Produced by Mary Glenn Krause, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) MY CHINESE MARRIAGE By M. T. F. JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED LONDON MCMXXII _Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_ TO MY CHINESE FATHER AND MOTHER WITH THE GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION OF THEIR AMERICAN DAUGHTER THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I IN AMERICA 3 II IN SHANGHAI 49 III FIRST DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 97 IV THE ETERNAL HILLS 141 I IN AMERICA I saw Chan-King Liang for the first time on a certain Monday morning in October. It was the opening day of college, and the preceding week had been filled with the excitement incidental to the arrival of many students in a small town given over to family life. Every household possessed of a spare room was impressed with the fact that good citizenship demanded that it harbour a student. Therefore, when I saw trunks and boxes and bags being tumbled upon the front porch of our next-door neighbour, I said to Mother, "Mrs. James has succumbed!" and set out for my first class with Celia, an old friend. As we crossed the campus, we noticed a group of boys, gathered on the steps of College Hall and talking among themselves. Celia turned to me. "Do you see the one with very black hair, his face turned away a little--the one in the grey suit, Margaret? Well, that is the new Chinese student, and the boys all say he is a wonder. My cousin knew him last year in Chicago, where he was a freshman. Going in for international law and political science--imagine!" I turned and glanced with a faint interest at the foreign student, on whose black hair the sun was shining. My first impression was of a very young, smiling lad. "Looks well enough," I said rather ungraciously, and we passed on. I was a busy student, eagerly beginning my freshman year's work, and I thought no more of the young Chinese. But a day or so later I discovered him to be the owner of those trunks and bags I had seen assembled on Mrs. James's porch. Chan-King was my next-door neighbour. We were never introduced to each other, as it happened, and, though we shared studies in German and French, we did not exchange a word for some time. Later I found myself admiring his feat of learning two foreign languages through the medium of English, a third, and doing it so very well. At the same time, though I was not then aware of the fact, he was also admiring me for proficiency in these subjects, in which I was working hard, because I intended to teach languages.