and consequence that variation of modernity carried in determining
people’s everyday lives, it was no surprise that Chang affirmed in “Writing of One’s Own” (Ziji
de wenzhang, 1944) that the experiences of the ordinary people in her own era, the modern era,
could be worthy of her wholehearted dedication. Fittingly, one romance Chang referred to in the
essay were that between Fan Liuyuan and Bai Liusu in “Love in a Fallen City”—a romance
between an overseas Chinese man from Britain and a native Chinese woman from a traditional
household. This “odd-couple” romance story also reflects Chang’s focus on the persistence of
anachronistic traditional elements within the modern urban environment. Traditional human
relationships and values, the hallmark of Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies romances but out of
context in modern Shanghai, often constituted the central tension and conflict in her stories—
Chang focused much more on modernity (and the lack thereof) as an experience than the actual
material process and markers of modernization. In fact, it was partially due to the glaring
dissimilarity between overseas Chinese and native Chinese in general that this paper formulated
the approach of analyzing the four chosen stories’ male characters by partitioning them
categorically into overseas Chinese men and native Chinese men. As Kingsbury articulated,
Chang stepped into the silence of the Shanghai literary scene like a diva entering the limelight.
The stage, however, was not just one of male-female romances, but also one of variation and
conflict in terms of modernity.

24

The Broader Social History of Republican China
Eileen Chang’s formative years, her earliest and most active writing period, as well as the
temporal setting of the four stories highlighted in this paper, were all during the Republican Era.
Though relatively short-lived on the Mainland (1912–1949), Republican China saw much
political, economic, social and cultural change. Not only did this time period usher in the end of
imperial rule, it also transformed certain societal values that stemmed from China’s immediate
feudal (imperial and Confucian) past, particularly those pertaining to writing and women. It was
such revolutionary social and cultural setting that helped form Eileen Chang’s Shanghai.
Just as the Revolution of 1911 transformed China’s government structure, the New
Culture Movement, sometimes referred to as the May Fourth New Culture Movement,
revolutionized China’s popular culture, in which Eileen Chang thrived as a writer. The New
Culture Movement of the mid 1910s and 1920s (both before and after the May Fourth Movement
of May 4, 1919) sprang from the disillusionment with traditional Chinese society. Scholars such
as Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun, and Hu Shih, who grew up with classical Confucian education but later
obtained Western-style education abroad, led what came to be called a movement of ideological
cultural innovation and literary revolution— with the iconoclastic theme of “anti-tradition, anti-
Confucianism, anti-classical Chinese.” The two aspects that pertained to Eileen Chang and her
writings were an end to the patriarchal family in favor of individual freedom and women's
liberation (Hummel 55). And the idea of individual freedom and women’s liberation are infused
in her stories.
The radical debunking of Chinese tradition entailed an unambiguous construction of
Chinese tradition and Western modernity as oppositional dichotomies in cultural terms (the May
Fourth thinking about modernity). This is also where Eileen Chang’s works are significant—they

25

combine both in her work, appreciating both, recognizing both, without disparaging the old or
traditional. These dichotomies of Chinese tradition versus Western modernity undergirded much
of May Fourth enlightenment discourse in the “East-West culture debate:” family-based versus
individualistic, emotional (emotion) versus ruled by law (law), pessimistic versus optimistic,
fatalistic versus creative-progressivist, and dependent versus independent (Shih 53). As later
chapters will show, these dichotomies are quite central to the plots of Chang’s romance stories.
Also as shown by these dichotomies, in comparison to life in feudal China, life in
Republican China was characterized by significantly greater freedom of expression. Women’s
emancipation took shape in their pursuit of education, employment and independence. In 1912,
shortly after the fall of the Qing, the new government of the Republic of China banned foot
binding. Due to the May Fourth New Culture Movement, education in China underwent radical
change as the May Fourth Incident instigated the establishment of the co-ed system. Beginning
in the fall of 1919, several institutions of higher learning in different parts of China, such as
Peking University of Beijing, Nanjing Normal University of Nanjing, and Lingnan University of
Guangzhou, began enrolling female students for the very first time in their respective history. By
1922, twenty-eight colleges and universities across China had begun enrolling female students
and hiring female teachers. Women’s role in China’s education system further expanded when
around the same time even all-male institutions began recruiting female teachers (Chow 360).
Such drastic shift toward gender egalitarianism in the Chinese education system not only
produced Eileen Chang, but also some of the characters in her fictions.
Another aspect in which women’s liberation pertained to Eileen Chang and some of her
characters was a woman’s rights concerning marriage and its termination. In the Qing Dynasty, a
wife’s right to divorce her husband was so severely restricted that Qing law made divorce almost

26

impossible for a woman to obtain. Republican China’s West-leaning lawmakers explicitly upheld
the principle of male-female equality, intending the new civil code to be a major force in
reshaping gender and family relations and building a society similar to those in Western
nations.
24
The necessary first step was to provide women with the means to liberate themselves
from oppressive marriages. They thus made divorce, in principle at least, as readily available to
women as it had been to men. This legal ideal had to confront the backward social reality of
Republican China. Women, after all, were heavily discriminated against in all walks of life: wife
abuse was common, adultery was common among men, and keeping concubine(s) was widely
practiced among those with financial means. Women of the Republican period did not quite gain
the equality with men as promised by the new laws, but they certainly found it far easier to
obtain a divorce than women of imperial Qing China (Bernhardt 188).

24
Republican China’s civil code, modeled after the Swiss and German codes, was one of the most liberal divorce
laws in the world (Bernhardt 188). It was instrumental in allowing the female protagonist in “Love in a Fallen City,”
Bai Liusu, to divorce her abusive (first) husband.

27

Chapter Two: Condition of Courtship
As the previous parts of this thesis have already made amply clear, this thesis focuses on
the attribute of a man’s level of modernity in its analysis of male courtship. The decision to hone
in on such definite subject of concentration, however, does not preclude the discussion of other
factors that impact a courtship. Indeed, this thesis would be remiss to delve into a close reading
of any courtship’s course of development without first addressing the condition under which the
courtship launches. Individual factors such as economic class, social status, profession, and
experience with the opposite sex all play a substantial role in determining how a particular man
courts a woman. Furthermore, there are broader supra-individual influences, such as political,
economic, and cultural dynamics of the society at large, that allow certain courtships the chance
to initiate while prohibiting others. The readers of today, possessing full, established knowledge
of what is and is not modern, enjoy the luxury of looking back and retrospectively examining the
nascent unsteady modernity of Eileen Chang’s time, a period in history rife with uncertainty,
upheaval and transformation. Through such lens, it is logical to raise one salient question within
the scope of Eileen Chang’s romance stories as well as her time period: was a man’s failure to
practice modern romanticism due to autonomous individuality (i.e., his own intrinsic deficiency
in modernity) or was it due to some other cause that was beyond his individual control?
Examining the condition of the man’s courtship helps to answer this very question.

"The Golden Cangue"
About thirty-six thousand words long, “The Golden Cangue” is the longest of all four
analyzed stories (Shuijing, Zhang Ailing weiwan 55). Commensurate with its leading importance
in length, it is also arguably the most influential, famous and representative of all Eileen Chang

28

works. “The Golden Cangue” is thoroughly a tale of the antediluvian, fogyish Chinese household
life that which the May Fourth Movement and the Republican Chinese government deemed
objectionable. In other words, the novella’s family of focus, the Chiangs, lives in “Old Shanghai”
and abides by the rules of the old Chinese society. Although the crux of the novella revolves
around the married-in “heroine” of the Chiang family, Ts’ao Ch’i-ch’iao, with no other character
whose weight in the story could even come close to hers, Chiang Chi-tse, Ch’i-ch’iao’s brother-
in-law, serves as an important foil.
25
The only Chiang family member to appear in Ch’i-ch’iao’s
life both before and after the Chiang household separates (aside from Ch’i-ch’iao’s own
children), Chi-tse is unlike all others in the story. He holds an interest in Ch’i-ch’iao and courts
her because of it. In this way, Chi-tse not only serves as a foil to Ch’i-ch’iao in terms of
character development and contrast, his courtship of her also reveals something significant about
himself as well as about the Chiang-type people’s style of male-female courtship.
Due to the very fact that the fateful crossing of paths for Chiang Chi-tse and Ts’ao Ch’i-
ch’iao occurs under the Chiang family roof, the condition of Chi-tse’s courtship of Ch’i-ch’iao is
inextricably intertwined with the Chiang family situation. In the first sentence, Eileen Chang
makes clear that the temporal backdrop of “The Golden Cangue” is thirty years before the time
of its writing—the novella was published in the year 1943. Hence thirty years before 1943 marks
the plot as being set in the early 1910s, when the Sun Yatsen-led revolutionary forces was in the
process of ushering China from feudal imperial Qing to the new era of a modern republic. As
Chang describes in the beginning of the story, “The last couple of years had been busy with the
changing of dynasties.”
26
The historic political and social revolutions underway at the time,

25
It is only the analysis of this monumental classic that does not employ the pinyin method to romanize Chinese
names. The reason is to closely follow Eileen Chang's very own translation of "The Golden Cangue," which
Kingsbury features in the NYRB collection Love in a Fallen City.
26
“The Golden Cangue,” 171.

29

however, do not seem to revolutionize the behavior and mindset of the Chiang family. Very
much conforming to the old Chinese society’s family structure, the Chiangs all live together as
one household under the administration of the person with the most seniority, the matriarch Old
Mistress. The widow of the late patriarch, the Old Mistress oversees her sons, their wives and
children, as well as the household servants. Everyone under the Chiang roof, including the
servants, harbors the old-fashioned mentality of harshly judging a person in terms of class and
social status. The most salient case in point is the servant girls’ late-night disparaging remarks
about Ts’ao Ch’i-ch’iao originating from a low-class family that runs a sesame oil shop.
Evidently, the entire household, even including the servant girls, is so shrouded in the backward
non-modern way of thinking that it automatically looks down on Ch’i-ch’iao simply because her
family background is of a small-time off-the-street sesame oil vendor.
A masterful storyteller, Eileen Chang not only portrays the antiquity of the Chiang
household through mere casual late night chitchat between servant girls; she also successfully
presents Chi-tse as an irresponsible playboy of the old Chinese society mold. In the beginning of
the story during the servant girls’ chat, Chi-tse is said to be “spending money like water and had
borrowed a lot from the family accounts.”
27
It is in the conversation between Chi-tse and Ch’i-
ch’iao the immediate next morning that it is shown why Chi-tse is so spendthrift, as Ch’i-ch’iao
says: “At least you haven’t fooled around outside [in brothels] for a month or so. Thanks to the
bride, she made you stay home.”
28
Furthermore, Eileen Chang hits the nails on the coffin in
terms of Chi-tse’s character: “He loved to play around but had made up his mind long ago not to
flirt with members of the family [Ch’i-ch’iao]. When the mood had passed one could neither

27
Ibid., 175.
28
Ibid., 184.

30

avoid them nor kick them aside, they would be a burden all the time.”
29
From these direct and
indirect accounts, Eileen Chang potently paints the image of a prodigal son immersed in the non-
modern world, just like his family. As for Ch’i-ch’iao, her unique personality is certainly the
centerpiece of the story. Just as the story’s opening paragraphs reveal Ch’i-ch’iao’s disparaged
status in the Chiang household even in the eyes of the servant girls, the ensuing conversations
between the various Chiang family members the immediate next-day morning provide a vivid,
lucid picture of Ch’i-ch’iao’s personality. In her first lines in the entire story, her opening lines
are bitter and grouchy, whinging about her unsatisfactory room, a soon-to-die husband, and
overall status of being bullied. By starting off her first scene with words such as “widow,”
“orphans,” and “bully,” Ch’i-ch’iao is succinctly characterized by mulligrubs.
30
Just as Chi-tse
remarks about Ch’i-ch’iao, “You’re full of grievances the minute you open your mouth.”
31

Indeed, Second Mistress Ch’i-ch’iao of the Chiang household is not much of a catch as a
woman, at least not in the modern sense. She smokes opium to ease her psychological burden as
a sickly crippled man’s wife, numb her grievances about the entire Chiang household’s scorn,
and soothe the “aches and pains from anger” that stems from how her life has turned out. Thanks
to the torturous years after being sold to the Chiangs, Ch’i-ch’iao was “sane enough one minute
and the next minute off again, and altogether disagreeable.”
32
Such construction of Ch’i-ch’iao’s
character not only vividly portrays the story’s heroine, it also evokes one very important question:
why would any man, even the profligate Chiang Chi-tse, court such a troubled, splenetic woman?
Specifically, why does Chi-tse seek Ch’i-ch’iao after the split of the Chiang household? This

29
Ibid., 186.
30
Ibid., 178.
31
Ibid., 184.
32
Ibid., 192-193.

31

question will of course be discussed in the next chapter on the process and psychology of
courtship.
Before anything else, dissecting the condition of courtship requires the exploration of the
cause or instigator of the entire Chi-tse-Ch’i-ch’iao situation. For this reason, Ch’i-ch’iao’s path
of marrying into the Chiang family as the official principal wife of the Chiang Second Master is
significant far beyond just being gossip fodder for the servant girls. In more ways than one, it is
Ch’i-ch’iao joining the Chiangs and assuming the position of the Second Mistress that instigates
the entire plot of “The Golden Cangue.” It allows Chi-tse and Ch’i-ch’iao to meet and live in the
same household, therefore making possible Chi-tse’s subsequent attempt to court Ch’i-ch’iao.
Moreover, it is critical to draw attention to Ch’i-ch’iao’s position in the Chiang household
because the occurrence that someone of Ch’i-ch’iao’s class and social status becomes the Second
Mistress of the gentry Chiang family is an unusual feat—and thus should speak volumes about
the Chiang family. The ultimate utility in understanding the Chiang family is, of course, to
understand the male character in question, Chiang Chi-tse, because he is formed in the same
world in which his family exists.
In the eloquent, sophisticated words of the servant girl Feng-hsiao, “A sesame oil shop!
How on earth could they stoop so low?”
33
A master in the use of dialogues, Eileen Chang reveals
through characters’ conversations that the Chiangs’ selection of lowly Ch’i-ch’iao to be the
Second Mistress is indeed a compromise imposed by the circumstances, albeit nonetheless
calculating and manipulative. Through the late-night furtive chatter between the servant girls as
well as Ch’i-ch’iao’s own words, Chang discloses the tragic reality that the Chiang Second
Master is so severely handicapped and prone to illness that he is held bedridden. Given that no
good family would offer him a daughter for wife on account of his bedbound condition, the Old

33
Ibid., 173.

32

Mistress originally plans to arrange (using money and matchmaker) for him a concubine from a
not-so-good family that wants money and does not mind the Second Master’s situation. The
honor befalls the sesame oil shop Ts’ao family, and its daughter Ch’i-ch’iao. However, due to
the goodness of her heart and (mostly) her strategy to kill two birds with one stone—to satisfy
the traditional cultural expectation for the second branch of the clan to have a proper mistress
(which could potentially produce heirs) as well as to induce Ch’i-ch’iao to take on the career of a
faithful caretaker—the Old Mistress decides to promote Ch’i-ch’iao to the status of wife.
Ch’i-ch’iao’s natal family, her own blood brother, exhibits no better motive in sending
her to the Chiangs. Just like the Chiang Old Mistress, Ch’i-ch’iao’s older brother Ts’ao Ta-nien
sees Ch’i-ch’iao’s value in her being a young maiden who can be married off for a price. Great
minds think alike—Ch’i-ch’iao’s older brother, the seller, and the Chiang Old Mistress, the
buyer, thus arrive at the life-altering deal that later determines the crossing of paths between
Ch’i-ch’iao and Chi-tse. Ts’ao Ta-nien takes advantage of Ch’i-ch’iao in the form of marrying
her to the Chiang family for monetary compensation; and the Chiang family takes advantage of
Ch’i-ch’iao in the form of acquiring a fulltime live-in caretaker as well as child-bearer for the
sickly crippled Second Master. The world in which Ch’i-ch’iao and Chi-tse live and breathe, the
world in which they are molded, is this world of concubinage and abject commodification of
women, which clearly operates according to antediluvian cultural norms. For Chi-tse, the fact
that his social and cultural sphere is limited to such a non-modern realm must have a deep impact
on, if not completely shaping, his level of modernity. After all, an old-fashioned household led
by a traditional-minded Old Mistress, which embraces concubinage but shuns a sesame oil shop
family background, certainly cannot be expected to produce a modern man. In this utterly non-
modern realm, woman and money are inextricably intertwined: the female protagonist Ch’i-

33

ch’iao is traded for the Chiangs’ money and later she spends her whole life holding onto the
money she obtains from the Chiang clan for enduring her years as the Chiang Second Mistress.
As a son of the Chiang family and a non-modern man who inhabits the same non-modern realm
as the people who have no qualm or compunction about selling a woman for concubinage, Chi-
tse stays the course of lack of modernity thanks to both his broader and immediate
environments—therefore he also shares the same view regarding women and money. Along this
vein, similar to the frame of mind of Ts’ao Ta-nien and the Chiang Old Mistress, Chi-tse sees
value in Ch’i-ch’iao after the Chiang household separation, and thus courts her.

