I recite in the same way I do poems, couplets, and the rules by which a girl should live. “Qi is the material basis and life-sustaining force of all existence within the body—”
“A parrot can say words,” Grandmother interrupts, still irritated, it seems, by Grandfather’s views on midwives, “but does it understand their deeper meaning?”
I try harder. “Everything in the universe has qi. Mountains, stars, animals, people, emotions—”
“I like to say qi is the pulsation of the cosmos,” Grandmother comments, “while the body is a reflection of the cosmos—all governed by yin and yang.”
Hearing Grandmother’s hint, information I’ve memorized since I came here rushes from my mouth. “Yin and yang are dark and light, down and up, inner and outer, old and young, water and fire, Earth and Heaven.”
Grandfather encourages me to continue. “Yin is—”
“The source of death,” I finish for him.
“Yang is—”
“The root of life. Yin is shadowy and female, while yang is positive and male.”
Grandfather nods his approval, and I smile back at him. He directs his next comment to Grandmother Ru. “This girl is intelligent. We should not restrict her to ordinary needlework. We should allow her to study my medicine.”
This excerpt appears in Issue 27 of Alta Journal.
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In the last three months I’ve heard him say something like this many times, and each time a spark of hope ignites inside me. My father and uncle didn’t want to become doctors, and I hear they both have ambitious plans for their sons that don’t include medicine. Even now, my brother is learning the discipline required for studying for the imperial exams. That leaves me. I so wish to learn from my grandparents. Everything they say opens new pathways in my mind. And, if I could become a doctor one day, then I might be able to help the mother of a girl like me. Grandmother, however, has yet to be convinced.
“Today I’ve spoken of blood, but the more important substance is Blood,” she says, ignoring him. “They sound like the same word, but how are they different?”
This is a simple question with an easy answer. “We have the blood we can see when our skin gets cut,” I say, “but Blood is a bigger essence. In women, Blood is the leader. It is what allows a woman to become pregnant and feed a fetus. It turns into mother’s milk upon her giving birth.”
“Exactly. You must put aside the idea of function,” Grandmother Ru explains. “We are not concerned with veins and arteries, muscles and bones, or organs with specific occupations. We are looking to find how illnesses arise from imbalances in the bodily form of yin and yang. They interact like night flowing into day and winter into summer. One is always rising and one is always falling, never stopping. In the process, they are repairing and transforming each other. As physicians, we aspire to bring yin and yang into balance so the life force is strong. What else can you tell me about the body as the universe?”
And on it goes, with Grandfather and Grandmother asking me questions and me trying my best to please them with my answers. When I’m with them—even though they are constantly testing me—I can almost forget how much I miss my mother, my father, our home… Just everything…•
Excerpted from Lady Tan’s Circle of Women. Copyright © 2023 by Lisa See. Reprinted with permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster LLC.
Lisa See grew up in Los Angeles, where she lives today. The author of a dozen books, she has also spearheaded many cultural events that recognize the significance of the city’s Chinatown.
