![]() The time for the consummation of the betrothal was approaching. Therefore, they had betrothed their daughter, Laura, at the age of fifteen, to the eldest son of the Chinese Government schoolteacher in San Francisco. The reason for this was that, although the Chin Yuen parents lived in a house furnished in American style, and wore American clothes, yet they religiously observed many Chinese customs, and their ideals of life were the ideals of their Chinese forefathers. Now the only person who knew that Kai Tzu loved Laura and that Laura loved Kai Tzu, was Mrs. He could also sing, “Drink to me only with thine eyes,” to Laura’s piano accompaniment. Kai Tzu, who was American-born, and as ruddy and stalwart as any young Westerner, was noted, amongst baseball players, as one of the finest pitchers on the Coast. Laura had a sweetheart, a youth named Kai Tzu. Nearly everybody called her Laura, even her parents and Chinese friends. The daughter was a pretty girl whose Chinese name was Mai Gwi Far (a rose) and whose American name was Laura. Spring Fragrance was on terms of great friendship. Spring Fragrance but she had a daughter of eighteen with whom Mrs. Next door to the Spring Fragrances lived the Chin Yuens. ![]() Spring Fragrance was even more “Americanized.” Though conservatively Chinese in many respects, he was at the same time what is called by the Westerners, “Americanized.” Mrs. Spring Fragrance, whose business name was Sing Yook, was a young curio merchant. Five years later her husband, speaking of her, said: “There are no more American words for her learning.” And everyone who knew Mrs. Spring Fragrance first arrived in Seattle, she was unacquainted with even one word of the American language. The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance. These stories are windows into the lives of everyday people in an unforgiving city, who find solidarity and hope in the most unexpected places. Spring Fragrance tells of the Chinese women and men as they confront prejudice and forced detention choose to assimilate or stay true to their cultural heritage meet both kind and predatory Americans and find love, purpose, and understanding in their new home. ![]() In this rediscovered classic of linked short stories set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Sui Sin Far portrays Chinese immigrants as they fall in love, encounter racism, and wrestle with their new Americanized identities-decades before writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan.īy turns tender and dramatic, Mrs. A rediscovered classic of linked short stories set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, by the first published Asian American fiction writer-with an introduction by C Pam Zhang, bestselling author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold ![]()
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