“Sealed Off”
A short story of around seven thousand words, “Sealed Off” is the shortest of all four
works analyzed in this thesis, and also one of the shortest stories ever written by Chang (Zhang
73). Its physical setting is a shutdown tramcar in a sealed-off Shanghai. “The metal shop gates
came rattling down, all in a single sweep,” “the huge, shambling city sat dozing in the sun,”
Shanghai is suspended to the point of an “eerie quiet.”
34
In such seeming isolation in both time
and space, one of the many commonplace tramcars in standstill all over the city becomes the
scene for Lu Zongzhen’s courtship of Wu Cuiyuan.
Lu Zongzhen is a trapped man—trapped by the sealed city, the halted tramcar, his mother,
his wife, his daughter, money, and propriety. Zongzhen takes the tram to go home, as discontent
about it as he is; the entire city is in suspension, streets sealed off, tramcar shut down. Zongzhen
is against arranged marriage and years ago wanted to choose his wife on his own; his mother
chose for him and he has grown to loathe his arranged wife. Zongzhen is conscientious and
proud about his dapper, professional modern businessman attire; he goes to a noodle stand in a

34
Eileen Chang, “Sealed Off,” 237-238.

34

back alley and buys steaming hot buns wrapped in newspaper because his wife asks him to do so.
Zongzhen despises Dong Peizhi, the nephew from his wife’s family; he is saddled with Peizhi
because of his arranged marriage to his wife. Zongzhen loathes his wife and wants to marry
someone else; he cannot divorce his wife because they have a thirteen-year-old daughter whose
happiness and education is apparently at stake. Zongzhen is “not the least bit interested” in his
job; he has to earn enough money to support his family—the wife whom he neither chose in the
first place nor likes and the daughter whose prospects in life frustrate any consideration for him
divorcing the wife.
35
Zongzhen wants to take Cuiyuan as a concubine; his sense of propriety
cannot allow her, a fine well-educated person, to be a concubine, especially that of a man who
does not have much money.
36
Zongzhen wants happiness for himself; his own self cannot allow
it and has to fight against it. Lu Zongzhen is trapped by his life.
Unhappiness in life is his comfort zone—he lives in it for so long that he is made
accustomed to it. He is subjugated by the circumstances of his life, which are not of his own
choosing but forced upon him. Zongzhen is passive—he does not create his life, he only reacts to
it. Whatever his life dishes out, he takes it; wherever he is directed, he goes. Zongzhen is
confined and enslaved by his life—his life a dictator and he its subject. Independence and the
pursuit of individual happiness are lost on him. The condition of his courting Wu Cuiyuan is in a
way a culmination of all the circumstances that showcase his passivity, his life as a trap and the
choices he makes not out of free volition but as forced reaction to his restrictive life. After all,
the sole stimulus that drives Zongzhen to even recognize Cuiyuan’s existence and talk to her is
Zongzhen’s desperate attempt to dodge any conversation with Dong Peizhi, the despised nephew
forced upon him by the loathed wife, who is forced upon him by his mother.

35
Ibid., 245.
36
It is also likely that when Zongzhen proposes this he is actually insincere, as is his eventual handling of the
situation.

35

“Red Rose, White Rose”
“Red Rose, White Rose” is a novella of about thirty thousand words. The romance
between the male character Tong Zhenbao and his Red Rose Wang Jiaorui occupies by far the
biggest proportion in the story. So technically if based on the apportionment of content alone, the
novella should be titled “Romance with Red Rose” or even just “Red Rose.” The most
significant theme of the story, in perfect alignment with the topic and purpose of this thesis, is
Tong Zhenbao's psychology, including sexual psychology (xing xinli 性心理). Even though
Eileen Chang is not the first writer to dedicate an entire work to dissecting the male mind in the
context of romance, given writers like Yu Dafu and works such as Yu Dafu's “Nights of Spring
Fever” (“Chunfeng chenzui de wanshang” 春風沉醉的晚上), this is the only fiction of hers that
tells a story from the angle of the male character (Shuijing, Zhang Ailing weiwan 43-
45). Therefore, “Red Rose, White Rose” is a unique piece of Chang romance fiction that can
reveal how Eileen Chang construes and constructs the male psychology in courting a woman.
“Red Rose, White Rose” takes a turn from “The Golden Cangue” and “Sealed Off” in
presenting the main characters and storyline through a much more international scope. The
previous two stories barely feature any character whose life extends beyond the physical and
cultural borders of China. T’ung Shih-fang of “The Golden Cangue”, the German-educated
fiancé of Ch’i-ch’iao’s daughter, awkwardly resigns from his brief stint in the story after Ch’i-
ch’iao sabotages the marriage engagement. And in “Sealed Off,” the scant presence of
Europeans is cast as merely background decoration. Even the heroine Wu Cuiyuan is ridiculed as
an English instructor who has never stepped outside of China. Thus, compared to “The Golden
Cangue” and “Sealed Off,” Eileen Chang conspicuously places “Red Rose, White Rose” in a

36

world of international cosmopolitanism that would be reflected through the novella’s characters
and settings.
In comparison to the other three romance stories discussed in this paper, the storyline of
“Red Rose, White Rose” is most conducive to the analysis of the male courtship of female
because the narrative mostly revolves around this very subject. Specifically, it follows Tong
Zhenbao, the central character, as he moves on from one woman to the next, totaling four women
on two continents across the Pacific Ocean. Thus, Tong Zhenbao’s courtship of woman is certain
to differ from that of Chiang Chi-tse and Lu Zongzhen in terms of the condition of courting.
Before delving any further into Tong Zhenbao’s courtship of woman, it would be prudent
to first acknowledge that in the next chapter’s analysis of the process and psychology of
courtship, of all four women involved in Zhenbao’s “love” life this thesis chooses to focus on
only the Red Rose Mrs. Wang Jiaorui. The Parisian prostitute would be omitted because their
encounter is more fair trade than courtship, if not a courtship of reverse direction—the prostitute
courting Zhenbao. As for Meng Yanli, the White Rose of Zhenbao’s love life, he never courts
her. Zhenbao’s mother finds her and arranges the introductions; and Zhenbao just somewhat
settles for her, partially due to his mother’s tearful insistence that he should marry as soon as
possible and partially because of Yanli’s proper innocuousness. As for the girl that actually
instigates Zhenbao’s use of the word “rose” in labeling women, Rose is in fact central to the
condition of Zhenbao’s courtship of Red Rose Mrs. Wang Jiaorui. The romance that is
responsible for the title of the novella, the Zhenbao-Rose episode of romance is of tremendous
importance because, as the next chapter will expound, its slapdash ending affects Zhenbao’s
psychology to the point of swaying him toward his illicit romance with the already-married Red

37

Rose. After all, Rose is so significant to Zhenbao that he likens his two subsequent women to
roses.
The courtship of focus, Zhenbao’s courtship of Mrs. Wang Jiaorui, takes place after
Zhenbao leaves Rose and the U.K. Zhenbao is offered a position at a British textile company in
Shanghai before he graduates. Therefore, the China he returns to is nowhere other than the
alluring modern metropolis meticulously described in Leo Lee’s Shanghai Modern. A modern
Shanghai, with all of its economic vibrancy, material luxuries, and (perhaps most importantly)
cultural and social cosmopolitanism, serves as the setting for Zhenbao’s courtship of his Red
Rose. Ironically, it is likely due to his reputation as a man with respectable self-control in the
face of female temptation that Zhenbao has the chance to not only meet Jiaorui but also live
under the same roof, thus enabling their affair—just another way Zhenbao’s romance with Rose
has a carryover effect on his relationship with Jiaorui given that it is originally his refusal to have
sex with Rose that garners him the virtuous reputation. The condition of courting for the
Zhenbao-Jiaorui romance is therefore interesting in a twisted way because Jiaorui’s husband,
Wang Shihong, is the person who creates the circumstances that foster Zhenbao’s courtship of
Jiaorui and thus his own cuckoldry: as Zhenbao looks for a place to live in Shanghai due to his
new employment at the British textile company, Wang Shihong, an old classmate of Zhenbao’s,
serendipitously offers to rent out the empty room in his own apartment home and then
immediately takes off to Singapore, leaving behind his wife Jiaorui to share the home with
Zhenbao.

38

“Love in a Fallen City”
Shanghai’s clocks were set an hour ahead so the city could “save daylight,”
but the Bai family said: “We go by the old clock.” Ten o’clock to them was
eleven to everyone else. Their singing was behind the beat; they couldn’t keep up
with the huqin of life.
37

So begins the classic Eileen Chang romance fiction “Love in a Fallen City,” a novella of about
thirty thousand words relating a dramatic tale of love of an “odd” couple (Zhang 41). Chang
obviously displays no reservation in opening the story with a terse caveat of the Bai family’s
antediluvian backwardness. Her message is clear: the Bai family is of the old, traditional Chinese
society, a non-modern household. As the story goes on to reveal, the Bais of “Love in a Fallen
City” are similar to the Chiangs of “The Golden Cangue:” the mother-grandmother matriarch
acting as the administrative head of the household (usually the most senior elder was the
household chief and women often outlived men) with her children and grandchildren all living
under the same roof. Though the administrative head is female due to her seniority in generation
and age, traditional patriarchal values nonetheless boosts the eldest living son, the Third Master
in the case of the Bai household, to be the unspoken major figure, regardless of whether his
character is worthy of such authority. It is remarkable that such mode of old-fashioned traditional
household life was still alive and well in the modern metropolis of Shanghai in the year 1941, the
temporal milieu for the story. It is from such a background that the heroine, Bai Liusu, comes.
So just how backward and non-modern is the Bai family? As its spokesperson of
traditional morals and values, the Third Master, Bai Liusu’s own blood brother, presses Liusu to
return to her physically abusive ex-husband’s family and observe strict lifelong widowhood for
them, immediately upon hearing news of the ex-husband’s death. That is, the Bai Third Master
advocates that it is proper for his own sister to be the keeper of her divorced ex-husband’s shrine

37
Eileen Chang, “Love in a Fallen City,” 111.

39

and for the rest of her life live as a widow member of the ex-husband’s family. The Third
Master’s virtuous recommendation, of course, comes years after the completion of the legal
proceedings of Liusu’s divorce. Amusingly, when Liusu evokes the gravity of the law (by then
the still relatively new civil code of Republican China mentioned in the introduction), the Third
Master, in sync with the other Bais’ antiquated mindset, replies to Liusu: “As long as you live
you belong to his [divorced ex-husband’s] family, and after you die your ghost will belong to
them too!”
38

Clearly, Bai Liusu’s family holds little regard for the Republican government’s justice
system, whether due to Republican China’s weather-like volatile political climate or his own
willful ignorance. However, the notion that, for a woman, marriage is de facto indentured
servitude both alive and postmortem (e.g., Liusu belonging to her ex-husband’s family both as a
living person and as a dead ghost) most definitely runs counter to Republican societal trend and
is clearly a vestige from the old feudal China of Qing Dynasty. To further add frost to the ice in
terms of old-fashioned misogynist belief, a fellow female member of the Bai household, the
Fourth Master’s wife Fourth Mistress, offers her own scathing opinion on her sister-in-law: “a
real bad-luck comet.”
39
The "bad-luck comet" designation is an especially acidic disparagement
with a strong sexist tone, as it refers to distinctively women who, according to old Chinese
superstitions, bring with them bad luck wherever they go, e.g., not giving birth to sons or
"causing" family members to suffer monetary or physical harm. Even worse, the same Fourth
Mistress later further displays her backward non-modern views by calling Liusu "a soiled
flower," a reflection of the antiquated social judgment of a divorced woman.
40
From the overall
overt and covert chatters, Liusu is clearly the odd woman out in her family—her fellow

38
Ibid., 113.
39
Ibid., 114.
40
Ibid., 127.

40

housemates deem her to be a dead weight and a punching bag. Understandably, Liusu exhibits a
strong desire to leave the Bai household quite early in the story: "'I can't live in this house any
longer,' she whispered. 'I just can't!'" As Chang summarized, "it seemed that she was trapped in a
nightmare," a nightmare about a domineering resentful family that is not only behind in time but
also behind the times in regards to values and morals.
41
The Bai household is the setting of Bai
Liusu's continuous nightmare, which by that time has already lasted about eight years since her
divorce at the tender age of twenty. To Liusu's dismay, the Bai household "was a fairyland where
a single day, creeping slowly by, was a thousand years in the outside world. But if you spent a
thousand years here, all the days would be the same, each one as flat and dull as the last one."
42

This masterful line by Chang grippingly captures the contrast between Liusu's family and the
reality of the "outside world"—a contrast of irrational mentalities versus rational reasoning, old
versus new, non-modern versus modern—whilst much of Shanghai is modernizing in terms of
both the material and the mind, Liusu's own family remains trapped by the non-modern, thus
trapping Liusu as well.
In sheer contrast, the (in)famous Mr. Fan Liuyuan is far from being chained down by
familial demands and burdens—he did not have any family, meaningful ones at least. For years
he has been alone by himself, drifting across the lands and oceans amongst England, China, and
the South Seas. Apparently, Liuyuan’s late father was “a well-known overseas Chinese with
properties scattered throughout Ceylon, Malaya, and other such places.” This, however, is the
only positive side of his upbringing. His late father met his mother in London when he was
touring Europe. The mother is also an overseas Chinese and quite the party-girl. Though the
marriage is originally kept secret, the first wife of Mr. Fan senior eventually finds out about it.

41
Ibid., 117-118.
42
Ibid., 120-121.

41

Fearing that the first wife would take revenge, Liuyuan’s parents never dared to go back to China,
thus dictating that Liuyuan grew up in England as the foreign “illegitimate son.” It is only after
his father’s death that Liuyuan seeks legal recognition of his rights as his father’s son.
Confronted with bitter rejection from the Fan family in China, the process turns out to be
acrimonious to the point of warping Liuyuan’s personality and attitude toward others. Both
Liuyuan and Liusu are lonely, and not by choice—they are made alone by their respective
environment and “family,” which cast them as outcasts and shove them adrift. The only major
dissimilarity other than their difference in gender is that Fan Liuyuan possesses abundant
financial means whereas Bai Liusu has little.
In this particular masterwork romance fiction, it is extremely important to explore the
main female character, even though this thesis is to be all about the male characters, because it is
Bai Liusu's desperate non-modern environment before meeting Fan Liuyuan that accentuates his
modernity and its "modern" effect. In other words, it is the shift in Liusu's condition from before
to after Liuyuan that elucidates his difference in modernity as well as the difference his
modernity makes. So naturally, as a modern gentleman in shining suit, Fan Liuyuan waltzes into
the lives of the Bais just as the plot opens with Liusu's dire situation, albeit as the potential mate
for Liusu's younger sister. This thirty-two-year-old wealthy overseas Chinese man, with enviable
British birth and upbringing as well as properties throughout the South Seas, is nevertheless a
bachelor due to his personality and taste in women. Fan Liuyuan's troubled illegitimate
childhood certainly shapes his (peculiar, negative) view on women and marriage and contributes
at partially to his flawed personal proclivities, such as gambling and prostitutes. With a skewed
outlook on life yet a ton of wealth at his disposal, Fan Liuyuan would come to be known as one
of the most iconic playboys in all of Eileen Chang's romance stories.

42

The particular even that serendipitously leads to the development of a momentous "love
in a fallen city," is a twist engineered by Eileen Chang in the form of a proposed date between
Fan Liuyuan and Bai Liusu’s younger sister. The westernized Mr. Fan of England just happens
to choose for the date's dinner spot a western restaurant-cum-dance hall, one of the material
trademarks of modern Shanghai; and all the Bai women present are ladies of traditional decorum
and proper Chinese upbringing who do not know how to dance... except Liusu, the odd woman
out. A divorcee charming a British overseas Chinese man by means of adept western dancing in
a western restaurant-cum-dance hall, on a date intended for her younger sister! In other words,
the Liuyuan-Liusu romance from its very outset is not only not arranged, but is indeed in a way
anti-arrangement and even anti-establishment. To begin their romance is to directly gainsay the
very heart of the old-fashioned courtship practices and norms upheld and abided by the Bai
household and the traditional Chinese society in general.
All in all, the beginning pages of “Love in a Fallen City” appositely exemplify the
Shanghai metropolis that is discussed previously in chapter one. In less than ten pages, Eileen
Chang portrays the condition in which even the most significant paradoxes created by the
ultimate conflict between the non-modern and the modern could unaffectedly percolate through
her unassuming lines: traditional versus modern, family-based versus individualistic, emotional
versus ruled by law, intuitive versus rational, pessimistic versus optimistic, fatalistic versus
creative-progressivist, and dependent versus independent (Shih 53). The process as well as the
end result of the Liuyuan-Liusu romance depends on which side emerges the winner. Just as for
previous three analyses, the next chapter will examine the process and psychology of Liuyuan’s
courtship of Liusu. More than those of the previously discussed three courtships, the process and
psychology of this courtship should be especially peculiar. After all, how and why would a

43

dissolute wealthy playboy with an unappreciative attitude towards women court a twenty-eight-
year-old divorced bad-luck comet-cum-soiled flower?

44

Chapter Three: Process and Psychology of Courtship

“The Golden Cangue”
Chi-tse’s courtship of Ch’i-ch’iao has its spark laid with the household separation. First
of all, they are no longer under the same roof. Second, Chi-tse no longer has access to the
family’s general accounts. The division of the family properties leaves the once glamorous Third
Master of the gentry Chiang clan with nothing because he has borrowed too much from the
general accounts for too long. Even after deducting his originally allocated share, Chi-tse still
owes the family sixty thousand dollars, whereas Ch’i-ch’iao and her two children rightfully
inherit control of an appreciable sum of properties. As the Ninth Old Master put it, “The second
branch has land and nobody to look after it, the third branch has a man but no land.”
43

Thus, at the time of household separation, some of Chi-tse’s discretions regarding playing
around with Ch’i-ch’iao disappear as they no longer live together in the same household. Their
separation means that he would not be left “stuck with her” if he ever decides to not play with
her anymore. Perhaps even more important, as of the household separation, Chi-tse is left with
no money himself and no more access to others’ money as well. Under such circumstances, Ch’i-
ch’iao, this time due to her material possessions, is once again deemed “valuable” by a man. As
discussed in the previous chapter, Ch’i-ch’iao’s older brother, the seller, and the Chiang Old
Mistress, the buyer, see Ch’i-ch’iao’s value in her being a poor, young maiden whose life can be
traded for money. Along this same vein, the now financially desperate post-household separation
Chi-tse sees Ch’i-ch’iao’s value in her being a financially well-off widow with properties—she
has what he lacks and wants.

43
Eileen Chang, “The Golden Cangue,” 197.

45

One critical factor shaping the Chi-tse-Ch’i-ch’iao relationship dynamic is that Ch’i-
ch’iao loves Chi-tse, and has loved him for already quite a while. Through the constant
interactions between the two before the household split, it could certainly be argued that Chi-tse
knows about Ch’i-ch’iao’s love for him. Given the high possibility, if not fact, that Chi-tse
knows about Ch’i-ch’iao’s feelings, he clearly has a strong incentive to court Ch’i-ch’iao
because her love for him would make his courting that much easier. So as the story unfolds, as
story’s setting changes from pre-household separation to post-household separation, Chi-tse’s
approach toward interacting with Ch’i-ch’iao also changes. Back when Chi-tse and Ch’i-ch’iao
share the same roof, Chi-tse would flirt with Ch’i-ch’iao through chatting with her or little moves
like pinching her foot when no one else could see or hear them—he does not want to risk the
social and moral quagmire of being “close” to his own sister-in-law and at that time he still could
steal from the household general accounts. But after they all part ways as the Chiang household
separates, Chi-tse can now be more straightforward and bold in approaching Ch’i-ch’iao,
especially given his desire for Ch’i-ch’iao’s possessions. Seeking material favor from her, Chi-
tse visits Ch’i-ch’iao out of the blue. After the usual greetings and niceties, Chi-tse nonchalantly
mentions that he has not seen his wife for some time and that their relationship has grown cold.
Ever the shrewd one, Chi-tse decides to butter Ch’i-ch’iao up before going for the kill. Having
already lamented about the supposed poor state of his marriage, the poverty-stricken Chi-tse
assumes the role of a love-stricken Chi-tse:
“You wouldn't know.” After a long pause he said in a low voice, enunciating
each word distinctly. “You know why I cant get on with the one at home, why I
played so hard outside and squandered all my money. Whom do you think it’s all
for?”
Ch’i-ch’iao was a bit frightened. She walked a long way off and leaned on the
mantelpiece, the expression on her face slowly changing. Chi-tse followed her…
He stood before her and whispered, “Second Sister-in-law! ... Ch’i-ch’iao!”
…

46

“Whether you believe it or not makes little difference,” he said. “What if you
believe it? Half our lives are over anyway, it’s no use talking about it. I’m just
asking you to understand the way I felt, then it wouldn't be unfair that I suffered
so much on your account.”
44

Chi-tse is betting on that Ch’i-ch’iao loves him; and he bets correctly. His words have
undoubtedly captured Ch’i-ch’iao’s heart, as she “bowed her head, basking in glory, in the soft
music of his voice and the delicate pleasure of this occasion.” Ch’i-ch’iao becomes lost in Chi-
tse’s words, pensively and quietly telling herself that she marries into the Chiang family because
“it was fated that she should be in love with him.”
45
Finally after brief inner reflection about Chi-
tse’s degree of sincerity and her own affection for him, Ch’i-ch’iao clears her head from
swooning fog and decides to ascertain Chi-tse’s candor and real intention. Ch’i-ch’iao purposely
calls an amah to be present, being the shrewd woman she is. Unable to continue his Casanova-
esque plea for love in front of the amah, Chi-tse plays calmly according to what Ch’i-ch’iao
dishes out. Ch’i-ch’iao begins making conversation—Ch’i-ch’iao asks questions, Chi-tse
responds with answers. To assay Chi-tse to see whether he is courting her for her money, Ch’i-
ch’iao begins talking about Chi-tse’s for-sale property. Given this lead-in from Ch’i-ch’iao, Chi-
tse resumes the execution of his scheme by re-directing the conversation to the subject of Ch’i-
ch’iao’s land. Apparently, his plan is to “help” Ch’i-ch’iao sell some of her land. Using the
widespread societal unrest at that time as his tool of argument, Chi-tse urges Ch’i-ch’iao to
immediately sell her land that is located in a “dangerous” area and offers his help in doing so.
His pitch is that of a Good Samaritan: I will help you get your money out of your land before it is
taken away by warlords or bandits. So far things are going well for Chi-tse, that is until Ch’i-
ch’iao inquires about exactly how to sell her land quickly. Too smart for his own good, Chi-tse
apparently comes to Ch’i-ch’iao too well prepared with names of people who could facilitate the

44
Ibid., 200-201.
45
Ibid.

47

sale as well as the exact process: “Chi-tse dipped a dumpling that he had bitten open into the
little dish of vinegar, taking his time, and mentioned a couple of reliable names. Ch’i-ch’iao then
seriously questioned him in detail and he set his answers out tidily, evidently well prepared.”
46

Unfortunately for Chi-tse, his ample preparation and tidy answers expose his true
intention in visiting Ch’i-ch’iao. Before he comes to see Ch’i-ch’iao, Chi-tse has already
deliberated his scheme and made his calculations—he is after her land and the money he could
get from its sale; he does not come for her heart. Unfortunately for Ch’i-ch’iao, at that moment,
neither could her intelligence take a timely vacation nor could her temper remain dormant. Ch’i-
ch’iao wastes no time and unreservedly blows up at Chi-tse, effectively ending Chi-tse’s
courtship.
“The Golden Cangue” is by no means a story of levity. In fact, the story’s two
overarching themes are suffering and money, specifically Ch’i-ch’iao’s enduring personal
sacrifice for the sole purpose of obtaining the Chiang family’s assets, thus being held under the
cangue of gold. Chi-tse’s situation is of little difference—he is also to a certain extent held under
the bondage of money. Before the household separation and division of family assets, Chi-tse’s
mentality in approaching Ch’i-ch’iao is overall nonchalant, just playful flirtation and physical
lasciviousness. Chi-tse is never the serious type, always fooling around with different women
from both inside and outside of the Chiang domicile. But he manages to keep Ch’i-ch’iao along
with his own lascivious desire for her at bay because he fears having to bear the consequences.
Eileen Chang unequivocally illustrates Chi-tse to be someone who is not committed to any
woman and does not want to shoulder any responsibility to any woman. So he abstains from
actually doing anything with Ch’i-ch’iao because, as a senior relative living under the same roof,
Ch’i-ch’iao could not be easily kicked aside once he finishes having his fun with her. In this

46
Ibid., 202.

48

sense, the pre-household separation Chi-tse sees Ch’i-ch’iao as no more than just a woman with
some attractive physical features. Judging from his philandering womanizing ways, it is clear
that Chi-tse is not at any point in the novella emotionally committed or connected to any woman.
His psychology is that of a typical playboy bred in a wealthy family—always looking for non-
committed superficial fun while avoiding any personal or familial responsibility. And this Chi-
tse never has to change, as long as he can continue to enjoy access to the Chiang family coffer.
After the Chiang household splits into separate branches, however, Chi-tse’s stint as the
playboy with a bottomless family coffer has to end. After accounting for his previous wild
expenditures off the household general accounts, Chi-tse is left with almost nothing, stripping
him of the financial ability to continue his profligate lifestyle. At the same time, Ch’i-ch’iao
inherits a substantial sum of assets. It is at this juncture that Chi-tse stops seeing Ch’i-ch’iao
solely through a carnal lens and begins to also perceive her through the lens of greed. Driven by
his bond to money, he decides to court Ch’i-ch’iao for her land and, more importantly, the
money her land is worth. Uncontrollably colored by the greed resulting from his bondage under
money, Chi-tse views Ch’i-ch’iao in terms of her monetary value. Just as the non-modern Ts’ao
Ta-nien sees the gleam of silver in Ch’i-ch’iao’s matrimony to the sickly, crippled Second
Master of the Chiang family, an equally non-modern Chiang Chi-tse anticipates the wanton
lifestyle that he could maintain with the money from selling Ch’i-ch’iao’s land. Warped by the
non-modern world he inhabits, Chi-tse cannot help but tie together a woman’s worth and money.
Using the previously mentioned definition of courtship, “to seek the favor, affection, or love of
someone,” it is quite conspicuous that throughout his courtship of Ch’i-ch’iao, whether offhand
or well prepared, Chi-tse seeks only her favor—the favor of Ch’i-ch’iao’s hard-earned
possession and money.

49

“Sealed Off”
Lu Zongzhen, accountant for Huamao Bank, who is “smartly dressed in dapper suit and
tie,” has with him newspaper-wrapped steamed spinach buns purchased from a back-alley noodle
stand.
47
Such introduction alone is enough to presage the conflicting levels of modernity inside
the male character. In the very beginning of his encounter with Cuiyuan, Zongzhen instinctively
moves to a seat on the opposite side of the tram next to Cuiyuan in order to have Cuiyuan shield
him from being seen by Dong Peizhi. When he changes seat Zongzhen pays no attention to
Cuiyuan beyond her being of solid form—he does it without much deliberation. However, Peizhi
sees him and is coming toward him, making Zongzhen even more alerted and desperate.
Although Zongzhen is the elder, he deathly avoids Peizhi like the plague because this calculating
young man of humble origins assiduously covets the opportunity of joining Zongzhen’s socio-
economic rank via marrying his thirteen-year-old daughter. Pressed by the advancing Dong
Peizhi and enclosed by the immobile tram, a hurried, flustered and trapped Zongzhen decides to
do to others what is done to him—copycatting Dong Peizhi and becoming opportunistic
himself—Zongzhen recognizes the opportunity of discreetly driving away Peizhi by flirting with
Cuiyuan. Zongzhen initially wants to use Cuiyuan as a bug screen, and now he wants to use her
as a bug repellant.
Propelled by such calculating, utilitarian and somewhat twisted motive, Zongzhen
commences his “courting” of Cuiyuan. He first “stretched one arm out across the windowsill
behind Cuiyuan, soundlessly announcing his flirtatious intent.”
48
Although passive and reactive
in life, Zongzhen is not stupid. In fact, Lu Zongzhen is quite smart. His astute discernment of
Dong Peizhi’s psychology (how Peizhi views his daughter, his family’s socio-economic status,

47
Eileen Chang, “Sealed Off,” 239.
48
Ibid., 243.

50

and him) tells him that a mere silent gesture would not scare Peizhi into immediate retreat.
Zongzhen’s intelligence makes it clear for him that he has to further announce his romantic
interest in Cuiyuan—he has to make full use of Cuiyuan, a young woman who is conveniently
there to be of use to him. Simultaneously, while Zongzhen strategizes like a shrewd businessman,
he also displays his immature side. The impetus for Zongzhen to flirt and feign romantic interest
in Cuiyuan is not limited to just the calculated use of social discretion to dissuade Peizhi; the
middle-aged accountant is also operating on spite. He actually wants Peizhi to report his
indiscretion to his wife, who is Peizhi’s aunt. His wife would then get angry and such anger
would be Zongzhen’s punishment to her for saddling him with a nephew like Peizhi: “Let her get
angry—it would serve her right.”
49

The most significant aspect of Zongzhen’s psychology in initiating his feigned courting
of Cuiyuan is that he has, initially, absolutely zero interest in her. In the words of Eileen Chang,
“he didn't care too much for this woman sitting next to him… Her whole body was like
squeezed-out toothpaste, no shape at all.”
50
This context for the beginning of the Zongzhen-
Cuiyuan interaction, in which Zongzhen sees nothing of interest in Cuiyuan other than her
expediency, makes for a significant opening to the ensuing exchanges between the two.
Zongzhen’s aggressive flirtation further takes form in contrived small talk. Short on time and
options, he has to keep up the effort in order to dispel the assiduous Dong Peizhi. Zongzhen is
noticeably not good at flirting, nervous and desperate. He has to grit his teeth in order to muster
the courage to chat up Cuiyuan. Zongzhen even goes on to plead with Cuiyuan: “‘we could chat
a bit, no harm in that! Let’s… lets talk!’ He couldn't keep the plaintiveness out of his voice.”
51

Then luckily, Zongzhen’s memory comes to the rescue and reminds him that he sees her entering

49
Ibid.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid., 244.

51

the tram earlier. But this also highlights how insignificant Cuiyuan is to Zongzhen—he sees her
and forgets her.
Armed with his resurfaced recollection of Cuiyuan, Zongzhen continues his offensive,
but this time in a more natural and smooth way. Suddenly, this prosaic professional number
cruncher morphs into a not-so-dull sweet-talker, at least to Cuiyuan. Due to the absence of an
equivalent expression in English, Kingsbury rightly translated Cuiyuan’s impression of
Zongzhen as talking “sweetly.”
52
It is important, however, to delve into the original text in
Chinese in order to fully understand Cuiyuan’s opinion of Zongzhen. Eileen Chang originally
used the phrase “huayan qiaoyu” ( 花言巧語), literally flowery speech and artful language, not
“tianyan miyu” ( 甜言蜜語), literally sweet speech and honey language, the Chinese phrase that
most typically corresponds to “talking sweetly” in English. The original Chinese phrase further
elucidates how Cuiyuan views Zongzhen, and thus how Zongzhen carries himself in his feigned
flirting with Cuiyuan. Zongzhen’s platitudinous words are not necessarily sweet as honey. He
pleads with gritting teeth and then merely recalls matter-of-factly how he sees Cuiyuan get on
the tram. Yet for whatever reason Cuiyuan’s perception reflects an image of Zongzhen that is the
antithesis of his real self—a Zongzhen who is an artful schmoozer, instead of the humdrum
errand-boy for his wife. In Cuiyuan, Zongzhen’s platitude becomes flowery speech and artful
language. It could certainly be argued that not many men (especially straight-laced businessman)
chat up women flirtatiously on a daily basis, thus rendering even Zongzhen’s clumsy flirtation
bold and crafty. Nonetheless, it is still difficult to describe Zongzhen’s words as huayan qiaoyu
given his anxiety and awkwardness. This is the importance of Cuiyuan: she makes it possible

52
Ibid.

52

(even easy) for Zongzhen to first feign to court and later to really court. Cuiyuan’s mind and
circumstances are quite cooperative to Zongzhen’s.
Given that an analysis of male courting female stipulates understanding of both parties,
Wu Cuiyuan’s identity and psychology are significant because not only is she Lu Zongzhen’s
target, the type of person she is also greatly complements the type of person Zongzhen is, thus
allowing Zongzhen a considerable chance to succeed in courting. In many ways, Cuiyuan is
more straight-laced, bland and mundane than Zongzhen. In the sharply descriptive words of
Eileen Chang, she “looked very much a young Christian wife, even if she was unmarried.” Her
white linen cheongsam has narrow blue piping all around, “looked like the dark border around an
obituary.” Even her parasol is blue-and-white-checked. Her hairstyle is utterly banal, afraid of
attracting attention. Her whole face is bland, limp, undefined. “White linen,” “obituary,” “banal,”
“bland,” these words of Eileen Chang paint a precise picture of Cuiyuan’s ordinariness and
quietness in life.
53
She is lifeless, a pedestrian in life. She is controlled by her family to be a good
daughter. She is subjugated at work, garnering no respect from top to bottom. She is oppressed at
home and at work, even by her students, because she was a Chinese who has never been abroad.
As previously mentioned, even the accountant Zongzhen finds her uninteresting: “He didn’t care
too much for this woman sitting next to him. Her arms were white, true enough—white like
squeezed-out toothpaste. Her whole body was like squeezed-out toothpaste, no shape at all.”
54
So
to someone as insipid as Cuiyuan, even a tiny amount of salt and pepper would cause significant
stimulation and excitement, which Zongzhen timely provides.
Cuiyuan and Zongzhen are quite similar. Both are trapped in life. Both are trapped by the
traditional Chinese sense of familial piety, sacrificing the self for the sake of the family.

53
Ibid., 240.
54
Ibid., 243.

53

Cuiyuan’s traditional sense of familial piety, due to her identity as a never-married young
woman, takes the form of the millennia-long Confucian value of filial piety. The Wu family
pushes Cuiyuan to study hard in order to climb upward to the very top. And she makes her
family proud by being a girl in her twenties teaching at a university—“It set a new record for
women’s professional achievement.”
55
But once again driven by the traditional Confucian ideal
of fulfilling a woman’s duty and role in life, the Wu parents are already losing their enthusiasm
in Cuiyuan’s career achievement and rather wish that she had slacked off as a student and instead
worked harder at getting them a wealthy son-in-law. So the Wu household, swallowing Cuiyuan
in it, is also trapped by lack of modernity. Along the same vein, Zongzhen owes his
predicaments in life to his traditional familial piety. His filial piety to his mother (and arguably
personal weakness) dictates that he marries a woman not of his own choosing, whom he later
grows to loathe. His submission to piety toward his own marriage and the family it engenders
shapes his lack of choices in life. To be a dutiful husband and man of the house, he has to work
at a job that keeps him terribly busy and yet in which he is not the least bit interested. He has to
go against his own personal refinement to buy back-alley steamed buns wrapped in newspaper
for the purpose of satisfying his wife’s taste buds and penchant to economize. To fulfill his role
as a dutiful father who ensures his children’s education and future, he could not divorce his wife
for that could hinder his daughter’s happiness and, more importantly, her chances and
performance in school.
The significance in the traditional-ness, or lack of modern-ness, of Zongzhen and his
target Cuiyuan, is that they are both “good” people. Eileen Chang specifically makes a point of
depicting exactly what is meant by the descriptor “good.” For Cuiyuan, “at home she was a good

55
Ibid., 241.

54

daughter, at school she was a good student.”
56
And yet on the very next page, “Cuiyuan took
abuse at school, and she took abuse at home” (241). Such contradiction within a page’s
difference. So does being good equate taking abuse? What kind of abuse does Cuiyuan take at
school and at home? Interestingly enough, Eileen Chang writes that “the Wu household was a
modern, model household…” (241). The family has pushed their daughter to study hard, to climb
upward step by step, right to the very top… so much so that Cuiyuan being a girl in her twenties
teaching at a university should be a touted record for women’s professional achievement. Then a
second time, Chang writes that “she [Cuiyuan] was a good daughter, a good student” (241). As a
matter of fact, “all the people in her family were good people” (241). “They took baths every day;
they read the newspaper every day” (241). Then, a very important line: “when they turned on the
radio, they never listened to local folk opera, comic opera, that sort of thing, just symphonies by
Beethoven or Wagner; they didn't understand what they were listening to, but they listened
anyway.” The Wu household evidently poses to be modern; the parents want to be seen as
modern. But, they are not modern. If the Wu household is indeed modern, the parents would be
content enough with Cuiyuan’s professional achievement in and of itself. Instead, the Wu parents
have lost their enthusiasm in Cuiyuan’s career, now regret her academic and professional
achievement, and in actuality just want for her a good husband. Both Wu Cuiyuan and her family
initially appear onstage as if they are living and breathing modernity: the parents pushing
Cuiyuan to study hard, to climb upward, to the point of being a college-educated girl in her
twenties teaching at her alma mater, as an English instructor, no less! Considered solely
according to her career attainment, specially the fact that she teaches English in college, Cuiyuan
is qualified to be the poster-girl for modernity in Shanghai, in China, even in Asia! But then her
parents renege on their apparent commitment to be modern. The parents now want her to get

56
Ibid., 240.

55

them a wealthy son-in-law and cease being an avant-garde modern single woman. The
superficiality of “modern” is wearing off and the Wus’ old-fashioned core of values reveals itself.
As alluring as it looks, the Wus’ veil of modernity is in reality quite thin.
Such faux-modernity of the Wu family, and therefore of Cuiyuan, is significant to
Zongzhen’s courtship of Cuiyuan in that it reflects Zongzhen’s own faux-modernity. In other
words, Zongzhen’s courtship of Cuiyuan acts as a mirror that reflects what kind of person
Zongzhen is. Indeed, the two share fundamental similarities in terms of character development.
From the outset of their physical descriptions, the reader would initially get a sense that
Zongzhen, just like Cuiyuan, embodies an enviable aura of modernity. Zongzhen is nattily
dressed in western-style professional attire and has a respectable job at a bank, the modernity in
which could be on par with that of Cuiyuan’s career situation. Even though Zongzhen initially
attempts to merely use Cuiyuan as a bug repellant, their eventual inadvertent entry into courtship
has the hue of a modern love story—one devoid of Confucian etiquette, arrangement by family
or matchmaker, and calculating considerations regarding money and status—two adults freely
coming together on their own volition without prejudice. In addition, just as modernity entails
change and conflict, the plot that Zongzhen is courting a much-younger woman behind his wife’s
back inside a closed tramcar all by chance is certainly an expression of modernity at its intimate
and scandalous. Whatever internal conflicts related to striking up a romance with a complete
stranger at a random location would be perfectly within the boundaries, and are indeed
characteristic, of a modern experience. As Zongzhen begins to really court Cuiyuan, as they talk
more and more, it certainly appears for a moment that this modern man is rising above Chiang
Chi-tse in terms of what he pursues via courtship. He seeks Cuiyuan’s favor in her being a
woman who can give him the female attention that is long overdue. He seeks her romantic

56

affection as he starts to court her out of genuine romantic interest. So would it then be possible
that Mr. Lu Zongzhen will rise further to the level of seeking true love from this modern
encounter?
The more one appreciates this modern, untraditional budding romance, the more
upsetting its ending feels. When Zongzhen suddenly says, “I’m thinking of marrying again,” the
momentum of their courtship, all of their swooning exchanges, both physical and verbal, now see
the chance to climax into a modern, untraditional union.
57
A grown man who breaks free from
the old-fashioned, domineering ideological confines of arranged marriage by divorcing the wife
his mother chose for him, uniting with a young never-married university-educated English
instructor without regard for traditional Confucian values, social derision, status, and money. A
man divorcing his chosen wife to be with only the woman whom he truly loves, and a good
young woman with a good upbringing from a good family who reciprocates despite her family’s
fierce objection, such would indeed have been a legendary tale of love in modernity, in its idea
and expression.
But “Sealed Off” is not Eileen Chang’s Twelfth Night. Right after he tells Cuiyuan he is
thinking of marrying again, Zongzhen’s aura of modernity wears off, revealing his true non-
modern self—he plans to take a concubine. At the time of the story, Republican China,
particularly a major metropolitan such as Shanghai, had already begun to ostracize concubinage
as an undesirable vestige of the old feudal imperial China. As previously mentioned in chapter
one, the Republican government, modeling itself after European contemporaries, totally
revamped marriage laws in accordance with what the leaders considered to be a modern society.
Thus, for a professional businessman to propose concubinage in such a period in time, Zongzhen
clearly harbors an idea of man-woman union that is antithetical to modernity and on par with his

57
Ibid., 248.

57

acquiescence to arranged marriage years ago. Although on the surface Zongzhen passes himself
off as a modern urbanite, he is actually its opposite once the surface is scratched. The urbanites
of Republican Shanghai are “modern” in their attitudes toward love and marriage in the sense
that they do not find it necessary to tolerate an arranged marriage, especially if it imposed
significant unhappiness (Lu 88). Zongzhen’s refusal to divorce his wife and thus tacit continuous
acceptance of an unhappy arranged marriage obviously runs counter to such modernity. Lu
Zongzhen’s mentality, at least in regards to marriage, is decidedly old-fashioned and non-modern.
As a well-educated person, Cuiyuan immediately mentions the presence of legal
problems or hurdles facing concubinage, which further uncovers Zongzhen’s lack of modernity.
Upon hearing Cuiyuan’s doubt that “a girl from a good family won’t want to be a concubine”
and that there are “so many legal problems,” Zongzhen sighs and laments that he cannot do it,
but instead attributing the difficulty to his old age of thirty-five as opposed to the problematic
nature of concubinage.
58
Zongzhen is old, not old by age but old in his mindset and
understanding of the world.
At this moment of doubt and weakness in the courtship, Zongzhen serendipitously
receives outside help. As words spread that the city’s shutdown would soon be lifted, people
outside of the tram come in, sit down, and squeeze against Zongzhen and Cuiyuan, forcing them
to sit closer and closer to each other. It is when the two are most physically close together that
the deepest core of Zongzhen’s mentality takes control:
Zongzhen felt he was too happy—he had to fight against it. “No, no, it just won’t work!”
His voice was agonized. “I can’t let you sacrifice your future! You’re a fine person, with
such a good education…and I, I don’t have much money. I can’t ask you to bury yourself
like that!”
59

58
Ibid.
59
Ibid., 249.

58

After all, Zongzhen simply cannot, or will not, break free from his life’s mold. After his
haphazard, ephemeral experiment with free love and modernity, he recoils back to his backward,
non-modern, close-minded ways. As Eileen Chang succinctly explains, “he was a good man—
the world had gained one more good man.”
60

As Zongzhen’s courtship of Cuiyuan ends in utter disappointment, the story also draws
near to closing. The end of “Sealed Off” tells the readers that after getting Cuiyuan’s phone
number, Zongzhen takes off into the crowd as the tram resumes operation, only to be seen sitting
in the seat he previously occupied at the beginning of the story, “looking remote.” As Cuiyuan
shockingly realizes, Zongzhen does not end up getting off the tram and hence will not call her—
Zongzhen’s courtship is a “nonoccurrence,” “an unreasonable dream.”
61
Of course, Eileen Chang
does not literally mean that Zongzhen’s courtship of Cuiyuan is all figments of Cuiyuan’s
imagination. It is clear, however, that in the end Zongzhen acts as if nothing has ever happened,
as if it is all just a dream—Zongzhen wholly abandons his courtship of Cuiyuan. Zongzhen
decides to return to his original life, without any change to his life condition and his mentality.
Thus, dressed in dapper western outfit and being an important member of a Shanghai trading
bank, the tram-taking newspaper-reading city man Zongzhen remains a trapped man, trapped by
not only the extrinsic circumstances of his life, but also his inner attachment to lack of modernity.

“Red Rose, White Rose”
As indicated in the previous chapter, the analysis of Tong Zhenbao’s courtship process
and psychology focuses on only his romance with Red Rose Mrs. Wang Jiaorui. One reason is
that Eileen Chang does not dedicate much of the novella to his courtship of Rose and thus there

60
Ibid.
61
Ibid., 250-251.

59

is not much to analyze. However, the small amount of description pertaining to Zhenbao’s
courtship of Rose carries much impact on his courtship of Jiaorui because it foretells and sets the
framework for his overall psychology in courting, especially in courting Jiaorui.
Though brief, the Zhenbao-Rose romance provides readers a remarkable scrutiny into
Zhenbao’s psychology as a skirt-chaser—what he considers to be good, what he sees as bad, and
how he weighs the pros and cons of a relationship. Interestingly, such insight into Zhenbao’s
courtship mentality bares the fact that his psychology operates on a glaring paradox, which
generates the tremendous internal conflicts that he experiences throughout the novella. But the
fact that this paradox’s existence is something that even Zhenbao himself does not fully grasp
should speak volumes about his personality. This ever-so-significant mental paradox is between
the person Zhenbao innately is and the person Zhenbao thinks he should be. The former is
Zhenbao in his natural mental state, his natural self. The latter is an ideal shaped by Zhenbao’s
ego, based on his interpretation of his world. Zhenbao is innately a man who harbors enough
craving for sex to hire a prostitute in spite of being destitute. However, after the deed is finished,
Zhenbao’s ego gains control and makes the experience regrettable and “wrong,” at least partially
because Zhenbao’s ego feels that he cannot be the prostitute’s master even though he spends
money on her. In the exact words of Eileen Chang, “From that day on, Zhenbao was determined
to create a world that was ‘right,’ and to carry it with him wherever he went. In that little pocket-
size world of his, he was the absolute master.”
62
The ego’s fervent desire for Zhenbao to be the
master of his own world is so pervasive that it will infiltrate and bring to end the two courtships
commenced by Zhenbao’s natural self—first the relationship with Rose and later the affair with
Mrs. Wang Jiaorui, the Red Rose. On Zhenbao’s last night with Rose, she fully bares her body to
him in a heated moment of passion. Yet for reason unbeknownst to Zhenbao himself, his ego

62
“Red Rose, White Rose,” 259.

60

commandeers the situation and sets down the value judgment that sex with Rose “was not for
him” because Rose “was a decent girl.”
63
Due to the ego’s demand for him to be his own master,
he controls his body given that sex is already denied in his mind. It becomes clear, however, that
Zhenbao innately very much wants sex with Rose’s impassioned naked body as he later “felt
quite a lot of regret.”
64
Not surprisingly, his ego and its desire for him to be his own master in his
world prevent him from ever admitting that. Fortunately for Zhenbao, even though he seldom
mentions the incident, all those within his social circles know and promulgate Zhenbao’s
extraordinary decorum in the presence of a naked beautiful woman.
Most important, this split between Zhenbao’s natural self and his ego manifests in how
Zhenbao picks his women—what he innately desires in a woman versus what he deems prim and
appropriate in a woman in order for her to be “good” enough to be his significant other. For
example, while in Britain, Zhenbao desires to meet “a nice girl, not some prostitute” like the
Parisian woman who takes his virginity, and yet at the same time likes girls who are “forthright”
because he “couldn't spend lots of time on courting.”
65
The inherent contradiction is that he
wants the propriety of a decorous relationship as well as the forthright-ness of prostitution (in the
aspect of approachability, not necessarily sex). There are fellow Chinese girls in Edinburgh who
are excellent wife candidates, albeit in few numbers; but Zhenbao apparently finds all of them
too nice. Instead he seeks a girl who is lively, lively enough that he could quickly hit it off with
her and in little to no time begin an active relationship. In the case of Rose, Zhenbao courts her
(as opposed to the Chinese girls in Edinburgh) all the while knowing that he will sooner or later
leave the U.K. for China. And yet he keeps the relationship going even after having judged for
himself that Rose does not qualify to be his wife in China—his China, the China in Zhenbao’s

63
Ibid., 261.
64
Ibid., 262.

65
Ibid., 259.

61

mind, apparently will not take kindly to a woman like Rose, who sports very short hair, wears no
sleeves thus baring her arms, does not watch her words, and is as carefree with everyone as she is
with Zhenbao. As much as Zhenbao’s natural self is fascinated with Rose, “her being so carefree
with everyone struck him as slightly nutty.” According to how his ego reckons: “This kind of
woman was common enough in foreign counties, but in China it would never do. Marrying her,
then transplanting her to his hometown—that would be a big waste of time and money, not a
good deal at all.”
66

In sheer contrast to his appearance as a British-educated textile engineer who lives the
life of a modern city man, this mental paradox reveals Tong Zhenbao’s considerable lack in
modernity. As the ensuing textual analysis will expound, the paradox between Zhenbao’s natural
self and his ego exposes Zhenbao’s lack of modernity in terms of his idea of how a woman is or
is not proper or “good” enough to be his wife. The China in Zhenbao’s mind apparently will not
take kindly to a woman like Rose, who speaks freely and bares her arms, but will accept Meng
Yanli, who is pure and “dull”—it is as if Zhenbao lives in Qing-era Wuhan rather than
Republican-era Shanghai.
67
Zhenbao’s interpretation of “propriety” and “a presentable decorous
relationship” will be shown by Eileen Chang to be a product and reflection of old-fashioned
Confucian-esque mores.
Zhenbao is offered a position at a British textile company in Shanghai before he
graduates. Therefore, the China he returns to is nowhere other than the alluring modern
metropolis meticulously described in Leo Lee’s Shanghai Modern. A modern Shanghai, with all
of its economic vibrancy, material luxuries, and (perhaps most importantly) cultural and social
cosmopolitanism, serves as the setting for Zhenbao’s courtship of Mrs. Wang Jiaorui, his Red

66
Ibid., 261.
67
Ibid., 295.

62

Rose. Ironically, it is likely due to his reputation as a man with respectable self-control in the
face of female temptation that Zhenbao has the chance to not only meet Jiaorui but also live
under the same roof, thus enabling their affair. The onset of the Zhenbao-Jiaorui romance is
interesting in a twisted way because Jiaorui’s husband, Wang Shihong, is the person who creates
the circumstances that foster Zhenbao’s courtship of his wife and thus facilitating his own
cuckoldry. It must be noted, however, that Wang Shihong’s offer to rent to Zhenbao the empty
room in his own apartment home is due to not ignorance but rather Zhenbao’s reputation as a
principled chaste man—another away in which the earlier Zhenbao-Rose episode potently
influences the later Zhenbao-Jiaorui romance.
Ever the Casanova, Zhenbao wastes no time as he swoons over Jiaorui on move-in day.
Utterly sexually enchanted, his mind fixates on the body of his new landlady: her hair, her face,
her skin, and her eyes. Obviously agitated by Jiaorui’s beauty, Zhenbao admits to himself: “he
liked women who were fiery and impetuous, the kind you couldn't marry. Here was one who was
already a wife, and a friend’s wife at that.”
68
Zhenbao’s infatuation and engrossment grow
further more evident when he picks up Jiaorui’s stray hairs from the bathroom floor, twists them
together, examines them, and stuffs them into his pocket.
Then moments later at the dinner table, Zhenbao and the Wang couple officially
gathering for the very first time, Mr. Wang (Shihong) tells Zhenbao that he is leaving the very
next day for business in Singapore. “It’s good that you’ve moved in and can take care of things
here,” Mr. Wang entrusts to Zhenbao, alluding that Zhenbao’s virtuous rejection of Rose has
induced Mr. Wang’s rental offer.
69
Unbeknownst to the trusting Mr. Wang, however, the Liu

68
Ibid., 264.
69
Ibid., 266.

63

Xiahui-incarnate Tong Zhenbao is already so smitten by Mrs. Wang that he has to avoid her
presence, in the very first evening that he meets her no less:
To Zhenbao, she seemed drunk. Fearing the kind of faux pas that so often
follows drink, he mumbled something inconsequential and strolled onto the
balcony. The breeze was cool on his skin: most likely his face had been pretty red
a moment before. Now he was even more troubled. He’d just put an end to his
relationship with Rose, and here she was again, in a new body, with a new soul—
and another man’s wife. But this woman went even further than Rose. When she
was in the room, the walls seemed to be covered with figures in red chalk,
pictures of her half naked, on the left, on the right, everywhere.
70

Haiyan Lee offers another version of translation for the above passage that further shows how
Zhenbao is so smitten by Jiaorui’s insouciant charms that he has to walk away to avoid saying or
doing anything foolish: "Zhenbao became intoxicated with her. Fearing impropriety, he
mumbled something inconsequential and also stepped out onto the balcony." The metaphoric
nature of Zhenbao's "drunkenness" is made clearer in the next line: "The breeze felt cool on his
skin. He became even more worried that his face had been rather flushed just now. He fretted to
himself." In Lee’s view, Kingsbury’s choice of "red," and even her own choice of “flushed,” for
the original text "hongtou zhanglian de" ( 紅頭張臉的) cannot fully register Zhenbao's state of
sensual intoxication (“Eileen Chang’s Poetics of the Social”).
The next day, with Mr. Wang thousands of miles away in Singapore and the younger
brother Dubao off to school most of the day, Zhenbao and Mrs. Wang now have ample time to
develop an intimate relationship. Zhenbao discovers that the woman over whom he so swoons is,
to his advantage, not a demure decorous housewife—Jiaorui has not shed her party-girl spirit—
she is carrying on an illicit relationship with the Wangs’ previous tenant, Mr. Timmy Sun. As if
revelation of a marriage scandal is not titillating enough for the day, the playful Mrs. Wang also
nonchalantly demonstrates her fickle, immature personality along with her view on men by

70
Ibid., 269.

64

preemptively turning Mr. Sun away with a simple rejection note handed to the amah to be given
when Mr. Sun actually arrives. Seemingly a moment of Jiaorui being capricious and childish, it
is actually at this moment that Eileen Chang reveals through Jiaorui the dichotomy of the façade
of Zhenbao’s ego and the reality of his innate self:
Zhenbao lowered his eyelids, then looked at her. “You shouldn't talk about
others,” he said with a smile. “You’ve been terribly spoiled.”
“Maybe. But you’re just the opposite. You deny yourself when in fact you like
to eat and play around as much as I do.”
71

The fact that Zhenbao’s ego actively denies his natural self foreshadows the fierce psychological
conflict that will occur within Zhenbao later in the novella. With the fellow competitor Mr. Sun
conveniently brushed out of the way, Zhenbao, innately guided by his natural self, begins flirting
with Jiaorui on the balcony. Later that evening, still enthralled by his flirtatious exchange with
Jiaorui, Zhenbao reflects on this scene. Innately, his natural self’s concupiscent mind ventures
off to the prospect of sex with Jiaorui and thus begins looking for reasons to justify it. Suddenly,
Zhenbao’s ego realizes that he is digging for reasons to justify sleeping with this woman and
aims to reverse course. Obviously sexually attracted to a friend’s wife, Zhenbao’s ego becomes
“mortified” and resolves to avoid her.
72
Consequently, Zhenbao decides to look elsewhere to rent
and in the meantime he stays away until late at night and goes straight to bed.
Zhenbao’s physical distance from Jiaorui belies his inner ardent desire for her. Despite
consistent effort on the part of Zhenbao’s ego to avoid even seeing Jiaorui, Eileen Chang designs
a moment in which his natural self’s sexual desire is once again allowed to surface:
But one night the phone rang for a long time, and no one picked up. Zhenbao
had just run out of his room to get it when he thought he heard Jiaorui’s door
opening… He was stunned when he saw Wang Jiaorui in the light…
Jiaorui lifted the receiver with one hand, the other hand searching along her
side to find a little golden peach-stone button and slip it through its loop. She

71
Ibid., 274.
72
Ibid., 276.

65

couldn't get it to button properly. Zhenbao didn't see anything, but he was shaken.
His heart hung in midair… Her face was shadowy and golden, like an idol’s; her
lowered eyelashes cast long shadows that touched her cheek like the fingers of a
small hand…
73

Zhenbao is utterly enraptured in a trance, a trance of lust for the wife of his trusting friend
and landlord. His fascination of Jiaorui’s body focuses his eyes on even the smallest detail as he
notices a trace of heat-rash powder on her ankle. On the heel of this encounter, “Zhenbao tossed
and turned all night, telling himself that it wouldn't matter, that Jiaorui and Rose were not the
same, that a married woman who did what she liked was the loosest of women, that he didn't
owe her anything. But he felt a sense of duty toward himself. When he thought about Rose, he
thought of that night in the car in the open fields when his conduct had been so sterling: How
could he shrug off the man he’d shown himself to be?”
74
These lines perfectly capture the
previously mentioned paradox of Zhenbao’s courtship psychology. Thus, despite this brief
interaction that reveals Zhenbao’s utter infatuation with Jiaorui (specially due to her similarity to
Rose), Zhenbao manages to control himself well. Under the protection of his righteous moral ego,
he diligently fights off libidinous thoughts. As Eileen Chang succinctly describes, “he felt a
sense of duty toward himself.” Zhenbao’s ego kept his lust for Jiaorui at bay… for two weeks.
Two weeks passed, and in an encounter that would befit any soap opera, Zhenbao’s
innate self comes out. One day Zhenbao goes back home during lunch break to find his coat
because of unexpected cold rain. After search for a while, he sees the catalyst that fully ignites
the suppressed fire inside him: Jiaorui is sitting near his coat and immersing herself in his
cigarette scent—she wants him. Zhenbao’s natural self, of course, is desperate to reciprocate
with like affection. That night, Zhenbao hurries back to the apartment, and after some dramatic

73
Ibid., 277.
74
Ibid., 279.

66

silent exchanges during which Jiaorui plays cool and coy, proactively peels through Jiaorui’s
façade and obtains her body.
Such was the overture to the Zhenbao-Jiaorui opera of passion. It for a while proceeds
like a propitious comedy with the perfect cast—the hero a British-educated top-notch textile
engineer with a future, and the heroine a beautiful, lively seductress—a pair made in modern
Shanghai. But like many things in Shanghai, this pairing has an ugly side. Aside from the
obvious problem that it was an illicit affair, one telltale sign of trouble is that they differs greatly
in terms of attitude in life and, more specifically, attitude toward the relationship—although
Zhenbao’s natural self instinctively embraces the liaison, his much more stern, orthodox ego is
never more than an arm’s length away. Shortly after the affair begins, the ego begins to drive an
indomitable wedge between Zhenbao and Jiaorui by steadily occupying Zhenbao’s psychology
of courting. Zhenbao’s natural self prizes Jiaorui very highly: “The mind of a child and the
beauty of a grown woman: the most tempting of combinations.”
75
And thus Zhenbao, propelled
by his innate bare mind, cannot resist. But after gaining access to Jiaorui’s body, the cooling of
the initial fiery heated passion and the pedestrian act of living together as a couple allow
Zhenbao’s ego room to flex. Ironically and paradoxically, the characteristic that Zhenbao’s ego
dislikes the most in Jiaorui is the exact same one that his natural innate self prizes: her being a
grown woman but having the mind of a child, an irresponsible spoiled child. Jiaorui’s
childishness chafes Zhenbao’s ego—it finds her playfulness excessive, her inconsiderate
confidence flippant, and her freewheeling mind rash and reckless. The ego-controlled Zhenbao is
indeed the antithesis of Jiaorui. He is serious, careful, deliberate, and always scrupulously
assessing his situation to see whether things in his world are “right” (e.g., the “right” amount of
fun vis-à-vis seriousness). Zhenbao’s ego makes him timid and, by contrast, illustrates Jiaorui to

75
Ibid., 280.

67

be comparatively much more proactive and in some ways masculine. Zhenbao finds particularly
irksome Jiaorui’s seemingly blasé statement of actually confronting the illicit nature of their
romance—coming clean to Wang Shihong, with the potential added consequences of Jiaorui
divorcing Shihong and marrying Zhenbao. Zhenbao’s ego is already anxious about him taking
responsibility for the affair, which is of his own choice and doing, and dreads his degree of
involvement with Jiaorui:
One day she said, “I’ve been thinking about how to tell him when he comes back,”
just as if it had already been decided that she would inform Shihong about
everything, divorce him, and marry Zhenbao. Zhenbao wasn't brave enough to
say anything then. But his dark, defeated smile was not having the desired effect,
so later on he said, “Let’s not rush into this blindly. Let me talk to a lawyer friend
of mine first—get things clear. You know, if this isn’t handled properly, there
could be quite a price to pay.” As a businessman, he felt that merely by uttering
the word “lawyer” he’d gotten seriously involved in something—much too
seriously. But Jiaorui didn't notice his qualms. She was full of confidence, sure
that once the problem on her side was solved, it would all be clear sailing.
76

Zhenbao’s ego wants this liaison to remain hidden from not only Shihong, but also itself. His ego
makes him, in terms of his romance with Jiaorui, a coward—it neither likes, nor wants to
participate in, what Zhenbao’s natural self starts—thus signifying that the Zhenbao-Jiaorui
relationship will never be elevated to, and fulfilled in, the form of legitimate love and marriage.
In addition to reticence regarding owning up to the deed of sleeping with his trusting
friend’s wife while the friend is far away in Singapore, Zhenbao’s dislike of certain aspects of
Jiaorui’s personality also spells doom for their future together. As previously mentioned, the
childishness that Zhenbao’s natural self innately finds highly attractive is in the eyes of
Zhenbao’s ego something upsetting. In his ego-controlled mode, Zhenbao is matter-of-fact,
pragmatic, and calculating. This is a Zhenbao who desperately desires to be his own master and
make his world “right.” Such thinking compels Zhenbao to take his life, and hence his future,

76
Ibid., 283. Emphasis mine.

68

very seriously. As a self-made man of modest family background, in order to realize the success
that he so craves, “Zhenbao had only his future to bank on, a future he’d prepared for all on his
own” (287). In sharp contrast, the patrician Jiaorui seems to live life nonchalantly, with little
planning and foresight as well as no concern about money. In the presence of such a woman, the
contrast of Zhenbao’s deep sense of financial insecurity leads his ego to estrange Jiaorui. Lucidly
revealing the judgmental quality of Zhenbao’s ego, Eileen Chang discloses in the midst of the
Zhenbao’s relationship with Jiaorui a sense of jealousy and, more importantly, an alienating
disconnect from Jiaorui.
It is noteworthy that Zhenbao discerns Jiaorui to be the type of woman who is best suited
to marry someone with money, like Wang Shihong, on the very first night that he met her:
“…Wang Shihong’s father had money; if a man had to forge ahead on his own, as Zhenbao did,
such a woman would be a major impediment.”
77
Yet such clear (albeit narrow-mindedly cynical)
discernment vaporizes in the presence of sizzling sexual passion, when Zhenbao’s natural self
initiates sleeping with this fiery, impetuous woman of his infatuation. Moreover, all the time and
activities Zhenbao and Jiaorui share as a romantic couple clearly belie whatever doubts Zhenbao
may have harbored—why does Zhenbao not tell Jiaorui about his misgivings and instead keep on
sleeping with her and taking her on happy fun dates? Why is Zhenbao not open with Jiaorui?
Furthermore, why is Zhenbao so evasive and diffident regarding coming clean to Wang Shihong
and wholly owning his romance with Jiaorui? He is the one who originally started their
relationship, after all. It is thus at this juncture that Zhenbao’s goals for his courtship of Jiaorui
becomes clear: Zhenbao, whether his natural self or his ego, has never been looking for love. He
first lusts after her body and later desires respect and comfort from her mind—he seeks Jiaorui’s
physical and psychological affection—love has never been part of the plan, at least on Zhenbao’s

77
Ibid., 269.

69

end. As the steam of fresh romance clears from his mind, Jiaorui’s frivolity, offhand attitude
toward life, playfulness (social and sexual), and overall childishness—Jiaorui’s entire being as a
person—become intolerable to Zhenbao’s ego. It hence starts to override Zhenbao’s natural self
and execute its judgment that Jiaorui is not “right” for Zhenbao and “his world.” Zhenbao’s ego
wants the romance with Jiaorui to end. Thus, after the carnal ardor cools and Zhenbao has had
his fill of Jiaorui’s affection, the satiated natural self, Jiaorui’s biggest fan, falls back whilst the
ego rises to the fore to confront Jiaorui’s “incompatibilities” with Zhenbao, hence creating an
ever growing distance between him and her. This alienation in progress, as foreboding as it
sounds, does befittingly foreshadow the ultimate demise of the illicit Zhenbao-Jiaorui romance.
Then one morning, Jiaorui tells Zhenbao that she has already written to her husband
Wang Shihong confessing her liaison with Zhenbao and asking for divorce. To make the
situation more exigent, apparently Shihong replies that he will be back within a few days. In this
moment of utter dire crisis, Zhenbao finally reveals his true colors in front of Jiaorui and to the
whole world, as a person’s true character is often revealed in tough times:
Zhenbao gasped, the sound coming from deep within. He stood up and ran out
onto the street. When he looked back at the towering apartment building, with its
tall, flowering red-and-gray lines, it looked like a roaring rain—incredibly huge
and barreling straight down upon him, blocking out the sun and moon. The
situation was beyond repair. He’d thought that he had it all under control and that
he could stop whenever he wanted, but now things had rushed forward on their
own, there was no use in even arguing… It was so clear, then, that they loved
each other and should go on loving each other. It was only when she wasn't there
that he could think up all sorts of reasons against it. Right now, for instance, it
struck him as all too likely that he’d been played for a fool in a deeper game with
her true love, Timmy Sun. She’d pulled the wool over Zhenbao’s eyes by saying
that it was because of his that she wanted a divorce, and now if there was a
scandal, his future would be ruined.”
78

In a delirious state of sheer shock, Zhenbao’s ego spins itself dizzy. In this one paragraph
of dramatic psychological turmoil, Eileen Chang illustrates the raw mentality of Zhenbao as a

78
Ibid., 290. Emphasis mine.

70

courting male, which turns out to be neither upright nor respectable. First, the apartment building
turns into a roaring fast-approaching train that blocks out any light. Such sense of menacing
apprehension and impending doom exposes Zhenbao to be a coward. It is certainly true that
Jiaorui has confessed to her husband without first consulting Zhenbao and does not actually
inform Zhenbao until a few days prior to Shihong’s return, hence the shock factor. But Zhenbao
nonetheless shows himself to be a man who wishes to not bear responsibility for his own action,
particularly given that he did court Jiaorui—no matter how much assistance Jiaorui has provided
on her end, Zhenbao is the one who first acted on his infatuation and ultimately pushed Jiaorui
onto the piano—Zhenbao initiated his relationship with Jiaorui. In his intense panic, Zhenbao’s
ego could no longer hide under the glossy protective layers of personal achievement and
professional attainment, and bares his pusillanimous core: unlike in the workplace, in the realm
of romance and love, Zhenbao is a chicken and does not, or does not want to, grasp what he is
doing. The most significant issue in Zhenbao doing so is of course that he is choosing to shirk
from a modern romance. Parallel to the Zongzhen-Cuiyuan romance in “Sealed Off,” the
relationship between Zhenbao and Jiaorui is—given the exotic foreign backgrounds of the
characters, the Shanghai metropolis, the British textile company, automobiles and cinemas—a
modern experience. Even the conflicts that Zhenbao has been experiencing can be interpreted as
the conflicts inherent in and characteristic of modernity. Judging from the process of courtship,
both Tong Zhenbao and Mrs. Wang Jiaorui appear to be typical modern urbanites who live and
breathe modernity—their outfits, their backgrounds and experiences, their work, the people
within their social circles, and even the transportation they take. On the surface, Zhenbao
certainly comes across as a more modern man than Lu Zongzhen. And Mrs. Wang Jiaorui, the
woman he courts, certainly personifies more modernity than Wu Cuiyuan. However, anyone who

71

hence believes that Zhenbao would surpass Zongzhen in terms of courtship aim (i.e., favor,
affection, love) because he is presented as being more modern is by this point of the novella
sorely disappointed. Zhenbao as an overseas Chinese man may have lived abroad and received
British education, but he too, just like the native Chinese man Zongzhen, stops short at affection
and decides to reject the golden chance to achieve true, modern love.
The fact that Zhenbao believes that he could stop the affair whenever he wants, thus
signaling that he believes he could dismiss Jiaorui and their romance whenever he wants,
unequivocally further exposes the fact that he does not love Jiaorui. In fact, he has never truly
loved her. Interestingly, before Zhenbao put his courting into action, back when he merely had
his intention in Jiaorui in his mind, Eileen Chang ingeniously presages that Zhenbao’s courtship
of Jiaorui would be for simple, superficial affection, not true love: “When a man yearns for a
woman’s body, then starts to care about her mind, he fools himself into believing that he’s in
love. Only after possessing her body can he forget her soul.”
79
Such astute observation into the
psychology of male courtship is perfectly apposite to Zhenbao’s own psychology in courting
Jiaorui. He lusts after Jiaorui’s body and so he fools himself into believing that he is in love with
her. Then after possessing Jiaorui’s body, he finds Jiaorui’s personality unacceptable and
preemptively makes the mental preparation for ending the relationship and removing from his
mind any impression or trace of Jiaorui.
The final revelation the previous passage can make about Zhenbao’s bare psychology is
by far the most outrageous and pathetic. It is understandable for Zhenbao to be able to raise
reasons against his romance with Jiaorui only when he is not with her—the innate craving
intensity of Zhenbao’s natural self overpowers his ego whenever he is in close proximity to
Jiaorui’s body and the ego could emerge to actively evaluate the relationship only once the

79
Ibid., 276.

72

temptation goes away. However, even as critical, judgmental and calculating as Zhenbao’s ego is,
it indubitably ventures beyond the pale when it has the gall to think that it is Jiaorui who plays
Zhenbao for a fool when in fact it is Zhenbao who exhibits signs of retraction: “it struck him as
all too likely that he’d been played for a fool in a deeper game with her true love, Timmy Sun.
she’d pulled the wool over Zhenbao’s eyes by saying that it was because of him that she wanted
a divorce, and now if there was a scandal, his future would be ruined.” Zhenbao imagines that
Jiaorui utilizes their relationship as a game of deceit simply because, compelled by his own ego,
he has been covertly decathecting from her in anticipation of abandoning the relationship—
Zhenbao is scrutinizing Jiaorui’s heart through his own muddy lens and, of course, a stained lens
could never let through a clean image. As calculating, shrewd, and careful as Zhenbao’s ego is, it
heaves Zhenbao inside a cage of trepidation, insecurity, and suspicion.
As the story progressed, Zhenbao’s body succumbs to the intense mental stress and he
checks himself into a hospital. It is in Zhenbao’s hospital room that the Zhenbao-Jiaorui romance
climaxes. At first, upon Zhenbao’s mother leaving, Jiaorui patently opens her heart and divulges
her feelings for Zhenbao: she genuinely loves him. As much as the brave Jiaorui opens up about
her courageous modern love for Zhenbao, by this point, Eileen Chang has already hinted at the
viability of their relationship. But Jiaorui cannot read Zhenbao’s mind—partly due to her own
ignorance and partly due to Zhenbao not being candid with her regarding his thoughts—so she
continues to bare her all in front of him. In utter contrast to the Wang Jiaorui depicted in the
earlier parts of the story, the Wang Jiaorui in Zhenbao’s hospital room drops her arrogance and
even self-esteem, leaving herself wide open and fully unveiling her vulnerability, all in the hope
that Zhenbao would not forsake their relationship. As much as Jiaorui wants to salvage the
relationship, Zhenbao is equally determined to end it. The struggle to “subdue the surging waves

73

of longing” is the ultimate struggle between his natural self and his ego: his natural self innately
longs for the relationship to continue whilst his ego, after careful, pragmatic calculations of what
would be “right” for Zhenbao’s future, decrees that romance with Jiaorui is not “right” and must
be terminated. Just as one would suspect, Zhenbao’s ego wins the fight and successfully subdues
his natural self’s longing.
Eventually, Zhenbao speaks frankly to Jiaorui. His long-awaited candidness about how
he really views their relationship—how seriously he regards it, how much he values it, and, most
important of all, whether it is indeed love—takes the novella to its climax and their relationship
to its grave. No matter how ignorant, hopeful, or even desperate Jiaorui is, Zhenbao’s words
cannot be anything other than icy water dumped on her flame of love. “If you love me, then you
have to consider my situation,” “the world would never forgive me…” These lines draw the
outline of Zhenbao’s psychology of courting during his romance with Jiaorui. Beyond just being
self-centered and allergic to taking responsibility for anything that is not “right” or beneficial for
himself (vis-à-vis Jiaorui), the most “egregious” offense here is Zhenbao’s non-modern sense of
what is “right.” Earlier in the story Zhenbao has already deemed both Rose and Jiaorui to be the
type of woman that he cannot marry. Why? Because they do not fit the ideal that which he can
take to his hometown. Instead of the effervescent westernized urbanite, it later turns out that
Zhenbao marries an intemerate Chinese-style lady chosen by his mother. Zhenbao’s ever-present
preference for a “presentable” Chinese-style xianqi liangmu ( 賢妻良母) who exhibit “right” (i.e.,
more traditional, more demure) behaviors and beliefs, along with his later decision to accept an
arranged marriage, bring to light glaring voids of modernity in this British-educated engineer.
To the readers of Chang’s works, Tong Zhenbao is of poor repute. Even though this
paper’s analysis divides Zhenbao’s psychological identity into two competing forces—the

74

natural self vs. the ego—both prove to be infected with flaws. The natural self sets its sight on
solely sensuous pleasure seeing that its only concern is satiating its own lascivious desire. It
holds no regard for moral boundary, given that Jiaorui is a friend’s wife. It lacks the
consideration for others, such as qualm or compunction about cuckolding his friend. And it never
ponders its action’s consequence, such as what responsibilities or outcomes would ensue from
sex with Jiaorui. In fact, the natural self never really thinks—it just does. The ego, on the other
hand, not only thinks but actually thinks too much, too selfishly, in a too non-modern way. It
judiciously embeds in its calculations morals, proprieties, and especially forecasts about the
future, but does so solely for the purpose of shaping Zhenbao with what it deems essential and
advantageous to his life. As far as bearing the burden of an issue that the ego judges to be not
beneficial to Zhenbao’s life, the ego simply does not wish to bother, even if the problem is
caused by its twin rival, Zhenbao’s natural self. The ultimate goal that it wants to achieve, as
previously mentioned, is to make Zhenbao the master of his own “right” world—self-centered
and self-important, with a hue of lack of modernity.
Zhenbao’s courtship of Jiaorui obviously ends with his decision to wash his hands of the
whole situation. His cold heart sends Jiaorui walking out of his hospital room. Even though she
returns later during the night and once again weeps in front of Zhenbao while he is sleeping, she
ultimately acknowledges her cue to exit Zhenbao’s life for good. Being self-centered and self-
important is not necessarily non-modern. However, considering that Zhenbao shirks from his
romance with Jiaorui and utterly disappoints her love all because this sure shot at genuine
modern love does not fit with his plan of marrying the traditional Chinese ideal of a “dutiful wife
and good mother” ( 賢妻良母), namely someone who exudes traditional Confucian-esque beliefs
and behaviors, his level of modernity underneath his modern exterior deserves serious suspicion.

75

Tong Zhenbao certainly exhibits appreciably more modernity than the previous two male
characters in the aspects of education as well as lifestyle—on the surface he can be easily labeled
a quintessential modern city man. However, his mindset pertaining to romance, love and
marriage is indubitably not nearly as modern. Instead of rising above the native Chinese Lu
Zongzhen (and needless to say, Chiang Chi-tse) in terms of courtship desire—aiming beyond
affection and favor to pursue love—this overseas Chinese man Tong Zhenbao falls short,
because his level of modernity in his way of thinking falls short.

“Love in a Fallen City”
“Love in a Fallen City” presents to readers a couple whose romance appreciably deviates
from that of other couples under Chang’s pen. Chiang Chi-tse and Ts’ao Ch’i-ch’iao of “The
Golden Cangue” are of the same household, live under the same roof for years, and Chi-tse’s
courtship of Ch’i-ch’iao fails. Lu Zongzhen and Wu Cuiyuan in “Sealed Off” meet as strangers
and to a great degree depart as strangers—Zongzhen’s courtship of Cuiyuan just ends abruptly,
as if forcibly hauled away by time. Ever the Casanova in “Red Rose, White Rose,” Tong
Zhenbao shirks from being responsible to Jiaorui and ultimately chooses a pedestrian White
Rose for marriage. Judging from these aforementioned cases of male characters and their
courtship of the other sex, it should follow that Fan Liuyuan’s courtship of Bai Liusu should not
consummate in something positive or wholesome—it would likely end on a bitter note just like
the courtships in the previous three stories. Yet, as readers knew back in 1943, this is one
courtship under Chang’s pen that actually culminates in sweet fruition—of all the classic
romance fictions penned by Chang during the pinnacle years of 1943-1944, “Love in a Fallen
City” is a rare work of “happy ending.” Of course, given that the story is born from the intricate

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mind of Eileen Chang, its happy ending would not come easily. The ensuing analyses of the
process and psychology of Fan Liuyuan’s courtship of Bai Liusu will serve to reveal how this
rare, unique Eileen Chang-style happy ending is devised.
After Bai Liusu “botches” the date intended for him and Bai Liusu’s younger half-sister,
Fan Liuyuan becomes interested enough in Liusu to want to get acquainted with her on a much
more intimate level—at a hotel far away from Liusu’s family in Shanghai. Through the ever-
helpful Mrs. Xu, Fan Liuyuan puts forth a smokescreen by informing the Bais that he has left
Shanghai (presumably for Singapore), then by means of a tricky invitation manages to pry Bai
Liusu away from her family and all the way to the Hong Kong hotel where he is staying. Once
Liusu arrives at the Repulse Bay Hotel with the Xu family, she realizes that the person awaiting
her arrival is Liuyuan. As he is quite forthright about expecting her arrival there at the Hong
Kong hotel, Liusu fully acknowledges that her Hong Kong trip is a ploy set up by Liuyuan to
lure her to him. Equally the schemer, Liusu also comes to Hong Kong prepared with her own
plan: she wants to use this opportunity to get Liuyuan to marry her, thus ensuring her future and
getting back at her hostile family. Liusu comes to Hong Kong to gamble her reputation and
future; and the only chip she has to bet in her endeavor to become “Mrs. Fan” is the withholding
of her body—she is not going to let Liuyuan get her body until she gets her marital status. It is
important to note here that as Liusu and the Xu family approach the Repulse Bay Hotel for the
very first time in the story, Liuyuan is talking with an Indian woman on a small balcony. From
the demeanor Liuyuan uses to draw Liusu all the way to his hotel in Hong Kong, and the fact that
the Indian woman with whom he is interacting when anticipating Liusu’s arrival will reappear
throughout Liuyuan’s courtship of Liusu, one could conclude that Liuyuan’s attitude in the initial
stage is probably frivolous. This observation is further supported by his interaction with Liusu

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when she first checks into her room. Liuyuan obviously knows that he has plenty of money and
his playboy side does not care much about spending an insignificant fraction to grab a woman he
finds interesting. Just how interested Liuyuan is in Liusu, and what kind of interest, will be the
theme of their courtship’s analysis.
Given that Liusu, along with the storyline, enters a new setting devised by Liuyuan—she
is now inside Liuyuan’s domain and within his control—it is then crucial to begin discerning the
exact goal of Liuyuan’s unusual effort to transport Liusu to his doorstep. What does Liuyuan
want by courting Liusu: just sexual favor from her attractive physical body, a girlfriend-in-
waiting to provide physical and emotional affection whenever he is in the neighborhood, or a
wife with whom he will build a relationship and a family based on genuine love. At this point,
Liusu is unsure, albeit it is certain that she desires official marriage. As mentioned in the
previous chapter, Liusu is inherently not a feeble woman, especially in the mental aspect. Her
dismal situation under the roof of her own family is a circumstantial product of the Bai
household’s non-modern judgment of a divorced, “older” woman—sexism and antediluvian
“family values” at their best. The trip to Hong Kong thus affords Liusu independence from her
oppressive, irritating family and the golden chance to reveal her other side as a capable
Shanghainese woman. In a way, the Liuyuan-Liusu courtship is, even more so than the other
courtships, a game of cat and mouse. As the plot continues, one will find an interesting case of
reciprocal utility. It is not just the hackneyed formula of the man being the cat and the woman
the mouse. Instead, Eileen Chang shows through Liuyuan and Liusu that at times the positions
can be reversed: a female predator hunting a male prey.
As Casanova-Don Juan-Lothario incarnate, Fan Liuyuan is responsible for many suave
flirting exchanges with Bai Liusu. Though sometimes pretentious and seemingly superficial,

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Liuyuan does through his own words reveal substantive information about himself and his
courtship of Liusu. A case in point is the first night of his reunion with Liusu in Hong Kong,
while dancing with her in the English-style ballroom at the Hong Kong Hotel:
“I don't care if you’re good or bad. I don't want you to change. It’s not easy to
find a real Chinese girl like you.”
Liusu sighed softly. “I’m old-fashioned, that’s all.”
“Real Chinese women are the world’s most beautiful women. They’re never
out of fashion.”
“But for a modern man like you—“
“You say ‘modern,’ but what you probably mean is Western. It’s true I am not
a real Chinese. It’s just that in the past few years I’ve become a little more like a
Chinese. But you know, a foreigner who’s become Chinese also becomes
reactionary, more reactionary even than an old-fashioned scholar from the
dynastic era.”
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Even though this segment of conversation begins with flirty praise, it actually divulges
significant features of Fan Liuyuan in the aspects of level of modernity and courtship of women.
First and foremost, this exchange establishes that in the world of an ordinary Shanghainese,
“modern” is synonymous with “Western”—modernity is Western modernity. By this token, Fan
Liuyuan is a modern man. Indeed, given that of all the featured male characters he is the most
westernized—he is in some ways a bona fide Westerner—Liuyuan would also be considered the
most modern. It is therefore quite intriguing to find someone so Western and modern to exhibit
such preference for someone like Liusu, a douce, unfashionable divorcee who comes from
Shanghai’s archaic echelon.
In this sense Fan Liuyuan may seem similar to Tong Zhenbao of "Red Rose, White
Rose," who purposely dodges his chance with Rose, a modern vivacious Chinese-English
biracial girl, as well as Wang Jiaorui, a modern spirited Chinese-Singaporean woman, and
instead opts for a more gentle traditional Chinese-type woman. Obviously, the previous analysis
of Tong Zhenbao posits that, in terms of romance and women, he is a less-modern man cloaked

80
Eileen Chang, “Love in a Fallen City,” 135-136.

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in an aura of augmented modernity. So is Fan Liuyuan also a not-so-modern man in a modern
man's clothing in regards to his taste in women? Needless to say, the answer to this question will
be evident as the story progresses, especially when it comes to a close. But at this juncture, it is
germane to invoke a parallel example of a real-life modern Western man of Chinese descent who
cherishes women of the traditional Chinese archetype: the (in)famous Gu Hongming.
Similar to Fan Liuyuan, Gu was born and raised outside of China. Specifically, Gu was
born in Malaya, where Liuyuan's father is active, and educated in Europe (primarily Edinburgh
and Leipzig) between the ages of thirteen and twenty-two. Proficient in Malay, English, German,
French, Japanese, Greek, and Latin, Gu did not formally learn classical Chinese until the ripe age
of thirty. According to some accounts, even after decades passed the older Gu still showed age-
inappropriate inadequacies in writing Chinese characters. Instead, it was his expertise in all
things Western that seemed more natural and innate. Gu corresponded with Tolstoy, met
Somerset Maugham, and was the subject of philosopher fan clubs in Germany. The person who
introduced Goethe to China, Gu was said to be able to read German newspapers upside down
and recite the English epic poem Paradise Lost backward fifty times. Yet, despite all of these
phenomenal signs and indicators of Western modernity, Gu did not belong as a Westerner—"Gu
had no home nation or culture to call his own until he embraced Chinese culture..." (Ko 32). To
Gu, the most admirable qualities of Chinese women were passivity and serenity. Passivity and
serenity are the most admirable quality of Chinese women and befitted Bai Liusu. Gu railed
against Europe's "manlike women" and espoused feudal Chinese society's clear socio-cultural
demarcation between the sexes, such separation of duties, family hierarchy and even footbinding
(34).

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Fan Liuyuan certainly does not share any of Gu Hongming's extreme predilections.
However, they are both born British subjects and raised in Europe, directly absorbing Western
modernity at its very source. Yet due to issues related to ethnic difference as well as societal
impropriety and lack of inclusion, both Fan and Gu do not develop a sense of adequate
assimilation or belonging to the Western world. Instead, they both gravitate to the place of their
ancestry for residency and women. Just as Liuyuan admits: " It’s true I am not a real Chinese.
It’s just that in the past few years I’ve become a little more like a Chinese. But you know, a
foreigner who’s become Chinese also becomes reactionary, more reactionary even than an old-
fashioned scholar from the dynastic era.” This phenomenon is evident in the case of Gu
Hongming in its extreme form but is nevertheless also applicable to Fan Liuyuan's choice of
women. The "retrogression" to China and what is to them "real Chinese"—the stereotypical old-
fashioned Chinese-type woman—is a product of their previous drifting life experience, lack of
national identity, and deficient knowledge about China. Overseas Chinese since birth, they
develop neither a sense of belonging to any country or group of people nor a basic understanding
of China, until they come to China.
Drawing such parallel between Fan and Gu shows that the pursuit of an old-fashioned
Chinese-type woman is not in and of itself a marker for lack of modernity. Instead, level of
modernity should be determined by the courting male's intention as to why he chooses to court
this type of women: Tong Zhenbao does it due to conservative calculations based on his
prejudiced social, cultural, and financial views as well as his small-minded sense of propriety;
Fan Liuyuan does it because his genuine, though perhaps misguided, personal preference for
"real Chinese" dictates that he innately and (once again) genuinely fancies a "real Chinese girl"
like Bai Liusu. It is imperative to make such clear differentiation between Tong and Fan because

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even though at the end of their respective story each fulfills his goal and has a traditional
Chinese-type woman as wife, the impetus and process from which each of these two seemingly
similar endings comes to pass are vastly different—Zhenbao and Liuyuan are two very different
men.
With the preemptive differentiation between Tong Zhenbao and Fan Liuyuan out of the
way, it is time to return to Liuyuan's smooth womanizing ways. Since the very introduction of
Fan Liuyuan's character, it is very easy to for the casual reader to label him as simply an
experienced, insouciant playboy who likes to have his fun with women using his money and
slick tongue. However, his words could also be interpreted in a sincere light if given the benefit
of the doubt. Some of Liuyuan’s words can be seen as conveying, and admitting, his flawed self
and life. He admits to having "dreams" of his homeland only to be disappointed by the shock of
"awful people" and "awful things." He acknowledges his then "slipping downward" and that his
current state is something to be forgiven. After Liusu expresses doubt regarding the degree of his
hardship, Liuyuan confesses his playboy proclivity, being open about the fact that he does
possess "plenty of money" and "plenty of time." Surely Liusu already knows about all of these
things. But Liuyuan's voluntary self-disclosure presents a version of him that is more open,
earnest, and less mysterious—always a positive shift for any pragmatic, meaningful romance.
Finally, the icing of sincerity that topped off the cake of candor is the scene when Liuyuan and
Liusu walk by an Arcadian-looking old wall. In this scene, Eileen Chang depicts Liuyuan as a
lost man in turmoil who is intently looking for another person to understand him: "he thought it
over, and again grew frustrated;" "yet in his heart he'd already given up hope;" "stubbornly,
plaintively he went on…" These lines portrays none other than a man's frankness about his own

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flaws and struggles, especially coupled with the fact that Liuyuan thrice pleads to Liusu "I want
you to understand me!"
Judging from this passage, Fan Liuyuan perceptibly differs from all the other three
previously analyzed male characters. In "The Golden Cangue," Chiang Chi-tse tries to put on airs
and prepares himself well for taking Ch'i-ch'iao's money—he would never dare do what Fan
Liuyuan does and candidly own up to his wanton ways and his true intention for Ch'i-ch'iao. Lu
Zongzhen of "Sealed Off" complains about his dissatisfactory life and the struggles therefrom,
but not once does he introspectively face his own shortcomings—in fact, Wu Cuiyuan recognizes
some of his flaws but chooses not to say anything for decorum's sake. As for Tong Zhenbao of
"Red Rose, White Rose," he is perhaps the closest to being the antithesis of Fan Liuyuan. He
purposefully engineers a façade of success and propriety and contrives to maintain it by
sacrificing the Red Rose, the White Rose, as well as his own happiness. If there is any man who
refuses to divulge any of his own personal flaw or struggle that man would be Tong Zhenbao—
he uses any excuse or reason possible (e.g., his mother, social pressure, the law) for any negative
situation so long as he does not incriminate himself. For all of these three men, the very
traditional Chinese trait and value of mianzi, or face (as in "losing face"), interweaves them.
The Chinese notion of mianzi, especially in a non-modern context, is more complex than
"pride" in terms of applicability and context. It carries with it an element of hierarchically
determined power structure: a man's manzi in front of a woman, an elder's mianzi in front of a
young person, a superior's mianzi in front of his subordinates. Within the scope of this paper,
mianzi is limited to the context of how a man should act and be treated in front of a woman in
order to not lose the "face" that would be associated with his masculinity and patriarchal power.
This notion, of course, rests on a particular Chinese-style prescribed set of gender relations that

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the contemporaneous Western men and "manlike women" regard as backward and
discriminatory (even with their own gender inequality issues). Accordingly, the interpretation
that all three previously analyzed men exhibit to differing degrees the upholding of the masculine
mianzi via their conscious or unconscious denial of personal shortcomings or faults in front of
the opposite sex would certainly denote that they thus exhibited antediluvian backward
mentality—their deficiency in modernity.
Once Fan Liuyuan's outstanding level of modernity in comparison to the other three male
characters is established, such as given his lifelong Western-ness as well as his forthrightness
about his own flaws and faults in front of Bai Liusu—even if he does this as a trick it still shows
modernity because a traditional Chinese man will not do that, even if as a trick to capture a
woman’s heart—the "extraordinary" romance between him and Liusu can then be understood in
a light of its own. Quite contrary to the experience of the female protagonists in the other three
romance stories, Liusu assesses the situation and gathers that Liuyuan cares about spiritual love.
The observation that what Liuyuan cares about is spiritual love is a very positive indicator for
Liusu, which she approves entirely because spiritual love always leads to marriage, while
physical love tends to reach a certain level and then stop, leaving little hope of marriage, a case
in point being Tong Zhenbao and Wang Jiaorui of “Red Rose, White Rose.” And marriage, as
well as the official status of “Mrs. Fan,” is exactly what Liusu wants out of her romance.
Finally for once things seem swell for the female protagonist. Liuyuan's courtship appear
to be on the marriage track and he, at least until this point, does not bare any vulgar desiderata—
unlike Chiang Chi-tse who covets money from Ts’ao Ch'i-ch'iao and Tong Zhenbao who craves
sex and admiration from Wang Jiaorui. The logical question from Liusu at this juncture is
simple: so what does Fan Liuyuan really desiderate? Though this critical question remains

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unanswered at this point, Liusu can and does take comfort in the civility and openness of
Liuyuan's courtship. Despite lingering doubts on Liusu's part, Liuyuan's romantic advances are to
an extent agreeable.
So despite the effort and anticipation in scheming to get Liusu from Shanghai to Hong
Kong and awaiting her arrival, Liuyuan demonstrates control and poise that Liusu absolutely
does not expect, especially given that the Repulse Bay Hotel situation is arranged entirely by
Liuyuan and foreign to Liusu. She comes to Hong Kong betting her future and ready to take on
his courtship maneuvers; yet she still has not gotten any taste of his more explicit romantic
offensive. Rendering Liusu's skirmish-like guarded attitude obsolete, Liuyuan displays genteel
affection toward her in public and operates at an even more civil distance when in private. What
is especially noteworthy at this juncture is that, in addition to his apparent gentlemanly courtship
practice, Liuyuan’s modernity is being uncovered through his words and actions: “When I first
met you in Shanghai, I thought that if you could get away from your family, maybe you could be
more natural.” Though this line exposes a dose of self-serving planning on Liuyuan’s part, it also
reveals his innate modernity: placing the female protagonist outside of the Confucian familial
framework and promoting her individuality (Zhu 4).
To other people it appears as if Liuyuan is fixedly amorous with her; but Liusu questions
in her own mind just exactly how Liuyuan is to nab her, body and mind. As time goes on, Liusu
becomes accustomed to such equivocal behavior … until one day at the beach. Specifically, as
Liuyuan and Liusu laughingly hits and slaps at each other to ward off the beach's bugs,
"suddenly Liusu took offense, stood up, and walked back toward the hotel."
81
Her reason for
suddenly taking offense and leaving is left unclear by Chang. It could have been that she is
offended by the physical frivolity, that Liuyuan gets to touch her too easily. It also could have

81
Ibid., 145.

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been that she does not want to give the impression that she is already Liuyuan's woman and
playmate. Either way, Liuyuan chooses to not follow her.
From that day on, Liuyuan decides to not bother Liusu and instead spends all of his time
with an attractive socialite-cum-self-proclaimed Indian princess. This, much to Liuyuan's
satisfaction, stirs jealousy inside Liusu—it is an attempt at teaching her a lesson as well as
capturing her heart. Although not long after the beach incident the two have their rapprochement,
Liusu is obviously bothered by Liuyuan's no longer gentleman-like courtship tactic:
Stirring up her jealousy was his way of taunting her so that she'd run into his
arms of her own accord. But she'd kept him at a distance for so long now; if she
softened toward him at this point, she'd be sacrificing herself for nothing. He
wouldn’t really feel obligated; he'd just think that she'd fallen for a trick. She was
dreaming if she thought he'd marry her after that… Clearly, he wanted her, but he
didn’t want to marry her. Since her family, poor as they were, was a respectable
family, and since he and they all moved in the same circle, he was worried about
getting a reputation as a seducer. That was why he put on that open and
aboveboard manner. Now she knew that his innocence was fake. He didn’t want
to be held responsible. If he abandoned her, no one would listen to her side of
things.
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Though mischievous and somewhat calculating, Fan Liuyuan's provocation is nothing
beyond a reaction stemming from the pique caused by Liusu's sudden mood swing. Furthermore,
it is not unreasonable for Liuyuan to spend time with Saheiyini, the Indian temptress and "other
woman" at the hotel, given Liusu's negative change in attitude. In Chang's words, Liuyuan's shift
of attention could be because "apparently he had decided to let Liusu cool her heels for a
while."
83
Along this line of reasoning, the above-quoted perturbed feeling of Liusu is to a certain
extent unwarranted—Liusu's fixation on marriage as well as her ever-present distrust of Liuyuan
generates excessive anger and worry. After all, Liuyuan has just met the Bai family barely one
week prior and his sphere of activity spans far beyond simply Shanghai, meaning any "bad"

82
Ibid., 147-148.
83
Ibid., 146.

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reputation he develops with the Bais would not deal him significant damage, even considering
the proliferation of malicious gossip—so why would he take underhanded measures to prevent
"getting a reputation as a seducer?" In addition, it is not exactly Liusu's place to be "grinding her
teeth in anger" over the thought that Liuyuan's open and aboveboard courtship manner is for
show and that his innocence may be fake, given that from the very beginning Liusu has already
lost her innocence and enters the courtship with barbed armor. From such perspective, it would
be reasonable to conclude that owing to the tremendous pressure Liusu places on herself by
betting her future life on successfully marrying Liuyuan, her fear of losing this paramount bet
creates an "abandonment-complex." Moreover, it is highly likely that her voiceless, powerless
situation back in the Bai household causes her to be overly sensitive regarding "no one would
listen to her side of things."
Thus, Liusu’s perceived quagmire of deeming Liuyuan to be a manipulative ladies’ man
and yet at the same time having to depend on him for sustenance could be understood with the
qualifying caveat that it is to a certain degree just her mental perception and does not necessarily
reflect the actual situation, that Liuyuan is in reality not as bad as she thinks. An opportune move
to save his image in Liusu’s mind, one night out of the blue Liuyuan calls Liusu and tells her “I
love you.” Then he calls again to ask her whether she also loves him. What ensues over the
phone is the first conversation between the two that overtly and formally touches on the
momentous topic of marriage. Liuyuan, possibly to put on airs in order to impress Liusu,
references a passage from the Chinese classic The Book of Songs in explicating his wishy-washy
attitude toward marriage, especially if Liusu does not love him. His showing of hesitance, of
course, runs counter to what Liusu has long desiderated and therefore angers her. Also
significant about this conversation, Liuyuan once again drops his usual smooth talks and speaks

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quite bluntly about his reluctance, which further infuriates Liusu. Liuyuan’s argument, however,
is completely reasonable and understandable: why would he marry someone without first
ascertaining whether this person truly loves him?
As shown from this late-night intense exchange, Liuyuan is quite pragmatic and
reasonable in his thinking. Many who previously examined the Liuyuan-Liusu romance have
interpreted such exchanges from Liusu’s perspective (and reasonably so as she is the main
character), and deduced that they are examples of how Liuyuan wants to play her for a fool,
insincerely seeing her as a toy or a prey. However, if (naively) reading Liuyuan’s words at face
value without prejudice, there should not be much discussion about any display of
dissimulation—sometimes a man is a liar insofar as others see him as a liar. So if one were to
operate under the assumption that Fan Liuyuan is indeed straightforwardly concerned about
Liusu’s feelings toward him, then his ambivalence toward marriage would certainly be justified.
Just as Liusu admits, Liuyuan was “free and unburdened”—he is free from the confines of
traditional Confucian-esque mores and unburdened from its associated pressures, whether
through the medium of an old-fashioned family or the traditional Chinese society at large—
Liuyuan is a modern man living in a sphere of modernity whereas Liusu is indeed “a
conservative” from a non-modern world. Accordingly, Liuyuan does not have to play circuitous,
convoluted mental games if he is just out to get a woman’s body—in sharp contrast with Liusu
and the Bai family, he does not have anything to worry about in terms of traditional senses of
propriety.
As the earlier part of the story attests, he can get any woman he wants; and plenty of
women have been thrown at him. Yet, instead of any young fresh-faced maiden, he purposely
and willingly chooses a twenty-eight-year-old divorcee who is the butt of her family’s scorn.

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Such choice, of course, is in and of itself another indicator of Fan Liuyuan’s modernity: he is
modern in his mentality in selecting women as he is not hostage to the traditional Chinese
mindset of favoring a young virgin maiden from a respectable, clean background. Given that
Liuyuan’s modernity allows him to freely pursue an aged, divorced bad-luck comet-cum-soiled
flower, it would also make sense that his modernity could afford him the option to forthrightly
court a woman he genuinely likes as opposed to having to employ schemes to trick a woman in
order to maximize his social standing, which is regrettably one of Liusu’s concerns. Of course,
there could always be the interpretation that Liuyuan is innately a conniving playboy who enjoys
mental games, especially when courting a woman; but his worry that Liusu does not love him is
pragmatic and sensible no matter how one views it.
Regardless of whether Liuyuan is completely candid during the phone conversation,
Liusu’s top and only priority has always been marriage—even if Liuyuan is completely genuine,
he is no good as long as he does not commit to marrying her. Given that she bets her reputation,
her future, her life on marrying Fan Liuyuan, it is understandable that she would remain on high
alert until she officially secures the position and title of “Mrs. Fan.” Consequently, her elevated
guardedness, even alarmist tendency, continues to cast a thick cloud of doubt over Liuyuan’s
courtship, leading her to further comprehend Liuyuan through a colored lens:
Liusu suddenly noticed that there were lots of people who took them for
husband and wife… A nanny wheeled a baby carriage by, nodded to Liusu, and
greeted her as “Mrs. Fan.” Liusu froze, unable to either smile or not smile. She
could only look at Liuyuan from under her brows and say, in a low voice, “I
wonder what they think!”
“Don't worry about those who call you ‘Mrs. Fan.’ But those who call you
‘Miss Bai’—what must they think?”
The color drained from Liusu’s face. Liuyuan stroked his chin and laughed.
“Why content yourself with appearances only?”
Liusu stared at him in shock, suddenly seeing how wicked this man was.
Whenever they were in public, he made sure to give the impression of affectionate
intimacy, so that now she had no way to prove that they had not slept together.

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She was riding the tiger now, no way to go home, no way to rejoin her family; she
had no option except to become his mistress. But if she relented at this point, all
her efforts would have been wasted, with no hope of recovery. She wouldn't do it!
Even if she was trapped by appearances, he’d taken advantage of her in name
only. The real truth was that he had not gotten her. And since he hadn’t, he might
come back someday, ready to make peace on better terms.
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By this point it has become crystal-clear that Liusu deems Liuyuan to be a devious plotter. It is
quite interesting that although Liusu herself recognizes that her entire Hong Kong adventure thus
far has been replete with amorous, at times even lovey-dovey, experiences with Fan Liuyuan—
having rooms right next to each other, going everywhere side-by-side, taking late-night walks on
the beach—she still somehow finds Liuyuan “wicked” for courting her. After all, that is why she
came to Hong Kong in the first place: to be courted by Liuyuan. Apparently, according to
Liusu’s discernment, it is “wicked” to do something that she travels hundreds of miles for and
thus fully anticipates, not to mention that she willingly partakes in all the activities with no
indication of indisposition.
Surely it would be remiss to discount the undeniable fact that the entire state of affairs is
constructed and therefore controlled by Liuyuan, because of which Liusu could not conveniently
signal any disinclination or aversion to some of Liuyuan’s advances toward affection and
intimacy, unless the offense is egregious enough to surpass her tipping point. However, even
given such consideration of Liusu’s relatively disadvantageous position, it is still not perverse for
Liuyuan to “give the impression of affectionate intimacy” in public—what is he supposed to do
toward a woman in whom he is evidently interested? Liusu and just about everyone in the story
knows that Fan Liuyuan is a modern Westerner of Chinese descent—or what Kam Louie
describes as “Sinicized Westerner”—and thus it should follow that he will not abide by the
Confucian-esque junzi protocols that restrict male-female interaction (23). Hence, given any

84
Ibid., 150-151.

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modern Western man in the courting mode, it would indubitably be within reason and norm that
he would “give the impression of affectionate intimacy.” Even if the affectionate intimacy is
merely an “impression” intended for public consumption, a ruse to have the others believe that
there is no way they have not slept together—again, what does Fan Liuyuan want by courting
Bai Liusu? By this token, it would seem that he has her capacity as a mistress in his sights.
Through having the public act as a powerful external pressure that has already typecast their
relationship as inherently romantic and sexual, Liuyuan’s playful yet sharp line of “Why content
yourself with appearances only?” unquestionably tugs at Liusu’s inner turmoil. His message to
Liusu, whether facetious or serious, is clear: you are already all the way here in Hong Kong
spending days and nights with me—you know I want you and you probably want me, too;
besides, all the people around us already operate on the firm belief that we are involved to the
point ranging from sexual affair to marriage, so why not just give in and be my woman already?!
As vulgar as this message may sound, this paper once again contends that Liuyuan’s
approach should not be considered “wicked.” It should be no surprise that a modern man such as
Liuyuan wants the courtship to openly go well in his favor, including the sexual facet, without
the old-fashioned culture-induced concerns about others’ judgments. And it is only natural that
whenever possible he acts as if Liusu is already his woman. Sometimes people naturally try to
act in accordance with their most desired circumstances, even if these circumstances are not yet
realized: some who dream of being a billionaire may sometimes instinctively try to act like one;
others who crave fame may sometimes innately do their best to behave as if they are famous.
Along this vein, it is completely natural for Liuyuan to act the way he does given his apparent
desire for Liusu’s psychological and physical affection, albeit without the legitimacy and
guarantee of marriage.

91

To Liusu, however, Liuyuan’s natural albeit insensitive public impressions of affectionate
intimacy and related jab at her about acting the part of his mistress are instead taken as signs of a
wily scheme. Perturbed by her interpretation of being the subject of Liuyuan’s sly calculations,
as opposed to just his simple desires, Liusu decides to go back to Shanghai. The saving grace of
this apparently haphazard ending of the Liuyuan-Liusu courtship, which is Liusu’s one chip on
the gambling table since the outset, is that Liuyuan has not yet obtained Liusu’s body. With the
hope that “he might come back someday, ready to make peace on better terms” in order to finally
“get her,” Liusu traveled back to Shanghai. On the other side of the courtship, Liuyuan does not
object when Liusu broaches the idea of returning to Shanghai and even offers to accompany her
home. In fact, in the eyes of Liusu, Liuyuan appears insouciant for the entirety of their remaining
time together, including the close-quarters environment of the Shanghai-bound ship. Liuyuan
puts forth no further attempt at Liusu on the ship and “didn't say a single concrete thing to her.”
Liusu takes such insouciance as the indication that Liuyuan is pleased with the situation—“he
was sure she couldn't escape him now, sure that he had her in the palm of his hand.”
85

Once again Liusu is measuring Liuyuan’s corn by her own bushel. Though Liuyuan’s
psychology at this juncture is not clearly articulated, it could also be possible that someone as
smart as Liuyuan surmises at that moment that any effort to keep Liusu would be futile. Recall
that earlier during their courtship Liuyuan once purposely shows Liusu the cold shoulder and
spends his time with the Indian woman Saheiyini instead in order to let Liusu cool her heels.
Accordingly, it would be within reason for Liuyuan to re-practice this “strategy” of first giving
Liusu time to cool off and afterward resuming the courtship. However, regardless of whether
Liuyuan’s seeming nonchalance is due to his courtship modus operandi or complacency
regarding trapping or taking advantage of Liusu (albeit in name and appearances only), the fact

85
Ibid., 152.

92

of the matter is that Bai Liusu is already decisively branded by all those in her social circles as
cohabiting with Fan Liuyuan in Hong Kong—an aged divorcee going off with a man to a
faraway land for a whole month. As far as the old-fashioned Confucian-esque Chinese world
from which she comes is concerned, she is done. The question is thus whether a modern man in
shining suit will come rescue this “soiled flower,” given that Liusu’s only haven would be the
world of modernity, in which her circumstances would not be so severely judged.
The commotion and hostility (even more than before) in the Bai household upon Liusu’s
homecoming are obviously easy to imagine and not at all striking. Gritting her teeth, Liusu holds
onto the last ray of hope left in her life: the lingering possibility of becoming Mrs. Fan Liuyuan.
Of course, she cannot voluntarily beg for Liuyuan’s rescue lest he will hence take her for cheap
and not marry her. Finally after the autumn season passes, her modern man in shining suit calls
for her via telegram. Liusu boards the ship to Hong Kong; Liuyuan is there at the dock waiting
for her; their courtship is back in action. The second time around, the courtship’s dynamic utterly
changes—both have realized their mutual dependency and lost their respective “edges”—it
becomes less like a cat-and-mouse game and more like a romantic cooperation.
Back in her old hotel room, Liusu forfeits the one precious chip that she has thus far held
so close to her chest. At last, Liuyuan obtains Liusu’s body—he “had gotten her.” Apparently, he
is fully prepared to make his move upon Liusu’s return; and Liusu is equally ready to receive his
move. By bringing up the view of the moon from Liusu’s hotel room, which he last mentions
during the same night in which he tells Liusu he loves her, Liuyuan is able to communicate to
Liusu that he does love her. This, of course, put Liusu’s guard and apprehension at ease and
helps Liuyuan ease himself into finally sleeping with her. Certainly, loving Liusu and still
treating her the way he does reveals Liuyuan’s twisted, odd side. Aside from Liuyuan’s

93

unconventional method to court the woman he loves and Liusu’s over-anxious self-protection
(particularly pertaining to her “virginity” in the face of Liuyuan), the courtship so far has
exhibited several of the qualities of modernity previously presented as East-West dichotomies in
chapter one: individualistic (not family-based), active (not calm), rational (not intuitive),
creative-progressivist progressivist (not fatalistic), and independent (not dependent). Although
their long-awaited sex scene could serve as the climax with which to cap off the story, if Chang
has actually done so then the story would be titled “(Modern) Passion in a City.” The city has yet
to fall and the courtship has yet to culminate in marriage.
True to his playboy reputation, the very next day after he sleeps with Liusu for the first
time, Liuyuan tells her that he is going to England in a week. Liusu volunteers to go along but
Liuyuan refuses. Ever the responsible man, he offers to rent a house for his now-mistress in
Hong Kong so she can wait for his return, which will be in about a year—by taking
responsibility for his romance, Fan Liuyuan once more distinguishes himself from Tong
Zhenbao of “Red Rose, White Rose.” Also on a more shrewd note, by guaranteeing the
livelihood of his mistress, Liuyuan is also guaranteeing himself her physical and psychological
affection upon his return from this yearlong sojourn. As Liuyuan wants, Liusu settles in a house
and sees him off on the evening of December 7
th
, 1941. On December 8
th
, the Japanese invasion
of Hong Kong begins. Liusu’s neighborhood is being bombed, trapping her inside her house. On
the 9
th
, the doorbell rings and it is Liuyuan. Apparently his ship is not able to leave and he, along
with other first-class passengers, is taken to the Repulse Bay Hotel for refuge. Liusu goes with
Liuyuan back to their old room on the second floor of this ever-momentous Repulse Bay Hotel.
During the Japanese navy’s bombardment of the hotel area, facing the very real possibility of
death, the couple’s romance finally transforms and transcends:

94

By this time, Liusu wished that Liuyuan wasn't there: when one person seems
to have two bodies, danger is only doubled. If she wasn't hit, he still might be, and
if he died, or was badly wounded, it would be worse than anything she could
imagine. If she got wounded, she’d have to die, so as not to be a burden to him.
Even if she did die, it wouldn't be as clean and simple as dying alone. She knew
Liuyuan felt the same way. Now all she had was him; all he had was her.
86

These words, in this thesis’s perspective, are by far the most moving and revealing lines
out of all four analyzed stories. These vivid, powerful, and deeply psychological words describe
precisely what Chiang Chi-tse, Lu Zongzhen, and Tong Zhenbao from the three previous stories
either do not fathom or cannot achieve: love, true love. In such gripping moment of intense
danger, of utter life and death, Liusu actually worries about Liuyuan more than herself! And
Liuyuan feels the same way! At that instance, their romance has evolved from unexceptional
(even somewhat vulgar) man-woman affection to extraordinary, sublime genuine love—“when
one person seems to have two bodies,” when one person’s injury “would be worse than anything”
the other person could imagine, when even fronting death one would worry about being a burden
to the other—they share bodies and minds, they are intertwined with each other.
Thanks to the efficiency of the invading Japanese troops, the intense episode of the
fighting ends not too long after. The now reborn couple leaves the Repulse Bay Hotel Repulse
Bay Hotel and returns to the rented house. The once gleaming and vibrant jewel city of Hong
Kong tumbles into something gray and sickly: Liusu’s rented house is battered by war and
trashed by intruders, possibly itinerant soldiers; the whole city is scraping for food; and the only
life left at night in this metropolis is the howling shrills of the winter wind. If the explosive shells
back at the hotel have not resolutely bound the couple together, such desolate circumstances in
which Liuyuan and Liusu find themselves certainly function to seal the deal:

86
Ibid., 161.

95

Here in this uncertain world, money, property, the permanent things—they’re
all unreliable. The only thing she could rely on was the breath in her lungs, and
this person who lay sleeping beside her. suddenly, she crawled over to him,
hugging him through his quilt. He reached out from the bedding and grasped her
hand. They looked and saw each other, saw each other entirely. It was a mere
moment of deep understanding, but it was enough to keep them happy together
for a decade or so.
He was just a selfish man; she was a selfish woman. In this age of chaos and
disorder, there is no place for those who stand on their own, but for an ordinary
married couple, room can always be found.
87

The Liuyuan-Liusu courtship, as well as essentially the story, ends with this unassuming climax.
Afterward, this “ordinary married couple” unveils their marriage to Saheiyini, Mr. and Mrs. Xu,
and unavoidably Liusu’s birth family the Bais. Commensurate with the wartime backdrop of the
plot, the main characters’ courtship concludes with a bang. The Japanese invasion of Hong Kong
not only thwarts Liuyuan’s planned yearlong absence but also creates the perfect setting to
incubate and elevate the couple’s romance. In the words of Eileen Chang, “Hong Kong’s defeat
had brought Liusu victory” (167). Whether or not it takes the fall of a great city to vindicate
Liusu, her status as a divorcee capable of marrying again (a wealthy overseas Chinese no less) is
to everyone, especially the Bai household, an “astonishing success”—so much so that her sister-
in-law, the Bai Fourth Mistress, follows suit and decides to divorce the Bai Fourth Master.
The astonishing-ness of such “astonishing success” on Liusu’s part can be interpreted
from two different sides. On one side, from the perspective of the non-modern realm, the fact
that a “soiled flower” can be picked up from the ground and once again valued as marry-able or
marriage-worthy “fresh flower” is an astonishing success—after all, why would any man prefer
anything other than virgin maidens of respectable status? On the other side, from the perspective
of modernity, the only facet of Liusu’s second marriage that is astonishing is the circumstances
under which it materialized, namely the dramatic, violent fall of Hong Kong. In a modern society,

87
Ibid., 164-165.

96

the phenomenon of a woman divorcing (particularly in light of domestic abuse) and marrying
again is neither astonishing nor in and of itself a noteworthy success. As this thesis previously
mentioned, Liusu’s position as a divorced woman living at home would not be severely judged in
a modern society. The sole reason she takes abuse from hostile relatives for much of the storyline
is that the Bai household is an old-fashioned family that still holds onto an antediluvian
traditional mindset stemming from the Qing Dynasty—just as Eileen Chang foreshadows in the
very first paragraph of the novella: the Bais “go by the old clock,” “was behind the beat,” and
“couldn't keep up with the huqin of life.”
88

Along this logic, it would thus be reasonable to conclude that the marriage of Liuyuan
and Liusu, given Liusu’s identity as an aged divorcee and their “shady cohabitation” prior to
marriage, could only successfully occur with modernity: only the “highly” modern overseas man
Fan Liuyuan (as opposed to the less-modern Tong Zhenbao, not to mention the even more
traditional native men Lu Zongzhen and Chiang Chi-tse) would court an aged divorcee with
avidity and seek from the courtship something above mere physical favor and affection. Bai
Liusu is at the beginning of the novella a woman bound by traditions and all of their moral
codes—then Fan Liuyuan comes and frees her (Zhu 43). And Eileen Chang, the master of their
world, rewards this modern man, as well as his love, with the fall of Hong Kong and their
ensuing formal matrimony—he is modern enough to not only seek but also receive genuine love,
and genuine love he shall achieve at the end. This thesis purposely places the analysis of this
novella at the last because “Love in a Fallen City” is the consummate embodiment of modernity.
To support this statement once again requires the words of the great Marshall Berman and
Fredric Jameson. As quoted in chapter one, Berman’s interpretation of “to be modern” is “to find
ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of

88
Ibid., 111.

97

ourselves and the world—and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have,
everything we know, everything we are” (Lu 6). These words can function seamlessly as the
synopsis of the Liuyuan-Liusu courtship. In addition, to borrow Jameson’s Postmodernism once
more: “This modern feeling now seems to consist in the conviction that we ourselves are
somehow new, that a new age is beginning, that everything is possible and nothing can ever be
the same again; nor do we want anything to be the same again, we want to ‘make it new,’ get rid
of all those old objects, values, mentalities, and ways of doing things, and to be somehow
transfigured”—again the perfect summation of the story’s progression and character
development, especially considering Liusu’s experiences (310). Hence it is clear that Liusu has
gone from the backward, antiquated, non-modern realm of the Bai household to the world of
sheer modernity… thanks to Fan Liuyuan. As the most effective harbinger and agent for
modernity in the four stories, Liuyuan, in utter contrast to the other three men who are held back
by varying degrees of being non-modern, is the only man under Chang’s pen that executes a
modern courtship—one devoid of Confucian-esque mores, irrational practices based purely on
tradition, and stigmas that arise from misogynistic, narrow-minded norms. Indeed, in terms of
the treatment of women, understood in the modern-versus-non-modern dichotomy as gender
equality versus misogyny, the Liuyuan-Liusu courtship is by far more egalitarian than the other
three courtships. A close examination of the diction used in this thesis to describe courtship
dynamic will reveal that Liuyuan and Liusu are the only pair for whom the courtship is termed
“male character-female character courtship,” the purpose of which is to highlight their
comparative gender equality; in contrast all other three courtships are referred to as “male
character’s courtship of female character,” the purpose of which is to emphasize the man’s
proactive position and the woman’s passive position as well as the man’s exercise of power over

98

the woman. Due to the unmitigated modernity shown in the relatively egalitarian romance in
“Love in a Fallen City”—love breeding between an overseas Chinese man born and raised in
England and an aged divorcee from a judgmental old-fashioned family while they “cohabit” in
the faraway British colony of Hong Kong that eventually falls melodramatically at the hands of
Japanese invasion—Fan Liuyuan is uncovered to be modern enough to both seek and receive
genuine love. Thus at the end of the novella he achieves genuine love, something that the other
three male characters do not know to seek or cannot achieve because of their varying degrees of
deficiency in modernity.

99

Conclusion
All of these four analyzed works indubitably present Eileen Chang as the consummate
prose stylist whose exquisite lines convey meanings in gradation—her words are more than
simply what meet the eye. As she admits in her essay “Writing of One’s Own,” as far as writing
style, she prefers comparisons and contrasts that are mixed, varied and subtle, because this
method is closer to reality.
89
Thus, this thesis has presented a reading of the men under Chang’s
pen that aligns more with her original intention in writing. That is, the four men—the profligate
playboy, the insincere cagey urban professionals, and the international drifter who ends up
marrying a woman from his ancestral land—are neither portrayed in black-and-white terms nor
conceived in the same cast; and thus neither should they be interpreted in a typecast wholesale
fashion. They are not all “bad,” or at minimum not all “bad” in the same way. This thesis,
through a closer reading into each male character’s courtship based on consideration for each
man’s individual qualities and circumstances, finds that each man is different from the others,
with the most salient factor being level of modernity.
Specifically, this thesis finds a clear relationship between level of modernity and level of
courtship in terms of its desire and result (see Figure 1). Chiang Chi-tse, the man with the lowest
modernity, seeks the material favor of Ch’i-ch’iao’s land and money, and fails. Lu Zongzhen,
who has comparatively lower-middle level of modernity, gets Wu Cuiyuan’s favor but aims for
her emotional affection and fails. Tong Zhenbao, with upper-middle level of modernity,
successfully obtains Wang Jiaorui’s affection but stops short of love. Fan Liuyuan, the male
courter with high modernity, not only gains Bai Liusu’s affection but also ends up with true love
in the form of marriage. Through such spectrum, this thesis concludes that for the courting male,
being more modern means being more fulfilled in his courtship. In terms of how a man thinks

89
“Ziji de wenzhang,” 18. Original text: 我喜歡參差的對照的寫法，因爲它是較接近事實的.

100

and acts—the type of woman he pursues and the decisions he makes (or does not make)—it is
his level of modernity that controls or influences the courtship. The relationship between level of
modernity and level of courtship is not just correlation, but actually causation. By determining
the man’s mindset, social realm, and available options—and thus influencing the choices he
makes—modernity dictates his courtship, from what the man seeks, to how he seeks it, and
finally to whether he gets what he seeks. Taking the contrast between the two overseas Chinese
men as an example, Tong Zhenbao seeks love but cannot get it because he's not modern
enough—he would've had it with Red Rose but his deficiency in modernity makes him decline.
Instead, the only truly modern man is Fan Liuyuan; and he ends up with love.
In terms of the division of the four men into the two groups of native Chinese men and
overseas Chinese men, it is clear to see that the dividing line in courtship for the two groups is at
the level of affection. Namely, Lu Zongzhen, the more modern of the native men group, does not
obtain affection but Tong Zhenbao, the less modern of the overseas men group, does. The arrival
at such finding is not due to any formulaic calculation but rather an organic post-analysis
revelation. On the native men side, Chiang Chi-tse is so low in modernity that he only knows to
pursue favor. Lu Zongzhen, being more modern than Chi-tse, rises above the favor threshold but
happens to fail at affection. In the overseas men camp, Tong Zhenbao not only rises above the
favor threshold but also achieves to gain affection. And of course the legendary Mr. Modern, Fan
Liuyuan, surpasses everyone to achieve all three levels of courtship and marries his love. This
spectacular, high-modernity and high-courtship-level finale of Liuyuan and Liusu puts to shame
the other overseas man, Tong Zhenbao (let alone the even less modern native men), but also
highlights the significant difference in modernity even in the same group as well as the
tremendous hurdle to rising to the level of love. Additionally, it further validates “Love in a

101

Fallen City” as a masterpiece because it shows an evolution from the rejection of traditional
marriage to the creation of a modern union of love, one unrestrained by Confucian ideals and
traditional societal bounds, which is simply unlike the other three stories. Given the complete
fulfillment in courtship, as well as the previously mentioned relative equality in courtship, the
thesis finds Fan Liuyuan to be the sole successful romance rapscallion. Indeed, a man's exposure
to modernity influences his courtship.
Finally, in regards to the men’s reputation as wicked men or mean-spirited wanton
playboys—rapscallions—this thesis again evokes the power modernity. Specifically, the level of
modernity that is present in a man’s sphere—whether he inhabits in a modern or non-modern
realm—forms and thus dictates the overall choices he makes in life. The way a man thinks and
acts, his opinions and beliefs, what he thinks about and what he cannot even fathom, are all
determined by the kind of world that forms him. A case in point is Chiang Chi-tse. It is not
necessarily attributable to his innate congenital personality that he courts Ch’i-ch’iao for her
material possession—this “bad” deed can also be attributed to his family and social environment,
and the lack of modernity therein. Due to the non-modern realm of the Chiang household,
including the people with whom it interacts (e.g., Ch’i-ch’iao’s seller and older brother), Chi-tse
is born and bred in a bubble that shapes his psychology to the point that he can only see Ch’i-
ch’iao in terms of favor. As explicated in chapter two, the non-modern world of the Chiangs ties
woman together with material favor, in the form of either sex or money. Therefore, this thesis
maintains that Chi-tse’s perpetration is not entirely his own individual fault; instead it is also the
product of a larger non-modern world’s overall objectification of women. Chi-tse sees Ch’i-
ch’iao in terms of her monetary value not entirely because he is naturally a rapscallion; it is also
because he is taught and shown by his non-modern realm to do so.

102

In a way, this thesis can be seen as a way to somewhat redeem the men under Chang’s
pen. Within the scope of the four men analyzed, this thesis concludes that they are definitely not
just similarly bad boys who mistreat women. First, they can be divided into the two distinct
groups of native men and overseas men based on significant differences in modernity as well as
courtship. Second, the significant differences within each group, in addition to those between the
groups, further highlights that each and every man is in some ways dissimilar from all others.
Third, given that a man’s level of modernity dictates his courtship, each man’s courtship is
different because each man’s level of modernity is different. Fourth, given the varying levels of
modernity among the four men, their levels of courtship in terms of desire and result also diverge
appreciably, with the more modern man being more fulfilled in his courtship. Finally, all four
men, who exhibit flaws, are just that—flawed. And some of their flaws are not necessarily innate
but rather conditioned by the greater environment. Sometimes, a man makes a mistake because
that is all he knows. And the more non-modern his world is, the more “bad” things and less
“good” things he knows and does.

103

Figure
1

Chiang
Chi'-‐tse

(Golden

Cangue)

Lu
Zongzhen

(Sealed
Off)

Tong
Zhenbao

(Roses)

Fan
Liuyuan

(Fallen
City)

Courtship
Modernity
Love
Affection
Favor

104

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract In recent years in Mainland China, a significant portion of the scholarly discussion surrounding Eileen Chang’s romance stories presented in academic journals has taken a blackand- white, conveniently superficial approach that shirks dimensionality and varied, subtle contrasts, which Chang herself once stated as her true intent and style in writing. Long maligned by readers who sympathize with the ill-treated female protagonists, the men under Chang’s pen in her romance fiction have especially taken the brunt of much of the aforementioned simplistically harsh criticism. Without consideration for gradated differences and nuanced depictions, rash and negligent analyses have pigeonholed these diverse male characters into a single group of bad men who are just all bad in the same way. The purpose of this thesis, thus, is to revisit the very issue of how to analyze the men under Chang’s pen in her classic romance stories. The focal lens through which this thesis delves into the complex, intricate Eileen Chang’s world of romance is the male courtship of female. Specifically, this thesis hones in on two salient factors pertaining to male courtship: the man’s level of modernity and his level of courtship. Using four classic romance stories penned by Chang during her early productive years, this thesis argues that the male characters all differ in terms of both level of modernity as well as level of courtship. These two gauges also share a positive relationship as the more modernity a man embodies the higher his courtship goal or desire is. In addition, the “bad” deeds of some of the male characters should be attributed not to intentional malevolence but rather a lack of modernity in these men’s environment and psychological formation.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Dong, Jier (author)

Core Title Romance rapscallions on the cusp of modern: male courtship in Eileen Chang stories

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program East Asian Studies Center

Publication Date 07/03/2013

Defense Date 06/28/2013

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Eileen Chang,love story,modern Chinese literature,OAI-PMH Harvest,Republican China,romance

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Bernards, Brian (committee chair), Cheung, Dominic (committee member), Park, Sunyoung (committee member)

Creator Email jierdong@gmail.com,jierdong@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-284258

Unique identifier UC11293855

Identifier etd-DongJier-1737.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-284258 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-DongJier-1737.pdf

Dmrecord 284258

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Dong, Jier

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA